Which brand makes the best quality loudspeakers?

Who makes the best speakers

  • Aperion Audio

    Votes: 22 3.1%
  • Axiom Audio

    Votes: 18 2.6%
  • B&W

    Votes: 154 22.0%
  • Harman (JBL, Infinity, Revel)

    Votes: 156 22.3%
  • Klipsch

    Votes: 106 15.1%
  • Martin Logan

    Votes: 59 8.4%
  • Paradigm

    Votes: 79 11.3%
  • Polk

    Votes: 40 5.7%
  • PSB

    Votes: 24 3.4%
  • RBH Sound

    Votes: 42 6.0%

  • Total voters
    700
P

Panther71

Audiophyte
As stated above, most people are going to vote for the speakers they own as the best speakers. With that said, it is interesting that the speaker brand that won this poll, Paradigm, is the brand that I own. I have been a huge Paradigm fan for over 20 years. Unfortunately, the local retailer that sold Paradigms had to close a few months ago.
 
Zer0K3wL

Zer0K3wL

Junior Audioholic
i like jamo because off the looks and great sound quality for budget speakers :p
 
Hookedonc4

Hookedonc4

Audioholic
Loudspeakers

I just bought some James loudspeakers and they sound great...
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
I just bought some James loudspeakers and they sound great...
I've been very impressed with their speakers at CEDIA/CES demos. I need to contact them to arrange a review. Good company!
 
Bachtoven

Bachtoven

Enthusiast
I've owned ESS, AR, Magnepan, Acoustat, Quad, B&W, and Martin Logan: for me, the best sounding is Martin Logan. I recently bought a pair of ML Theos and love them. It's hard to achieve the clarity and transparency of an electrostat in a box speaker!
 
M

Missionman

Junior Audioholic
personally, id have to go with B&W,,,

Out of my own opinion, and the setups in my past, B&W have always been outstanding quality.. I would have a set of nice cherry flavoured Tall stand B&W's over my Mission 753's anyday.. sadly my wallet says no!!! :mad:

I have not got a bias opinion here, along with my personal opinion, i cannot say ive heard some of those branded speakers in the poll. so B&W it just had to be..

Build quality, Very good.. I cannot fault them...
 
T

Tin Ear

Junior Audioholic
I've owned ESS, AR, Magnepan, Acoustat, Quad, B&W, and Martin Logan: for me, the best sounding is Martin Logan. I recently bought a pair of ML Theos and love them. It's hard to achieve the clarity and transparency of an electrostat in a box speaker!
Agreed and voted same. I think the older larger ones are of superb quality and was disappointed when they began to offer conventional speakers. I still think they have a unique product today in their electrostatic lines. Nothing else sounds or looks like them.
 
whasaaaab

whasaaaab

Junior Audioholic
"I've owned ESS, AR, Magnepan, Acoustat, Quad, B&W, and Martin Logan: for me, the best sounding is Martin Logan. I recently bought a pair of ML Theos and love them. It's hard to achieve the clarity and transparency of an electrostat in a box speaker!"

I was at the TAves show for 2 days and some of the speakers mentioned here were so good and detailed> If i was just into two channel audio i would have left even more confused what to buy.

Quad wow so detail and opened, martin logan, magnepan and some I will put the speakers i listed to here later but wow is all i can say, problem was the majority of the speakers that sounded amazing costed minimum $30K and up so you had to look at the lower emodels of you wanted that brand.

Their were some surprsing speakers too more to come later
 
Pete6737

Pete6737

Enthusiast
I've got my eyes on the new Bryston speakers making their debut this month.
 
whasaaaab

whasaaaab

Junior Audioholic
I've got my eyes on the new Bryston speakers making their debut this month.
here are some pics of te brochure they gave out at the taves show, before anyone asks I did try to scan them but the file was too big to upload even the guy from sterophile said it was very good and it surprised him how good, there are measurements [please please explain how good or bad they are.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/taves-day-1

1. Passive 3-way with internal crossover $6495

2. Passive 3-way with external crossover $7495

3. Active 3-way with external Bryston DSP Electronic crossover $9495
 
Last edited:
walter duque

walter duque

Audioholic Samurai
I am going to check these GT Audio Works - Products out in the next week or two. For the price with dual subs they might be a winner. Who knows, the price seems to be right. I just like hand made in US.
 
whasaaaab

whasaaaab

Junior Audioholic
Anybody with comments on he new model T from bryston? measurements are there. these sounded amazing i thought een better than the new paradigm speakers but as i said rooms also could haveplayed a part.

Thes are loud, clear, crisp etc.. I willd definitly audition them with my own music and movies

I also heard all these speakers in the links below

http://www.stereophile.com/content/taves-day-2
http://www.stereophile.com/content/taves-day-2-part-2
http://www.stereophile.com/content/taves-day-3

plus many more again for an audiophile with deep pockets your choices are really hard, but for us poor folk lol a bit easier
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
thats the rest of the brochure these speakers were the bigget suprise for me at the show i could not imagine they would sound so good compared to a lot of other higher prices ones
Nice upgrades in the mids and woofers compared to stock Axiom drivers but it seems they are using the same titanium tweeters. Looking forward to hearing peoples impressions and hopefully seeing 3rd party measurements.
 
MinusTheBear

MinusTheBear

Audioholic Ninja
Nice upgrades in the mids and woofers compared to stock Axiom drivers but it seems they are using the same titanium tweeters. Looking forward to hearing peoples impressions and hopefully seeing 3rd party measurements.
Would that driver technology be similar to what Harman uses on the Infinity Primus line? This would seem to be a step up from standard aluminum drivers in terms of controlling cone resonance.

I also like the aesthetics of the black drivers much better.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I am going to check these GT Audio Works - Products out in the next week or two. For the price with dual subs they might be a winner. Who knows, the price seems to be right. I just like hand made in US.
I don't know about an 8" sub for each speaker (dual 8" subs).

I think dual 15" or 18" subs would be cooler.

Or how about shaving the overall cost and letting the buyer buy his own dual subs?:D
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
Would that driver technology be similar to what Harman uses on the Infinity Primus line? This would seem to be a step up from standard aluminum drivers in terms of controlling cone resonance.

I also like the aesthetics of the black drivers much better.
It seems they upgraded cone tech and also put much more powerful motors and higher power handling coils. At this price I was kinda hoping for a higher grade tweeter and one that has higher power handling and lower Fs so they could eliminate the need for two. but, it seems these speakers have high end aspirations that is commensurate with their asking price.

I'm curious if the mids have a HPF on them which IMO is essential in a 3-way system for accurate midrange reproduction to eliminate low frequency modulation distortion (something that doesn't show up in a simplistic distortion sweep). Looking forward to learning more about them as time goes on.
 
whasaaaab

whasaaaab

Junior Audioholic
Nice upgrades in the mids and woofers compared to stock Axiom drivers but it seems they are using the same titanium tweeters. Looking forward to hearing peoples impressions and hopefully seeing 3rd party measurements.
There passive speakers were really good, but their top of the line one was amazing, They are Tri Wired into a crossover amp which you need to buy in order to buy th etop of the line active model t.

The sound and performance is even better then the other 2 models, it still stands out to me with th elikes of kef blade, that i heard, wilson sofias,again it was better than the new aniversay edition ones.

If you want bass those speakers give you bass nice low end, i will listen to them again soon, maybe a different room they will sound different. They are one of the speakers that when i went home never left my thoughts

The tweeters the guy said were different than the ones axiom uses, the sound was nice
 
gtpsuper24

gtpsuper24

Full Audioholic
Looks like they might be doing a high end copy of Axiom's current lineup (towers/center). M80 and VP180, just custom drivers and enclosures. I just can't stand dual tweeters, especially in a center channel. The 8" woofers used in the Brystons are based on the Axiom EP400 subwoofer driver. I would have liked to seen truncated tweeters to get them as close together as they can. I also think they should have used a MTTM WWW for the tower instead of TTMMWWW. I can't understand at the price they are going for they should have been able to find a high powered single tweeter, unless they don't care and want the wow factor.


Bryston subwoofer model is triple 8" drivers, 3 way monitor 8", 5.25" and tweeter, and of course the center is same as tower just all scrambled around.
 

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