Which SPEAKER for the 21ST century?

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!

Tweekerman. My guess is that we hear things differently. For example, some sounds are certainly more annoying to me than to my wife or kids. And some people love speakers that I think are irritating. Who knows?

In response to your query, although Harbeth has been in business for 25 years, their proprietary RADIAL material used to make their mid-woofers was not introduced until 1994 in the Compact 7 and the Monitor 40 came out a few years later. Alan Shaw, the md/designer/proprietor took over the company in the late 80's I think, and his current cabinet design philosophy (lossy instead of inert) was also introduced with the Compact 7.

Because the things he has written over the years have made sense to me, and because of his experience and expertise, I am persuaded by Professor Greene's (REG of TAS) choice of the Monitor 40 as his reference.

Me, I'm easy. With a few exceptions, I like almost anything someone else has spent a lot of money on.

Paul its true all speakers have their limitations: sound size weight and last but most certainly not least the price. What irks me to the max is the claims that advertising makes about a speaker that to me falls way short of those high praises. As well the amount of hype that surrounds certain speakers that to me is not justified...Where are Mr.Plato and Mr.Gassman when you need them most...

Cones have a lot more potential than they seem because they are almost always put into a highly compromised cabinet with suboptimal crossovers (both parts quality and filter type). Most of the complaints about box speakers can be traced to these two areas, and this is where big gains can still be made. I agree also that active systems have a lot of potential, but if done properly will cost every bit as much as a separate amp and speakers, with less flexibility, so in the end I'm not convinced they will take over the world. The biggest problems with stats and planars are efficiency and room interactions, and these are both more or less inherent to the design itself and cannot be fully solved.

Personally i've never in my life have heard a midrange cone that produced high fidelity sound. Its always a mid/tweet that worked to the best of its potential. Think about it. The size of a electrostat panel takes MUCH more energy to drive than a two way (tweet/mid + woofer) Efficient cone speaker. But the one t/m cone driver has a very small surface area thus BIG soundstage will never be realized to the degree we all like it. Which leaves us the ribbon to consider. Ribbons are more efficient than electrostats = better performance from our amps( sorry big high quality watt ss amps are not considered i'm thinking of high quality tube amps with say 50 to 100 watts). Midrange ribbons have a much sweeter sound than any cone mid and can almost match the electrostats superior mids. Ribbon tweeters are comparable to high quality cone tweeters. Ribbon tweeters are a tad superior to electrostat panels for the broader imaging. On to woofers/bass. The electrostat produces the superior mid/bass over both ribbons and mid/woofer cones. For the lower bass frequencies woofers do what electrostats cannot. So a good sub can be added to electros but more$$. Ribbons possess the best qualities of both. Albert says that Sound Lab has a superstat in the works maybe 10 years. Some of ya'll say the cone will soon correct its deficiencies. I'm saying the ribbon is here and now and will be choice of speakers for the new decade. I say decade because with computers around who can really say what will be the choice speaker after 10 years. At present its the ribbon hybred design. I may be mistaken on some points and so open to correction.