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Do $2k speakers + DSP = $50k speakers?

Now that I have your attention, I’d like to share one of my recent experiments. Like many of you, I've never truly been satisfied with my system and often consider purchasing higher-end speakers. I have a variety of speakers in my house including small, high-quality monitors, and mid/high level floor standers and a few subs (all names left intentionally blank) from $2k to $15k. One part of me enjoys the flexibility of monitors while the other part prefers the full-range sound of floor standers. I have a mid-sized room with some strategically placed panels, but the room is average at best.

As a fun project, I used Dirac room correction and bass management, via a MiniDSP unit, to tweak the frequency response of my floor standers. I then used Room EQ Wizard to further tune the frequency response and properly integrate my subs. They sound “good” (and far better than they did without the EQ), but I suspect they’re ultimately limited by the room. I then used this result as a baseline to see how far I could go with my monitors (1/10 the price of the floor standers). I set up my monitors in nearly the same position and went through the same process. I worked to bring the response as close as I could to the floor-stander baseline as possible. I did not fully invest the time to seamlessly integrate the subs, but I must admit I was pretty shocked as to how close I got things when I A-B'ed them.

There are so many speaker manufactures out there with unique strengths and focuses. If you select a speaker with good quality drivers, a solid cabinet, low distortion, good off-axis response, and solid engineering behind it, is the only hurdle left frequency response differences? Can a $2k speaker (with subs and DSP) = a $50k speaker? Thoughts?

hifiguy5
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
The Kii’s use inexpensive drivers according to diyAudio (Peerless $20 x 4, Dayton $16 and Seas $74) but do rely on sophisticated DSP techniques

This is typical even for 10K speakers. A 2K speaker may have even less expensive drivers. That the Kiis with these drivers and DSP came close to B&W 802 D3S does not reflect well on B&W. B&W tend to use small 1 1/4 inch diameter long voice coils similar to the Kiis even if their cone materials are more advanced.

So the answer really depends on driver quality rather than price.

Exceptional drivers with large diameter short voice coil operating in a large gap with extreme tight tolerances will easily outperform cheap drivers with DSP. These kind of drivers cost at least $200 each for a low cost version but can be as much as $1K -$2K each.

So if the 50K speaker has drivers that are commensurate with that price (rather than just expensive cosmetics - veneers can be exceedingly expensive), then the drivers alone could cost double the price of the entire 2K speaker and will outperform in power/dynamics/precision much in the same way an Audi R8 will destroy a Toyota Camry.

erik_squires
15,657 posts
 
Wide baffle speakers are _amazing_ and less room dependent.

I wouldn't say the issue there is range, but baffle shape. A 2-way in a wide baffle would probably be pretty awesome.

Still, those Sonus Faber wide baffle speakers are among my all time favorite in the commercial space.
keithtexas
352 posts
 

I was a bit confused with your tag line question.

If you were to say DSP applied in an active crossover, I would say a $2K speaker could sound like a $8K speaker.

Since you clarify that your DSP was meant to actually refer to room correction, I would say a $2K speaker could be made to sound like a $4K speaker.

My opinion and experience.

seasdiamond
44 posts
 
So you are saying running DiracLive on a Genelec 8351 for instance would increase the sound quality much more than say running the same thing on a TAD ME-1? Simply because the electronic crossovers have steeper slopes and do phase correction? I mean DiracLive also corrects for phase too, so it sounds like we are talking about just steeper x-o slopes.

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gawdbless
1,235 posts
 
The Kii 3 being stand mount speakers go down to 20hz without a sub,. Having 6 speakers and 6 Amplifier's per cabinet. Amazing really.....
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