Very eloquently put Doc, thanks very much. You've convinced me. However, it does beg the question - what are the 95% of the population who can't afford
any model from the B&W 800 series to do? Listen to crap speakers for the rest of our lives, or win a lottery?
If the crossovers in the Studios are such a problem and it was quite apparent to you, why would a supposedly competent company like Paradigm make such errors/compromises?
I wouldn't have thought that correctly implementing the crossovers would be any more costly. It also contradicts the almost universal praise the Studios receive in this forum. Does it mean that fans are talking out their butts? Or, for the price, are they great speakers? The B&Ws were almost twice the price of the Paradigms. Were they twice as good? That may not be a fair question, as it's all down to the laws of diminishing returns.
Regular folk are forced to make compromises when it comes to speaker selection. Price and availability in one's local market (ID, which has its own disadvantages, notwithstanding) are probably the first two factors in filtering out possible candidates. That's the easy part. Those decisions are pretty much made for you.
Then comes the hard part...
You have to decide whether the reviews, which are invariably gushing with praise (Audioholics excepted!), are to be trusted. However, we are forced to rely, at least somewhat, on "expert" reviews, because the reviewers are supposed to have vast experience and expertise in the field. "Customer" reviews are pretty much useless which, to Audioholics, should be obvious. I can post that the speakers I bought are wonderful. But, who am I and what makes me an expert? Then there are the possible candidates that never get professionally reviewed. How is one to regard those models?
Run the gauntlet of dealers pushing their products and lambasting their competitors.
Listen to different speakers, in different listening rooms, at different times. I'm pretty certain that no
normal person can accurately compare speakers in such a manner. I know
I can't.
In home trials? Who has time (or space!) to compare 3 or 4 different pairs of speakers in their living rooms (how many of us have dedicated listening rooms?) at the same time? (I've done it and
still isn't very easy to decide). Then, return all the losers to the dealers and get their deposits back.
Decide if you can justify paying
a bit more for something that's a
bit better. It's agonizing, I tells ya!
Then, you make your decision, show off your new pride and joy, then somebody says: "Those are crap speakers!" It sometimes happens in this forum.
I think most people understand that they have to make compromises when it comes to purchasing speakers. They just want to know that,
for the money, they are unlikely to find much better. In the end, it all boils down to money. Knowing what the best speaker is in absolute terms, is not of great value to the vast majority of us. We want to get the absolute best speaker we can afford.