What are the most overrated speaker brands, IYO?

[Woochifer]

Speaking personally "dungeonlike, smoke filled club surrounded drunks in mosh pit" ruins the experience for me. I will rather enjoy my music in a more condusive atmosphere if it can be helped.

For punk, alternative, and the various derivatives thereof, that just adds to the experience.

I will rather enjoy John Coltrane, or any great musicianship for that matter, on the best available sonic medium where available, that is why I am in this hobby to listen to great musicianship at the highest fidelity possible. There is a finite amount of money I am willing to invest new music and I will rather invest it on good music with excellent sonic quality. I listen to a lot of excellent music on radio and satellite but when I want to invest my money in a piece of music, sonic quality is one of the qualities alongside musical talent I consider when making purchasing decisions.

Sure, I don't disagree with the idea of putting the best foot forward possible for the music that we enjoy. However, I do not make most of my music buying decisions based on the audio quality. For example, I listen to a lot of electronica, but unfortunately most of it is poorly recorded and based on sampled loops. But, the audio quality does not detract from how I personally react to the music. If I enjoy the music, I'm not going to suddenly stop listening to it just because it's not recorded well. This isn't like classical music either where you got multiple interpretations of the same piece. If I want my mind to drift to Sasha's Xpander, I have to go with the original version because there's no one out there doing a remake using DSD streaming.

When given an option, in plenty of cases I'll opt for the best possible audio quality. That's why I have half-speed mastered LPs, 96/24 DADs, and various remastered CDs in my collection. But, I'm not going to go the extra step of buying albums that sound great at the expense of the music itself (exceptions being a few demo discs that I've bought over the years such as The Sheffield Track Record).

** Appreciation of music is about the enjoyment of the music at its core, regardless of how it gets reproduced. **

This comment is an oxymoron in this hobby, if it were not, we will not bother with investing in quality music production software or hardware at all, afterall we should appreciate good music "regardless of how it get reproduced". I can appreciate good music with poor sonic quality, but I will appreciate it much more with excellent sonic quality. Some music fans indeed enjoy great music on less than optimal setups, however audiophiles make a concious decision to invest in above bar quality music reproduction to enjoy excellent sonic quality as an additional benefit to great musicianship, so ** "regardless of how it get reproduced". ** is overreaching in this instance.

It's not an oxymoron because to me great music is still great whether I hear it through a cheap boombox or through a million dollar reference system. Besides I was primarily responding to Florian's contention that music appreciation comes with being an audio enthusiast or audiophile, and I simply don't agree that the two go hand in hand.

Sure, I'd prefer to hear it through a decent system, but I'm not going to shut something off just because the playback system is less than ideal. I don't think it's "overreaching" to say that "appreciation of music is about the enjoyment of the music at its core, regardless of how it gets reproduced." Some friends of mine who are big time music buffs (these guys have an overwhelming knowledge of music from all genres, and a genuine passion for it) enjoy it on what most audiophiles would regard as substandard music systems. But, how does their choice of audio systems make them any less appreciative of music in general than somebody who invested more than them on the hardware side?

At home, I've built a system that for my preferences represents the best audio quality within my budget. Listening through that system and other decent quality systems of course adds to the enjoyment. For the past couple of years, I've lived with a less than ideal turntable cartridge. Now that I've replaced it with a better cartridge, I have been listening to my LPs more than before, but it's not like my vinyl collection sat idle before either. Conversely, if the playback is music that I can't stand to listen to, the sound quality won't matter one bit.

The main point that I was making was that appreciation of music and appreciation of sound quality/audio reproduction are not a one-to-one correlation. As I mentioned, I know plenty of music enthusiasts who are passionate about the music, but are less than passionate about how it sounds. Conversely, there are others I've met who obsess about the sound quality, without having any appreciation for the music itself.