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Speakers Don’t Matter As Much As We Think They Do?

When discussing how best to invest money into your system, it’s very common to hear people say, “Spend as much as you can afford on speakers, and then worry about the other gear because speakers have the largest effect on the sound.”

Now it’s never a bad idea to have good speakers and while I somewhat followed that advice early on, as my system has evolved it seems that I am not currently following that advice, and yet I am getting absolutely fantastic sound. For example as a percentage of my total system cost, my speakers cost 15%. If you include the subwoofers, that price is about 35%.

Early on I was worried I would outgrow my speakers and I’d hit their limit which would restrict sonic improvement potential as I upgraded other gear but that hasn’t been the case. With each component upgrade, things keep sounding better and better. The upper limit to speakers’ potential seems to be a lot higher than previously thought as I continue to improve upon the signal I send them and continue to improve system synergy. If you send a really high quality signal to a pair of speakers and get synergy right, they will reward you in spades and punch well above their apparent weight class.

One thing that may be working in my favor is that I’ve had these speakers since the early days of building my system so literally everything down to the last cable has been tuned to work in synergy with these speakers. Had I upgraded my speakers mid way through, I would have undone a lot of the work that went into the system in terms of synergy.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with their speakers? Does anyone have any extreme percentages in terms of speaker cost to system cost like 5% or 95% and what has been your experience?

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Showing 2 responses by millercarbon

millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
They have Wilson’s like that at Definitive Audio, as part of a $1.3M total cost system. Flagship Audio Technica, D’Agostino, etc. Major bling bling. Well there’s a lot of Microserf, Amazealot and Goolag money here in Seattle. So anyway, I have indeed heard such expensive speakers in a system along with equally overpriced associated components. And I wish I could say it was mind-blowing impressive, but sorry no, it just wasn’t.

Come to think of it, there’s been about a dozen times I’ve heard Wilsons over the years, always in really expensive systems usually really well regarded associated components, and never once been impressed.

Not that I blame it on the Wilsons. Speakers just don’t matter as much as we think they do.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
You're arbitrarily picking speakers but could just as well be saying the same about the turntable, cartridge, or amp. All those one guy or another thinks is so important. The reality is no one is any more important than any other. The really killer good sound always comes from raising everything up to around the same level. Buying new speakers while using the plastic patch cords and rubber power cords that came in the box is a waste. Upgrading to a better power cord or speaker cable while using the crap fuse that came in the box is a waste. Buying anything before cleaning all the connections and cleaning up the spiders nest of cables behind the rack. shows you just don't understand what's going on. 

I could go on and on. Where you put the speakers matters more than which speakers, so why anyone obsesses and fixates on the speakers themselves is beyond me. Yet they do. 

Only thing you said that concerns me is " tuned to work in synergy with these speakers" because if by that you mean fixing or hiding speaker weaknesses by picking components with a different set of weaknesses then you can wind up with a system that works great only until you really do want to change the speakers, and then you are in a pickle. But if you did what you should do and select everything based on its own excellence and then you are surprised "the speakers sound better" well then congratulations, that's the way its done.
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