How to Audition Hi-Fi Without Fooling Yourself, and What a Good Dealer Does for You

Years ago I walked into a McIntosh dealer to ask about Klipsch speakers. Passing the blue meters of the premium display, I asked, half apologising, what one of those amplifiers goes for. One of the owners did not give me a number. He said "come" and walked me into the listening room: an MA12000 driving Sonus faber Amati G5 they had just unboxed, a HiFi Rose streamer as the source. The price came afterwards, the equivalent of a small family car. We talked about something else.

It is still my best lesson in how to compare speakers, and in what a good dealer does for you. He had an angle: he sells McIntosh. But he answered a price question with music, and it sounded like nothing I had heard in such a private setting. Later, that memory decided a purchase. Here is the method I wish someone had handed me before my first serious audition: your music, your levels, time alone, one change at a time, a right to return, and a dealer who lets you do all of it.

Everyone has an angle, including me

In the channel trailer I said it plainly: everyone has an angle. Influencers need you to click. Dealers are selling you something. Manufacturers, obviously, the same. And for the sceptics, everything is snake oil. I got something from all of them, but never what I was looking for: someone who had made the mistakes I was about to make and would simply tell me, without wanting me to agree or to buy.

The most persuasive angle in any demo room is your own. In my snake-oil film of February 2026 I listed five biases, mine included. Expectation: drop $5,000 on a DAC and your brain wants it to sound better. Confirmation: read that one cable brand is more refined and you will hunt for refinement. Sunk cost: I have $40,000 in McIntosh separates, and my brain physically resists anyone who says a $15,000 integrated sounds identical. Recency: new gear sounds better because your attention is heightened. Vocabulary: learn the word soundstage and you start hearing it, or think you do.

None of this makes the differences imaginary. Just because biases exist doesn't mean the difference doesn't. It means your eyes come to the audition too. In 2009 Harman's Sean Olive described a 1994 test in which 40 employees rated four loudspeakers both sighted and blind; seeing them "produced a significant increase in preference ratings for the larger, more expensive loudspeakers". My own shorthand for one big decision was the sweet-sounding, beautiful La Scalas against the twice-the-price, robot-looking Yvettes. Appearances matter. Sound matters more. Rule one: never buy because a reviewer told you to, and never because the price suggests quality.

The difference between an honest audiophile and a deluded one isn't what they hear, it's whether they are willing to question it.

Before you go: your music, your levels, your weak point

First, the playlist. Choosing between the Klipsch La Scala AL5 at $13,000 and the Wilson Audio Yvette at over $25,000 (the prices in my November 2025 side-by-side film), I set up "a side-by-side comparison with equipment relevant to mine and a playlist revealing enough and familiar to me". Familiar matters more than revealing: you cannot hear what a speaker adds to a track you do not know by heart.

The ultimate decision-making tool is always your ears.

Second, the step most buyers skip: take the track where your system breaks, at the level where it breaks. Mine was Billie Eilish's Bad Guy. Above about 95 dB, its deep, detailed bottom end pushed my Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series into clipping, and once you hear that clipping, you always remember it. On the La Scalas the low end did not clip, only because those frequencies were absent; the bass took a day off. On the Yvettes: "No compression, no distortion. It was there, powerful and dynamic."

Third, carry your foundation with you: amplifier, room, budget. Before a speaker like these I ask, "Do I have the foundation? System, room, electronics?" The Yvette, retired by Wilson in 2024, is rated at 86 dB and wants real current into a 4-ohm load that drops to about 3 ohms around 90 Hz. The La Scala, rated at 105 dB, reaches concert levels from a 10-watt tube amplifier. Either can sound glorious on a dealer's electronics. The question is how they sound on yours. I once paired thirty thousand dollars' worth of speakers with the wrong amplifier and wondered why they sounded hollow. In the showroom my Bowers & Wilkins Diamonds had been wired to a power amplifier with cables as thick as anacondas. At home, on my flagship Yamaha receiver, they were more detailed than my Klipsch and hollow on every song.

In the room: how to compare speakers on equal terms

Volume is the oldest trick in the demo room, and nobody has to play it on purpose. On the spec sheets the La Scala and the Yvette are 19 dB apart. Measured the same way by Stereophile, the gap narrows: 101.3 dB for the La Scala AL5 (2023) and 87.6 dB for the Yvette (John Atkinson, 2019), both B-weighted at 2.83 volts. That still leaves roughly 14 dB at one volume setting. Leave the knob where it is, switch speakers, and you are comparing loudness, not speakers.

Atkinson also explains why it matters: "A component that's, say, 0.2dB louder than another won't be heard as being louder. Instead, listeners will comment on greater apparent detail or better dynamics." His standard is a match "to at least within 0.1dB", and for loudspeakers, B-weighted levels measured with a noise signal. Ask for levels matched at your seat with a meter; a good dealer will not be offended.

Quick switches show you what is different. They cannot tell you what you can live with. A D'Agostino flagship with big Wilsons and a dCS front end ticked every box for me, technically flawless, and after half an hour I needed a break. So do both: a fast, level-matched speaker comparison, then a whole album side on one pair, asking the only question I care about. Do you want the next song?

Change one thing at a time, or name what you could not hold still. I called my La Scala and Yvette comparison apples to apples: same HiFi Rose sources, Qobuz and AudioQuest cabling, same quality of amplification. Not the same amplifiers, though: a mid-tier McIntosh system on the La Scalas, MC3500 tube monoblocks and a C2700 preamplifier on the Yvettes. My cleanest before-and-after is the new listening room: same Yvettes, C12000, monoblocks, Transparent cables and sources. Only the room and the power changed, and the change was transformative.

Last, ask: better, or only different? The Vincent cables my dealer threw in with my Diamonds sounded different from my QEDs. Better? Subjective. Different? Absolutely. At The Sound Lab, better means more convincing to what live sound sounds like.

The memory that keeps knocking

Some auditions end at the shop door. Others follow you home. I once dismissed HiFi Rose as a glorified LCD priced like an 85-inch OLED television. Then I auditioned the RS150 in a showroom and my jaw dropped: liquid, organic, analogue-like. I was not ready to spend $5,000, so I stayed with the memory. In this hobby of ours, that recollection keeps knocking on your door for days, weeks, even months, and you know what comes next.

I took the cheaper route: the Eversolo A8 at $2,000, a clear win over my A6 Master Edition in detail, imaging and refinement. But the Rose at $5,000 (both November 2025 prices) was still better.

The small-family-car demo knocked too, and louder. When my Diamonds sounded hollow on the receiver, the light bulb was that listening room. I ordered a McIntosh MA9500 for same-day delivery, and when I heard it, I had the same feeling as at the MA12000 audition. It was a revelation.

Recency fades: give new gear six months and it is just your system. A memory still knocking after six months is not recency talking. It is a reason to go back, with your playlist and your levels, and listen again before you pay. I wrote a short note on that feeling: the audition that keeps knocking.

Bring it home: home demos, return rights and the first session alone

A showroom is not your room, and with speakers the room has the last word. In my comparison film I said the Yvette's perceived low end "will be dominated by the room's properties". Olive's Harman tests make the wider point: positional effects on preference were "clearly visible in the blind tests" and "almost completely absent in the sighted tests". Where a speaker stands changes how it sounds, and when we can see it, we stop noticing. Knowing how to choose speakers in a showroom is half the job; the other half happens at home.

My rule for controversial upgrades comes from the snake-oil film, and it travels well to speakers: fundamentals first (room treatment, speaker positioning, good source material), then buy "always with the ability to return it if you don't hear a difference". If you did not hear it, return it. No ego, no sunk cost, just honesty.

Give a new pair a fair start. For speakers, burn-in is real: the suspension and drivers do need to loosen. Settle the system too, and place it before you judge. In the new listening room I gave the system 10 to 20 hours on the new power circuits, to let the capacitors charge and heat properly, then placed the Yvettes with Wilson's WASP set-up procedure, using my own voice to find what Wilson calls the zone of neutrality.

Then do the first serious session alone. I did, in the new room: no Sound Lab partners, no distractions, first impressions entirely mine. For the first time in my system, the helicopter on Pink Floyd's The Wall came from high on the ceiling, swept toward my seat and vanished to the left. Nobody had to tell me.

That is the whole method. Here it is on one page.

What a good dealer does for you

Three dealer moments taught me what the job is.

In the first, a dealer warned me. Auditioning the Diamonds, I asked about the anaconda-thick cables on his amplifier. He asked what I used at home ("What the hell cables are you using?") and tried to talk me out of the rabbit hole, the never-ending loop of upgrades: "You are still a virgin, stay a virgin." He also warned me the speakers did not suit my electronics; when I rang him yelling that they were defective, he reminded me and offered to take them back. He was right about the amplifier, and right about the loop. I still do not regret ignoring him.

In the second, a dealer took the worry off my hands. When the new listening room was ready, a local dealer installed the system, to eliminate any risk of damage. That service never appears on a price tag.

In the third, the dealer from my opening treated the curious like a buyer. He was open and friendly to every single person who walked in: existing customer, prospect or just curious. I had told him I did not think I had the budget. He gave me the listening room anyway. It did not sell me an MA12000. It sold me McIntosh. I wrote a note on that habit: a dealer who treats the curious like buyers.

What do you owe a dealer like that? Honesty: your system, your room, your budget, and the fact that you are comparing. If he talks you out of something, listen hard; he is giving up a sale to tell you. I once asked a dealer for a price, and he answered with a listening room. Ask every dealer for that answer: your music, your levels, your time, and the right to change your mind. Let the price speak last.

Frequently asked questions

How do I audition speakers at a dealer?

Bring a short playlist you know by heart, including the track where your system breaks. Tell the dealer your amplifier, room and budget, and ask for matched levels.

Is a home demo worth it when you buy speakers?

Yes, because the room has the last word on the bass, and a speaker's position changes how listeners judge it. If there is no home demo, agree return terms before you pay.

How do I compare speakers with different sensitivity?

Match levels at your seat with a meter, not the volume knob. On paper the La Scala and the Yvette are 19 dB apart; at one volume setting you compare loudness, not speakers.