Favorite? Probably would have to be the Linaeum Model 10 speakers bought at Corner Audio in Portland back in the 90's. Linaeum was a small company making speakers with an interesting driver that was basically a normal dynamic driver that instead of the voice coil driving the usual cone they removed the cone and replaced it with a plastic ribbon.
It looked like what they did was glue a straight brace right across the center of the voice coil and attach two ribbons to it. These curved out kind of like a horn, only they kept curving around all the way back 180 degrees, and they were very flexible. The idea being the wave form travels or ripples along the ribbon for very low moving mass. The Model 10 used two of these back to back, a dipole in other words.
Whatever the story the sound was the sexiest most luxurious 3D sound stage presentation, probably that I have ever heard. I mean, an audiophile friend who was no fan of my system nevertheless said you weren't listening to a soundstage, "you're swimming in it."
They had problems. Voice coil heat could melt the ribbon if played too loud for too long. But the real problem was they had a real prominent bass hump. Sins of commission really are worse than sins of omission. Yet its my favorite? Maybe because another saying is also true: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Best? That's a close call. Synergistic Research Atmosphere Level III Euphoria interconnect. Hard to believe an interconnect can be so good. But I would probably have to give the nod to my Tekton Moab speakers. Transformative, they are.
It looked like what they did was glue a straight brace right across the center of the voice coil and attach two ribbons to it. These curved out kind of like a horn, only they kept curving around all the way back 180 degrees, and they were very flexible. The idea being the wave form travels or ripples along the ribbon for very low moving mass. The Model 10 used two of these back to back, a dipole in other words.
Whatever the story the sound was the sexiest most luxurious 3D sound stage presentation, probably that I have ever heard. I mean, an audiophile friend who was no fan of my system nevertheless said you weren't listening to a soundstage, "you're swimming in it."
They had problems. Voice coil heat could melt the ribbon if played too loud for too long. But the real problem was they had a real prominent bass hump. Sins of commission really are worse than sins of omission. Yet its my favorite? Maybe because another saying is also true: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Best? That's a close call. Synergistic Research Atmosphere Level III Euphoria interconnect. Hard to believe an interconnect can be so good. But I would probably have to give the nod to my Tekton Moab speakers. Transformative, they are.
