10 BEST Loudspeakers of ALL TIME

hey everybody welcome back and welcome to another fabulous music Monday to everyone that is new to this channel my name is Andrew Robinson I am a recovering audiophile and I just want to say welcome welcome to this channel and welcome to one of the videos that we do here in my office kind of regularly now since they've turned out to be really popular and I thought today would be a lot of fun seeing as how it's Monday we're kicking off the new week and to get a discussion started because today we will be breaking down my ten best loudspeakers of all time this list is in no particular order and it is meant to be fun it is meant to spark conversation and to see what your lists are down in the comments below let's not hesitate let's not delay things anymore these are my ten best loudspeakers of all time according to me [Music] number one has to be the paradigm atom or mini monitor and I know I know this is two speakers but the paradigm atom or mini monitor for me represented and still represents one of the best if not the best most iconic entry point into higher and loud speakers and these speakers are still in production to this day the versions that I have I think were versions three versions to our versions three so we're going we're going way back but nevertheless they are a great entry point they are a fantastic speaker and I argue that for 90% of hi-fi enthusiasts out there with small to medium sized rooms modest budgets and simple electronics the paradigm atom or mini monitor loud speaker gets it done the next one on my list is the Magna pan 1.6 now it would have been the magnet pan three point six and because the three point six is just a phenomenal loudspeaker and better than the one point six in every conceivable way say for one affordability I owned both the one point six and the three point six as well as several pairs of the MMG and while the MMG is special in its own right the one point six really is in my opinion the butter zone of the entire Magna pant product catalog and it embodies and possesses 95% if not more of what makes Magna pan so special it is offered at a relatively affordable price and it fits in more environments that is to say for a large speaker it's not as large as other Magna pan designs and it's not as small as the MMG but because the MMG is so small there are so many other limitations to that design that the 1.6 for me gets the nod as one of my favorite loudspeakers of all time next up and this should come as no surprise especially if you watched any of the videos last week but Martin Logan's CLS - loud speaker now this can be the Martin Logan CLS - a or to Z because I have heard them all and they were incrementally better with each iteration suffice to say that Martin Logan's CLS design went from being unique and intriguing and good to downright spooky and great when they went from the CLS to the CLS - and there isn't much else to say if you want my full and honest opinion on the CLS - s you really should check out last week's video where I talked about one of my sound demos from hell I know that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement for the CLS - but bear with me it is a story that if you are a die-hard audio file or hi-fi enthusiasts probably gonna want to check out and I'll link to that in the description below next on this list is the clips the Scala I know I don't talk a lot about clips on this channel I've done but one Clips review which is the heresy 3 the heresy 4 is in house and is coming by the way but truth be told I am actually a big fan of clips and one of the things that I am a big fan of is all of their heritage line of speakers which have been in constant production this whole time that is to say since they were devised some decades ago and the less Kalla for me is just it belongs in a museum like it's just art to me and the fact that it also sounds good is just icing on the cake I have only heard the La Scala a handful of times I've never owned it in my own home something I do hope to rectify in the not-too-distant future and as taken aback as I have been by its looks it is always the raw effortless kind of presence and rule and live sound that the La Scala has possessed that just it boggles my mind and every time I hear it I am reminded of what makes that loudspeaker so freakin special the next on this list and again this is in no particular order is the JBL l 100 and i am talking about the L 100 in all of its iterations that means the pass all the way to the present L 100 classic because for me it is not only the quintessential JBL loudspeaker and JBL is a loudspeaker manufacturer that needs no introduction but it is one of if not the single most iconic loudspeakers of all time chances are you may not even know what an l 100 is but if I showed you a picture of one you would instantly go oh that speaker and the fact that it has had that kind of an impact not only on hi-fi an audiophile culture but just pop culture in general and it also sounds freaking fantastic especially the new one makes it a no-brainer for this list and one of my favorite loudspeakers of all time next up we have Bowers & Wilkins 802 diamond in this I know there are new 802 s there's a new 800 series on a whole I am talking about the original 800 series specifically the 802 diamond and the reason I'm talking about this loudspeaker is because I owned it I owned it it was a bucket list speaker for me I had wanted this loudspeaker this series of loudspeaker for probably 20 years and I obtained it shortly before having to move from Los Angeles and I lived with this lad speaker as my daily driver and my personal reference for Kosh going on about 5 years and absolutely loved every freakin second of ownership with that speaker it is phenomenal it made everything sound good yes it was a little bit difficult to drive but kind of like the JBL l/100 this is the iconic series of loudspeakers that Bowers and Wilkins is known for and I do think that when they introduced the diamond series of the 800 series especially the 802 they just took that already great loudspeaker into the stratosphere and I have yet to run into someone that either demo them in my house or have had an experience with the 802 diamond of their own during that era walk away with anything less than praise it was just it's a phenomenal loudspeaker big loud speaker expensive loudspeaker but a phenomenal loudspeaker all the same and the next one and this one is kind of a bit of a dark horse but I have to put Tecton Designs Pendragon on this list of top ten loud speakers of all time according to me because pre Tecton Pendragon if you wanted super high efficiency dynamics but also wanted a more traditional driver loudspeaker design that is to say tweeters cones you know things like that there wasn't really a lot of options and there weren't really a lot of really successful designs if you wanted a traditional non horn loaded speaker you tended to have to deal with loudspeakers that had high 80s low 90s sensitivity ratings which meant you needed a lot of amplifier power which meant without the right amplifiers they didn't quite come alive until you really pushed them so on and so forth but if you didn't want a horn loaded loudspeaker that you found maybe too fatiguing or too thin or bright or whatever you want to call it for your taste there wasn't something that was kind of Goldilocks right down the middle that was easy to drive affordable and just the business until the Tecton Pendragon arrived on the scene and the Pendragon wasn't even tech towns first loudspeaker it was just one that kind of shook the industry myself included to it's very core because for I think it was $2,000 at that time the price has since gone down but for $2,000 you truly got a world-class Giant Killer Giant Killer and I have owned multiple pairs of pen dragons over the years and I don't know if there was if there has been any other loudspeaker that has served as my personal reference for longer than the Pendragon because it was such a great loudspeaker to not only enjoy all types of music with at all sorts of volumes including ones that were dangerously high but it was also a loudspeaker with which it was very easy to evaluate other components due to its rail or higher than normal efficiency and it just it is still I think arguably one of Tecton best loudspeaker designs I know they have the double impact I know they have the Moab now and I have to say I have not personally spent any real time with either one of those designs so take this with a grain of salt but for me it just the Pendragon has to be kind of what really helped to put tacked on more on the map or solidify them as a legitimate threat and it is one of my 10 best loudspeakers of all time this next one is more of a series because I honestly couldn't make up my mind which I thought was best and of course that means I am talking about none other than Bang & Olufsen be a blouse speaker series now I know the Bo lab loud speaker series stretches decades so I'm gonna Whittle it down to the Bo lab series that was circa in the 90s we're talking - you'll have six thousand four thousand eight thousand culminating in the Bo lab one for me no loud speaker had more of an impact on my thinking about loudspeakers my thinking about hi-fi then Bang & Olufsen and specifically the Bang & Olufsen Bo lab series prior to wandering into my first Bang and Olufsen store in Cherry Creek Colorado in like 1995 I didn't know loudspeakers could possess that level of design moreover I had never God's honest truth I wasn't working in the industry I was only what 16 at the time but I didn't know about powered loudspeakers I really didn't I didn't know powered loudspeakers were kind of a thing I didn't know loudspeakers and general could look the way the Bo Labs did and then on top of it I didn't know speakers could sound like that and so here I was in a store with two speakers and a CD player or two speakers and of this or to speak and it was just like where's all the gear where is all the gear and the fact that it just continue to blow my mind and there are still things that those speakers did back in the mid to early 90s that loudspeakers today fail to do they still possess to this day technology that companies are just now bringing to market in their powered loudspeakers and expecting us all to be wowed and amazed when Bang & Olufsen has been doing it since the 80s and 90s that is how influential these these particular speakers were and why they make my list is one of the 10 best loudspeakers of all time next on this list is the Wilson audio Sophia I'm talking about the very first one I know there are multiple generations there that have come after it but I am talking about the Wilson audio Sophia version one and I picked the Sophia over the watt puppy and I know on a lot of these 10 best lists watt puppies always make the list I'm picking the Sophia over the watt puppy because in my humble opinion having demoed lived with both the Sophia is the better speaker all-round it's not as expensive it's not as complicated to set up it is a smaller footprint it is finished equally as well and honestly from a distance of like three or more feet in it to the uninitiated it kind of looks just like a watt puppies so mm-hmm anyway the Sophia is just one of the finest loudspeakers I've ever heard and I know I can I can recall countless times that one of my best friends and I would lighter at a hi-fi shop during our college years and just Park our asses in front of this shops pair of white Sophia's connected to a Krell ka V integrated lifestyle kind of integrated amp and CD player combo and we would play CD after CD after CD and just grinning like idiots and like you know shaking each other like can you believe do you hear that that's oh that's amazing and this Sophia was responsible for that because we would take those same CDs our that entire shop I believe was in Orange County and and we just did not get that same experience we did not have that same reaction and so that is why the Wilson audios Sophia version ones are one of my ten best loudspeakers of all time number 10 has to be the Bose acoustic ass series of home theater or loudspeaker products so let's get it just like that yeah just like that even if there's a small chance that we can undo this I mean we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try mm-hmm yep I can feel some of you firing up your fingers right now for the comment section but I have to tell you when I was 10 or 11 years old my uncle had a home theater in his living room that is to say that he had I think at 32 inch Sony Trinitron TV and he had five of these acoustic ass modules around his living room and the subwoofer over back behind his couch and we used to watch movies specifically when my parents weren't around r-rated films through this series and there have been many of and damn many a Chuck Norris many a just 80s action movie pumped through this type of a speaker system and it arguably began my journey in hi-fi at the age of nine or ten years old and as I had grown up and as I have moved through this industry everyone I run into has some kind of Beau's story everyone has some kind of memory or remembers having these acoustic mass series loudspeakers in their home whether it be because they're their mom's really liked them or they were their first experience with home theater because they fit into a living room it doesn't matter the truth is is that for a lot of people the acoustic series was and continues to be the only viable home theater solution speaker solution I should say that is available to them or that they will even accept and that doesn't make them bad or wrong I want to stress that it doesn't make them bad or wrong but it doesn't it it just shows you the importance of a loudspeaker like Debose acousto mass series has been for many people - thews iasts and non hi-fi enthusiasts alike over the years so that's it that is my ten best loudspeakers of all time according to me what do you guys think what do you guys think how did I do how's my house - do you agree with some of it am I completely off the mark are you typing as I speak you know oh my god I can't believe you left this off ah you know what I don't want to get in any arguments what I want to do is I just want to see a comment section full full of your ten best loudspeaker lists because honestly I do think these lists as entertaining as they are are also very helpful for people because you may be writing something down or I may have said something in this video that someone hasn't heard of before and so at the very least they make Google it fall down a rabbit hole and find their dream loudspeaker whether that loudspeaker be something as esoteric or high-end is Wilson audio Sophia or a paradigm Adam so please please but tell me what you think of this video but write down your list in the comments below and let's just see how many we can get going here I think you guys all so much for watching welcome again to everyone that has found this channel over the last couple of weeks YouTube has been notifying me fairly regularly about our latest kind of rise we are growing very rapidly now so thank you thank you thank you and welcome I hope you find this channel engaging informative and helpful and to all of my oh geez to all of you who have been watching since the beginning you guys Rock you just do thank you so much I appreciate so that's it I'm gonna go make some coffee maybe make some breakfast and just remember guys just remember the only person that has to like the sound of your system is you so happy listening everybody thank you so much for watching and until next time we'll see you on the next video bye

Channel: Andrew Robinson

Views: 887,713

Rating: 4.5358849 out of 5

Keywords: 10 best loudspeakers of all time, Best Loudspeaker, Best Speaker of All Time, best hifi speakers, best loudspeakers, best speakers of all time, Hi-Fi Loudspeaker, best speakers, best speakers in the world, best loudspeaker for home, high end speakers, Hi Fi Speaker, audiophile speakers, Audiophile Loudspeaker, best speakers for music, HiFi Loudspeaker, Loudspeaker, hifi speakers, Best Speaker of 2020, Andrew Robinson, Bang & Olufsen, wilson Audio, Best stereo speakers

Id: 7zJQxY99kwo

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2020