@almarg +1
Cost often has very little to do with performance. FULL STOP.
As HiFi is very personal, it's important to know what constitutes good sound to you and you alone... within reason ;-) AND you are building a system. A loudspeaker than only sounds good with a small subset of electronics will ultimately disappoint.
Well designed products can be timeless, in spite of their failings relative to the latest theoretical improvements.
Over the past couple of years I have updated the crossover caps, replaced connectors and bi-wired. The improvements are astounding, far better than anticipated because the original design was very, very good. Recent auditions of systems costing two+ orders of magnitude more have left me extremely non-plussed as they did not emote, had limited sound stage dimensionality, poor focus and instruments wandered about as if played by strolling minstrels. Additionally, I reverse engineered my 2003 ACI Force sub, modelled its circuitry and was able to integrate with the mains with a theoretical better than ±0.75db vector sum of amplitude and phase. All I had to do was add a 180° phase switch. The tympani in Dvorak's New World are better than ever before. Other orchestral works with less ambitious tympani are accurately placed and dynamically correct. When such works are well presented, Miles, Evans, Herbie, Jimi, Toto, Fagan, Led Zeppelin, Queen, etc. are a doddle.
The short version of the above paragraph is that an aural education pays great dividends. $2000 per year spent on acoustic concerts in good halls is cheap tuition compared to blowing $5-10-??K on repeated loudspeaker changes.
IMO, far too much of the loudspeaker market today is not driven by sound engineering principals. One can look at a design and Stereophile measurements show a ragged top, poor off axis, mid-bloat, what-ever, as would be expected from the geometry.
IMO, many would be well served to divide the loudspeaker budget in two and spend half on room treatments. I have far more invested in books, bookcases, carpets and art that act as diffusers and absorbers than I do in HiFi hardware. Educating oneself on room interaction will pay dividends for the rest of your HiFi life.
The ONLY reference is unamplified music in good acoustic space. If one's system can recreate that, all the heavy lifting is done. It may not play Led Zeppelin at concert levels, but it will be accurately rendered.
Cost often has very little to do with performance. FULL STOP.
As HiFi is very personal, it's important to know what constitutes good sound to you and you alone... within reason ;-) AND you are building a system. A loudspeaker than only sounds good with a small subset of electronics will ultimately disappoint.
Well designed products can be timeless, in spite of their failings relative to the latest theoretical improvements.
Over the past couple of years I have updated the crossover caps, replaced connectors and bi-wired. The improvements are astounding, far better than anticipated because the original design was very, very good. Recent auditions of systems costing two+ orders of magnitude more have left me extremely non-plussed as they did not emote, had limited sound stage dimensionality, poor focus and instruments wandered about as if played by strolling minstrels. Additionally, I reverse engineered my 2003 ACI Force sub, modelled its circuitry and was able to integrate with the mains with a theoretical better than ±0.75db vector sum of amplitude and phase. All I had to do was add a 180° phase switch. The tympani in Dvorak's New World are better than ever before. Other orchestral works with less ambitious tympani are accurately placed and dynamically correct. When such works are well presented, Miles, Evans, Herbie, Jimi, Toto, Fagan, Led Zeppelin, Queen, etc. are a doddle.
The short version of the above paragraph is that an aural education pays great dividends. $2000 per year spent on acoustic concerts in good halls is cheap tuition compared to blowing $5-10-??K on repeated loudspeaker changes.
IMO, far too much of the loudspeaker market today is not driven by sound engineering principals. One can look at a design and Stereophile measurements show a ragged top, poor off axis, mid-bloat, what-ever, as would be expected from the geometry.
IMO, many would be well served to divide the loudspeaker budget in two and spend half on room treatments. I have far more invested in books, bookcases, carpets and art that act as diffusers and absorbers than I do in HiFi hardware. Educating oneself on room interaction will pay dividends for the rest of your HiFi life.
The ONLY reference is unamplified music in good acoustic space. If one's system can recreate that, all the heavy lifting is done. It may not play Led Zeppelin at concert levels, but it will be accurately rendered.