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

With more money spent on speakers you should get better more rigid enclosures, higher priced more accurate drivers and usually (but sadly not always) a well though out design.

You will gain clarity in the top range and control in the bottom end, plus it should go lower.

When I switched from speakers I was familiar with to new ones that cost around 5-6X as much, aside from the treble clarity I noticed a surprising lack of bass overhang - the deep bass notes didn't continue for a fraction of a second afterward, they simply stopped dead and going back to the olde speakers it seemed that that bass overhang resulted in a smearing, if you will, of the music and a loss of clarity.  It was like listening to a bad in your garage vs. in a hall with designed acoustic space.

And a far as the Ferraris go, I wish I still owned my vintage Lamborghini, which was a hoot and a half, but which you didn't want to park and leave anywhere lest you come back to find it with someone's initials scratched into it.

I think there is a product that everyone is comfortable with at their price & means.  Mostly likely there will be a difference, but it's a difference you won't be able to tell unless you A B compare it.  If so, trying to find out the difference is moot, if you are not going to consider it.  I apologize if you are, but most people do not have such a large price gap range between the products they have in consideration.  Such is with our hobby, audial differentiation is so much more difficult to pick up than let says visual differentiation.  

The Hailey uses high-grade raw materials, top-tier crossover parts, skilled U.S. labor, and state-of-the-art milling and turning equipment to make its products, all of which carry considerable costs. The $47K Hailey, as expensive as it is, represents significant trickle-down-availability of almost all of the engineering features that were formerly only found in the company’s upper models.

 

Here is also something else to think about, just a fun exercise.  Monitor Audio PL 500 II Platinum Series, I think their top-of-the-line speaker, costs about $35K. You can buy a used Hailey, about the same price as well.  How about that?

i'm gonna change the numbers just to make it simpler.  the $2000 speakers have no value 5 years from now.  $10,000 speakers might still fetch $5,000 after 5 years and they may have been "$5000 more enjoyable".  Commodity equipment has little residual value once it enters your house.  just another consideration - especially if its better.   

I bought my Tannoy dual concentric gold 450 dollars in 1975...

I sell them 1000 dollars, i could have ask 2,000 dollars i think 3 years ago i sold them very quickly because they are rare speakers mythically search for...Not bad for almost 45 years speakers...

Even if my actual speakers are smaller and very good i regret to have sell them...

I was thinking at the times erroneously that headphone can rival good speakers in a treated and controlled room...

I read some thread where people compared 500,000 dollars of gear with one another, i listen to that on youtube and i am satisfied comp^letely by my 500 bucks system ? am i deaf ?

No i know that acoustic  are  not solved by buying few panels at most...

Anyway a dedicated  silly treated and controlled room at low cost is not possiible nor sexy for most people  ande i understand that...

 And a professionnaly  enginerred room will cost more than  most costly audio system ... 

 Then back to the costly gear with  the illusion that audiophile experience come frpm the gear...not from the room at least at equal part, and most of the times for ordinary customer more from acoustic than from the basic gear...

i was not knowleageable in acoustic 3 years ago... Alas!

No audio magazine had acoustic article and facts and chronicle... Guess why?

How do you sell costly speakers if acoustic is more important than the DIFFERENCE between the gear sold... ignorance of acoustic plague audio world...And make market consumerism better...

People has no idea that the difference between comparable costly speakers is not at all comparable to the acoustic settings of the room which is way bigger impact...

Basic speakers si good they are will not beat some costly qualitatively superior design but in a treated and controlled room they will TAIL them at short distance...

This is the reason why my actual basically good Missiion Cyrus are superior in S.Q. now in my treated and controlled room to the higher design quality of the Tannoy dual gold concentric by a very great margin ...

This is the power of acoustic...

Almost no people here have a mechanically dedicated controlled audio room...

Few have a dedicated passively treated room...

A greater number have a system in a not so well treated living room...

The majority had no treatment in their living room...

And most think that their room untreated and uncontrolled is very good like it is... 😁😊

But acoustic dont change his principles with opinions in audio magazine...nor with ther superior design quality of some costly speakers...

 

 

I think this hobby if full of opportunities to experience diminishing returns.  However, there is a difference in sound quality.  If you buy a pair of $15,000 speakers you then have to spend half that amount on an amplifier to drive them.

It would be fun to take a survey on how much people are worth who spend $100,000 on their system.  It would also be interesting to find out what they do for a living.  Perhaps, this would cause people to seek a profession that can support that level of spending.  I also think people in this hobby are obsessive compulsive.  Are they people who are typically negative who will never find a way to be satisfied.  I also have seen pictures of some of these expensive systems.  I know my wife would not tolerate the appearance or the spending.