Speaker Recommendation up to 70k

The best speakers I've heard of were a set of Magico M5 MkII running on CAT amps/pre.    

They are indeed great , however, a new series or generation of S might be announced next year and I can't risk buying a speaker at its end of life. 

Would be in the shortlist otherwise. 

Vandersteen speakers are worth a listen, 

Thank you, it will be a blind purchase. I can't "listen" until they are setup in the room and since it's international shipping, there is no trial or return. 

Stenheim Alumine 3 gets raves, and apparently do well in mid-size rooms.
https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/stenheim-alumine-three-loudspeaker

The Vandersteen Kento and Seven intrigue me, but I’m a Vandy guy (I’ve heard the Quatro CT, and the Kento and 7 are more of that same goodness).

https://www.stereophile.com/content/vandersteen-model-seven-mkii-loudspeaker-m7-hpa-monoblock-power-...
The Zellaton Stage is said to be amazing, but maybe over your price range?

Do you live in US or Europe/OCONUS? If I lived in Europe, I’d probably get EU made speakers like Stenheim or other.

A friend auditioned the Wilson Sasha DAW before he decided on Vandy Quatro CTs, but he likes the DAW.

Good luck... sounds fun!

I have the Vandersteen 7 mk2 and matching Hybrid Tube / SS power amps as displayed Munich show. Helmut Brinkmann has them both. There is improved version out now, XTRM. Active sub / amp built in, easy to optimize in any room. Pick your paint color and go.

Best to you on your search. Enjoy the music.

which I can't disclose

And yet people kept reading.

Is it just me or is anyone else having difficulty with the concept of laying out $70K on a pair of speakers based on the suggestions of anonymous participants in an online forum? 

Blasphemy from a Vandersteen lover, but have you considered MBL?
They are in Germany, so no overseas travel.
Bob

Depends on what you are looking for in terms of sound profile.  My preferences in this price range are:

Vivid Giya G2s.  Amazing speaker that sounds BIG.  These are transmission line speakers where all of the drivers are made from the same material.  Incredible similarly of tone and not metallic sounding despite the metal drivers.  Vivid has a somewhat brighter tonal profile and is best paired with neutral to slightly warm amplification. 

Wilson Benesch Resolutions - I have a customer who has these.  They are phenomenal speakers.  Incredible coherence in terms of timing.  Amazing accuracy and a monstrous soundstage.  He stepped up from Harbeth 40.2s to these and said they are better in every way except bass is less pronounced.  WB is neutral and needs neutral to slightly bright amplification

Raidho TD 3.2s I think will come in at that price point.  One of the historic critcisms of Raidhos (and now Borresons) is that they are hard to place.   And they take 500 hours to break in.  Since Michael left, Benno has worked to make the speakers easier to live with.  They are brilliant and deliver an immersive listening experience rather than the sound being presented to you.  They do tend to be neutral to a hair warm of neutral.  

Your list above has speakers with wildly different sound profiles.  I can only say I would never use the same amplification for Stenheim and Marten for example.  

Without a description of the soundprofile of the gear, at least warm vs neutral vs. forward, it is tough to make a tight suggestion or warn you off of any products.  

This sounds like a real high priced crapshoot, especially without specifying the electronics. 

The Tidals can sound mesmerizing setup properly with the right gear. I would bet on them over Wilson in most rigs. Honestly, at these prices I would be looking at the Vandys or Rockports. 

Perhaps your best path would be talking with someone like highendbroker and confirming you can trade back for credit less a restocking fee if plan A doesn't work out. Cheers,
Spencer

They need a lot of power, but MBL are unique and amazing.
The most real sounding speakers I ever heard are Rockport.

@emerald --

I would go a bit differently here than the direction I assume you’d prefer; if "workman" or industrial looks doesn’t bother you too much, and you can rid (that is: relieve) yourself of any want to "experiment" ad nauseam with amps and expensive cables, I’d choose a pair of actively driven ATC SCM300 ASL Pro:

http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/professional/loudspeakers/scm300asl-pro/

These are great speakers by any measure and will go up against most anything out there, period. No - and let this be said once and for all: you don’t need a huge sized listening room to make these sing. I’ve heard them in moderately sized spaces, and they sang wonderfully - in the lower octaves as well.

One of the best midranges ever build, twin 15" per side for authentic LF to lower mids, ATC’s recent and self-developed (like the rest of their drivers) 34mm tweeter, and not least active configuration all superbly implemented into a sonically coherent whole. This is a proven design for years in the pro field, build like a tank to last many years - even driven hard and continuously.

Don’t bother their pro origins as anything that’s claimed to fall back negatively on their sound in a domestic environment. That’s just B.S. Anyone with a pair of functioning ears and a minimum ability to openly and honestly assess sound quality will acknowledge the serious merits of these active speakers.

Forego any fancy, finish luxuriating and overly expensive passive "high-end" speakers, and step off the merry-go-round with a sensible, active solution like the above. That’s my advice.

Be prepared to make adjustments, regardless of speakers chosen. You are seeking speaker following all the rest of the system. That is not ideal, but it is part of the audiophile experience eventually. Do not hold your hopes up so high that if it's not sensational, you will be disappointed. I could make a system with shortcomings with any of these, or a seemingly flawless system, if I had control of the components and cables selected. But, when given one set of gear preselected, there is no telling which outcome would transpire for any of these transducers.  No one here can answer your question, and if anyone claims to, I would not heed their opinion.   :(

A bit more information such as what speakers you have owned, or currently are using, as well as your preferences in sonic attributes, would assist the community in making recommendations.  

well money is relative, $70k is not a lot of money to some people and to others it is unattainable. 
Anyway people really need to know amp your using. Can it handle a low impedance hard to drive speaker?

I am very familiar with a pair of TAD Reference One running on Vitus Audio solid state amplification and to me they are by far the best speaker that I have heard. I have been fortunate enough to have listened to speakers that are well into the six figure range and the only other thing that comes close to the TADs is the Vandersteen Sevens (heard on tube, could be an even closer match up on solid state).

I think either represents good value in that upper stratosphere but the TAD is my winner between the two.

Bob - My second choice are actually the MBL, but they require a timeshare on a small hydroelectric dam and the right room..

The highend broker is excellent advice…..

When you say a Swiss front end, do you mean it sounds neutral?

Good value in the stratosphere…love it !

I shall mention that to the better half…

Just imagine… 

MBL 111 D a classic Omni directional speaker.
YG Acoustic  
Marten Audio 
Wilson audio
Magico audio
they all have something very good to offer.

"I have purchased SOTA swiss front end which I can't disclose"    

Congratulations. That is the silliest statement I have ever read on this site.

Borresen, Vivid, Acora, Tidal

My 2 cents is that buying a sota speaker is such a personal decision, and the shopping/auditioning process is fun and really part of the journey, and an opportunity to learn and train your ear.

My advice would be to get a used speaker, perhaps locally you can use while you explore your many options, and then sell that (much less expensive speaker) when you get your (permanent?) speaker. Even a loss of a few thousand would make it easier to sell, and you could consider it a rental fee.
Once you have your temporary speaker to enjoy, I would consider traveling to some audio shows and get a sense of the sound you’re looking for, as there are so many design choices and philosophies of speaker design.

I would never want the nagging feeling of listening to my “final choice” and thinking, “what if?” I had tried XXX speaker.
To echo one of the comments above, consider listening to TAD’s. They have the ability to make even ordinary recordings sound like audiophile ones, as they reveal so much inner detail. Years ago I went to a Magico demo and was blown away on the demo material. Once they put on my requested cuts (Bill Evans, Rickie Lee Jones), the kind of recordings many of us listen to, the demo fell totally flat, with the dealer stopping one track before it was over, as it was such a poor demo. An hour later back home those same tracks sounded almost like audiophile recordings on my TAD’s.
Best of luck on your journey, and please let us know how it all works out.

i own swiss electronics; darTZeel preamp and mono blocks. i consider them SOTA. minimal parts count in the signal path, no global feedback, battery powered preamp, built like a swiss tank. i've owned darTZeel since 2004, with many other amps tried in my system over the years, but never found a reason to change.

if i was the one making such a decision, i would ask myself "do i want a hifi speaker that is a bit highlighted?" "exciting", "a specifically ’big’ sound?" or do i want something that makes me forget i’m listening to reproduced music and gets out of the way. with a more coherent and flowing sound?

honestly i don’t intimately know each model discussed here, but i think another choice would be Kharma (i owned back a couple of decades). a road less traveled. my personal choice would be Evolution Acoustics; i own MM7’s and love them. both brands have models in your price range. neither is the speaker of the week/month/year. they are keepers. if you happen to like their musical viewpoint, they keep delivering the goods. the darTZeel's demand that the speaker gets out of the way.

It's hard to believe so many people took this OP seriously.

Go with the Vandersteens Kentos  at $37k or the new 7xtrm at $84k
Great sounding speakers that get it all right  with 11 band EQ for the Bass and time alined drivers
I have Quatros 

Enjoy the Music 
Tom

"...I have purchased SOTA swiss front end which I can't disclose..."

I have the perfect solution for your problem but sorry I can't disclose it. Perhaps disclose was not the word you were looking for?

@aewarren normally I’d agree but if you look at the OP’s other posts he seems sincere and has been here for years and has owned other systems.
I could see potential reasons why someone might not want to disclose their electronics purchase at this moment (territory/dealer restrictions, etc)

Regarding Vandersteens I heard the Model 7’s when they first came out and was really impressed, but it’s a different kind of sound the balsa (I think?) drivers impart and couldn’t imagine someone buying them without hearing them.  Same with the beryllium mids/tweeters my TAD’s use.  I’ve bought under $5k speakers without hearing them, but close to a six figure pair weighting hundreds of pounds? Not me.

I'm very happy with my Focal Aria 906s, $2,000 the pair list price (I bought used). So you would love the Focal Scala Utopia EVO 3, which lists at $26,000 each.

MAGICO,VIMBERG and ROCKPORT jump on one ASAP!!

Maybe you should consider buying a $65K pair and spend 5K to visit dealers / manufacturers to listen to the selected speakers on your list?

For half your cost I'd advise looking into Arion Audio Apollo speakers, a 2 way almost full range Air Motion Transformer system line source. The Top end goes down to 125 Hz crossing over electronically to 2 to 4 subs, each with 2 10 inch drivers. The woofers are 90 dB but the tops are 106 dB so you should use big amps for the woofers but only quality is important for the rest of the range.

Estelon magico proac borreson


Warmest regards

Thank you everyone, it was night time in my region and i am amazed at how some people would rant at my wordings instead of the subject. Privacy is a gem these days. 

For those who asked about my old systems, here they are:
- Focal Scala Utopia paired with a Devialet 250 integrated amp powered by Isotek conditioner on full audioquest cabling. 
- My headphone setup was Streamer: Aurender N10, DAC/headamp: Chord Dave, Headphone: Audeze LCD-4 powered by Audioquest Tornado cables.

As modest setups as you saw above, you will understand what i am upgrading to (or maybe not?). 

The system was pre-purchased and i left speaker selection to be the last choice, i cant change what was bought or return it so there is that. 

I was not planning to share the brand of the front end because of regional dealers and some of my audiophile group are lurking here and i planned to surprise them when the room is setup. You guys jump to conclusions, maybe relax and enjoy your time reading or find your way out? 

I will provide answers since it seems necessary to find a proper match: 
- Front end is:
Streamer: Taiko SGM Extreme,
DAC/Pre: CH Precision C1 paired with X1 power supply and T1 master clock (GPS option),
Power amp: CH Precision M1.1 (Stereo),
Cables: Argento Flow (XLR, Power cords and speaker cables) + Audioquest Diamond(Ethernet, Usb and BNC 75ohm),
Power Regenerator: PS Audio PowerPlant P20. 

I listen to Classical, Jazz, Funk and a bit of millennial albums if they were well mastered. So i would go for a lively sound, accurate, fast and dynamic. Which is why i am shelling out this amount to be a complete (or 99% of it) speaker. I know there is no complete speaker, but the higher range has less cons per se. 

I got a Kef R11 as one of you mentioned as a temporary speaker. It is shy in bass surprisingly for the number of drivers. Nevertheless, you get what you pay for, and it sounds okay. 

I hope this answered what i remembered by reading all of the comments.

Sadly, you are going about this entire process in the wrong way. From the responses, you are most likely more confused than when you started.
You seem to have considerable funds to spend on this venture.  I think that if it was me in your situation, I would find one or perhaps two high end dealers in a metropolitan city like New York. Everything on your "short list" should definitely be available for audition in New York. Or perhaps you'd prefer LA. 
Get on a plane and go spend whatever time necessary to get a really good demonstration of your choices. And while you are doing so you might come across something else that sparks your interest as well.
Good Luck Just don't buy blind. And in case you haven't discovered this yourself, audio shows are possibly the worst venue to really make a final judgement about a product.

Appreciate the advise, unfortunately I am in middle east, where we just look at deserts and enjoy riding camels and horses. There is one dealer over here and he only demonstrates Sonus Faber and Wilson sub 10k range. He is not interested to bring top ranges for demonstration and it is by purchase only (non returnable) too. It is as good as a blind purchase with local dealers since they dont offer returns or trials. Same goes for cables and everything else. 

This is the worst era of audio business in our region during Covid. They got greedy because of some wealthy blind buyers who made this practice profitable for them. For me i hate to say it but i got no option but to follow a blind buy, but heck, i am not going to settle with sonus or wilson but decide after i read most of the opinions here. 

I hope you understand my position. 

@emerald 

There was a dealer in Cyprus who advertised on A'gon that sold great gear and is very close to your location. I would not be surprised if he allowed some home demos given the close proximity to you. Just search on A'gon or google.

10 pairs of Moabs?       Not.

You could travel back to civilisation for a few days and audition the contenders?  70 large is a lot to lay down on the opinion of people like me.

@clearthinker

I Wish, it would solve many things and i wouldn't have to write lengthy texts on the internet. 

Can we exclude traveling please? i'd like to hear owner's opinions of their speakers and compared to the brands i listed. if you can't, you may enjoy reading with me, there are some brilliant recommendations in here. 

Especially Zellaton, they are rare to find, let alone rare to compare with others. 

Vimburg Tonda D they please me every time I hear them
of luck

Just ordered Rockport Avior ii yesterday. The next level up Cygnus is in your price range. Good luck ! 

@emerald . Just a suggestion, if you haven’t already done so you might consider post yoingur question on What’sBestForum, there are a number of CH threads on it so you may be able to get direct feedback from members with experience with your CH pre/amps
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/search/642140/?q=ch+precision&o=relevance

I will definitely Contact jay’s audio formally known as Whitecameross 

I know it’s a tough question, speakers are very subjective like cars and food.

if it was easy then there wouldn’t be a lot of brands and paid magazines raving about their state of the art science in audio reproduction. 
I may have a PhD (joke)in reading test reports and reviews and can tell a good one from a paid advertisement. 
Already posted In whatsbestforum. Thank you again.