With $20,000 in your hand, what speaker would you

I'm listening to Dali MegaLine III's; however, important proviso - the system requires four channels of amplification...preferrably, identical.

Best,
Sam

Update on the Magico speakers, the Model 2 and Model 3, which retail for $18k and $27K respectively.
They are both excellent speakers. The 2, to my ear sounds a bit 'hooded' in the midrange, in that the harmonic structure sounds truncated or not as live as it should be. It simply didn't breathe the way that live music does.
The 3's were a different story, much better. Remarkably, the Model 3's were open, alive and didn't constantly remind me that I was listening to good loudspeakers in the way that Wilsons and Avalons do. While the 3 is excellent, it can't get out of the way of the music enough to make me go into that other realm of listening, in which you're inside the recording.
Again, falling back on previous statements, the MBL's and the Sound Labs both, to my ears, cross that barrier into a sense of realism that very few can or do.
JMHO

Larry

Larry

if at $27K a pair of speakers doesn't floor you or everyone that hears them... the designer missed the mark and has lost perspective on value & performance.

I'll go so far as to say the same thing for those speakers which sell for only $20K.

.... ONLY.. 20 thousand.... rotflmao.

it's gotta be that or the listener has unrealistic expectations.

On third thought... nope... it's the speakers' designer. it can't be us... Can it?

Of course not. Although nothing in this world is perfect, at and above 20K or even less, speakers at those levels MUST be honest to the source, and involve if not seduce the listener.... granted too if all else is in good order upstream.

JMHO

The ones I already own, Shahinian Diapason's.

What Dfaulds said, only Eidolon Diamonds!

best,
Tom

Joseph Audio Pearls ---

Did not see these mentioned above. They would certainly be on my short list.

I would have considered Burmester B30. They are tremendous speakers and would also save you some dollars.

Aether Audio's Revelation MR-2 Mk IV. The US retail price sits between $17,990 and $20,990, depending on the finish.

http://aetheraudio.com/revelation_mr-2.html

How about using the 20K to buy and sell used speakers on audiogon? You will get to play with some great ones and have a lot of fun in the process now that you have some time.

I would buy the APL Gravitas NB-1s, they have outperformed all the other speakers I have audiotioned, including the MBL101's with 9008/9011 and Magico V2/V3 with DartZeel.

I would go the used route. These would be on my short list to hear:

a.) Revel Salon 2
b.) Verity Sarastro 2
c.) Wilson Maxx 2
d.) Peak Consult Emperess
e.) Dynaudio Temptation

The one that intrigues me the most is actually the least expensive which would be the Salon 2.....

Well with close to $20K in hand it came down to three speakers. Vandersteen 5a, Audio Note AN-E/LX signature and Harbeth 40.1s. I loved them all, ended up ordering the Harbeths and keeping the electronics i already have..

WILSON
AVALON
THIEL

APOGEE FULL RANGE....RESTORED BY TRUE SOUND WORKS..$18,500

Legacy Audio AERIS or a used pair of the latest Legacy Audio Whisper XD...

I own Magico S5's which are remarkably well balanced and coherent, fast and resolving & are great "all rounders". Engineering as expected is excellent. The Pass XA.8 and XS series amps are a great match & you can find S5's in premium gloss finish coming up on the 'Gon as low as $18k now. My 2 cents.

6.5 years on, I'll bet the OP has spent his $20K already(just a guess).

It would take me a long time to come to a conclusion. I would purchase used to maximize my return.

I have heard many fine speakers speakers since entering this hobby 45+ years ago.
My top choice would be the Ascendo System Ms, They are considerably more new but under $20k used. Took me 10 years to afford and find a pair of these. Also consider MBL 111s or 101s, used of course but you need powerful amps to drive them.
If your room is small look at Verity Parsifal Encores or some of there newer models.
Happy hunting

Hmmm I think I really don't need that much at all. Not even half that much.

geithains rl 901

I'll wait to see what is recommended in 2025.

Genelec.

If the ops still out there my recommendation above from 2010 has not changed. Boring...... 😉

Well, I could try big Soundlabs if I had another $20k for amps and much bigger room.
Since I like Michael Green free resonance speakers, I would try to find his Chameleons. They are not made anymore, as far as I know, and should cost under $10k used, under $5k older ones. The man professionally tunes studios and performance halls, this requires quite an ear.

I realize the OP is (likely) long gone (from this thread, hopefully not the planet) but feel a giddy need to answer anyway. I would select whichever speaker I could buy closest to $20k from Classic Audio Reproductions. Then sell whichever possessions I have to purchase best possible gear to source/drive them.

Not so fast, my friend. Not only will you need around 20-30 grand, minimum for appropriate electronics but also another 10-20 grand for cabling including power cords sufficient for the task. Add another 5-10 grand for room acoustics treatments and tweaks. Oh, and you should probably consider moving into a bigger place.

I'll purchase used Aerial 10T and the rest keep usin'...:-)

Most likely, the only way I think I might ever really need speakers costing that much is if I am looking for something full range to run them off a flea powered SET amp or something along that line. Or if my room were really really big, like an auditorium.

I'd probably go for very high efficiency horns along the line of Avantegarde or something similar, maybe Jadis Eurythmie.

Ok. With only $20K that leaves me with a pair of tin cans for the speakers then.

Oh well......

maybe I'll just stick with headphones.

09-27-15: Rodman99999
6.5 years on, I'll bet the OP has spent his $20K already(just a guess).

Funny how this thread was revived almost 5 years to the day after the last post in 2010.

Between the rave review in The Absolute Sound and a look at the technology, there may be a new contender at $15K that would compete with the 6-figure big boys--the Bob Carver Amazing Line Source. You could pocket $5K for cables and room treatment, or some nice listening chairs.

I'd certainly love to hear them anyway. Bob Carver Corp. was bought by Jade (owner of Emotiva) in 2013, so I don't know if their products are stil made in Snohomish, Washington. If so, and if they have a factory showroom, maybe I could realistically audition them.

FYI - That 2013 sale of Bob Carver Corp. to 'Emotiva' was negated after a few months, so it is now back under Bob's ownership.

09-30-15: Bill_k
FYI - That 2013 sale of Bob Carver Corp. to 'Emotiva' was negated after a few months, so it is now back under Bob's ownership.

Glad to hear that. I've heard both the Wilson Alexandria MkII and the XLF. For less than 1/13 the price of the XLF, I'd sure like to see what the Amazing Line Source can do. Sounds to me like it would be on the short list for massive symphonies, oratorias, cantatas, opera, and at the other end, vocal solos and ensembles.

The thought of a speaker having the headroom to deliver distortion-free 120 dB crescendos really grabs my attention.

ATC SCM100, A little over 20k, but they're oh so good. your Pass Labs amps would sound great with them/1

Raidho

ARCA from Cadence , India , Electrostatic panels with a woofer - Hybrid - would be worth a listen . I own a pair with lots of upgrades on them and find them very involving . I do not have much idea as to cost in USA.

I just put my Magico S5's in Titanium grey up for sale for $18k if anyone's interested. They have low hours & are not yet broken in.

I have the Raidho D2 and rebuilt QUAD ESL57. I'm really a sucker for correct timbre and sound staging/imaging. Now I'm really considering the Carver ALS that just came out. Very unique design. One can play these at ear bleeding levels (not that I ever would) without worrying about damaging the speakers like my D2 or QUAD. It would be great for large scale music like symphony, organ, and rock.

I propose that it is not possible to know what a system sounds like simply by knowing what the components are or how much the system costs. We are chasing the dragon, trying to find something we heard a long time ago. There, now I feel better. ;-)

Without a doubt... my choics would be the Linkwitz Orion's or LX521's - just incredible in all respects!

Only caveats are: they aren't pretty, so you may have to dedicate a separate room to them to appease your wife... and... they require an active crossover, and separate amplification for each driver.

But, in exchange... you get "live, life-like sound!"

I remember the carver amazing speakers, I listened to that model for years my buddy owned back in the mid 90s, those sounded good, if the line source model is significantly better, they are on my list to listen too.

This is some interesting specs I found on the carver amazing line source speakers,

Bob Carver ALS Amazing Line Source Loudspeakers

Bob Carver announced the Amazing Line Source(ALS) Loudspeakers, which claim to present a huge and majestic soundstage that captures the complete sense of acoustic space that helps make music come to life in our listening rooms. Bob Carver believes you will hear beautiful sound images inside that larger acoustic that will seem so real it will be downright spooky. There will be a soundstage that extends far back from the speakers, and it will be much wider than the speakers.

A solo female singer will appear center stage, up and back slightly, perfectly focused, singing her heart out as if she were in our room, all the while being inside that larger acoustic bubble. It is very, very spooky.

How it works 
A line source speaker is simply a speaker so tall and acoustically long that we, the listener, hear a speaker that goes all the way to infinity. Up to infinity and down to infinity, resulting in what a scientist would call a “perfect wave launch.”

The wave from the speaker sounds as if it emanates from a gossamer thin filament running from below the center of the earth to beyond the moon. A pure cylindrical sound wave.

When we listen to such a wave, we find that we can hear musical nuances that we often cannot hear at all using conventional speakers.

“An analogy is to consider a thin pole that is eight feet tall, extending from floor to ceiling. On the pole are mounted 22 lit birthday candles, each a light source. Additionally, imagine the floor and ceiling to be perfectly polished mirrors. When we look down a the bottom of our speaker, we will see lit candles reflected in the mirror continuing all the way down to minus infinity. If we look up towards the top of our speaker, we will see the reflections of candles that go up to plus infinity. Here's the best part: All these reflections are real light sources to our eyes, as real as any real candle; we can read a book by their light. The candles in the mirrors make light just as well as the actual candles in the room on that pole. Absolutely non-intuitive! Now instead of candles, imagine that we replace them with lots of small loudspeaker drivers. The same holds true for speakers and candles alike; the speakers in the mirror make just as much sound as the speakers in the room, and behave for sound the same way as the candles behaved for light.”

“Here is the next best part: we can remove the polished mirrors and just use the floor and ceiling to make the line source work perfectly,” Bob Carver explains.

The ribbon looks like it's from Parts Express 
Of course it is. Bob Carver designed that ribbon over thirteen years ago for a loudspeaker he ended up developing and calling the Sunfire Cinema Ribbon. The ribbon was built in China by Hi-Vi for Homni, my Chinese supplier for drivers at the time. Shortly thereafter he sold the design to Hi-Vi as part of a joint cooperation agreement for manufacturing tooling, and subsequently it was delivered into the public domain by my intent. Hi-Vi, under the joint cooperation agreement, markets it worldwide and now sells it to Parts Express. Again, it was originally designed for Bob Carver's Cinema Ribbon and is still used in Cinema Ribbons today. It is truly an amazing ribbon, says Bob.

121dB SPL 
121dB SPL is an enormous sound pressure level but the numbers that teach us how it does that are comprised of simple arithmetic. First,a pair of the small woofers as utilized in the tried-and-true Cinema Ribbons produce a loudspeaker that has a sensitivity of 89dB SPL. The Cinema Ribbon was designed to absorb all the power that my 200 watt per channel amplifier could deliver. At 80 Hz it's peak-to-peak excursion is 0.48″. The Amazing Line Source speaker has 22 of these drivers per channel. Since each driver can take 100 watts (92 watts with crossover losses), how much can each Amazing Line Source speaker handle? Well, 92 x 22 is 2,024 watts. At those power levels and at 80 Hz, those woofers are moving back and forth 0.48″. Or, from another point of view, 80Hz/4 (20 Hz) allows equalization and yields flat response down to 20 Hz with a 450 watt per channel amplifier, assuming a room gain of 8dB at 20 Hz (Theoretically it's 3dB per boundary, and there are three boundaries in a room for each speaker).

Low Frequency Response 
A line source that goes from floor to ceiling is a weird, spooky, and interesting thing. Imagine that your floor and ceiling are mirrors, and the line source has 22 candles instead of woofers. If we look at it, we will see candles going up infinitely to the sky and down infinitely below. The amazing thing is that each reflection of each candle generates real light and so do the reflected sound sources of the line array. Spooky because it seems as if it's something for nothing, and it almost is. The same holds true for the ribbons. Each ribbon, on speech and music, can easily absorb 200 watts rms and there are thirteen of them per channel. Finally, 200 watts x 13 = 2600 watts – a walk in the park for these ribbons!

Sensitivity -96dB 
Each time the area or the displacement is doubled – all other things held constant – the sensitivity increases 6dB. Here is the arithmetic: One ribbon = 89dB. two ribbons = 95dB. Four ribbons = 101dB. Eight ribbons is 107dB, and 16 ribbons would be 113dB sensitivity IF the voltage across each were held constant. Since these ribbons are in a complex series/parallel configuration we must subtract 17dB because the voltage across each ribbon is substantially lower (approximately 20% of the original voltage) yielding 96dB SPL sensitivity. The precise calculation is as follows: There are thirteen ribbons, so 10 x log(13) is 11dB. 11 + 89 = 100dB, and the crossover throws away 4dB, for a net of 96dB sensitivity. That's the science.

“Distortionless” 
Strictly speaking, nothing is distortionless. However, in hi-fi, if the distortion is below our threshold of audibility we can color it gone. If it's gone, we can't hear it and sufficiently distortionless to call it thus.

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Specifications

Height: 8 FeetCabinet: 1 piece extruded aluminum cabinetNumber of front firing 8″ ribbons: 13Number of side firing 4″ high excursion drivers: 22Rated Power: 2,000 wattsSPL: 121 dBSensitivity: -96 dB

gotta win it first

I saw a pair of mbl 116 up for sale here the other day for under $10k. That got my attention.

Used Magico S3 or S5 jump on them now!!!!!!!

@Ebm, I agree the S3's and S5's are coming up at very good prices in near new/mint condition. Also referring back to the above post about line source speakers, I would point out that development of point source speakers hasn't stood still over the last 25 years. Magico is a Company at the top of their game who have been constantly developing their drivers, cabinets, crossovers and know how for over a decade. With the technology Magico employ such as Carbon Nano-tube cones and large extruded aluminium cabinets & their manufacturing capacity and quality control, design talent and quality trump speaker type/layout.

B&W 803 D3s

For a little more money, Horning Eufrodite Zigma Ultimate

You need to take your time, your are retired....Comparing and listening to all kinds of speakers is one of the most fun parts of audio.

You get many options overhere, but at the end you are the only one who can make a choice.

In januari the new Monitor Audio Pl-500 will come. It will cost about 20.000 dollar.

have fun and enjoy it!