best speakers for vocals?

I would have three personal favorites within your budget/listening preference parameters. One's just out, one is tried and true, and one is venerated vintage. Each different from the others in physical size and system requirements, but all with one thing in common: they're electrostats.

Tboooe, check out the new ML Summits. Modest in size with unbelievable bass system. The first ML hybrid stat w/ its own sub amp, so you can drive the panel w/ a tube amp as it should be. 10K new or $7.5K used. What more could you ask? Lots of good reviews on the Gon now.

I still believe electrostats are (or a qualified "can be") the most accurate sound reproducer -- with some of the best horns, domes, and air-motion devices coming very close.

The 'qualification' with respect to 'stats', is they MUST be driven with a tube amplifier in order for them to deliver a 'complete' signal. One whose weak and tiny (but very necessary) nuances have not been lost in the "cracks" of a typical (solid state) push-pull amplification circuit.

Electrostatics are SO articulate/accurate/analytical/revealing (or whatever adjective you want to use) that when driven by (except the very best) solid state amps, they render EXACTLY what they receive from a solid state gain stage: an audio signal with a few "missing parts", including much of the low-level 'micro detail' which is responsible for harmonics, timbre, and overtones -- the stuff that makes reproduced sound believable to our brains; and which combine as sound waves in air to help create the audio 'hologram' we call 'soundstage'.

Even though it's a little off-topic here, I feel I should explain WHY (very genrally speaking ;~) tubes seem to be better than transistors at 'preserving' an audio signal: it is in fact because of a tube's SHORTCOMING as an 'electrical valve' - it is slow to turn on and off (like a light bulb.) And so there is some 'overlap' as one tube (of a pair) hands the signal off to the other tube. Transistors by contrast, are extremely high-speed devices which turn on and off instantaneously -- and if a pair of gain stage transistors are not PERFECTLY (and laboriously) matched, there will be a little time 'gap' as one hands off the signal to the other, where some subtle parts of the signal will be lost.

Unfortunately, many audiophiles believe that electrostatic speakers require gobs of current (NOT) and so drive them with huge solid state amplifiers. Thus missing out on the enormous pleasure their electrostatic speakers could provide! They need only stop and remember that the amazing Quad 57 was, from the very beginning, driven with a low-powered tube amps. Later on, no solid state amp has ever been able to improve their amazing ability to reproduce the human voice.

Thanks for your kind indulgence ;~)
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