Speakers and amplifiers show audiophiles are confused.


An audiophile buys a pair of speakers for $50K or $100K then asks what amps make them sound best. That’s about as smart as marrying a girl without knowing her personality. What are the specs that will insure your expensive new speakers and amps will work optimality with each other? There’s got to be an app for that, well no there isn’t because there are too many variables and companies don’t present their specs in a standard ways. Why is it that speaker and amplifier manufactures don’t recommend specific amps for their speakers? Beyond power, impedance, and making your own crossovers how do you choose amplifiers to get all the potential out of your speakers?

128x128donavabdear

@musicaddict

Selecting a grab-bag of "THX" gear and hoping it all sounds great together as a ’team’ is an interesting approach but one I’d deem aimed more at mid-fi, and folks who don’t have the time or inclination to audition (or don’t trust their ears if they do).

I think that is a fair assessment, exactly the market that needs something like that to guide them +1.

The THX rating seems to also have a high end market as well, Perlisten, KEF, Meridian, Parasound, and Benchmark. KEF’s US demo room at their NJ HQ is THX Dominus certified and they wear that like a badge of honor. Perlisten partnered with Storm Audio and Dirac at CES and bragged about their THX Dominus creds, this room is pretty high end:

https://youtu.be/iYG3OyGc8oY

Look how Benchmark positions their THX amp in the high end:

Pair the DAC3 (DAC-preamplifier) with the AHB2 (power amplifier) to create the ultimate high-resolution music system. These matched Benchmark components are designed to reproduce music without imparting audible noise, distortion, or coloration. 

https://benchmarkmedia.com/collections/amp

 

@donavabdear  really comparing concert amps to home audio? Bob carver said it best , pro amps are made to play loud and not break, not to sound good. The  wall of sound is still one of the best sounding concert setups and that was how long ago?

@invalid concerts today are done with very sophisticated equipment Mr. Carver had no idea would come. Top equipment is now digital and networked, speakers are powered and designed for specific sections of the crowd with DSP on every speaker. The very best sound I’ve ever heard was the concert system Harmon (JBL) had in their indoor demo theater, the next best sound was when I was working on the TV show “Roadies”, we had a huge concert system with all the newest tech as a permanent part of the concert set but it was practical, a system that could fill a 70k stadium but it was on a movie stage at Manhattan Beach Studios. We would play it very softly and it sounded great. This system had volume on a completely different level than any audiophile ever imagined. We never turned it up but even low it didn’t sound like million dollar speakers it was much more expensive than that, it wasn’t just loud it was exceptionally hi quality, Mayer speakers, DiGiCo mixers and all the outboard gear we wanted . After Clair bought ShowCo in 2000 everything changed in big concert sound.The wall of sound with out of phase mics was cutting edge 40 years ago but would never make it today, that’s why you don’t see it today. Roadies was produced by Cameron Crow and he could get any musicians he wanted so I got to record some the best new musicians there were 2 of them with #1 songs when we recorded them, I did get to record Halsey, Lucius, John Mellencamp, Eddie Vedder, and Jackson Brown among others, loved that show.