And, of course, power handling - notice I mention under 95 db. Over 105 db and below 45 HZ there is a huge (very huge!) difference between 5k speakers, 10k, 15k and 20k.
Absolutely agree. A $5K mid range and treble sound can often be as good as $20K or more...the differences being almost negligible. Not so for the bass reproduction....this changes dramatically. Although an entry speaker with much effort put into heavy bass reproduction (to impress) often fails in the mid range miserably (compromises go in the mid range in order to produce a reasonable price speaker with prodigious bass).
You should note that once you are around 4k to 10k for a system, the improvements in 'under 95 db sound' and for 'sound above 35 or 45 HZ' - improvements tend towards more limited and relate to the kinds of adjectives I've mentioned versus sounding fundamentally different.
Fully agree. I would actually say however that there is tremendous improvement in the ENTIRE bass...harmonic distortion from playing ultra LF is a HUGE problem in the bass and it is simply very costly to keep it at 1% levels or less. Cheap bad bass at 30 Hz is WORSE than a speaker that rolls-off at 80 Hz.
My problem is that when I hear a difference, I can't say if it's better. Usually, there's give and take.
Exactly. Apart from the obvious tangible improvements to play correctly at more realistic sound levels a lot of differences at high end boil down to slight coloration here or there. The law of diminishing returns certainly applies.
