What market are these recommendations for?
USA, with USD prices listed below
Does this include discontinued speakers?
No, since i'm only counting speakers that are currently sold at major retailers/resellers in the US.
What is the preference score?
The preference score (introduced by Sean Olive) (also sometimes called "Olive score") is the best science-based representation we have on how to classify whether a speaker (either active or passive) is preferred or not. A more neutral speaker will get the best preference score, and will likely win in a blind listening test, comparing two speakers. You can read about it
here.
What are the limitations of the preference score?
1. Distortion handling
Amir and Erin (from ErinsAudioCorner) talk about this in their reviews, so you can take a look there.
Distortion handling of a loudspeaker is usually secondary to frequency response. Meaning, a great frequency response and poor distortion handling speaker will still be preferred over a poor frequency response speaker with great distortion handling. A great example of this is the fact that JBL 305P/306P/308P MKII speakers have higher-than-normal distortion, but because of their relatively neutral frequency response, a lot of people still enjoy them.
2. Loudness handling
Amir and Erin (from ErinsAudioCorner) talk about this in their reviews, so you can take a look there.
In terms of loudness handling, I've made a few notes to speakers below.
3. Your own preference for wide or narrow directivity
In terms of directivity, I haven't added this information below, but I could if enough people show interest.
Accuracy of data:
There are a few speakers in this list that weren't measured using Klippel NFS (that Amir and ErinsAudioCorner have), which provides very accurate spinorama. A less accurate (in terms of resolution) spinorama can be made using quasi-anechoic methods as described in this
post.
If you see * => We have quasi-anechoic spinorama or similar, but the speaker wasn't measured using Klippel NFS.
Are you biased in any way?
I purchased PSB Imagine X series of speakers before joining ASR. Read into that what you will.
How did you make this list?
I looked at all the speaker spinorama that we have and their computed preference score and compiled this list.
I also mention a few speakers of note, and talk about which speakers to avoid at a certain price point, based on my own understanding.
What is the limitation of this guide?
Blind reliance on measurements can be misleading ‐ one needs to tie those measurements back to subjective perception. Amir and ErinsAudioCorner both give their overall opinion on speakers, so feel free to read the written reviews.
What am I showing?
Top 3 speakers in terms of preference score, plus other worthy picks (explained in the legend).
Exclusions:
I didn't include DIY type speakers (where you buy the kit, install it yourself, and paint the speaker). Instead, only speakers you can purchase from major retailers/resellers in US.
Do you need an amplifier with these?
Yes, since the speakers are passive.
Assumptions:
I'm going to assume these JBL 4367 and similar speakers are "towers" and not "bookshelves"
Limitation of preference score?
Flipflop: "Using vendor data is not just a problem because of potential credibility issues, but also because some of the data, like the R152 spin, uses a higher amount of smoothing, which results in lower NBD_ON and NBD_PIR values, which in turns result in an artificially increased predicted preference score."
What's the difference between Amir's and Erin (from Erin's Audio Corner) distortion charts?
Amir shows "Non-Anechoic" harmonic distortion.
Erin shows "Anechoic" (using Klippel ISC module) harmonic distortion.
They are similar, but not exactly the same.
Erin explained it in this
youtube video
Which makes a direct comparison between Amir's and Erin's distortion graphs inaccurate (unfortunately).
Amir talked about why he stopped doing Anechoic harmonic distortion
here.