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

[Bob Ahlberg]

One of the problems of the "closer to the music" argument is that there are many variables that influence one's opinion of what "closer to the music" means. When listening to live music, details do matter...in that they add to the totality of the event. Still, your attention is rarely called to those details.
In listening to recorded music...those treasured details can become overbearing. In part because of the close-miked nature of the recording, in part due to an analytical, etched presentation caused by a lack of component synergy and in part due to the fact that at a live event, you not only have the audio component of the experience, you also have the visual input from watching the event...unless of course, you listen with eyes closed at a concert.
Distance to a musical event also is a personal preference issue. Some prefer a front row perspective, while other prefer a mid to back of the hall experience. My experience has been that the further back from the performance you get, the less detail you hear. It is never all gone...but you do not hear things like you do in the front row.
Loudspeakers address all of these issues in different ways. IMHO...the ones that get the tonality right first and foremost bring you closest to the "perception" of a live musical event. Detail and speed are also important in reproducing the sound of live instruments since the initial wavefront and how quickly the driver let's go of the notes all add to the illusion of a live performance. Imaging, depth and width of the soundstage all add once again the the perception of being at a live event and are enjoyable...although frankly, I've never sat at a live event and marveled at the depth of the soundstage. (again, probably because I had visual cues to go by)
Two other comments to think about: First, If the music at a live event is amplified, you are then hearing what the sound technician thought was good sound...given the limitations of the kinds of speaker used for sound reinforcement. Interestingly, that almost always means horn midranges and tweeeters. That sound may or may not be accurate...and it may or may not be the same as the sound that is recorded in a studio.
Secondly, very few normal sized listening rooms and very few loudspeakers can reproduce the bass of a live orchestra or even a live rock band accurately. It always amazes me how a tympani can smack you in the chest even back in the cheap seats. Or...listen to a good pipe organ in a large cathedral. The very air in the place starts to shudder and move. Most home systems "approximate" the sound, but do not replicate it cleanly.
Now let's see...what was the original question?...Oh yes, you can hear a difference in loudspeakers and "usually" price does matter. I have found the price point where you pay a great deal more for smaller changes/improvements to be somewhere between $2,500 and $5,000. I too, use and very much enjoy Audio Research components...and currently use Revel loudspeakers.
my .02
Bob

 

[Lee Scoggins]

Secondly, very few normal sized listening rooms and very few loudspeakers can reproduce the bass of a live orchestra or even a live rock band accurately. It always amazes me how a tympani can smack you in the chest even back in the cheap seats. Or...listen to a good pipe organ in a large cathedral. The very air in the place starts to shudder and move. Most home systems "approximate" the sound, but do not replicate it cleanly.

I beg to differ slightly on this point. As a regular classical music concertgoer, I am aware of what you are describing, however the newer audio systems are fully capable of reproducing these effects if set up properly. These systems are $20K and over but they get the job done. One friend of mine has Pass Labs amps driving Avalon Eidolon speakers and they create a very realistic orchestra, particularly on Super Audio and LP. And you may be surprised how original LPs can beat new Super Audio CDs of the same older recording. The point is that the gap between real and recording has narrowed substantially in recent years.
I am glad to hear of your ARC equipment and Revel speakers. I love Revel speakers, they have great midrange and highs, and good bass to boot.

 

[Larry B]

Bob:

Which Revels do you have, if you don't mind my asking?

Larry

P.S. BTW, nice post!

 

[Larry B]

This was a very enjoyable thread; thanks Saurav for starting it, and thanks for all the insights provided by the participants, some of whom (esp. John, Lee and Bob) I haven't interacted much with, at least not recently.

Larry

 

[Saurav]

I didn't start this thread, but I'm willing to take the credit for it

 

[Tom Brennan]

I"m with Saurav here. I can put together a DIY horn rig with 30 year old Altec and JBL parts from Ebay and pro-sound shops that sounds better to me than any "high-end" type speaker I've ever heard and with 32 years in this hobby I've heard lots of them. Horns simply sound more like real music; they get the dynamics and the tonality and can hit peaks without annoying distortion. If you want it to sound like a Fender Dual Showman, a Hammond and Leslie or a Marshall plexifront is in the room with you you aren't going to get that without horns. Image-shcmimage; I've played in bands, sat in numberless bars listening to rock and blues and worked for many years as a bouncer for Chicago's once biggest rock promoter; and I don't know what imaging is, I never heard it. Listen, when you walk past a bar with a live band playing inside you KNOW it's live, the same when you hear a kid down the street practicing his trumpet. But imaging and flat frequency response have nothing to do with that, do they. No, it's dynamics and clarity and lots of undistorted volume that are the cue, a cue you can only get in music reproduction with horns. Imagine a big jamoke like me striking a cymbal; here's a piece of brass 18" in diameter and I strike it HARD with a heavy stick, butt-end first, setting the whole thing vibrating like crazy. Think your're gonna reproduce that with a 1" dome tweeter? Good Luck. So no, I don't think expensive audiophile speakers are better or worth the money, I wouldn't give you $100 for a set of Avalons, Maggies or Revels. I would go up to a grand for Quad 57s or SoundLabs though.

 

[Saurav]

No, it's dynamics and clarity and lots of undistorted volume that are the cue, a cue you can only get in music reproduction with horns.

That's the conclusion I've slowly been arriving at over the last couple of years too.

IMO, hi-fi has a sound of it's own. Many people like it, and that's great. To me, it doesn't sound very much like real music, or my idea of what real music sounds like. And when I say 'real music', I mean the actual event with the actual people playing the actual instruments. I'm not talking about what the recording engineer put onto the tapes or heard on the monitor speakers in the studio. Many people's goal is to recreate that studio sound, and that's great too, it's just not at the top of my priority list.

Edit: This also goes back to the age-old debate about accuracy - most people think accuracy is just about flat frequency response. However, music is about dynamics as much as it is about tone, and so a system that isn't dynamically accurate is just as flawed as one that isn't tonally accurate. And those are just two aspects of the whole "big picture".

 

[Tom Brennan]

Saurav---I see it like this, why lots of audiophiles don't like horns. The damned things just sound too intense, too real, real in the sense that there's a guy blowing a sax a few feet from you. Some guys like the distance and like to hear music through a big cloudy haze of distortion (which they call "soundstage"), it takes away the edges, kinda like the way they vaselined the camera lens to shoot Sybil Shepard on TV, to hide the wrinkles and blemishes. Also think about this. All their lives people hear music and sound reproduced over cone speakers--clock-radios, car radios, TVs, cheap stereos. That becomes what reproduced sound is supposed to be to them but they would like it better; not different, that would be too much better, but better. I see multi-buck direct-radiating speakers as really good TV/clock-radio type sound.

 

[Henry_W]

Big disclaimer - this is my opinion. However, I have worked rather hard to get to this opinion and I am probably going to be very evangelistic.

Thank you Tom for standing the ground. I too have searched for great sound (which is only possible with great loudspeakers). I was intrduced to the bug by some Altec Lansing's in college - not great, but a darn sight better than I had been listening to. I learned how much enjoyment music can give. I continually upgraded going for the better sound.

Around 1974 I had the joy of hearing Klipshorns (the father of a friend, or a dealer - I can't remember those years with great detail). The obssession began, but was tempered by budget. My first pair of Heresy was 1977. Second pair was 1980. I convinced my brother to get the Klipschorns (he had both the money and the room for them).

I went searching for better - no room for the huge horns. I went through wonderful specifications after wonderful specifications. Good friend's would sell me on their latest purchase. After much trials, selling the old speakers to friends, etc (except the Maggies - they are pretty good if I say so myself)I became convinced the Heresy sounded better than speakers costing 5 times more. With the addition of great outboard woofers I am not looking back - 3 pair of heresy today. Bigger boys come with next home.

The point? Midrange deficiencies - geez, I tried to be fair and say maybe, but I just don't see it. Harshness? - If the original was harsh, it was reproduced faithfully. Otherwise, I don't see it. Fatiquing? Darn right - after 10 hours of music I start to tire (in other words - still don't get it).

The Point? Cone tweeters - invariably are either too slow or to fast for the cone mids (in other words - fatiquing). The top end is usually soft and lacks definition. Cones can sound good, I just couldn't find any that sounded great.

I tried hard to find the horns deficient and failed. What I really feel with them is great dynamic range and the ability to distinctly pick out the triangle, flute and zylophone individual sounds while being simultaneously orchestrated without focusing hard to do so. I enjoyed my roundtrip (thank god it only had one pair of Bose), but I am glad I made it home.

Whew - that felt OK. Won't have to do it again for several months now.

 

[Saurav]

Well, I consider myself lucky that I experienced a good horn system early on in this hobby. I now know pretty clearly where I want to end up at, once I have the finances and the space needed.

I will still say this though, this is about individual tastes and not about right or wrong. I can't really tell someone they are wrong because they like something I don't. But, given my tastes, SET/tubes paired with high-eff/horns have consistently done a better job than anything else I've heard.

 

[Arnel Enero]

You're walking past an apartment window, and you hear a piano playing inside. You know if it's a real piano or a recording playing on a stereo, even though you can't look inside the apartment.

I know this reply is besides your point, but I figured it worth mentioning...

It's not always true, in the case you cited as example, that you can easily identify if the piano was real or a recording. I've been tricked by one very good system before, I thought I was hearing my cousin (a great amateur pianist) playing piano in her room next to the living room where I was. Then, I went in and saw my uncle listening to his stereo, and found out my cousin was out for shopping!

This just tells how good a stereo system (and the recording being played) can be.

 

[Henry_W]

Thanks Saurav for making the point I neglected. I was stating a preference and make no claims for universal appeal.

If some one likes their cones as enthusiastically as I like horns, the odds are they have similarly experimented and found their right match. After all it is the love of the music and sound that makes us alike.

Cheers...


---I am unique, just like everyone else----

 

[Manuel Delaflor]

Tom, Henry and Saurav

I can't agree more on what you say. Horns represent dynamics the way no other technology can, this point, alone, makes them more suitable for realistic sound than other type of speakers. I have deal myself with friends hearing my Klipsch's and saying they are harsh and that they like more softer mids and highs, that, somehow, "soft is better".

The example about an photograph wich is smoothed by some photoshop filter seems correct to me, this guys have learned to think that recorded music should sound soft.

With fear to repeat ad nauseaum what you said, I feel also the search for "perfect soundstage and imaging" as sterile and futile. Every Recording will have different soundstage and imaging properties, not to mention every kind of music. Dynamics, on the other hand, will be always improved with the correct speakers (horns) in respect to the same recording on other speakers, so, it is a win win situation. Not the same as Martin Logan's (for example) which can draw impressive soundstage with SOME recordings but not others, which will sound distorted and artificial on them.

 

[Saurav]

Every Recording will have different soundstage and imaging properties, not to mention every kind of music.

That's another good point. Drummers with 30' "wingspans" being one example.

 

[Larry B]

Horns are filled with colorations, and have that unmistakeable "megaphone" sound, which is why many people dislike them so intensely. Even the manufacturers of horns admit this (though they typically claim that there product(s) is (are) the first to have eliminated these flaws). Having said that, if you like them, enjoy them!

Larry

 

[Arnel Enero]

That sounds like a really good stereo, especially if it can do it on piano.

At that time, I wasn't an audio enthusiast yet... so I didn't really care about the gear and never bothered to look what stuff were those. I wish I knew at least what brands were in that system. My uncle, being a die-hard audiophile who upgrades a lot, doesn't even remember what he had at that time.

 

[Larry B]

I didn't start this thread, but I'm willing to take the credit for it

Nope, not gonna' let you do that. So let me try again: Thank you Arnel for starting this thread.

Larry

 

[Larry B]

Saurav:

Well, I consider myself lucky that I experienced a good horn system early on in this hobby. I now know pretty clearly where I want to end up at, once I have the finances and the space needed.

While you may ultimately end up with horns (I hope you don't, but I'll deal with it if you do ), may I suggest that you audition other high-quality types of speakers before locking yourself into a decision.
Larry
Edit: There's a reason why horns are so maligned, and it's not due to politics.

 

[Saurav]

Horns are filled with colorations, and have that unmistakeable "megaphone" sound

Sweeping blanket statements that are really unworthy of you, my friend.

Also, what you're basically saying is that you prefer something that is tonally accurate, and are willing to sacrifice dynamic accuracy to get that. Cone speakers are just as inaccurate or colored (call it what you will) as horns, it's just that the inaccuracies lie in other areas.

'Accuracy' doesn't end with flat frequency response.

 

[Saurav]

Edit: There's a reason why horns are so maligned, and it's not due to politics.

Maligned... that depends on who you hang out with, doesn't it? The internet is great for allowing someone to constantly reinforce their beliefs, just by frequenting the same sets of websites. Case in point: if all your audio-related exposure was HTF, you'd probably think that Paradigm and JBL made the best speakers in the world.
I've seen horns maligned as much as planars as much as cones. Ditto for vinyl CD and SACD, solid state and tubes, and on and on and on. At this point, I'm just going on the emotional reaction I've had to different systems I've heard, nothing more than that. Certainly, long-term 'livability' is an issue that isn't addressed in an audition lasting a few hours. There are other issues too.