Don't tease us! Tell me what the brand names of the $3500 speaker and the $700 speaker. I promise to tell noone! Seriously, you won't get sued. You are expressing only your opinion. And I promise to not get offended, if the $3500 is the brand that I think. I will agree with you even not knowing what speakers that you are discussing, there is very little correlation between speaker quality and price. I would add that in judging speaker quality, you have to take into account 1) synergy or lack of it with other demonstration components, 2) your biases as to what sounds good 3) room interactions etc. Most of us have heard tremendous equipment made to sound incredibly awful due to improper matching of components and cables, lousy room placement etc. Sometimes, particularly at low-end or even sleazy, high-end stores, the salesman, who has already sized you up with regard to what you'll pay, will purposely favor one system or one component over another in the way they are set up to make one sound much better than another.
Misconceptions of Speakers
I went to a number of audio shops recently and auditioned speakers from companies such as Proac, Acoustic Energy, PSB, Paradigm, Magnepan, B&W, Mission and the list goes on.
Anyways, prior to my auditioning of these speakers, I thought that'd I'd see a direct correlation between high price and performance, but that certainly hasn't been the case thus far!
There just seems to be SO many overpriced speakers on the market today. It has become obvious that a speaker manufacturer must spend a lot on advertising to generate reviews in many magazines and thus he has to jack up the price of his speaker to exorbitant price levels.
I’m going to leave out the brands below for fear of offending anybody who got caught up in the hyping of these speakers, and to not risk a lawsuit by the speaker manufacturer.
I had the opportunity today to listen to an overhyped ~$3500 pair of speakers, and I have to say that they sounded decent. However, I didn’t feel they're worth anywhere near their asking price! In fact, that was confirmed when the owner of the store that sold the $3,500 pair accidentally made a comment regarding their sound quality vs. a "Much" cheaper pair of speakers.
I had been auditioning these expensive speakers for about 2 hours and I noticed that in the corner of this store was sitting a small, obscure brand floorstander . I quickly asked that owner if I could audition those speakers and he said yes. I was immediately impressed with the sound coming from the small boxes. Well, after about 10 minutes of listening the store owner abruptly stopped the music and said, "there really is a difference between the $3,500 speakers and the $700 speakers." I instantly got a smile on my face upon hearing him trying to defend the much overrated $3,500 speakers.
The owner, for the next hour or so, tried to defend his $3,500 speakers but he knew that I knew they were grossly overpriced and a perfect example of how overpriced many speakers are. I’m now going to be searching for a speaker that doesn’t advertise at all and who’s relying on the great sound of the speaker to generate interest amongst consumers and NOT skewed media reviews!!
Anyways, prior to my auditioning of these speakers, I thought that'd I'd see a direct correlation between high price and performance, but that certainly hasn't been the case thus far!
There just seems to be SO many overpriced speakers on the market today. It has become obvious that a speaker manufacturer must spend a lot on advertising to generate reviews in many magazines and thus he has to jack up the price of his speaker to exorbitant price levels.
I’m going to leave out the brands below for fear of offending anybody who got caught up in the hyping of these speakers, and to not risk a lawsuit by the speaker manufacturer.
I had the opportunity today to listen to an overhyped ~$3500 pair of speakers, and I have to say that they sounded decent. However, I didn’t feel they're worth anywhere near their asking price! In fact, that was confirmed when the owner of the store that sold the $3,500 pair accidentally made a comment regarding their sound quality vs. a "Much" cheaper pair of speakers.
I had been auditioning these expensive speakers for about 2 hours and I noticed that in the corner of this store was sitting a small, obscure brand floorstander . I quickly asked that owner if I could audition those speakers and he said yes. I was immediately impressed with the sound coming from the small boxes. Well, after about 10 minutes of listening the store owner abruptly stopped the music and said, "there really is a difference between the $3,500 speakers and the $700 speakers." I instantly got a smile on my face upon hearing him trying to defend the much overrated $3,500 speakers.
The owner, for the next hour or so, tried to defend his $3,500 speakers but he knew that I knew they were grossly overpriced and a perfect example of how overpriced many speakers are. I’m now going to be searching for a speaker that doesn’t advertise at all and who’s relying on the great sound of the speaker to generate interest amongst consumers and NOT skewed media reviews!!