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An encounter and lesson in speaker prices ...

Not to long ago, in a shop I like but will remain nameless I got to observe a customer evaluate a pair of systems side by side. The buyer had an eastern European accent. First they listened to the larger system, $50k speakers, equivalently priced amps and digital.


It sounded _really_ good. Then we moved to another system. Slightly smaller speaker pair, around $20k, completely different DAC and amp. Sounded like crap. The digititis was unbearable and the speakers were clearly out of phase. On top of that, the treble and bass balance were now all wrong.


The buyer was "I like them, what colors do they com in? " and that was that.

After the buyer left I looked behind at the amp. Yep, I was right, the pahse was reversed. The darkness of the room and angle made this an easy and common mistake to make. But the rest was unbearable.


What is my point? The people buying the top end gear are not necessarily the one’s with decent ears, so we really cannot trust price points to be any sort of guide to value. If you develop your taste on your own, independent of prices, you can score some fabulously performing gear at a fraction of what this buyer was going to end up with.


Best,

E
erik_squires
three_easy_payments's avatar
three_easy_payments
211 posts
 
Imagine how good those speakers will sound in his home when he "presumably" connects them correctly.
erik_squires OP
5,268 posts
 
Hi @gawdbless :
Of course, fools and their money are easily parted, and individually, no I don't care. My point was that this says something about gear prices and culture. This is a social commentary post, and I hope you don't object to that.

And yeah, wouldn't that be interesting if the dealer did it to make them sound more spacious?? I doubt it though. I looked and it was really hard to see the colors.

Best,

E
meadowman's avatar
meadowman
124 posts
 
Erik,
Some people are not at all sensitive to sound being out of phase ( as you describe ).  Consider the case of the entire Polk Audio SDA line of speakers.  The "speaker interconnect" tied one side of each speaker's midbass/midrange drivers to the other speakers matching drivers 90 degrees out of phase.  The result was a wider more "encompassing" stereo image ( at least that was the hype ).  I am so sensitive to phase that the SDA line literally gives me a head ache.  I can walk into a room and hear a pair of speakers out of phase in under 2 notes.  Every time.  While working on the floor of an audio shop for 10 years and now running my own store I have had several instances of mistakenly wiring a speaker out of phase with the system and had customers expound on the fantastic sound quality.  Each time I swapped things back to correct phase and about 1/2 of the time the listener either heard no difference or in fact preferred the out of phase connection.  Not a scientific evaluation for sure but it has happened many times over a 20 year span with a lot if different people.  Just my own experiences.
erik_squires OP
5,268 posts
 
@meadowman

That's really interesting!! Becuase the buyer did run around looking to see if other speakers were also working. To him, the effect was a super-wide soundstage.

Maybe this is why the treble and bass were set so high?

Best,
E
mr_m
1,087 posts
 
Listen to  Roger Waters "Amused to Death"  Wanna hear some weird and wacky  out of phase stuff, just listen to this CD!
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