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

I was listening to two different floorstanders, I forgot which models. One retailed under $3000, the other $1000,  both used. The former had detail, frequency extension, etc., but sounded buttoned up, almost inert. The latter didn't have the precision, but it sounded more generous, more engaging. I preferred the latter. 

i just moved & downsized from my Acoustic Research AR-92 to a speaker i bought based solely on a review by Andrew Robinson, XTZ Spirit 4 - since i'm in a new listening room, i don't really know how they should sound - my experience so far is that vocals (M & F) sound superb, as do piano & acoustic guitar - however, when there are too many 'sources', it sounds muddled to me, like it can't reproduce too many voices or instruments at the same time - i would love to have someone test them for me on his/her own system (yes, i realize everything matters - but, i just want to know if the speakers are ok) and then i can make adjustments as needed - i live in Foley, AL and i have not found a hi-fi shop or anything like it - i would appreciate any input or comments - thanks, Mark

@analogj 

You reminded me of the time I was at a show where the same manufacturer was exhibiting 2 large floorstanding models.

The cheaper model was about £3k and it's bigger brother was nearer £10k.

The bigger speakers clearly had more weight, authority and scale but somehow something essential had been lost in translation.

The larger speaker just sounded monochrome in comparison - and for me, nothing else could compensate for that.

No amount of scale, power handling, image size can make up for a dilution of instrument timbre.

Nothing.

The cheaper model sounded like music and the larger one sounded like a demonstration.

22 years ago I was on a mission to find the best quality tower speaker design I could find for $10K or less. I listened to a lot of speakers and for the money I didn't hear anything that matched the overall balance, dynamics, transparency, soundstage and ease of listening than a pair of Hales T-5's. They were floor models, so I bought them at a fantastic discount. They were worth 3X what I paid for them and blew away speakers costing 2X as much.

There will always be people who equate the $$ cost of the speaker to the quality of the speaker and overlook other factors.

Also there will be people that put measurements above everything else. They will always equate good sound with good measurements.

There will always be people who think that THEY THEMSELVES are as good at deciding how to make a good speaker than speaker engineers and designers (Peter Snell, Richard Vandersteen, Omar Bose, Jim Theil, Matt Polk, etc.)

I say just buy what makes you happy and learn to live with someone who chooses a different path, a different speaker. If you really think you can't tolerate all the bad speakers in the world, just make a pair of your own.