SURVEY: Do you notice a big difference in $10K+ speakers vs. more affordable ones? (1 Viewer)

[Lee-c]

Well, I have seen quite a few stereo enthusiasts write that they have auditioned RM2 and RM40
speakers from VMPS ($2600, $4600, respectively) and, IIRC, they have said that they completely blow
the doors off Wilson Watt Puppies that they have auditioned in terms of sound quality.

Apparently with many of the super expensive speakers, one is paying a lot of money to cover
the companies' huge advertising budgets (one magazine ad can run $50,000 dollars, IIRC) and
also for very finely built cabinets (many of which are the equal of top-quality furniture),
but that doesn't mean that the money is going to primarily pay for sound quality. I've even heard
of very expensive speakers with drivers in them that run something like $15 dollars apiece.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I'm paying megabucks for speakers, I expect nothing but
the very finest in drivers that are available on earth to be used, not some $15 piece of junk
(it might be a decent driver, but does it belong in speakers that cost many thousands of dollars?).
Sound quality comes first, a world-class quality furniture-grade cabinet is nice, but
secondary to the sound quality. At least it should be.

 

[Mark Seaton]

Interesting observations above,
I'm a bit jaded in that I DO notice a significant difference in speakers at $10k/pr. Of course I have a pair of $5k/each speakers here that I know no one here has heard yet. I would agree that many speakers at $10k or more offer more in the way of pretty cabinetry than performance.

 

[Mike Bledsoe]

Arnel
I can't say for sure that I have ever heard 10k speakers before but at the Hi-fi 99 show at Chicago I did hear systems that were better than anything that I have ever heard before I don't know if they were better or if they were playing some kind of high resolution source material. I was so overwhelmed with the sound that I forgot to ask.
To answer the question about what grabed me the most, It was the the feeling that there were real instruments in the room.

 

[KeithR]

Yes, in fact, don't know of anyone who can't tell a difference.

 

[Stephen_Dar]

The short answer to this is, you generally get what you pay for in my experience. I see most here agree with that. Of course, I spent quite a bit to get Nautilus speakers, so naturally you would expect me to defend that. But, the reason I bought them is because I heard the difference and was fortunate enough to be able to afford them.

As to what the improved sound is worth, well, obviously that depends on how much you like music/movies. Most folks (98% in North America?) would consider my expenditure rediculous, and I understand that, although many of those folks spent over $15k for fine furniture for their living room, and I consider that excessive. I also agree there do seem to be dimishing returns on speakers once you pass $5k (although I haven't listened to many set ups costing more than $15k). A friend of mine has the N801s and I do hear the difference from my 803s, but I can live without them to be sure.

If you're not hearing the difference with these high end speakers when you listen, make sure you are taking along source material you are very familiar with so the comparison is reasonable. In many cases people will listen to some fabulous speaker at a show someplace where they weren't prepared for serious listening, so without control over the source material you have no way to really evaluate the speaker. Sure, you'd expect really high end stuff to sound good no matter what, but in my rather unscientific explorations so far I have been shocked at the difference in quality of digital recordings.

 

[Tung Enkhych]

I assure you, I didn't wan't the VIENNA ACOUSTIC MAHLERS to sound twice as good as the BEETHOVENS that I already had, but I had to upgrade, Oh well................ And like drinking wine, blind test where you don't know what your drinking will sometimes reveal that you enjoyed the 20 dollar bottle a lot more over the 100 dollar bottle.
-------------------------------------------------------
the key word here is "sometimes"...but not often

 

[Saurav]

Once you cross a certain pricepoint, I think it becomes harder to make objective decisions about 'better' and 'worse'. They are just different. There is no perfect speaker, every designer has to make tradeoffs here and there. The differences between speakers boil down to the different tradeoffs made by the designers, which would again depend on what factors/characteristics they were trying to maximize and what they were willing to sacrifice. Also, as you go higher up, the amount of sacrifices made usually goes down. And of course, system/room/music matching becomes more and more important to getting the full performance out of the speakers.

There are some very good budget audiophile speakers out there, however.

And there are some awful expensive speakers out there too, I'm sure.

 

[Chu Gai]

and even wine experts sometimes get fooled.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_564693.html

 

[Joe Casey]

Once you cross a certain pricepoint, I think it becomes harder to make objective decisions about 'better' and 'worse'. They are just different.

I agree. As an example, at the current HE show in NYC I was disappointed with certain megabuck (all $50k +) speakers. First impression would be that they sounded different, and with further listening decided they were not to my liking. That's not saying that I didn't like all of them. If I could afford the TacT ribbon system or the mbl 5.1 (and I'm more of a 2-ch person) speaker setup, I'd buy them in a heartbeat.
On the other hand, in the less than $10k speaker category, the Totem line that I auditioned just floored me.
I think most people will be able to hear a difference. From then on it's personal preference.

 

[Kevin Magee]

Speakers like Paradigm Studio 100 V2 and PSB Stratus Golds are close in performance to speakers that cost triple what they cost. However that does not mean that more expensive speakers do not sound better. They do. Often a low level detail will be masked. You will still be able to hear the low level information but can't appreciate the delicacy that is trying to be conveyed. Usually, there is more advanced cross-over design, cones have less distortion, and better enclosures in both design and dampening. If short cuts have had to be taken because of cost consideration, the colorations introduced by the lessor enclosure will be audible, especially in the mid-range. Most people though will be happy with speakers from Paradigm or PSB for example. But for others the 10 to 15 percent improvement is worth paying three times as much. Anyone who says you can't hear the difference has not spent time listening or is just rationalizing their own purchase. Speakers like Wilsons sound better still than speakers from B&W for example. What grabs me is that the music sounds more natural. With drums for example, more expensive speakers do a better job of rendering a precise beat with no over hang or boomy sound.

 

[jehremy]

Anyone who says you can't hear the difference has not spent time listening or is just rationalizing their own purchase.

It sounds like someone else is trying rationalize their purchase.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

 

[Lee Scoggins]

There are speakers costing $US600 that perform as good as speakers costing $US5000+.

Mel,

This is quite an interesting statement.

I would like to know what speakers you are talking about at $600 and which at $5,000 (or any at this price point). While there are some great bargains and cost savings with DIY, I think this is a bold statement.

 

[ling_w]

I would like to know what speakers you are talking about at $600 and which at $5,000 (or any at this price point). While there are some great bargains and cost savings with DIY, I think this is a bold statement.

HT setup of 5 Bose 901 vs 5 NHT SuperZero.

 

[Arnel Enero]

ling_w,
LOL. That's a good one. Why didn't I think of that example?!?!
But did you just say the *B* word? That's like cursing, at least in context of high-end audio.

 

[Stephen Houdek]

Only your wallet can answer that question! I suspect diminishing returns applies here as it does in a lot of related areas.

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Only your wallet can answer that question! I suspect diminishing returns applies here as it does in a lot of related areas.

Stephen,

This is of course true, but one can borrow equipment from the better independent dealerships. The real question is how much the returns are diminishing. By and large, $10K speakers sound a material amount better than $5K speakers.

Ling,

The example of Bose and NHT is the equivalent of loaded dice. I am wondering what a good, reasonable example may be with one pair versus another pair at these price points. I think Mel would have a hard time giving some good examples, even with premium parts on DIY basis.

What is frustrating to us audiophiles is the tone that speakers more than $2K are not significantly better. That does a great injustice to many small, handcrafted speaker firms that do great work, but lack marketing budgets and the like compared to big mid-fi brethren like Bose. For instance, I believe it would be impossible to create a $600 speaker that beats the Maggie 1.6QR in all but the deepest bass. This is a mostly handcrafted product that has undergone 25+ years of ribbon tweeter and magneplanar technology development.

I also think of a speaker purchase as similar to buying a car in one respect: you want a good dealer and mfr as much as a great product. Many high end firms come and go, but if you spend this much money, you want the after-sale experience to be a good one. My experience with Audio Research and Maggie has confirmed good feelings on several occassions, although very little has gone wrong since their product is such great quality.

 

[Tim Baldwin]

I generally agree with Lee on this. My very general rule of thumb is that you must spend about double the price to realize a really significant difference. This would apply to similar price/value firms - eg budget-to-budget, value-to-value, overpriced-to-overpriced etc) Certainly at all price points there will be mfrs/models considered by most to be of good value, or of not-so-good value. Outside of the 2-to-1 zone, I've always found something the more expensive model does better. Whether it is worth the difference to me is another story.
For example, I have a pair of ProAc Studio 150's that list for $2300. Although I really enjoy their sonic signature, I don't consider ProAc to be of exceptional value. Therefore, I might expect to spend about $3000 list for a value line such as Magnepan, Vandersteen, or NHT, and about $4000 list for ProAc, Vienna, Aerial, etc to get a substantial benefit to my ears. There would certainly be differences at those price points (and perhaps even more closely-matched ones) but would I wouldn't spend the money for less difference than would be evident in those cases.
There are WAY too many reviews that boast something to the effect of "better sound than anything at twice the price". At any given price, just how many of those can there be? "One" would seem to be the logical answer.

 

[AjayM]

Well, I'm going to go against the popular line of thought here and say that I think speakers is one of the places where more money spent will get you more performance in most cases. The difference in SQ between a $5k processor and a $10k processor is fairly small (small enough that people who can afford to buy a $10k processor may not because the $5k version does everything they need).

Also, I don't think you should compare cone speakers with ESL's or Planars, etc. Yes a $5k Marin Logan will sound great, and compared to a $20k Wilson it may not sound like a huge step up. But compare the $5k Martin Logan to a $20k Quad or Sound Lab and come back and tell me what you think.

And lastly when you listen to speakers at a show of some kind, take the sound you hear with a grain of salt, shows usually have very horrible accoustics fighting against them.

But most of the time when I listen to a more expensive speaker it's fairly easy to tell that you are. There are exceptions of course, but most of the time when you move up the price scale the sound improves...now wether you like that sound or not is the bigger question.

Andrew

 

[John Royster]

I hear significant differences between speaker lines and manufacturers.
Does a 10K speaker sound better than a 4K speaker? Well now that is all in the eye of the beholder. I've heard very expensive speakers I didn't like. Also heard speakers reviewed as "sounds as good as one three times the price"
So for me at least the question of "sound better" is really personal to my ears and taste. I wound up with Martin Logan electrostats - many people don't like electrostats and could say I was a fool for spending that much money when there are others in that price range. I listened to many, many speakers. Those were the ones I thought sounded "best"
Speakers are musical instruments, they produce sound. Can any of us tell say what is better between a 5K violin and a 10K violin? I bet serious violin players can, also sure some prefer the 5K one. Feel free to use that analogy with any instrument.