The mistake armchair speaker snobs make too often

@jond

Erik this makes no sense to me why are in house or parts the company makes from scratch inferior

Which is exactly the problem. You are equating cheaper with inferior. I’m not saying in-house drivers are necessarily inferior. I’m saying they are less expensive for the manufacturer to put in. The moment a company can go to in-house drivers the profit margin jumps for the same speaker, and if it isn’t there’s something seriously wrong with your management.

Perhaps a great example that is in the public domain is JM Lab buying Focal (or perhaps it was the other way around). One made speakers, the other drivers. As soon as they purchased the driver maker the cost per driver dropped using the exact same drivers from the same factory built by the same driver technicians.

So when we happen to know off the shelf costs we get our panties in a wad because a manufacturer "only" spent 20% on drivers (which is high and boutique cottage industry size) vs. a mega brand which may have spent 7% and no one says a thing.

@phusis 

Check out old blue eyes, he used a center channel at home too:

@fleschler

What I am after is an end-game speaker that I can afford for my listening room and my taste in sound.

What I posted is totally MY taste, so I get it. If I had a mission like yours the goal is to get the taste in sound YOU want. For an end game that would lead me to three brands, JBL (the M2 if you want to hear your masters as they were recorded, they have an outboard active crossover so you can choose your own amp), Revel, (if you like a little more bloom with your accuracy), or Martin Logan if you want sheer "wall of sound" envelopment.

BUT, I don’t think your mission (every song played through those speakers fits your taste to a T) is going to end no matter what speaker you get unless you get this F360 tube preamp by Black Ice audio, watch the Z review and would love your feedback:

https://youtu.be/noe6GsyYDJc

If there could be only 2 passive speakers in my room I think I would want these ML Neoliths:

@kota1  I finally ended my 20 year affair with stat speakers with ML Monolith IIIs and Requests (2nd system).  Despite my former room size of 25X23X11.5 vaulted, the Monolith sucked.  26 years ago, I met my wife who hated the speakers as beamy, lacking true bass, thin and bright.  I should never have purchased MLs and stuck with the Acoustat 2+2s.  I sold the MLs and purchased the Legacy Focus.  She loves the sound and more so the Von Schweikert Ultra speakers which she has only heard in $1+million systems at shows but playing my LPs and CDs in huge ballrooms. 

I will report on the Zellaton Plural Evos in a month in my room.  I just heard the Acora Audio SC2 in a showroom with EAR & Nagra equipment, a mismash of medium to high end cabling (3 or 4 brands).  Amazingly competent sound, lacking in excitement but with zero negatives.  A superior quality sound speaker.  I'm undecided until I hear speakers which are capable of delivery great sound for every genre.  I also heard the Devore Orangutan 96.  Wow, a super lush sound for voices, small instruments(als) but quite awful for full symphonics (made a 1955 Wolff recording sound just old and compressed until the Focus or Acoras which make it sound like the orchestra is in the room with you).  The speakers I'm hearing are boutique and relatively expensive.  Acora speakers have twin 7" paper mid-woofers with tremendous dynamic punch and quite deep bass.  It was a pleasure to experience such sound from a relatively small speaker (good looking too in granite).  

@erik_squires .

The single most expensive part of speaker manufacture is the laber by a huge margin. As an example my subwoofers use about $1000 worth of parts, drivers, and materials. One subwoofer enclosure has 168 hours of labor start to finish. Shop time is now $200/hour. This comes to $33,600! Retail is around 3 X parts and labor = $103,800 for one passive subwoofer! With modern tech in a shop set up specifically to make these subs will find efficiencies that could cut these figures in half. The best you could do would be $50,000 MSRP. This is why with rare exceptions you can not find a well built subwoofer in the commercial market. The entire construction process will be cataloged on Imgur when I am finished. 

As for regular loudspeakers, the secret of fantastic audiophile speakers is not in the drivers. They are a dime a dozen. The secret is in the enclosure and crossover design. The DIYer has limited access to the kinds of test equipment needed to design SOTA loudspeakers but even now, advancements in computer and digital technology are making the speaker designer obsolete. You can have a preamplifier with a full 4 way digital crossover, room control and EQ. All the computer has to do is measure the system via a microphone and in 10 seconds you can have a perfectly designed loudspeaker for your room. You still have to build an enclosure that is functional  and hopefully attractive, so there is work for the DIYer to do and be proud of.