An audiophile dilemma

"Only if you can see the equipment, will you be able to 'hear' the imagined differences / deficiencies. Put everything out of sight and NO ONE can tell or hear a difference. Not wanting to revisit this 'sensitive' subject, except that there might be new people here who do not know the history of blind testing."

But this isn't at all accurate. Harman in particular has done a lot of controlled blind comparisons of loudspeakers, and not only can panelists hear the differences, all but those with hearing deficiencies rank them in the same relative order, whether they're audiophiles or not. Some other speaker manufacturers, including high end manufacturers, use blind listening tests as well.

I gotta wonder, on the basis of your earlier comment, whether you've actually heard a great speaker.

Rok2id, you said, at the beginning of this thread:

"Are those high end (and very expensive) speakers really better than the JBL's?

"All things considered, NO! The media we are playing was not recorded by God. None of it sounds live. So why spend a lot of your hard earned money trying to reproduce imperfections mo better! I am considering JBL myself. I have owned JBLs model: L-150 and 4311 and LX-44. loved them all."

And my response to that is what I said -- have you ever actually *heard* a great loudspeaker? Because I can assure you, what they do isn't just a matter of reproducing imperfections better. And while I could describe in great detail what they do better, it shouldn't be necessary, because it's so obvious to anyone who listens.

"If great speakers are being made, then the knowledge exist, so why don't all producers make great speakers. What makes a speaker great, and how much does it cost to make one?"

Rok2id, that's a fair question. The answer, I think, isn't any different than the reason why not every composer writes a great symphony, despite the fact that music theory and training are available to all. Speaker design isn't nearly as cut and dry and scientific as you think it is. Yes, it's highly technical -- but then, so is music.

Suppose you were a speaker designer. Assume that you learned everything you could about physics, acoustics, loudspeaker design, and psychoacoustics. You'd be amazed at how much you knew -- and how much you still wouldn't understand, because we don't yet know.

Then, try designing your product. You'll rapidly find yourself coming up against what are known as the engineering trades. The materials you use are imperfect. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, so when you gain one thing, you give another thing up.

You might for example choose to make an electrostatic speaker. Electrostatics are famous for detail and low distortion. But because of fundamental and practical limitations, they have to be very, very big to play low and loud, and it's hard to get good high frequency dispersion out of them. They're also hard to drive and tend to be unreliable.

A great designer will study what's known, then add some problem-solving innovations of his own, maybe even come up with an entirely new approach. He'll spend years mastering the "black art" aspects of speaker design that aren't in the textbooks, things that you learn only by spending hours in the lab tinkering with prototypes, listening, measuring, and trying to make them better.

So, while you can indeed design a good speaker by the book, using off-the-shelf parts, designing a great one at a practical price point isn't at all cut and dry.

Add to this the fact that the rule in consumer electronics is that a product has to retail for 4-5 times parts and labor cost. As with most things, you can buy a lot of performance. A machined aluminum cabinet costs a lot more than an MDF cabinet, for example, but it has fewer of the resonances that give speakers a boxy, smeared coloration. Exotic diaphragm materials, large multiple woofers for low distortion and high power handling, etc. -- all of these are costly.

Anyway, just trying to give you a sense for why this isn't nearly as trivial as you might think. And it also helps explain (along with what might politely be called commercial considerations) why there isn't a simple relationship between price and greatness in a speaker.

A pair of Quads, for example, will cost only $10,000 and are unquestionably great speakers if they fit your listening needs (limited SPL and bass). There are also great speakers that cost over $100,000. They excel in different areas, because of characteristics in the underlying technology.

Bottom line, I think, is that you should as others have suggested try to listen more. Not because you should become an audio hobbyist, but because you'd be amazed at what they can add to the enjoyment of music. If they take your breath away, then you know.

Mlsstl, I agree. I tried to touch on the point when I compared the $10,000 Quads to $100,000 behemoths. There are some things the Quads can do that a big pair of Wilsons can't, and vice-versa. I don't think anything will beat the Quads for acoustical music at moderate levels, and that makes them great speakers -- but not for people who want to rock out. And if you do need high SPL's, do you go with the more colored sound of a Wilson (you aren't alone in your observation) or the accuracy of a Magico? Or do you sacrifice a bit of that level and go for the even better accuracy and imaging of a huge electrostatic like the Sound Labs?

At every level, the speaker to get is the one that best fits our needs, and these may occupy very different price points, because some attributes that some people need -- loud deep accurate bass, say -- are costlier to provide than others.

Dayglo, I've noticed the same thing. Some of that has to do with how they're mounted in the studio, and with the very dry acoustics up front. Some I think has to do with the limited dispersion of the typical pro monitor. JBL's may be an exception that last, the Harman research favors good power response, which they found correlates very well with subjective quality.