Although there's nothing wrong with your current system, you may not know what you're missing. There are many speakers, particularly audiophile, on the market that are neutral and designed around measurements rather than listening.
Have you ever listened to a song for the first time in your car? You might have heard it on an AM radio station where the sound quality isn't great.
You thought you liked it. Maybe you loved it.
Then you came home and listened to it on your big system. And, you went, "Oh my God, this sounds so much better. I'm hearing things that I didn't hear before when I was listening to it in the car for the first time, and wow, this is incredible."
It's a different listening experience. You've got a much better system that you're listening to it on.
The same thing can happen if you go from a pair of loudspeakers that you've got used to and listened to for years that may not be technically very neutral or very accurate. And, the same thing can happen if you move to a loudspeaker designed with neutrality in mind and with rigorous measurements done.
If you've got used to that sound, even if it's been in many different rooms or households, you may have an audio memory of that system that smoothes over warts and faults.
If there are recordings in your collection you don't even play because they sound so awful, is it the recording, or is it the loudspeaker? Maybe the recording is excellent, but your loudspeaker has got a peak in some area that makes the vocal sound harsh and hurts your ears.
I know I had a lot of comments on those measurement videos saying:
"Well, you know what, you just can't pull the measurements out and say that that's a good or a bad speaker. At the end of the day, we have to listen to it. If you don't listen to it, then what's it matter, right? It doesn't matter how good those pieces of paper with the graphs and all of those measurements look. It doesn't matter at the end of the day. If the speaker doesn't sound any good, if I don't think it sounds good or you don't think it sounds good, then it isn't any good, no matter how good the measurements are."
And that's very, very true. I think the key is that if you can depend on manufacturers that are measurement and engineering-based, and you have some reviewers that are doing good measurements.
Soundstage is one of the few that actually measures loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber, in a calibrated and certified chamber. If you can depend on those things, you can quickly see which manufacturers are doing a good job designing or engineering a loudspeaker.
Related: How Important Are Speaker Measurements?
I can argue until I'm blue that our speakers are an excellent value, based on the price-performance ratio. They're all well-engineered. And, we spend a lot of time putting painstaking effort into the measurements of the loudspeakers because we know that those measurements translate into a neutral-sounding speaker that sounds great with any music and a lot of rooms.
And, I urge you, at some point, to try out speakers from manufacturers that have a return policy. Maybe it'll take a few years before you are comfortable. But maybe give your 30-year-old or 50-year-old system some rest and listen to a modern, well-designed loudspeaker.
I guarantee you that what's going to happen is you're going to find all kinds of things in your music collection that you hated to listen to that are now going to sound fantastic. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on the topic. Thank you very much for watching.
