Speakers vs source/amp budget

I am prefacing this by saying that I manufacturer very high end ($10K) stand-mount speakers and it is my opinion and worth what you paid for it.  

I spent years with a pair of Revel Performa3 M105s.  I had put together a system where everything was about the same quality.  Ayre Preamp, Rogue Amp and Marantz Reference DAC and Rega table. My feeling was that the speakers were the least expensive component, they were the next item that needed upgrading.  

I went out and tried to find speakers under $5K that were better.  I could find some that were different (Scansonic, DeVore, Acoustic Zen and Monitor Audio) all sounded different (and very good) but I wasn't convinced they were better.  Some sounded much worse but they will remain un-named.  

So I upped my budget and started looking in the $6K-$22K range.  Differentiated sound was not exactly easy to find.  I listened to some extremely expensive and underwhelming speakers.  The ones that really stood out to me had something about them that was really unique:

Boenicke - look at these speakers for a second and it is obvious they are different.  They are hard to place in a room, but are special when setup correctly.

Raidho - Tweeter is amazing.  Sound is not good it is so amazing it becomes addictive.  But, if your room is not open enough, the soundstage won't come together and they are underwhelming.  

Wilson Duette 2 - Freakin' phenomenal speaker.  Works well up against a wall and imaging is sick.  But they are $22K dollars.  Cast phenolic resin cabinets are what is special here and they are far better at damping than any wood/MDF.

Kaiser Chiara - To this day, the best sounding stand mount I have heard.  Horrible to place.  Rear firing woofer means they need 8' behind them.  Cabinet is a rubberized composite of some sort.  Not a hint of brightness from the mundorf AMT tweeter.  Totally impractical, $22K but in the right space, my god they were amazing.  

Magico S1 MK II, Wilson Sabrina - I also listened to these as small floorstanders that would take up same space and they were brilliant.  Aluminum and cast phenolic resin cabinets.  

Wilson has since introduced the Tune Tot.  I have since heard speakers from Marten which are outstanding along with Vivid and Rockport speakers. 

Basically, my POV is that if you have a wood or MDF box, you need to have an extraordinary tweeter like Raidho and mount it in a metal baffle or decouple it and mount it in metal like Vimberg.  Alternatively, you could simply ignore all throughts on speaker design like Boenicke.  Or you can use a non-traditional material to make your cabinets like aluminum, fiberglass, carbon fiber, cast phenolic resin, stone, cast iron, etc...

This is where you will see a big jump in sound quality due to the damping effect of the cabinets and where your law of diminishing returns on speakers breaks down.  I make my premium products out of fiberglass and carbon fiber.  They are expensive ($7500 -$10,000) but at least they are differentiated in terms of sound and you won't hear a small difference between a $3K speaker and one of mine.  

Ok looks like I need to up my budget to $10k+ thanks for the suggestions VerdantAudio will check them out but I'm hearing that Focal goes well with Naim so gonna check out Sopra 1 as well.

plaser,

"In fact I’ve noticed for bookshelf speakers especially after around $3k there is hardly much improvement except for the price tag."

Nothing much to argue with here. Bookshelf designs are usually compromised by size, hence often used with subs.


"On the other hand the difference between $2k amp and $10k is night and day and same goes for turntables and dacs."


A lot to argue with here.

I've long believed that DACs and amplifiers, if matched in drive and power output, sound more or less sound the same.

I didn't notice much difference between my NAD, Naim, or Creek amplifiers, although I have only ever used efficient easy to drive speakers, apart from a pair of Quad ESLs which didn't work out for me. 

Perhaps you could provide some examples of what you define as 'night and day'?


As verdantaudio said, loudspeakers are where the real gains are to be found. As there are so many different approaches and design philosophies it is really a question of giving them a listen.

"I went out and tried to find speakers under $5K that were better. I could find some that were different (Scansonic, DeVore, Acoustic Zen and Monitor Audio) all sounded different (and very good) but I wasn't convinced they were better. Some sounded much worse but they will remain un-named."


My findings too.

I also think that cabinet issues are a difficult (and often downright expensive) limitation to overcome. Therefore some of speakers I would love to hear next  would be some open baffle designs like the Linkwitz Pluto's/Orion's/LX521s.

I'd love to hear some Magnepans too, but right now there's zero indication of when the shows are going to restart. This must really be hitting the small loudspeaker firms hard.

Sopra 1s are great with Naim Gear.  Very smooth and musical.  

Since you like Wilson's you should probably hear the TuneTots if you haven't already.  I listened to them driven by Naim gear in NYC and they are a darn good sounding little speaker.  

You should try and hear the Magico A1s.  Gotta be on everyones list. 

The Raidho X-1 and XT-1 are freakin' awesome speakers, but placement is critical.  

If you are adventurous, depending on your amp, I would encourage you to check out my Blackthorn 1 (Naim or Tube) or my Nightshade 1 with SS gear that is a little brighter.  

Not sure you can find them, but the Wilson Benesch Geometry line is obscenely good.  Starts at like $8500 and goes to $50K for standmounts but they are very good sounding speakers.  

cd318, just to give you an example I used to only listen to vinyls on my Linn LP12 Akurate with radikal power supply and Naim superline/supercap phono stage because no DAC however good came close to it (previously used McIntosh D150 at $3500, Chord TT 1 at ~$4000, and Naim 272 all in one streamer/DAC/preamp for $6500ish). Then, I tried hooking up a Chord Dave ($10k) and it just blew all the other DACs away. It sounded so much (natural sounding) like the vinyls that now I do most of my listening streaming from Tidal (Auralic G1 streamer -> Chord Dave DAC -> Naim 300 power amp).