Are my standards too high?


Dear Gang,

I have heard a number of box speakers and only the cream of the crop are just about tolerable. In other words there is nothing out there that can truly impress me regardless of price. 

The KEF LS50 is a state of the art world class loudspeaker. It has won multiple awards and is used by John himself. A few years ago I decided to go and listen to a pair to see what the fuss was about. They were not setup perfectly but there was no bass. All i could hear was typical uneven ported bass response. The highs were a bit bright and off axis response was uneven. Horrible. I then got a chance to hear the kef Ref ones which were supposed to be the finest speaker that could be made by mankind. They failed to impress me. No bass at all. Then i heard the blades and finally i heard proper bass below 40hz. But the blades were not perfect either. And given their cost they should have been perfect. They didnt sound very refined. Imaging was a bit average. 

Gang, I have come to the realization that either most speakers out there are a hoax (overpriced and overrated) OR my standards are simply so high that the worlds finest 'peaker engineers cannot produce anything that can satisfy my perfect standards. 

The only answer to this riddle is to train audiophiles to understand that the speakers currently on the market are substandard goods.We need to also attract better quality minds to the world of speaker design and weed out the people that dont know what theyre doing. There are obviously some people who are better at doing things than others. Am I right? If we can get rid of the worst speaker designers out there and replace them with superior designers, then we will end up with much better speakers on the market for us to enjoy. Its a win win
kenjit
Kenjit, I don’t know if your post is serious, but I’ll give you a serious response. All speakers necessarily are made with compromises, both to cost and to physics. The notion of perfection is entirely subjective, and moreover since I don’t know what your criteria are, I cannot begin to answer your question.

A transducer also interacts with the room dynamics and the associated equipment, the latter in often unpredictable ways. Active EQ such as Room Perfect can get you a long way to a great sound (or so I understand, as I haven’t been able to use it myself).

So, there is no speaker that would sound perfect to everyone in every situation. Hence, how can the universe of speaker designers anticipate your particular requirements?

If you really want to try to get perfect speakers, put together your requirements/critera along with a hefty check to a speaker designer and see if they will make you something custom. Who knows? Maybe for a 100 grand the designer of the LS50 would be happy to take on a side project. You can certainly pay more for imperfect (for you) speakers and besides, can you really put a price on perfection?
Master the violin. Acquire Stradivarius, get Model 7 Vandersteen..... repeat....

your standards are not yet high enough grasshopper Kenjit...
Huh??!!?? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot that! I’m coming out of hibernation to say you have stepped beyond ridiculous and entered into “Ludicrous” speed! Why do we, as a community, continue to support this claptrap?