Buying Speakers Based on Specs

Two of the main reasons you can instantly tell two acoustic instruments apart playing the same tone is by their attack and decay.  Do you think all speaker material produces tone in the same way?...and then reverberates that tone with the same harmonic overtones?  Specs would never be able to capture that.

Remember the old days when the catalog showed "20-watt speakers", and the next better ones were "40-watt speakers", and the best ones were "60-watt speakers"?

No, it's not a good idiea, and also, room acoustics!!

Good room acoustics can make your speakers sound a lot bigger and faster and tighter. :)


So, consider that first.

A good dealer will let you take a pair home if they have demos of the model you are interested.....its almost always where I start.  I narrow it down with showroom demos and if necessary do a home demo.   Only purchased one pair of speakers sight unseen over 35 years in this...   a pair of PSB Platinum M2 and fortunately they were great speakers.... so much I would buy another pair used.....but I have brought home several well regarded speakers that I thought sounded like crap in my system....    and that's just it,  it's a System and not all electronics gel with each other and different speakers....  Obviously room acoustics and the speaker's dispursion pattern play greatly , but I believe synergy is real and just doesnt always happen no matter how much money you throw at a system.

I was fortunate,  my dealer had my amps and preamp on hand so I was pretty sure they would sound great at home, and they did

My current Heresy III are perfect for my listenting space right now, I listened in store, brought them home and then had them order a new pair in cherry instead of walnut....  

Terrible idea!

In terms of overall sound profile Spendor vs Paradigm could not sound more different at a base level.  The Paradigms are MUCH more forward.

This is not a bad thing but if you were to swap in Spendors for your Paradigms and assume they will just go a bit lower, man will you be disappointed.  

If you want deeper bass response, add a sub or two or consider a larger speaker from the same manufacturer unless you want to replace your electronics in this case.  Otherwise, if you want to switch manufacturers, you need to hunt another speaker down that is similarly forward.