11-16-2012, 11:15 PM
Dennis S wrote:
Can one of y'all describe in words what the $50,000 speakers sounded like?
The best that I can do is to say that once, at the CES in Las Vegas, I walked into a dimly lit room where a grand piano was placed in a soft spotlight. On both sides of the piano were these cloth-covered tubes, roughly 30" in diameter, that almost reached the ceiling.
Piano music was being played and I could not tell whether the sound was coming from the piano or from a recording. There was no sense that the sound was coming from speakers.
It was absolutely flawless!
That's about the best that I can do to convey the pleasure of listening to the best of speaker technology. I would say that when you can't "hear" the speakers, you've heard perfection.
Nowadays, it's rare that you'll find a perfectly set up sound room where you can audition all the speakers in which you're interested.
The beauty of CES is that the high end speaker companies go out of their way to impress, so it's a rare treat. Although, going from room to room, wishing that you could afford to buy what you've fallen in love with, can be very depressing.
One year, a speaker company had a huge space, like an auditorium, and they were demoing $250,000 speakers. I don't remember being "that" impressed by anything but the price.
Unfortunately, the show is not open to the public.