Why buy cheap speakers??

Front to back... source to speakers.

Great speakers can not make up for any lack or loss of signal info which occurs due to source errors or degredation along the transmission pathways. ... they may reveal these errors though.

I became a 'true believerr' in the "It's what is up front that counts" camp quite by accident. Later, by practice. I auditioned a pair of $7K Speakers incorporating a good preamp, source, and my Krell amp. Even used front to back Audience cables and Chang pc. Nice. Nothing to jump up and down about but pretty nice. I declined to buy the speakers following the preview, intimating that the sound I heard did not correlate to the price I'd have to pay for that 'sound'.

I was taken into another room... A whole different setup for the most part, same cables and pc, and half as expensive speakers... $3.5K.... and 220 wpc less. it was comprised of the top Shanlin SACD/CD player, tube preamp and tube monos. Dollarwise, that front end was well over double the previous one, and the sound was stunning. Vastly superior. No question about it.

Following that eye & ear opening experience I bought an updated version of the same preamp, and have improved IMHO on the source, parraleled the monos and improved upon the speakers, cabling, and conditioning. Every source change out has again elevated performance of the system on the whole.

I've got 5 pair of speakers on hand, ranging from a few hundred dollars to over six grand per pair, a few amps, and various cables... regardless the spekers being used with my gear, the better the source, pre, and amp, the better the sound. Period.

That being said, the amp + speaker match becomes more and more integral as your system escalates... and/or the speakers own impedance curves stray from lineiarity.

interesting viewpoints from everyone.

to me, the whole speaker vs. gear debate always seems to be the rorschach test for music listeners to see what aspects of music interest them most.

for my money, i'm in the adequate-electronics-with-excellent-speakers camp, as opposed to the adequate-speakers-with-excellent-electronics camp, but i see how others prefer differently. i guess i go for impressiveness over accuracy.

if audio were a singles bar, i'd be hitting on the drunk subwoofer twins...

Steven,

I had to laugh when I looked at your system, because I have the perfect example of something that seems to make no sense until you really sit down and think about it.

Chris Sommovigo, the famous cable maker, once told me that the key to something as simple in audio as a cable, is complicated. If you take the best wire in the whole world, but have cheap connectors or the connection itself is no good, the wire can't do its job and will be of little benefit. Its job is to take the signal from, let's say the preamp, and pass it along to the power amp.

Case that you can relate to personally, I had my system that had a $5,000.00 Herron tube preamp and $6,000.00 Herron monoblocks. A tube in the preamp went out and through my fault and ignorance, I blew both amps trying to figure out what the problem was.

The rest of my system included a pair of $5,000.00 speakers and an $11,000.00 CD Transport and DAC. The two pairs of interconnects were $5,000.00 Stealth Indra.

I sent my preamp and amps in for repair. Not wanting to be without my music, I pulled out my old preamp and amp: a B&K PT-3 tuner/preamp and B&K ST 1400 Mk 2 amp. What do you think happened when I inserted this $1,300.00 preamp and amp into the slot in place of the $11,000.00 preamp and monoblocks?

I had a sound that I could have easily lived with for years! Why?!?!?!? Because my, and your, inexpensive little B&K preamp and amp had never been heard properly because the cheap connectors that I had on them years ago didn't allow me to hear how good they actually were!

Stealth Indra's at $5,000.00 a set on $1,300.00 worth of preamp and amp, PERPOSTUROUS and INSANE!!!! Or was it? Was it the interconnect's wire, connectors, connection or shielding?

What's cheap? Maybe the question is not so much the cost determining what's cheap, but the quality of the parts making up the speaker, component or cable that determines whether it's cheap, or if it sounds good.

Chuck

Thankyou so much to everyone. I am alittle more enlightened now. When I got my first speakers back in High school the "seventies" Large Advents with a Marantz 2240B receiver.Speakers were the end all.I got away from audio for twenty some thing years, "Marriage".I just started listening again and have purchased a small but nice system. So far the only component I want to change is the sub.Polk's cheapest and not at all musical,but for less than a hunderd dollars, I couldn't pass it up.If any of you can see some thing that would help my system out please feel free to let me know. I want to enjoy my system more than I do now. I love listening to songs I know and hearing some thing I never heard before. or a finger on a fret that wasn't there on my all in one system.Any way Thankyou again. Steve

Billy Joel thinks that you get more mileage from a cheap pair of speakers.
I totally disagree with him - I think speakers are the most important part of any system & that most of your budget should be allocated there.
No matter what source you use - the end result is heard through "your speakers"!
I'm from the old school (per digital) & was taught to spend about 40% - 50% of my total budget on speakers.
In today's world - it might be more difficult to make due with the same ratio even though most used speakers can be found @ 50% of retail.
I now use 2 CD players + 2 turntables with 3 arms.
Once you set the basic foundation - speakers, amp/s & pre, the rest will come together rather easy as long as you can afford the next source.
Digital is a much easier add on that analogue, so I would suggest that you start there next & then start your quest for the right turntable, arm & cartridge (if your into vinyl).