The best speaker you ever heard?


In my opinion, the speaker is by far the most important part of the audio system. After all, it is the only part you hear. OK, the other stuff really matters a lot, but without a great speaker... No go.

I am a bit 'speaker-obsessed' I guess, and now I am wondering: What are the best speakers you have ever heard, and what made them the best?
njonker
The Avantgarde TRIO. By far the most musical, live sound I ever heard in my 43 years. The 100+ dB efficiency speaks for itself. Roll the tubes to your heart's content, hell, roll any amp from 6 watts to whatever. Over 25 years I've heard all the big Wilson, Apogee, Soundlab, the Infinity Reference model towers from many years ago; the Avantgarde is the nicest. A close second for me is the Magnepan 20.1 and 3.6, but certainly far different animals, at least in terms of efficiency, but for the money, nothing comes close to the big Maggies.
After having listened to Apogee Divas for the past 16 yrs, I heard a system at the 2005 CES in Vegas from McIntosh Labs that blew me away. It was a Proto-Type of their Flagship Speaker, The XRT2k....they sounded really exceptional.
System had 110 perfectly matched mid/tweeter drivers @ side, and a seperate bass column w/ (6) 12" subs @ side. This will be the next step in my audio evolution. The sound was awesome.
yes, sir. You are right. I have something close to that, and on sale here at audiogon.

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?spkrfull&1118461954
Hi Hifi, thanks for doing all that work. That was very interesting. Can you tell I haven't looked at this thread for a while? ;-)