Should audiophiles be disappointed?...

My impression that it is kind of a waste to pay 25k+ for a set of speakers unless you really have no worries about any expence.

Would be better to buy a set of 15K speakers and spend another 10k on room treatments.

i consider myself lucky. I like a good setup, and i realize the importance of placement, but im not so finiky that i cannot appreciate a good speaker in any enviornment.

There are no perfect rooms in my view. I guess it boils down to how anal are you with yer music?

Im enjoying my radio shackers shack every last bit, cause i still hear the music and i still love it.
Doesent mean i dont have a major upgrade bug though. :)

Maybe too much gunfire damaged my ears. Whatever the case. I doubt i will ever have a 2ch system that breaks 20k. It just gets too damn expencive to make minor improvements at that point. Im talking from a budget mind here.

The way i see it, if you can afford a megabuck system like Brainwater, all the power to you. Get the best stuff you can afford. Hell, i would! I'd love to blow a few hundred k on a stereo, and you can bet yer ass if i win the powerball lottery that ill blow over a a million bucks for the best system in can afford.
But at the same time, if you find yourself unable to appreciate music on a $5,000 budget system, then i think you lost sight of the intent behind the hobby.

Every time i listen to my trash heap of a rig, i am reminded of that. Because it sounds alot better than i thought it would. Honestly, i think losing my last rig, while not up to par of most of A'goner's gear, was the best thing to happen to me. Listenging to this hand-me-down garbage system helped me realize that after blowing wads of cash because the grass is greener on the other side, that my own lawn wasnt that damn bad after all. If that makes any sence.
I guess it just helped me appreciate lower end gear a little bit more. It is less finiky, it sits put, and it does its job well. Kinda like the old dodge truck you had way back in the day vs. the lexus you drive now eh?

I mean, at what point does a system stop upgrading and just slightly change? sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

Music aint perfect, so how can your system be?

I feel bad for people who cannot stand to listen to music on anything but the best. They kinda need to come back down to earth. No offence intended to anybody.

That's what headphones and/or "real" near field setups are for.

You expect the nearly impossible.

I wasn't there but I would imagine that the rooms were not exactly designed with good sound in mind. Accordingly, the most optimal way to demonstrate the equipment would be to use room treatments.

Slappy's right though, it is the music that counts. But good equipment helps. Powerball helps with that. Question is, do I spend my next $10 on Powerball tickets or one of the remastered Rolling Stones hybrids?

The proper use of acoustic treatments can only add to the reproduction capabilities of a set of loudspeakers. Their use can result in smoother bass, tighter imaging and a better defined soundstage. It's not a defect in a speaker design that acoustic treatments can have these effects. It's been my experience that careful setup, not absolute equipment quality, is the greatest determinate of a system's overall sound quality.

Any number of manufacturers make or have made speakers that were designed to have specific interactions with the room. The Vandersteen 5s and some newer Infinity models have built in bass equalization. The NHT 3.3s have a unique shape and require positioning very close to the rear wall in order for the woofers to "see" a room corner. The new B&O flagship speakers have built in full spectrum digital room correction. The Klipschorns required corner placement for proper bass response. The list goes on.

Slappy makes a good point. It probably is more cost effective to buy $15k speakers and spend another $10k on room treatments than it is to just buy a $25k speaker and place them in an untreated room.