A $25,000 bargain

I called a $25,000 pair of speakers a bargain, and I know how that sounds from a man who calls himself frugal. I still mean it.

The La Scala was $13,000 and the Yvette over $25,000, so roughly twice the price. A finance man walks into that comparison expecting the dearer pair to be 20 or 30% better, and then argues with himself about whether the extra is worth it. That is not what I heard.

Is it five times better? No. Is it a different category of performance? Yes. The 20 Hz you feel in your chest, the precision of the soundstage, the resolution, the way they disappear and leave the music standing in a three-dimensional space: none of it fits a ratio, and with the Yvette the law of diminishing returns, it evaporates.

Once I heard them, I never really had a choice. But the bargain has a condition I will not leave out. These speakers need the amplification, the source chain and a treated room behind them; without that foundation they reveal everything, the bad included, and the same money is wasted.

A bargain is not a price, it is a price against what you get. With the foundation in place, I would pay it again tomorrow.