How to meaningfully audition speakers??

You still have to settle in with them, and that could take a while...luckily there's so much info out there you can easily educate yourself about a lot of stuff, but you never know until you hook it all up at home (even if you live in the parallel universe of accessable hifi stores inhabited by Elizabeth). If you can exactly replicate your listening room in a large RV you can drive it all over and get stores to let you take things to the parking lot and hook 'em up (an extreme solution, but hey...). Anything I'm remotely interestd in I read all about and usually am happy with the results even if I can't audition something, although there have been a few unpleasant surprises.

I agree it is a problem, but really for all other kit too, amps, CD players phono cartridges. Some excellent advice given already. The most important is to have CDs and LPs you know for a sound quality check. You have to know how they sound in your system first. Secondly, if you are going to a dealer, ask for kit as similar to yours in quality, as they can provide. There is no point auditioning with $100,000 monopblocks, if you use $5000 integrated.

Shows are a good place to start, because show conditions are so bad. If a speaker sounds good in show conditions, it must have smothing going for it.

You will find dealers who are prepared to loan speakers, especially if you are an old, trusted customer. Even then, new kit needs time to settle in and a weekend loan is too short.

Elizabeth has some great points but when I went auditioning speakers I brought my my current speakers with me for a reference (monitors and stands). No dealer refused to let me bring my speakers in to compare. Actually they liked that idea. One dealer thanked me for not buying his speakers. I'll explain - I went to the shop and listened to his speakers and was very impressed. I came back a second time with my speakers and compared them side by side. Well I preferred my speakers overall. The reason he thanked me is because I would have bought those with a CC. He would order them and said because of his satisfaction guarantee he knows I wouldn't be happy with them after taking them home. He would take them back and be stuck with the CC charges and the speakers.

I like Mapman's suggestion. IF the sound of live is your goal, I would take Mapman's approach a step further. Listen to as much live music as possible leading up to the speaker audition date(s). Bite the bullet and don't worry about wether it's your favorite type of music or not, favorite venue, or even by good artists; it's not always possible, you are listening for the sound. The idea is to simply recalibrate your ears to what real music really sounds like; we tend to forget that in the pursuit of audiophile stuff. There are enough common threads in the sound of live music regardless of genre, venue, etc. that will become obvious the more you listen to it. Then when you listen to speakers the presence or absence of them will be much more obvious and you will have found your speaker. Good luck.

Great post Liz. I like the way you summed it up: "And if you go and buy [the speakers] online to save a few bucks after using the store to audition. Then you are a bad person." I agree 100% with that view ... and that really is my dilemma. I try to be very straight with people ... just because ... And I think my member feedback reflects that approach.

Without going into specifics, I have a certain speaker in mind right now, say Speaker X. If bought used here on A'gon, I could probably pick up Speaker X for $5K less than discounted retail, which is roughly 35 to 40 percent less. There is no way I will plop myself in a B&M store for hours to check out speakers, with or without talking to a salesperson, and then buy on-line. Just not my style.

As an aside, I have communicated directly with a couple of reviewers who are familiar with my current rig and with Speaker X. The feedback is that Speaker X IS excellent, but the reviewers also said that so is what I already have. I might experience a different presentation, but it's hard to say whether I am stepping up or not.

In the end, I may just quench my curiosity and stay pat and enjoy what I have while my hearing holds out. If really that curious, the comment above about spending some time at a good audio show might be the way to go.

As another aside, IME, what I am finding is that significant improvements are coming at prices that are increasing at geometric rates in excess of what I perceive as the subjective improvements. For example, this may be audiophile heresy, but I just sprung for $4K (net of trade in/resale bucks) to step up from an ARC VS-115 tube amp to the much ballyhooed ARC Ref 150. Is the Ref 150 a better sounding amp. Yes ... I believe it is -- hands down. Is it worth $4K more??? That's a tough call. I certainly wouldn't give up on a necessity for the upgrade. But it is kinda cool to hear the difference. Yeah, it is!

Thanks all for the great comments. Kinda corroborates my thinking.

Bruce