$20K to spend on speakers…. . wait! There’s a catch!


Greetings,

Perfect sense says buy stuff only after you have heard it. Only after an in home audition.

Sometimes we are forced to wing it.

Admit it, best guess trigger pulling happens a bunch because not everything is everywhere.

For some unknown reasons we seem to feel we know what we want or need in spite of never having auditioned it.

Here are a couple scenarios based on a “this thing should work’, “shot in the semi dark” buying practices.

Premise: You have $20K and it MUST be spent entirely on loudspeakers.

Here are the options:
1. The used speakers option.
You have NOT heard them ever. At all. Nada.
The deal here is you’r egetting them for about 50% off retail in quite good esthetic (8/10) condition, excellent working orde according to the seller, and about three - four years old and landed or shipped.

The seller has good feedback. No negatives.

All of the speakers numbers are amenable to your existing power plants. They should do well in your room.

2. brandy new speaker option.

The brand new units you’re paying $20K for include a 25% discount from MSRP and sold by a brick & mortar dealership.

You did hear the brand new ones, but only with modest SS gear and nothing on the level of your own equipment which is tubes, or vice versa for sake of this argument.

These come with warranty. ..and in your color preference.

Lastly, neither of these two sets of speakers are what could be called very popular, loudspeakers. Meaning they aren’t littering the pages of the speaker for sale pages with any regularity.


The carrier arrives. The boxes are fully in tact. No issues at all. Still, there’s a nagging thought. Did I do the right thing?

Shouldn’t I have bought used speakers and obtained still more value given just a bit older speakers sell for much less than MSRP.

Or, I bet I should have bought the new speakers and put up with another long run in.

Man! I hope I did not messs this up!!


What is your choice and why?

Thanks for the ideas and insights..

blindjim
I don’t know much about digital so can’t express any specific opinion. However, I think that just as in analog to make digital sound better one must do it first of all at the source, that’s transport, dac, digital cable and power cords. It is wrong to ’correct’ the sound with amps and speakers. Tuning the sound is another thing. There are warmer sounding guitars and cooler sounding guitars, and they both might have the same resolution. So might different speakers. But cd will never sound as natural as tape or vinyl, one can only try to approximate it. Some people do report that the higher resolution their systems become the more difficult it is for them to listen to poor quality digital. This has not been my experience, but then again I don’t expect much from my old CEC belt drive player. I expect much more from my turntable.
inna
as always, thanks much!


Until digital and analog are on par with each other, there will be a need to match the system. Not necessarily to ameliorate or attenuate, but to border the line where acceptability & resolution reside.

Past EXP says there will be loads of ‘they are here’ and or ‘you are there’ info, if the recordings possess it. So if, high res defines those artifacts as primary elements, then I know which way to proceed… apart from the voices of the power amp it/themselves. .a significantly transparent loudspeaker resting on neutrality is quite do able. In fact, desired.

Until further notice, I’ve determined a nearly critically accurate source which lands close to musical, works well for me if the pre and amp (S) are resolute but have a tendency to naturalness as their main strengths. .I feel all of the power amps you’ve spoken of and I’ve an interest in, follow those guidelines be they SS or glass.

I’m sure, all will work out as it should. I’m simply not a card carrying detail oriented freak. But an AIR groupie. (acquired or attained, Illusionary reproduction).

Life ain’t like school. In school you get the lesson first then the test. In life, you get the test first, and possibly, its lesson. This is just one more effort in being educated by life. I likely just need to set aside my biases and groundless prejudices a tad more often going forward. I’ll keep an eye on those areas.

Buying used for greater performance, and travel are the two predominate things brought to greater focus here… so far, and that’s a good thing.

Blindjim

After drinking this over I have made my decision. 

Option 2, I am going to spend 20K for speakers that retail for 25K and the dealer is playing them on gear that is lower in quality then mine. Sounds like I have pretty damn good gear. I think I will talk the dealer down to half price. Tell him since I am uncertain about how it will sound in my system with my superior tube gear I am hesitant to drop big bucks.

Do you think that will fly???

I will do some more thinking about this and less to say later.  
Stargazer, get out of town, I thought that was my job. My old job. Though I am not a HiFi expert I certainly know a little bit about it. 

Jim 
X dealer


Soundsrealaudio > After drinking this over I have made my decision. I think I will talk the dealer down to half price. Tell him since I am uncertain about how it will sound in my system with my superior tube gear I am hesitant to drop big bucks.

@Soundsrealaudio
Sounds fantastic… if the dealer is drinking as much as you, more if possible, so things should work out favorably. For someone.

Probably a good idea to hand over the check and get them onto the truck before he or she sobered up. Things often look very different when all the bottles and glasses are empty.

Blindjim > all in all, should I find myself in a circumstance like that, I’ll take it under advisement. Thanks much.