Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

RE: excuse the odd question - why buy controversial speakers?

Most speakers today are at least "good"

The analogy I like to make would be rottentomatoes a website the culls critics across the country and gives a movie a fresh tomato or rotten tomato rating.

There may be a film (think speaker) that virtually all the critics like. The overall Rating for X movies is 98% fresh. This is THE movie to see.

Movie 2 gets 85% Fresh and 15% rotten. Still good but nowhere near the marks of the first film(think speaker).

But looking deeper at the individual reviews and you see a little more information.

Assume both films (speakers) had 100 critics evaluate.

The first film(speaker) had 100 critics who on a scale of 5 stars 90 of them give the film 3/5 (which is the threshold to pass) and 8 give it 4/5 while the other 2 give it 2/5.

So 98% liked the movie (speaker) enough to recommend them. No one Hated the speaker but no one LOVED the movie (speaker) either.

Movie (speaker) 2 had more dissenters. 15 gave it 2 to 2.5 our of five - however 80 awarded it 5/5 claiming it the best movie (speaker) of the last 2 decades (speaker), while the other 5 gave it 4/5 rating.

The majority rules and statistics favour the first movie - and rightly so - there is MORE of a chance you will walk away thinking that it was a GOOD movie (speaker) but film(speaker)2 has a much greater chance that you will walk away thinking this is the best movie (speaker) that you have seen (heard) in the last 20 years or ever.

Polarizing movies and speakers or anything else such as food run a greater risk of offending the palette but they also have a much greater chance of heightening the reward.

McDonalds has been hugely successful largely because they make a very bland product - bland is largely inoffensive to the taste buds and can appeal to a large number of the population. Thai Spicey soup or Salmon has much stronger taste that many people could gulp up everyday while others scrunch their face up and are ready to hurl just smelling it. The Filet of Fish is inoffensive but it's no Sockeye cokked over fire in white wine.

I personally don't want to own or watch or listen to the 3/5 above averaged but unlikely to be a genuine star kinds of movies/speakers. It may sound "good" but I'd rather risk my time on the stuff that could be a 5 star shake me to the core experience - even if I have a slightly higher risk of getting something that is not to my taste.

This is why a film like Forrest Gump beats a Pulp Fiction at the Oscars. The latter has a much much higher chance to offend the audience while the former is mainstream inoffensive and charming and sweet. More people have a much higher chance of liking Forrest Gump (obviously since it won). Pulp Fiction though in critic circles tends to be regarded considerably as the better film and one of the best of the decade or ever made. Pulp has more risk to be disliked but it also has a higher chance to be on your top ten or 20 of all time list.

While a B&W tends to be well regarded gets good reviews I don't recall reading a lot of wide support that they shake people to the core and they were the best sound ever heard at a show, or wow I can't believe that they transformed my view of the audio industry.

I read more of that kind of ga-ga about Wilson so it has perhaps a greater chance of being a star. I have not heard that yet though but I've only auditioned 4 models. So far for me they're both in the 3/5 good but nothing shaking me to the core kind of stuff.



Edits: 02/11/12

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  McShane Design  


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.