More speakers for sale than other componenet. Y?

The chain of events in my opinion are:

*The quality of the recording/quality of the music (Yes, a lot of the rock we love sucks in terms of recording quality)
*The play back source! source! source! source! No Pandora!
*The amplification (I hate to say this but we might need to bring back bass and treble / loudness controls) to atone for poor system synergy)

*loudspeakers (the end of the chain the loudspeakers are often the most innocent)

The passive loudspeaker merely does as she's told, usually

Then throw in these monkey wrenches:

*System synergy which should not be an issue as you have already figured this out

*poor unstable room acoustics (man this is a big one!)

*wrong mood / wrong music genre ... if I had to only listen to country you damn well bet I wouldn't be an audiophile anymore!

*The recording arts adjustments / re adjustments to fit new formats: 1000 page book to be written here

*The brain and your ears. If you can see the jazz band the sound makes more sense to the brain if you are merely staring at some Darth vader black boxes you're missing 9/10 of the experience by not seeing the double bass and sweaty horns and it is this reason I feel that speakers should look good otherwise what ya got...9/10th the experience... If you see the players your brain thinks it sounds better even if it doesn't.

Build your system starting with the amplifier.. Buy the best one you can afford.

If you're digital buy the best DAC you can afford

If you're analog buy the best cartridge you can afford and and a good TT Get a reel to reel so you can play for 3 straight hours without needing a jocky!

*pour yourself a nice Aberfeldy 21 sit back and listen while admiring the beautiful rack of gear look left and right at the beautiful transducers and think..it's great to be alive.

Q

My guess is that there are more speakers for sale because there are more speakers made. Other audio components have to take a back seat in manufacturing. And after all, most systems have two speakers or more--so they must be the most important thing! They certainly take up the most room. And what does the plumber say when he visits your house to fix a leak and hears your system playing? "Hey, those are great speakers!"

(One exception: if you have a Shanling CD-T100 CD player he will ask you how much that cost first.)

Photon and the guys are right, a heckuva lot of folks try swapping speakers as a remedy for unsatisfactory sound before they go upstream. And the same number of people have unsatisfactory sound in the first place because they spent a wad on highly revealing speakers, then "matched" them with a lesser source, one with faults for the speakers to reveal.

the speaker is the last link in your system between you and the music. you are seperated(or connected) only by soundwaves moving through air. IMO speakers introduce the most distortion into the sound, and this must be pleasant to the owners ears. IMO speakers have the most room interaction, this can lead to problems that can't be fixed. IMO speakers vary in sound to a higher degree than amps, sources, preamps, or cabling and each of us have their own preferences. IMO speakers can cause more issues with fit in the room and WAF than other components( if you move to a new house the speakers have a high chance of not working, higher than other components). so my conclusion is that speakers will always be traded more frequently. well constructed speakers that are well taken care of can last a long time. these can be an exceptional buy on the used market. units like processors and digital players, which become obsolete quickly, seem to command higher resale, this has always puzzeled me.

Over the yrs. I've vacillated between which component I should use as the cornerstone of my system & currently the amp holds that position.

I upgraded within the line over a 3 1/2 yr. period & this amp has made the other components become even more synergistic w.ea. other.

I too think that the room, and synergy are the problem, if more Audiophiles (myself included) spent the time and effort and money into room treatments and in a perfect world could audition everything as a whole to find that perfect synergy you would see alot less speaker upgrades, but there is also upgradeitis the plagues so many, and too many are in my opinion missing the point and not stoping enough to enjoy the music, some folks upgrade while still planning on another upgrade 2 upgrades ahead, so when they get the new speaker it has already been predetermined in their mind that they want to be in another model...and that sets up for defeat...its pretty insane, I guess if you have unlimited money or you live in your moms basement this can be ok....but in the real world...its nuts!

I think that most audiophiles worth their salt build systems around their source. Maybe I am just a source first kind of guy? How knows?

A twist on the same ideas is maybe too many people put way too much stock in speakers and not enough on the more important componants, so when the system still doesn't sound good they rush off for the next pair of speakers rather than fixing the problem.

Or maybe i this is like all the rest of the absurd "why are there so many_____for sale" questions, and it's because they were soo many sold!

I sort of agree with Photon46's comments, but would add that most folks can more easily hear the difference between speakers than they can between the electronic's. When seeking an improvement in their system thats the easiest item to address. Reality sets in when they have high quality speakers and lousy (relatively) sound and then they have to learn about the differences that their electronic's and set up can make. Beemer is right, its all about synergy.

What Photon46 sez is true. Most folks just dump speakers rather than seek synergy/component matching. That's OK. More bargains for us that work the system!

Best,

Paul :-)

Just a guess, but I'd venture that on the basis of the commonly held belief that a speaker is the most important component, people keep replacing speakers as they seek the ideal sound. In most cases, this doesn't yield the expected results because system synergy is lacking or room acoustic deficiencies prevail. It's conceptually easier to imagine fixing aural defiencies with this or that new speaker which we hope will correct things rather addressing the complicated issue of system compatability.