The Borresen X-3’s at 137 lbs. ea. and built like a $50,000 speaker actually sound better to me than their $100,000 speaker. At 11 Grand for the pair, they are the best value in the speaker world currently. A beautiful piece of technology and art! Look at the quality of what is out there at $11,000 a pair. Nothing holds a candle to what Borresen is offering. This speaker has the trickle down technology of their $500,000 speakers.Check them out. PS. there's a wait.
What speaker could safely be ordered without hearing it first?
Hi everyone,
I’m in the midst of my speaker search and curious about something.......as noted above. There are some brands I would be interested in based on reputation, reviews, looks etc but may never be able to hear first.
I’m curious what the collective group thinks would be a safe choice having never heard them first. I know there are variables as in size of room, current gear etc. Just want to see what people would suggest. The one I would note based on what I have read is Joseph Audio. I’d also be curious if people would say the same about Borresen.
So it may be a frivolous exercise but I’ll ask the question anyway. Let me know your thoughts.
222 responses Add your response
Yes, Erik....I’ve not touched any room treats....but I’m a fanboy of Linkwitz when he said: "Ignore the room...." I’ve had to do so my entire existence as an ’odd-iophile’, with ’relative’ success. I see no reason at this point of time and physical reference to stop doing so. The only way for me to demonstrate such is for U 2B Here. So there. *L* *Loud 'poof', requisite cloud* |
@mtbiker29 ....Another day, another Gordian Knot to apply KISS....but no implication of your mental status. *S* Mine, yes. Acceptable; I've no dog in this show.... Approximately, where do you live? US flag out the window....'K, somewhere in the US. Big start, that....😏 If you 'hint', The Collective could suggest B&Ms' to visit? Plenty of 'IMHO's 'round here... Budget? 2 sets of nice 'kit'....Moving up, but how high is that? Maggies' and M/L's suggested; I'm an omni/dipole fan, but RU? Big differences in that swerve.... ;) Not to mention the potential changes that may make your existing amp 'obsolete'...*ouch*.... Can't help but notice you've made no real comments about what catches your attention/interest either.... Up to now, we're shooting rubberbands at the moon. Fun....we all get to air our fav's, fancies/fantasies.... Here's mine: A 'full dingy' of my DIY Walsh; 4 columns of 2 way drivers, a distributed sub system of 4 units (90 deg. rotation from the columns). Chuck your amp and pre. 12 'D' amps; 4 for the subs, 8 for the columns (2 per). When all is said and done....it'll take a SWAT squad to drag you out to just get some sleep.... What would all this cost? Why should you care? Nothing like it would exist, to my knowledge, and imho... My 'blue sky' is a tad more...'unusual'....but, consider the source... ...and the rest can get back to theirs... ;) My apologies to all....but, after awhile....🙄😒 |
Above a certain price pont all speakers are good, yet there will be differences, and no matter how raving reviews are, your taste may differ. Best alternative to a listening test at home would be to visit a HiFi show and audition as many speakers as possible there. But then there still is room acoustics. There simply are too many brands / types, while it’s impossible to audition more than just a couple at home, if any. So, yes, there will always be a level of FOMO, just ask yourself if you can live with that. :) |
I have a small treated music room (14x14) and I bought Magico A3, unheard anywhere prior to. If I could be happier, I’m too ignorant to know it. However, I did attend an equipment show in Dallas last month and didn’t hear anything I wanted to rush out and trade up for. Driving them with Hegel H590 and mostly streaming with an Innuos rig. |
There is no excuse for not auditioning before purchase, unless you can get a dealer/manufacturer to send them to you with a 7 day return policy with no restocking fee. Somebody mentioned they wouldn’t fly because it would be an expensive plane ticket. What’s the alternative, spend $100k on a speaker and you don’t like it, so you send it back with a 15% restocking fee, which would be $15,000. So what’s more expensive, a plane ticket or the restocking fee? Or worse case, you can’t return the speakers so you sell them, probably at a 20% loss or more if you can sell them. Spend a few bucks and go to a few audio shows and listen to as many speakers as you can. Or you can travel to a few dealers that carry the speakers you think you might like, it can be a little vacation and it could save you a lot of money in the long run. 1 more thing, when people ask an open ended question like you did, you could get tens to hundreds of responses all giving you unique set of speakers. How will this help you? Same goes for relying on audio reviews. This is the worst thing you can do since every review of an audio component in a magazine is the best of the best, never a negative review. Again, how is this going to help you make a decision? Good luck |
Something sneaky is going on here, am I the only one? Questions about speakers seems mysterious on a stereo website. Hmmm
The Op may not have taken the class on how to ask a question on here without the premise of the question being the subject of the thread. Very interesting. Definitely worth whining about. |
None no matter how revered they are even by every expert. No speaker is perfect and the combination of characteristics that make you happy may be very personal. Saying that there may be two ways to do it. The safest is, of course, if you can return the speakers for a nominal fee and you can afford the shipping and restocking. The second sort of contradicts my first paragraph and is way less safe. If you read a lot of reviews and the descriptions sonically in the reviews sound like the kind of sound you like AND you've found in the past you have agreed with the reviewer's work and many reviews are very consistent and you have no other way to hear the speakers it may be worth the risk. But it would scare me to do it even though it sounds logical. |
What’s your budget ? MBL 101, Marten Coltrane , Wilson watt Any of them , YG Acoustics , Magico , plus many more , your electronics, a front end , and cabling all have a factor Synergy to all the above is important I owned a Audio store for a decade and nothing is a one size fits all if the front end electronics and cables are known then a speaker can be chosen to fit the buyers tastes. |
I bought all my few speakers pairs on many faith reviews before buying ... I could not listen to them... it is no problem to buy good speakers this way today... The real problem is what speakers to buy with no acoustic dedicated room or what speakers to buy with as goal a dedicated acoustic room... And even before the acoustic question what are the room dimension and the speakers characteristic... Buying without listenings is way less a problem than buying without paying any attention to any acoustic basics...
My fist speakers were the Tannoy concentric dual gold... Astoundingly good speakers... Believe it or not i NEVER listen to them in 45 years...Why? Because i learn acoustic AFTER selling them...I never hear them at their optimal level.... Alas! Buying without listening them before was not the problem... Never listening to them in a good acoustically controlled room for them was the problem...
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Crutchfield. Audio Advisor. Music Direct. And that's just the start. I tried out Dynaudio, Martin Logan, Fritz, Salk, Ascend, Focal in my room. All had return policies. The Martin Logans from Crutchfield were towers and they cost me $10 each to ship back to them. |
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One's you can return, hopefully within driving range, or, risk return shipping as the price of getting out of the wrong thing. or Ones with LEVEL controls, allowing you to adjust their frequency distribution in your space, that location in that space, to your 'taste' or specific hearing characteristics!!!!! |
I agree -- but I never suggested it did! I'm referring to online sales. |
since you can't listen to all the speaker before you buy ONE, it is the same process, you narrow it down to a list of speakers. Then you would listen to those on the list. Just how I would do it, but of course you can make fun of looking at specs. And by specs you can look at a lot of speaker and company data that indicate how well it will match your system
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"How "safe" do you want to be? Personally, I'd never buy any speaker I couldn’t first audition in my room. Your money. Your ears. " I'm pretty sure this rarely happens. Its a great idea, but I can't imagine many dealers are going to let you take expensive speakers home, unbox them, audition them,re-box them and then bring them back. They may sell them too you, and let you bring them back with a restocking fee. I think if you read enough. You can pick a brand/model that works well with your existing gear. I always stay with well known brands that have good resale value. |
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Interesting service, but it must be a challenge to compete with those that are walking into a store and auditioning speakers. I do think that @mtbiker29 should audition speakers using his integrated amplifier. I shopped integrated and speakers as a package and I’m glad that I did because it turns out that the speakers that I purchased are wonderful to listen to, but probably don’t play nice with many amplifiers. I assume that you also have speakers assembled that can be auditioned at your location. |