Why buy cheap speakers??

Steven,

I had to laugh when I looked at your system, because I have the perfect example of something that seems to make no sense until you really sit down and think about it.

Chris Sommovigo, the famous cable maker, once told me that the key to something as simple in audio as a cable, is complicated. If you take the best wire in the whole world, but have cheap connectors or the connection itself is no good, the wire can't do its job and will be of little benefit. Its job is to take the signal from, let's say the preamp, and pass it along to the power amp.

Case that you can relate to personally, I had my system that had a $5,000.00 Herron tube preamp and $6,000.00 Herron monoblocks. A tube in the preamp went out and through my fault and ignorance, I blew both amps trying to figure out what the problem was.

The rest of my system included a pair of $5,000.00 speakers and an $11,000.00 CD Transport and DAC. The two pairs of interconnects were $5,000.00 Stealth Indra.

I sent my preamp and amps in for repair. Not wanting to be without my music, I pulled out my old preamp and amp: a B&K PT-3 tuner/preamp and B&K ST 1400 Mk 2 amp. What do you think happened when I inserted this $1,300.00 preamp and amp into the slot in place of the $11,000.00 preamp and monoblocks?

I had a sound that I could have easily lived with for years! Why?!?!?!? Because my, and your, inexpensive little B&K preamp and amp had never been heard properly because the cheap connectors that I had on them years ago didn't allow me to hear how good they actually were!

Stealth Indra's at $5,000.00 a set on $1,300.00 worth of preamp and amp, PERPOSTUROUS and INSANE!!!! Or was it? Was it the interconnect's wire, connectors, connection or shielding?

What's cheap? Maybe the question is not so much the cost determining what's cheap, but the quality of the parts making up the speaker, component or cable that determines whether it's cheap, or if it sounds good.

Chuck

Steven,

Personally, I believe this, as I found out substituing my B&K pieces in like I said in my post above, to hear what you say that you want to hear you have to drop your noise floor. That way you can tell what you really have in terms of components. The components are normally a lot better than people think, but the items that the components come with are there to meet a price point. HiFi+, the British magazine that may be the best audio magazine around right night is stressing this same point.

My belief is that you leave your components alone right now, and build yourself a base that is as neutral and as quiet as possible. This accomplishes something that will last you through the rest of your system changes, if you choose to change things down the line.

How do you build this base? You build it in giving yourself clean AC to send to your components. Then by using good, neutral and well shielded power cords, interconnects and speakers cables, your background noise will be quiet and you will be able to hear the microdynamics, the finger on a fret, etc.

This doesn't have to be an expensive trip at all, as I'm learning myself with each new day. Products are getting better and the price is dropping everyday.

AC POWER: I just sold my two power conditioners ($5,500.00 new) and bought a Topaz Ultra Isolation Transformer off of EBay for $300.00 that handles my whole system and lowers my noise floor 126 db. It sounds better than the two $5,500.00 pieces, and as the head electrical engineer at work explained, it sounds better for a good and proven reason.

AC POWER CORDS: I've sold all of my $2,500.00-$3,500.00 power cords and now I've personally chosen Silent Source Signature power cords that list for $1,000.00, but can be bought on Audiogon for around $400.00. They're well shielded, quiet as all get out and fast and neutral. I'm sure there are others out there like this brand, but I'm not familiar with any personnally.

INTERCONNECTS AND SPEAKER CABLES: I've found that for a very reasonable amount of money, the Supra Sword cables from Sweden are extremely hard to beat. There's a set of Supra Sword speaker cables on Audiogon right now ( my old set ) being offered by the Audiogoner that I sold them to about six months ago. The Supra Sword interconnect are supposed to be even better than the speaker cables, and each of these ought to be able to be had for around $400.00 a set.

So the bottom line is that I believe that you can build this base as you can for around $3,000.00 total, and this base will not require changing unless you just want to for years and years to come.

Starting with the Topaz Isolation Transformer for $300.00-$400.00 dollars will show you details right away that will amaze you, and if you use it on your TV too, it will sharpen your picture and make your colors more vivid.

Chuck