Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

apples and oranges

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I am playing around with cone speakers right now, replacing and dampening the drivers, tightening the connections, etc. for family and friends. I am very impressed what a good $25 to 50 cone in a small, solid sealed box can do. Seventy, eighty percent of the music is there. A mid-bass or sub-bass powered woofer only makes bookshelf speakers all that move irressitible.

In what seems to be the middle of the retail price range (judging by the rooms that Sound Advice has) the sound of $500 Kilpsch or other popular speakers, such as Infinity, Sony or B&W is IMO more the same than different.

Which is better is so very much a matter of personal taste that 30 reviewers listening to 30 speakers will have 90 opinions. One is apples and one is oranges. The cones will require lots of solid power to get loose and free sounding. Even on solid state amps with dozens of RMS per channel, I am tempted to turn the traditional speakers up, searching for some semblance of the dynamics that I know are there.

The super-efficient horns, however, need quality amplication. They may be more dynamic, but they also reveal every little detail of the front-end. The cone speakers I have played with lately on my flea powered Bottlehead 2A3 Paramours needed a lot more power at higher volumes. They were better suited to SS amps. The horns did not need globs of amplifier control and sound great when powered with tubes.


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  • apples and oranges - Colin 15:21:16 01/05/02 (0)


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