The best speaker you ever heard?

There really is no best speaker to list. Each one has their strong points & their weakness. Personally I think the Magnepan speaker is one of the best around for musicality & to really hear the performance from either a CD or record the way it was recorded. Close your eyes & you will be transported to the music completely. I have listened to Maggies for years & enjoyed them alot.

Odeon horns driven by Accuphase electronics. An image so big & texture so massively palpable it felt like you were transported into Patricia Barbers emotional center. Totally mind-blowing!

Focal JMlab Grande Utopia Be, nothing comes close, period. I listened to those in Paris not so long ago. I have the Nautilus 801, quite nice, but these are another experience, and price of course. All the other Focal-JMLab are outstanding for their quality vs. price. Wilsons use focal speakers anyway. And correct that you need the right electronics and cables to drive them. (I would vote for the top Moons from Simaudio and Siltech cables). Find any of the Focal-JMlab Be series to listen to, compare them with your favorites (equivalent),and you will hear the difference.

I second the Quad ESL 63...NO sub woofers can keep up with these speakers,the seaming is just to ignoring so keep the panels pure...the 989 is more balance but not as transparent as the older 63's.....

Best commercial speakers I've heard are the S.A.P. J2001 (with twin 12" woofers), which is why I purchased them. These speakers have a small Onken cabinet for the woofers, a horn midrange that is poised on top of the woofer cabinet, and a Fostex bullet tweeter.

I also like Soundlab U-1s. I've also heard some pretty wild custom systems, one in particular comes to mind. It had a pair of huge Western Electric horns for the midrange that have a throat that is curled like a ram's horn. The owner of this system just set up a new system in a huge dedicated room and uses a pair of $250,000 Gaku-On amps to drive the midrange. I have yet to hear this latest iteration, but I expect it to be something special.