We’ve been listening to speakers and other things in essentially the same dealer listening room for 20 years. I can now make a guess as to how a speaker is likely to sound at home, based on what I hear in a dealer audition. But that’s a start point, not the end point. For the speakers we now have, we didn’t bother with the dealer audition and skipped straight to a home try out. It took over a year to land on the 802.
I suppose that if you live in an area where you can’t get that kind of dealer support, things will be more difficult. I take it for granted. But then again, if there was not a Naim dealer within 100 miles of me (UK) I probably wouldn’t be using Naim equipment. I’ve wasted so much money in my life on the preferences of other peoples’ ears, and the characteristics of rooms that are not my listening room, that the lesson has been learned for good.
New home won’t be ready until ~ 1 May 2021. Will make that decision after being in the home. If I won’t buy speakers w/out a home demo, I should not buy speakers without being in the home!
yes about a 20 minute drive west of our current place. It’s out in the forest - streets are somewhat far apart and each home is on about 1 acre (4,050 m^2 of land). Most of the homes are about 40 yrs old; this is a lot where there was a very small home that has been demolished to permit a our home to be built. About 15 miles west of the City of Boston.
I had the option of a gym, or a dedicated sound room. Going with the gym. We can put the hi fi in the open kitchen/family room and enjoy it as part of living in the home
Shahinian Diapason - they’re unlike anything else, speakers that scale properly without towering over you and create a realistic live classical/jazz/folk experience but are brilliant for everything else too. I love them. I spent decades looking for speakers that do what they do and nothing else does.
