What Are the Best Sounding Speakers You've Ever Heard.?

[esldude]

I definitely agree it is at least 85%. The room is big too. Almost can't talk about one without the other.

 

Best I heard was some Wilson Maxx III's in a huge, and unusually shaped room. How important was the room? The owner moved and in his new room, I have some $260/pr speakers that all things considered sound better at the room in my house. No exaggeration. He went from one of the finest rooms to one of the most horrible. An extreme on both ends.

 

I knew someone with a very rigidly constructed square room. Not just length and width, but height as well. Nothing sounded better than maybe nearly okay in it.

 

I heard Thiel 5s a few times and was not impressed. Then heard them in a huge room at a dealer and finally heard them as they could be. Quite impressive. Not best ever, but worth a mention.

 

I used Quad ESL63s for a long time. I might say in most domestic size rooms they could be made to sound quite good and could be counted on in more places than most speakers. Then I ran into a fellow who had a room those wouldn't work well in either. It was on the smallish side and had doors in all the wrong places and you just couldn't put it all together.

 

So my bottom line answer would be the Maxx III's. And I haven't heard some of the usual contenders for the title that are out in recent years. Honorable mention would be for the Soundlabs in the various versions. I will note that is what I have so I may be biased.

 

With large speakers of great repute, if you hear them sounding bad, you might not count that as meaning much until you can hear in them in an appropriately large and well put together room. With smaller speakers in conventional rooms usually bad is simply bad.

[esldude]

snippp.........

 

Just like with BnW, JBL seem to be focusing all their efforts on particulars whilst neglecting the whole...

 

In my opinion.

 

R

 

I have not heard the M2. And seeing how it is put together I had all the same reservations. It seems like a caricature of the best speaker someone could make. However, listening to some of the other Harman speakers at lesser price levels I would give them benefit of the doubt and believe them. I think you have it exactly backwards. I think they have managed to figure out some important, important particulars that have allowed them to design speakers that get the whole more right than perhaps anything that has come before them. The way they do everything in such balance and hit all the particulars just so results in a very holistic listening experience. When that happens you can forget about sound and hear music.

[esldude]

I think they have obsessed with some particular aspects of performance and neglected others; BnW is clearly blinded by their love for hard cones and domes (and even cabinets) which have their virtues, to the point of accepting a tremendous cone resonance of the midrange/midwoofer driver (802 Diamond) right where your ear is most sensitive, as you can see in the attached image.

The Harman group does produce good speakers but they have a real fixation on directivity control to the point of only producing narrow-baffle domestic speakers (even the largest Revels don't use woofers larger than 8'').

 

IMO&E one cannot achieve full range with a conventional direct radiating box loudspeaker using less than 4 ways.

 

R

 

As for B&W speakers, I agree. Never heard any I liked from low to high price. Find myself mystified by the praise some heap upon them.

 

As for Harman some of their speakers (large Revels) are 4 way designs. They aren't guided by that however, rather by results. If they can do it with a two way then better I say. I listen to one way speakers. Harman's idea is more than just controlled directivity though such is a key component. As they manage to get full response to 20 hz using combinations of 8 inch woofers I am not sure what the complaint would be. I am sure it is possible to put them in a large enough room they couldn't perform well enough. By then you should probably be stepping up to the M2.

[esldude]

nobody mentioned Bob Carver yet...

 

If the OP was "what are the most Amazin' loudspeakers you've heard", then we would have to talk about Bob and his speakers.