Comparing Commerical with Residential Audio

[E-Stat]

Not in homes as yet. I know few who can justify the costs of those concepts.

Sure they are. The market is larger than you might think.

...it is both diminishing returns and for me monster reliability factors.

I respectfully disagree. While I was highlighting the edge of the art, one can get great sounding gear for far less than back in the 70s. A $1000 pair of monitor speakers will throw a far clearer and better defined image than the Concert Grands. "Monster reliability factors"? What do you mean by that?

Strange about the Apple Ear Buds, but makes a great secondary market!

I don't find the search for better fidelity strange at all. You get what you pay for with four dollar earbuds. Actually, the "secondary market" was created by professional musicians using IEMs (in ear monitors). Have you noticed the absence of floor level angled up performer-facing monitors on stages? They're all using IEMs. Quite a number of companies including Shure, Westone, Entymotic, AKG, Ultimate Ear, Sennheiser (even Bose and Klipsch) make such products. The best units run about $500. OTOH, you can get great sound for considerably less. My E3s ran about $150 on E-Bay. Shure was upgrading the line recently and blew them out for $80 so I bought a second pair.

When I got clipping I called Rudy and he said to get a 2300 and it worked.

Back in '71, that was about the only game in town. John Curl used eighty-nine of those in designing the "Wall of Sound" for The Grateful Dead back in '73. Today, you can buy any number of Class H pro amp with that kind of power for $500. Speaking of John Curl, his current 400 watt JC-1 monoblocks can be had for about $9000 a pair. They are in a different sonic league altogether than the 2300s.

There are many claims and few objective ways to compare beyond the old reliable test record and CD plus music we like.

I've always used the sound of live unamplified music as my guide. I get a regular dose from wifey playing the baby grand in the living room.

A couple drivers set ups have 'hi-def' but put me somewhere overhead the orchestra or on one side or the other. On Jazz it was far too sharp, like I find most CD to LP.

As a point of reference, what were these setups?

rw