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

When the grandkids are over

I am cheating here since the high end speaker I wanted was the baby brother to the Yamaha NS5000, the Yamaha NS3000, and I have not heard it. The NS5000 I have heard and thought it was great.

My son (or maybe the wife) recently put a hole in the driver of my circa 2012 KEF LS50. So I got the $1500 LS50 Meta to replace it, since I always want to have a LS50 around. I loved the sound of the LS50 Meta so much that I cancelled the plans to buy the $9K Yamaha NS3000. This was for a small room with KEF KC62 sub.

I explain this phenomena by the fact that the LS50 Meta sounded so fine.

@steve59 This is how I plan on saving my Blades from kids (and wife).

Kef Blade 2 Meta Speaker Dust Covers | DigitalDeckCovers

I had a neighbor that was an audiophile and a cat person, he could have really used those covers.