I fully understand the confusion amongst those who don't own quality speakers, want to get better, but are hesitant to walk through the minefield that is the speaker marketplace. Any other ideas out there for improving the testing methodology?
An excellent summary of most of the major challenges of speaker shopping, GO-NAD (hee-hee). And yes, the "whatever sounds good to you" advice can be a bit simplistic. I think this advice can be problematic for someone that truly desires to invest in a worthy speaker upgrade, but has never really auditioned something in the range of "quality" in which they are looking. The upshot is that they may very well not be educated to know what really sounds the best to them. As a result, they may hear something that, on initial audition, seems pleasing, but which may, in reality, only be relatively more pleasing to other speakers they are auditioning at the time, with the source material they are auditioning with, etc. Furthermore, as most auditions are short, the problem of choosing a brighter sounding speaker (often appealing initially) that may become fatiguing after extended listening is a potential pitfall. Then there is the issue of the acoustics of the auditioning room vs the acoustics of the room where the new speakers will actually live...
Conversely, I think much of these pitfalls can be avoided with a bit of education and research and I do not think that acquiring that first pair (or set, in the case of surround sound) of decent speakers (upgrading from an HT-in-box or box store specials) has to be as harrowing an experience as your minefield metaphor depicts. Though it would be vastly preferable to be able to audition every speaker of interest in home for an extended period, I don't think this is a requirement in the execution of a successful upgrade from mid-fi to entry level hi-fi speakers. The main reason for this is market segmentation. Even among ID brands, there appears to be a consistent and discernible difference in quality in speakers which cost twice the price of others, more or less regardless of brand (which is particularly apparent for speaker pairs priced under $1000 due to the law of diminishing returns - a price point which is likely to be most popular with those looking to upgrade to something decent for the first time). This phenomenon has been plainly evident in speaker shootouts on this website.
With a bit of forethought into what one desires in a speaker, and research, one can have a fair degree of success in selecting speaker upgrades in the <$1000/pair range. A basic understanding of a few aspects of speaker design (IE, how soft dome tweeters generally sound smoother though less articulate than metal domes and whether someone's room is well damped to prevent undue reflections...), together with the weighing of feedback from various related online forums (staying away from forums on speaker manufacturer websites or "official"/owners threads on particular sites) and hopefully more than one professional review will more often than not produce favorable results. Any in-home auditions after that point is gravy (ie after narrowing down between 2 or 3 ID companies).
Are you guaranteed to get your absolute favorite speaker in the world in your price range? No - but you'll likely end up with something close. If not, you can always try again in a couple of years. (An advantage of going with something from a more popular company is the higher likelihood of decent resale value).
I think it would be much more challenging trying to upgrade from an already decent set of speakers to something more high end, due to reduced availability for auditioning, but mostly to the law of diminishing returns and the much more subtle (or even mystical
) improvement of, say, $4000 speakers over a $2000 pair - though I admittedly have very little experience with speakers in this price range.
Granted, this point of view may be biased. Over the course of this summer (and most of the spring) I sought out my first decent set of speakers (<$1000), upgrading from a mishmash of cheap Polk Audio bookshelves (box store specials) and bottom of the line 8-year old Paradigms. Long story short, I received the speakers two weeks ago and have been very pleased so far - which, in the final analysis, is really all that matters.