How do you determine how much to spend on speakers

Audiolabyrinth, I wish I could weigh in on your last post, but cannot because I have no data except some limited anecdotal experiences. But my gut tells me you're right.

As general matter, I think hype and puffing contribute a considersable amount to the cost of audio. I recently posted some comments about what I perceive to be hype and puffing regarding the ARC line, particularly with respect to some of its newest and latest additions.

For example, ARC just released the new Ref 10 linestage carrying an MSRP of $30K. Yet just last year or so, ARC released a limited addition Ref Anniversay 40, carrying a MSRP of $25K that was supposed to be the "be all-end all" of line stages.

Now here's a laugh. ARC says that it learned a lot about new technologies and so forth from the Ref 40 and upgraded its Ref 5 linestage to incorporate many of these new technologies. The upgraded Ref 5 SE is hyped to be 85+% of the Ref 40, all for half the Ref 40's MSRP price. I'll let you know. I'm sending my Ref 5 to the factory next week for the SE upgrade for the "ridiculously" low cost of $2500.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm a big time ARC fan, but how many times can the newest product be "in another league" compared to its predecessor?? Sooner or later they're gonna run out of leagues.

Ok, back to this thread -- speakers. Speaker costs are all over the place. Sometimes there's a correlation of cost to quality, but not always.

Here's another laugh that almost resulted in the tar and feathering of the editors of a couple of well recognized audio magazines. My speakers, the Paradigm Signature 8 v3, were hyped by the editors of these mags to be the best speakers of 2011 and #7 in the line-up of best speakers of all time. Owners of Wilsons, Magicos and the like exploded. The S8s have a MSRP of $9k, compared to Magico Q5s having a MSRP of over $150+K. Forget Wilsons, they're a bargain compared to top of the line Magicos.

How can this possibly be??? Read some of my other posts --it's all about Econ 101 (economies of scale, volume sales, elimination of middlemen, in-house R&D, verticle integration, etc), hype, puffing and snobbery.

In the meantime, I may look like the poor cousin to many of my audiophile colleagues -- but guess what, I have a kick ass system.

So, my advice to the OP (if still relevant) and others is be smart consumers. Spending more bucks doesn't necessarily correlate to better or best gear.

Well that's the end of my Friday night audiophile ruminations.

Bruce

Al and others .... I read the last few posts and would like to add my 2 cents.

But before I post my comments, I'd like to paraphrase a couple of funny lines from Fiddler on the Roof. I think Tevya was caught up in an argument between two other villagers. The first villager made his point and Tevya said, "you're right." The second villager responded, and Tevya said, "you're right." Then both villagers exclaimed, "how can we both be right? Either Number One is right, or Number Two is right." And Tevya said, "you're right."

Well. I'm sure you get my point. Actually, I think the OP is asking a very good, but difficult to answer question. My answer is, "dunno." Reason: it has been my experience that I have been in "build out" mode for quite some time. During the build out phase, my knowledge and experience base has expanded quite a bit. I have switched out gear always seeking better performance from my system *as a whole.* What makes this endeavor incredibly difficult is that there are so few B&M stores around anymore which carry a wide range of models.

Although I don't think any link in the chain can be ignored, IME, the most difficult link to sort out is speakers. There's just so many subjective and objective variables in play, the least of which is NOT amplifier compatibility.

I apologize if my post comes off as a stream of rambling consciousness. I am just using a lot of space to say, "I don't know .... it depends."

Cheers,

Bruce

P.S. -- if you really want to focus on the downstream side of the house, then we should be talking about the spotty quality of the source material, which is the subject of many other Forum threads. After all "garbage in-garbage out."