Avole asked me to describe the loudspeaker systems I listen to. For many years I designed loudspeaker lines based on market research, until I worked for WED (Walter Elias Disney) Enterprises. There I designed loudspeaker systems based on either the required size like the Tokyo Disneyland Tiki Birds, or based on maximum performance like for the French Pavilion Theater at EPCOT in Florida. That was where the money was available to research the hard and fast rules of design for natural, realistic, wideband sound reproduced by loudspeakers.
I believe that we have all participated in the "blind listening test vs listening knowing the identity of speaker models" threads here on VE. Most of my personal opinions about how to take sound from a vinyl disc and turn it into either very realistic sound, or sound that most closely mirrors the musician's/producer's concept of what the music should sound like, come from blind listening tests done on more than 10,000 listeners during 1977 and 1978. Those results stayed consistent although we used 5 locations at Los Angeles, David, California, Seattle, Madison, Wisconsin and at Georgia Tech. Using various "Golden Ears" for their opinions in their own listening environments gave response results all over the place, and so were practically useless since they were so biased.
I also liked the results of BBC's testing done to produce the LS3/5a loudspeaker system. One of the best tests ever is to have a person speaking a few sentences sitting in a chair very near where the test loudspeaker will be set up. Record these sentences with a B&K4130 microphone (I believe this is the 1/2 inch capsule, condenser microphone from B&K, although I haven't used my pair in years now) and then play the recording back through the loudspeaker you want to test. The loudspeaker must sound like the voice. The only way to really achieve this is to have a small loudspeaker enclosure producing the sounds from 200Hz and up because the vocal sound waves will need to reflect off the same surfaces whether they are coming from the test subject's head, or from the speaker enclosure. The LS3/5a can sound very much like a real person. I have a pair of these loudspeakers, but I don't really have a place for them now. I'm sure that a computer-speaker version of the LS3/5a would astound people, and would only need to be shielded for people using cathode computer monitors. I intend to use mine with an LED computer monitor I'm installing.
I accumulated boxes and boxes of component speakers and used some of them to build my own loudspeakers as well as using Martin Logan and Quad electrostatic loudspeakers. In order to avoid the "laser beam" effect that is normal for most loudspeakers in the higher frequencies I use multiples and arrays. Also for loudspeaker components producing sound above 5KHz (assuming small size for the component loudspeaker) designing series and parallel xover circuits is not acoustically problematic too much, because one does not consider damping to be an important factor.
So for the extreme high frequencies above 12KHz-15KHz depending on the design I only use two types of "super tweeters": titanium domes and my best choice are tiny thin film tweeters. There is a third choice though you would need to be handy with circuit design, but surprisingly enough, slot drive piezo electric tweeters can be made to perform with low distortion and high loudness if the piezo device is designed into a resonant circuit (as the capacitor) with a resonant peak at 26KHz-27KHz so its effective range is 20KHz-30KHz + or - 5db. There are a few tricks to doing this so let me know if you are going to try.
I like using the Tannoy Studio Monitor in my home with a home built subwoofer, because the Tannoy monitor is relatively compact and their tweeter is only down -3db at 40KHz in its "laser beam" range. This points out where most tweeters are at. A standard 2 way loudspeaker with a 1 inch (25.4 mm) tweeter (domed with a 1 inch voice coil) only extends properly out to about 12KHz and then as the phase shifts and the cone breaks-up and decouples from the surround, a smaller and smaller surface area produces sound, and so in order to keep the upper frequencies "flat" past about 14KHz the dispersion pattern gets narrower and narrower. If we ever discuss studio monitors used in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, we'd see that they suffered from beaming as well, so that isn't an extremely negative characteristic.
But to produce sound that I prefer, I use an array of 16 tiny (3/4 inch driven surface) thin film tweeters. Tiny film tweeters of almost any kind can produce high frequency extended output past 30KHz. The resulting upper frequency output is "quasi-beamy" but does not have the odd off-axis lobes of horns or tweeters mounted in baffles, so an array can be built easily on a damped open frame. Individually the thin film tweeters are not playing loud, and they do not operate down to frequencies that would cause them to couple. So in the 18KHz to 28KHz range this kind of tweeter is pretty effective if you make the array produce a 270 degree L/R and Up/Down pattern. It looks a bit like a small oval grid shaped like an oversized American football.
I get slightly better imaging using either the Tannoy monitors or electrostatics, but less beaming with my "maximum" system using separate enclosures of inert materials for each component loudspeaker. This makes my "maximum" system the most realistic playing back vocals I know personally. The system using the tweeter array has more good listening positions, whereas the Tannoys and electrostatics have only one good listening position. The electrostatics all have non-flat frequency response curves. The Tannoys have a disappointingly characteristic 10% distortion in the vocal bandpass because of the compression driver + horn, plus beaming in various frequency ranges due to a changing dispersion pattern shape. The Tannoys also have a conical pattern in many frequencies which creates reflective issues. My large home built loudspeaker systems have minor variations in response in various listening positions, but the directivity remains pretty constant above 200Hz (and below 200Hz it is 180 degrees down to 16 Hz).
So nothing is perfect. Each system sounds a bit different from the others (electrostatics being the most unique). But each has its uses. These are the systems I use to try to listen back to the phono cartridge's audio characteristic "sound". I do this when I am trying to get the most out of any vinyl I've cleaned and listen to, to hear what it is possible to hear.
To audition new records I often use a pair of B&O broadcast monitors. This speaker is so old the little labels have fallen off and the connectors are on the end of a heavy wire/cable, but the components are visible. There is an 8 inch woofer with an 8 inch passive radiator that acts like a highly tuned port. There is a 2 1/2 inch domed midrange which I believe was made by SEAS. Then there is a very tiny 1/2 dome tweeter. These 2 loudspeakers are a mirror-image pair. Every component loudspeaker is heavily sealed into the baffle board. The box is finished with teak, and is completely sealed.
I use Yamaha NS 10 loudspeakers for some new record auditions plus a small KEF loudspeaker (I believe it is the C5 with a 5 inch bextrene woofer and a small titanium dome tweeter) plus a home built low frequency enclosure with xover so I can do passive network bi-amping. I also use a pair of JBL 4311 monitors, and sometimes a pair of Dynaco A-25s.
I am always experimenting with new loudspeaker designs. I don't get free samples any more but I have purchased many new loudspeakers using woven carbon fiber cloth molded into a perfect circular dome (concave) for woofers and midranges, and large domed (convex) mid-tweeters. This material is quite inert and has little sound of its own. While bextrene also has little sound of its own, it is not comparable in stiffness to the newest heat-molded carbon fiber cloths. Sadly I no longer have the time to go around town to a bunch of audio retailers to ask if I can audition all their newest loudspeakers. So any of the readers here at VE may have a great loudspeaker system that I haven't heard, especially if it was made during the last 10 years (post 2000).
JBL has stamped out a number of titanium cones with applied foam damping on the back and these work very well in ultra-small enclosures (5 inch woofers), but mine are mounted on a steel frame bolted to a rear wall and I use this model (which I will have to supply at a later date when I access them again) as the rear channels of my CD-4 test system.
So this is what I use to listen to vinyl with.
