After the thrill is gone


I think we all understand there is no “perfect” speaker. Strengths, weaknesses, compromises all driven by the designer’s objectives and decisions. 
 

Whenever we make a new (to us) speaker purchase there is a honeymoon period with the perfect-to-us speaker. But as time wears on, we either become accustomed to the faults and don’t really hear or hear past them, or become amplified and perhaps more annoying or create minor buyers remorse or wanderlust.

I am guessing the latter would be more prevalent when transitioning to a very different design topology, eg cones vs horns vs planars etc.

While I’ve experimented with horns, single drivers, subwoofer augmentation …  I’ve always returned to full range dynamic multi-driver designs. About to do so with planars but on a scale I’ve not done before, and heading toward end game system in retirement.
So I just wonder what your experiences have been once the initial thrill is gone? (Especially if you moved from boxes to planars)

inscrutable

One reason we don't get full satisfaction from our expensive audio setup is it produces unreal (thick veiled) sounds. Human ears adopt to these bad sound. Still we get bad listener fatigues. We have no other choice because all reproduction sounds same unreal and veiled.

Audiophile Junkie (Ytube ID) recorded many rooms at the show in same day with a same microphone. In my room (#407) the human voice and audio sound are at same tone and timber. Wavetouch sound is very close to real sound (no veil).

In other rooms, the human voice and audio sound are so much different. In below video human voices (from 5:00) sound real and feel nice. When the music starts from 7:50, it sounds so much different from the human voice. It sounds veiled and makes me feel very uncomfortable. All other rooms sound veiled like this regardless of price.

Alex/Wavetouch

I'm happy with my Klipsch Cornwall IV's........ driven by a little flea-watt amp SET amp made by Dennis Had, built around the marvelous 45 tube.  1.75 watts per channel- LOVE IT!! 

I have 2 systems - my 1988 Kappa 9's + 2 Metaxas solitaires +LP12

and my Laptop Streaming system +ELAC Navis .

1988 wins by a mile - Kappa 9's properly powered are the dogs bollocks

A bit like looking over the fence when you've been with wifey a while.  But the relationship with wifey should deepen over time as you get to know each other even better.

Can this work with speakers or an audio system?

Serjio says "if you had PBN Montana ref speakers + the right room, your search would be over."

I guess I am done because that's exactly what I got! See house of stereo system. Love the dynamics of the PBN. I need all the dynamics I can get for the type of music I like best: prog, alt prog, metal prog and starting to even get into electronic. And fully retired at 68! No ethereal speakers for me, even recently went from Lyra Kleos to Sumiko Starling to that effect. I need slam! Rock on, age does not apply, in my case anyway.