When audiophiles think about pro gear, they are thinking about barrelbottom rough house plastic cabinet touring equipment that run at 500 dollars a pop, or some of the clinical studio monitors. That’s not the class equipment one should look at (They are meant for a specific application). If you want to enjoy music, you would look at the installation grade stuff, that get installed in certain types of venues where someone really cares how it sounds.
These are the pro speakers i bought that i’d put up against anyone’s rig at any price.
TAD designed these rather unique speakers...(Pioneer XY-3B) @ approx 12k/pair.
I also have a regular pair of TADs, but, i seem to enjoy music more on the pioneer horns. I am able to enjoy all kinds of genres with these speakers.
This ’synergy’ horn from Danley with a very unique array of drivers, high level engineering.... Price varies depending on how you get it, I got it used.
https://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/sh60/
Electro-voice EVF-D series from Mike O’Niell, i have one of the wide dispersion models. You can get it for around 6k/pair. If Mike designed something for audiophiles with a nice cabinet finish, price may become 200k (just sayin).
WAF tips:
Take the ugly metal grills off, and WAF will go up a lot.
If you want a nice polished finish on the cabinet, take the cabinet to some guy in town and get the finish/color you want (if you don’t know how to do it yourself).
Sound quality? No compromise.
Sky can be the limit on price with pro gear as well...For example, Meyer Bluehorns could run you 80k or more....and whatever else is out there... But, i just retired, i may never buy anything again, except cds.
The weak link with pro gear is the amps, i.e., very high powered class D to hit extreme SPL levels that compromise fidelity. If you listening at home at a reasonable 95 db and under, put it on your audiophile amps and dacs, and they will shine. A Schiit Bifrost and a pair of Schiit Tyr monoblocks should be more than enough...
In fact, they are designed to ’also’ sound good even at extreme SPL levels (levels where all home audio speakers fell to dust). When you don’t stress them out that much and keep the SPLs at 95, 90db and under, you will hear a kind of fidelity that’s hard to find....holographia, visceral slam, dynamics, all of it for days. You would need decent subwoofers, of couse.
You put a high quality recording on them, it shines....You put a trash quality recording on them, they still shine...i.e. none of the...."might sound good 3 minutes before midnight on a blue moon night after your rub it down with unicorn horn dust, hiny and some jinglebell cable" requirements for "high end" audiophile speakers. You will no longer be restricted to running 3 records on repeat for the whole year.
It can kill all the neurosis and let you enjoy music of different kinds.
Hope that helps.
I agree that pro speakers can surprise you at the price points they can be had in comparison to consumer audio. I have a set of turbosound IQ12s for live performance and they are way better than they should be for essentially DSP, preamps, amps and speakers that can crank out 100 db easy to a pretty large space. For $1400 retail it’s kind of crazy.
I would also say that pro audio outdoors - there isn’t really anything better. When you have a giant open area the sound has room to breathe. It’s an amazing thing. Funktion One / Hennessy / and many others are an experience live. If only there was a way to listen at a volume that I didn’t need earplugs.
That being said, for my studio system I use passives because I seek realism in the system and haven’t heard a pair of monitors give me what my separates can. Also, I haven’t tried any of the big boy Barefoot, Neumann or Genelecs that people rave about. And not sure how PA equipment would do in a small room? Would love to hear about someone with high end PA gear speak about their experience! I still prefer my home systems over my PA gear indoors, but there is a pretty large cost discrepancy between them.