I purchased a pair of JBL M2 along with 2 Crown Itech 5000HD amps, and placed them in a large dedicated acoustically treated room. Got everything on discount at Guitar Center for $13,500 to which I later added the JBL Sub18 and another Crown Itech 5000HD amp. So cheap. Sounds better than my Salon 2/Classe/DCS in another system I own, and competitive with Vandersteen and Wilsons auditioned at local dealer. The dynamic range and imaging is staggering. Not necessary to spend big bucks to achieve state of the art. Carefully place accurate well measured speakers in a large dedicated room with sensible treatment, give them tons of power, and supply them with a well mastered source and you are done.
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Giving some thought ( I Really 'Do' that, if only for the shock value ), one can compare speaker 'valuation' contrasted to violins... A 'student' vs. a Strad. And then there's everything in between. ;) Now, taking into consideration... the Listener. Last, but certainly, not the least.... The Operator, bow in hand. Obviously, the student could torture you with a Strad. And the talented could make an 'entry level' instrument sing. (Granted, the latter might still sound like it was made with scraps, but it would be as good as one could experience....😏 ) I've always considered loudspeaker to each have their own 'voicing'....not an unusual approach to be sure. We all have our tastes, preferences, and of course, budget as to the 'company we keep' to recreate a performance of some sort. The latter applied to speakers that perform to the levels of that which supplies the copy of the performance played has it's own synergy. And then there's the room. ...unless bought for the 'brag' of it all. Then you're weirder than me. *L* @rixthetrick Nice of you to consider me a surgeon of sorts....*G* There are moments when a prehensile tail would be really handy. Understand why the species gave them up, but certainly they may have gotten one in trouble vs. useful in the day2day... No, more the 'Butcher of Cones', a Visigoth Vandal, a Walsh Wastrel. First attempted in the early '00's, a diversion from The Great Pursuit Over time, it's actually been more fun overall. *S* 'BluTack'? No, but thanks for the 'heads up' to not try.... ;) More interested in a means to invert the basket....and of course, some baskets need not apply. At that juncture, one goes mfr. hunting, Or buys a lot of stuff...*L* |
@asvjerry - I’m guessing you’ve gone straight from internal speaker wire to the tinsel leads for the motor? I have been told that Bybee clarifiers that magnetically attach to the magnets can do some pretty great things too.
@mgrif104
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any competent business person takes into account fixed cost/one time expenditures to create/develop a product for sale, and how such costs relate to the anticipated sales volume of said product - failure to do so is financial malpractice that is not say that all folks in the hifi business are always competent at business... the shores are littered with the bodies of the legions whom are not... |
Yes… and the point of using small quantities or making you own driver is to achieve a sound not possible to achieve otherwise… so the sound achieved must justify the cost or they go out of business quickly. This is where professional reviewers and to a smaller extent forums enforce the value proposition. You build a $70K speaker most of your clientele are going to,be sophisticated and professional reviewers familiar with the competition. |
I think this thread perfectly points out the disconnect between costs of small quantity versus large quantity. I have an old Jag, a 2001 XKR. I paid 20K for it, but it was over 100K new. How it was worth 100K I never understood until visiting ATC one year. One of the guys in engineering worked at Jaguar in Coventry. He explained the ridiculous cost of Jag parts had nothing to do with value of the part, it had to do with all custom parts produced in very small quantities. He said Jag buys 50 sets of brake parts and Ford buys 50,000 or more for a similar brake package (mustangs). Jag sold only 200 cars like mine in 2001- I wonder how many Mustangs Ford built? A brake manufacturer doesn’t want to bother with a 50pc order when they could get a 5,000 pc order and make way more money. So Jag has to pay BIG to get the attention of that brake maker if they want them to make only 50 of these critical parts for them. That’s why it was 100K+ new. This is exactly the principle in high end loudspeakers. A manufacturer may have ultra elaborate machined parts that are ordered in groups of 10. JBL may have a similar part they buy for $200 becasue they buy 50,000pcs. it might cost this ultra highend company $2,500 for that part in quantities of 10. You as the possible purchaser study the JBL and the exotica speaker and try to figure why one costs so much more than the other when from a parts count perspective, you cannot justify it. However, it you really want one and have the money, plus you know there is only 10 in the world, you pay the price. That’s why these $100,000-$200,000 speakers exist- to create them costs a LOT due to the exotic nature of the parts and extremely small quantity ordered. Brad |
ghdprentise - Actually the air-cooled 911s sound very much like the old Beetles, and with good reason. Provenance. I actually enjoy figuring out and justifying each upgrade in my audio system. I could just spend a lot of money based on Agon comments, but I'd miss out on the fun of teasing out the next step that I will actually appreciate- and doing it for the least cost. Different strokes ...
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I forgot to say that for sure speakers are not all alike and costly one are costly because they are for sure probably better designed.. But we know for some time now to design good speakers at low cost... My point is that acoustic matter more than specific branded name speakers for the S.Q. experience most of the times... |
Sound is an acoustic phenomemon... The fact that sound can be also with technology progress an electrical/electronical induced phenomenon like with stereo system and speaker will not erase the fact that we listen not to the speakers alone but to the room/speakers...( sound waves cross my 13 feet square room 80 times each second) My 50 bucks used vintage speakers , well chosen for sure, but only very basic good one with bass capability in their specs. sound so good thanks to acoustic knowledge that any upgrade is no more appealing ever .. By the way comparing low cost speakers like mine to Volkswagen and costly speakers to Ferrari is only an half truth because the S.Q. experience is more related to acoustic than to the difference in electronical design, especially if the low cost system is already basically well designed... Then quit car mechanic and buy acoustic articles.... 😁😊 Concerning my speakers i will not dare to name their branded name here, because like i said my point is price tag are only an indication of probable quality design... and my post has nothing to do about boasting for a speaker brand... Now give me a room i know how to bent any room to serve any speaker at any price tag and even a low cost well designed speaker will give an astounding sound...I learned it alone for the last 2 years... Acoustic is the ONLY key to audiophile experience not price tag at all...It is not an opinion here, it is the result of an experiment with a 500 bucks system and acoustic.... A test now: Buy this extraordinary well recorded opera of Kurt Weill and the best interpretation of it anyway and listen... If the sound fill the room with no relation to the speakers at all , and with long part of this opera with singers BEHIND your head or sometimes exactly beside your right and left ears while instrument are in front of you in a large soundstage and imaging so spot on that you see the body of the singer walking and moving their head when singing in your room outside the speakers, and often beside you directly murmuring in your ear and with german spoken words syllabe clearly heard, then your speakers are good like my 50 dollars vintage one... 😁😊 If not, the good news is : it is not because your costly speakers are not well designed, it is probably because you have no cue about acoustic treatment and control...Simple... Audiophile experience MAY cost nothing, only acoustical basic knowledge with no cost at all to do the treatment and the control... I know i used mainly junk to do it... why? Because acoustic principle are mathematical principle and physical one with no relation to the cost or the shiny and esthetical appearance of the materials or devices used...
Then stop reading audio magazine with costly price tag and work your brain with acoustic.. It is the greatest fun i ever had...No cost....But here is the catch it takes time to do the fine tuning and it take a dedicated room... A dedicated room is the ONLY luxury in audio not the gear at all and his price tag...This is a market conditioning by magazine and the need to pay for new "improved" gear design for the company... Acoustic cost nothing if you want ....Save junk.... 😁😊 I apologize for my inconvenient truth....
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The more heroically built cabinets will "disappear" more easily and have a more stable and holographic image and soundstage presentation. As far as wide bandwidth is concerned, that's not guaranteed. There are many very costly speakers that are still limited in the lowest frequencies. Also, depending on the design, dynamics may or may not be superior to horn speakers that cost less. |
Yes, % of sound quality are completely meaningless between different people. It is completely dependent on your own values. To me, the more sensitive my system is, the more a small change makes a difference… so diminishing returns doesn’t happen, until I reach my maximum investment. If my investment limit was $250K, then that is where my diminishing returns would kick in. |
The answer is very simple, people think in different ways. My partner is literally a genius, her tests in verbal intelligence are way up there. She got a full scholarship to Brown University, PhD… two Masters degrees. Every time she walks out the door she walks in the opposite direction of the car… gets lost every where. She couldn’t throw a 3D chart into her mind an flip it around if her life depended on it. I can, easily.
My former boss of $10 billion company could not visualize a simple two dimensional x - y chart. But put a fine print table of hundreds numbers in front of him and within about three seconds he would want to know why one number was off by two cents.
Different people visualize and process information differently. |
I’ve never jumped off a skyscraper either but having a basic grasp of Newton’s laws I can make a guess what would happen if I did. I don’t understand how anyone can’t look at speaker measurements and the components they are made from and get a pretty good idea what they will sound like. Is that to bold a statement? Volti Razz?????? LOL Really
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Mind blowing. First your grasp or lack thereof of basic English. You misspelled "to" and "too" twice in a row. Zero for two. Or "too" in your world. Second, making such a bold statement about components you have never heard. |
I haven’t heard them nor am I apt too. I haven’t heard Border Patrol either nor am I apt too. I could use DSP and EQ the crap out of them so perhaps awful is to strong a word, maybe extremely nonlinear is what I should have said. |
@rbwnc Several people have already mentioned this. |
As I said earlier, while this curve does exist, it is highly subjective, and is different, sometimes drastically so, for everyone. For some people, even people that can't afford the difference in money, that 2-5% difference you posit, may actually stick out like a sore thumb. Some aspect of audio reproduction, that you may find inconsequential, for others, may be one of the things they place at very high importance. And of course. vis versa. Remember, the vast majority of music listeners use $20 ear buds, to listen to MP3's, on their smart phones. Or they listen to all their music on their Alexa, or similar while at home. I am sure a substantial percentage of them think that those of us here, who have modest systems, no where near the very high end, are at the extreme end of that curve of diminishing returns you mentioned. |
This is what makes talking about this hobby rather than just listening to our systems so fun-divergent opinions. I don't own Voltis or AN's, but do own a pair of O/93's. I very much like my O/93's but don't love them. The midrange is compromised to a minor degree, but the more you listen to them (the more I listen to them) the more apparent the flaw is. But as to the Rivals, you are the first I have seen to call them "awful". Where did you hear them, which models, and with what ancillary gear? At Axpona it was Rival's tried and true partnership with Border Patrol and Triode Wire Labs and they were the deluxe version of the Rivals with exterior crossovers. If you had heard this set-up and if you had tastes that are even remotely similar to my own, the criticism would be that the sound is a bit unrefined and shouty, something akin to listening to audio through a set of a rock band's Gibson stack of stage monitors up on stage. But they were so "alive" in way that very few loudspeakers are and I thought the sound was refined in a different way than we normally think of with the word "refined"-the sound was organic and natural despite being a bit raw and shouty. If the number one rule of Fight Club is to not talk about Fight Club, the number one rule of loudspeakers is that there are always compromises. |
One day when the virus contagion is under control there will be these events called "audio shows" again. I highly recommend Axpona. It gives all of us the opportunity to hear the range of moderate to cost-no-object systems. Many times the extremely expensive systems are set up in larger rooms so that the room is not such a limiting factor. I have attended. I came away with the conclusion that the most expensive loudspeakers looked and sounded impressive but were not likely to provide much if any greater long-term joy or accurate recreation of the recording. At the last Axpona held in 2019 my favorite loudspeakers were the Audio Notes, Volti’s, and Devore Orangutans despite having listened to several far more expensive loudspeakers. JA evidently thought this was the best sounding system https://www.stereophile.com/content/jas-best-sound-axpona-mbl-n31-dac-n15-monoblocks-101e-mk2-speakers-wireworld-cables I listened to it and felt like I was in a carnival; sound was coming from everywhere and it left me feeling uneasy and I was not reminded of live music or real music. In summary, going to audio shows like Axpona is perversely rewarding because assuming you come away with the same impressions I did you will see that the rich have more expensive loudspeakers but don’t likely get better sound.
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I’ll relate two experiences that I think illustrate the difference. Both experiences occurred while demoing speakers - though at different stores. First experience - I was listening to Paradigm Signature speakers (I don’t remember the specific model but it was their biggest and best and I’m guessing the year was around 2015. I thought they sounded pretty nice - not great, They were in my budget at the time and under consideration. I made the mistake of having the dealer move the speaker cables to another speaker - above my set budget. Everything else was the same (obviously positioning was a bit different - but it was a big room). I came away discouraged as the music was so much clearer. What previously sounded resolving and full range now sounded congested and lacking impact. The different in mid range clarity was proverbially night and day. I didn’t buy the Paradigms but came away with lesson 1 that you can get more by going upstream. It’s not all fancy cabinetry. The second experience came when at a dealer to audition some electronics. The dealer was playing it through Rockports. It would have been about 2018. The Rockports being played were about $30k according to memory. I thought they were fantastic in every regard. But, the dealer also had the model up. I asked the difference and he said “just more of everything”. I had him play them. Again - same everything accept for placement. The difference in price? Another $15k. The dealer was right. More midrange clarity. Effortless and musical. Two speakers from the same manufacturer - already expensive. Similar looking cabinets, too. And, the difference would have been obvious to anyone. Had I the room and the budget, they’d be in my living room today. BTW - none of the above would have been revealed by measurements. In all cases, the speakers were essentially full range and measure well. More expensive isn’t always better, but let’s not cheapen the significant efforts by some honest builders to make something better. It takes effort and skill.
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Will it sound $48,000 better? No Will it sound better than a $2,000 speaker? Yes For the wealthy people, $50k means nothing. For the average joe, there are many other ways to spend that money for good usage. Sound systems need to have synergy with their components. A great sounding system could cost less than 3k in the used market.
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Even great and frugal engineering talent like Jim T have to deal with inflation. The 2.4 cabinet performs poorly against some of its more modern competitors which as they are still in business subject to inflationary pressures. A study on beating inflation are the Vandy model 1 and 2. No flames please, I am a Thiel fan and until very recently owned a pair of 2.3 + |
What I’ve learned over my years of listening and purchasing audio equipment is somewhere during all this you just have to draw a line and purchase the best equipment you can afford and sounds great to you and be happy. Take some time save for years to upgrade. Yes there’s all types of better speakers and all but one can never keep up unless you have a money tree out back. |
I don’t listen to $20,000 loudspeakers, so I don’t know what I am talking about. But as that never stopped me before . . . . When I gave away my pedestrian 30+ year old stereo system to get something better, that meant giving up two ‘80’s vintage Jensen speakers for two Martin Logan towers (not the planars, the 60 XT’s). Everyone I know assumed that I wanted to blast the neighborhood with sound, but that was never my intention. I used to listen to loud music decades ago, but now I prefer low-to-medium volume and bought nicer speakers for the quality of sound, not the volume. When others here note that they prefer to listen at 80-85 dB, I only go that loud when I do housekeeping chores in the next room and want the music as “company”. When doing what others call “serious listening”, I turn the music down to maybe 50-60 dB, for what I call relaxing. How I relate this to the OP’s question: My assumption is that very expensive loudspeakers would make the greatest difference at higher volume levels. That is where the speakers are being pushed more and where they would hopefully shine compared to lesser speakers. It would be nice to visit and listen to such high-end speakers, to hear what the fuss is about, I don’t think they would make as much difference at the low volumes I usually do my listening at. And, I’m not a big fan of listening at the frequency extremes that high-end speakers can reproduce. I compare this to the vocal range of singers — people tend to thrill to the singers that can reach the highest notes, but that is not my priority. I would rather listen to a singer that can make beautiful sounds in a more-restricted frequency range than the singer that can pierce metal with the very high frequencies. It comes back to comfort for me, not setting records. |
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Yeah, with regards to audio, I really don’t believe there is an objective point of diminishing returns. It is up to each individual to decide where that point is for each of us. My rich cousin recently upgraded his previous speakers, Magico M3 ($80K), to the a pair of Von Schweikert Ultra 9 at $200,000. They sounded slightly better in almost every aspect, and all those slight differences added up to a more compelling, involving listening experience. Was it worth the more than double the price for those small improvements? It was for my cousin. And let me add, that the vast majority of music listeners out there, listen to MP3s on $20 dollar ear buds, with their smart phones, who think that those here who have only spent a few grand on their modest systems, have surpassed the point of diminishing returns.
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i think it is worth clarifying one important point diminishing returns does not mean lack of or negative returns it means as you spend more tranches of the same amount of money (call it $1000 each time), you get a declining degree of positive benefit (in this case, better sound) for each additional $1000 spent - but you still DO GET MORE benefit said another way, in a world of diminishing returns, so long as it is spent with proper knowledge and insight in the aim to improve, spending more gets you more of what you want and thus, the controlling idea here is more about how many more $1000 you are willing and able to spend, versus whether those additional thousands will get you further in your pursuit of what you desire... |
