What are the best loudspeakers you have heard?

hifi addict

hifi addict

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Just another question,

What are the best loudspeakers you have heard?

I ask because I was at a certain Dealers the other day and helped set up a pair of Cello Stradivarius Grand masters. They are Monster 7' high line array thing's. When we put them on they were awesome. The only speaker to come close were TAD driver horns.

We ended up getting out loads of CD's trying to make then sound bad. They made every record and CD sound amazing no mater how badly recorded.

So over to you chaps.

My list in order (subject to change)

Cello Stadivarius Grand Master
Cessaro Horns
SPJ reference 68
Reference 3a Grand Veena
Manger 103 Active
 
Conventional drivers sounding better than TAD compression drivers I don't think so!
To answer your question ,Cessaro Gamma, followed by Cessaro Beta followed by Cessaro Alpha's!
 
coops said:
Conventional drivers sounding better than TAD compression drivers I don't think so!
To answer your question ,Cessaro Gamma, followed by Cessaro Beta followed by Cessaro Alpha's!
Click to expand...

I like the exclamation marks. Perhaps I should have another listen?

Different rooms, different electronics, different electronics. I do like a line array though.
 
Best I've heard I've bought - Avantgarde horns.

Also, I have a soft spot for Quad 'statics.

Never heard a conventional dynamic speaker I could live with in my main system, including some ruinously expensive ones.
 
I had pair of Avantgarde Horns I couldn't listen to them for too long as i found them wearing. The Cessaro's are another thing altogether. They are probably the speaker that I will own myself someday. I like Quad 57's but thats where my love for Quad ESL's finish. For some reason the Cello's pushed all the right buttons.
 
hifi addict said:
I had pair of Avantgarde Horns I couldn't listen to them for too long as i found them wearing. The Cessaro's are another thing altogether. They are probably the speaker that I will own myself someday. I like Quad 57's but thats where my love for Quad ESL's finish. For some reason the Cello's pushed all the right buttons.
Click to expand...

Are the Cello's that good???? Love to have a listen but shame about the sheer size of them though.
 
In no particular order
Westlake - ugh.
Pioneer/ Exclusive & Rey Audio TAD-based systems - ugh ugh...
Siemens Eurodyn - they are here...
Harbeth M40 - these do the things no horn speaker can get quite right
Big Yams - ever so easy to integrate into a real home and very easy to live with afterwards.

For the pure funk nothing beats big 4-way Djibbels.
 
Easy - Kevin Scott's Living Voice Concept Horns (soon to go into production) - by a country mile. They make recorded music sound absolutely lifelike. Nothing else i've ever heard even comes remotely close.
 
HI hi-fi addict,is that full range or restricted low frequency ?and at what price ?or vintage? And the room can ,make or break any speaker. Then there's the amp interface etc.......

Anyway as they say on the TV,the result in no particular order is

REF 3A Dulcet
REF 3A De-Capo i
Pro-ac Super Tablet mk1
Gallo Ref 3.1
Ruark Equinox
REF 3a Veena and Grand Veena (i like Ref3a speakers and Tash is such a nice guy)
Yamaha ns1000(hate the look love the sound)
Triangle Titus es
Regards D Louth
 
Papa Lazarou said:
Easy - Kevin Scott's Living Voice Concept Horns (soon to go into production) - by a country mile. They make recorded music sound absolutely lifelike. Nothing else i've ever heard even comes remotely close.
Click to expand...



how much they'll be?

btw don't forget the rest of the system they are being fed, i can easily imagine some other speaker systems sounding great on these electronics.
 
Papa Lazarou said:
Easy - Kevin Scott's Living Voice Concept Horns (soon to go into production) - by a country mile. They make recorded music sound absolutely lifelike. Nothing else i've ever heard even comes remotely close.
Click to expand...


Me too. Nothing else has come anywhere near the experience I had there sonically, not by a country mile.
 
In a standmount I found the JBL Ti2k could really party, and make you ears bleed with a surprising amount of bass. They need the dedicated stands though which are not that thick on the ground.

I like the Horning Agathons for strings and voice. They have a real delicacy to them and fill a room with music rather than blasting tunes out of two directions. They do require servicing though as the magnets suck in all manner of crud that gets stuck between the moving coil.

Love my quad esl 57's with Townshend supertweeters it adds another dimension to an already great design. Awesome with the right amps (Only selling as my new flea power amp can't cut it)

my friend in hifi says the Verity Sarastro 2 loudspeakers are the best he has ever heard, and they look the nuts.
(I'd have to live in a hostel to afford them)
 
Difficult question.

For purity and intimacy it has to be the Quad ESL57.

For scale, power and room filling presence it would be a pair of McIntosh line arrays (model escapes me) that were about 12 feet tall and cost just shy of £100k IIRC.

For sheer fun, liveness and boogie it would be the very first 1980s Mission 70. A small shoe box of a speaker with a direct wired Vifa paper woofer operating without crossover.
It was dirt cheap at £100 and very rough around the edges but those things sounded just so 'direct coupled' to the music.

Gives a whole new slant on going from the sublime to the ridiculous :D
 
1) Quad 2905
2) Harbeth 40.1
3) Quad 63/988
4) Quad 57
5) Avantguarde Uno
6) Rogers LS5/9
 
We met Kevin and Lynne at Munich, ( very nice couple ) Ralph and Kevin discussed horns at length! Looking forward to hearing them at some point , it is a shame there aren't more huge horn set-ups in the UK!
 
Can I be really boring and mention Tannoy WR and Quad ESL 63. They are by no means the best but I liked them best. I also liked David Cathro's and Titian's speakers but can't remember what they were called and they had separate subs anyway.

Drat, I forgot to mention my Tannoy SRM10Bs, the best speakers I have.
 

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