Most "Accurate/Realistic" Sounding Speakers?

It's a complicated question as folks here clearly already know.
Depends on what you are trying to reproduce as well - voices?  A big band?  A whole symphony?  A rock band?

I've always been fascinated by the whole real vs reproduced question so
for many years I even went to the lengths of recording sounds I'm familiar with (I work in film sound) which I would play back through systems.  For instance I recorded my acoustic guitar, my son playing sax, my family's voices, other acoustic sounds, etc.  Then when I had a speaker in my house I could directly compare the playback of the sound to the real thing.  It was always illuminating.  Usually those speakers whose "voice" sounded "right" to me in the store or wherever I first heard them, were the ones that passed this test best.

Of all the speakers I tested I'd say the most astonishingly life like (within their frequency range) has been the MBL speakers.  I'd had some startling experiences with the 101Ds and Es before - when set up well not only did they manage to produce the most individualized and authentic range of instrumental timbre I've heard, but also the most realistic presence (in terms of bringing objects to life dimensionally and dynamically).

These impressions continued when I managed to buy a pair of the smaller MBL 121 omni-directional monitors.  Playing my recordings through those things can be disarmingly realistic.  And when I do the "from the other room" test, for instance play the recording of me practicing my guitar, or my son practicing sax, it simply sounds like someone in there playing an instrument.  I would not know it wasn't my son in there playing saxophone if you didn't tell me, and in fact I've fooled a few people doing this.

Just a couple weeks ago I played some cuts from Requium For A Pink Moon - Nick Drake music done in an Elizabethan style.  This has some of the most natural voice recording you'll find:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/requiem-for-a-pink-moon-an-elizabethan-tribute-to-nick-drake-mw0002357...

Played through the MBLs, they recreate the sense of 3 dimensional space, a 3 dimensional performer, with just the right richness, timbre and organic quality, that, when I close my eyes, makes it almost effortless to think I'm at the live performance.  

My Thiel 3.7s do spectacularly well with this recording as well, though edged out by the MBLs.

But of course when we start talking of larger demands, we need much more fire-power.  I'd think a proper horn set up (lots of them and big) could come closest to reproducing a full orchestra or big band blasting away. 

Though, I highly doubt that same system would reproduce voices.  They may produce vocals with presence and clarity, but that's not the same as "how voices sound in real life, when someone real is in front of you." And thus far the omnis and certain cone speakers do it best I've heard.
(Electrostatics, like the quad ESL 63s I owned, and the 57s which I love even more, do the startling clarity thing, and get close, but lack that last bit of roundness, thereness and body to vocals to cross that barrier to 'real.').

That's my take, anyway.

And of course there is the age old audiophile question of whether we want realism in terms of "they are here" or "I am there."  That is, either the sense of musicians having been transported into our room, or our having been transported to the acoustic event, even artificial ones. 

I've had speakers that lean either way, and in fact I'm comparing two speakers right now where one brings musicians into the room and in that sense sounds "more real," the other turns my room into whatever sonic event is depicted.

I'm a fan of Robert E Green's writing.   That said,   I don't know that I've noticed the floor standing "dip" phenomenon he mentions, at least insofar as being more common than among monitor speakers (i.e. I hear dips and colorations in both types of speakers).

I know that Mr. Green has long extolled the truthfulness of Harbeth speakers.   I briefly owned the very well regarded Harbeth Super HL5plus speakers, on approved-height stands, in an acoustically excellent room.
They were really wonderful in some ways (vocals!) but I found my Thiel 3.7s beat them handily in just about every area I could think of, even in terms of the Thiels midrange sounding more substantial and believable.

So at least in my case, anecdotally, the BBC type monitor did not display the purported superiority over a larger floor stander.

sunnyjim,

I understand your perspective. I seem to remember feeling similarly when I heard the 1.6. It lost too much of the warmth range.

The 3.7s are both super smooth (not peaky or hashy), and I combined them with Conrad Johnson amps, in a nice sounding room. My audio-reviewer pal who said Thiels at audio shows had previously made him want to run shrieking from the room, did a 180 once he heard them in my set up. I have tinnitus and bright or peaky sound bugs my ears way before they bother most people, and the 3.7s in my set up are the smoothest, least fatiguing speaker I’ve ever owned.

And fully fleshed out in the midrange.

So what I heard with the Harbeths was a very clear, well controlled sound, with that Harbeth lushness in the midrage for vocals and other instruments that reside there. Beautifully balanced speakers. But perhaps because of the "lively cabinet" design philosophy they never quite disappeared sonically. When I played the same tracks on the Thiels it was amazing how, even being far bigger speakers, they utterly "disappeared" sonically in a way the Harbeths never did. Everything cleared up around instruments, and the sound was simultaneously as detailed or more detailed, yet more solid and "there," while, amazingly, also sounding more relaxed and organic in rendering detail They just seemed to do what speaker designers always seem aiming to attempt: sounded more "real" in all the right ways to my ears.

The Harbeths did have a certain "rounded, fleshy" character with vocals that I haven’t quite heard from other speakers, though.

erik,

2 - Imaging. I challenge everyone to go to a live acoustic event and close their eyes and listen. Compare to home. The truth is most real life venues imaging is not that specific. Listen to a street busker even. Close your eyes and compare. IMHO, "hyper imaging" is not at all realistic and a deliberate artifact of speaker tuning.

I accept the challenge :-)

I hear the "live music doesn’t really image" claim so often and I don’t agree. I’ve always been in the habit, especially when listening to acoustic sources, of closing my eyes when listening.

I’ve tended to prefer closer seats at the symphony and when I close my eyes and find the "imaging" fantastic. I could easily point to whatever instrument is playing, as it occupies a dense easily identified space in the soundfield. (If someone is used to sitting at the back of the hall, this will be less the case, but even from the back when I do this I get pretty good imaging with eyes closed). This is also the case whether I’m listening to smaller jazz ensembles, or even if I come upon people performing on the street. I close my eyes and the sonic images are like the best imaging I’ve ever heard.

That is one of the reason I enjoy a speaker that images precisely. Because when that happens all the sound energy is condensed such that the "force" of the sound seems to be coming from the specific instrument, more like a real source I hear in life, rather than being distributed in some vague, swimmy manner. (Though imaging isn’t my number one concern - timbral beauty being first, dynamics etc being important...if those aren’t there I don’t care at all how a speaker images).