I believe the goal is to be accurate to the recording. And the only way to really know if a system is being accurate to the recording is for a system to show as much contrast as possible between recordings, and in fact stereo system components. If system A plays ten recordings and all of them sound completely different from each other and you can tell the difference in tonality, imaging staging, bass dynamnics etc then system A has tremendous resolution and allowing those differences to come through. While many other systems that can only play classical strings and can't play other kinds of music are very low resolution speakers because they have a gross inability to give you what is on the source disc. One of the classic speakers is the Quad 57 and 63 but they are not good resolving loudspeakers - they can play one kind of music and they can please the ear doing it no question about it - but what is also true is that they can't tell the listener the differences between recordings because they lack the ability to produce MANY and indeed "MOST" of the music on the market (which isn't classical). Such a speaker is nice to listen to but hardly accurate.

A speaker or system is a series of electrical devices and its sole purpose is to take a signal and reproduce it as the musicians intended regardless of whether it is lousy amplified music. Tupac on a Quad is horrible and the reason it is horrible is because the speaker can't produce the notes on the CD or LP. If it can't reproduce the signals of that music it also can't do the canon in the 1812 or most bass instruments properly (although it may make it all sound "nice."

This doesn't necessarily mean a big boxed speaker is going to be better but I'll put my money on the speaker that can handle all music intended by the artist first and then worry about the ultimate frequency extremes and treble issues or slight box colourations or distortion.

Granted I am in the HE/SET camp so it's interesting that my view would be that a system has to be able to do AC/DC and Tupac at high levels. I believe SETs get short shrift because they are simply connected to poor efficiency speakers. A speaker may be a horn of 100db but it doesn't mean it's easy to drive. The sad thing IMO is that the two things that a great SET amp does better by far than ANY transister I have ever heard is Transient attack and Decay. The initial sound of a guitar pick or pressed key or thwack on a cymbal - no comparison. And the decay of the piano box the lingers whilst not muddying the sound of the next transient. Sadly it becomes mud with the wrong speaker, but with the right speaker there is no going back.

Anyway, I understand the appeal of something like the Quad 2905 but I like my cake and eat it as well. I would like a speaker that does everything the Quad is capable of doing and a LOT of what the Tannoy Westminster or Acapella High Violencello is capable of doing and preferably for less than half the price of either one.

I happen to buy into getting what's off the disc not stamping a panel sound or 40 foot stage (Bose 901) onto every recording homogonizing the results. My bias is to the article written by Leonard Norwitz a classical music lover and composer and Peter Q of audio note some years back and posted on the enjoythemusic.com website http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazin.../audiohell.htm and it applies to any system not just that maker though that is how they design everything. Practically it's tough to do as they suggest but I think it works well if you can put the significant time in requitred for it.