Best Speaker for classical music

Your taste in music will have nothing to do with the speaker, since what makes it good for classical will also make it good for rock, metal, jazz, folk and so on. This is because its impossible to make a speaker favor a certain genre; if someone is able to do so they would be a millionaire overnight!!

The ability to play loudly without effort and full range is not a particular qualification. All forms of music sooner or later will be loud and have deep bass.


If you want good bass without breaking the bank, a set of Swarm subwoofers from Audiokinesis are very nice for the task. What’s nice about this is the main speakers are then freed from having to go deep in the bass but otherwise don’t have to take a back seat for either resolution or efficiency. This is because below 80Hz bass is omnidirectional due to the physical length of the bass notes in the room. Using the Swarms (which are a Distributed Bass Array system) the bass will be correct to 20Hz everywhere in the room and no one sub has to work all that hard. So you can set up a state of the art system without state of the art pricing.

For classical music the exact imaging of the soundstage and Hall acoustics are crucial. In my book that means omnidirectionals and simple cross overs: Shahinian, Duevel or open baffle Shindo, Ophelia, Auditorium23

+ 1 for omni directional with classical music.  Duevel Sirius, German Physiks Borderline, MBL.

Classical music is a far more demanding genre - from my point of view.

My desire that a system can reproduce accurate timbre ( not washed out as is all too common) far outweighs its other qualities, such as imaging, or collosal dynamics etc.

This possibly exaggerated desire for tonal colour leads me to believe I might have some form of chromesthesia (sound-color synesthesia). 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromesthesia#:~:text=Chromesthesia%20or%20sound-to-color,associatio....

Classical music especially, without good instrument timbres, is difficult for me to enjoy, whereas with rock I'd be looking for great dynamics or for pop it might be a great midrange.

Classical music with good timbral expression on the other hand becomes a joy. Especially piano and strings.

So I think it's a question of finding a speaker that excels at that quality that's most important to you.

All loudspeakers are not created equal, and few, if any, can do everything right.

Having said that, you wouldn't go far wrong with any of the BBC inspired designs out there. They're not always the first recommendation for rock (JBL/ Cerwin Vega?), but might fit the bill if strict neutrality in the vocal range is especially important.

If it's imagery and hall acoustics that you primarily want, then as was said previously, omni-directional designs might suit better.

So maybe even the distinction between classical and the rest might not be precise enough. It may depend upon just which aspect of classical you enjoy the most.

I've heard some Sonus Faber Amati Futura with expensive Accuphase and Luxman gear and they were excellent for orchestral music. The midrange in particular was stupendous in terms of natural timbres and realism.