Best way to ease into high end speakers?

Go listen to as many different speakes as you can before deciding. Let your ears be the judge. Ascend is a nice speaker, but I'd listen to the Sierra-1 NRT as a reference point, it's more high end and would make a better reference point I think.

Critical listening is important if you're a connoisseur of sound. Critical listening is basically listening for fine detail. Critical listening is a learned (unnatural) behavior. Think wine snob vs somebody who enjoys a decent bottle with good company. Are you about the wine or are you about the company you keep? It's the same thing, are you about the sound or are you about the listening experience and sharing the experience with others?

Are you wanting to become a critical listener of music or are you simply wanting some kick butt sound quality in which to impress your senses when watching a movie? As to accuracy of sound, that's a concept that doesn't exist. There's a flat response and then there's how sound interacts with it's environment and how your hearing interprets the soundwaves. The simple choice of instrument, choice of strings or choice in stage amplifier will color the sound. Hence why I post, accuracy of sound is more a subjective concept then a quantifiable reality.

From here the question becomes, what's your budget? My recommendation would be, set a budget and then triple it if you're serious about quality sound.

It's a real simple formula:

A decent AVR with a room analyzer. Audyssey, MultEQ XT room analyzer at minimum. Audyssey, MultEQ XT32 is much better still. How big a budget, determines your AVR choices and which room analyzer you'll get with the AVR.

Decent speakers to reproduce the upper range with. Speaker sensitivity are an important consideration. Sensitivity affects how loud and the quality of the reproduced sound.

A decent pair of subwoofers to reproduce the lower end with. The better to impress your friends with.

And some 12AWG zip cord to connect everything (a bit of an under exaggeration but makes the point that wire is not as important as some want you to believe.

To give you a budgetary idea, if we had to start from scratch, knowing what I know and setting things up to mirror the way our system is currently spec'd out, our budget would be in the $6,500.00 - $7,500.00 range. If I wanted to seriously improve on what we have, I'd have to set a budget in the $20k range. But a decent system can be put together for much less.

I always tell people; Do you know why I drink half-way decent bourbon? It's because I can't afford decent bourbon.

The above is not intended to impress or scare one away, but to give one a realistic idea that directly answers the question; how much? That being said, on your part, stating a budget helps answer your questions as there are many excellent choices well below the above stated budgets but at the same time, sound quality will suffer accordingly.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 10/23/12 at 6:06am

Go listen to many different speakers so you can get a feel for what styles you like and/or dislike. Also, for the ID brands, there are frequently owners in your area who would be willing to let you come to their house and have a listen.

Coming from an HTIB most things will sound great.

8 years ago I was listening to an HTIB (JVC TH-A10) and i thought it sounded pretty good, but wanted to move up (my wife couldn't understand why I wanted to change).

I went to quite a few stores, and luckily never heard anything I didn't like, and did hear many I did like.

My ultimate purchase was based on budget, but didn't last very long before I upgraded. I ended up with KEF iQ3 (3 across the front) and iQ1 for rears; did the upgrade because the line was being replaced and the selloff values were amazing; you could do something similar as the iQ30 and iQ10 are being sold off.

But go listen to a bunch of speakers before you make your choice...

...and then get used to the never ending cycle of upgrade planning and upgrading

Have fun is key

Yes, and after you buy stay away from AVS!

Note that the KEF iQ30 are being liquidated as they end that line, at KEF Direct for $350

The iQ30 is a nice option

Also, HTD Level three
http://www.htd.com/Products/level-three-speakers/Level-THREE-Bookshelf-Speakers

No need to spend $600

It takes time to hear the difference in better speakers.
See if you can rent some good ones.

If you have a small budget, put most of it into the two main speakers and get cheap everything else if you have to have the surround now.

Energy rc-10 are around $200/pair while they last. You could get two pair and still have money left over you could add to your subwoofer budget.

Next to listening to many speakers and picking what sounds best to you, this is the best advice so far (these forums cost me more money than I'm willing to admit)!

If you want to home audition speakers for free, just use audiogon/e-bay. pick a list of speakers you would like to try, do research on their resell prices, buy at a good price, sell after a few months.
I had 6 sets of speakers in my home in a year doing this. Total cost is $0. Looking back I could have made some $$$ to help me pay for my current system. But I dont want to make money on fellow hobbyists.
This way you can figure out what kind of speakers you like before you settle down.

O yeah and there are companies that will let you try their speakers for free, even pay for return shipping EMP and Aperion are 2 of those.