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I'm happy your wealthy older male friends have found a way to waste money that enables them to play the status game and bond. No really, it sounds totally harml

I'm happy your wealthy older male friends have found a way to waste money that enables them to play the status game and bond. No really, it sounds totally harmless. The problem is, for the rest of us, who just want to buy decent audio equipment and don't have lots of disposable wealth, their hobby fills the space with so much noise. Try searching for reviews of a pair of decent bookshelf speakers. Even add the word "budget" to your search. You'll get all these WhatHiFi style mags who are also playing this inscrutable status game trying to convince you that you'll need to spend thousands of dollars on speakers, even budget speakers. And they're experts so of course most people believe them. The reality is that once you go over a few hundred dollars for small home speakers you'll get massively diminishing returns. I would say basically zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars. You should spend money on furnishings to make the space sound better instead.

JohnBooty 4y ago
The problem is, for the rest of us, who just want to buy decent audio equipment and don't have lots of disposable wealth, their hobby fills the space with so much noise Amen. Soooo much noise. While not perfect, and while they don't provide as much objective data as I'd like, I have always sound Wirecutter's coverage of audio equipment to be of a very high caliber. No snake oil. On the hobbyist side of things Erin's Audio Corner and Audio Science Review have some great data driven reviews. I would say basically zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars Wow! That's a spicy take. Are we assuming that these theoretical speakers will be properly crossed over to a subwoofer or two, and properly EQ'd? If so, then yeah, I think I'm almost on board with you. My main system is basically a pair of < $500 JBL studio monitors crossed over to a couple of subs. If not, then bass and total output are definitely going to be lacking with that $500 system. Most $500 small, commercial speakers are going to struggle to hit 40hz with any kind of authority. Another thing that a lot of speakers get wrong is off-axis performance. Most of the sound we hear is reflected so it helps if speakers are doing the right thing in as wide of a cone as possible. Paying more tends to get you better performance in this regard but it's a rather weak correlation.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  Well, one can build damn good top tier quality speakers for $1500 per easily. It takes knowhow of course to design (but there's literature) and tune it, so feel free to charge double. Anything beyond that is brand and greed with minimal returns, unless it's a truly exotic design which may not necessarily be better. (Ribbon speakers, electrostatic, isodynamic...)
- kevviiinn 4y ago
  Audio Science Review has a good database of reviews with a ton of measurements https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  >bass and total output are definitely going to be lacking with that $500 system Definitely. OP was talking about bookshelves. Personally I'd definitely want a sub to go with any bookshelf speaker. >Most of the sound we hear is reflected so it helps if speakers are doing the right thing in as wide of a cone as possible. Paying more tends to get you better performance in this regard but it's a rather weak correlation. There's differing opinions/preferences on that, and what you might prefer will also depend on the room size. What experts generally do agree on is that the dropoff should be smooth with no peaks or resonances off-axis. The classic examples I'm aware of are Revel vs Kef. Revel aims for wider dispersion than Kef but other than that, they're pretty similar in terms of specs, both are very linear on-axis with a smooth dropoff.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    A lot of bookshelves get you meaningful response down to ~40hz or a little below with the help of some boundary reinforcement, which is enough for a lot of people and/or music. The number of subwoofers I own has become a running joke between my brother and I, so I don't need to be sold on their value but they definitely add bulk, cost and complexity so I never want newcomers thinking they absolutely need them to have fun in this hobby.
    - 4y ago
syntheweave 4y ago
It's a relatively straightforward dichotomy in this instance: either get the most popular consumer option(because then you are getting something exactly as shitty as everyone else), or get something professional music producers are using(because they have sunk in the effort to have a precise, neutral setup that lets them find every error, and definitionally, that means that you aren't getting much of a practical improvement with audio fairy dust - not one that you couldn't achieve with a bit of EQ or "enhancement" DSP). This kind of dichotomy often occurs throughout tech product categories: sometimes you want the consumer thing that has optimized its defaults to mid-market taste, other times you want an unbiased, configurable professional tool. Rarely do you want a hybrid of both.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I almost always want something in between those two. Electronics aimed at consumers tend to be unacceptably awful, but I rarely need something actually high-end.
yread 4y ago
Get the D12. It has a high wife-approval-factor
piva00 4y ago
WhatHiFi is not the most egregious case, they put out a lot of fluff with higher-priced speakers but also give pretty decent reviews of more budget options. I found out about Audio Pro through some WhatHiFi-esque publication, checked WhatHiFi's reviews and those were raving about Audio Pro's speakers even though they are pretty inexpensive relative to the whole audiophile environment.
davidhyde 4y ago
Just buy a pair of KRK 5 studio monitors and be done with it. They are ugly as sin and a little on the large side but they are excellent things. Built-in amp and they turn themselves off when no audio is playing. Repairable too.
- freedomben 4y ago
  is there any benefit to getting the 7 inch or 8 inch?
  - davidhyde 4y ago
    I would imagine that you would get deeper bass from the larger models but I found the bass to be nice and tight with the 5 inch woofers and low enough for me. I think that anything over 5 inches would be too overkill for a living room. I am aware that studio monitors are meant for studios and not living rooms but I really like the flat response. Can’t stand boomy speakers with exaggerated tweeters.
- munificent 4y ago
  I wouldn't recommend audio monitors for casual listening. That's not what they're designed for: they're for production. It would be like lighting your living room with shop floor lighting. Yes, it will fully illuminate every square inch of the room so that you can see every speck of dust on the carpet, but that doesn't mean it will make it look good.
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    I've never appreciated that argument. Colored speakers will color anything you play through them. Possibly that means that some genres or particular albums could sound better, but the flipside of that is that others will sound worse. That's not what I want, since you never know how a particular album might be mixed. I want to have the widest range of "sounding good". Maybe if I wanted to have multiple speaker setups in the living room for different genres, but otherwise... If you're not aiming for accuracy, then what are you aiming for?
brianmcc 4y ago
I was literally about to write this same comment, more or less, so will just upvote you instead. I really truly want to objectively know whether the £X,000 I might commit to an "upgrade" is actually an upgrade, even if "objectively" in fact means just "subjectively by a clear majority of a large ish sample". Obviously any serious purchase needs a personal listening audition first, but I want to know I'm not wasting time by even shortlisting certain candidates. Otherwise it's - where to even start from literally hundreds of amps and speakers?
op00to 4y ago
Agree on zero return over $500 or so! If your point isn't to spend money on "cosmetics", any cheap bookshelf stereo system is more than good enough. That said, it's ok to blow your money on whatever someone wants. We don't need to judge others for doing what they want, it comes off as jealousy.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > We don't need to judge others for doing what they want, it comes off as jealousy. I agree that you "shouldn't yuck someone else's yum" -- but I don't think it comes off as jealousy. Accusations of jealousy always come off (to me, anyway), as a ridiculous position taken by people who feel defensive but have no defense.
  - op00to 4y ago
    I like the "shouldnt yuck a yum"! Thanks for that!
JohnFen 4y ago
> their hobby fills the space with so much noise Oh, man, this is so true. I recently bought some audio gear. I wasn't going for "cheap" as much as "good value" -- but it was extremely difficult to figure out what's good and what's not, mostly because the hobbyist crowd (where I would expect to find out the ground truth) generates so much noise. In the end, I got a decent recommendation here on HN and was very happy with it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
brokenmachine 4y ago
>their hobby fills the space with so much noise 100%. But the good news is that speakers have never been better or cheaper, and there's more good measurements of speakers out there than ever. For $500 you can get better speakers than you ever could, if you ignore the audiofool noise. Also the electronics are much better as well. Room calibration makes a huge difference, Dirac and Audyssey are great. >zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars For me, the tipping point is around $2k for speakers. I aim for measurable accuracy when I'm looking for speakers. I mean, if you don't care about accuracy, then what are you buying? There are measurable (and audible) differences up until $2k. After that in most cases it's aesthetics, questionable "sound signatures", and ridiculously overpriced and useless stands. I agree the room should be treated, no matter what speakers you're using.

JohnBooty 4y ago

The problem is, for the rest of us, who just want to buy decent audio equipment and don't have lots of disposable wealth, their hobby fills the space with so much noise Amen. Soooo much noise. While not perfect, and while they don't provide as much objective data as I'd like, I have always sound Wirecutter's coverage of audio equipment to be of a very high caliber. No snake oil. On the hobbyist side of things Erin's Audio Corner and Audio Science Review have some great data driven reviews. I would say basically zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars Wow! That's a spicy take. Are we assuming that these theoretical speakers will be properly crossed over to a subwoofer or two, and properly EQ'd? If so, then yeah, I think I'm almost on board with you. My main system is basically a pair of < $500 JBL studio monitors crossed over to a couple of subs. If not, then bass and total output are definitely going to be lacking with that $500 system. Most $500 small, commercial speakers are going to struggle to hit 40hz with any kind of authority. Another thing that a lot of speakers get wrong is off-axis performance. Most of the sound we hear is reflected so it helps if speakers are doing the right thing in as wide of a cone as possible. Paying more tends to get you better performance in this regard but it's a rather weak correlation.

AstralStorm 4y ago
Well, one can build damn good top tier quality speakers for $1500 per easily. It takes knowhow of course to design (but there's literature) and tune it, so feel free to charge double. Anything beyond that is brand and greed with minimal returns, unless it's a truly exotic design which may not necessarily be better. (Ribbon speakers, electrostatic, isodynamic...)
kevviiinn 4y ago
Audio Science Review has a good database of reviews with a ton of measurements https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php
brokenmachine 4y ago
>bass and total output are definitely going to be lacking with that $500 system Definitely. OP was talking about bookshelves. Personally I'd definitely want a sub to go with any bookshelf speaker. >Most of the sound we hear is reflected so it helps if speakers are doing the right thing in as wide of a cone as possible. Paying more tends to get you better performance in this regard but it's a rather weak correlation. There's differing opinions/preferences on that, and what you might prefer will also depend on the room size. What experts generally do agree on is that the dropoff should be smooth with no peaks or resonances off-axis. The classic examples I'm aware of are Revel vs Kef. Revel aims for wider dispersion than Kef but other than that, they're pretty similar in terms of specs, both are very linear on-axis with a smooth dropoff.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  A lot of bookshelves get you meaningful response down to ~40hz or a little below with the help of some boundary reinforcement, which is enough for a lot of people and/or music. The number of subwoofers I own has become a running joke between my brother and I, so I don't need to be sold on their value but they definitely add bulk, cost and complexity so I never want newcomers thinking they absolutely need them to have fun in this hobby.
  - 4y ago

syntheweave 4y ago

It's a relatively straightforward dichotomy in this instance: either get the most popular consumer option(because then you are getting something exactly as shitty as everyone else), or get something professional music producers are using(because they have sunk in the effort to have a precise, neutral setup that lets them find every error, and definitionally, that means that you aren't getting much of a practical improvement with audio fairy dust - not one that you couldn't achieve with a bit of EQ or "enhancement" DSP). This kind of dichotomy often occurs throughout tech product categories: sometimes you want the consumer thing that has optimized its defaults to mid-market taste, other times you want an unbiased, configurable professional tool. Rarely do you want a hybrid of both.

JohnFen 4y ago
I almost always want something in between those two. Electronics aimed at consumers tend to be unacceptably awful, but I rarely need something actually high-end.

yread 4y ago

Get the D12. It has a high wife-approval-factor

piva00 4y ago

WhatHiFi is not the most egregious case, they put out a lot of fluff with higher-priced speakers but also give pretty decent reviews of more budget options. I found out about Audio Pro through some WhatHiFi-esque publication, checked WhatHiFi's reviews and those were raving about Audio Pro's speakers even though they are pretty inexpensive relative to the whole audiophile environment.

davidhyde 4y ago

Just buy a pair of KRK 5 studio monitors and be done with it. They are ugly as sin and a little on the large side but they are excellent things. Built-in amp and they turn themselves off when no audio is playing. Repairable too.

freedomben 4y ago
is there any benefit to getting the 7 inch or 8 inch?
- davidhyde 4y ago
  I would imagine that you would get deeper bass from the larger models but I found the bass to be nice and tight with the 5 inch woofers and low enough for me. I think that anything over 5 inches would be too overkill for a living room. I am aware that studio monitors are meant for studios and not living rooms but I really like the flat response. Can’t stand boomy speakers with exaggerated tweeters.
munificent 4y ago
I wouldn't recommend audio monitors for casual listening. That's not what they're designed for: they're for production. It would be like lighting your living room with shop floor lighting. Yes, it will fully illuminate every square inch of the room so that you can see every speck of dust on the carpet, but that doesn't mean it will make it look good.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  I've never appreciated that argument. Colored speakers will color anything you play through them. Possibly that means that some genres or particular albums could sound better, but the flipside of that is that others will sound worse. That's not what I want, since you never know how a particular album might be mixed. I want to have the widest range of "sounding good". Maybe if I wanted to have multiple speaker setups in the living room for different genres, but otherwise... If you're not aiming for accuracy, then what are you aiming for?

brianmcc 4y ago

I was literally about to write this same comment, more or less, so will just upvote you instead. I really truly want to objectively know whether the £X,000 I might commit to an "upgrade" is actually an upgrade, even if "objectively" in fact means just "subjectively by a clear majority of a large ish sample". Obviously any serious purchase needs a personal listening audition first, but I want to know I'm not wasting time by even shortlisting certain candidates. Otherwise it's - where to even start from literally hundreds of amps and speakers?

op00to 4y ago

Agree on zero return over $500 or so! If your point isn't to spend money on "cosmetics", any cheap bookshelf stereo system is more than good enough. That said, it's ok to blow your money on whatever someone wants. We don't need to judge others for doing what they want, it comes off as jealousy.

JohnFen 4y ago
> We don't need to judge others for doing what they want, it comes off as jealousy. I agree that you "shouldn't yuck someone else's yum" -- but I don't think it comes off as jealousy. Accusations of jealousy always come off (to me, anyway), as a ridiculous position taken by people who feel defensive but have no defense.
- op00to 4y ago
  I like the "shouldnt yuck a yum"! Thanks for that!

JohnFen 4y ago

> their hobby fills the space with so much noise Oh, man, this is so true. I recently bought some audio gear. I wasn't going for "cheap" as much as "good value" -- but it was extremely difficult to figure out what's good and what's not, mostly because the hobbyist crowd (where I would expect to find out the ground truth) generates so much noise. In the end, I got a decent recommendation here on HN and was very happy with it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

brokenmachine 4y ago

>their hobby fills the space with so much noise 100%. But the good news is that speakers have never been better or cheaper, and there's more good measurements of speakers out there than ever. For $500 you can get better speakers than you ever could, if you ignore the audiofool noise. Also the electronics are much better as well. Room calibration makes a huge difference, Dirac and Audyssey are great. >zero return in fact between 500 and 10,000 dollars For me, the tipping point is around $2k for speakers. I aim for measurable accuracy when I'm looking for speakers. I mean, if you don't care about accuracy, then what are you buying? There are measurable (and audible) differences up until $2k. After that in most cases it's aesthetics, questionable "sound signatures", and ridiculously overpriced and useless stands. I agree the room should be treated, no matter what speakers you're using.