End Game Speakers - The Quest Continues

[flysouth]

original posters wife is a gem if she doesnt care about looks. Some of these options id get flogged for

It’s actually worse than you suggest. Very expensive loudspeakers are produced in such small quantities that the manufacturer cannot afford the R&D to get the engineering right nor can he afford the tooling for medium volume production. It just doesn’t make economic sense. So the very expensive loudspeaker may even underperform the well engineered medium volume product, but certainly doesn’t represent any worthwhile increase in performance for the vastly inflated sales price. The YouTube Audiophool pundits love expensive gear of course!

yah great point. I think in the case of these two options this might happen because the products arent even available yet . when I heard the dutch n dutch at the show I dont know why you would want louder or if you did what room would need it.

When someone talks about "end game" ambitions, they are still chasing the rainbow. What I learned from going "end game" a while back is that it leaves you still wondering if there's something you can improve, or you question your choice 6 months later.

If I am honest, my end game chain looked great, but deep inside I was a bit underwhelmed by the marginal improvements - when gear is already very good, and when the music is great, hey, might as well stay put. My "end game" gear sounded great in a big listening room, but 15 years later, after divorce and with a smaller place, it just didn't work and was too big and overwhelming. I then went through a number of changes/upgrades for a few years, until I settled with what I have right now - and yes, LS50 with a great amp and a sub or two will truly work brilliantly, thank you very much. And I did own $12k bookshelf speakers to "upgrade" from LS50 I acquired in 2013... and after a few years, I went back to the LS50.

id bet most here are chasing vaporware for the sake of it to fill a void. most forums are addictive and keep people chasin the tail

 

[Ron Texas]

@pablolie major events like a divorce certainly change one's life in many ways.

 

[Ron Texas]

@flysouth some of us are lucky enough to have a dedicated man cave where the wife doesn't care about how the audio gear looks.

 

[Anton D]

When someone talks about "end game" ambitions, they are still chasing the rainbow. What I learned from going "end game" a while back is that it leaves you still wondering if there's something you can improve, or you question your choice 6 months later.

If I am honest, my end game chain looked great, but deep inside I was a bit underwhelmed by the marginal improvements - when gear is already very good, and when the music is great, hey, might as well stay put. My "end game" gear sounded great in a big listening room, but 15 years later, after divorce and with a smaller place, it just didn't work and was too big and overwhelming. I then went through a number of changes/upgrades for a few years, until I settled with what I have right now - and yes, LS50 with a great amp and a sub or two will truly work brilliantly, thank you very much. And I did own $12k bookshelf speakers to "upgrade" from LS50 I acquired in 2013... and after a few years, I went back to the LS50.

I admit to still feeling lust for Sonus Faber Extremas, in the stand mount category. Out of my budget, even used, but I likeed the sound and the look Sexy. (I am not being objective, of course, simply musing or rhapsodizing subjectively!)

 

[srrxr71]

It’s actually worse than you suggest. Very expensive loudspeakers are produced in such small quantities that the manufacturer cannot afford the R&D to get the engineering right nor can he afford the tooling for medium volume production. It just doesn’t make economic sense. So the very expensive loudspeaker may even underperform the well engineered medium volume product, but certainly doesn’t represent any worthwhile increase in performance for the vastly inflated sales price. The YouTube Audiophool pundits love expensive gear of course!

I used to buy speakers from a low volume guy. Good guy. Sounded pretty good.

That is a pretty good way to sum it up, I think. Can you even find speakers that are 2x, 5x or 10x higher quality than D&D 8C? Seems doubtful even if you are willing to spend 10x more for a 2x improvement. But 10x bigger, 10x more expensive, and 10x louder... sure.

If output is a key consideration there are still interesting ways to get there for not a lot of extra cost with perhaps a small if any loss of fidelity.

If I had to power a large space I would at least try something like a Bose line array. Then also apply Dirac or something like that to them.

Would I really notice a large difference to my current system? Probably not.

So I feel once you’ve developed your stated goals/needs you can there with modern technology for a reasonable cost. Actually incredibly reasonable.

I have friends who tell me that technology keeps moving and price/performance will always get better. But I feel it’s pretty much done in the digital domain. To get that last layer then you still have to go back to physical modalities like room treatments.

Digital correction gets you maybe 80% of the way there. But if you want that last 20% then it does cost.

 

[pablolie]

I used to buy speakers from a low volume guy. Good guy. Sounded pretty good.


If output is a key consideration there are still interesting ways to get there for not a lot of extra cost with perhaps a small if any loss of fidelity.

If I had to power a large space I would at least try something like a Bose line array. Then also apply Dirac or something like that to them.

Would I really notice a large difference to my current system? Probably not.

So I feel once you’ve developed your stated goals/needs you can there with modern technology for a reasonable cost. Actually incredibly reasonable.

I have friends who tell me that technology keeps moving and price/performance will always get better. But I feel it’s pretty much done in the digital domain. To get that last layer then you still have to go back to physical modalities like room treatments.

Digital correction gets you maybe 80% of the way there. But if you want that last 20% then it does cost.

I know we want speakers to be "real", but on the other hand we also know they have personalities and interactions with a room - and that that may well contribute to our preferences - we try to tame speakers into being passive, linear elements of the chain... but should they always be?

We have preferences with the way instruments sound too - some like their saxophone solos to be mellifluous, some like the player to blow hard. Some like Nile Rodgers' sharper repetitive licks, some like Earl Klugh's or Stanley Jordan's soft and ever changing delivery. And voices are no different - some like opera voices a la Andrea Bocelli, some like raspy *ss screaming deliveries... etc etc etc...

All in all we are talking music. I love measurements, but I also realize I have personal preferences in many things, and I don't think measurements always align with my preferences. As a motorcycle rider, I got a KTM Duke 1290... and as amazing as all the measurements were, I hated it. My 1999 edition BMW R1100S, with barely more than half the horse power of the Duke, still gives me twice the fun - fewer electronics, more control, more "connection". I don't want to be left out of the loop... and perhaps there's a bit of it in audio as well... sure, linearity is great... but maybe I want my equipment to have a bit of personality that reflects *me*, a slight sound signature that I like and reflects *me*.

 

[Pearljam5000]

May I suggest this $2 million system as end game ?

 

[MKR]

May I suggest this $2 million system as end game ?

I heard it, as mentioned in my report. Sounded decent, but audiophoolery at its finest. Even worse, I was there when a Borresen/Aavik big wig went on a crazy diatribe on recording polarity and his HW was only product out there that could flip the polarity. He did a demo with and without polarity flipped on multiple recordings and NO one could hear a difference. And if they did, they were lying . I might give them $500 for the system, then sell it for $2M to an audiophool with more money than sense, buy a new house. I greatly preferred MANY other systems (much lower cost) at show vs this goofiness. In fact those ELAC monitors I mentioned for a small fraction of the cost destroyed this Borresen room. As did many others of course.

 

[Pearljam5000]

I heard it, as mentioned in my report. Sounded decent, but audiophoolery at its finest. Even worse, I was there when a Borresen/Aavik big wig went on a crazy diatribe on recording polarity and his HW was only product out there that could flip the polarity. He did a demo with and without polarity flipped on multiple recordings and NO one could hear a difference. And if they did, they were lying . I might give them $500 the system, then sell it for $2M to an audiophool with more money than sense, buy a new house. I greatly preferred MANY other systems (much lower cost) at show vs this goofiness. In fact those ELAC monitors I mentioned for a small fraction of the cost destroyed this Borresen room. As did many others of course.

Did you meet there with Jay from Jay's audio lab ?

 

[Anton D]

I heard it, as mentioned in my report. Sounded decent, but audiophoolery at its finest. Even worse, I was there when a Borresen/Aavik big wig went on a crazy diatribe on recording polarity and his HW was only product out there that could flip the polarity. He did a demo with and without polarity flipped on multiple recordings and NO one could hear a difference. And if they did, they were lying . I might give them $500 for the system, then sell it for $2M to an audiophool with more money than sense, buy a new house. I greatly preferred MANY other systems (much lower cost) at show vs this goofiness. In fact those ELAC monitors I mentioned for a small fraction of the cost destroyed this Borresen room. As did many others of course.

I think there are several other (at least) products that allow for switching polarity.

The audibility has been discussed here, in fact!

Absolute Polarity - Myth or "Important"?

I'm really confident it's a matter of training and preconditioning. The polarity ABX test is my go-to warm-up test when doing any kind of analytical listening and testing. On some days it just doesn't work... Number #1 rule of ABX'ing: The moment you feel any, even subtle kind of stress or...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I would be very happy that the system disappointed me...it's like preferring the cheaper wine at a tasting!

 

[MKR]

I think there are several other (at least) products that allow for switching polarity.

The audibility has been discussed here, in fact!

Absolute Polarity - Myth or "Important"?

I'm really confident it's a matter of training and preconditioning. The polarity ABX test is my go-to warm-up test when doing any kind of analytical listening and testing. On some days it just doesn't work... Number #1 rule of ABX'ing: The moment you feel any, even subtle kind of stress or...

www.audiosciencereview.com

I would be very happy that the system disappointed me...it's like preferring the cheaper wine at a tasting!

It’s a bit crazy that in my decades in this hobby I never heard about polarity until this fella mentioned it. And further, no idea there was a thread here on the topic, I should have known. Anyway, my ears, my sons younger ears, and no one in audience could hear a diggity darn thing. No difference. Maybe there is a difference, but maybe you need those magical “golden ears” to hear it? Or just maybe if anyone hears a difference it is rather the power of suggestion and bias.

 

[MKR]

Did you meet there with Jay from Jay's audio lab ?

Ha! Thankfully no

 

[pablolie]

It’s a bit crazy that in my decades in this hobby I never heard about polarity until this fella mentioned it. And further, no idea there was a thread here on the topic, I should have known. Anyway, my ears, my sons younger ears, and no one in audience could hear a diggity darn thing. No difference. Maybe there is a difference, but maybe you need those magical “golden ears” to hear it? Or just maybe if anyone hears a difference it is rather the power of suggestion and bias.

I owned a Benchmark DAC2HGC that had that polarity button. Never seemed to change diggity nothing, and I wonder if anyone ever measured it making a change.

 

[Duke]

Even worse, I was there when a Borresen/Aavik big wig went on a crazy diatribe on recording polarity and his HW was only product out there that could flip the polarity. He did a demo with and without polarity flipped on multiple recordings and NO one could hear a difference.

Many years ago I hosted a meeting of a half-dozen or so audiophiles, and when we played a CD one of them had brought, he said that the polarity sounded reversed, and asked me if my preamp inverted polarity. I told him I didn't think so, but he said he was pretty sure it did. So the next day I investigated and sure enough, my preamp DID invert polarity. Well his could have been a lucky guess, or maybe he actually already knew that my preamp inverted polarity, but my interest was piqued.

Fast-forward a few months and now I had a preamp with switchable polarity, and invited him over again. He brought several of his CD's. I tested to see if he could tell whether the polarity was switched to inverted or not using CDs he was familiar with, and he got it right every time. So SOME people CAN hear and recognize absolute polarity. I am not one of them. Anyway he is now one of my beta testers.

 

[kemmler3D]

audiophoolery at its finest.

Yeah... they spend more than most people's systems cost on power conditioning crap that does (presumably) zero for the sound. $23K for a network switch... anyone in IT would probably have an aneurysm just looking at that.

And imagine paying $40K for shelves that look that lame...

I don't even feel like the $2M number is meaningful. It's just a bunch of unnecessary non-performant stuff that is wildly overpriced on top of that. If I put some copper boxes around a Topping DAC-amp and put a $565K price tag on it, does that become the core of a "million dollar system", or am I just fooling around with price tags?

The actual demo at the end is why I never bother with recordings of recordings... what am I supposed to get from that? To me it just sounds like they put a "$2M" system in a crappy conference room?

 

[srrxr71]

I know we want speakers to be "real", but on the other hand we also know they have personalities and interactions with a room - and that that may well contribute to our preferences - we try to tame speakers into being passive, linear elements of the chain... but should they always be?

We have preferences with the way instruments sound too - some like their saxophone solos to be mellifluous, some like the player to blow hard. Some like Nile Rodgers' sharper repetitive licks, some like Earl Klugh's or Stanley Jordan's soft and ever changing delivery. And voices are no different - some like opera voices a la Andrea Bocelli, some like raspy *ss screaming deliveries... etc etc etc...

All in all we are talking music. I love measurements, but I also realize I have personal preferences in many things, and I don't think measurements always align with my preferences. As a motorcycle rider, I got a KTM Duke 1290... and as amazing as all the measurements were, I hated it. My 1999 edition BMW R1100S, with barely more than half the horse power of the Duke, still gives me twice the fun - fewer electronics, more control, more "connection". I don't want to be left out of the loop... and perhaps there's a bit of it in audio as well... sure, linearity is great... but maybe I want my equipment to have a bit of personality that reflects *me*, a slight sound signature that I like and reflects *me*.

All I am saying is that you can start from flat and do what you feel like in the digital realm. That is now a trivial thing. But yes belief is a thing.

There are no judgements if you like any kind of processing you like.

 

[pablolie]

All I am saying is that you can start from flat and do what you feel like in the digital realm. That is now a trivial thing. But yes belief is a thing.

There are no judgements if you like any kind of processing you like.

No argument from me there - totally subscribe.

 

[srrxr71]

Let’s just start with a perfected acoustic transducer system.

There is a report on this forum or 0.5mm of misalignment of a driver to its baffle causes a a total mess of its FR. So there is basic level of coherence that must be met first. Then you have freedom

 

[pablolie]

Let’s just start with a perfected acoustic transducer system.

There is a report on this forum or 0.5mm of misalignment of a driver to its baffle causes a a total mess of its FR. So there is basic level of coherence that must be met first. Then you have freedom

If 0.5mm cause an issue, we have a whole new set of discussions coming up. "Nano alignment" business opportunity anyone?

 

[Bruce Morgen]

All I am saying is that you can start from flat and do what you feel like in the digital realm.

This: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^