First, I wanted to thank everyone for your replies. I appreciate the information shared as it brings to mind things that are easily forgotten when in the weeds of searching and reading about so many different speakers.
I understand that listening is a very subjective thing. Perhaps part of it is I have always been very sensitive hearing wise. When I was stationed in England, I swore I kept hearing this high freq beep every so often, but could not for the life of me figure out where it was coming from. As I was outprocessing at the end of my tour, I was speaking with the dorm manager. I made a mention of the annoying beep and he laughed. He told me congratulations, you are one in 16,000 people that can hear it. Apparently the smoke detectors in the rooms, have a beep when they do a self power check - the beep was programmed to be at a very high frequency that people typically don't hear. Lucky me lol. Also I always thought it was funny that when pulling into the foot of my Dad's driveway I can always tell if the TV is on by the high pitched humming noise it makes. Guess I am just weird.
I fully intend on this not being my last speaker. The reason I am trying to go with a known design is so I can 1: Enjoy the process of making my own speaker, take my time and really get an understanding of what each part is etc. 2. Not have to worry about the planning as much as the design part is done.
But - I do want to build a speaker I will enjoy listening to for a while. I also want to make sure that the speaker I build has characteristics that lend itself well to use in the manner in which I intend to use it. It doesn't make sense to me to go out and build a tri amp speaker that requires 1500 watts rms, and takes up half my room. (For the record, Nelson Pass's website shows a loudspeaker that does just that. Thing is massive.) From my novice understanding, many things can be tweaked to help a speaker sound better in a room - various methods of acoustic treatment, placement, eq etc, and these can help me fine tune the sound to better suit my preferences and my listening area.
I was speaking with my brother a few weeks ago when he was over at our house. My wife was laughing about the amount of research I do before any major purchase. My brother smiled as he is the same way, but for slightly different reasons. She thought I researched so much, because I wanted to understand everything about the product. I replied no- not really. I wish I didn't know half the things I know about sofas, mattresses, lawn mowers, string trimmers (All things we have needed in the past year or so.) And the reasons I needed to know certain information was
1. Lets say there are 3 tiers to everything in life. Budget level, mid tier, and top tier. I cannot afford top tier. My budget for things is typically right at the line of budget tier, and mid tier. The difficulty in this placement is that there are some budget tier items, that share great things from mid tier models, so you get the opportunity to get a more mid tier product, but at a budget level price. Same goes for mid tier. A lower end mid tier product can sometimes be a great buy, and be a step up from the budget tier.
2. Specs, while not always a complete picture, are capable of showing a glimpse of the quality to a product. If a sofa has a Leggett and Platt reclining mechanism, and 2.0 foam in Dacron encasement- those are indicators of a quality sofa. It doesn't mean its a great sofa- moreso an indicator of its level of quality due to the quality parts used in its construction.
3. The last reason research has proven to be useful is the never ending BS of re-branding. Nothing irks me more than finding out two products are the exact same product internally - but have different names on the front and thus- two completely different prices. I do not think its right to charge someone 5 times more for a product simply because of the brand. There have been countless times in researching a product that I find a lower priced model that has exactly the same internals, but is sold under a different name elsewhere for much less. This happens a lot in the audio field especially. Numerous drivers that have the same specs, built on the same manufacturing line in China, but are priced differently.
It is for these reasons I have researched so much, and hopefully, as I begin to hear more speakers, listen to people's systems, I will have a better understanding of the components that reproduce sound in a way I enjoy. Hopefully, I will be able to discern quality from junk by both appearance of components and construction quality, and be more poised to listen to the music, instead of asking tons of questions while the music is playing lol. Sure I could but the flatpack for Overnight Sensations today, build them in a day and be listening tomorrow. But I would rather spend a bit more, build a speaker with a bit more capability to maximize this stage of my speaker building career. (Luckily I have a big attic to store speakers)
I would love the opportunity to hear people's systems on here. Those plutos look really amazing. I have always wanted to hear a set of horn speakers to see what they are all about. Can't wait to hear those LX Mini's. Linkwitz has quite an amazing reputation. I would love to hear as system driven by a 6 watt tube amp that blows my mind in sound. Hopefully in time I will. Hopefully as time progresses I will be able to hear more systems and determine what the next speaker build will be.
Thanks again for all the input. Really appreciate it.
Hope to see some of you this weekend!
Jeff
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