Quote Originally Posted by pixelthis
sacd will probably be the HD cd, if it surrives.
And if you're thinking about Onkyo, then you might want to consider Integra, their lexus brand. They are basically onkyo with a few improvements.
Even tho I dont consider any reciever really "high end" my integra sounds really nice,
with 192k dacs (i think) and great HT performance as well.
And Mr p, as for shrinking woofers, this comes from the advent of the sub.
"woofers" in speakers now only go down to around 50hz or so, a seperate sub is supposed to take up the slack.
The original idea was that bass coming out of the speaker muddied the midrange somehow, with a seperate sub you get better midrange, THAT is the theory anyway.
And a friends father has an old pair of electrovoice, they sound pretty good, but I think they are about as old as I am!!
Woofers with the proper enclosure should be able to reach 30 Hertz without much difficulty. They need not be large example , AR3a. Sub woofers are amplified base speakers. When another piece of equipment is added to an audio system it increases noise and other unwanted hormonics.

The ideal speaker system would be one speaker able to produce the entire spectrum
without crossovers, mid and high end speakers. So far that is not possible.
Example the fewer controls a pre-amp has the cleaner the sound. Very high end pre-amps usually limit the number of controls.

EV was unable to make the transition from large speakers to smaller speakers with the introduction of stereo. The big horn , bass reflex's and infinite baffle speakers produced clean bass down to 30 hertz and less. But it took two and few people had the space for two large speakers.
Speakers such as KLH and AR was able to produce excellent excellent base without the size. But the problem was these speakers required amphliers with clean big watts.
Many receivers was unable to do this.

With the decline of jazz , classical and the change from artist using orchestras such as Sinatra etc, there was no longer a need for clean non amplified bass.
Music had changed and so had audio equipment. Those who had the means could still afford the big systems , but those systems are now out of the reach of most listeners.
Excellent audio has been replaced today with video , ie, surround sound where audio is no longer as important as video , example plasma , LCD , HD , etc.

The baby grand pianos , the large grandfather clocks , the big audio systems etc, are reserved for those who have the means.
We can wait around and hope but the days of the big audio systems producing detailed
sound of a large symphony orchestra has passed .