Why pay so much for super high end?

read the link I posted and you will learn something

Please don't read this, unless of course you are totally bored, no football on tv, not a good book in sight and you are just sitting around waiting for america to become great again. 

I think a better blind test for speakers would be to take two speakers, same brand, one costing twice as much as the other and ask the listeners or testicles which one they prefer. Not necessarily just hearing a difference but choosing a speaker they would want to live with. 

Now I don't care who you are that is a good one. Raises the issue, do people simply go for the more expensive speaker because it has one extra driver?

Loudspeaker design can be as simple as basic math and all the way up into complex physics involving quantum aspects.

It covers seven branches of physics/science, and is so complex, that we don’t have any real courses or degrees in it as an applied engineered science. Ie, there is no where you can go to get a ’Bachelor of speaker design’ degree.

It is a hardcore renaissance autodidact subject, where anyone with a 2" pocket radio speaker and an old cardboard box -can play...all the way up to a player with multiple degrees in physics and engineering.

There is no accurate prediction of the level of quality or success (beyond a general take), that will show how good sounding the given resulting speakers might be, as the feedback loop of design counts on more than just smarts, it counts on the quality of human hearing function of the designer, and the listener/buyer. There is precious little recognition of human hearing as being different from person to person and not directly correlated with overall intelligence in a clear fashion. Which can lead to more confusion and bickering in the audio world.

Hearing runs the gamut of ranging, from virtual deafness to perfected and evolving high levels of skill. We build our own hearing over time and each wiring and ear set is utterly unique, and literally hears differently than the next. Same for the eye, same for the intellect.  We posses basic similarity in body/mind pathways ---- but each build is unique.

It is a multi-tiered, multi-path - a set of parallel complex to navigate paths, as an overall set.

All of the sciences involved, are, at their heart or limits... incomplete, not perfected. Thus they end up meeting in inaccuracies and shots in the dark. So we can have brilliant speakers and sad hack jobs, all on the same page.

To add.... the personal level of evolution and hearing abilities/desires/wiring of the given prospective buyer can elevate mediocrity into being some sort of holy grail, or vice versa. Normal is for average, and the middle road of quality can be popularized as a holy grail and the more esoteric musing of such a grouping can still encompass mediocrity into their projections of perfection.

Commercial interests must follow these directions and motions of the potential buyers -- thus mediocrity also finds a place to flourish and expand. As we know, the biggest companies in the world of audio are almost never the best. Just the most popular. popular just means popular, and some of the negative organization we find that are pervasive in such ways... are virii, parasites, weeds, and plagues. What is commercial populism, exactly? A middle road? a bulk of similarity, a functional grouping in common communication? Can the best even be recognized or found in such an environment or is the idea of best in such a context - even relevant?

Psychology, medians & bell curves, the herd instinct in humans, and so on. Most people cannot approach the best and don’t understand it when they do, it’s appreciation being a very subjective component of unfettered personal evolution, just like it is in all other ares of inclusive complex human evolution. Quality does not necessarily cost, but it can and many times does.

The subject area is so complex and inclusive that all voices have room to be of themselves and move in many a way and direction.

Wolf_Garcia


Help us out here will you please. 

I like extreme high end stuff…I read magazines about the latest Ferraris and McLarens and Rockports (the speakers, not the shoes…although I'm sure the shoes are fine) and Richard Milles. I own 2 sort of high performance German cars (although one is a turbo Mini) that make me think I'm James Bond-esque, and both weren't expensive. For my silly watch obsession I just bought an Oris "Diver 65" retro thing for 1/24th the cost of a vintage Rolex Submariner "Red Letters" I saw in a shop in NYC last week (at a Ralph Lauren store…insane). And the Oris is friggin' cool…My "listening" rig (as opposed to my recording rig that I also listen to, but differently) is a pile of things bought mostly used but somewhat vetted…and many components like cables were insanely inexpensive relative to new…and it all sounds astonishingly fabulous all the time, and if something doesn't seem up to snuff I replace it. Less extreme (read "cheaper") hifi gear can astonish in the proper context with careful setup, and, for me anyway, finding those "gems of tone" is more fun than opening my wallet for new stuff I simply don't think I need.