Deciding on the right huge speaker

Kthomas -

My suggestion would be for you to invest some of that money in airline tickets (prices are quite low now) and travel to audition speakers that made your shortlist. Some dealers (such as yours truly) will help you with accomodations, and maybe even airfare if you end up purchasing from them.

It really isn't necessary to listen in your own room to make a well-educated choice. Let me offer a few ideas to make your auditioning most effective:

Start out at a pretty much normal volume level listening from the "sweet spot", to see if you like the overall presentation of the speaker. Do you want to tap your feet? Can you easily pick out and follow a single instrument? Listen especially to human voice and piano (or whatever instrument you are most familiar with). Can you hear the textures and inner harmonics of the instrument? Do the notes (piano in particular) decay naturally? Do you hear any grain, any boxiness, any harshness (especially on close-miked female vocals)? Can you readily follow the notes the bass player is playing? Going beyond hearing, does the music speak to your soul and make you feel? Music is as much an emotional as an auditory experience.

Assuming the answer to most of these questions is "yes", we need to predict the long-term listening enjoyment of the speakers, because you probably won't have several days to audition them at length if you travelled for the audition.

For each of the following tests, listen to the same track from the beginning. Go back and start over again for each test.

First, turn the volume level way down low, so you can barely hear it. At very low volume levels, you really can't hear the bass - mostly what you hear is midrange, because the ear is most sensitive to midrange frequencies at very low volumes. What we're doing here is isolating the midrange to see if there are any peaks or colorations. At normal volume levels, the bass can mask midrange peaks. Is the music still enjoyable at very low volumes, or does the midrange grate on you?

Now return the volume level to normal, and listen from very close to the speakers, like two or three feet away. Now you are isolating the first-arrival sound. Any harshness will stand out more, since it won't be masked by the reverberant sound. Note also the tonal balance.

Now turn the volume level up a bit louder than normal, and leave the room, leaving the door open. From outside the room all you can possibly hear is the reveberant field response. The speaker can't possibly image out here, so it has to rely on its reverberant field response and dynamics to sound convinving. Does it? Is there a convincing illusion of live music happening back in there? Is the tonal balance the same as when you listened near-field?

Come back in the room and walk around. Is the sound really only enjoyable from the sweet spot? Remember that live music sounds wonderful from anywhere in the room, and even in the next room.

The low-volume and next-room tests are very good predictors of long term listening enjoyment, especially the latter.

When you're done with these tests, you can go ahead and play some sonic fireworks cuts or whatever you want, but I would suggest bringing at least one poor recording of music you like, and one good recording of music that you don't like. See if the speakers extract enjoyment from the poor recording, and see if they can induce you to enjoy a good recording of the kind of music you normally wouldn't listen to.

A speaker that passes all of these tests is probably going to find a home with you.

Best of luck in your quest!

To Ehider -

I got a very nice e-mail from you and tried to respond, but it got kicked back saying that "mediaone.net domain no longer in use".

Do you have an alternative e-mail?

Audiokinesis,I would not ever buy anything from you.Your advice is abhorent.
To suggest one does not need to listen in his own room is foolish.
If you sell a 30K product and figure the room its going in is not important then you aint goin to be my hi fi guy.Get real.

Natalie -

I see that your audio passions run deep and if you thought I was arguing against in-home auditions, well that would indeed have been abhorrent advice.

I appreciate your post because it made me reflect on ways for Kthomas to more reliably extrapolate from the showroom to his listening room (see below).

Natalie, I'm not at all against in-home auditions. I'm quite comfortable delivering or shipping speakers to customers for in-home auditions and do so regularly, but 30-grand speakers are typically difficult and expensive to ship, and there is the very real risk of shipping damage. I have shipped up to 16-grand speakers for audition, but frankly it's much less trouble and expense on both our parts for the customer himself to do the travelling.

Believe it or not, I'm trying to do exactly what you suggest - namely, "get real". Realistically, how many 30-grand systems is Kthomas going to be able to take home and audition? Chances are he doesn't have local dealers for all or even most of the brands he'd like to consider. I'm trying to offer him a useful listening strategy for evaluating speakers that he will have to travel to hear.

The tests I have described will reveal a great deal about a speaker's potential, and also about its interaction with the room. Where you and I may differ is that I believe there is a useful correlation between how a speaker sounds in a showroom and how it sounds in a well set-up listening room.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you are shopping for a piano. The timbral differences between a Steinway and a Yamaha are inherent and not room-dependent, and can be reliably evaluated in showrooms (or concert halls, for that matter). If you prefer the sound of the Steinway, that preference will almost always be independent of the room the piano is in. Only in a very poor-sounding room might the room itself determine which piano sounds better, and in such a case room treatment would be called for.

Just for the record, the most expensive pair of speakers I ever purchased were bought completely unheard. I'd only gotten one word-of-mouth recommendation, and had read no reviews. But I had spent years as an amateur speaker builder and student of psychoacoustics and knew enough to be able to tell what the speakers would do from studying their website. It was not only the best purchase I ever made, but eventually my love for these speakers inspired me to cross over to the "dark side" and become an audio dealer. But needless to say, I don't recommend anyone else buy without an audition!

Kthomas -

Natalie's post caused my wheels to start turning again, so let me pass on a few more thoughts.

I've had customers transport their amplifiers, preamps, and even DAC's when they've come for an audition. You might consider doing this if you decide to travel.

I presume you're familiar with the sound of your equipment and your room, but before you go out auditioning it might be worthwhile to focus in on the sound of your room a bit. Wait until no one is home (so they don't send the men in white coats after you), and walk from room to room talking out loud and focusing on the sound of your voice. This will give you a feel for what different rooms sound like. Of course the room you want to concentrate on is your listening room. Also, do the hand-clap thing in your room, to get a feel for how hand-claps decay. These two tests will give you a good sense of the sonic signature of your room everywhere except in the bass. But since you've obviously already had speakers in there, you probably have a pretty good idea of the room's bass characteristics.

Just before you travel for an audition, re-calibrate your memory of your listening room's sonic signature by doing the talking and clapping again. Hey if you need to do it while people are there, pretend like you're talking to someone on your cell phone as you walk around the room.

When you fly on the plane (or drive a long distance in the car) to the audition, wear hearing protection. Otherwise the nerve cells at the base of the hairs in your cochlea can be slightly bruised and fatigued by the long noise exposure, and your hearing acuity may be degraded.

In the dealer's showroom, before you begin to listen to music, do the talking and clapping tests. This is just so you get an idea of how comparable that room's sonic signature is to your room. For example, in an overdamped showroom the highs might be a bit softened, but by knowing in advance the different sonic signatures of the two rooms, you can make an intelligent allowance and evaluation.

Also, if you have gone to the trouble and expense of travelling for an audition, you have every right to ask the dealer to re-position the speakers (within reason) to approximate the way they will be set up in your room. Indeed, hopefully you have discussed your room situation with the dealer in advance. In my experience the room is usually among the first things brought up, either by the customer or myself.

Natalie's right in an ideal world - listening in your own room with your own gear is more reliable than listening in a dealer's showroom. The premise of my posts here is that not every speaker genuinely worthy of your consideration is going to be readily available for an in-home audition, and even if they all were, you'd still want to reliably narrow the field to the top two or three contenders before going to the effort to get them into your home.

I really appreciate everybody's advice. I have to clarify that I'm not currently looking to buy a pair of huge speakers - my room wouldn't allow for it, my finances wouldn't appreciate it. I read a lot of reviews of speakers, and comments on forums such as this, about speakers in the mega-cost / mega-size range and, recently when I was reading one, I got to wondering how somebody goes about evaluating them. They're tough to find at a dealer unless you live in a big city, and they're tough to move around. You can't really buy a pair and just hope they work out, the way you might with monitors. And, given their expense, you want to do your homework and find the right answer.

Audiokinesis - I really appreciate all your feedback. You and the others who suggest both the shows as well as plane tickets to go to the speakers seem to be right on - I really hadn't thought about the fact that some cheap airfares are small in comparison to the purchase price. Going to the shows probably gives you a good overview and helps you narrow your possibles down, and going to dealers (even in another state if need be) allows for auditioning.

Also, Audiokinesis, even though you've probably lost Natalie as customer, I'd work with you on a purchase in a heartbeat - some of the best, most practical advice I've ever gotten from a dealer. Thanks. -Kirk

I think you are putting the cart in front of the horse in assigning a value to what you will spend. Just go out there and listen and pick what you like and dont bother with the price tag. Remember that there are many factors including room and what the balance of system is that will also influence the sound. Who knows you may even like vintage. Keep an open mind not wallet.