Well, the speakers I will buy when I hit the loto will be "GENELEC" hands down. Are they worh the price, hell no not retail anyway, but at cost I have to say they are verry close. When you consider the quality of the amps in there and the crossover system they are worth alot. Now as far as the center being worth 11,000 that is probly perception on someones part. But my favorites none the less. I like the ML too but I saw a knockoff at the CEDIA show that were alot cheaper so I have to wonder if Electrostat technology has some profit built in.
For conventional speakers (cabinets) NO. Once you get past a quality cabinet, good crossovers and drivers it is all a bunch of hooey! I used to take home speakers from reps to "Interview" in my own space. I would take them apart and look, most of the time (even M&K)would use a cheap wire inside the box and a basic crossover not worthy of the "Tandy" logo.
Basicly my points are 1. Most expensive speakers are expensive to quantify there quality. BOSE uses this approach, "if they cost more they must be better"
2. Most expensive speakers are hand made (Wham etc.)the price has to pay the staff for a year even tho they make only a dozen sets or so.
In my view any box (conventional) that costs (dealer) more than 1k each has alot of hype and I have never seen a thousand dollars worth of "Internal bracing" considering most speakers use off the shelf drivers, (Vifa etc.) I mean c'mon, this technologie has bin worked out for a long time, it has like 2 moving parts, and it is not even difficult by todays standards to build drivers and cabinets to excating standards.
A scientific study done at a major university has shown that speakers with a red grill have more bass than the same speaker with a blue grill. I think the tearm is Psycoacoustics.
There is no question however that hi-end speakers sound "Better" than radio shak units, if "Better" is the correct term, I think "Different" is a better term?
Anyone here really sell a ton of $800 B&W in-walls? I do hear a "Difference" but I cant really say they are better than a good set of sonance or TruAudio in this day and age.
