I simply adore these ” “How much speaker should I….”” argument/debate/philosophy threads.
They are not quite the venom filled or flame fuelded rants one finds in the usual “Do cables matter” forums, but both are time well wasted. If for no other reason than to see whose hat is in whose camp, and ‘why’. As if that matters either.
In the interim, the supposed ‘guru’s’ seep out avowing this or that yet no one comes off saying their rig sucks or is way off being satisfactory, or even needs substantial improvements. Nope. All is well in Camelot and Camelot is in everyone’s listening room.
Everything matters. Everything. How much is always the debate for egos, forums and wallets.
Disregard your ego, and just let your ears, and wallet make those choices, not someone else’.
Having ultra pricey speakers are for sure luxury items, yet not necessary for a system to excel!
Room to speaker ratios do exist and I’ve heard spkrs which are too much for a given room, though not the other way around, but these situations are fewer than one would think and far fewer as the reason the outfit is underperforming.
Audio Expos for example have an immense disparity in speaker pricing, source units, power plants extravagance, yet many of the rooms are virtually the same size. Doubtless folks will say of the exact same room, it was great, OK, or not too good, and the only real thing one can examine is the loudspeakers performance when its all said and done. Then looms the real question, how much of that sounds can be contributed to the spkr or its upstream friends? Its impossible to answer. Only how well the performance was can be subjectively ascertained, or how well XYZ spkrs can perform given its front end variables. Some speakers do have their limits of course, so finding those whose limits seem unlimited appears how to formulate a spkr short list.
Only one time have I ever heard a rig whose upstream fare met or exceeded 110K and whose spkr cost was far below that actually sound flat, or blah IMO.
At the 2020 FAE the rooms which I felt were a cut above where those whose upstream pieces were way above average speaker costing fare. Well, above! Albeit this came unexpectedly.
Bad sounding rooms are merely more difficult to manage. Its like choosing to fully customize and upgrade say a ‘ 54 Nash Cosmopolitaninstead of doing up a ’56 Bel-air or a ’57 T Bird. But to each their own.
Performance is key but synergy trumps individual performance en masse. We seek transparency and neutrality but to what extent?
As Al said, some people’s sonic preffs lay in different realms of the bandwidth and certain musical genres do not reqire the entire bandwidth be supplied in total equality. The same goes for the expansive dynamic contrasts some genres demonstrate, e.g., the Ops arrows currently receiving consequent adoration beyond what other higher costing units provided may support that theme. Or it could be supportive of the room to spkr ratio, or greater or lesser transparency of the signal itself.
My EXP has shown as I originally put it, top flight reference line speakers or even there abouts are purely luxury and top flight reproductions of music can be had on far less levels of spkr accomplishment.
This spkr search must include equal attention to the power demands the short list discloses for speakers and amps are gonna see higher levels of performance if this matching just the current needs from the amp (s) are done well. Build of the amp denotes still more scrutiny, and all alone can escalate the presentation.
I’ve found budgeting a system is ridiculous for the seriously afflicted audio nut. Regardless what gets in the door first, its gonna change.
Unless one has little or no constraints with financial wherewithal, circumstances more than budgets add or remove options just as will personal philosophies on throwing money at a 2 ch. Audio rig.
I’ve yet to hear someone say the first outfit was a pair of Wilson Watts and an Onkyo receiver, or Creek INT amp.
Get whatever level of spkr you can. Then add the ingredients to suit. This doesn’t mean speakers first at all costs. It merely means get some journeyman good performing nothing really faulty with them loudspeakers. There are untold numbers of them around.
My money once some sort of affair is in play will target the source. As the foremost item to be upgraded. For me its been a trickle down affair thereafter quite often. Not always. Just more often thanmy ego & ears would prefer.
If the aim is always to seek greater transparency and organics, tonal integrity and naturalism, one won’t go far wrong. Chasing just transparency will severely diminish your audio library from the sheer abundance of bad recordings. So paying attention to balance is key with respect to the reproduction, and not as much to who ghets what amount of duckets along the way or at the onset.
If all the bits and pieces are of quality, its reasonable to expect a quality sort of outcome. Mating and matching all the pieces with care often yields greater performance ala ‘synergy’.
The last rig I had to dismantle had about $40K MSRP in front of a pr of $8K MSRP speakers, and a $4K sub. So what is that ratio? A bit more than 25% of total system cost for transducers? It sure sounded better than my first effort which had 2K in front of a 2K set of speakers.
Its all gonna change anyhow…
Good luck. Good thread.
