How do you determine how much to spend on speakers


Hello all,

I am just starting out in this HI-FI stuff and have a pretty modest budget (prospectively about 5K) for all. Any suggestions as to how funds should be distributed. At this stage, I have no interest in any analog components. Most notably, whether or not it is favorable to splurge on speakers and settle for less expensive components and upgrade later, or set a target price range and stick to it.

Thanks
krazeeyk

Showing 1 response by tom6897

The 'Garbage In Garbage Out' axiom is I believe directed towards the source componet.

Mentioned earlier you CANNOT fix, repair, replace or get back lost digital or analog data once it has been sent upstream to the next component in the signal chain. In fact the amplification that occurs in each component is an enlargement, not of the original signal, but of the signal it receives. If there is dirt, distortion, or grain, these flaws are MULTIPLIED with each enlargement. By the time the musical signal gets to the speakers these flaws have been multiplied several thousand times. This is why the source is the most important part of any system.

That signal is then converted to another format once it reaches the DAC, run through a filter and a buffer, several chips, then converted to analog where itÂ’s run through another filter. That signal then travels in the analog domain through several thousand parts in a preamplifier and amplifier in the analog domain before being sent to the speakers.

No matter how good, how expensive, or how many claims of magic the back end components in your audio system may boast, the best signal they will ever see is what comes from your source.

As you can see from the above, there is very little hope that any system will ever deliver what was recorded to the "Master Tape" or produce what was heard in the studio.