Reply To: Better than BL90s?

[AdamS]

I have only ever heard one pair of loudspeakers that, to my ears, were better than Beolab 90s. However there are three main issues that prevent me from having them:

(1) They were £215,000 per pair around 14 years ago

(2) Each speaker consists of four towers of drive units, with the largest being around 2m tall.

(3) They were a proof of concept of what the company could do and so they only ever made one pair!!!! I suspect this single pair no longer exists either, which makes me very sad.

For anyone interested, they were the ADAM Audio OSS (Olympus Sound System). I heard them at the Munich High End show one year and just sat in front of them for over an hour, absolutely slack-jawed in amazement. They were truly incredible – I still cannot explain how speakers so huge could completely ‘disappear’ in sonic terms.

Some details here: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/adam-audio-olympus-sound-system

Amusingly, they used B&O ICEpower amplifiers!