Which is better, a fussy speaker or a versatile one?


When rating speakers into the high and ultra-high-end (or ultra expensive?) what do you think makes a speaker better?

Take two speaker models, for about $400,000 a pair, and 800 lbs.  One requires an excellent room, super quiet amps while the other sounds great in a number of different acoustic environments and can be powered by modest amplification, and speaker cables don't seem to matter.

Which is truly the better speaker, and which would you rather live with?

erik_squires

Showing 1 response by mulveling

What even is an "excellent room". That’s the most nebulous part of this abstract hypothetical. I find myself quite happy just avoiding obviously "terrible" rooms (also nebulous, but less so). I think a decent room can generally be made to shine with 2ch stereo, as long as you invest in careful setup and pick an appropriate size & spec of speaker to match room size.

But playing by the rules as you’ve posed - yeah I want NOTHING to do with any large & expensive "fussy" speakers. That just screams to me of some monstrosity with multiple cone drivers spread miles apart (incoherent sound), plus some crazy impedance / phase curve, wild frequency response, and a low efficiency that turns amp selection into some sort of Lord of the Rings style quest.