Passive Speaker Recommendations for USA (by @sweetchaos)

[NeLey169]

No way of knowing without listening to the speakers in that space....

Speakers have always been difficult to subjectively characterise - you can measure them and get an indication of quality, but ultimately they have to be listened to.... of all the components in our setups, they are the most imperfect / flawed - few speakers achieve less than 1% distortion across the frequency range, even very highly regarded ones.... so acceptable speaker performance, accepts flaws that would be grounds for outright rejection in electronics....

The flaws are often resonances - and some people are very sensitive to those, others never notice them.... resulting in speakers being very much a matter of taste.

That makes things even more difficult in the age of online shopping.

Klipsch RP 600 II and Sonus Faber Lumina 1 which pair of speakers is more worth the money, where I live they are selling Klipsch RP 600 II for $350 and Sonus Faber 1 for $450 (for a used pair)

 

[dlaloum]

Klipsch RP 600 II and Sonus Faber Lumina 1 which pair of speakers is more worth the money, where I live they are selling Klipsch RP 600 II for $350 and Sonus Faber 1 for $450 (for a used pair)

I have a feeling they would sound quite different to each other.... the Klipsch will probably dig deeper in the bass, and the Faber will probably do better in the midrange .... (but it is just a guess) - both seem good value.

If you go to listen to them, you may find yourself falling in love with one but not the other...

 

[Mort]

Does this list get updated anymore? Looks like about a year ago...

 

[Jarrett]

After further review, I think the answer is this entry in the change log:


So presumably the ES20 is a highly recommended model, so it gets carried through to subsequent price tiers.

Edit: And indeed the ES20 got a golfing panther from Amir.

Yeah, curious about the two. There's a comparison on youtube. I guess say what you will about those, but the R200 always sounds more consistent/balanced (less recessed) and the ES20 perhaps more "fun," but inconsistent, bit of a hole in the frequency somewhere.

The list is great! On a side note...does spinorama get updated frequently? There's an Erin review for the Elac Debut 3.0 (October 2024), yet it's not on the website still.

 

[xNORgate]

Does this list get updated anymore? Looks like about a year ago...

Maintenance and updates to these compendiums by @sweetchaos must be hard work and much BS&T,

I browsed and searched within the post but I have not found any mention of MoFi SourcePoint10 in any of the listings or replies.
@VintageFlanker post 'points' to the Erin's Corner review on youtube. (circa 2023)
The SourcePoint10s are not really passive 'bookshelf' or 'floor-standing' speakers, since they do require stands and their in-room F3 is @42Hz.
imo; they seem to be worthy of merit.

OT: A pair of MoFi SourcePoint10s' MSRP is $3,000USD and since they are manufactured China... prices may fluctuate (always up and never down)...

 

[dlaloum]

Maintenance and updates to these compendiums by @sweetchaos must be hard work and much BS&T,

I browsed and searched within the post but I have not found any mention of MoFi SourcePoint10 in any of the listings or replies.
@VintageFlanker post 'points' to the Erin's Corner review on youtube. (circa 2023)
The SourcePoint10s are not really passive 'bookshelf' or 'floor-standing' speakers, since they do require stands and their in-room F3 is @42Hz.
imo; they seem to be worthy of merit.

OT: A pair of MoFi SourcePoint10s' MSRP is $3,000USD and since they are manufactured China... prices may fluctuate (always up and never down)...

Yeah in a balkanised marketplace with trade barriers in place, it is likely that seperate lists will be needed for components in different geographical/trade barrier centers....

A speaker that is great value in one place, may well be terrible value in the other - sadly we are moving rapidly away from a "global" marketplace to a local one.

 

[xNORgate]

Yeah in a balkanised marketplace with trade barriers in place,....

At the current time, it looks that the era of bargain-shopping at aliexpress (shein/temu/etc.) may be coming to end.
I had become an addict around 2010, when a site called 'chinagrabber' became the precursor to the current-crop of bargain-shops which flew under the de-minimis (<$800.00) exception for imports.

In 2024, these low-cost 'imports' have been estimated to be worth around $50Billion USD, that represented 11% of all US imports. woot.gif
May 2nd, 2025 is currently earmarked (delayed by 90 days) as the end of the 'too good to be true' de-minimis exemption.

That is one way to go cold-turkey on my shopping addiction, added to the fact that I think I am literally shopped out!

 

[SlowJim]

i remember banggood was an early one as well

 

[xrqp]

Can you add Perlisten towers R7T and S7T based on Audioholics testing?

Thanks very much for your database. It saves so much time and effort for all of us.