2. speakers
  3. 154749-122613

Speakers Don’t Matter As Much As We Think They Do?

When discussing how best to invest money into your system, it’s very common to hear people say, “Spend as much as you can afford on speakers, and then worry about the other gear because speakers have the largest effect on the sound.”

Now it’s never a bad idea to have good speakers and while I somewhat followed that advice early on, as my system has evolved it seems that I am not currently following that advice, and yet I am getting absolutely fantastic sound. For example as a percentage of my total system cost, my speakers cost 15%. If you include the subwoofers, that price is about 35%.

Early on I was worried I would outgrow my speakers and I’d hit their limit which would restrict sonic improvement potential as I upgraded other gear but that hasn’t been the case. With each component upgrade, things keep sounding better and better. The upper limit to speakers’ potential seems to be a lot higher than previously thought as I continue to improve upon the signal I send them and continue to improve system synergy. If you send a really high quality signal to a pair of speakers and get synergy right, they will reward you in spades and punch well above their apparent weight class.

One thing that may be working in my favor is that I’ve had these speakers since the early days of building my system so literally everything down to the last cable has been tuned to work in synergy with these speakers. Had I upgraded my speakers mid way through, I would have undone a lot of the work that went into the system in terms of synergy.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with their speakers? Does anyone have any extreme percentages in terms of speaker cost to system cost like 5% or 95% and what has been your experience?

128x128mkgus
uncle_monkey's avatar
uncle_monkey
56 posts
 
I think the bad advice is to over-buy a speaker you can't drive adequately from the get-go. For instance, I've seen a lot of balking at the suggestion one spend $2k on power for a $500 pair of Elac Uni-Fi's. But there's nothing worse than a pair of under-driven speakers. And those little suckers positively sing with a decent amount of current behind them, as Elac demonstrates at show after show.


I don't think I was ever really happy with my system until I finally settled on speakers I knew I loved (Thiel) and dedicated building around them. There was some trial and error (amp & cable combos), but when I finally nailed it - well I haven't bought anything new (except cartridges) for 15 years. I also have no doubt had I kept my old Maggies or B&W's I'd have arrived at a totally different solution. I find it interesting that a lot of people in the Thiel owner forum arrived at similar amplification choices (BAT)! Not a coincidence.


The other key component, probably more than anything you "plug in" is the room. We see so many people with tile floors, bare walls, speakers right up against the wall flanking a TV with a turntable about 10" from one of the speakers. Youtube is full of people showing off their systems like this. One I saw the guy literally had the entire rear wall mirrored. Even on YT/tablet you could hear how awful it was!


I've just moved to a new place for the second time in a year. I was about to downsize my speakers in the townhouse. Now, I've got to decide where I'm setting up, and spend my budget to get the room right before I buy anything new.




douglas_schroeder
3,281 posts
 

All speakers are capable of the changes the OP discusses. He has done nothing exceptional. To actually move up, he must seek a superior transducer. 

millercarbon stated, "Where you put the speakers matters more than which speakers, so why anyone obsesses and fixates on the speakers themselves is beyond me. Yet they do." 

As stated, that comment disregards fundamental performance differences between speaker models, speaker brands and genres of speakers. I disagree entirely.  :(







almarg's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
almarg
9,670 posts
 

IMO a major reason for the divergence of viewpoints which tends to exist on this question is that for a given level of sonic quality the cost of a speaker tends to be dramatically affected by two things: (1) The maximum volume the speaker can cleanly produce, and (2) The deep bass extension it can provide. And different listeners tend to have very different requirements and preferences in those regards.

For example, over the years I’ve seen many members here comment that the peaks of the music they listen to are never louder than perhaps 90 db or so at their listening position, and in many cases a good deal less than that. On the other hand, though, quite a few classical symphonic recordings in my collection, that have been well engineered with little or no dynamic compression, can produce peak SPLs at my 12 foot listening distance in the area of 100 to 105 db, **while being listened to at average levels in the mid-70s.** Which means that each speaker must be able to cleanly produce levels approaching 110 db at the usual 1 meter measuring distance. Many speakers, certainly including most small speakers, simply cannot handle that kind of dynamic range while also providing quality sonics.

And of course different listeners will tend to have differing preferences regarding deep bass extension, and regarding the use of subwoofers to supplement it.

So, yes, many listeners will be happy with speakers that represent a relatively small percentage of total system cost. While others would find those speakers incapable of handling the dynamic peaks of some of their recordings, at their preferred listening volumes, and/or incapable of providing the deep bass extension they prefer. And for a given level of sonic quality, in the latter case preferred speakers will tend to represent a much greater percentage of system cost than in the former case.

Regards,

--Al

erik_squires
16,416 posts
 
I do believe that being happy with any speaker is the room. Too often listeners hear a great experience at a dealer, come home, don’t have it, and then are sold power cables, amps, etc, to try and reach the nirvana which was always the room to begin with.

A good room is transformative, and can make a lot of speakers sound really great. A mediocre or poor sounding room requires you to chase synergy forever.

In general, given the same speaker type, I'll take a mediocre speaker and a great room than the opposite.
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
Erik is not correct. Speakers are factory tuned so that they will suit a wide variety of users preferences but its impossible to satisfy everybody. 

Change is happening and we are seeing more dsp based monitors that do enable custom tuning by the user with EQ. 

It wont be long before custom tuning is the norm and folks will start to realize that that eccentric person called kenjit was right all along. 
More to discover