Are more expensive speakers better?

Dear Bishopwill:

Thanks for your offer, but no thanks.

Thank goodness. I really didn't want to have to built it.

The seriousness with which some of our members take these forums absolutely flabbergasts me. I have thus far received three private emails in which I have been told:

1. Scanspeak does not manufacture a 12" carbon-fiber woofer.
2. Lowthers cannot be used in conventional cabinets as mid-range drivers (with extensive technical detail and links to Lowther websites.
3. 32 SETs could not be successfully wired in parallel. (Well, duhhhhhhhhhhh).
4. An incredulous query about my understanding of how difficult it would be to design a X-over for such a system.

Some folks here just ain't got no lives.

Comfedboy take a look at my previous post, lets not bring this to a philosophy... i heard electrostates for first time 3 weeks ago. with electrostats around i'm very surprised that people still pay for box LOUDspeakers more than the cheapest electrostat($2500) and they could as easily take the money intended for vandersteins b&w paradium(spelling) and the rest of the pack, save alittle more, and go get some electrostats... and hear their music like never before!

Lots of speakers in all price ranges sound good. What I hear when listening to the expensive stuff (here my experience is with the Wisdom Audio M-75)is that they do everything well. Lots of affordable speakers will get part of the frequency band right but fail miserably (usually in the deep bass) elsewhere. Also, I find line source speakers to generally be superior. Whether the price is justified or not the line source speakers I've heard (and the line source emulators like the Pipe Dreams) tend to be expensive. You get what you pay for.