Is there an 'end all'?
I have noticed that those manufacturers, and the writers who review them, who's spces are not very good tend not to address them, but when they are indicitive of superior quality in the component, they do get empahsised. Hmmm.
If I may suggest: that there are say two approaches to audio most commonly taken by audiphiles. One is to mix and match the individual components, cables, and tweaks, of their system to create a 'sound' they like.
The other, to achieve the lowest distortion possible in their system to reveal as accurately as possible what is recorded on the source material. Becoming very selective of which recording they spend their money on, and may even write letters to the industry complaining about the incompentantcy demonstrated in blatently producing inferior recordings of even great performances by gifted and talented artists.
The one is ever fretting about say the sonic characteristcs of even the wire that connects two components together, the other tends to concern themselvs with obtaing revealing, transparent speakers, appropriate to the space they will operate in, their setup, and a distortion free amp sized to power them. Then searches out source material with tolerable sonic characterists becasuse they can now hear the differnces in the various tracks on the recordings available.
The one uses their system to mix out characterists they do not like, and imagine they are mixing in qualities provided by even a copper or silver wire, a brass or plastic cone under a component, and so on, that it improves the music the artists created on their intruments, oblivous to the 'psycho-acoustic phenomenon' that enabled the popular opinion of the newly invented telephone to be that, 'it sounds just like the person is there' (of course that quaility is not present to this day).
Some are immersed in cables, vibration isolation and room treatment devices, the poetic descriptions of alleged sonic chAracteristis all such devices, components, and methods ---the language of which soon tends to all sound the same, and becomes annoyingly repetitive, about each item, while others are enjoying the relative realism of music they love in the privacy and comfort of their own home.
As the Frost poem (The Searcher) depicts: the man searching cannot find what he is looking for because it would end his search.
Digital, analog, copper, silver, golden mean, this room ratio or that, Acme, Ajax, Smith, Jones, device upon device, etc., etc., etc.
Find revealing speakers appropriate to your listening room that do not unnecessarily excite those pesky room modes you are hard pressed to do anything about (which box speakers are the most famous for), a setup of which does not require a vice for your head so as not to lose the very precise and limited 'sweet spot', find the setup that allows them to perform at their best in that space, power them with a low distortion amp, get a large roll of Radio Shack wire in case they end up in an unlikely spot, then use whatever other components you have a particular fetish for (Vinyl records if you enjoy balancing a feather on the head of a pin), AND ENJOY THE MUSIC.
