Is it Time To Allocate More Money To Speakers on a Digital set up?

I am not sure how the dollar ratios come out but:
-Get the best speakers that you like and will work in your room.
-Next spend your money on the amp(s) that will get the most out of your speakers.
-Allocate your source funds based on your preference for digital or analog. Possibly depending on the one you will use the most.
-Tweak away with cables etc that get you closer to what you want to hear our of your system.
 
still-one said:
I am not sure how the dollar ratios come out but:
-Get the best speakers that you like and will work in your room.
-Next spend your money on the amp(s) that will get the most out of your speakers.
-Allocate your source funds based on your preference for digital or analog. Possibly depending on the one you will use the most.
-Tweak away with cables etc that get you closer to what you want to hear our of your system.
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Agree.

And for most systems, the total cost of preamp + DAC + streamer/music player (or TT, phono stage) + power conditioner + cables will be quite more than 10% after it’s all said and done.
 
still-one said:
I am not sure how the dollar ratios come out but:
-Get the best speakers that you like and will work in your room.
-Next spend your money on the amp(s) that will get the most out of your speakers.
-Allocate your source funds based on your preference for digital or analog. Possibly depending on the one you will use the most.
-Tweak away with cables etc that get you closer to what you want to hear our of your system.
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I generally agree with this as the room / loudspeaker interface is of great importance.

In order to get that interface working optimally budget may be needed to acoustically treat the room.
 
A problem many audiophiles end up faced with after a purchase. It sounded and looked good at the dealer's and you can afford it only to get it home and find out it overloads your room or won't work where you "need" to position it. A really difficult problem to correct after the fact and a mistake that can be expensive.
 
kzhtoo said:
Actually 70,000 for amps and 30,000 for rest. It might sound good, but the “rest” part won’t do justice for 300,000 speakers. Probably money not well spent.
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I was kidding.
I wouldn't go for such a system either.

But I do concur with some of us here to spend a lot on speakers, and then gradually build up your system.
Amps are easier to sell when upgrading than speakers.
 
Mr Peabody said:
I personally do not like rules of thumb like that. Too many variables for it ever to be close to accurate. And, I disagree with the rule.

I'd welcome the blind test myself. If you can't tell the difference between good digital versus entry level you shouldn't be spending much on stereo gear at either end. There's even a difference in rendering and transports. Your internet speed and quality makes a difference in sound.

See if you follow this logic. It starts with your source, if any detail is left there at the source, nothing, you do downstream, including expensive speakers, will allow you to hear that lost detail.

Once you have a capable source you want to maintain the signal throughout your system until it reaches your ears. So it's not a front vs speaker thing, it's a system thing, and, that should include room treatments.
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Agree completely that it’s a system thing. “...and that should include room treatments”, and clean power, proper speaker setup, equipment isolation, equipment compatibility...everything matters.

And as you state, it’s really about balance since the overall performance is only as good as the weakest link in the chain.

In terms of allocating budget, room treatments and speaker setup have provided the largest performance gain per dollar at least in my experience.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
No one is ever going to agree on percentages of the total budget to allocate on the piece parts of a stereo system so let's throw percentages out of the audiophile window. What makes the biggest difference in the sound you hear from your system? Transducers. If your system only has one source and the source is digital, speakers will have the greatest affect on your sound quality. If you play LPs and digital, speakers and cartridges are the two transducers that will most affect your sound quality. Speakers are the "meat" of your system and pretty much everything else is spices added to the recipe to flavor the sound to your liking. You just need to be careful that you don't choose a cut of meat that you actually dislike because no amount of spices is going to change the basic taste.

In summary, buy the best sounding speakers to your ears that you can afford and make damn sure you buy an amp that can drive them properly. That is the foundation of your system that everything else will build on.
 
The Surgeon Generals 2019 guideline is 99% on speakers, 1% on other stuff

nicoff said:
I have been reading about blind test of DACs where testers have a hard time differentiating very cheap DACs from much more expensive ones.
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Correct. Now who listens daily at home in the easy chair blind with voltage matching and instantaneous switching?
Exactly.
 
mep said:
No one is ever going to agree on percentages of the total budget to allocate on the piece parts of a stereo system so let's throw percentages out of the audiophile window. What makes the biggest difference in the sound you hear from your system? Transducers. If your system only has one source and the source is digital, speakers will have the greatest affect on your sound quality. If you play LPs and digital, speakers and cartridges are the two transducers that will most affect your sound quality. Speakers are the "meat" of your system and pretty much everything else is spices added to the recipe to flavor the sound to your liking. You just need to be careful that you don't choose a cut of meat that you actually dislike because no amount of spices is going to change the basic taste.

In summary, buy the best sounding speakers to your ears that you can afford and make damn sure you buy an amp that can drive them properly. That is the foundation of your system that everything else will build on.
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What does drive them properly mean? Surely not just being up to the task of providing current. It's the quality of the signal that matters, and the better your speakers the more they will reveal of upstream signal quality. The most highly resolving speakers will be underused if the incoming signal does not have the resolution. It's not just spices and flavor, it's signal integrity. Both my preamp and power amp each cost more than my main speakers, and the set-up is worth it.
 
I'm not going to disagree , however, I've been on the merry-go-round more times than I want to admit, one thing I learned, any component has the potential to transform your system. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

I had one such experience yesterday, a guy put another streamer in place of this NAD I'm using, I was astonished, just a streamer and my system sounded totally different.

There's more going on with the handling of digital than we realize.


mep said:
No one is ever going to agree on percentages of the total budget to allocate on the piece parts of a stereo system so let's throw percentages out of the audiophile window. What makes the biggest difference in the sound you hear from your system? Transducers. If your system only has one source and the source is digital, speakers will have the greatest affect on your sound quality. If you play LPs and digital, speakers and cartridges are the two transducers that will most affect your sound quality. Speakers are the "meat" of your system and pretty much everything else is spices added to the recipe to flavor the sound to your liking. You just need to be careful that you don't choose a cut of meat that you actually dislike because no amount of spices is going to change the basic taste.

In summary, buy the best sounding speakers to your ears that you can afford and make damn sure you buy an amp that can drive them properly. That is the foundation of your system that everything else will build on.
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Al M. said:
What does drive them properly mean? Surely not just being up to the task of providing current. It's the quality of the signal that matters, and the better your speakers the more they will reveal of upstream signal quality. The most highly resolving speakers will be underused if the incoming signal does not have the resolution. It's not just spices and flavor, it's signal integrity. Both my preamp and power amp each cost more than my main speakers, and the set-up is worth it.
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Drive them properly is a simple concept Al and it's just not the quality of the signal that matters. Your "highly resolving speakers" just wont be "underused" with the wrong amp, they will be abused with the wrong amp. For example, don't try and drive a pair of low impedance 86dB sensitivity speakers with a 3 watt amp off of an 8 ohm tap. You have to find an amplifier you like that matches to the speakers you own or want to buy. Pretty simple. If you purchase an amp that absolutely can't drive your speakers because the load impedance is a mismatch and the amp lacks the power to drive the speakers to the levels you like to listen to, your upstream "signal integrity" is all for naught because it just got hosed at the amp/speaker junction.
 
mep said:
Drive them properly is a simple concept Al and it's just not the quality of the signal that matters. Your "highly resolving speakers" just wont be "underused" with the wrong amp, they will be abused with the wrong amp. For example, don't try and drive a pair of low impedance 86dB sensitivity speakers with a 3 watt amp off of an 8 ohm tap. You have to find an amplifier you like that matches to the speakers you own or want to buy. Pretty simple. If you purchase an amp that absolutely can't drive your speakers because the load impedance is a mismatch and the amp lacks the power to drive the speakers to the levels you like to listen to, your upstream "signal integrity" is all for naught because it just got hosed at the amp/speaker junction.
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Sure, Mark, these are basics, but are not what I meant. There are amps perfectly capable of driving my speakers but with lesser signal quality. A $ 700 Schiit Vidar amp suffices, and it's astonishingly good too.

By the way, my speakers are 92 dB sensitive two-way monitors and driven by an amp that puts out 100 W into 8 Ohms, my speakers' impedance (130 W into 4 Ohms). Total overkill, as I like it.
 
Al M. said:
There are amps perfectly capable of driving my speakers but with lesser signal quality. A $ 700 Schiit Vidar amp suffices, and it's astonishingly good too.
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Electrical signal "quality" is measured in dollars eh? They sure don't teach that in EE school. :)
I see your speakers have the same sensitivity "rating" as the BE model. Hmmm. Well, seems you have plenty of power regardless.
You may find this interesting. Or not.
Anyway, happy Memorial, enjoy some tunes.
 
I think the whole per type of component thing is kind of silly. Sure in the perfect world this might come into play. In the real world many times you grab the component that becomes available to you. I agree that speakers are important, but certainly not by budget %. I have heard some very expensive speakers that I did not like, some I have liked but those really need a high level amp. My buddies high level MBL are amazing but are very hard to drive, for example....

I have always liked KEF speakers; however I could not afford the Blade 2, :(, or the Reference. Therefore I got the next closes thing, the R series (KEF calls them the mini References, a direct trickle down from the Blades) which are almost a quarter the price of the Reference 3 because they build them in their Chinese factory; very close in performance (a friend owns the Reference 3 which I have compared). So I could get a KEF that I enjoy with retail about $3800.

Digital is very important to me and from a lot of research and definitely confirmed in my listening, I believe that DACs that do not use off the shelf chips (ESS, BurrBrown, AKM, etc.) perform better. Also DSD was very important to me. I could not afford MSB, Lampi, dCS, etc., so I was considering the PS Audio DirectStream. However I found the T+A instead. Granted they use BurrBrown for PCM but they make their own 1-bit processors for DSD, which is all that matters since I am running HQPlayer.

Therefore my DAC retails for more than the speakers but works beautifully in the system.

Same with my amps. The Audio Mirrors are normally $5000 plus I got about a grand in tubes I roll through them. The T+A retails just a tad under the speakers. Therefore the amplifiers retail for more.

My computer/music server, W4S Recovery, and software cost more then the speakers.

The power conditioner and cables are priced quite a bit higher also.

So the speakers are about 1/6 the price of the system but match very nicely and are certainly not being outclassed by the rest of the system!

If I were using the percentage that I see discussed here and elsewhere I would have gotten something like the Blade 2's and then have to use something like Schitt, NuPrime, Benchmark, W4S standard models. All good but none that I would never consider using them with Blade 2's. I believe my configuration is better.
 
Randy Myers said:
I have always liked KEF speakers; however I could not afford the Blade 2, :(, or the Reference. Therefore I got the next closes thing, the R series (KEF calls them the mini References, a direct trickle down from the Blades) which are almost a quarter the price of the Reference 3 because they build them in their Chinese factory; very close in performance (a friend owns the Reference 3 which I have compared). So I could get a KEF that I enjoy with retail about $3800.
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This once again illustrates how unique and varied individual perception of audio gear can be. I've done extensive listening to the KEF lineup, including their previous and current R series as well as their Reference series. This has included a wide variety of supporting gear including both tube and solid state electronics as well as with digital and analog sources. To my perception while the R series offer a solid value and reasonable performance they don't engage me with the music at anywhere near the level which the Reference series does. The Reference series is so much more refined and captivating to my senses that after hearing them the R series just leave me wanting more.

There are a lot of obvious similarities in driver design and configuration between the KEF R and Reference series, but their implementation and attention to detail are at different levels as would be expected given the large differential in their pricing. I think it's great that their R series offers KEF's unique technology at a price that makes them more widely accessible than can be provided by the Reference series, and Randy is certainly not alone in finding the high value that the R series provides and enjoying their many fine attributes.
 
I certainly agree that the Reference are more refined, but the R series are close for about 1/4 the price. My point is holding with the percentage thing I would have to get Ref 5's or Blade 2's and much lower other gear. In my view the R's were good enough to allow for better gear elsewhere and the over all system is better. I do eventually want to end up with the Refs or Blades, but my point was that my overall system is better ignoring the percentage formula.

The other point is that getting something like the Blade 2's is a large amount in a one-time purchase and probably would have been so cost prohibited that I probably would not have been able to get as deep into this hobby as I have been able to.
 
Randy Myers said:
I do eventually want to end up with the Refs or Blades, but my point was that my overall system is better ignoring the percentage formula.
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So to be clear Randy, you had the Ref 5s in your room with "lower" (TBD) gear, compared to current setup and your current "higher" system outputting R700 soundwaves, sounded better??
Interesting.
Btw, at our last club meet last weekend, gent had a simple, secondary much "lower" system with R500s in his family room. Other than the very top (airless) end, I preferred it to his much, much "higher" main system. Based on the soundwaves. Go figure ;)

cheers,

AJ
 
audio.bill said:
This once again illustrates how unique and varied individual perception of audio gear can be. I've done extensive listening to the KEF lineup, including their previous and current R series as well as their Reference series. This has included a wide variety of supporting gear including both tube and solid state electronics as well as with digital and analog sources. To my perception while the R series offer a solid value and reasonable performance they don't engage me with the music at anywhere near the level which the Reference series does. The Reference series is so much more refined and captivating to my senses that after hearing them the R series just leave me wanting more. [...]
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I found myself nodding in agreement with this. A good friend of mine works for a KEF distributor and retailer (the two often go hand in hand in Asia) and I’ve spent many enjoyable hours in his store listening to products ranging from the LS-50 through to the Blades and more rarely the Muon. At the lower end of the R-range I actually prefer the LS-50 as I found it more resolving and somewhat more cohesive and smoother through the mid-range. An LS-50 paired with a reasonably high powered tube amplifier of good quality actually makes for an awesome small audio system (IMHO).


As earlier mentioned my rule of thumb has been to allocate the greatest percentage of a system budget to the loudspeakers. For a typical digital system loudspeakers combined with how they interact with the listening space make (by far) the biggest difference in the sound you finally hear. Further, they typically have higher levels of distortion than modern well designed electronics.
 
AJ Soundfield said:
So to be clear Randy, you had the Ref 5s in your room with "lower" (TBD) gear, compared to current setup and your current "higher" system outputting R700 soundwaves, sounded better??
AJ
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No AJ, I did not say I had the Ref 5's in my room with lower gear, I said I believe I would have to have either the Blades or the Ref 5 with lower equipment such as Schitt, NuPrime, etc., to keep in the same budget and keep that percentage cost of speakers versus the the gear... in my view the combo I have, with the better digital setup in server, software, DAC, better sounding preamp, better amplifiers (in my view) works better to keep in the same budget using the R series... instead of putting a vast majority of my money into speakers. And the other issue I mentioned was a single purchase of that amount would probably have been cost prohibited, if for no other reason then my wife's view...

As I have seen from several respondents in various threads and forums, the R series plays way above it's price point. While I will not in any way say they can stay with the Ref's I will say they are pretty darn good and allow for a better over all system.
 
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