Affordable vs. ultra expensive speakers - what's the difference?


Candidate 1: Affordable at about 3K

 

Candidate 2: Ultra expensive at 50K.

 

So what's the difference?

andy2

It is true that speakers must be commensurate and synergetically linked to the room...

But is is not enough at all...

A room must be treated materially but this  is not enough also...

A room must be mechanically controlled...

After a rightful acoustic embeddings the price of speakers dont means much pass a certain price of the basic components...

Acoustic rule not the box....

An acoustically  dedicated room beat any piece of gear in improvement at any price...

 

I bit went from what was a perfect $5500 pair of speaker and spent $12500.00 more for the 5’s and well regretted it. They just did not work in my room.

Higher price is no guarantee of better sound, which is subjective anyway, but higher cost from the builder’s perspective allows for more expensive, higher quality, more resolving, and hopefully better sounding parts. It’s still a huge challenge to synergize all the parts into a coherent, balanced, and satisfying speaker. Then there’s the critical element of finding components that will reveal the better parts of the more expensive speaker. Throwing Magico, Wilson, or Focal speakers on an generic 50 watt receiver isn’t likely to impress anyone.

What’s the difference? Just in terms of manufacturing and parts quality there’s a huge difference. Aluminum enclosure, drivers made from billet aluminum, substantially better crossover components. Is it “worth” a $47,000 difference, or does it “sound” $47,000 better? I have absolutely no clue but there is big money in making the expensive example you reference.

@hilde45 ,  I think (at least for me and my logic), you nailed it.  

I don't have $50k speakers, but today I have $6500 speakers and I never thought I'd get here.  I can now fathom maybe a $20k set of speakers if I could use them and enjoy them thoroughly for 20 years. 

I tell a neighbor friend I bought an amp for $4k and their eyes pop out of the sockets.  Someone on the street buys a $70k car and no one's eyes pop out.  The amp plays on, while the car moves one more step toward the junkyard each day.