“….SL speakers being highly revealing, will show the character and quality of a preamp clearly.” “Your budget will be a factor. Everything matters. Clean power, vibration control, etc. are also important.”
I couldn’t agree more TWB!! SL’s are only held back by the upstream equipment. My experiences with this concept make me wonder how much better could SL’s actually sound!?! I think I’m pretty much at their best, but…??
Soundlabs are amazing transducers. Before replacing my M1’s in 2013 with M1PX’s, my son and I attended the 2012 RMAF mainly to audition speakers. With the exception of some open baffle designs, horns, electrostats and other planars, nothing else provided the “effortless” presentation of those types of speakers.
My personal ownership experiences and findings suggest that potential speaker buyers should listen to as many different types of speakers as possible — cones & domes, stats, horns, ribbons et al. From those, down select to a type and then proceed to audition speakers within that type. This may be a bit simplistic, but definitely a way to pare down the myriad of available speakers to audition.