High Performance Audio - The End?

Agree, there probably are better speakers than Moabs for background music.

deep_333, you haven't compared the Moab in your home to anything, and you have the Adante working with subs to make it offer even a passable serious floor standing performance. Further, if you did not compare the speakers with the precise same system, then you have no direct comparison. It appears that you used entirely different gear with the other speakers. 

That means you have no direct comparisons; at least that is what can be ascertained from what you have shared. Ergo, you have little to nothing in the way of direct comparison. Consequently, your posts are of little value. The hype combined with sarcasm are trotted out in place of actual experience. Here's a piece of wisdom you need to repeat until it sinks in:

It is ONLY when speakers are compared directly, with the same gear, in the same room, that a reasonable judgment can be made as to the absolute performance of each speaker. 

Obviously, when you put $30K of pre/amp ahead of it, a speaker will shine brilliantly, at least as far as its capabilities allow. I have done so many times, but that in no way makes the budget speaker somehow a far superior speaker. I have used the Pass Labs XA200.8 Monos (reviewed for Dagogo.com) with speakers such as the Tri-Art Audio Series B 5 Open, which, BTW, at about $5K would in several aspects of performance outperform the Adante. That is an absolute fact, not opinion, as the observation is based on design of the speakers, not subjective assessment. 

My conclusion is that you have little to no actual comparison of gear, which is why your posts are loaded with hype. The fact is, you have NO clue how the Moab, and little clue how the Adante ACTUALLY would compare; you pretend you know, which means you are full of the hubris that plagues this hobby. Until you get a couple of speakers side by side, you can make all the claims you want - and it's worth just about zero. If you cannot moderate your arrogance, and admit you have far less experience than you pretend, I am finished discussing with you. 

To the community: I am making no absolute judgment of the Moab or Adante, as I have not heard them in my room, nor compared them directly to other speakers. That other speakers such as the Tri-Art 5 Open would likely outperform the Adante in terms of bass, i.e. bass extension, and perhaps preference of bass quality due to being open baffle, should be obvious. If not, please do not open an argument over it, because I am not interested in arguing that observation.  :)

@douglas_schroeder , you’re wrong on all counts again Doug.

I am the kinda guy who likes to add and reap the benefits of good subs to a 80k TAD or a Revel or a Wilson or other $$$$speakers out there that claim to be full range. I add subs to a 5k speaker (the Adante), use the same electronics on it that i use on speakers that cost magnitudes more and had a realization that it sounds better than the speaker that costs magnitudes more. You, on the other hand, sound like the kinda guy who would pay 80k for a supposedly "full range" speaker, not add subs and have a inferior listening experience.

I know what a 120k system sounds like in my house. When i stop by my doc’s house and listen to his 4.5k Moab paired with his electronics, i hear everything in his setup that i’m looking for in a system that costs magnitudes more. I don’t have to bring that Moab into my house and A/B it on my gear to certify that it sounds like something that costs magnitudes more.

You sound like the kinda guy who would claim a) there is no difference in competence levels among engineers who design these things and b) there are no diminishing returns in this vulture filled industry. You "get what you pay for" he says!!...Go fool the intellectually challenged goats with fat wallets out there with that crap. I have a feeling that’s your line of work. In fact, you state you have neither heard the Adante or the Moab in a competent setup, but, you’re quick to run your mouth like some all knowing seer eh Doug?

Put 20 engineers in a room. You think all 20 of them have the same aptitude because they went to the same frat, have the same degree and exposure to the industry? No Dougy no, there’s always a genius and a ’non value added’ cretin in that pool, when you’re trying to run a business.

You’re wrong on all counts again Douglas.

Steve's point, and it's one I've seen mentioned many times previously at shows and demos, is that better more revealing systems will often only serve to make most recordings sound worse.

Regarding this comment, I've found that the better systems that are also very transparent will not make a bad recording worse, they simply play it without editorial. However, if something is amiss in the system, then the recordings may well sound worse. So IME some real scrutiny has to be applied to what is considered 'more revealing'!

@prof,

'It sounds, though, like you are mostly satisfied with your Tannoys?'


I'd say so. The Berkeley's can play almost anything without making me reach for the remote on purely sonic grounds alone. Previous speaker more or less forced me to search for upgrades - mainly with lack of bass or treble issues.

For sure I'd be happy with a pair of loudspeakers that maintained (or even built upon their strengths of cohesiveness and ease) but disappeared (box-wise) a little better. 

In particular I'd like to hear some good open baffle designs, or even some maverick designs like the Tekton Moab's or the Ohm Walsh's.

Recently, after years of prejudice, I've taken to have another think about metal drivers and particularly their capabilities in the midrange. Especially after seeing how their use is becoming increasingly common in highly regarded designs such as the likes of the Joseph Audio Pulsars and Linkwitz LX521.4s etc.


@atmasphere,

'I've found that the better systems that are also very transparent will not make a bad recording worse, they simply play it without editorial. However, if something is amiss in the system, then the recordings may well sound worse.'

Earlier today I was playing Matt Monro's The Singer's Singer CD (allegedly the best mastering of his work taken from the best generation tapes available) and frankly some the tracks were barely acceptable on sonic grounds alone.

Some of the songs are simply sublime but great recordings these are not. In particular their bandwidth seemed somewhat compromised, with a less than stellar signal to noise ratio present too. 

So I couldn't but wonder whether better speakers (more treble, more bass, a clearer window?) wouldn't just highlight these deficiencies further rather than illuminate their strengths in a better light.

Perhaps, as you say "..the better systems that are also very transparent will not make a bad recording worse, they simply play it without editorial." is true.

It would be nice to think that way. 

"However, if something is amiss in the system, then the recordings may well sound worse. So IME some real scrutiny has to be applied to what is considered 'more revealing'!"

Maybe this very important need for careful considered system matching is a kind of consensus we can settle upon. 

Perhaps this also goes some way towards explaining why system building can often take a considerable amount time and care, and not to mention - money.

A wrong step, however exalted and recommended it might be, can easily lead to eventual dissatisfaction if it brings along with it it's own 'editorial' preferences.

As @prof said earlier, real progress in understanding can easily get hampered by an increasingly vague and personalised description which itself becomes subject to an increasingly wider range of interpretation.

Largely relevant only to its originator.

No wonder they don't award any Pulitzer prizes for audio journalism.

Not when the limits of language itself will inevitably drag us back into the realms of subjective interpretation.

It's an unfortunate fact of the human condition that experience translated into words and back into experience seems to incur even more losses than any analogue to digital to analogue conversion.