Speaker types- your preference and your journey?

Like many here, it's been a long journey.   I had the good fortune to work at a few moderately high-end audio retailers when I was in college.   That experience really fed the audio beast.

My journey started in high school with the typical box speakers, by Tenna Corp; they were pretty bad even at the time, but they were what I could afford.  Then while working in audio, I progressed through Chartwell, Byers, M&K, & Ohm.  By my 3rd year in college, I'd moved up to Klipsch La Scala powered by Audio Research D76A amp (all in my dorm room).  I moved to a diffrent hifi store that carried Acoustat and I fell in love with boxless dipoles.  My journey started with the Acoustat 1, then the 1+1.   I moved to Magnepan with the IIa and the Tympany 3d.  I had a brief fling with the Dahlquist DQ10.

I got married and my wife bought me the XStatic EC/X and that ha been my speaker of choice for the last 35 years.  I toyed with the Totem Element Metal V2, but sold that off.  Now I just acquired the ML Renaissance 15a and I'm looking to play with that for a bit.

All in, I went from box, to horn, to panels and really never looked back.  Every time I go and listen to a system somewhere, I can always hear the box, and that bothers me.  If I wanted to spend big dollars, there are some very nice box speakers out there, but dollar for value, I'll stick with the open-baffle/dipole/panel approach as it suits me well.

Always had floor standers & until recently, went for decades with the same stuff. 

1974: Rectilinear 3a’s driven by a Marantz 2270. Sold the 2270 recently for a hefty profit. Rectilinear’s are now in a buddies garage in his second home in Pinehurst. We still blast them while playing ping pong. 

1993: Created a basement system with Klipsch Epic’s driven by a Yamaha RX-V870. Still had the Rectilinear’s upstairs. 

2023: KEF R5’s driven by Marantz 7015

2024: KEF R11’s driven by Rogue RP-1/Moon 320A

2026: KEF Ref 3’s driven by PS Audio BHK pre/Moon 760A

Gotta love the journey.....

Started with:

-Electrovoice speaker in a cabinet I had a friend make at his cabinet shop that featured a wide open rear port designed to sit in corners

- Purchased the Infinity 4000 after auditioning speakers at Pacific Stereo in Oak Park Il.  They had a room with about 30 speakers and you could sit at a console and press a button the corresponded to each speaker and play as long as you liked

- After lugging those beast around to several apartments I decided to try the Arnie Nudell Eosone RSF600 when they were being phase out from Best Buy.

- Had those during a phase where I wasn't listing to a lot of music and kept them for years.  I sold them and purchased the Dali Opticon 8 mk2

- Traded in the MK2 for the TAD E2.  Great speaker but didnt match up with my mucis taste well and for best performance you hand to sit right in the sweet spot

- Went back to Dali and tried the Rubicon 8.  Nice, but to me boring.

- Now waiting on the PMC Twenty 5.26

We'll see how the journey ends :)

@rar1 I had those EPI speakers-bought them in 1979 and kept them about ten years. My first real system-I thought they couldn't be beat.

@kerrybh -

Agreed.  Those EPIs were hard to beat, especially for the price per pair at the time for $125/ pair.   With the Pioneer receiver ($165) and a Dual 1237 TT ($150) - great set-up for $500 ($2300 today).  

Would have loved an upgrade to the Klipsch Heresy, but the ex took her brother speaking shopping and bought the Boston Acoustics instead.  My BIL was so into Billy Idol at the time, which explained loads.  

It was a lifetime ago and I thought buried in my subconscious.  When Klipsch announced the introduction of the bookshelf Rebellion, my response was pure Pavlovian.  As I near 70 (next year), I don't question it ... I take out the credit card.

Rich