Winnowing the list of high-end speakers

We get a lot of questions about this or that speaker when people are thinking about spending the big bucks on an ‘ultimate’ speaker.

First, if the manufacturer makes cables, or equipment racks, or a couple of amps, or whatever AND then decides more or less out of the blue to come out with a $100K+ speaker, why oh why should a person take this seriously? Designing and building good speakers is HARD. Just because they make it big and put a large price tag on it, is hardly a reason to take it seriously.

OK. That eliminates about 30% of all speakers. [Yes. There are maybe one or two exceptions. But as a general rule, this is a good one].

Second, if the speakers they make at $10K suck, and those at $50K suck, then why of why do people think the $150K speakers they make just ‘have got to be great’? It is more likely that it will suck, just with a bigger suck. The larger the speaker is, the harder it is to design. 2-ways are the easiest… if they can’t get this right, then there is no hope.

OK. This eliminates about, say, 30% [or more :-)] of the megabuck speakers out there.

Then there is the purpose of the speaker. Lump this together with drivability and placeability and even appearance. When deciding whether a megabuck speaker is ‘good’ one has to think about how they want to use that speaker. On a small SET amp? In a very large room or very small one? Is it going to be in front of something you want to see out of once in awhile? Are you going to want it placed close to a wall? Do you want it to sound musical [and various other attributes which we focus on here quite a bit], or be a loud Boy Toy, or just play decent music once in awhile or, perhaps, just be an awesome example of modern technology and it doesn’t matter much how it sounds?

This should eliminate, say, 30% more and leave you with about 10% or less of the megabuck speakers left to consider – probably about 2 to 4.

Now the fun starts 🙂