The “Off The Shelf” Lie

I have a pair of Andrew Jones Pioneer bookshelf speakers I bought at Best Buy for half price, $65.  They’re amazingly good, not super smooth but sparky and enjoyable.  I almost wish I’d bought the floorstanders at the time!

Obviously you can take great parts and make a terrible design and make a good design with average parts. Obviously design matters most but parts still do matter it's about the best parts for the design not the most flashy or most expensive.

A few manufacturers make their own drivers(exp ATC). Some have drivers custom made for them(exp Wilson). Most buy from OEM manufacturers such as SEAS, Scanspeak, etc. who make superb drivers but then their crossovers and enclosures are limited by the OEM specs. I know of one manufacturer who used 'special' SEAS drivers where the only mod was stamping their name on the drivers and claiming better than stock specs which surprised me since they did make excellent speakers.

Implementation matters.

I once had 2 DACs with identical chips.  One cost 8 times more than the other.  The more expensive DAC clearly had a beefier power supply and doubtless other improvements, and yes it sounded much better than the less expensive DAC.  Now perhaps the more expensive DAC could have developed their own chip but that would have boosted the price significantly.

   I have heard turntables that use a Rega tonearm but sound vastly different from Rega tables.

   Speaker drivers are a category of their own.  My speakers are made by the company but how do I know what an off the shelf version would sound like in the same cabinet?

An FPGA may or may not be superior to a Sabre, Burr-Brown or whatever chip du jour you like, but it can be "upgraded" with new firmware which may mean a constantly improving listening experience.

Regarding drivers, closer acoustical matching can be achieved when parameters can be specified. Whether manufactured in-house or made-to-spec, custom drivers may allow for better integration/coherence than a mix and match approach.