Speakers and amplifiers show audiophiles are confused.

some of the most expensive systems sounded horrible

and some of the less expensive systems can sound great. That is the thing I like about this hobby, the "hacks" where you can leverage your investment. Sitting on my porch yesterday with just an $800 pair of deftech active speakers (the W7) which are basically 8 inch cubes and having them sound HUGE because of the tri-polar design offering accurate sound that’s widely dispersed, in the worst conditions, a porch surrounded by picture windows is just fun. The speaker has an intelligent design that allows it to sound much more expensive in a terrible room, even streaming spotify. That just makes my day:

@donavabdear I have been to AXPONA a few times, and I heard some expensive Focal speakers that sounded terrible the first time and very good the second time I heard them, so there are a number of factors that can cause this, not just the room or the equipment, but sometimes the people setting it up. 

@kota1 so I spoke to Dave an engineer from Bryson unfortunately they didn't have their powered systems here so we talked about powered speakers and active crossovers he fully agreed that's how high end systems should be designed. He interestedly said their system was more expensive to build and design the said the crossovers were $4k and many people thought that was to much, I got the impression that he didn't have high hopes for the future. He knew how it should go just as you and I would agree but that philosophy doesn't seem to be so popular now. I also spake to Bill who makes "Add Power" for quite a while, sorry my friend he is playing on the outskirts of science, maybe his device works but it's not for the reason he gave me, he was a very nice guy. 

I heard the SF Aida's powered by Bolder it was also over a million dollar system ($192,000 in cables alone) they of course sounded great but not as good as either of the Wilson's, (Alexa 5 or the Alex 5) or of course the Estelon's my favorite was the Wilson Alexa 5s powered by Audio Research, these speakers are less than half as much as the Aida's, I'm happy. 

@donavabdear

Sounds like a good time, I understand Dave’s issue, there is always a dynamic between engineering and sales. Glad to hear he agrees that active is the best way to go. I would love to get a Bryston matched system of the Active Mini T’s and the Bryston SP4 processor which eliminates the need for the Bax-1 digital crossover.

The video I saw of the Cabasse room was amazing, a small pair of active speakers that sounded HUGE and clear and less than $3K for everything. Glad you got to connect with Bill, I guess the outskirts must work for me, YMMV. I don’t see Nordost as a company that could be bamboozled and they bought Bill's last company, QRT. They must like the outskirts too:

https://novo.press/nordost-qrt-power-products-review-part-1-of-3-qx-power-purifiers-qx4/

@donavabdear 

How was the show? Did you get to stop by the Carver room? Thanks