The Absolute Sound

The Absolute Sound is the world’s preeminent source of expert reviews, features, and commentary on high-performance audio and music.

The Absolute Sound

The Promise and Peril of Hi-Fi Shows

Great New Speakers and Cables Coming Your Way

Inside Sonus faber and the New Suprema Loudspeaker

LOUDSPEAKER DESIGNER ROUNDTABLE • Three of the world’s preeminent loudspeaker designers—Dr. Paul Mills of Fyne Audio, Daniele Coen of AlsyVox, and Alfred Vassilkov of Estelon—talk about how they approach creating advanced loudspeakers.

MOST SIGNIFICANT LOUDSPEAKERS OF ALL TIME • OVER THE YEARS our editorial staff has hotly debated just which loudspeakers have had the greatest impact on high-end audio. These are not necessarily the best-sounding speakers of their respective eras (that’s the subject of another intense debate), but rather those that introduced a new technology, changed the market, influenced future designs, or revealed some previously unheard aspect of sound quality. We’ve weighed-in on this subject in the past, but for this special loudspeaker directory we’ve expanded and updated our list to definitively name the 15 Most Significant Loudspeakers of All Time. Our method was democratic: Each TAS writer was asked to submit a list of candidates. As it turned out, there was a good deal of consensus among their picks, which made the editors’ task of selecting the 15 finalists easier. Our choices are presented in ascending order of importance (#1 being the most significant). Finally, I’m delighted to include two entries from TAS’ founder, the late Harry Pearson, who contributed to this feature many years ago in its first iteration. Robert Harley

How to Use the Product Listings • The following sections list the model names, specs, and pricing for the 98 loudspeaker manufacturers and 40 cable companies we’ve chosen as being most worthy of your attention. We’ve also included the issue number of The Absolute Sound in which the product has been reviewed (if it has been reviewed), and whether the product received an Editors’ Choice Award (EC), Golden Ear Award (GE), or, the ultimate prize, Product of the Year (POY) recognition.

Subwoofer Specs and Features

How to Choose Loudspeaker Cables and Interconnects

The Greatest Bargains in Integrated Systems, Subwoofers, and Loudspeakers • We name the speakers that deliver the biggest bang for the buck, from $399 to $91,000