Getting Ready to Choose Speakers
A very long time ago, in this very galaxy, on this very planet, a column of advice on audio equipment was written. It was written by Harry Pearson, then the editor of The Absolute Sound. For those not aware, The Absolute Sound is perhaps the most advanced audio magazine ever made available on the planet.
The reason for this advanced status is that the people involved with the magazine put forth every effort to be honest, fair, and, when biased, tell you what their biases were. They also had the audacity to judge equipment not against other equipment, but against the ABSOLUTE reference - live music.
There is no better advice than what was given in that column for choosing any audio device in your system. When choosing, compare the output to actual musical performance. Listen for the sound balance, listen for timbre of instruments, and listen to things that are not already changed by electronics.
It is impossible to compare one electric guitar to another objectively in regards to sound. There are so many things in the chain to reproduction that it would become impossible to make a valid comparison, or ferret out the differences mentally. So it is with anything amplified.
Listen to live unamplified music. Listen to the weight of the bass, the feel of any drums, the bite of the brass, the gentle trill of a flute or piccolo.
Then listen to the same type of music using several different speakers. Always use the same electronics. There are differences in electronics, but they tend to be much smaller than those in the last part of the chain. Remember that accuracy is what should be the goal, not excitement or exaggeration. Excitement or exaggeration soon produces listening fatigue, which is not something you want after paying for something intended to last for quite some time.
Happy listening. You might find that what you need is actually less money than what you thought you wanted.
July 30th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Thanks, that was a very sound advice.
Never thought about it but it is of course logical…
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