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Recently, I had a rather interesting experience with a friend trying to find his next speaker upgrade.
I've always assumed more expensive speakers from the same manufacturer should sound better than their lower priced offerings. This is not the case as I would soon find out.
I also found out that when thinking of purchasing speakers it's best to first demo the speakers in your own home along side the ones you are trying to replace or at least in a showroom with similar speakers you are trying to replace before committing to a purchase. The point here is to have your original speakers as a point of reference so you can be sure the new speakers you're thinking of getting are really an upgrade and not actually a downgrade.
Let me explain.
I have a friend that recently invited me over to his home to help him decide if he should keep or replace his aging Von Schweikert tower speakers. He likes the brand so after speaking with a dealer about the latest offerings he decided to try a pair out on loan in his own home. The new ones are about 3x the cost of the older ones and he was enthusiastically told they would literally blow away his original speakers...extended highs, deeper bottom end, more musical timing, etc...
So the day came when I would visit his home and he had set up the speakers ready for our listening session. Both of the speakers, old and new, were set up in a side by side fashion so we could A/B compare the sound qualities. We were absolutely surprised to find that the new speakers for some reason had a very veiled and chesty sound compared to the older Von Schweikerts. Yes, the bass was definitely deeper, but it seemed that that bass somehow bled into the midrange sound in a bad way. Female vocals sounded very heavy and not natural at all. He double checked all the wiring in the system to make sure everything was wired right and found nothing was amiss. My friend's older speakers definitely sounded like it should be the more expensive speaker.
We played about a dozen tracks over and over with the A/B comparisons. It was so apparent that the new speakers sounded bloated compared to his original speakers so we stopped listening and my friend was happy to know he would be saving a lot of cash. The speakers would go back to the dealer a day later.
I always thought more expensive speakers would definitely mean better sound quality but I think until you actually listen to them with a familiar reference it's kind of a shot in the dark as to what you'll be ending up with.
I've always assumed more expensive speakers from the same manufacturer should sound better than their lower priced offerings. This is not the case as I would soon find out.
I also found out that when thinking of purchasing speakers it's best to first demo the speakers in your own home along side the ones you are trying to replace or at least in a showroom with similar speakers you are trying to replace before committing to a purchase. The point here is to have your original speakers as a point of reference so you can be sure the new speakers you're thinking of getting are really an upgrade and not actually a downgrade.
Let me explain.
I have a friend that recently invited me over to his home to help him decide if he should keep or replace his aging Von Schweikert tower speakers. He likes the brand so after speaking with a dealer about the latest offerings he decided to try a pair out on loan in his own home. The new ones are about 3x the cost of the older ones and he was enthusiastically told they would literally blow away his original speakers...extended highs, deeper bottom end, more musical timing, etc...
So the day came when I would visit his home and he had set up the speakers ready for our listening session. Both of the speakers, old and new, were set up in a side by side fashion so we could A/B compare the sound qualities. We were absolutely surprised to find that the new speakers for some reason had a very veiled and chesty sound compared to the older Von Schweikerts. Yes, the bass was definitely deeper, but it seemed that that bass somehow bled into the midrange sound in a bad way. Female vocals sounded very heavy and not natural at all. He double checked all the wiring in the system to make sure everything was wired right and found nothing was amiss. My friend's older speakers definitely sounded like it should be the more expensive speaker.
We played about a dozen tracks over and over with the A/B comparisons. It was so apparent that the new speakers sounded bloated compared to his original speakers so we stopped listening and my friend was happy to know he would be saving a lot of cash. The speakers would go back to the dealer a day later.
I always thought more expensive speakers would definitely mean better sound quality but I think until you actually listen to them with a familiar reference it's kind of a shot in the dark as to what you'll be ending up with.