Do You Buy Speakers Without Hearing Them?


In the 'good old days' there were a lot of hifi stores around so there was plenty of opportunity to go in and listen to various brands and models of speakers.  With the continuing disappearance of audio shops, I'm wondering if more people are making the leap to buy speakers they've never heard in person, or just limiting their purchase options to the brands they can hear locally?  If you are buying a speaker that you haven't heard, how do you get comfortable with that?  Magazine reviews?  YouTube demos?  

I've mostly heard any speaker I ended up buying, but in two cases I bought speakers that weren't available in my area.  I made my decision based on reviews.  In one case the speaker was really nice, but in the second case, the speaker was well-reviewed but ended up being disappointing.

Appreciate your thoughts.

 

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Showing 1 response by curiousjim

As a general rule,I’d never buy anything without hearing it first, although I made one exception.  I have a Hegel H390 and when Hegel was at the shows, they were using KEF speakers for a while.  I figured that Hegel would want to show off their wares in the best light, so I bought a pair of KEF Reference speakers and after two years I’m still pretty happy with them.

All the best.