@ellajeanelle wrote:
... When you want "raw power" and high sound pressure levels there is no substitute, but if you want refinement, hi fi speakers are the way to go. You have to decide what you are after. Just my humble opinion...
In my humble opinion, one doesn’t necessarily have to exclude the other. PA speakers have many good offerings for domestic use - some options have already been mentioned.
More to the point though, much if not most of the bias against PA/pro speakers for home use comes from prejudice and "listening" with the eyes. If there’s any real experience to speak of it’s from concerts blasting away with serious SPL’s and gear closer to its limits than not, and how’s that an indication for use in a home setting? Try hanging up a bunch of Wilson’s or other hifi speakers in large clusters, just for sports, and have them perform at concerts at the end of their ropes. There’d be mostly smoke, I might add, other than the fact it wouldn’t sound anything like it would at home. Alright, as an outset either segment of speakers are built for their specific purpose, but one of them will do better in both scenarios, and it isn’t the hifi speakers.
Seriously, how many audiophiles have tried speakers from the pro segment in the home setups, and who even cares to? Ramble on this, ramble on that. Moreover, PA is just one segment of the pro sector; there are pro cinema speakers as well, that is to say large high efficiency speakers that can take loads of power, and they’re often better suited for home audio reproduction.
I’m not claiming hifi and pro segment speakers sound the same in a home setting, but where they differ it’s no necessarily at a disadvantage for pro speakers. For starters, blanket statements about how pro speakers can’t sound refined, is bollocks. Claims about their lack of imaging capabilities aren’t well founded either, I find. That being said it’s important to know all pro segment speakers aren’t the same, and while some of them may be less suited for home environments from a refinement and imaging point-of-view, others are downright great.
For those who have gone to great lengths finding and optimizing their particular hifi speakers in their homes, well-implemented pro segment speakers mayn’t be their cup of tea, certainly not at first (and once preconceptions may have worn off). I’m not saying that implying all such people would find pro speakers to sound bad by comparison, but merely that there would be differences in the presentation that might trigger them into believing that initially. Preferences and all, and not least habitual exposition.
Bear in mind that one can optimize pro speakers in one’s home as well; it’s not exclusive to hifi speakers. And whereas most hifi speakers are passively configured, many pro speakers are configured actively, outboardly as well, and the latter in particular offers some distinct advantages over passive speakers optimizing them into their specific acoustic environment even more thoroughly.
Why would pro speakers sound different to hifi dittos? Look at the physics and design of things, and then compare them to the segment of hifi speakers that are high efficiency and capable of fairly high power handling as well. As such some hifi speakers could also be labeled pro-ish segment, but they’re just neatly wrapped in veneers or lacquer, not to mention oftentimes being very expensive. By comparison pro speakers intended for the pro sector are typically larger and more rugged looking, but more importantly they’re designed to actually meet a design goal and application from a basis of raw functionality, whereas hifi iterations of this segment of speakers are typically compromised by size limitations to cater to domestic demands, with all that entails as to their functionality.
The question could be raised whether the design goals for a pro application make sense for use in a home setting, but to me the most important takeaway is whether there are any obvious impediments to stand in the way for proper integration here. Designing a product more strictly from the basis of functionality to me is both meaningful and beneficial in a home setting, not to mention honest and "what you see is what you get." Lastly and not least: if it sounds great, it sounds great - irrespective of whatever the hell.
