"The Ultra High-End Speaker."


My entire relatively simple high end audio system retails for approx. $70,000, with my speakers alone retailing for approx. $24,000 (Revel Salon 2 speakers).  I've been around high-end audio for over 40 years.  I attend audio shows and visit local and non-local high-end audio shops on a regular basis.  I get to hears a lot of high-end audio speakers and gear all the time.  That said, I honestly believe, along with others who've visited my home and have listened to my system, that my system (speakers) produce that ultra high-end, reference quality sound.  Others would suggest that, when it comes to speakers, that the "Ultra High-End" sound can only be achieved by megabuck speakers costing 50K, 100K, 250k and beyond.  I do not believe that ultra high-end ("Sound Quality") is excusive to those speakers costing a king's ransom.  And, I think my own system is am example of what can be achieved at a lower (not for most people) price point.  I absolutely believe in the law of diminishing returns, especially when it comes to high-end speakers.  What's your definition, idea of, what you consider to be, a "Ultra High-End Speaker, and at what price point does the ultra high-end start?????            

kennymacc

Your speakers are good but can be Much Better, Being honest the internal Xover 

parts are average at best like a 7 out of 15  just unscrew a bottom driver 

there areNo name brand capacitors ,or resistors,

 I owned aAudio store for a decade and this is one area modt speaker companies fail it’s all about profit , some of your drivers are made in the far East 

look at your Xover inside 

go to Humble homemade hifi capacitor test the tops are Duelunds best capacitors 

rated 14.5 on down these yellow caps are made in Taiwan. ,Solen another very popular company rated a 7  and $3 resistors ! Mills much better $12 , Path Audio best resistors $30 each and 100% better sonically .if you plan on keeping them. 
a Xover upgrade is well worth the effort , good parts cost $$/ that’s why companies 

just put in decent ,it’s all about profit . Sad but true.

My 2 cents:

Over the past 30 years I have listened to too many speakers to list. Ranging in price from a few thousand to nearly $100K for a pair. In many different settings with a large variety of expensive gear. A few months back a friend bought a used pair of Klipsch Chorus ll’s. He couldn’t brag about them enough. So for fun I brought a pristine pair for $1000. I hooked them up to my Luxman L-509Z and I was blown away. One song I always use to audition gear is Hotel California from When Hell Freezes Over (Eagles). I had to play it several times to make sure I was hearing was real. The band was literally in my listening room. When Don Henley starts singing it was amazingly easy to pick out his position on the stage. Each member of the band was in a position easily discernible. My point? Outstanding sound quality from a set of speakers is not solely related to amount of money spent.

I will never sell the Klipsch, but I will sell off others I currently own.

I'm sure the OP has a nice system but, with no disrespect to the OP, the post is a bit self-serving. If the op approaches listening to other more systems from the perspective of the argument in his/her post then it is likely that his/her discriminatory powers are disrupted by confirmation bias.

A good system at a particular price point is a good system but it doesn't imply that systems at higher price points can't be a lot better.

By way of contextual comparison, the Wilson Sabrina X's are broadly comparable in price to the OP's speakers and they are a fabulous sounding speaker. But an Alexia V is quite substantially better, especially in more accurately reproducing scale and dynamics. In summary, both speakers are great, but one is greater.

Very interesting post! Thanks....

This illustrate my point that acoustics science dont reduce to room acoustic and room acoustic dont reduce to passive material treatment but may include active mechanical device as resonators and DSP as Choueiri BACCH filters and this illustrate why psycho-acoustics is the ultimate ground of audio ...

The relation between specific brain/specific ears /a specific filters EXCLUDE simplistic recipe as we read often ...

Acoustics applied to Great Hall and to very small room differe very much and it is why as medecine is a curative and preventive ART grounded in science , it cannot be reduced to a technology excluding human thinking ( save for diagnostic by A. I. as a tool )...

 

This is why it takes me a year to do my room full time ... I learned making errors i corrected all along 7 days a week ... It cost me a great amount of time but there is no price for learni9ng and anyway those who dont pay with time will pay with their money and big ...Or stay frustrated ...

Psycho-acoustics rule audio not the reverse ... Price tags dont matter as much many claim...

I have heard a number of rooms built from the ground up as audio rooms with full blown complete room treatment. Even with such rooms, subjective impression of the rooms vary greatly. Most of such rooms were, to me, disappointing—too dry and analytical sounding with bleached out harmonics.

The best was a $250,000 room designed by an acoustic architect. That room did not look like it was treated because most treatment was hidden behind the wall coverings, including the truly giant bass traps in all four corners. The front wall had a very large convex wood diffusor that looked like room decoration, not treatment. But, even this room, which I liked, got mixed reviews. Two of my friends did not like the sound and both are audio professionals. So much of good sound IS subjective.

 

Your post is very true to the general marketing /consumers situation ...

It is why i posted for years  these facts also ... Snobbism does not exist in acoustic circle , at least less than in audio marketing circle ...

Thanks for the post ...

False.... A purpose built room+a sizeable investment in treatments that actually work can drastically reduce the perceived performance gap (and all associated metrics of audiophilia) between high end gear and relatively affordable gear.

For example, I could demonstrate to guys like you how a 60k speaker and a 1k speaker sound in the same room (one of my rooms)...a good one with about 40k to 50k worth of treatments that work, i.e. how close it starts to get.

Of course, if such truths get demonstrated too much, the "high end" sales guy (which is maybe half the forum) may start to freak out that his sales numbers could suffer. But then again, he need not worry...because most audiophiliac dudes love to buy a few hundred thousand dollars worth of gear, plop it down in a sht house and hope for miracles anyways. Such dudes may usually buy 2 doofus panels, put it up in a couple of spots for decorative purposes and claim that their room is treated! Hence, the high end sales guys has nothing to worry about...high end sales will be great as usual. All is good in the world...Amen.