[Andre Jute]

Here's one of those throwaway remarks that makes one think:

Sander deWaal wrote:
I know a little about amplifiers, and almost enough about speakers to
get myself into trouble every time. ;-)

We discuss amps almost exclusively,
regardless of present appearances. Why is this? Power amps are in fact
the second easiest part of the audio chain to understand and build
correctly. DACs are the easiest, preamps and control amps and booster
amps not much more difficult than power amps to understand (though
quite a bit more difficult to build right).

But the most difficult thing of all, akin the frustratingly complex
transfer functions of tires in automobiles, is speakers. Whereas
almost anyone with the brains to get into a good college can design
and build a good power amp, given only a few years of hitting the
books and experimenting on the bench, it is really awesomely difficult
to build a better than mediocre speaker, and it is virtually
impossible to predict in detail how a speaker you intend building will
behave. I include bought speakers in this: the best speakers on the
market fall short of that theoretical adequacy daily exceeded in amp
design by margins that would get an amp designer laughed out of the
trade.

Is it only cowardice that keeps us from spending as much time
discussing speakers as we spend on the minutae of amps?

Why is it that the only people every discuss speakers seriously are
the ones who are considered slightly kooky by a large and vocal
section of these groups?

Is there anyone here who disagrees with these three points:

1. Amps are a done deal. It is trivial to build a silent amp in any
topology.

2. The nature of digital transfer and reproduction methods is such
that DIY audiophiles can make no perceptible difference in them.

3. Speakers are the only open frontier for the audiophile. So much is
unknown, so much improvement can be made, that speakers are truly
worthy of our energies.

Andre Jute
The trouble with most people is not what they don't know, but what
they know for certain that isn't true. ---Mark Twain