I have tried many speakers over the years and the best results, for my ears, come from soft dome tweeters. Probably because they tend to have a litter extra shimmer up-top.
One thing to consider is whether or not the objective of your system is to reproduce as closely as possible the sound you hear in live music: the (dare I say it?) absolute sound. For better or worse, we all hear live music with the same ears and same hearing acuity as we do reproduced music at home. So I'd say, just do some auditioning and pick the speakers that come closest to the live experience. Of course, I understand that's not what absolutely everyone is after.
Of course you want to listen to everything you can. Loki is an inexpensive, noiseless equalizer from Schiit. If you already have passable speakers, you might try that first before investing a lot of money in a more radical solution. Another way to look at it is to maximize the range of frequencies you are able to hear to find the one most pleasing to you, without paying attention to what’s missing. I think it might be a trial and error process more than doing what an expert might tell you to do.
Do you have zero hearing ability in the upper frequencies, or reduced hearing in those frequencies?
If you have reduced hearing like when the audiologist tells you you only hear 25% in that range then you are probably looking for a bump in those frequencies from your system.
Brightening your system can compensate and there are many ways to do it with speakers, components, cables, etc. It doesn’t only have to be new speakers with more treble output. There could be more cost effective solutions. You could try a super tweeter on top of the speakers you already own. Or you could add an EQ to your component stack and jack up the high frequencies. The EQ option might only cost a couple hundred dollars depending on what you choose.
The ultra low budget option, and I’m actually being serious here, are Ear Glasses. Google it. They work.
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