Why pay so much for super high end?

Good question from the original poster. I like to buy the expensive speakers for health reasons. I started to have some real lung/respiratory issues from burning piles of my money in a bonfire in the middle of the living room floor. I found that if I bought expensive stereo speakers from thieves I have less smoke in the house and breath easier. The only real problem is that with less money smoke my health improved and my medical costs went down. I fixed that by starting to smoke 3 packs a day at $10 a pack. So, it all works out. 

" Well mbl, I don't have a performance in my music room, ever. Even a string quartet with continuo would be a little tight.

With my system, I try to simulate a concert, with the listener (me) positioned in the middle of the dress circle. That means performers in front, and reflections from the sides and back. I don't think that two speakers do that as well as six. I explained how I do it. YMMD."

You'll have to bear with me because I'm not the best at explaining things. The reason I used a live performance as an example was to show, at least to me, that a 2 channel system seems to be better equipped to replicate the performance than a surround system. Your quote above shows where we differ. With surround, you try to replicate side and rear reflections with information coming from speakers. My opinion is that if you have an instrument play live, it will use the acoustics of the room. If you then set up a 2 channel system so that the instrument is at the same spot in the room as the live instrument, why not let the recording use the same characteristics of the room, just like what happens live? 

I also want to be clear that I'm not trying to start an argument here. This is just how I see the issue, and if others are getting results using other methods, that's perfectly fine. It would be foolish for anyone to do things any other way than what works best for them.

mbl, you state, "if you have an instrument play live ..."

I think that’s the point of difference, mbl. I don’t often listen to a single instrument or any other small source of music; usually it’s a group of musicians who can be playing substantial instruments. That group extends over space. A few square inches of speaker is no substitute for 30 square feet of sound board, for example.

To reproduce this sound requires square feet of speaker, extended over some significant space.

davt, seldom have I heard of a more logical, compelling solution to a serious problem. I salute you.

The whole point was is that it doesn’t take all that much time or effort to build high quality speakers that someone has designed for you. Either that or you have a friend who can build you cabinets because most Americans do. Making a crossover is incredibly easy and soldering is actually pretty fun. Building cabinets is actually fun too for a lot of people.

Time is not an exscuse. That’s just a random thought you guys come up with on a spot because I don’t know you’re afraid you’re wasting your money?

If you have time to listen to your speakers AND rant and rave with me on Audiogon you got some time to build some cabinets and crossovers. It takes a day or two. And if someone designed a sophisticated enough cabinet and crossover for you, which is entirely in the realm of reality, you could get $100,000+ speakers for a couple of grand. You could build Focal Grand Utopia BEs if someone with some experience took some time to make designs for just a fraction of the price probably save $170,000 off their $180,000 price.  

And this isn’t a constant hobby that requires constant attention. You build them in one or two days and you’re done.

This is obserd. "I don’t have time"? Figuring most of you are paid $100 an hour or less with designs in hand, in a couple of hours you can basically earn $10,000 an hour being a speaker builder saving yourself tons of money.

And you guys are all defending these mark ups? Why? What do you owe them? Many people don’t realize they’re just buying 3rd party drivers and a moderately easily (with the knowledge in hand) designed cabinet and crossovers. I didn’t know that and when I found out I was pissed. I never stopped to think about it. People are commenting on mark ups aren’t taking in to account that while you need a lot of knowledge to design crossovers and cabinets, you need beyond amateur skill to replicate it. beyond amateur.


So go on saying you "don’t have time" or "every other industry marks up" which is ridiculous rebuttals. Keep feeding this crooked industry the one that I’ve grown to hate with a serious passion.