... My personal take on those specific speakers is that even if they give it to me for free, I would only take the delivery till my garage. I couldn't and wouldn't bring it inside my house. Besides I am not sure if my girlfriend would want them in but apart from what my girlfriend might think , I wouldn't want them inside my house as they are clunky, ugly and unnecessarily big to me ...
See that's the interesting part because better in sound is so subjective. They might sound better (infact I am sure they do sound better than any speaker out there according to the ebay personal selling it) but you may not like it though
I don't know what the manufacturer of those speaker was thinking. Good luck to higher-fi in trying to sell them but no idiot on this earth anyway would buy it. I think they are better off selling them in parts or they could wait another 20 years and still not sell them. Like that video for dominator, bigger isn't necessarily better lol. Common even for cruise ships where they might have an application, I can still think of better and more efficient alternatives like
these,
these, or
these all still less than $5000 and will smoke the vanilla out of those clunkers being sold by higherfi.
You have judged them to be "clunkers." Do you know what they sound like? If not, how can you say that about them?
Sure, they are not attractive, but beauty and good sound are far from the same thing.
Now, you are right that there is a good deal about the sound that is subjective. But let us
pretend (contrary to actual fact), for a moment, that the speakers in question have a frequency response of 10Hz-50kHz +/-1dB, with no more than 0.1% THD from 10Hz-50kHz at any volume up to 130db @ 1 meter, and have smooth dispersion/off axis curves, in accordance with the principles of good performance discussed at:
http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20111002/5276.pdf
http://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20111002/5270.pdf
And let us further suppose that in double blind listening tests, the majority of people subjectively prefer the sound of these speakers to any other speaker.
Now, would you be willing to put up with the looks and size and weight of those speakers if they had the above qualities? I certainly would, though I still would not buy them at the price listed, as I lack the funds for that.
Now, again, this is only pretend, as I have no idea what their performance actually is. But the point is that the looks and size and weight are not the primary considerations for many of us.
In my case, for my main two channel system, I went from these speakers (the
Aurum Cantus Leisure 2SE in poplar), which look much better in person than in the picture:
(The picture is the right color, but it is of the inferior "international" version instead of the superior original U.S. version that I have.)
to
these speakers:
which do not look better in person than in the picture. I went from a small, gorgeous speaker, that is relatively easy in its placement requirements, easy in its impedance and sensitivity requirements, and that sound extremely good (they are easily the second best sounding speakers I have ever owned), to speakers that are bigger, much less attractive, much more placement sensitive, much more difficult to drive (being 3 ohms nominally), that take up much more space than their size indicates (as they should be placed several feet from the rear wall). Not only are the Apogees far less attractive than the Aurum Cantus speakers, they require prominent placement in a room to sound right, so one gets the full impact of how much less attractive they are. I did that because they sound better. I would be willing to go to even more inconvenient speakers for better sound.
Obviously, there are limits, as they must physically fit inside my home and it must be possible for me to also afford an amplifier that can adequately drive them. But I have speakers for the sound they make, not as decorations in my room.
My wife tolerates the looks of the Apogee speakers because they sound better. But she misses the looks of the Aurum Cantus speakers very much, and frankly, so do I. She would be willing to put up with their merely excellent sound for their gorgeous appearance and have them instead of the superior sounding Apogee speakers that are far less attractive, but I want superior sound more than I want beautiful speakers.
For my home theater, where I require smaller speakers than the Apogees, I still use the Aurum Cantus speakers, and have no intention of upgrading them. There, however, I have dealt with the bass limitations (-3dB point of 50Hz for the U.S. version of the speakers) by using two
SVS CS-Ultra subwoofers, so the sound is better than just a pair of the Leisure 2SEm for a two channel system. And, of course, the bass goes deeper than with my two channel system with the Apogee speakers, so neither system is better in every way.
Aside from the crazy price for the Westlake speakers that most people cannot afford, no matter how good they are, for many of us, the main thing is how they sound. If for you it is more important to have an attractive and easy to live with speaker than a speaker that sounds great, your choice of what speaker to have is likely to be far different from someone whose primary concern is sound quality. On the other hand, you could go with some Aurum Cantus speakers that sound great and are absolutely gorgeous; someone wanting both good sound and good looks might well settle on them. But better sound is possible, if one is willing to give up on looks and ease of use.
