SPEAKERS: THE FIRST CRITICAL LINK TO YOUR EARS

PREVIEW
Fact: No active component (repeat - NO ACIVE COMPONENT) in a system contributes more to the sound you hear than loudspeakers. Amplifiers don't. Surround processors don't. Cables certainly don't. Phono cartridges come close but that's because they, like loudspeakers, are transducers that convert one form of energy into another.

For most people (i.e., those without a turntable), the only real competition speakers have in shaping our aural environment are the rooms into which we place them. If you press the issue, some acousticians will tell you that speakers and rooms really can't be considered separately, that the speaker/room interface is so critical that it is a component in and of itself. But rooms are admittedly difficult to deal with. They're just there. But if we understand more about speakers, we can begin to solve the "good sound" puzzle more efficiently.

In this Section, we'll describe different speaker types and their performance characteristics. We'll make a few suggestions, dispel some noxious myths, and try to restore some sanity to an area that is sometimes curiously devoid of that quality. After you've read this, you'll be able to better understand why speakers are as important as they are.
One thing you should remember, however, is that speaker evaluation and selection is as much a subjective exercise as an intelligent evaluation of "proper" design parameters. In the final analysis, ears are the only arbiter. And that's just as it should be.