What are the best speakers you have heard?

[cricfansd]

Few months back I was in Hong Kong and was lucky enough to hear few "high" end speakers. Due to the beneficence of a "Audiokarma" forum member, I was invited to audition couple of "high" end speakers. I was amazed by the professionalism of the sales managers who very well knew that I was not in market for $300K and $500K speakers.

The first audition was for Goldmund Epilogue speakers.
Goldmund - Epilogue 1+2

The engineering behind the speaker was extra-ordinary for its simplicity. The driver placement ensure the time and phase coherency. End of the day you hear the drivers rather than the box. Needless to say it sounded amazing.

From there we went to Avant-Garde horn. We auditioned Duo and Trio series speakers.

These are 104 dB and 109 dB speakers respectively. Source was Kondo turntable and 37W Kondo tube amp. It is amazing what 37W can do to a 109 dB speaker. Pavoratti and friends sang to us in the room.

I don't think I have ever heard anything remotely close to these two.

 

[rashmikant]

Tannoy westminister awesome truly magical

 

[rraghuram]

Ahuja Systems from my school days. It was 'reference' before there was reference!

 

[bhagwan]

Tannoy westminister awesome truly magical

Interesting;
May I ask what was the front end & the amplification ?
Where was this ? Room Size etc. Please...
Thanks,
Appreciate your follow up...

 

[just4kix]

a]Topic - What are the best speakers you have heard ?

There is no Price Qualification here - if the Topic Creator had put a price qualification - US $'s 1000/- or US $'s 3,000/- etc. I would have offered my suggestions in accordance.

That is the exactly my point. The OP only asked "what are the best you have heard". But invaiably, this will lead to comparison. Hence some qualification, if not price, then something else.

c]Speakers do not yield Watts - They need watts to be driven.
They deliver SPL - that is measured in dB [Decibels]

That is true. What I was saying was just a manner of speaking. Obviously if the speakers are not connected to the amp, they won't deliver anything (Watt or dB).

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I think that "what are the best you have heard?" not only allows for, but asks for absolute subjectivity.

Whatever is the best a person has heard is the best they have heard. There is no argument. It goes without saying that any limitation of experience or listening ability is a part of the deal. If someone says, "This was my best listening experience," nobody can say, "No, it wasn't"

 

[Electrify]

Interesting thread, but simplifies a whole log and just opinion.
I have to say the speakers I am listening to has to be on the list. EP CS3s. Rotel Amp, iMac source .

 

[linuxguru]

The best I've heard are Sreekanth's (soundsgreat) two-way folded horn tower prototype, with a 6.5 inch polypropylene-coated woofer of his own design, and 1-inch titanium-dome tweeter of his own design. The crossover is a 2nd-order design, and wiring is silver-plated OFC with Teflon insulation throughout. I used my stock Myref Rev E with LF01 prototype (2x 40W) to drive it, and an unmodified Marantz CD63se as the source. Audible impressions: Dead flat, no resonances, very wide soundstage, pin-point imaging, airy, full-bodied mids, textured lows below 40 Hz, dead-neutral highs with no brightness. The highs were a huge surprise, since the Rev E has sounded slightly edgy with every other speaker I've tried. Easily the finest pair of speakers I've heard, comfortably dominates the Quad 22L2 across the board.

 

[eloorarun]

kef reference 207/2 with complete electrocompaniet Pre, NEMO monoblocks, Denon anniversary TT, Chord Signature cables..

 

[hfvuser]

The best I have heard is Dali Lektor 2 with Marantz 6kx amp. Although I must add that they were nothing compared to my earphones. I wonder why can't a 40k stereo setup compare to 15k earphones.

 

[satyajit]

The best I have heard is Dali Lektor 2 with Marantz 6kx amp. Although I must add that they were nothing compared to my earphones. I wonder why can't a 40k stereo setup compare to 15k earphones.

To me its coz you are comparing a Top-mid (not Top-Extreme) end earphone to a medium end speaker setup (that is if u compare it with the rest). If you compare it with B&W Diamond series speakers then it would have been more comparable.

Also note that the headphone/earphone price range is relatively very low compared to a speaker setup. For example, the highest end headphone is only $5000-$7500 in price range from Stax (from my knowledge). But If you see the price for even a B&W Diamond 805 it starts from $5500 not even talking about higher speakers here. So the point I am trying to explain here is that, you are comparing completely different range of products and you might want to compare a headphone like Metro Fi 220vi from UE with your setup.

 

[bhagwan]

The best I have heard is Dali Lektor 2 with Marantz 6kx amp. Although I must add that they were nothing compared to my earphones. I wonder why can't a 40k stereo setup compare to 15k earphones.

Sir,
If you like earphones - no stereo [hifi] set up can ever beat it.
They are x-over less & no distortion.

The only issue is - do you like earphones ?
If that answer is yes - you have a winner on your hands....
:clapping:

 

[satyajit]

Sir,
If you like earphones - no stereo [hifi] set up can ever beat it.
They are x-over less & no distortion.

The only issue is - do you like earphones ?
If that answer is yes - you have a winner on your hands....
:clapping:

Sry? "They are x-over less & no distortion." No distortion? cant agree with that.

If you go beyond a certain range the distortion always will increase in log scale. That is same for headphone/earphones also.

 

[Sumanta]

Jamo R909! "It's a wonderful world" was played.
I was not educated enough 4 months back to check amplifier and player behind it.

But that one performance changed my life quite a bit.
A happy man with beginers floor standards now is selling his speakers and listening to DIY OB nowadays.
And I have realised that I may loose my eyes but loosing ears will force me to die. I have almost stopped photography and put my time in music listening.

 

[ranjeetrain]

I wonder why can't a 40k stereo setup compare to 15k earphones.

Earphones/Headphones are a great way of enjoying high quality music at a low budget. I firstly started my journey to the world of portable music a few years ago, when I moved out of India on a job assignment. Not wanting to invest much and have lots to lug around, I decided to invest in a portable set up. I tried many different amp and headphone combinations. Finally, I settled with Sennheiser and FiiO. Now most of the time I am actually listening to music is at night, and at such a time a portable set is just what the doc ordered. Sennheiser HD 650 with a FiiO E7 USB DAC Amp beats any full scale stereo system up to INR 1.5 Lac easily. It would in fact sound at par with even systems up to 2/2.5 lac. Difference lies in the scale. Headphones need to do something correctly at a very small scale. They are placed 'in ear' or extremely close to the ear. They also have no 'room acoustic' to fight with. Most people forget that a good setup comprises of a good listening room. How good a setup sounds depends to quite a large extent on the room where it exists. For earphones/headphones there is no such limitation. They have no 'external' factors to deal with. At most, they have to deal with the resonance within the chamber housing the transducer. Also, producing any dynamics at a smaller scale (low SPL/low current) is far more easier than at a higher scale.

 

[surjitsalvi]

KEF 104 2

• Accurancy
• Cleanliness
• Durability
• Good Looks
• Outstanding Sound
  
  

 

[Hari Iyer]

Include details of the setup you heard them with..

Till date the best sound i have ever heard is from a KOSS headphone (18 years ago). This headphone (its a pity i dont know the model nbr now) was supplied along with a Medical Colour doppler machine (Acuson - 128xp) to hear the sound of the heart beat when doppler scanning a patient with heart problems. (Yes 18 years ago i was a bio-meidical engineer installing colour dopplers at hospitals in Mumbai).

I carried this KOSS headphone home and connected to my Sony Tape-Deck TC-FX44 headphone out jacks whiout any power amplification. This is the purest form of audio till date that i have heard which was very close to real performance. I am still struggling to get that signature with the TL floorstanders which hopefully would be a possibility in the near future.

Cheers,
Hari.

 

[doors666]

Till date the best sound i have ever heard is from a KOSS headphone (18 years ago). This headphone (its a pity i dont know the model nbr now) was supplied along with a Medical Colour doppler machine (Acuson - 128xp) to hear the sound of the heart beat when doppler scanning a patient with heart problems. (Yes 18 years ago i was a bio-meidical engineer installing colour dopplers at hospitals in Mumbai).

I carried this KOSS headphone home and connected to my Sony Tape-Deck TC-FX44 headphone out jacks whiout any power amplification. This is the purest form of audio till date that i have heard which was very close to real performance. I am still struggling to get that signature with the TL floorstanders which hopefully would be a possibility in the near future.

Cheers,
Hari.

i think you are talking about koss porta pro. i have one, its still available.

 

[Flash]

i think you are talking about koss porta pro. i have one, its still available.

Are you talking about this

Koss Porta-Pro Price - Buy Koss Porta-Pro Price in India, Best Prices n Review

 

[AMITNOIDA]

Has anybody listened the Ascendo speakers (a German brand)? How did you like it?