"If you don't have a $200k [speaker]..."

[Gregadd]

Stop complaining . $200k is "chump change.?
A 24-year-old finance YouTuber told his followers they should be able to easily afford a $200,000 car: 'Literally pocket change' (msn.com)

 

[Willgolf]

I had to beg, borrow and steal to convince my wife I needed the Lampi H. I was not born into the lucky sperm club!

 

[godofwealth]

Sadly, I wish spending more money gets you a better loudspeaker. It does not.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Sadly, I wish spending more money gets you a better loudspeaker. It does not.

Isn't the more accurate version: "I wish spending more money always gets you a better loudspeaker. It does not."

 

[bonzo75]

Isn't the more accurate version: "I wish spending more money always gets you a better loudspeaker. It does not."

i don’t need a 200k speaker in fact I don’t want the the 200k or more speakers I have heard but I wish I had the money to think that was chump change. To achieve that you either need to inherit a lot and be a dummy yourself, or achieve so much in your professional life you don’t have time to listen to loudspeakers

 

[andromedaaudio]

Stop complaining . $200k is "chump change.?
A 24-year-old finance YouTuber told his followers they should be able to easily afford a $200,000 car: 'Literally pocket change' (msn.com)

The you tubers who post this as clickbait know themselves its BS , but hey anything for a bit of views and YT money

 

[Gregadd]

Sadly, I wish spending more money gets you a better loudspeaker. It does not.

Everything is relative. I have heard uber expensive speaker sound horrible and dirt cheap speakers sound great. Throwing money at a problem will not alone solve it. You still have to put together a system.

The you tubers who post this as clickbait know themselves its BS , but hey anything for a bit of views and YT money

I posted it because as unrealistic as it is, I thought he actually believes it.

 

[godofwealth]

Isn't the more accurate version: "I wish spending more money always gets you a better loudspeaker. It does not."

I would probably rephrase it as “I wish spending more money gets you a better loudspeaker. It almost always does not”. To be sure, there are fine expensive speakers, but the temptation to throw money at a problem invariably leads to mediocrity in design. You end up with a bigger loudspeaker, massive drivers, large crossover network and an exotic cabinet. It’s essentially solving problems created by an excess of budget.

To me the most creative solutions have come from designers who rethought the technology in creative ways that didn’t require a lot of money (Peter Walker’s Quad ESL, Paul Klipsch’s
Klipschorn and more recently, Devialet’s Phantom Gold). Each of these designs are different, but each approached the problem in novel ways and ended up with fairly inexpensive solutions.

The Phantom Gold is truly the loudspeaker that defines what loudspeakers should be in the post streaming world. Send bits to the speaker from your phone or other gadget, no analog conversion until the very end, and extraordinary performance from a compact eggshell unit (110 dB from 15 Hz to 25 kHz at vanishingly low distortion). But it required a team of experts including some with training in explosives. The software is not perfect. That’s the fly in the ointment here. But a lot of other “modern” designs are just revisiting the past 70-80 year old technologies without exploiting the computing power now available.

Loudspeakers remain the most flawed component in high end audio. Most designs can barely resolve 8 bits of information in the bass. We are far from even having 16 bit linear speakers, let alone 24-bit high res capable speakers. That will need a revolution in physics. I don’t see how today’a material science can solve the problem.

Peter Walker talked about loudspeakers that generate sound by directly heating the air. I don’t know whether this even is feasible.

 

[Gregadd]

I want to take his course.

 

[Lagonda]

I am sorry, but small puny speakers will never reproduce the sound of a full orchestra ! Sometimes they play far better than what you would expect from their size, but really good reproduction takes some size, a lot of air needs to be moved ! Is price directly in correlation with quality ? No ! But size often helps if it is well made. And size is often expensive !

 

[bonzo75]

I am sorry, but small puny speakers will never reproduce the sound of a full orchestra ! Sometimes they play far better than what you would expect from their size, but really good reproduction takes some size, a lot of air needs to be moved ! Is price directly in correlation with quality ? No ! But size often helps if it is well made. And size is often expensive !

Not really...size in the same brand is more expensive, usually, than the smaller model, assuming smaller model is not considerably newer, but across brands you could get a large speaker that is much less expensive than the smaller model of another brand, and sound better too.

Also, where the size tradeoff happens is another discussion. Big speakers and multiways have a lot of issues too.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I am sorry, but small puny speakers will never reproduce the sound of a full orchestra ! Sometimes they play far better than what you would expect from their size, but really good reproduction takes some size, a lot of air needs to be moved ! Is price directly in correlation with quality ? No ! But size often helps if it is well made. And size is often expensive !

I agree with this as a first step in the analysis. But, as a second step, Kedar's point that large speakers can sometimes artificially impose scale, whereas smaller speakers can generate scale more realistically, in proportion to the recording, is a valid point.

For me personally, even though I am willing to stipulate readily that Kedar's point is valid, I don't care. I like realistic scale, whether it is naturally on the recording or generated by tall loudspeakers.

I am trying to maximize suspension of disbelief, and emotional engagement. I am never going to achieve that through small speakers, accurately reproducing a midget ensemble embedded in the recording.

 

[Lagonda]

Not really...size in the same brand is more expensive, usually, than the smaller model, assuming smaller model is not considerably newer, but across brands you could get a large speaker that is much less expensive than the smaller model of another brand, and sound better too.

Also, where the size tradeoff happens is another discussion. Big speakers and multiways have a lot of issues too.

Sure big speaker will often have a larger room interaction, and are harder to integrate correctly, if the room is to small maybe not at all. A lot of guys avoid the problem by settling on frequency restricted system, often focusing on flow, midrange and treble clarity, these guys often put a lot of credence into youtube videos !

 

[bonzo75]

Sure big speaker will often have a larger room interaction, and are harder to integrate correctly, if the room is to small maybe not at all. A lot of guys avoid the problem by settling on frequency restricted system, often focusing on flow, midrange and treble clarity,

there is room interaction issues, drivers interaction issues, and requirements to put bigger amps that sound worse but are required for complex crossovers

 

[Willgolf]

I do not know the model number but Borresson has a bookshelf speaker for $100K. I just can't see myself buying something like that unless I had stupid money. I do not care how good it sounds.

I am debating whether to keep the speakers that are pictured left. I love them. They sound great and are medium size speakers that fill a 30' x 45' room. So, why am I flying to California later this month to hear the Aries Cerat Aurora speakers??? My wife is ready to kill me and they are priced well over $100k. That is not Chump Change for me either.

Does size matter? Hmmm, let me ask my wife. I had Wilson Audio Duette 2's in a very large room and while they were great, I did go to a larger Sonus Faber Amati Tradition Homage speaker. Size did matter in my case!

 

[LL21]

I agree with this as a first step in the analysis. But, as a second step, Kedar's point that large speakers can sometimes artificially impose scale, whereas smaller speakers can generate scale more realistically, in proportion to the recording, is a valid point.

For me personally, even though I am willing to stipulate readily that Kedar's point is valid, I don't care. I like realistic scale, whether it is naturally on the recording or generated by tall loudspeakers.

I am trying to maximize suspension of disbelief, and emotional engagement. I am never going to achieve that through small speakers, accurately reproducing a midget ensemble embedded in the recording.

I am with you, Ron. In the end the whole idea of perfection is off the table...so we are given a series of options and we choose the combination with its benefits and flaws, strengths and weaknesses...and then sit back and enjoy the music. And because we are constantly (most of us anyway) pushing the envelope of performance...we keep 'upgrading' (or think we are upgrading!). Its what makes a hobby or a passion.

And after getting to the big Wilson Xs, hearing the Arrakis and the Genesis 1s (which are both of a scale well beyond the big Wilsons)...it is really really hard to go back. There is something alluring about effortlessness, scale at the quality level of the big Rockports, Genesis (no doubt Goebel, Gryphon and many others) and Wilsons for me that is a lot of fun.

Of course, then there are the big subs that go with them...talk about scale...!

 

[sbnx]

Loudspeakers remain the most flawed component in high end audio. Most designs can barely resolve 8 bits of information in the bass. We are far from even having 16 bit linear speakers, let alone 24-bit high res capable speakers. That will need a revolution in physics. I don’t see how today’a material science can solve the problem.

I agree with this statement -- Loudspeakers are the most flawed component (Putting streaming aside). I am interested in your statment about 8 bit resolution. Would you be willing to share your math on this?

 

[bonzo75]

I agree with this as a first step in the analysis. But, as a second step, Kedar's point that large speakers can sometimes artificially impose scale, whereas smaller speakers can generate scale more realistically, in proportion to the recording, is a valid point.

For me personally, even though I am willing to stipulate readily that Kedar's point is valid, I don't care. I like realistic scale, whether it is naturally on the recording or generated by tall loudspeakers.

I am trying to maximize suspension of disbelief, and emotional engagement. I am never going to achieve that through small speakers, accurately reproducing a midget ensemble embedded in the recording.

So am I, in answer to your bold statement. Altec 817 scales more than any big wilson and such that I have heard, and bigger than Apogee Grands as well. Theater horns were made...you guessed it...for theatres, try beating them for scale.

That said, using 7 ft speaker to impose larger scale than a 5 ft speaker etc is done by those who use digital and poor recordings. Good recordings have larger/better/more realistic scale than what gear can impose and this scale changes recording to recording providing you with different venue experience each recording. To override it with speaker scale is a rookie mistake. All I am saying is the scale should be recording scale, and not speaker scale.

If you are getting similar width and depth on each recording, and that goes up and down if you swap cables or move from AR REf 3 to AR Ref 10 or vice versa, and then stays constant, then you are setting up the system for boredom to soon set in and change gear in few months to create another type of constant scale.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

i've had a small (18' x 12' x 10.5) room with various speakers, including very dense heavy (500+ pounds) speakers of modest stature......WP3/2, WP5.1, WP6, all under $50k, then Kharma Exquisite 1D.....around $75k at that time.

the step from the Watt Puppies to the Kharma was big/huge/dramatic etc.....much more than just size.....more a matter of coherence and ease. size was not the major change.....it was refinement. smaller Kharma's would have got me part of the way, but the scale and command of the large robust cabinet mattered. it was as much speaker, maybe just a touch too much, for that room. which then caused me to want a bigger room.

and then a quite large room (29' x 21' x 11') with a number of ever increasing size speakers......Kharma Exquisite 1D, VR9SE, VR7SE, EA MM3, and finally EA MM7.

a large live room demands a lot from a speaker. and that speaker then requires a lot from the room too. the first three were around $100k + or -. maybe now equivalent to higher price......just over $100k. the MM7's around $200k 10 years ago, maybe more like $300k now.

no doubt the MM7's are the far better match for my room and are 'enough' to not be stressed by any musical demands. they have headroom in their capabilities. no replacement for displacement so to speak. but conversely the room had to be tuned to control all the driver surface.

relevant to the thread, could a current $100k retail speaker system compete in this room? probably get somewhat close, but i would expect you could tell what was missing, but it might not be too much. especially a horn (AG G3's.....$150k) could give you trade-offs. thought about that one.....then laid down till that feeling passed.

my 2 cents is that maybe the MM7's as a $200k speaker is not fair since it plays way above that price point in terms of ceiling performance. other $200k single cabinet speakers from 10 years ago were not nearly as capable to my ears. so it's delta compared to $100k speakers is wider than other $200k speakers.

 

[Gregadd]

To make it worse a 2$00k speaker will push system cost $500k. A SOTA tt and DAC. Of course, if you've got the scrilla...