The best speaker you ever heard?

While the 1A, with the outboard crossovers, may be better still, the 1B is as good as I've personally heard. There may be speakers that do this or that a wee bit better, but the Kharma bests them all by being *consistent*. It excels at everything, fails at nothing.

Probably the Von Schweikert VR-11 or VR-9 (I own the VR-9). The VR-11s have the slight edge in scale and ease of presentation, by virtue of their much bigger size, but they need a lot of space to really sound their best. The 9s, though, were better in imaging, intimacy, and overall user friendliness and flexibility. Either way, the two are the best speakers I've ever heard, and I've owned the Kharma Midi Exquisites and heard many more elite speakers, including the Alon Exotica Grand Reference, Kharma Exquisite 1Ds, and various Avalons. They VSAs just don't exhibit any real weaknesses.