Best high-efficiency speaker under 10K

Attend RMAF or CES and listen to your choices. Forget trying to choose speakers by relying solely on comments from others.

07-14-10: Ggavetti
Tvad, you put way more weight to half-hour listening sessions in a hotel room than I do.

I give hearing speakers significantly more weight than anyone's written opinion when making a purchase decision, regardless of the potential shortcomings of a hotel room audition.

I also do not recommend making a purchase decision after only a half an hour in a listening room.

07-14-10: Ggavetti
In my experience, listening to a speaker in a hotel room with equipment that is very different from yours is not very informative.

In my experience it far more informative than discussion group comments or reviews.

Having been down the road several times, and having purchased speakers based on hours and hours of reading comments, reviews and taking personal recommendations, I have learned that hearing speakers for myself is worth tenfold of what others say.

In fact, of any element of a stereo system, I believe speakers are the easiest to gauge in a relatively short amount of time in an audio show setting.

Hey, if you choose not to attend a show and hear speakers for yourself, than that's your prerogative.

Ggavetti, I agree that collecting info and recommendations is a good starting point. I did the same thing in a couple of threads asking a question similar to this one, but at a lower price point.

I took what I learned from that thread and from other research and developed a list of ten speakers I wanted to hear. Then, I went to RMAF for a day and listened to only these ten speakers with the exception of adding one more. Eight of the ten speakers were eliminated within the first five minutes of hearing them. I spent the rest of the day listening to the remaining three.

The decision to attend RMAF and to hear the speakers in one concentrated setting was one of the best I've ever made.

Jodoris wrote:

...even with notes, memory fails: I know I liked speaker X pretty well, but its hard to compare the memory of X with the experience of Y as I listen now (maybe I could compare a recording of X!;).

Given all this, and given that the conditions in any audition may be only distantly related to the conditions you'll face in your room with your gear, I'm not sure how much benefit auditions are.

John
Jdoris (System | Threads | Answers | This Thread)

Listening at an audio show removes some of the negatives of auditions held over time and in different cities or in different showrooms.

Yes, attending an audio show is a PITA. Yes, it costs time and money. However, considering the cost of the speakers on my list, I found the cost of attending the show good insurance against a costly bad decision, and I found the time invested well worth the time saved in the buy-and-try method.

When I made my journey to RMAF listen to speakers, the primary quality I sought was the ability to make me forget about the system and focus entirely on the music.

The speakers had to disappear, and they had to free me from critiquing the sound reproduction.

I made my purchase decision when I found a speaker that did this better than the others.

I heard the Vaughn Cabernet and a featured Coincident model (not sure it was the Reference Extreme) at RMAF 2009. Completely different presentation, IMO.

The Coincident was more incisive and accurate for lack of a better word. I recall the Vaughn being more forgiving in the treble and a bit less neutral in the mids and bass than the Coincident model.

I know this doesn't exactly answer your question according to the specific models, but I believe the Coincident house sound is consistent through the model line-up.