I remember seeing the Carver ribbon speaker ($1600-1800 a pair at the time) at a Stereophile hifi show in L.A. years back and they sounded absolutely amazing...until I looked under the table behind the speakers and saw they were being driven by those tube amps Carver built for awhile that had literally about 30 tubes in each. I asked the guy if they would sound that good with an Adcom amp and he tried to tell me it would be very close. Sure... Good electronics will make an average speaker sing, but never the other way around. It all starts in the front end and works towards the speaker and the speaker is still and probably always will be the weakest link in audio. I am a Krell fan, but that LAT is the biggest joke I have ever seen in audio. Terrible bass for $37K..Stick to amps Dan. My favorite cheap speaker is the Sound Dynamic line. The line has only cheap black ash cabinets, but for under a grand some of their stuff is incredible sounding. Polk too over builds some of their speakers to attract market share. Good value for the low end.
Under rated speakers due to price....?
AND the resulting associated equipment?
I have a theory and am interested what others think about it. Is it possible that we underrate some speakers because they sell for a reasonable price and therefor listen to them with similar equipment?
I have a decent system consisting of the Rowland integrated amp, SCD-777ES and normally Aerial Model 6 speakers with a Storm III. I have frequently purchased many "cheap" speakers for second systems and I always try them in the good system just for kicks. Some sound OK, but some sound great. I recently tried a pair of less than $300 (Circuit City price) Polk RT35i speakers in the good system and could not believe how awesome they sounded for 1/10 the price of the Aerials. I could easily see some new high end company selling a similar sounding product for 5 times the price and getting it with happy customers.
I then thought about it - - how often do you hear about 2-500 dollar speakers being paired with a 10k system? Has anyone ever checked the associated equipment in Stereophile's class A speakers against the class B or C's? I didn't have the patience. But I bet as a rule that exotic speakers like Grand Utopias or Pipe Dreams are NOT listened to with low hi-end equipment like the lesser speakers are. If you pair some Vandersteen 2c's or B&W CDM-1's with Boulder amps, (and list the speakers at 10 grand) might people call them "some of the best?"
I have a theory and am interested what others think about it. Is it possible that we underrate some speakers because they sell for a reasonable price and therefor listen to them with similar equipment?
I have a decent system consisting of the Rowland integrated amp, SCD-777ES and normally Aerial Model 6 speakers with a Storm III. I have frequently purchased many "cheap" speakers for second systems and I always try them in the good system just for kicks. Some sound OK, but some sound great. I recently tried a pair of less than $300 (Circuit City price) Polk RT35i speakers in the good system and could not believe how awesome they sounded for 1/10 the price of the Aerials. I could easily see some new high end company selling a similar sounding product for 5 times the price and getting it with happy customers.
I then thought about it - - how often do you hear about 2-500 dollar speakers being paired with a 10k system? Has anyone ever checked the associated equipment in Stereophile's class A speakers against the class B or C's? I didn't have the patience. But I bet as a rule that exotic speakers like Grand Utopias or Pipe Dreams are NOT listened to with low hi-end equipment like the lesser speakers are. If you pair some Vandersteen 2c's or B&W CDM-1's with Boulder amps, (and list the speakers at 10 grand) might people call them "some of the best?"