What are considered the best Speaker drivers ? What Speakers are successfully using them ?


Hello everyone,

The title says it all really but the budget would be no more than 30,000 dollars please,

I would say i am maybe considered old school Audiophile with only slight knowledge of modern day HiFi. I have over the years moved to panel Speakers and currently own Martin Logan CLX ART with Decent i Sub.

My system is very open sounding and creates a believable musical presentation but sometimes i am left wondering if i could get more Dynamics and body from a modern day box type Speaker without given up the strengths of my panels.

My room is only 12 ft W by 35 ft L by 8 ft H and treated with GIK Acoustics panels on front wall and first reflections points.

With so many Speaker companies the choices seems over whelming your help is very much appreciated thank you.


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Showing 1 response by audiokinesis

Hello select-hifi,

I’m kinda into the idea of "best speaker for your room" rather than "best driver(s)" per se.  And regarding driver choice, imo how well they all work together is imo more important than the individual excellence of any one of them. 

I used to have an in-home showroom that was 13 feet by 33 feet, similar to your space, wherein I demo’d SoundLab fullrange electrostats. They were on the short wall, typically with from five to seven feet behind them, and within inches of the side walls. Apparently it worked pretty well because, using this room, I became the biggest-selling dealer SoundLab ever had, at least up until that time.

And that big full-range electrostatic diaphragm is arguably a pretty darn good driver in its own right, if we’re just comparing drivers. But I mention it because, given enough distance out from the front wall, it works well in rooms like yours.

Now if significantly "more dynamics" is high on your list of priorities, you might consider a high efficiency design, imo ideally a low-coloration horn-based system, with a radiation pattern narrow enough to avoid significant early sidewall reflections. Just so happens this is the sort of speaker I design because it works well in less than ideal rooms (and "works well with the room" is a high priority for me), but mine is not the only game in town.

Duke