I just got back from an audio store. I’m looking for a reasonable lowish high-end system, but nothing boutique level. The sales guy had me listening to speakers. “First A, now B. Now A, then B. Okay, which sounds better?”
After 20 minutes of that, my answers were becoming more and more inconsistent. First Speaker No. 7 sounded best, then No. 3 rocked, then No. 14, then No. 7 was my least favorite and No. 3 sucked.
Same thing with the players. Just for kicks, I asked to listen to the same music played through CDs and LPs. I was pretty good at distinguishing them at first, but soon was missing right and left.
The roughly $!,450 speakers (B&W 705s) I came in to buy–after being blown away by them last month–today sounded not really any better than a $300 pair. Yes, they sounded somewhat different, but I’ll be damned if they were “better.” As I left the store empty handed, the salesman was more than a little crestfallen.
Can anyone relate?
You have to recognize that it’s impossible to properly evaluate a pair of speakers in a store, because it’s not your living room. Unless the salesman put you in the “sweet spot”, then connected a pair of speakers in the L and R positions, played them, disconnected them and put another pair of speakers in its exact place and played them, you can’t tell how they sound for real listening situations.
It has everything to do with how big the cabinet is, how far off the floor it is, how far from adjacent walls it is, whether it’s in a corner or not, whether it’s on the floor or on a pedestal or hanging from the ceiling or mounted on the wall, how far you are from the pair, whether you sit in the dead center, whether there is bare floor or carpet, how much plush furniture is in the room, the windows, the hard, reflective surfaces in the room, the curtains, the open spaces, the doorways, the ambient noise level… and it still isn’t your living room.
There are some other considerations. What kind of music will you be listening to, primarily? By what criteria do you judge how one pair of speakers sounds “better” than another? Are you looking for a type of sound? Do 15" woofers do it for you? Do you want the tweeters to be able to crack mirrors? Do you want a bright sound, a warm sound, the kind of sound that’ll flatten you at 100 paces, a neutral sound, an accurate sound with no noticeable bass, treble or mid boost? You should think about this stuff, because good speakers cost a bunch of cash, and you have to live with them.
And you can’t let your wife try to hide them because they’re big, ugly wooden boxes, or put doilies and doo-dads on top of them. I’m not stereotyping here, I’ve seen it firsthand. These aren’t furniture or shelving, Betty, they’re my speakers!
