The best speaker you ever heard?


In my opinion, the speaker is by far the most important part of the audio system. After all, it is the only part you hear. OK, the other stuff really matters a lot, but without a great speaker... No go.

I am a bit 'speaker-obsessed' I guess, and now I am wondering: What are the best speakers you have ever heard, and what made them the best?
njonker

Brad,

Welcome to the AudiogoN universe :-)

I've listened to ATC SCM150ASL Pros in L.A. (Charlie Bolois is my Studer tech extraordinaire!)

I've heard Hill Plasmatronics and own Beveridge Model II's, Model III's, and Rogers LS3/5A's. Dali MegaLine III's are my current reference loudspeaker.

Your comments are salient and observations are not hyperbole.

Best regards,

Sam
hifisoundgy,I had a pair of 301's.Much BETTER than the 901's.Go get em mapman!!!!
Overall best value/sound:
Vandersteen 2CE Sig II
Magnepan MMG
Magnepan 12

Favorite overall sound:
Current B&W 800 Diamond

Cost no object, sell the house/car to afford them:
Mcintosh XRT2K that had three 1kwatt amps per channel
I think the total cost of that rig was something like $250k?
There are two.

1) Acoustat 1+1 & RTR ESR 15 disassembled, and arranged in a line source next to the Acoustat panels, with the Acoustat HF Transformer removed, which allows you to use natural roll off of Acoustats crossing over to RTRs. It also increases efficiency,and detail, by removing haze caused by HF transformer to equalize HF response. Combination give you coherence, and dynamics. Easily driven with HQ 30 watt triode wired tube amp. Best with Subwoofer, as the Sunlights but imaging, detail, and dynamics are superb, and tall line source does wonders for helping wall and ceiling reflections. They were the best I have heard, until:

2) Sunlight 308s. Simply amazing speakers. I am driving with a 2.5 watt 6a3 Triode single ended amp. Doc Gizmo got it right in his "Triode Guild" write up of these speakers. Acquired from Johnk who probably regrets letting them go. All of the positive aspects of the Tannoy's that people rave about on the Tannoy sites, but with no veiling,or the power requirements to drive them, as well as much more detail, and great imaging. HF is limited to 17k, so system also included a Fostex t90aex tweeter horn tweeter to 40k, and a pair of Audio Pro B2-50s for the bottom end.

Both speaker systems were/are the best I have heard, and I would be had pressed to choose between them, assuming I could recreate the Acoutat/RTR system. The advantage to the Sunlights is that a very high quality low powered tube amp is not as expensive to build as a very high quality high powered tube amp, but they are heavy, and bulky to move around. the problems with the Acoutat/RTRs are that they are electorstatic, with high voltages, and the power supply of the RTRs can be cranky, to say the least.