23-Jan-2023, 21:49
Can big speakers and muscle amps sound better than small speakers and smaller amps? That's the real question the respondent proposes.
The answer, of course, is that they can sound better but that doesn't mean that they always sound better. There are big speaker and muscle amp combinations that may not sound better than a 2 way stand mount and a smaller amp.
The more interesting question is why a genuine audiophile might want to choose the Diablo Utopias and a Devialet amp and there's an obvious and very valid answer: room size. If you want to "unleash" high quality big speakers and really hear them at their best you need a really big room and most people don't have a room that size. In a more modest room the Diablo Utopias and a Devialet could not only sound wonderful but sound better than whatever ams and speakers the respondent thinks are great.
And what the hell is wrong with an audiophile wanting to listen to music in his living room? Most audiophiles don't have dedicated rooms for their systems.
The respondent may be a troll or he may not. I think he's ignorant, ignorant in the sense of being unaware of what can be achieved in living room sized spaces with high quality small speakers and more modest sized amplifiers. I'd guess he's heard some good big speakers with a powerful amp in a room larger than a living room and been impressed then gone home to a smaller system in a smaller room and reached the conclusion that achieving great sound requires big speakers, really powerful amps, and a large room.
I'm a member of a local audio club who hold their meetings in members' homes. Over 17 years of membership and listening to welly over a hundred wildly different systems in the home of the system owner, I can think of only 7 systems other than mine that were in dedicated listening rooms, the rest were in living rooms. Some of the living rooms delivered better quality sound than some of the dedicated rooms. I can only think of 3 systems that I would think of as being in very large rooms. Only 1 of those systems was in a dedicated listening room, 1 was in the "living room" part of a very large open plan area, much larger than any of the dedicated listening rooms, and the other was essentially in a large living room open to the level above it so while the floor dimensions were comparable to a larger than average living room, the height of the room was a bit over the height of 2 normal rooms making g it a very large space in terms of volume when it comes to rooms in a home. The sound of all of those 3 systems was extremely good and large spaces can deliver some sonic benefits you can't get in the average living room but I've heard smaller, more modest systems produce extremely good sound in normal living rooms, rooms in which the systems that worked well in those large rooms would have been disasters.
Audiophiles make the most of the room they've got, whether it's a big room or a small room. They choose speakers that suit the room and they choose amps that suit the speakers. They also don't turn their noses up at someone who is using stand mount 2 way speakers in a living room with an amp that's capable of driving the speakers well in that room but which would fall short if it were used to power more demanding speakers in a larger space. Do a great job of matching the system to the room and you have a marriage made in heaven but different rooms require different partners (systems) and produce a different marriage.
As I said, I think the respondent is ignorant but we all start out as ignorant. Ignorance is a sign of a lack of experience. Hopefully we lose that ignorance as we develop more experience. The respondent in this case needs to find ways of listening to great sounding systems in living rooms, and probably to a few of the sorts of systems he thinks are great which are not delivering great quality sound, either because they're in too small a space or because they're in a big enough space but have been set up badly. That's the sort of experience that starts to teach you that getting great sound doesn't have a "one size fits all" solution.
Don't worry about comments like that. Just keep working on getting the best out of the system you've got in the space you've got. And don't worry about criticisms of your own system. I've yet to see 2 people choose the same system. Everyone chooses different systems because we all have slightly different tastes in sound. As long as the sound of your own system is giving you pleasure, you're doing the right thing. We set up audio systems in order to get pleasure from them so your system is supposed to make you happy, it doesn't have to make everyone happy and, in fact, it can't make everyone happy. I've yet to hear a system that someone other than its owner didn't think was deficient in some respect and system owners are quite capable of finding deficiencies in their own systems anyway. We're all still chasing something a little better. than what we've got.
The answer, of course, is that they can sound better but that doesn't mean that they always sound better. There are big speaker and muscle amp combinations that may not sound better than a 2 way stand mount and a smaller amp.
The more interesting question is why a genuine audiophile might want to choose the Diablo Utopias and a Devialet amp and there's an obvious and very valid answer: room size. If you want to "unleash" high quality big speakers and really hear them at their best you need a really big room and most people don't have a room that size. In a more modest room the Diablo Utopias and a Devialet could not only sound wonderful but sound better than whatever ams and speakers the respondent thinks are great.
And what the hell is wrong with an audiophile wanting to listen to music in his living room? Most audiophiles don't have dedicated rooms for their systems.
The respondent may be a troll or he may not. I think he's ignorant, ignorant in the sense of being unaware of what can be achieved in living room sized spaces with high quality small speakers and more modest sized amplifiers. I'd guess he's heard some good big speakers with a powerful amp in a room larger than a living room and been impressed then gone home to a smaller system in a smaller room and reached the conclusion that achieving great sound requires big speakers, really powerful amps, and a large room.
I'm a member of a local audio club who hold their meetings in members' homes. Over 17 years of membership and listening to welly over a hundred wildly different systems in the home of the system owner, I can think of only 7 systems other than mine that were in dedicated listening rooms, the rest were in living rooms. Some of the living rooms delivered better quality sound than some of the dedicated rooms. I can only think of 3 systems that I would think of as being in very large rooms. Only 1 of those systems was in a dedicated listening room, 1 was in the "living room" part of a very large open plan area, much larger than any of the dedicated listening rooms, and the other was essentially in a large living room open to the level above it so while the floor dimensions were comparable to a larger than average living room, the height of the room was a bit over the height of 2 normal rooms making g it a very large space in terms of volume when it comes to rooms in a home. The sound of all of those 3 systems was extremely good and large spaces can deliver some sonic benefits you can't get in the average living room but I've heard smaller, more modest systems produce extremely good sound in normal living rooms, rooms in which the systems that worked well in those large rooms would have been disasters.
Audiophiles make the most of the room they've got, whether it's a big room or a small room. They choose speakers that suit the room and they choose amps that suit the speakers. They also don't turn their noses up at someone who is using stand mount 2 way speakers in a living room with an amp that's capable of driving the speakers well in that room but which would fall short if it were used to power more demanding speakers in a larger space. Do a great job of matching the system to the room and you have a marriage made in heaven but different rooms require different partners (systems) and produce a different marriage.
As I said, I think the respondent is ignorant but we all start out as ignorant. Ignorance is a sign of a lack of experience. Hopefully we lose that ignorance as we develop more experience. The respondent in this case needs to find ways of listening to great sounding systems in living rooms, and probably to a few of the sorts of systems he thinks are great which are not delivering great quality sound, either because they're in too small a space or because they're in a big enough space but have been set up badly. That's the sort of experience that starts to teach you that getting great sound doesn't have a "one size fits all" solution.
Don't worry about comments like that. Just keep working on getting the best out of the system you've got in the space you've got. And don't worry about criticisms of your own system. I've yet to see 2 people choose the same system. Everyone chooses different systems because we all have slightly different tastes in sound. As long as the sound of your own system is giving you pleasure, you're doing the right thing. We set up audio systems in order to get pleasure from them so your system is supposed to make you happy, it doesn't have to make everyone happy and, in fact, it can't make everyone happy. I've yet to hear a system that someone other than its owner didn't think was deficient in some respect and system owners are quite capable of finding deficiencies in their own systems anyway. We're all still chasing something a little better. than what we've got.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
