When a budget speaker is preferred to a high end one...

@bobpyle 

Don’t waste your time w @kenjit   

He has a long history of making ridiculous statements, and when asked to back them up - which he is obviously incapable of doing - he puts the onus on the person questioning him to prove him wrong. And as clockwork, after a couple of posts in a thread, he inevitably insults all audiophiles on mass  

Now, back to the opening statement  

I am regularly surprised by how little is required to get passable sound. A $15 amp board from AliExpress, feeding a pair of diy speakers using inexpensive drivers, all fed via a $20 DAC, will provide surprisingly decent sound  

it never ceases to amaze me just how difficult it is to produce a component that produces exceptional sound - using whatever metric you would use to define what that means to you.

Its all about personal preferences, musical tastes and the environment you listen in. The more specific, and nuanced you want the listening experience to be, costs go up accordingly.

Sometimes, a Big Mac, some fries and a cola really hit the spot. Other times,  it’s foie gras and a Sauternes 

This is not a very uncommon phenomenon. Some speakers are incredibly overpriced. Some are underpriced relative to the competition. 

I think that when it comes to speakers, the smallest choices in design can make big differences. Mark Twain said the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightening and a lightening bug. Some designers are so good at combining components and enclosures that they extract the best possible result. Surely it’s a matter of listening and tinkering, over and over, until it’s just right (from the designer’s perspective). Then if you like what the designer likes, voila! 

Yes, I've seen (heard) it happen many times.  This is why I've always loved the Epi 100 speakers, and love them even more now that they're updated with Human Speakers parts.  Rarely... rarely indeed... in 45 years have I heard any speakers that I'd rather have in my home for practical application: dispersive, tight, clear, non-fatiguing, not big size, not picky about placement.  

I'm on the hunt, I suppose... trying out the Klipsch Heresy IV currently, but so far I don't see them supplanting the Epi's linearity and beauty.  Heresy is a different experience, but not "better" to my ears.  I'm looking at maybe the Polk R700, perhaps.  But really, Epi - Human Speakers does everything, the best nice tweeter, including bass... maybe a modest sub I suppose, svs micro 3000 or something, but otherwise... 

Human Speakers website makes original HS speakers too, one by one... Model 81, as it says in the description, is likely all the speaker most people will ever need.  But of course you can use their parts and mod other cabinets, whether it be older Epi or Genesis, or one clever idea is to pop the Human woofer and tweeter into a pair of old Advent Prodigy and voila a small tower speaker that'll rival much, much more expensive speakers.

dgluke

98 posts

07-31-2022 at 12:48pm 

Considering the inordinate amount of garbage stockpiled into a Harbeth bookshelf speaker (like there was a contest to see which network could be the most complicated piece of junk anyone could produce on design day), it is not at all surprising to hear that a less expensive and well engineered speaker could wipe the room with them. While you didn’t mention brand, I did. Imagine what they could sound like if you could improve them. But you can’t. You’d have to go external to make any headway. Trying to replace all the cheap Chinese scraps in the network with quality components would be cost prohibitive in the face of the initial outlay and the fact that the cheaper parts are smaller. No room to do a straight swap in their bookshelf designs. 

Don't sugarcoat it for God's sake. Tell us what's on your mind......