Highest Quality Sound You Have Herd?

[Ice Rich]

Hello,

Whats the highest quality sound you have herd. If its from speakers please state which make/model and the sample it was playing

Rich

 

[Thunder]

TagMclaren demo room at the TMA building;
DVD32R, AV32RDP, 250x3, 100x4, TMA F1 fronts, F1 centre, 4xTMA calliope with bass modules for surrounds/surround backs, M&K MX5000 sub.

 

[Mr Cat]

best speakers I've herd..?

has to be my Kefs - they really make the sound mooooove...

 

[Gordon @ Convergent AV]

CD12/LINN LP12 ekos/arkiv/lingo, (LP12 pixie dust special with bits that never went in to production), Bonnec Timpano pre-amp and 4 x Bonnec Alto power amps fitted with Bonnec aktiv modules for Linn Keltik loudspeakers. Keltiks modded with newer treble units and bass units sealed in place.

Played any music well. Former bosses system.

 

[GW43]

I was visiting Linn in Glasgow a few years ago, and my contact there told me the kit in the reception area was £48,000 worth of CD player and amps, and the speakers were the size of fridges - didn't get the name of them.

The downside was they were playing a Phil Collins CD!

 

[harv]

Hifi show wise... Krell demo with LAT-1 surround system and huge sub. terminator 2 demo.

at someones house, Revel salon speakers, mark levinson 335, audiomeca transport and dac, sounded lovely, very musical and detailed. Was very jealous...listened to all sorts of bits and pieces. Red snapper was ace but a live ver. of hotel California... you could pick out indivual people clapping and cheering without it being bright

 

[Squid Doctor]

The classical section of my local CD store has a pair of ProAc Response 100's connected to a big fat pass labs amp. The sound is gorgeous, even in the less than ideal environment.
Last time I was there they were playing Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna", it was truly awesome.

 

[Ed Selley]

Sonus Faber Stradivari with an Avid turntable and Graaf valve amps at Munich '05. Should have been warm and cuddly but instead was the most enthralling, detailed and real sound I've ever heard. The chap played Nina Simone's Mr Bojangles and then Blondie's Union City Blue- a fair contrast but it excelled at both.

Just as well I wasn't holding the deeds to my house......

 

[Knightshade]

At someones house, Revel salon speakers, mark levinson 335, audiomeca transport and dac, sounded lovely, very musical and detailed. Was very jealous...listened to all sorts of bits and pieces. Red snapper was ace but a live ver. of hotel California... you could pick out indivual people clapping and cheering without it being bright

The Salons are nice speakers, too much for my room, but they do sound great.
Best system? Not much between the real high end kit for me. It really is personal choice. Personally i've never heard anything better (to my ears) than a high end Linn system. They always sound poor in demo rooms though.....
A friend has a lot of high end Naim on some custom built concrete speakers which sound rather nice. Female vocals do sound very sweet.

 

[Daneel]

Neat Ultimatum MFS playing Katie Melua - Belfast

 

[Loner]

B&W 802D's...............talk about great sound! Didn't matter what genre they were playing......my jaw was still on the ground

 

[klr10]

Meridian 5.1 system in a Home Cinema in Guernsey, don't know the model numbers, but had the D/A converters and amps in each speaker. Blew me away!!

 

[Crisp_Rapper]

i've not done much 'research' but i've been utterly astounded by how amazingly simple B&O's Lab 5 speakers are to set up (3 cables, automatically adjust to room acoustics, 180 degree tweeter fire) and just how fantastic the sound is from them considering their size...

i'm sure there's better but for a complete package (looks/performance) not much gets near them.

 

[dood]

I'm afraid the best sound I've heard was not from speakers but from a live orchestra. No speakers will reproduce the sound of a full orchestra, especially the big bass drums.

The best sound from hifi was a friend's setup about 12 years ago, can't remember all the details but it included Linn turntable with phono pre-amp, Wadia CD player, audio research pre-amp, Krell power amp, soundlab (I think) speakers (huge electrostatics). Worked great with opera and cowboys and junkies etc. Cables were more than an inch in diameter.

 

[Beobloke]

Meridian DSP8000 speakers at front and centre; DSP5500 speakers at side and rear; Meridian 800 Reference DVD player, Meridian Reference 861 surround sound controller.

All playing a special 7.1 remix of "Smoke on the Water" to show off the (then new) MLP technology.

I may have dribbled slightly..................

 

[MrScruff]

I have never found a perfect system as some music sounds better on some amps than others but in general.

Piano on a Merantz PM48 with Tannoy M2 speekers and any source.
Bass guitar on any NAD amp with TDL3 speekers and good source.

 

[alexs2]

Best ever...bit of a difficult choice....

I really enjoyed the Wilson Speakers from the Watt/Puppy right up to the current equivalents,powered by Krell or Levinson amps and from yrs ago the Apogee Scintillas also driven by Krells(which were about the only things that could).

More recently,at the Emporium,a beautiful system consisting of a Shanling CDT-300 and OriginLive Sovereign,plus Viva Preamp and 845 power amps,and a set of speakers by a small US company,Wisdom Audio.....quite honestly the most relaxing sound I've heard in ages.

I also rather liked the Krell/Linn Keltik active system I had until we moved house!

Unfortunately the fist 2 systems amounted to about £40-50k each,and only served to make me envious....

 

[dartagnain]

the best i've ever heard was a few years back at an audio show in lisbon, unfortunately I don't remember the model of the speakers and amp. it was a pair of huge Avalon speakers and conrad johnson amps. i think that was when i got Hifi itch

 

[alexs2]

the best i've ever heard was a few years back at an audio show in lisbon, unfortunately I don't remember the model of the speakers and amp. it was a pair of huge Avalon speakers and conrad johnson amps. i think that was when i got Hifi itch

All of the Avalons are beautiful,and reminiscent in many ways of the Wilsons,with amazing build quality and looks,plus sound,but like all of those,you need equally good amplification to get anywhere near the best out of them,but C-J are well up to that,esp their tubed preamps.

 

[Figment]

Meridian DSP8000 for me they are game over.

 

[guli]

Has to be the Wilson Audio Grand Slamms powered by Krell monoblocks...

 

[99Flake]

Wilson Benesch ACT 2 speakers, Linn Ikemi CD player and Quad 306 amplification. Amp could do with replacing to be honest but it still sounds mind blowing. Haven't heard many other high end systems apart from anything demo'd before choosing these speakers/cd player. Therefore they can't have sounded as good to my ears.

 

[Pat Marcus]

Another fan of meridian DSP8ks, here but I also adore the B&W D series (see sig) especially the 800Ds which are way outside my price range. The Utopia BE range by Focal JMLab are wonderful, too, as are the Wilsons, mentioned elsewhere.

 

[Ian J]

The Utopia BE range by Focal JMLab are wonderful, too, as are the Wilsons, mentioned elsewhere.

We heard the Focal Utopia BE 100O at Bristol this year and they sounded good but not in the same league as the Wilson Benesch Arcs which are probably in the same price bracket

 

[Abootnoo]

Apogee Scintilla speakers driven by Krell KMA400 mono's. Preamp was an Audio Research SP15 Mk2 I think, and source was a Goldmund Reference / Koetsu Rosewood.

The astute out there will have guessed that this was at the Heathrow Penta show late-80's.