What Speakers Have You Owned and Loved?

[winston1156]

Some pioneers had an uncanny to play loudly while cases of buckhorn beer spilled on them on college.... It was the 80s.

Definitive tech bp20. I really liked these. They needed space.

Cantons for some ht... Ok.

B&W. 705 s. pretty good highs but the base and dynamics are blah.

Many to go?....

[CGabriel]

Hm, owned? Too many to list or try to remember.

LOVED?

I still have fond memories of the Magneplanar MGII's playing Rampal Japanese folk melodies in my livingroom.

Heavenly.

[Joe Appierto]

Originally Posted by CGabriel

Hm, owned? Too many to list or try to remember.

LOVED?

I still have fond memories of the Magneplanar MGII's playing Rampal Japanese folk melodies in my livingroom.

Heavenly.

The CBS Masterworks Japanese Album? It does have such clarity and an in-the-room quality. I still listen to it occasionally.

[CGabriel]

Originally Posted by Joe Appierto

The CBS Masterworks Japanese Album? It does have such clarity and an in-the-room quality. I still listen to it occasionally.

Yes - beautiful music!



cg

[jima4a]

Loved: Both Kef Reference, 103/4s and current 205/2s.

[mulveling]

I've included the non-loved for context and continuity
...the 2ch milk-teeth years:
* Ascend 340 - Fine for home theater; disappointing for music. Plain as paper. The "measure flat and you can do no wrong" philosophy looked good...on paper. Buyer's remorse (BR).
* Polk LSi 9 - Decent little bookshelves, but not enough to hold my interest for long
* Polk LSi 15 - Better than the prior 2 for home theater, but worse than the LSi 9 at 2ch. The bass has a really nasty quality and tone to it. Those 8" woofers seemed to be a few steps below the quality of the other drivers. (BRBT) I think the LSi 25 sounded way better, but I didn't want such a "big" speaker at that time.

..at this point my focus started to leave HT (permanently) and tend towards pure 2ch, despite the frustrations.

* Tyler Acoustics Taylo Monitors - Actually really, really sweet. This is what I consider my first good hifi speakers, and my first taste of 2ch success. They had no low bass to speak of, but the mids on up, and soundstage were great!
* Tannoy Eyris DC3 - These arrived just after the Taylos; frustrated with the failings of earlier speakers, I'd decided to try a couple sets at once. These Tannoys had much more satisfying bass than the Taylos; the mids & treble perhaps not as quite crisp as with the Taylo's Seas & Revelator drivers, but they were my first taste of the dual-concentric's coherence and Tannoy's sweet paper-cone mids, and I loved them for it.

...now with 2 big successes in a row, I felt I could do no wrong! All upgrades from here on out would surely be smooth sailing...

* Tyler Linbrook Signature Monitors - Ugh; big, ugly, muddy and inarticulate. All the magic of the smaller Taylos was lost on these. Big upgrade fail here (BTBR). Not sure whether there is much unit-to-unit variation across these earlier Tylers, but those old Taylo monitors were kinda special.
* Legacy Signature III - I was so excited to get these; surely they would rectify the Linbrook mistake, but they ended up being another mistake. They're not really bad sounding, in fact they can sound good, they're just not my kind of sound. And some of the early equipment matching choices here were poor. (BR)
* Tannoy Dimension TD10 - By now the Tannoy sound had worked its way well into my head; I'd missed the Eyris DC3 terribly and surely this purchase would absolve my prior sins. Well, it was finally a good step forward again. However, though technically superior to the Eyris and Taylos by a long shot, I'm not sure they fully recaptured the musical magic I'd experienced with those other sets (again, room & equipment partially to blame). It turns out there are other Tannoy lines I prefer to the Dimension.

...now I decided it was time to get serious

* Tannoy Kensington SE - Finally, salvation. Beautiful, wonderful speakers I enjoyed for 3+ years that developed me into the full-fledged 2ch analog lunatic you see today. Actually they sounded a little bit disappointing for the first month (I had built up huge expectations and sold lots to get these), but once they clicked it was absolutely amazing!! On a different plane of existence than all the prior sets.
* Tannoy Canterbury SE - The Kensington was a hard act to follow, but like that speaker, the Canterbury just took some good getting-to-know-you time to get dialed in, and they are indeed the better speaker. Currently I'm really digging them with the Tannoy super-tweeters.

I've heard a number of other very nice speakers over the years. Of special note would be the Tannoy Yorkminster SE, for their phenomenal low bass without subs (though I didn't like their mids as much as the Kensington/Canterbury), and the Magico S1, which possibly represent the best sound that could conceivably emanate from that size of speaker (very small towers).

[paul1]

JBL L19s were great

Kef q50

I now love Cremona M

[sm19422]

I have built many of the different Fried model C and O versions over the years.

They are very accurate being a plane source and not a spherical source by using transmission line loading .

[longbowbbs]

Minimus 7’s
Technic’s 3 Ways’ (They came with the JC Penney system!)
Mordaunt Short MS30’s
Vandersteen 2Ci
Snell Type E-II’s
Vandersteen 1B’s
M&K S-150’s
Decware DM945’s
Definitive Technology 800 surround (4 800’s and one 1000 center)
SVS PC16-46 Sub
SVS PB12 Sub
SVSPB12+ Sub
M&K 150 Sub
Definitive Tech Supercube III
Vandersteen 2Ce Signatures


I know I am missing a few in there....

[PlanarSpeakerFan]

Spica TC-50 - Great little speakers and my intro to the world of stereophonic sound.
Apogee Duetta Signature - Amongst the most lifelike vocals and piano I ever heard.
Aerial 10-T - Great all around speaker and tremendous value.
Magnepan 3.7 - Huge soundstage, very fast and minimal coloration.
Revel Ultima Salon 2 - Neutral and transparent. A clear window to the music.
Raidho D3 - My desert island speaker.