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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
deadlyvj
66 posts
 
Excellent post AtmaSphere!!
aedv8sc
23 posts
 
Von Schweikert VR-4 MkII with the 5 mod from the factory. Clean sound, articulate, spatially accurate, intimately satisfying on small groups or solo. Sounds live like real music does. Real music like an orchestra the sound is a bit jumbled, separation in real life is an artifact. That's what I hear when I listen to VS VR-4II with the 5 mod.

I have had Vandersteen 3asigs, 5 sigs, Usher, big Fried transmission lines called the Super Monitor. Electrostatics ML Source, Acoustat Mod 3s. Would not trade any of them for what I have now.
melbguy1
1,438 posts
 
Atmasphere, thanks for your informative post. I understand the logic of using the rated efficiency and impedance to determine actual efficiency, however in your comments you have not considered the phase angle and impedance dip of a speaker and how that can influence the load presented to the amplifier. The Infinity Kappa 9's for example had an amp-crushing 1 ohm dip with a severe phase angle which literally made many amps go up in smoke. Just my 2 cents.
ctsooner's avatar
ctsooner
2,480 posts
 
What's the price range of your modded VR4's? Your comment on real music is dead on. I've really noticed that recently in my changing out my system this past year. The other artifact is crowd noise in a live recording. It's actually backwards of what you would hear sitting in a crowd. That said, it's what we are conditioned to hear and what we spend forever trying to 'recreate'. Maybe we are all just nuts. lol.
tbg
5,263 posts
 
Far and away the best sound I ever heard was an Altec 604 that was all battered and driven by a two WE 205 tubed amp. I doubted I would ever find a second amp and so didn't buy it. What a fool I was.

But now Exemplar Audio is going to have 604 copies. I'm eager to hear them, but have quite powerful BMC M2 amps. I don't think I want to go back to SETs although I have seven NOS RCA 211s and two NOS GE 211s.
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