I've tried to like Harbeths, they are attractive speakers and have that British monitor thing going. But they're too dark and don't have the delicious midrange plankton for me

I've never heard Coincident speakers, but their Frankenstein 300B sounded better than every other 300B amp I have heard short of the custom built ones my friend uses. Just like anything on the net you have to take what Art Salvatore says with a grain of salt. He pretty much only listens to classical and opera. That's funny that he is endorsing Esoteric now... I thought he was rabidly anti digital.

Most rooms at audio shows do sound boomy. I almost never see them employing bass traps.

This was mostly meant as a discussion for what people have in their mind when they go to listen to speakers, that's why I didn't mention anything about my room. I have a dedicated listening room, well treated with bass traps and diffusers, with my equipment rack to the right of my listening position (so not inbetween the speakers). The room is roughly 22x15' with the speakers firing down the long length.

Iso Mike recordings are good stuff, but it's very limited as far as source material goes. The vast majority of surround releases are pop/rock, with gimmicks like placing the drums in the rear channel, zippy surround effects, etc. Good classical recordings of the vintage era will employ 3 channels, just like how they were recorded.

Just a few words about ATCs in my first genuine post here, since I can write from experience.  I've gone through a number of good speakers, and have heard a good deal more over the years.  I use speakers at home for pleasure as well as, sometimes, for monitoring for sound design in the theater.  About ten years ago now, I got off the speaker carousel with ATCs.  I have ATC active fifties and passive 20s downstairs, a pair of passive ATC monitors for my office upstairs and active ATC 10s for a home theater upstairs.

Obviously, I don't find them sterile; and they are simply not bright.  The passives, however, will reflect pretty accurately the  electronics and front end they see.  And they need current and watts to sound their best.  The actives, I find, are indeed very sensitive to the preamps in front of them.  There are genuine impedance matching issues that rule out some otherwise very good sounding preamps.

At their best, the ATCs are tonally about as accurate as I've heard, and they are--actives and passives with enough horsepower driving them--remarkably dynamic: the best I've heard.  They also throw a very precise, though not huge, soundstage, and they allow for great depth.  Instrument separation is first rate, and voices are remarkably lifelike.  The bass is extraordinarily convincing, for as much as you get, in all the models: no bloat, no reticence.  But, as  physics dictates, the bigger the speaker the more bass you get.  ATC monitors, like the 10s and 20s, will get a remarkably even reinforcement from a wall behind them.

The ATC issues are, primarily, in how they mate with electronics.  (I could go through a list of ten high end preamps that just won't work very well with the active ATCs--including Nagra, Spectral, and Chord.)  The passives are in this respect kinder creatures: they'll sound great, if fed enough power, with various front ends.  ATCs don't throw a very wide soundstage.  The bass is, to my ears, much more like life, a lot less like stereo with--even with expensive stuff--some its boom and bloom: for some folks this is a problem not an asset.  Can they sound sterile?  With an inadequate front end, I imagine so; and they can sound bright, but they also can sound dark. 

Their price seems to me their greatest liability, although I think they are better than almost all much, much more expensive speakers I've heard.  But that's just how I hear things.  I've also loved, and been enticed by, SoundLab panels, the TAD 1s, and crazy MBLs; but I've found the ATCs just more practical--economically as well as ergonomically, and easier to live with.

 

also, ATCs are known to be less sensitive to room placement and toe-in.  there's no way i would call my former SCM12 bright - if anything, most audiophiles would prefer more upper-mids to treble.  they're very neutral.  they also revealed every change in upstream components easily.  a simple system of a good source and preamp into actives is very appealing.

ultimately though, my DIYness got the better of me and i decided to go the way of more efficient designs of FR Fostex, a uFonken variant with a pair of 3.5" per side, and my current project that's currently on the back-burner until warmer climes - a large CD partnered with a 12" driver.  there are trade-offs with every speaker.  i really like mid-range presence.

Sweetwater carries a couple.

Have you ever heard one of Ray Kimber's isomike demonstrations?  He records in DSD surround in a hall with a baffled microphone setup that isolates reflections from the opposite walls.  He then plays back in at least 4 channels with full range speakers.  His demonstrations are remarkably like sitting in a hall, with the rear speakers only playing the reflected sound recorded in the hall.  The problems with surround sound are not as much with playback, or even with the receivers, but in the way in which the material is recorded.  It is very close minded to dismiss the possible benefits of surround sound because it is often poorly implemented.  Inherently, it has the potential offer the best possible sound, given carefully crafted recordings and system setup.  I would only have a surround system in a large room with a large budget (I have neither), and would listen mostly to two channel, since that is the vast majority of musical recordings.  I also have hope that the future will bring more well made surround sound recordings, and that is largely why I mentioned it as an ideal.

Saying the best sound is on vinyl is like saying that red is the best color.  It depends.  Few recordings are analog now, I have yet to find a situation where a modern digital recording sounds better on vinyl unless the vinyl was a different master with a different level of dynamic compression.  There is no absolute best format, there is only a best or preferred version of each recording, unless you are deciding how to make your own recording, in which case you have some decisions to make.  Luckily, as listeners, we just have purchase and play.

I disagree that Vandersteens are not detailed, at least enough for me, but that is not anything that really needs to be discussed. 

As far as Dunlavys go, they are readily available on the used market, and still a unique product.

I didn't know that TAD was "hype".  Does this look like a speaker that is well regarded from "hype"?  http://www.stereophile.com/content/tad-compact-reference-cr1-loudspeaker-measurements
I have always been impressed with them when I've had the opportunity to listen.   Very, very expensive, and I will probably never buy them but I think they sound better than a lot of the competition I have heard in their price range.

I have. I have also heard some incredible rooms with two speakers where it sounds like there are speakers behind you. All it takes is a good room, good speakers, and good setup.

Then I look at the amount of surround material I actually own (a few SACDs, probably 0.1% of my music collection), and the cost of running an additional amplifier and an additional pair of speakers, plus all of the timing and balance issues. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to stereo.

What I meant was that the best sound is on vinyl because the best masters are on vinyl. I listen to a lot of rock and metal, and your choice is typically a terribly produced, brickwalled CD or at least decent sounding vinyl. The new Soundgarden for example, the CD is garbage, the vinyl sounds pretty good. There is no DVD-A or SACD with a surround mix on it. The few rock and metal releases you do see these days in surround are done on DVD-V using a lossy container like DTS. Very few sound all that good.

TAD tends to get raved about by most of the mainstream audio press. From what I've heard, they didn't do it for me, especially not for that kind of money (isn't the big one like $90K?). It's just a personal preference - I'd much rather have Tidals than TADs. I was also very unmoved by their electronics.

Indeed, it's shocking how poorly so many audiophile speaker manufacturers set up their rooms. Personally, I suspect they didn't mind their setups being bassy (which seems to be the theme at T.H.E SHOW). Massively elevated bass does wonders to girl+guitar or 3xguitars audiophile music. I loved it when so many reps REFUSED to play Anax's test disc. They were afraid. On the other hand, we were very appreciative of those who didn't mind playing Anax's test disc. It was easy to separate the good from the bad this way without even listening.