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Why pay so much for super high end?

Most speakers costing $50,000+ use Seas, Scan Speak or Accuton.

In DIY forums most speakers designed use bargain drivers and usually are only 2.0 designs not bookshelf or center speakers to complete a surround system.

I’d love to have a Scan Speak 11 speaker system for atmos with 3 way bookshelves, center and floorstanders.

Why aren’t the designs out there and why are you guys pissing away all your money.

Personally I won’t get an upgrade from my speakers unless it’s of this caliber and neither can I afford nor want to donate money to these thieves.

A 3rd party 11 speaker atmos scan Speak system would be nice but I’m not spending $250,000.

Why on earth aren’t there designs out there for this and why do you all piss away your money?

I don’t get why hi fi isn’t all DIY even honest factory direct companies mark up 300%.

Unless you pull in $1+ million a year and don’t have any time I don’t get it.

Are you guys lazy?

Someone easily could design a great crossover and cabinets for everyone and the days of paying over $3,500 for a pair of loud speakers if you got some time or know a friend who could build cabinets would be over. I know of people who could design cabinets that rival $100,000 speakers and cost less than 1% than that.  Someone with some experience could easily design a diamond, beryllium and soft dome and various versions for various tastes.

I don’t get it. Speakers are so simple.  Crossovers cabinets and drivers.

You guys just throw your money away I don’t understand it why?


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terry9
2,244 posts
 
No argument from me, DL. I am suggesting that top notch 6 channel is better than top notch 2 channel, and by that I mean the same electronics driving the same speakers.

dlcockrum's avatar
dlcockrum
2,190 posts
 
Got it Terry.  I have friends that spend the same amount of money on a mid-fi surround system with a crappy sub that a good hi-end starter system would have cost and then ask me for advice because they quickly begin to notice the issues with muffled, chesty, boxy, or overly-bright vocals on their cheap center channel, discontinuous motion from left-to-right and front-to-rear, one-note muddy bass from the sub, etc. and want a miracle cure.  My advice always is: get the room and the front L/R right and then, if you have funds remaining, consider judiciously adding channels of like quality.  Of course, it is too late for them at that point.
davt
500 posts
 
Good question from the original poster. I like to buy the expensive speakers for health reasons. I started to have some real lung/respiratory issues from burning piles of my money in a bonfire in the middle of the living room floor. I found that if I bought expensive stereo speakers from thieves I have less smoke in the house and breath easier. The only real problem is that with less money smoke my health improved and my medical costs went down. I fixed that by starting to smoke 3 packs a day at $10 a pack. So, it all works out. 
mb1audio
151 posts
 
" Well mbl, I don't have a performance in my music room, ever. Even a string quartet with continuo would be a little tight.

With my system, I try to simulate a concert, with the listener (me) positioned in the middle of the dress circle. That means performers in front, and reflections from the sides and back. I don't think that two speakers do that as well as six. I explained how I do it. YMMD."

You'll have to bear with me because I'm not the best at explaining things. The reason I used a live performance as an example was to show, at least to me, that a 2 channel system seems to be better equipped to replicate the performance than a surround system. Your quote above shows where we differ. With surround, you try to replicate side and rear reflections with information coming from speakers. My opinion is that if you have an instrument play live, it will use the acoustics of the room. If you then set up a 2 channel system so that the instrument is at the same spot in the room as the live instrument, why not let the recording use the same characteristics of the room, just like what happens live? 

I also want to be clear that I'm not trying to start an argument here. This is just how I see the issue, and if others are getting results using other methods, that's perfectly fine. It would be foolish for anyone to do things any other way than what works best for them.
terry9
2,244 posts
 
mbl, you state, "if you have an instrument play live ..."

I think that’s the point of difference, mbl. I don’t often listen to a single instrument or any other small source of music; usually it’s a group of musicians who can be playing substantial instruments. That group extends over space. A few square inches of speaker is no substitute for 30 square feet of sound board, for example.

To reproduce this sound requires square feet of speaker, extended over some significant space.
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