From the moment of its launch in 1979 the ProAc Tablette has been acclaimed as one of the greatest mini-monitors of all time. Many thousands of pairs have been sold over the last twenty-three years and this stunning little loudspeaker has become a firm favourite with music lovers worldwide.  The Tablette's replacement, the Reference 8 is stunning...

I am not a big fan of Paradigm's styling.  I reckon it's over fussy.  But the S2's styling works a lot better than the bigger designs.  And it sounds great.  I would go as far as to say that this little bookshelf could challenge the B&W 805's for a top 10 spot.  They're that good...

I just found a pic of the ProAc Reference 8 Signature.  Yum...

Like all Reference 3A loudspeakers, the Dulcet has a sloped front baffles to time align the drivers and chamfered edges to minimize tweeter reflections that can adversely affect imaging. These speakers are also unique in their lack of a conventional crossover. The midrange/woofer is driven directly by the partnering amplifier while the tweeter sports but a single oil-filled capacitor in its signal path. With such a minimalist circuit, the resulting sonics should be remarkably transparent, with little attenuation of dynamics and a more musically coherent performance with greater immediacy. Of course, the downside of this approach is invariably a less-than-flat frequency response since the handoff between drivers is accomplished purely mechanically...

Red Rose music offers 3 speakers in it's line up, all featuring a ribbon tweeter.  This is the smallest being the Rosebud...

The largest of the Red Rose Music range of speakers, the Revelation is relatively compact for such a high end speaker.  It's also fairly sensitive and may be driven by lower powered amplifiers of around 50 watts per channel or so...

Now it hurts me to do this.  But I will.  Acoustic Research used to be one of the great loudspeaker brands.  Now although it's still around, it's been absorbed into the AudioVox conglomerate.  That's really sad.  But here goes - their top of the range speaker being the ARXP410 featuring a built in  powered subwoofer...

After thinking about what AR has become I feel a bit down.  I need something to cheer me up...

No.... That wasn't quite what I was looking for.  I need something a little different.  Come on Glitchville!  Where are you when I need you?  Ahhhh!  That's more like it...

Good choices Edwin.

The Paradigm Signature series are indeed very good speakers.I have the Servo Signature sub a great product. Prefer Dynaudio Special 25 to any of the bookshelf speakers you posted.

I hadn't considered introducing this very special speaker until a little later in my ramblings.  But now that it's been mentioned... Dynaudio's Special Twenty-Five loudspeaker was released in 2002 to celebrate the Danish manufacturer's 25th anniversary. A fairly large, stand-mounted, two-way design, the Twenty-Five costs $5200/pair. The speaker's tweeter is Dynaudio's superb Esotar 2 1.1" soft-dome unit, also used in Dynaudio's Confidence C4 speaker, which I have previously mentioned.  The crossover is said to be first-order in nature, and the 8" plastic-cone woofer is reflex-loaded with a large flared port on the Twenty-Five's rear panel to give a claimed bass extension of –3dB at 35Hz.   Please don't disregard this speaker because it's a bookshelf model.  The Special 25 is one of the true highend products of this century.  When I heard it, I was stunned.  I reckon I could play this speaker next to my Martin Logans and not feel in any way short changed.  A true top 10 contender...

And another speaker I rather like is from the manufacturer who is really into carbon fibre.  The A.C.T. replaces the A.C.T. One and Two exploiting the new carbon fiber composites now available as well as some very clever metal engineering materials.  The entire speaker is actually constructed of metal and the wood seen is only for aesthetic reasons.  Wilson Benesch also make some rather nice turntables...

edwinr:

Here's a pic of the back.  It's not the very good but it's the best I could find...