Best speakers in the world?

[paddycrow]

Focal had this setup at 2019 AXPONA. I spent a fair amount of time listening. It was nice, but I wasn't blown away.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Yeah but this is Focal, and they put all their technology and knowledge into one speaker, it has to be something special.
I agree with you in most cases these Uber expensive speakers are garbage, like Beolab 90

What's wrong with the Beolab 90 in your opinion?

Money does not equate good sound... I’ve listened to uber expensive systems in private dedicated rooms in the NYC area when I was more actively engaged as an audiophile and was never wowed... I always felt these systems sounded colored, hyped or masked some musical information... They were loud for sure and impressive visually, but never sounded quite neutral the way I was looking for myself.

Here’s an example from YouTube (binaural recording):

All that money...

$1m on the system and they don't even bother pointing the narrow-directivity horns vaguely in the direction of the listener

 

[paddycrow]

I also spent some time listening to this Magico setup. Nice, but again not blown away.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Money does not equate good sound... I’ve listened to uber expensive systems in private dedicated rooms in the NYC area when I was more actively engaged as an audiophile and was never wowed... I always felt these systems sounded colored, hyped or masked some musical information... They were loud for sure and impressive visually, but never sounded quite neutral the way I was looking for myself.

Here’s an example from YouTube (binaural recording):

All that money...

That is a very good looking setup which I'm sure gives great enjoyment to the owner (at least I hope so), however one deal killer here is the room, which even though good dispersion is provided, is still essentially an echo chamber. That would be totally unacceptable to me, no matter how many zillions of dollars everything cost. Perhaps the owner overlooks this or likes it, but to me, why muck up the sound of the speaker by such a live room? In a room such as this, almost any speaker would sound acceptable.

 

[StefaanE]

I have a Paillard-Bolex 8mm rig that belonged to my dad. I don't think it's been used for at least 40 years.

I have an Eumig super-8 movie camera and projector dating from the late 1960ies. I got them from my grandmother for my 15th birthday, I fear they no longer work, I last used them aged 20 when I made a movie of archeological digs I was participating in.

 

[StefaanE]

Here’s an example from YouTube (binaural recording):


All that money...

For a couple of donuts .

 

[Martin]

Time-keeping wise, yes. However, you or your heirs might be able to recoup the million dollars sunk in the Patek. Sometimes one can even hope to make a tidy profit. Not so with a Casio. I've never heard of anyone recouping their "investment" in high-end speakers.

+1,000,000

The day you take them home resale value is less than half of what you paid for them and it keeps going down from there...

 

[Pearljam5000]

Focal had this setup at 2019 AXPONA. I spent a fair amount of time listening. It was nice, but I wasn't blown away.View attachment 89700

Can you describe the sound?

 

[Pearljam5000]

B&O is not on the same level as Focal, also there's no way they're worth that much.

What's wrong with the Beolab 90 in your opinion?

 

[Martin]

I spent a fair amount of time listening to these at the 2020 Florida Audio Expo:

They blew me away but at $295,000 a pair they should. The system driving them was well north of $1,000,000.

Martin

 

[Certainkindoffool]

Yeah but this is Focal, and they put all their technology and knowledge into one speaker, it has to be something special.
I agree with you in most cases these Uber expensive speakers are garbage, like Beolab 90

Luxurious, beautiful, and dramatic are the qualities I would most expect from that pricepoint. 250k speakers are statement pieces. I'm sure they sound good, but I doubt they are Focal's best measuring speaker.

On a somewhat related point. I would love to see what a genelac speaker would look/measure like if they made a cost no object product for the luxury market

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

That is a very good looking setup which I'm sure gives great enjoyment to the owner (at least I hope so), however one deal killer here is the room, which even though good dispersion is provided, is still essentially an echo chamber. That would be totally unacceptable to me, no matter how many zillions of dollars everything cost. Perhaps the owner overlooks this or likes it, but to me, why muck up the sound of the speaker by such a live room? In a room such as this, almost any speaker would sound acceptable.

By the way, in building my own dedicated listening room (which is about 6000 cubic feet), I first designed it to make it as good of an 'echo chamber' as possible - meaning that the decay of sound was completely clean with no slap echoes and well behaved frequency response in the low / high ends. Then I added room treatments to bring down the decay time to what I wanted with no overt reverberation - just enough ambience to keep the room from sounding 'dead'. That's what the room in the video needs.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I have a Paillard-Bolex 8mm rig that belonged to my dad. I don't think it's been used for at least 40 years. Another cool camera I have is a Kodak Model B. George Mallory had one on Mt Everest when he perished.

I do have an old Pentax SP500 with a story I won't go into here.

I had a huge collection of Leica, rangefinder Nikon and Canon cameras and lense which I sold a couple of years ago. They were my pension!
The rare Leica stuff did well, the Nikon and Canon badly. Never mind, I enjoyed the collecting and using and have kept quite a few lenses to still use on digital bodies.
The rarest stuff were a couple of MP bodies, one, No 19, is now in a Japanese museum I believe, and the early hand ground aspherical and prototype lenses.

More on topic, the speakers I am listening to at the moment I bought almost 25 years ago and they still sound fantastic to me.
OTOH the sound quality of the recording itself makes much more difference to what we hear than any part of our reproduction equipment.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Money does not equate good sound... I’ve listened to uber expensive systems in private dedicated rooms in the NYC area when I was more actively engaged as an audiophile and was never wowed... I always felt these systems sounded colored, hyped or masked some musical information... They were loud, for sure, and impressive visually, but never sounded quite neutral the way I was looking for myself.

Here’s an example from YouTube (binaural recording):

All that money...

Aries Cerat are pure bollox on every level IME

 

[andreasmaaan]

B&O is not on the same level as Focal, also there's no way they're worth that much.

What I meant was, why do you believe they are not at the same level/not worth as much?

 

[Pearljam5000]

I've seen them compared to speakers costing $10K
Overall Im not a fan of weird designs with a billion drivers.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I've seen them compared to speakers costing $10K
Overall Im not a fan of weird designs with a billion drivers.

Funny you say that, as $10k is around the price point at which many of the "best" (non-PA) speakers in the world seem to converge

 

[RayDunzl]

Cool.

Strangely, my system sounds just like that one in the video!

 

[paddycrow]

Can you describe the sound?

It sounded like music, as did all the other exhibits. To be honest, a year and a half has gone by. The experience is not very fresh in my mind. It was a really large space, as was the Magico setup. Cramming either into a normal sized room would completely change the sound.

 

[q3cpma]

Beolab 90, Genelec 8351B/8361A (+W371A, but they're incredible even without), D&D 8c, Kii Three (+BXT), ME Geithain RL901k2 (maybe with some DSP to correct a bit), GGNTKT's M1 and probably M2. Neumann KH420A or K+H O500C if you don't care about next-gen features like "perfect" coaxial drivers or LF directivity control other than the box.

At least from an objective point of view.