Which speaker is considered one of the greats by more music lovers? Price point irrelevant since some speakers outperform their peers of the same price category. I'll start with Alexandria's and mbl's.
Whilst mowing my lawn I stumbled across a pair of Alexandria's, moved them out front for the trash man to take. Even they would not take them!lol............... No offense intended if you own a pair.
I can't take exception with MBL as a principal contender--they're magnificent!! Even in show environments, from Denver to Munich, to Vegas, they always sound remarkable to me. Open, spatial, tonally right, dynamic. The only issue some have with them is the fact that they have to be cranked, to sound right. I would say that they, like most speakers have to reach the acoustic output of the instrument's dynamic range. Not necessarily soft to loud, because I'm not sure that any speaker can do that accurately, and sustain tonality, but to the higher side of the output that an instrument can achieve.
02-13-09: Bikerduud Cerwin Vega!! Preferably the ones with the 18 woofers. Or maybe a Klipschorn. Hard to decide.
Sounds like you used to be in the military. Afees specials: Klipsch, Cerwin Vega, Bose, and Polk were the brands they carried, at least in Germany where I was. And at very good prices too. Used to see guys get the biggest amplifier they sold and stick them on Cerwin Vegas. CDs had just come out and they'd crank it up so high. The sound was crystal clear but literally painful due to the SPL.
The military used to have some nice dedicated audio stores, at least in Frankfurt and Schweinfurt. Entire stores devoted to decent audio gear of the time - Yamaha, Teac, Carver, Onkyo, and others.
Don't remember seeing any tube stuff though.
I just old my mint Fortes for what I paid for them new over there back in '87.
Anybody who doesn't know that Audio Note AN/Es are the best speakers for all people, in all rooms, for all music and with all electronics is a stupid pig f---er, that's for sure.
The best speaker by far that I've ever heard, and I've compared these to Magnepan Tympanis, Von Swiekart VR-11s, and Wilson Alexandrias are Legacy Audio's Helix. I went to Springfield, IL to listen to them lately and wow I've never heard better.
They retail for $45,000 and are the only speaker I've heard that can and do sound like live music. Review to come. Bill Duddleston has created a Masterpiece.
If we're going to be serious now, the best speakers that _I've_ experienced - meaning the speakers that gave me the more intense, emotional connection to (reproduced) music I've heard - were the Cogent field-coil horns. Driven by Welborne electronics in the Welborne room, RMAF 06. They gelled perfectly even in that small room, and the lack of low bass was entirely a non-issue.
Sounded good the next year, too, with much more expensive/extravagant electronics, but, for whatever reason, did not create the same magic (for me).
I think second for me are the very pricey near top-line Audio Note AN/Es.
Luckily for me the much lower-priced AN/Es are also pretty damn good. Amazing, actually.
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