Do You Buy Speakers Without Hearing Them?

As a general rule,I’d never buy anything without hearing it first, although I made one exception.  I have a Hegel H390 and when Hegel was at the shows, they were using KEF speakers for a while.  I figured that Hegel would want to show off their wares in the best light, so I bought a pair of KEF Reference speakers and after two years I’m still pretty happy with them.

All the best.

I really sympathize with folks who live removed from metro areas and have no hi'fi shops.  When one buys new speakers there is always a large loss taken if the speakers are unsatisfactory and have to be sold.  I think I would be OK with buying speakers that I've never demoed off the second hand market.  They can always be sold for break even or a small loss.  Good luck and cheers. 

My last 2 speaker purchases were without audition; Buchardt Audio S400 MKII, and Clayton Shaw Caladans (which have finally shipped and should be here Wednesday now). Both bought direct from manufacturer without dealer middlemen.

The Buchardts turned out to be a home run for $2,000 two way bookshelf, and here's hoping the Caladans are as well. I definitely bought those on Clayton's reputation alone, and an extremely attractive price point.

It all comes down to IQ level of the engineer...

If it's a high IQ engineer behind the speakers, for example,

Andrew Jones 

Michael Borresen

Shinji Tarutani et al

Yoshiyuki Kaku

Greg Timbers

Peter Comeau

Masahiro Tobise

Akira Nakamura,

etc

you can buy it without hearing it...if these kinda guys were given a enough of a budget to work with it.

On the other hand, If a low IQ dude is designing your speakers...yeah, it's imperative that you hear it and decide if you wanna run away (as fast as you can) or not...In general, you can throw all kinds of cash on a low IQ engineer and he'll still come up with crap because cash never created aptitude/brain cells.

I do, I bought a pair of Revel 228be (in fairness I head the 328be before buying) and JBL 4367 unheard. Both have been exceptional. I also listen to anything I can. Locally I have access to the Kef Blade, Revel Salon 2, 802D4, Sonus Faber Olympica, Martin Logan, magnepan, entire Klispch line, etc. This I all in suburbia mid west. The only dealer that is now a bit of a drive for me is wilson audio.

When it is all said and done I am glad I went with the unheard JBLs as I think they are a step above these other speakers in key areas (dynamics, tonal balanced, as detailed as anything). So don’t be scared to trust measurements if you understand how to read them. Estimated in room measurements are the key.