Speakers Don’t Matter As Much As We Think They Do?

OP>

… literally everything down to the last cable has been tuned to work in synergy with these speakers. Had I upgraded my speakers mid way through, I would have undone a lot of the work that went into the system in terms of synergy.

blindjim>

not necessarily. I think this is sheer conjecture.  every rig is ever evolving. changing horses in mid stream may have come out similarly with what ever other alterations were made with the orig units.

for EX. what if one stays  in house with speakers but steps up a few levels? normal expectation would be more bandwidth and  bottom end response or articulation, given bass reproduction and its overall improvements escalate usually as speaker costs rise.

however the ‘house’ sound should remain in force to some degree.

OP>

Does anyone have any extreme percentages in terms of speaker cost to system cost like 5% or 95% and what has been your experience?

blinjim>

I’ve been a staunch supporter of ‘the ‘get what you can when you can’, system building ethos for  decades.

percentages be damned. those figures for   pieces within a stereo or HT outfit are aimed at marketing and bare little witness to what can be done if those numbers are NOT in play.

say the ratio for wires is already maxed out in each link , then what? Be happy? regardless the current results? 

one other very large Elephant in this room no one has acknowledged thus far is the underlying caveat this hobby rests  upon…

THE THRESHOLD OF DIMINISHING RETURNS

component performance does not equate precisely to cost in every instance.

has any of the number crunchers around here ever posted a speaker thread which aims itself at finding a consensus as to the percentage of improvement vs. cost as one moves up the speaker ladder?

IOW…. is a $35K pr of squeakers actually twice as improved vs. a $18K pair? or a $40K pr twice as good as a $20K set?

doubtful.

once that bag of worms is opened and than slapped shut, , then another bit of concious consideration looms large… ‘justification’.

one then must be able to justify spending twice as much as perhaps their present squeallers  cost for what? 10%, 15%, or 25% of improvement?

hearing a tad more, or maybe even something not heard before is not enough IMO to reconcile doubling my transducer indulgences. there would have to be more in the equation for me to pull that trigger.

i’ve heard plenty of speakers under the $50K range whose abilities are profound. well under. in fact under $35 in nearly every case, and many far below the 30s MSRP, of course. 

Just because someone, anyone, comes up with some likely unsubstantiated and probably unsupportable pie chart on how to split up the audio outfit’s funding in terms of flat percentages… like at a dealer’s shop… look closely at the systems they have setup in house and do a bit of quick math and see if the dealer is keeping to the same ratios they would have you maintain.

past times, hobbies, and or devotions engage more than simple numbers.  enthusiastic folks can and will overstrech means, some more prudent people will use good sense and restrain their financial    involvement. but as long as the variable is generated by the human  and his or her prevailing condition making the call, its truly an anything goes prospect at all times.

Botom line 

, when all accusations of a thing are partially or wholely subjective, there can be no absolutes. 

@gofastr

byee!

@åhickamore>

Bottom line: Speakers make the biggest difference and the rule of thumb is that speakers should cost 2x the cost of amp and preamp combined. OP's experience seems atypical to me.

blindjim>

that plan sounds very, very, dated.

Mind telling us exactly where you found this mandate for  allocating funds when building a system?

this means in just one eX. a $10K line stage + a pr of $25K mono blocks should have a pr of $70K speakers?

good luck with that approach as !  its application likely pertains to the lowest percentile of this past times enthusiasts whose pockets can afford what ever,  when ever tiers of merchandise.

real world EXP has shown me quite the opposite  in various systems owned and operating in different folks homes I’ve visited.

in fact one note on audio performance was being reinforced in exhibition after exhibition at the Fla Audio Expo this year which was put the majority of the funds in front of your speakers and by a wide margin of the dealer’s and or presentors on hand.

the vitus 030 Integrated    demo ($55K) had it driving a pr of $22K speakers imported from lithowania

gershman’s Grand Avant Gard $14K per pr were being pushed by VAC statement pre and a pr of VAC Statement 450s. the VAC triad easily surpasses the Gershman’s allocation.

this arrangement was repeated with regularity regardless the loudspeakers on display with very few exceptions.

implying one must double funding for speakerage  comensurate with the power train’s total investment, is some speaker makers idealistic or at least quite ambitious perspective.

in fact, the digital domain and the loudspeaker technological highway seems to be the foremost avenues which are demonstrating routine and regular advancements, and as such wisdom there would not be to trade in the first borne or get a second mortgage for speakers as their SOTA   is a swiftly  moving target.

prudence likely says to provide ABC speakers with the best signal and electronic control one can, rather than have a superbly capable loudspeaker recreating   a mediocre or even pedestriann signal and or one whose voltage or current demands have not been accutely addressed or fully optimized.

another  note on  the speaker first at all costs notion is thier plain old practicality of system integration. speakers are often large, heavy and affected by more variables than are its upstream counterparts than just  power demands. It is usually easier to swap in and out amps than it is to regularly swap in and out the speakers themselves. 

A pr of speakers  presence alone can ordain a particular esthetic needs to be evident for them to just be in the system and might negate another brand whose fashion or appearance can not be provided albeit their performance could be better than the more attractive units currently in residence.

I simply adore these ” “How much speaker should I….””  argument/debate/philosophy  threads.

They are not quite the venom filled or flame fuelded rants one finds in the usual “Do cables matter” forums, but both are time well wasted. If for no other reason than to see whose hat is in whose camp, and ‘why’. As if that matters either.

In the  interim, the supposed ‘guru’s’ seep out avowing this or that yet no one comes off saying their rig sucks or is way off being satisfactory, or even needs substantial improvements. Nope. All is well in Camelot and Camelot is in everyone’s listening room.

Everything matters. Everything. How much is always the debate for egos, forums and wallets.

Disregard your ego, and just let your ears, and wallet make those choices, not someone else’.

Having ultra pricey speakers are for sure luxury items, yet not necessary for a system to excel!  

Room to speaker ratios do exist and I’ve heard spkrs which are too much for a given room, though not the other way around, but these situations are fewer than one would think and far fewer as the reason the  outfit is underperforming.

Audio Expos for example have an immense disparity in speaker pricing, source units, power plants extravagance, yet many of the rooms are virtually the same size. Doubtless folks will say   of the exact same room, it was great, OK, or not too good, and the only real thing one can examine is the loudspeakers performance when its all said and done. Then looms the real question, how much of that sounds can be contributed to the spkr or its upstream friends? Its impossible to answer. Only how well the performance was can be subjectively ascertained, or how well XYZ spkrs can perform given its front end variables. Some speakers do have their limits of course, so finding those whose limits seem unlimited appears how to formulate a spkr short list.

Only one time have I ever heard a rig whose upstream fare met or exceeded  110K and whose spkr cost was far below that actually  sound flat, or blah IMO.

At the 2020 FAE the rooms which I felt were a cut above where those whose upstream  pieces were way above average speaker costing fare. Well, above! Albeit this came unexpectedly.

Bad sounding rooms are merely more difficult to manage. Its like choosing to fully customize   and upgrade say a ‘ 54 Nash Cosmopolitaninstead of doing up a ’56 Bel-air or a ’57 T Bird. But to each their own.

Performance is key but synergy trumps individual performance en masse. We seek transparency and neutrality but to what extent? 

As Al said, some people’s sonic preffs  lay in different realms of the bandwidth and certain musical genres do not reqire the entire bandwidth be supplied in total equality. The same goes for the expansive dynamic contrasts some genres demonstrate,  e.g., the Ops arrows currently receiving consequent adoration beyond what other higher costing units provided may support that theme. Or it could be supportive of the room to spkr ratio, or greater or lesser transparency of the signal itself.

My EXP has shown as I originally put it, top flight reference line speakers or even there abouts  are purely luxury and top flight reproductions of music can be had on far less levels of spkr accomplishment.

This spkr search must include equal attention to the power demands the short list discloses for speakers and amps are gonna see higher levels of performance if this matching just the current needs from the amp (s) are done well. Build of the amp denotes still more scrutiny, and all alone can escalate the presentation. 

I’ve found budgeting  a system is ridiculous for the seriously afflicted audio nut. Regardless what gets in the door first, its gonna change. 

Unless one has little or no constraints with financial wherewithal, circumstances more than budgets add or remove options just as will personal  philosophies on throwing money at a 2 ch. Audio rig.

I’ve yet to hear someone say the first outfit was a pair of Wilson Watts and an Onkyo receiver, or Creek INT amp. 

Get whatever level of spkr you can. Then add the ingredients to suit. This doesn’t mean speakers first at all costs. It merely means get some journeyman good performing nothing really faulty with them loudspeakers. There are untold numbers of them around.

My money once  some sort of affair is in play will target the source. As the foremost item to be upgraded. For me its been a trickle down affair thereafter quite often. Not always. Just more often thanmy ego & ears would prefer.

If the aim is always to seek greater transparency and organics, tonal integrity and naturalism, one won’t go far wrong. Chasing just transparency will severely diminish your audio library from the sheer abundance of bad recordings. So paying attention to balance is key with respect to the reproduction, and not as much to who ghets what amount of duckets along the way or at the onset.

If all the bits and pieces are of quality,  its reasonable to expect a quality sort of outcome. Mating and matching all the pieces with care often yields greater performance ala ‘synergy’.

The last rig I had to dismantle had about $40K MSRP in front of a pr of $8K MSRP speakers, and a $4K  sub. So what is that ratio? A bit more than 25% of total system cost for transducers?  It sure sounded better than my first effort which had 2K in front of a 2K set of speakers.

Its all gonna change anyhow… 

Good luck. Good thread.

“Speakers don’t matter as much as we think they do…”,.

They don’t matter any less either. They merely deserve the same amount of respect all of the other components in the arrangement should receive, but regularly not the lions share.

I firmly believe as I stated previously so long as an assignment, or verdict on any speaker’s prowess contains subjective evaluation (s) there can be no absolute determination of true performance (better, or best) regardless their cost, style, or design topology.

the one point a particular speaker can make is on the bandwidth itself and how much of it is revealed, i.e., speaker a being full range can develop more range than speaker B which is a restrickded range unit.

as for speakers making the greatest impact on the presentation I’d offer change the amplifier topology from SS to Tubes and then tell me things have not significantly changed.

albeit, many aspects of a system alter the sound and presentation, not merely the speakers.

Anyone in this devotion for anytime at all will see it does not take ‘world beater’ uber priced transducers to knock you off your seat with their presentation, now and again.

I strongly advise anyone to allow good sense lead the way and not some mysteriously arranged pie in the sky chart which denotes how much money goes where, if an audio rig is to be on balance.

Acquire a quality signal, maintain that signal’s integrity and match closely the power demands of the speaker with an amp or amps, address the room acoustics as is feasable , and many speakers will open the doors to excellent listening sessions without the need for extravagant expense at the end of the signal path.

@geoffkait
ROTFLMAO

@emailists>

How much should the paint cost in a painting?

Blindjim>

Ask  ‘Tooloose ta trek’.

@Fordste>

Many inexpensive speakers sound wonderful given all the other stuff is right.  In this hobby big money spent looks pretty but does not guarantee the best sound.

Blindjim>

+1