Best speakers 2019: budget to premium stereo speakers

Sliced Bread

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Or ATC / PMC, but to be fair the list cannot go on for ever :)
Anyway PMC seem to have priced themselves out. The GB1i was released at £1500 back in 2008 and was their entry level floor stander. The equivalent now is the Twenty5 23i of e £3850. I’m sure they’re better, but as a small entry level speaker is it £2350 better? The reviews indicate not.
 
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Or ATC / PMC, but to be fair the list cannot go on for ever :)
Anyway PMC seem to have priced themselves out. The GB1i was released at £1500 back in 2008 and was their entry level floor stander. The equivalent now is the Twenty5 23i of e £3850. I’m sure they’re better, but as a small entry level speaker is it £2350 better? The reviews indicate not.
Couldn't agree more. British made speakers are becoming damned expensive.
 

AndyS

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OMG what a bad review, ok the budget end and perhaps the mid price range is ok, I might disagree with most of their choices but that's personal. When they move on to the top end and the most expensive speaker is £3300 that is a joke. Ok it is a lot of money but to say they are the best speakers in the top end of the market is a farce.
 
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OMG what a bad review, ok the budget end and perhaps the mid price range is ok, I might disagree with most of their choices but that's personal. When they move on to the top end and the most expensive speaker is £3300 that is a joke. Ok it is a lot of money but to say they are the best speakers in the top end of the market is a farce.
Yes, the terminology needs some work, as even the magazine’s own best buy listings include ATC actives and Martin Logan electrostatics, to name just two!
 

Quadrophonic.4Ever

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Feb 22, 2024
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What no "Theophany" speakers?
One surely cannot state "the best" without trying all available, otherwise the best (you decide upon) are in fact limited by your inability to source AND TEST all speakers, sourced from "everywhere around the world", not just from within your own country, or even from within your closest city.
One must test ALL, from any country world wide.
So?
What about New Zealand's Theophany Speakers?
I'm sure Garth would love to explain all he knows, about the speakers he designed.

I know his speakers, as I went there one time, to showcase my surround sound system, such that I wasn't at all impressed that he didn't let me try his speakers.

Instead "insisting" that I set up (whatever I had brought with me), in a small OUTSIDE grassed area, underneath some trees, between a couple of corrugated iron sheds - which did absolutely NOTHING to enhance the way my total "surround" sound system, was heard as.
Unlike his own "inside the house" set-up, which was in a dedicated sound "player" room, where he INSISTED that I sit in a "precisely-in-the-center" master listening position.

Thus:
He listened to mine, (in an off-hand walking around method, outside (between a couple of tin sheds, under the trees), whilst he tried to tell me HIS system was way better, in a dedicated sound-proofed room, with several frequency split multiple speaker "channels" , containing a lot more speakers, than the miserable (cheap) small box speakers I had brought with me, (as a backup in case I wasn't allowed to, or couldn't be supplied with enough, of anyone else's speakers).

Hence why, after being TOLD to sit in one place and admire the "best position" to hear a movie he played (on a huge TV), I deliberately got up and (having asked him to keep it playing, as he stopped it as soon as I stood up) I deliberately walked around his (demo) room, as well as into various corner areas, and out the back towards his kitchen/lounge areas, to "hear" the various nodes and dead listening areas, all the while turning towards him and commenting on the different "sweet spots" that were or WERE NOT in that environment, until I found the one position where the sound actually self-cancelled itself out, with almost no sound at all.

THAT was when I said, well - your system doesn't sound as good as the cheap speakers I used OUTSIDE, when standing here, pointing down to my feet (in the archway between the demo room and his kitchen).

I was ushered out into his speaker "parts" room (behind his outside workshop shed) to be shown some new unboxed speakers, that he took one of, and with absolute carelessness, hooked some test wires onto it's exposed back "terminals" to play some TEST tones through, which sounded absolutely horrendous, as if a burnt out coil was "rubbing" on it's magnetic core, whereupon he got one of his elder sons, to swap the test tone frequency (in a different room area, out of my sight) and then changed the polarity of his "test leads", to again play the same (or similar) test tones, far clearer and louder, after which he tried to tell me that the PHASING was all that much better with the system polarised correctly, however being an Industrial Electrician, I told him, that simply reversing the terminals does absolutely nothing, to a speakers actual sound, as the speaker gets an alternating current, (of several different frequencies with differently played TONES - which reverses the "played" frequency polarities way faster than a person can flip a switch, on each and every sinusoidal waveform's highest & lowest peaks, even if a single tone is generated to run a test, not like the "music" which he was using, which already had a LOT of different frequencies within it, all peaking at different rates, thus pushing and pulling that non-mounted speaker in every direction since Sunday.

Thus, I (an outsider with good spacial awareness to the sound made by various electrical pulses), told him, that his so-called reasoning between my outdoor cheap speaker boxes, and this open backed non-mounted speaker, were idiotic to compare, given that the speaker he "held" in his hand couldn't be described as better, given the way he was holding it.
Up and closer to me in the second playing.

I told him, that even if it had been "clamped" in a set position, without any box to hold it's back-pressures within, it's diaphragm would still over extend on each available maximum equated peaks, given the different numbers of cycles each frequency used, during his so-called tests, where I couldn't see what was being played, or whether or not any bass, treble or volume settings had been altered.

As the test equipment was in another room of his workshop, out of sight from where he was holding his single speaker, with me being placed even further away from the other room.

He was actually slightly angry, that I pipped his arrogance, as I am sure he had assumed I wouldn't know the test settings had been changed, to back his claim that a speaker's polarity made any difference, or that his obviously way more expensive speaker/s were of a different class, to the cheap speakers I had used.

Thus, I am not convinced, that your "own" suggestions of better or best speakers are the actual best.

My responce is this.
To your own article of:
"""Your curated list of the very best stereo speakers you can buy for your money"""
As regarding your article on the main What Hi*Fi website, on:
Whatever you budget and requirements, these are the best speakers you can buy.

re:
{quote]
Dec 19, 2019

Best speakers 2024​

{unquote]

???
Did you (at any time) use an SPL meter, placed 1M from each tested speaker, to get a genuine comparison of perfection, before making the claim of "best" anything.?
 
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Quadrophonic.4Ever

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Feb 22, 2024
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The 126.3dB "tested SPL result" (2003 NZ National Sound-offs) - obtained from WITHIN MY VAN (fitted with the cheapest "ad-hoc" speakers) using a 7.3+1 surround sound system that I invented back in 1965, and which I had hand-built myself, into my 1996 Mitsubishi Delica 4wd 7 seater van, with (at that time) the rearmost 3 seat bench unit had been removed, whilst I had the rear hatch OPENED UP, and the two front doors "open" and all windows also open.

Just because I wanted everyone in the park at that year's Blossom Festival, to hear the quality of sound, rather than a simple BASS loudness.

I was told to close all my windows and doors, for the second run, which I did WITHOUT the four sub & sub/subwoofers running, to ensure that neither my closed windows nor my windscreen would crack with any extension pressure thus created, and that I wouldn't have to "high output my Bass speakers," letting just the main channel speakers and the tweeters, to RUN HIGH and without any of the Neon and fluorescent lights operating, which resulted in a crispier higher tone sound, and a DROP of just 0.3 Db at 123.0 Db.

I had been laughed at, by almost all contestants there, when trying to get my van "included" in the sound-off contest, but most of the jaws that had been flapping with SMART comments beforehand, (about the motley collection of old 2nd-hand speakers in the van) stopped making derogatory noises afterwards.

I placed third overall.

Not bad for an OLD DAD.
 

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The 126.3dB "tested SPL result" (2003 NZ National Sound-offs) - obtained from WITHIN MY VAN (fitted with the cheapest "ad-hoc" speakers) using a 7.3+1 surround sound system that I invented back in 1965, and which I had hand-built myself, into my 1996 Mitsubishi Delica 4wd 7 seater van, with (at that time) the rearmost 3 seat bench unit had been removed, whilst I had the rear hatch OPENED UP, and the two front doors "open" and all windows also open.

Just because I wanted everyone in the park at that year's Blossom Festival, to hear the quality of sound, rather than a simple BASS loudness.

I was told to close all my windows and doors, for the second run, which I did WITHOUT the four sub & sub/subwoofers running, to ensure that neither my closed windows nor my windscreen would crack with any extension pressure thus created, and that I wouldn't have to "high output my Bass speakers," letting just the main channel speakers and the tweeters, to RUN HIGH and without any of the Neon and fluorescent lights operating, which resulted in a crispier higher tone sound, and a DROP of just 0.3 Db at 123.0 Db.

I had been laughed at, by almost all contestants there, when trying to get my van "included" in the sound-off contest, but most of the jaws that had been flapping with SMART comments beforehand, (about the motley collection of old 2nd-hand speakers in the van) stopped making derogatory noises afterwards.

I placed third overall.

Not bad for an OLD DAD.
Your exploits with deafening noise in a van over 20 years ago definitely qualifies for the most off-topic post of 2024!
 
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Rui

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In mym opinion of all showed i would keep the Q acoustic 5040, if forced to choose other the ELAC or Wharfedale, is this what is best today?
 

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