Most incredible system ever...

The only thing I find incredible about it is that someone really think it's the most incredible system ever.

 

I think people respond to different aspects of sound and youtube is a difficult medium to make many judgements since camera microphones typically aren't good enough at either frequency end to be able to give us listeners on the other end a real sense of what is happening.

Most audiophiles today are almost forced to make judgements entirely on audio shows (which are typically horrendous and far worse than dealer demonstrations).

As I've noted before - all loudspeakers have compromises - so you take the big Wilson speakers mentioned earlier - they are abjectly INFERIOR to a very good single driver loudspeaker (say a Teresonic Ingenium) or electrostatic (Quad, Soundlab, KingSound etc) in the aspect of cohesion in the midrange. Wilson is completely and utterly trounced in this department - BUT Wilson will utterly annhialat those speakers in macro-dynamics, impact, bass depth and volume capability and probably treble extension. But if you're a cohesion nut Wilson probably does absolutely nothing for you.

MBL are big sounding omni-directionals that for some are absolutely the best - Huge sound, tight great bass - cohesive when set - up well.

The OP likes the system he heard why do people have to dump on it. He loves it - I am sure many of the owners of those speakers love it too. Part of it will come down to the room size - it's all well to like a speaker with fifteen 12 inch woofers and a two ton subwoofer and a horn the size of a jeep - but if your room is the standard 13 feet by 18 feet variety - that speaker isn't going to fit and will likely sound like poo crammed into the small set-up. Part of it comes to what aspect of the sound you like more or require for the music you most listen to.

Here is an example of what I am talking about - and to keep some things a bit apples to apples here is Audio Note CD and amp but with Acapella horn speakers with plasma tweeters. It is very difficult to beat the ambiance and treble of these tweeters - Very arguably the best in the world. You can buy speakers from this company for about the same money as the reviewer paid for the his version of the AN E.



The thing is these speakers just do some things better in that sort of State of the Art way and they are not so big that the reviewer can't afford or fit them in the room.

I think and so do most that they do some things at a State of the Art level and the same reviewer chose this as one of the best at the show. Nevertheless, there is a feeling that it's almost too much and can overload your senses. So how long will you be able to listen? It's an entirely different kind of presentation. These speakers have sounded rather poor at some shows and outstanding at others.

The only thing I point out is that while something may sound utterly incredible in a short audition - how will it sound over a few months or a year?

 

Same recording. Different source in different systems and rooms.

 

Here is the same piece of music on the $5,800 AN E/Lx speakers (which likely cost less than the cables used in all the other systems you just linked! This is the speaker I had for the last few years before moving up the line.



At the California Audio Show a few years back I chose YGA acoustics as one of the top two rooms. Even though the design is usually out of the norm of what I usually like. But as usual in audio exceptions arise.

The upper AN E uses different drivers crossovers and wiring. But the above is still very good considering the YG is about 10 times+ the price.

 

Thought to myself, if this thread title isn't clickbait, it must be about this:



'Twas clickbait.

 

Yes, for me the benefit of becoming more knowledgeable and experienced in this hobby is getting the sound quality of my audio to go up while the hardware cost stays low. More for less I guess. Some people try to bypass this by chunking money at the problem.

 

Well well well - Layman! I will pat you on the back for your initial selection as it seems you're not the only one! I like the looks of them.