How good is your audio equipment?
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Which one for "default"? (Score:4, Insightful)
These days I go for whatever audio system came default with a thing. (car, TV, phone, etc)
Good enough for me.
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I've got an Onkyo surround sound receiver and psb speakers/sub
Paid about 100 bucks for it all at Goodwill, sounds at least as good as the 'audiophile' system I put a couple thousand dollars into back in the 80's
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sounds at least as good as the 'audiophile' system I put a couple thousand dollars into back in the 80's
Maybe your hearing has deteriorated since back in the 80's, and you can't tell the difference any more . . . ? This happens to everyone when they get older.
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...or hearing deteriorates after ~30 years of listening to loud music in their car ;)
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Do they sound better when you pay more for them?
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I've got an Onkyo surround sound receiver and psb speakers/sub. Paid about 100 bucks for it all at Goodwill, sounds at least as good as the 'audiophile' system I put a couple thousand dollars into back in the 80's
And that pretty much sums up the problem with this survey, it's not really "How good is your audio system" it's "How much money did you spend on your audio system". Based on actual measurements with test instruments (rather than golden-ears subjective wank), my $150 O2 beats $10,000 amps ($50,000, $100,000, the sky's the limit), which means to answer this survey I'd need an option to choose "super cheap, excellent performance". Since the survey equates cost with performance, there's no way to do this. Pe
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Lazy / efficient.
Careless / focused on what matters, not distracted by irrelevant trivia
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Anyone commenting here is guilty of being distracted by irrelevant trivia.
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Beta is the ultimate troll. My hat is off to the folks at Dice. Nice.
The quality doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
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Same here with my bone conduction analog (bah to implants for digital) hearing aid that is mono (can't hear what directions the audio is coming from). I do love to feel bass though. ;)
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Yep, tinnitus here as well. Too much time spent in data centers and firing weapons in the military. A portable device plugged into my almost 20 year old stereo works just fine for me.
[John]
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Um... Dubstep... (Score:2)
Cheap and sounds great! (Score:5, Insightful)
How about cheap and sounds great? Audiophile dick waving over system price is total bullshit when it comes to discernible quality.
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This. My sound system (a Frankenstein's Monster of two surround kits and fifty feet of lighting flex) sounds better than most "pro" systems I've ever heard. And that includes demo rooms in music stores.
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Assuming quality and price like that is not something I'd expect on \., especially considering the subjective question.
Never assume; it makes an ass of u and me.
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The difference between this 30 year old gear and newer stuff is that this is real rms. You can feel the room shake, yet you can still talk to each other.
I've been sold on Technics for years, too bad they went belly up years ago.
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They are both Matsushita
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Define cheap and great?
Some stuff is definitely both, but that's the electronics. Amplifiers, DAC or sound card : do your research and you'll see you can get one of these with audiophile quality for about $50. Really, that's what modern electronics (less than ten years) does for you! Cables are bullshit too : that means "audiophile" performance again with the cheapest ones.
Then you're left with the actual speakers and this is not as easy as these are real physical, mechanical items. So there's real cost (li
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how about headphones are my audio equipment? (Score:2)
I have some speakers for one TV and a sound bar for the other, but it's my collection of headphones that are my most used and most loved audio equipment. In this age of iPhones, tablets, and laptops, I wonder how many others feel the same.
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Sadly, for various levels of good it is spendy (Score:2)
Two areas that get unavoidably expensive if you want really good sound is speakers and the room. Both have a large impact on sound and both are pretty expensive to fix. I'm not talking audiophile impact of "We have to use lots of BS ephemeral words to talk about it," I'm talking easily measurable issues of frequency non-linearity, distortion, and phase issues.
For a room, it just ends up taking a lot of material to deal with issues, particularly at low frequencies. You need to absorb them to stop standing wa
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Probably not as good as you might think. I've had a number of DIYers tell me about how good their systems supposedly are, but none have ever had empirical data to back it up, and the few I've heard have not held up to high end commercial equipment.
I think the problem is they look at the driver specs and say "well that's good" and assume it performs like that in box. No, when you take the cabinet resonances, diffraction, impedance, and so on in to account and then add in the crossover, well it doesn't end up
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Yeah. Missing option: "I'm a fan of music, not audio."
DIY Speakers (Score:5, Interesting)
I obsess, but don't spend $$$$ on equipment. As someone posted above, once you have equipment that's better than "on sale at Walmar!", most people won't hear any difference between amplifiers, or CD players, or the audio from Blu-ray players. (You can in a side-by-side A/B test, but what fraction of people do that in their homes?)
My obsession, and my money, went to making my listening room/home theater as acoustically perfect as the floorplan of my house would allow. I put up walls to prevent most standing waves, acoustically treated the walls and ceiling (all in consultation with a professional acoustician; I didn't just stick stuff up on the walls randomly), and positioning my speakers as optimally as possible. Made a WORLD of difference in the sound quality.
And, the other really great investment I made was building my own speakers. Designs exists on the Intertubes (e.g. http://www.parts-express.com/project-gallery [parts-express.com], and the enormous fun and satisfaction of building them yourself cannot be overexpressed. Plus--with all due modesty--my speakers sound as good as speakers that cost 10-50 times what I spent (not including tools, heh). Friends that hear them are astonished that they are DIY speakers.
(N.B.: I am not taking credit for the designs; I have neither the knowledge nor the skills to design quality speakers. I simply implemented the designs and plans I found. There are some seriously smart people out on the web.)
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DIY is fun and rewarding! You can do amps, as well as speakers.
see: http://www.diyaudio.com/ [diyaudio.com]
Insane doesn't mean Expensive (Score:3, Informative)
I practice the art of Guerrilla Hi-Fi:
1. No shame in buying used gear.
2. Some speaker/amp combos are almost unbeatable, and easily arrived at if one discards "conventional wisdom" and groupthink.
3. Build / fix your own.
4. The solid-state era of the 60's through the 90's sssssucked, for the most part, as far as "affordable" went. Tubes was the way to go, broadly speaking, until --
5. Since 2000, "digital" amplification really did bring great sound to the masses. That was the promise of Tocatta, which was bought by TI, which got us the PurePath amplifier. Which is a joy to the ears and gets on famously with horn speakers
So neener-neener, auidiophools with unlimited budgets and no ear -- with Guerrilla Hi-Fi, amazing sound is there for the taking, and for not much dosh. But it does take some brains and independent thinking.
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In my case, a 1960 Bell receiver (all tube, modest output) and a pair of Klipsch Heresy speakers. The speakers are the key - hyperefficient and solid performers. Could add a sub, but probably won't.
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In the Indianapolis Craigslist there's a pair for $525 (fair price) and another for $425 (a steal).
In the middle of buying a house or I'd pounce.
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The solid-state era of the 60's through the 90's sssssucked, for the most part, as far as "affordable" went. Tubes was the way to go, broadly speaking, until --
My Pioneer SX-1250, Toshiba SA-7100, and Kenwood KR-9000G would disagree with you. Those are only three of *many* of the classic silver face Japanese receivers made during the heavy competition of the mid to late 70s.
While class D 'digital' amplification is great for effiiciency, I wouldn't say it is superior to any well built Class A or Class AB amp.
m
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I ran through a lot of gear. Some mid-fi (Pioneer SX650, 640, some technics), some more upper-fi (Sansui C-2000 pre, SAE Two power amp) and a few other things from Carver, Marantz, Kenwood.
All of them, when mated to conventional speakers such as JBL L100s, Infinity Kappa 7s, and Infinity RS6000 -- all of them sounded just OK, but lacked the transparency, impact and dynamics of what Klipsch delivers. I had heard much, much better at friend's houses, and OK wasn't good enough for me. I thought their horn /
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Wouldn't consider myself an OCD audiophile (Score:3)
but that said, I'm not satisfied with tinpot audio either.
You can laugh at this next bit if you want.
My home audio consists of an Acoustic Solutions DS222 5.1 surround amp and five Cambridge Soundworks satellites (from my DTT2200 set I had before - they sound better than the AS ones) fed with standard 3 amp flex.
You know what?
It sounds fucking awesome.
I can hear *everything* from the C1 thunder of the pipes to the C8 triangles and everything in between across the entire JS Bach catalogue - on those six speakers. You try telling me it can't be done, and I will call you a liar. You don't need oxygen free cable and you don't need to watch your wire bend radius or any of that shit. Just find gear you can work with, don't spend unnecessarily, and just fucking enjoy your music without being a muppet about it.
I draw the lines just before cables (Score:3)
So second hand you can good quality for low-price
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Our audio equipment is fine (Score:2)
Actually, I have a Logitech headset (approx. 10 EUR/11.30 EUR) and a mono system. Some might think that this is poor quality, but it is sufficient for me. Therefore, I voted mid-range.
Mostly average - but great speakers (Score:2)
However, the final step: where the sound is converted from electricity to air movement has always been the point that was most open to improvement - it still is. Hence a decent set of speakers will make an otherwise mediocre audio system sound s
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The system budget rule of thumb, back in the rock-on-plastic days was "Spend half your budget on the speakers and the other half on the cartridge (rock)," leaving the third half for everything else.
Somewhat expensive... (Score:2)
...30 years ago.
I love my old transistor amplifier. The only thing i purchased are a (few) sets of speakers. I prefer to get my other 'gear' second-hand too. Record player, tape player, amplifier - it's all reasonable high-end electronics from the mid 80's up to late 90's.
I don't have a standalone CD or DVD player anymore - that task is being done by a laptop or a R-PI with external sound card. My smartphone works too, it has reasonable sound but a audible 'click' every few seconds, so it is not the best op
Golden Oldie (Score:3)
Linked to my computer so I can listen to digitized media.
I got tired of replacing modern receivers that broke after two or three years of use (1 Yamaha, 1 Pioneer, 1 Denon). So, I picked up an old Harmon Kardon receiver on E-Bay. The Harmon Kardon sounds much better than the newer ones ever did.
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Vector Research VR-2500 amplifier and Pioneer PL-300 turntable (Grado F1+ cartridge). Both are from about 1980. The output goes into my sound card and I use the rig for digitizing my vinyl with Audacity.
The only problem I've run into is that the vinyl has some much more dynamic range than a CD that I have trouble capturing the full range. 60s and 70s groups like The Who, The Moody Blues (old stuff), etc. really pushed the sound envelop.
Cheers,
Dave
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I used to sell Vector Research gear for Custom Hi-Fi in San Antonio, TX. This was in the early 80s. I had a VR-7000 and later I bought the VRX-9000 and a VCX-800. (Earlier I was thinking 5000 and 7000 but I looked them up and it was 7000 and 9000). The 9000 and the VCX-800 were both very impressive.
I could kick myself for getting rid of the VRX-9000. The cassette deck was replaced with a Teac C3-RX which was one of their their high end Teac line decks (the C4 was the other).
The C3-RX looked like t
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I stopped replacing my stuff 15 years ago, with the exception of digital players which have continually evolved. Right now my setup is:
The only piece I'm not that happy with is the Logitech, but I'm not willing to spend audiophile money on a digital network player.
I would love to modify my room acoustically, but the lack of WAF for such changes has always
Remember... (Score:2)
Insanely Audiophile [slashdot.org]?
Must admit to some dunning-kruger effect. (Score:2)
I probably just don't know enough to appreciate how bad my sound quality is.
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I think I see what you may have done there.
All downhill since the '70s (Score:2)
People had great components (especially large wooden speakers) back in the '70s.
Now small plastic speakers are all the rage (as well as lossy-format music).
What happened?
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Gold-lettered brands
Black panels
Subwoofers
4.1 Surround sound
LEDs
Audiophiles like Robert Harley (google him and his opinion on ABX testing)
Treble-Bass (the musical genre)
CDs and the loudness war
9.3 Surround sound
Apple. iPod
Blue LEDs
Giant plastic speakers covered in blue LEDs
Multi speaker enclosures in a single stack, so they can't even do stereo
DJ decks with imitation turntables
Consumers who don't give a fuck
Now even Robert Harley doesn't give a fuck
22.2 surround sound
I don't gi
Missing non-pseudoscience option: (Score:2)
Tiny Chinese Earbuds (Score:2)
From ebay. They sound great, they cost nothing. At $3 each, they're disposable. So when my four year old runs off with a pair, or destroys the ear pieces, I don't feel bad about ordering another set. They're also good for use with my cell phone and skype. Gone are the days of studio headphones, or big, clunky usb headsets. At least for me.
half way (Score:2)
tween mid range and Somewhat expensive
money has little to do with it, IE you can spend a pile on a set of beats and it sounds like a flappy subwoofer strapped to a garbage can, or you can spend a little more than a ok pair of sonys for a set of Sennheiser's (course you can pay a lot for those as well)
How about convenient... (Score:2)
Basic (Score:2)
I'm deaf you insensitive clod! (Score:2)
Audio interface is a must if you record something (Score:2)
I'm making music as a hobby, so I use a halfway decent audio interface (UR-22) and KRK KNS 8400 headphones, plus some midi equipment and microfones. I guess that puts me in the low to mid range category?
Anyway, I wonder why built-in PC audio is such a horrible laggy crap (Realtek anyone?), if there are already reasonable external audio interfaces with midi in the $100-200 price range. Saving costs everywhere, I guess?
By Voting "Super Cheap" in the Poll (Score:2)
I care nothing for audio quality (Score:2)
Most of mine is for live sound (Score:2)
My audio equipment is good enough to satisfy the bands using it and the audience listening to it, and is priced to match.
Semi-pro sound isn't for the faint of wallet.
Features now trump ephmeral "quality" (Score:2)
I'm sure many would disagree, but with so much digital anymore (optical, HDMI, coax digital) it seems like features matter more to me than super-duper high quality or high quality output power.
I've been mostly disappointed with how they're implemented. I have a Pioneer VSX-1121. It sounds fine (bookshelf speakers, powered subwoofer, in-ceiling surround speakers).
I think the little microphone and auto-surround tuning helps. On screen menus are a great idea, these ones remind me of setting up a VCR in 1998
If you are willing to spend the money (Score:2)
You can have what you want. You just have to move in to the professional arena. For what you are talking about a Roland XS-84H will do the trick. 8 inputs (each supporting HDMI, VGA, component, s-video and composite), 4 outputs (HDMI and HD Base-T) 100% routing control. You can route any input to any combination output. All have scalers on them so they can route multiple inputs to one physical output and do PiP or splitscreen in any combination you like. Audio is done with 4 separate submixes, so each outpu
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I always figured professional routers were available, but way beyond what I would ever be willing to spend and even if money was no object, the time to configure it in a way that didn't leave me divorced from my wife doesn't exist..
For my second volume, my kludge is really kludgy. My AppleTV has HDMI and optical audio output. I run the optical output to a second receiver (my old one) that sends output to the deck. I have a volume control out there already and I run the deck receiver volume a little on t
Inherited hand-me-down high end, a missing categor (Score:2)
Good timing (Score:2)
Interesting timing - I just went 10 years without upgrading my sound equipment, but I just recently decided to replace my ~40 year old large advent speakers with a pair of Mackie HR824 studio monitors and a HSU ULS-15 sub. Got the Mackies already and they're fantastic, a definite upgrade overall. The sub hasn't come yet, but I'm pretty excited for it. 15" sealed sub with a ton of linear excursion and very low distortion - there are louder subs out there, and there are more expensive subs out there, but this
Mid-range by which standards? (Score:2)
I've got a mac mini hooked up to a logitech speaker system with a subwoofer and speakers. I use the MacMini remote and frontrow (one reason I won't update Snow Leopard!). Best home player UI ever. I run it over my 22" monitor.
As headphones on the go I now mostly use my new ones from Monster. My new mobile player is my new Yoga 2 tablet with n7 as softwareplayer. Great player, 5 bucks well invested. The search function, the touch UI and north of 6GB of music on the go in a player that can run 25 hours on one
Missing option (Score:2)
You better not hook up to the amplifier. There's a slight possibility of overload.
Put Your Money in Speakers (Score:2)
I'm known to have a pretty good ear for music and audio. I've mixed bands live in a professional setting for years. Modern amplifiers are so clean now adays, that normal or even discerning person can't tell a difference. There was a double-blind study done (I can't find the link at the momemt) that used the same high end speakers, but changed out the amplifier and CD player. Most of the 'golden ears' couldn't tell the difference between the crappy amp and the reference amp, and a bunch preferred the crappy
Depends on what you call "audio equipment" (Score:2)
I'm on laptop speakers and $15 sony headphones, and well, right next to it sits the $800 guitar amp+speaker cabinet.
gamer (Score:2)
As a gamer who still lives in moms basement i love the bass.
Settled Science (Score:2)
My hearing's so good... (Score:2)
That I ought to run out and buy $10,000 cat-6 ethernet cables, because they one let the packets interfere with one another...
mark "or at least until it hits the router...."
HK3490 + Polk RTiA9 (Score:2)
And a little Peachtree USB to optical I run into the amp's DAC. Cost a total of about $1800 US. I buy CDs and rip them to FLAC; I would love to get a nice turntable and build a vinyl collection, but once you start down that road there's no going back. I'm content with being a poor man's audiophile.
Multiple Systems -- All Budget (Score:2)
I'm forever a budget enthusiast, but since I don't seek to constantly improve my audio quality like I do performance per watt or performance per dollar, I don't buy new equipment very frequently. As such, I cannot say with confidence whether or not my current gear is of moderate quality or poor quality.
I used to use discrete audio cards in computers, but then, according to people with better ears than I, integrated audio chips surpassed the power of what I knew to be sufficient for me. So I stopped spendin
Audioengine 2 (Score:2)
Seems ok. Cheaper than gear that's rated worse. The 5 isn't rated as good, which is weird. There comes a point where you have to spend a lot more before you hear a real improvement.
GI GO (Score:2)
Garbage Out: MP3 Players/Phones etc.
HiFi is dead.
TV sound? (Score:2)
Call me picky, but as far as I am concerned, any discernible input latency is completely unacceptable. I can't believe that people actually save their old CRTs to play Guitar Hero because the new ones tend to be so laggy.
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600 is definitely low / mid range pricing
keep in mind this is a land of multi thousand dollar gold plated cables and $10,000 amps
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Let us assume the scale to be logarithmic. Then, alright, 600 dollars is slightly above mid range.
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It's not only sound quality that's subjective, price is too. For some $200 for a pair of speakers is a lavish expense. Others may much more for just a cable.
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Most new stuff is a rip-off because for many people quality is a direct function of price - the more expensive they buy, the better sound they think they get.
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Understandable. Technology completely escapes most grammarians.
I'll take the onion rings, no fries.
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I am an EE and will stand my stereo up against yours. Beyond getting nice big gauge copper speaker cables they are a waste of money.
No 10K$ cat 5 cables. No 4K$ power cables. No monster anything.
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I spent the most that I felt needed to sound 'fine' to me. What's with the pairing of subjective terms? What I spent could be seen as a lot (to someone who's never bought audio equipment) or a super-budget (to an audiophile).
I've also got an audio interface separate from the built-in one for my laptop, but I only use it for recording.
You could certainly go cheaper (laptop -> active speakers or cheapo turntable with speaker built into them) or way way more expensive (audiophile-quality).
Your choices ARE "audiophile quality" because you chose wisely (although I would have spent a bit more on the TT, say a Pro-Ject Debut Carbon). Price does not (and never has) = value. The point to take away, though, is your baseline is good enough that you could now evaluate a more expensive component and know whether it's an improvement or not, again regardless of the asking price. Another option would be TEAC who have a nice stereo receiver with phono for $180 with 100w/ch versus the Onkyo's 50w @ $120.
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There are two branches with audio equipment as one gets up the price range: The audiophile stuff and the studio grade stuff intended for people to hear and fix audio mixes.
I'm content with my pair of Yamaha powered monitors. Their response is quite flat so when you hear a mix, it may not sound as boomy as if one hears it on "consumer/audiophile" stuff that cranks the bass up... but if I wanted that, I can always reach for the equalizer and boost that set of frequencies.
For cans, I use a set of Sony MDR-F1
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I have those same headphones too, albeit they are now close to 20 years old IIRC. The leatherette is worn but the headphones still sound pretty good when I have occasion to wear them. I haven't been able to find anything during my last few shopping trips to match their quality without being stupidly expensive.
My desktop speakers are an Event Tria setup, project studio grade gear, and it's been just great for the 15 years I've had that. It's pretty flat, and non-fatiguing. I have an outboard firewire box to
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I have to disagree, my original hifi system for the living room was close to as good as you could get for $1k at the time, Infinity Primus 360 fronts, Infinity OWS for surrounds, the Primus center channel, and a midrange Onkyo receiver. I replaced the fronts with Vandersteen 2CE Signature 2's for $1400 (retail is over $2500, I bought mine from a soldier who was going on long term deployment not long after buying them so they were like new), they're worlds better and just about anyone who's heard both system
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I love the ESL's, but the amps that can drive them are ungodly expensive, and if you want to listen to modern sources you have to step up to a receiver with pre-outs which further increases the system cost. I still might buy a pair after the kids are done with school =)
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Yup, my great headphones cost less than my first mediocre center channel (Sennheiser HD598 vs Infinity Primus center), the quality difference between those two is so huge it's hard to describe. If you just want to listen to music by yourself then headphone provide a huge, huge advantage in bang for buck over loudspeakers.