Should speakers be the most high-end of your components?

Thank you for asking, I was curious about the same thing.

 

LoudSpeaker

 

Why not just say speaker? Loudspeaker is one word so I don't get why someone would say "LS" when referring to speakers or loudspeakers.

Bill

 

well I never said that sub-par was a good thing. and I don't think anyone is using a $5000 cartridge with $300 speakers.

I am however using a $900 cartridge with $200 speakers. sounds great from here.

 

Just think how good your system would sound with $900-$1800 speakers . No offense but I don't get why you would spend that much on a cartridge and so little on speakers. I looked at your profile to see what type of speakers you have and your system components aren't listed.

Bill

 

The things that make loudspeakers expensive are (a) bass response and (b) power handling. If you are not interested in really extended low end response and don't play at loud volumes, you could partner a very expensive front end and amplification setup with some pretty cheap loudspeakers and get really satisfying sound reproduction.

 

I agree

 

Also it's pretty important, seems to me, to have speakers to match the size of your listening space. Not to big, not to small... just right.

I think?

I mean... smaller speakers may be too small and not have the 'umpth', the punch. On the other hand, gigantic speakers need power. Maybe to much power for a medium size space. Blow ya out of the house.

 

Absolutely, there are very small speakers that are fullrange and perfectly suited for a not so large room. They even might fit better than large speakers.

 

Geoff,

I respect your knowledge and opinions very much. But I wonder about your above thoughts. What about other components of speakers such as the quality of the drivers and crossovers that directly effect the performance of a speaker? I just don't see why anyone would have an expensive front end with cheap speakers. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Bill

 

What do You mean by cheap speakers? For me it´s maybe $1k-2K.

 

I don't mean so cheap that they are hopeless. I was just trying to say that the two factors I mentioned really contribute to the increased cost.

 

I don't consider $1k-$2k speakers cheap. I consider $100-$300 speakers to be cheap especially when one pairs them up with a $3k front end.

Bill

 

I've just jumped from speakers that cost a couple of hundred dollars (part of a AV receiver/5.1 combo that cost $1200.00 all up) to a nice pair of $2000.00 speakers.
They're now making the rest of my system shine

 

Nice !

Bill

 

That is an OLD theory, back when turntables were a primary source. As a transducer, the cartridge/tonearm/table combo is less accurate than electronics and would make more difference as you spent more money. But nowadays, the source files are much cleaner and the differences more subtle. The speakers remain by far far far the least accurate part of the chain, and changing them makes a huge difference.

Since speakers last a very long time, it thus definitely makes sense to spend as much as possible and get the best speakers you can…or the best satellites, and add a subwoofer later (except I doubt your amp has the pre-out/main in jacks needed for the optimal connection, high passing the amp and satellites, so you should go for towers).

Magnepans are excellent speakers, but with significant limitations. Chiefly, due to front/rear phase cancellation, you can't get loud bass out of them. What kind of music do you listen to? String quartets and small jazz combos will be great, IF the Maggies integrate into your room well, but you aren't going to crank up Motorhead or even Taylor Swift on those babies, not really. An somewhat similar alternative would be Martin Logans, who integrate a woofer below their electrostatic panel to avoid the bass problem. With either brand, you kinda need a good size room and you really must be able to position the speakers out from the wall.

 

Bass and power handling do increase cost, but the quality of the drivers and crossovers do just as much if not more. So cheap speakers generally just do not sound as good as more expensive speakers (although, since speakers are such inaccurate transducers, each speaker will bring out something from the music that may sound "better" plus some expensive speakers can have bizarre tunings due to the designers taste…I once saw some huge speakers at CES which for a bass port used what looked exactly like a gold chrome plastic toy tuba mouth!).

Me neither, it is nuts. But humans are not rational. There is probably a psychology thesis waiting to be researched and written about why many audiophiles find it easier to "get into" their electronics and interconnects instead of their speakers.

Not generally true. Actually, big speakers can use more efficient drivers since the big cabinet lets them still achieve low bass. It is the small speakers that are power hungry, due to "Hoffman's Iron Law."

Well, but they are NOT really fullrange. Sorry, but no, unless they're really not that small.
They may give a nice illusion with non-demanding music (like some 4" woofer KEFs with a huge crossover that I heard a long time ago playing jazz) but they can't really do it. Again, see "Hoffman's Iron Law." Plus with small cones you physically cannot reproduce significant sound pressure at low frequency, therefore the low frequencies will not be audible to your ears. [Fielder, Louis D., Benjamin, Eric M.: " Subwoofer Performance for Accurate Reproduction of Music ", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 36, #6, June, 1988.]

 

Buying/choosing loudspeakers based on price is a fools game

Buy speakers that sound good to you

High price does not, in ANY way, guarantee high performance

And no, that relatively inefficient, 4 ohm Magnepan would not be a good match for that amp

Rogue's claim of 100 WPC is more than optimistic in my opinion, never mind what the "specs" claim (I haven't looked a schematic of the amp yet to see what they've got going on)

I could be very wrong, but I am also very skeptical when it comes to the claims made regarding yet another mutation of the 6550/KT88/KT90 family of bottles out of Russia; I've been burned and burned badly by similar claims and glowing "reviews"

Proceed with caution; may look great on paper but like the song says "it ain't necessarily so"

http://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/084/k/KT120.pdf

And even if it could/does make it you'd be pushing that one to the limits, all the time, with the Magneplanars if you listen at any sort of realistic levels

Good luck on your quest

Analogman

 

LoudSpeaker, I imagine.

 

They do go together though - you need higher quality drivers and crossover to support higher power, and you need a higher quality bass driver for more low frequency extension. These things are all inter-related, as we all know, and I am not saying there is a "rule" here.

What you said about modern sources is correct - in my opinion.

 

because I like how my speakers sound.

 

5" woofers in a small volume, like 10-12l can be fullrange. They can also produce a high enough SPL in a small room for most music. Most commonly sold speakers are not normally fullrange, even if they are a bit larger.

 

Loudspeaker............

Remember too that small drivers 5-7" can produce very accurate mid band, this is where all the important information can lie in a recording
Bass smear and overhang from a large woofer can obscure detail and crossovers muddy up presentation.

 

Given that current thinking dictates that nothing is lost between source and delivery with a digital stream,why has no manufacturer thought to design a loudspeaker that one can connect a top spec dac to directly,by passing the need for a separate pre amp and or power amp?

 

Another thought from my own experience with speakers is around what they’re capable of producing being a limiting factor. My latest speakers produce some of the most detailed HFs I’ve heard, sweet mids, but in particular are revealing a whole new world of depth and detail in LFs (they extend to 25Hz). This is information that’s always been there in the music but clearly held back by previous speakers - all other equipment being equal – without me knowing it as such. And there’s no going back to something that hides all of that.

It’s the same for other speakers I’ve demoed: some have sounded exquisite in isolation but were clearly limited – example being B&W PM1.

More ‘limited’ units (such as the PM1s; and not considering subs) might be ideal for some people’s requirements/listening spaces. But then one could wonder how many people could have that kind of speaker – and love them, rightly, and might be drawn in to their particular voicing etc – but without realising what isn’t being revealed as such. Again, about viewing them from limiting factor perspective.