What's the best pair of speakers you've ever heard?

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#142
devilsindetails said:
Much more to this part of the story. Bud Fried and the original transmission line developers back in England (John Hayes John Wright and David Brown) got locked in a protracted legal battle due to Fried's (who was the U.S. Distributor) insistence on building "inferior" versions of the Transmission Line series and slapping IMF badges on them. Most of the IMF's sold in Canada and the U.S. were of U.S. manufacturing origin. Good yes..but not near the level of performance of the actual Made in Britain versions...I've had both.😀
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I was told a way of knowing if a speaker is a true transmission line as IMF would hope to be is to place a candle near the transmission line opening . It shouldn't blow out dramatically when the resonance of the speaker occurs if correct ( using a signal generator ) . The old ways are some times the best ways .

Dr Bailey is said to have originated the transmission line idea . His recommended sheeps wool still works well in all speakers if appropriate to the task .
 
#143
KEF 107

800.00 – KEF 107 107.2 REFERENCE SPEAKERS HI FI WITH KUBE VGC | FLOOR STANDING SPEAKER UK

I had to hunt high and low for these . This is a speaker that should have changed the world . Addictive at high volume . That's why I didn't buy a pair . I think they upset a few KEF devotes as they sort of changed horses with the drive units . Linn Isobariks I suspect were their target . It didn't work , neither Linn nor KEF fans took any notice . The Linn was basically a KEF speaker cooked the Linn way . Isobariks must be the bargain of all time in terms of construction . I would love to get a latter pair and build my own active crossovers / amps . I did not like Linn's voicing of them .
 
#147
Everyone has their own taste

It's the get out of gaol ( jail ) free card and should always be used .

I think the best speaker I never heard is Quad 63's . Never in the sense they make very little distortion . Great with 78's ! They have tons of bass and suit Marantz No9 amp well . Need to be well into the room to get 42 Hz .
 
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#149
Pano said:
Congrats! They should sound great. The Puget Sound contest is a lot of fun, and very well run. You'll enjoy it.
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Thanks Pano. I attended the contest two years ago. It was quite well managed. TerryO was the chief culprit 🙂

Regarding the Quads, have you guys seen the latest review in Stereophile?
Quad Reference ESL-2805 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Looking at the measurements, there is nothing to write about in terms of frequency response (fig 6), resonances (fig 9), or polar response (fig 3). The only spectacular result is the distortion measurement (fig 10), which is much much lower than most speakers.
 
#150
New Quads

That's a bit sad isn't it . Old Quads were better I suspect ?
I think speakers need measuring at 6 to 8 ft . The old 3 feet was a bit suspect .Tannoy always said that .

Quad ESL-63 loudspeaker | Stereophile.com

The square wave of 63 is reasonably good . Many use a ribbon top with them . I suppose they are similar the new ones , however is it progress ? An air transformer tweeter is needed .
 
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#152
ra7 said:
Thanks Pano. I attended the contest two years ago. It was quite well managed. TerryO was the chief culprit 🙂

Regarding the Quads, have you guys seen the latest review in Stereophile?
Quad Reference ESL-2805 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

Looking at the measurements, there is nothing to write about in terms of frequency response (fig 6), resonances (fig 9), or polar response (fig 3). The only spectacular result is the distortion measurement (fig 10), which is much much lower than most speakers.
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It's not a point source speaker so the usual measurement will not apply , look at step , impulse response and waterfall plot , room interaction plays a big role with dipoles ...



Pano said:
I've been talking about them for years. And that's what I own. Not much more to say. 😉
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Which model and are they stock .... ?
 
#155
Considering that the Nao-Note is supposed to be such a brilliant speaker. Why is it virtually impossible to source the drivers for it in the UK.

IMHO British suppliers don't think that they are worth stocking.

The Linkwitz-Orion drivers are freely available.
 
#156
KatieandDad said:
Considering that the Nao-Note is supposed to be such a brilliant speaker. Why is it virtually impossible to source the drivers for it in the UK.
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The only driver that a 30 second google search showed me "impossible to source" (and I mean, a 30 second google search) is the BG Neo3 tweeter.

The midrange scanspeak is available here:
Scanspeak 10F/4424G00 Mid-range

the seas midwoofers are available here:
ER18RNX (H1456-08)

The Peerless woofers are right here:
Peerless 835016 Sub-woofer

So all that leaves is a tweeter. You could shell out the extra 20-30 bucks and just import the tweeters with back removed from GR Research or Meniscus, in USA or maybe even BG themselves in Germany... or you could google a bit harder. It's a tweeter.

IMHO British suppliers don't think that they are worth stocking.
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How can you even have an "honest opinion" on other's people's thought processes regarding the worth of something (loudspeaker drivers) you seem to have no actual knowledge on? I get the sense that you're just here to troll and advertise B&W speakers. This is a DIY site, thank you very much. Audiocircle is that way -->

The Linkwitz-Orion drivers are freely available.
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They've got good market saturation, yes. They're some of my favorite drivers, but I don't think, in the intended bandwidths, they have any real advantages over the Nao Note drivers (might have a bit more output near 30hz, though I never really evaluated it).
 
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