Owning Multiple Speakers Is Nice

[AcuDefTechGuy]

while i would love to make fun of you, ADTG (for your obvious sickness) - i think i may be in a similar boat here. i fell in love, unfortunately, with the new focal utopia line. which cost as much as ocelot lips gloves unfortunately. so as i pondered my future HT (way, WAY down the road), i was wondering if i could somehow swing even the cheapest of floorstanders - the viva, which i have heard, and love, and is $25,000 a pair

so, i have been browsing agon, and utopia's do show up every once in a while. but even used, probably out of my price range. should i someday ditch my salks, which i also love? and save for years, i mean we buy cars and that costs $25K right? ahh, probably all for naught.

except for... the little baby bookshelf utopia diablo. i have never heard these. and i have never owned bookshelf's. but they come up used on agon. and they are expensive, but do-able. and i own dual subs, so how much would i give up compared to the bigger floor standers? some reviews say it will get you a big piece of the bigger utopia's sound in a small package. i could fit them riggghhhht next to my salks in a HT, a simple cable change and presto! two speakers to switch between. and if they don't work out, back on agon they could go. maybe you're on to something here, accu....

I would definitely find a way to keep all the great speakers. Where there's a will, there's a way.

You would regret selling your Salk the minute you sell them.

It's really fun and enjoyable listening to different speakers. Highly recommended.

I know the P362 is dirt cheap and all, but I still find myself listening to them at times. Different speakers, different pleasures. Here, more is more and better.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Picture of the Phil3 in their new location.

 

[GranteedEV]

+1 to this thread.

I haven't had a receiver for the EMP towers now that they're upstairs.

Listening to the crystal clarity of the Philharmonics for a few weeks has been just heavenly, but it's made me question a few things about the EMPs. You know, things like their ability to be intelligible at low SPLs or avoid sibilance. I started getting some doubts if they were even all that great.

So today I went down to rona, grabbed some 12 awg 2 prong insulated copper wire, and I ran downstairs and carried the 70lb Fan Modded Tapco J2500 upstairs. I hooked the digital cable box directly to the big pro amp, and the pro amp to the unintelligible, sibilant speakers at 3A.M.

I smiled. All doubt gone. These speakers just sound so good.

Philharmonics just sound that much better.

But I think any sane person could live with those EMPs for the rest of their life.

 

[KEW]

Philharmonics just sound that much better.

But I think any sane person could live with those EMPs for the rest of their life.

Yeah, this is going pretty far OT, but sometimes I really question the sanity of this hobby of ours. As a much more extreme analogy:

I have an old Sharp boombox in the garage that is a big step down from any normal stereo. I guess it fits into TLS's rule "better to commit acts of omission than acts of comission". No pretense of high fidelity, but within its limitations, it has nicely balanced sound and I often catch myself thoroughly enjoying music on it. It makes me question why I spend time and money on expensive gear. Then I listen on my "good" stereo and remember why, but recognize it wouldn't be horrible to live with the boom box.

I think our minds are the most capable component in the audio stream. As long as there are no egregious acts of commission, whatever reaches our ears gets further filtered and enhanced to sound the way we expect it to! When we make the effort to listen to our systems instead of the music, we deactivate those filters.
All of us who grew up with LP's know our minds filtered out lots of snap, crackle, pop and rumble. Today, listening to a "non-pristine" album would be a horrible distraction from the music, but it wouldn't take long to (re)establish those filters.
However, I wonder if a sound engineer could tune out the "blemishes" as easily. They've spent so much time refining their ability to listen to the "system", it may be hard to just listen to the music on anything short of reference gear (and great recordings).

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

We all have our different insanity.

My in-laws spend $15K per year in travel to Europe or Asia or Australia or Africa. I think that is crazy. I would rather be in my lovely cozy house and spend only $10K on speakers. What a bargain. Spend the $4K in Cancun instead. A savings of $1K.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I haven't had a receiver for the EMP towers now that they're upstairs.

You'll have to do something about that. Now you can start looking for an upgrade for your current AVR and then move your current AVR upstairs.

 

[cschang]

We all have our different insanity.

My in-laws spend $15K per year in travel to Europe or Asia or Australia or Africa. I think that is crazy. I would rather be in my lovely cozy house and spend only $10K on speakers. What a bargain. Spend the $4K in Cancun instead. A savings of $1K.

Along those same lines, I have a friend that bought a motorhome for about $60K and uses it two weeks out of the year.

I'd rather put that money into a home theater and use it a lot more often than that!

 

[GranteedEV]

You'll have to do something about that. Now you can start looking for an upgrade for your current AVR and then move your current AVR upstairs.

I have the tapco amp running off of the rca outputs of the digital cable box. So They are making sound without a receiver =)

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Along those same lines, I have a friend that bought a motorhome for about $60K and uses it two weeks out of the year.

I'd rather put that money into a home theater and use it a lot more often than that!

Exactly. I used to be into cars. But eventually I thought, "Why do that when I spend about 20 minutes a day total inside my car?"

My brothers and sister would rather spend money on fancy luxury vehicles. The P362 is about as expenisve as they would ever spend on speakers. One of my colleagues just traded in her Lexus LX470 for a new Porsche Cayenne, which she will spend about 30 minutes inside total per day.

Everyone has his or her thing. Ours is audio. Others think we are stupid for spending more than $500 on this hobby. We all need a stress reliever.

So what if we have more than one set of speakers and amps?

 

[Irvrobinson]

We all have our different insanity.

My in-laws spend $15K per year in travel to Europe or Asia or Australia or Africa. I think that is crazy. I would rather be in my lovely cozy house and spend only $10K on speakers. What a bargain. Spend the $4K in Cancun instead. A savings of $1K.

Let's see... so far this year, $3K for Phil3s, $4K for a pair of 18.0 subs, and $9K or so for a pair of 802Ds. Yup, that adds to $10K. Not.

And the year is barely half over...

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Let's see... so far this year, $3K for Phil3s, $4K for a pair of 18.0 subs, and $9K or so for a pair of 802Ds. Yup, that adds to $10K. Not.

And the year is barely half over...

The Phil3 were like $3,700 (piano gloss + extras) + shipping, so about $3,900.

The Funk 18.0 are $4,200.

The 802D are $10,500.

But.....I promised I won't buy anymore........so, the average over the next 10 years will be substantially less than $10K/yr.

 

[KEW]

"But.....I promised I won't buy anymore"
- AcuDefTechGuy, July 2012

LOL - In a few years we'll refer to this as the "innocently naive" phase of your addiction!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

LOL - In a few years we'll refer to this as the "innocently naive" phase of your addiction!

I'm now on record.

Of course, if some amateur karaoke singers blow my P362, I just want to be clear that I'm allowed to replace the P362 with some high efficiency speakers.

 

[KEW]

I'm now on record.

Of course, if some amateur karaoke singers blow my P362, I just want to be clear that I'm allowed to replace the P362 with some high efficiency speakers.

Well, that's a given!

$170 P362 => $X0,000 high efficiency speakers

It is scarey to think your Salons cost like 100 times the price of the P362s!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Well, that's a given!

$170 P362 => $X0,000 high efficiency speakers

It is scarey to think your Salons cost like 100 times the price of the P362s!

The P363 retails for $300 each. The Salon2 retails for $11,000 each. So the Salon2 is 36 times more expensive.

The JBL Everest is like $30,000 each, so that would be 100 times more.

 

[Fowl]

The P363 retails for $300 each. The Salon2 retails for $11,000 each. So the Salon2 is 36 times more expensive.

The JBL Everest is like $30,000 each, so that would be 100 times more.

But is it 36 times better

 

[Irvrobinson]

But is it 36 times better

No, but there isn't any product improvement curve that's linear. It's the law of low-hanging fruit. Once you've picked the easy stuff it costs a lot more to go higher up the tree.

 

[Fowl]

No, but there isn't any product improvement curve that's linear. It's the law of low-hanging fruit. Once you've picked the easy stuff it costs a lot more to go higher up the tree.

Agreed, I have felt that law quite a few times.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Just bought the 802D Rosenut from my local dealer. Delivery scheduled for this Thursday.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Just bought the 802D Rosenut from my local dealer. Delivery scheduled for this Thursday.

Good for you. I hope they meet your expectations.