help needed finding a green needle or tl

[chrisb]

lol, I know this is an old thread, but are you implying that if you made speakers with say a pair of CSS EL70, you'd have to pay more than $5000 to get something better?

the quote was:

"it's been almost 20yrs since I've bought a commercial speaker ( other than automotive), and even though I'm now in a financial position to be able to afford some of the entry level products at my local audio emporium, there are no single driver models, and none for less than $5000/pr that I find captivating enough to try to justify"

a short history; I've been feeding this addiction for over 45yrs, and during the "glory daze" of the mid 70/80s must have changed at least one component of my system within every few months- if you do the math, that means I listened to and owned a $hite load of gear - mostly mainstream commercial stuff in what would now be classified as "upper-mid fi"

After changing jobs in 1991( working at the aforementioned emporium), I acquired an all Linn system - LP12/Intek integrated amp / Keilidh MTM towers. After about 2 years, as "technically wonderful" as it might have been, I found this system so emotionally un-involving (yes even before breaking down and buying a CD player) that it went for months at a time without serious listening - just FM background radio. Then I bought a tube power amp, and built my first pair of speakers - a simple 2-way Vifa Daline, and accidentally renewed an old acquaintance with another ex-pat of same audio emporium. The rest is well documented .

On any given day I could visit the old store and within 5 minutes be demonstrated a system worth at least the current market value of my house (let's say mid $400K range) - but I almost always find the smallest little 2-way and low powered tube amp to be most emotionally satisfying.

Just me I guess.

Something odd I've never thought about. After looking at this forum, I realize I've never seen a pair of full range 20w per channel speakers in a large cabinet in an audio store.

For a lot of reasons, commercial single driver / full range systems are rarely found in most bricks and mortar retailers these days - but not necessarily due to size or price alone. Some of the large multi-ways / planars, ESLs etc easily occupy as much floor/room space and cost as much to ship as a large BLH.

What surprises me about DIY speakers is I saw a video comparing an obvious self-made pair of full range speakers to a pair of Denon 3-way and someone commented the full range speakers sounded better. Then another video by someone saying he bought an old pair of Boston Acoustics speakers that had inferior crossovers. And another person I think here that bought a pair of old Radio Shack speakers with Fostex drivers but that the cabinet could have been better. Even if people say DIY speakers are complicated, I'm more willing now to try it after seeing all this.

watching videos of other folks listening to gear you haven't heard yourself won't predict what you might like

time to get wet - even if you start at the shallow end - hell some of us are happy to paddle around in the kiddie pool, and just smile at the folks diving off the 3 meter board