The best speaker you ever heard?

Swans 2.2 Ultra High-end Loudspeaker System without a doubt. My previous favorites were the Montana's...
The Swans 2.2 won all of the speaker awards at the 2003 CES show 2 weeks ago and every dealer, manufacturer or rep in the industry I spoke to at the Swan's booth agreed that they were by far the best sound they ever heard.
Of course!!! 16x2 midrange ribbon drivers, 32x2 ribbon tweeters and 4x2 8"woofers were a wall (or should I say 2 walls!) of the most exquisite sound for $68,000 a pair!

Linkwitz dipoles: Pheonix
http://www.linkwitzlab.com

Check this web site for the CES awards. All of the cream of the cream were there and this company got the award as the best sound and engineering. http://www.techtv.com/news/ces2003/story/0,24195,3413910,00.html

Though I haven't heard most of the above listed
speakers, based on what I have heard, my choice would
be Silverline Audio Sonata's.
I would dispute your thesis being that your speaker
selection is the most important component of your system.
I submit that a system with good speakers and a killer
source would sound better than a good source with killer speakers.

Quad 988 for $6K retail. Out of the 20 speakers Ive auditioned, utterly involving. Like live acoustic music. Need a sub woof. And romor had it not for punchy rock and roll.