Have heard (listed in no particular order, certainly not chronological): Soundesign, Panasonic RBH 1600 (or something like that--owned these in high school), AR90 (original, not the new ones), Allison, Klipsh corner horns, Thiel CS ~3.0, Magnaplanar, Mirage bipolars, Dunlavy SC IV, Hales, Totem Tabu, Totem Shaman, Avalon Radian, Paradigm 9 SE (owned these for many years),
==>AUDIO PHYSIC CALDERAS--Old (!) three box version<==,
(holy grail for me for many, many years), JM Labs Cobalt floorstander, Pardigm Studio 100 V 3 (owned for a year or less, just recently), Legacy Whispers, Legacy Speakers one step below the Whispers, Aerial 7B, Totem Winds, JM Labs little 5000 dollar Utopia 2 way with the Be tweeter, Kef, Induction Dynamics Monitors, Infinity Kappa 8 or 9, Altec Lansing (bought the Paradigm 9 SE's instead), little Conrad Johnson 2 ways, Carver's Amazing Ribbons (or something like that), Spencer Sound Ribbon Loudspeakers, the Gallos that so many people are high on (they're ~3k, I think), probably a lot of others that I can't remember, and finally......
==>Intuitive Design Summits<== (plus a Rel Storm 3)
To my ears only, the Calderas and the Summits are far and away the best. Between those two it's close, and it's been a long time since I heard the Calderas, but I'd bet the Summits would beat them in a shoot-out.
Two other EXCELLENT speakers are the Totem Tabus and the smallest of the Induction Dynamics line, which are also a monitor.
Included in the above list are some speakers I consider to very solid and and excellent values, and others (only a few) that I consider to be real losers, and I won't delineate them any further than that.
I can't claim to have a high speaker "IQ" (and the test is culturally biased anyway....), but the Summits have been such a wonderfully joyous experience that I WILL say that I feel as though I now have a high speaker "EQ" {Speaker Emotional Intelligence Quotient (not equalizer--the equalizer's almost always on bypass.....)}.
==>AUDIO PHYSIC CALDERAS--Old (!) three box version<==,
(holy grail for me for many, many years), JM Labs Cobalt floorstander, Pardigm Studio 100 V 3 (owned for a year or less, just recently), Legacy Whispers, Legacy Speakers one step below the Whispers, Aerial 7B, Totem Winds, JM Labs little 5000 dollar Utopia 2 way with the Be tweeter, Kef, Induction Dynamics Monitors, Infinity Kappa 8 or 9, Altec Lansing (bought the Paradigm 9 SE's instead), little Conrad Johnson 2 ways, Carver's Amazing Ribbons (or something like that), Spencer Sound Ribbon Loudspeakers, the Gallos that so many people are high on (they're ~3k, I think), probably a lot of others that I can't remember, and finally......
==>Intuitive Design Summits<== (plus a Rel Storm 3)
To my ears only, the Calderas and the Summits are far and away the best. Between those two it's close, and it's been a long time since I heard the Calderas, but I'd bet the Summits would beat them in a shoot-out.
Two other EXCELLENT speakers are the Totem Tabus and the smallest of the Induction Dynamics line, which are also a monitor.
Included in the above list are some speakers I consider to very solid and and excellent values, and others (only a few) that I consider to be real losers, and I won't delineate them any further than that.
I can't claim to have a high speaker "IQ" (and the test is culturally biased anyway....), but the Summits have been such a wonderfully joyous experience that I WILL say that I feel as though I now have a high speaker "EQ" {Speaker Emotional Intelligence Quotient (not equalizer--the equalizer's almost always on bypass.....)}.