Which SPEAKER for the 21ST century?


Cones vs Electrostats vs Ribbons Can we all somewhat agree that the speaker is the most important component in our system? We are all familiar with the cone driver. Has the old tech cone(mid/high) driver reached its potential zenith? Does the electrostats have the potential to become more efficient? Size less overwhelming? As well will the prices ever become reasonable? And last will the new tech(mid/high) ribbons become the choice drivers for high fidelity music reproduction for the new century? All comments are well appreciated.Thanks
tweekerman
I was watching a kid run the bases the other day with someone timing him. He was, shall we say, portly. I laughed and thought a calendar would be more appropriate. Opposite with speakers. The calendar is irrelevant. Right now, Harbeth makes a speaker, the Monitor 40, that reproduces as accurate a facsimle of real life as you can get. If you can't afford it, try the Compact 7.
Herman these questions are presented with all genuine curiosity. If you read something in there thats not, then... I'll take the 5th for the moment..
Can anybody second Paul's "as alive as you can get" British Harbeth($3K) cone drivers? Harbeth has been around for like 30 years. If they are the superior cone driver then most of us would have them by now...no matter what the price! For the speakers mentioned lets keep things in clear perspective and put price tags. Avalon's $6K. Kharma's $17K. Sound Lab starts at $7K up. Herman i can find a few amps say $3 to $5K i like(all are tubes). I can find a few CDP's say $1800 i like. But i'm perplexed as to the speaker component in the equasion. Here goes: whats the weight of the Khramas the Avalons and the Sound Labs? On a scale of 1 to 10 what is the LAF ( the Lady's Acceptance Factor) due to size due to weight and most importantly due to price?
I for one would like to see more widespread use and innovations in cabinet design. A large portion of the sonic capabilities of my Hales is credited to the very thick front baffle (their older models used several inches of concrete). Vandersteen also took similar drivers and did the opposite to reportedly good effect. Most interesting are the non or quasi-cubic designs by companies like Waveform and B&W and believe they have potential in addressing a couple of the drawbacks associated with cone speakers.
From my extensive experience with all types/genres of speakers/drivers, and what not(5 high end audio store sales possitions, 1000's of installations/sales, way too many audiophile shows, demo's, auditions, and in home experience)I think we either need to go more in the dirrection of higher sensitivity(or ultra sensitivity) drivers, or active speakers!...if we're ever going to move further from up the sonic lader that is. There's been ten' of thousands of loudspeaker and driver designs over the last 40 years, and not much in the way of mass market upswing in the end product quality of the loudspeaker as a whole. I take it back, we've gotten good enough as loudspeaker designers(not me of course), that we can get very very clean and clear sounding speakers to market, using various methods of passive designs and such. But still, in the area's of dynamic transparancy and believablity, I think some of the stronger designs out there(i.e, Avantgarde horns, or ATC active speakers, Avlar active's, or other high sensitivity/high output speaks and such) have shed some stronger light on the need for more dynamically surefooted and authoritative speakers, that will bring the quality of pressentation up to where it should be!
Most speaker manufacturers shy away from such agressive designs, I think, simply for cost and simplicity of manufacturing. I believe, unless more "active" speaker designs, or much much stronger/high sensititity drivers are produced, there's really not much more that can be done to further the audiophile higher end sound reproduction ladder!
I know a lot of recording studio's are using active speakers, and I think there's a whole whole lot to be said for going with more advanced speaker set-up's this way.
There are some manufacturers out there producing home speakers like this, but they're all ultra expensive at this point!(well into the tens of thousands of dollars).
Passive networks and speaker designs are ancient, and it's time we moved on, or up. We've got the tranparency, detail, and soundstage thing down. Now I think we, the audiophile community, needs to see some more affordble designs put forth, which really push the dyanamic envelope.
There's far too many dynamically polite, non-believable/realistic sounding, delicate, dainty, audiophile speakers out there, and it's all pretty much been done a gillion times before, with small improvements here and there. With the advent of the sub/sat systems, and home theater, w/adjustable crossover networks, and such, bi-amping speaker systems has helped out the home theater crowd a bit, with the ablility to delegate bass mangagement in such a way that it gives a much more dynamic sound pressentation, that's definitly advantages for movie tracks, and makes music listening a lot stronger sounding. Although, for audiophile purposes, in regards to high end purity and refinement of overll sound, as you know, this hassome drawbacks.
Really, again to be redundant, in the 2 channel audiophile world world at least,there should be a call for an advance in the areas I've been describing. All the passive bi-amping in the world can only go so far ultimately. Manufacturers can do so so much more with today's technology and experience. It's a shame there's not more affordable out there that meets this need!