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What are the best speakers in the world?

This is the most important question on our minds. This is what it all boils down to. What is the best speaker on the planet?

I dont want to hear any excuses or a dozen different opinions. I just want the facts. 

A speaker is just like a car. It has a purpose. The purpose of a car is to get you from A to B. But we are here to discuss speakers so what is the job of a speaker exactly and why are there so many to choose from?

The purpose of a speaker is to play music so that we can sit down and enjoy it. Simple as that. No resonance, no coldness no harshness no lack of bass, no booming, no nonsense, just pure buttery heaven. 

Is it the magico? is it the harbeth? is it the wilson? Avalon? Yg? vivid? 
DIY custom tuned? brick walled cabinets made of 12 inch thick concrete? 

Are we simply being cheated with all these offerings? why are there so many?

Again, i dont want to hear differences of opinions or any extraneous comments. 

I will ask again, what is the best speaker in the world?

I am sick and tired of seeing different speakers being touted as the best. I am sick of the lies. Sick of being cheated. Sick of lack of measurements. Sick of watching other audiophiles being duped. Sick of audiophiles that are tone deaf. 

We need the facts. No more lies no more BS no more opinions. 

What is the best? 
kenjit

Showing 5 responses by cd318

cd318
2,636 posts
 
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, this question can be answered, but it will take some time.

First of all there are an awful lot of measurements to be taken into account.

An awful lot, just for starters - bandwidth, linearity, dispersion, distortion, frequency response, colouration, timing, room interaction etc.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudspeaker_measurement

Then there are the necessary adjustments to be taken into account because of the nonlinearity of human hearing.
https://physicsworld.com/a/human-hearing-is-highly-nonlinear/

Like many others, I also like to believe that my speakers (Tannoy DCs) are the best I have ever heard and therefore the best available. However, in all honestly all I know for certain is that no loudspeaker I ever heard could ever fool me into forgetting that I’m listening to a reproduction of a recording. A second rate facsimile of the real thing.

None of them were like the real thing. Or even close to it.

Not even surround sound headphones which could do the spatial thing really well. So well that you couldn’t help but turn your head to follow the sound.

However, our wait for the answer may not be as long as we fear. Not if AI continues it’s already astonishing advance.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ai-china-baidu-a...



cd318
2,636 posts
 
@dr_j, interesting link.

The Cubeaudio drivers may well be a small technical step forward but at first sight these Polish drivers look like re-engineered versions of previous whizzer cone designs from Lowther and Fostex. That alone makes them interesting.

As there doesn’t seem to be any mention of what the cone material consists of, it would appear that their main claim to fame is the heavily engineered magnet assembly.

As we move ever closer to acceptable crossoverless single drive unit designs these might well be ones to listen out for.

Could they even be a contender for the best loudspeaker ever built, or is that going way too far? Especially in these days of still inadequate lab testing methodology.

In any case I’m pretty sure some of us would appreciate a report back if you do get to listen to a pair.





cd318
2,636 posts
 
@sound22card, not to mention truly phenomenal dynamic range.

In fact back in the 1950s when recorded sound was still regarded as a wonder many enthusiasts / early audiophiles began to record all kinds of sounds to feed this love affair with sonics.

The sound of locomotives and thunderstorms was quite hip in some circles back in the day 

https://www.mofi.com/Articles.asp?ID=255

cd318
2,636 posts
 
If we were to ask the presumable experts ie the makers/designers, what would they say?

What would Harbeth say, or Tannoy, or ATC, or Magico, or Wilson, or PMC, or Zu, or JBL, or B&W, or DeVore, or Joseph Audio, or MBL, or Vivid Audio, or Quad, or Spendor, or Martin Logan, or Living Voice, or Eclipse, or any one of the dozens of other established companies out there?

I guess they'd all have a slightly different perspective and slightly different design goals but you can bet they will all be using advanced measurement techniques to determine where they wish to place the inevitable compromises that current driver and cabinet construction necessarily demand.

I suspect with us being on the cusp of a radical development in computing power, one that will be more readily available to anyone outside NASA and CERN, the answer to what is the best loudspeaker will soon become available. 

Perhaps it already is.

Well, whatever it is it will still have to cross that gaping divide hungrily populated by both the media and by commerce.

Neither of which may have any political interest in presenting it. 

 
cd318
2,636 posts
 
I wonder... just supposing, wouldn't it be possible to take a high quality recording and play it back through a pair of speakers which could then feed a high quality microphone which could be used to make another recording for further playback and recording and so on a few times?

Perhaps the venue could be an anechoic chamber, or something very close. 

The loudspeaker which eventually deviated least from the source could then be deemed the best. Couldn't it?

As all loudspeakers heavily distort (compared to digital sources, amps and cables) it surely wouldn't take too long to expose those distortions.

I remember reading that Bob Carver infamously once did something similar with a transistor amplifier to make it sound like an highly regarded tube amplifier via various null tests. 

As expected it didn't go down too well in certain circles, for fairly obvious reasons.

As there seems to be quite a range of opinions regarding what we expect from a loudspeaker, let's not forget that their job is to merely reproduce the signal they're fed with.

Nothing more. Remember we are not looking to shoot the messenger, just honesty. Neither do we want a flattering portrait, just an accurate one, don't we?
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