Some years ago, right after I moved away from my home country, I visited many audio shops for listening. I’d relocated to one of the most condensed hifi/home audio retail-shops-city on earth. That sudden exposure overload, combined with new living standard constraints, led me to reconsider much about how I felt home audio should be perceived and pursued.
That disclaimer out of the way, space was at a premium and a dedicated listening room would not be a thing for me (never been a goal, anyway - of course no offense to those of you who value it). Permanent room treatments were not an option, as I didn’t want to buy property. You get crafty when up against those odds. You also make sure to
listen lots before you buy, as the consensus here seems to be already. Good!
Some of the be$t high-enders I encountered were [to me] not “all that” if a true life sound is desired (i.e., comparing the speakers’ real-world results to a night club, orchestra hall, stadium concert, ukulele in a coffee shop…).
Some of the most profe$$ionally-kitted spaces showed amazing soundstage / imaging, using the luxury of space and gear valued into the million$ [USD], but for all practical purposes seemed like really good parlor trick performers.
I came to realize after sampling a bunch of speakers, amps, etc. and also a lot of original source material (original production master tapes played directly on original Studer mastering decks) that it’s simply most important for a speaker to bend air in ways
you prefer. It seems like an oversimplification but it really isn’t, despite the diversity of engineering and levels of QC that can go into high-end stuff.
A recent write-up kept going back to issues seemingly borne of oversized rooms compromising the performance of multiple speaker models. We are talking some models far above the maximum price available for this thread’s purposes:
AXPONA 2022 | Loudspeakers $30k and Up - After three years of self-imposed exile, it felt distinctly odd to go to a trade show—my first since Munich High End 2019.
www.theabsolutesound.com
Most of those ballrooms probably have “kinder” ceilings than the OP’s - no vault - too. I’m not sure where the OP’s room choice is now, big vs. small, but I reiterate that should be pivotal in narrowing (
or further expanding) the speaker options list.
If the big room is used, room acoustics could be seriously foreboding given how the kit will need to handle serious power, regardless of treatments. If the smaller room is used, speaker model choice becomes much more expansive but
not necessarily more expensive, due to lower thresholds for almost all would-be confounding factors. I’m saying this assuming the challenge of managing point-source audio signals in either room, and treating either room with the assumption of never changing / moving that sacred Main Listening Position.
If multiple positions need to sound good, especially for cinema, point-source tech becomes decreasingly attractive
I know, others feel differently; their senses are not mine, so that’s fine (and vice versa)!
boenicke-audio.ch
