KEF Blade Two - Unbelieveable

@rbstehno …”Before I spend $25k on any set of speakers, my room must be in perfect shape/treated so I can get the best out of my speaker.”

Interesting approach. With the exception of not getting speakers that are wildly inappropriate in size, I approach it the opposite way. I get the speakers… break them in at an “theoretically” appropriate location. Then start working on fine tuning positioning and treatments.

As an example my former ribbon speakers sounded best without front wall treatments. In my previous house the required a 4’ wide x 1’ high treatment at ~6’ high. My newer dynamic speakers require full wall treatments. I couple have predicted none of the stuff without the speakers.

Anyway, that is my approach.

@rbstehno 

I am driving my system with Audio Research Reference 160s… I actually keep it in triode mode so 1/2 the power ~ 75 wats per channel. 

I usually listen at low 70’s db, when I go crazy in the mid 80’s. 100db… whoa.

Typically speaker companies have a house sound. The sound becomes more substantial (versus thinner) tighter with more detail with increasing cost. So, for me, auditioning speaker brands have led me to the sound I wanted… then upgrading (lots of research of course) within the product line is very safe unheard.

The other issue is the electronics driving them and the acoustics of where you hear them can have very substantial influence on the sound… it takes many years of experience to be able to separate what is sound characteristic is coming from what.

So the more auditioning of anything you can is helpful in developing listening skills.

I am reminded of a guy here a while ago that bought a set of world class speakers from a dealer and then kept going back lusting after a different similar different brand at the dealer, before it came out that the dealer was powering the other speakers with electronics about $200K more expensive than his in a highly tuned room. Not surprising they sounded better.