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i could name some names but those examples would only detract from my main question, it's this: why buy speakers that are both loved and hated when there are so many speaker brands that are consistently rated above average? some examples - but please they're only examples that come to mind and they may not be the best examples - are B&W and Wilsons. why even audition a component if you know / have heard it has good points and bad points or is a bitch to set up or can be finicky, etc.
thanks for interest.
H.F.N.
Follow Ups:
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the savor of everything - Bob Neill
they are very agreeable to me :)
After more than forty years in high end audio I'm not familiar with any speakers that everyone thinks are great. All speakers have their good points and bad points and quirks.
I suspect you are either a bit of a naif or simply trolling (congratulations on your success if the latter is the case).
jerk
Certainly alot of opinions, anecdotal offerings and self-projecting to be found here...interesting enough but ultimately worthless for any particular individual. A musician might pick brand X. An accountant may choose brand Y and a politician may choose...well that might not be any easy one:O) Each of us have unique ears, life histories and personal bias's that dictate to us in some way or another, what choices we will allow ourselves to make. Sometimes blind innocence is helpful for not missing what we otherwise would have, due to our own personal "audio prisons" that we have constructed based on heresay, half truths, bad demo's and yes...deceptive reviews! It's best to keep an open mind and try new things sometimes, even if there from one of those "controversial brands" that you may have decided to or been convinced into disregarding. I recently did the unthinkable, after owning many certified "Audiophile Accepted", ultra expensive speakers....I auditioned a pair of made in China B&W PM1 speakers..GASP!! Geuss what...I bought them on the spot. The even funnier thing is, is that they are one of the most gloriously musical transducers I've owned...and for that, I'm excessively happy:O)
dave_b
"Each of us have (sic) unique ears".
We do?
To the extent that every person should have custom made-to-measure speakers?
Great proposition!
when we hear real live music, we all hear the same thing (however unique our ears are). through speakers, it will sound different, some speakers closer than others.
more correctly, each of us have different preferences. the 'absolute sound' is the original sound made by the musicians, amplified or not. amplified or not, that is to be the actual comparison.
there isnt a speaker made that can truly reproduce that so there will always be the differences that stimulate our preferences.
...regards...tr
The free market (as of now anyway) offers us a plethora of choices for all concerned. So in a sense, there already exists "designer speakers", if you will. In case your having difficulty following along, I'll explain:O) Music is a construct of the mind, which is made evident via our abilities to outwardly communicate our thoughts or ideas using appropriate tools that either exist in nature or are man made. The re-telling of the aforementioned thought patterns can be done directly or through a recorded medium, which is then "played back" on various other tools for those not present at the "point of origin" to experience. The variation inherent in this paradigm is fatal to any attempt made toward achieving absolute accuracy as it pertains to the re-creation of the original event. What we are left with, is a reasonable recreation of various events, each of which have unique contributions toward the variablilty of the outcome. Of course, some want to patent what they percieve as the absolute "best way" to communicate the original intent of the creator as the only way. These people are small minded and very sure of themselves. Which are you?
dave_b
Edits: 02/15/12
thanks for your insightful observations. gained alot from the post. i was referring to the proverbial 'newbie' who wouldn't want to take a chance and rather rely on generally uniform opinion among hobbyists. sure the unknown-and-little-appreciated brand will be missed. the gem among the rough will never be found. but such a person is not looking for that and is surely unwilling to ""invest"" in the futile search for the gem-among-the-rough. tell me - how many speakers did you go through to get at nirvana (PM1 speakers).
H.F.N.
Hi....well here it goes:O)
Dunlavy SC-V's
Wilson W/P 6's
ML Odyssey's
Totem Wind, Forest, Hawk and yes Arro's (Yup, nutty eh?))
B&W 801N (they weren't quite getting it right at this point)
Magnepan 3.6R
Bozak B-313's (from my brother circa 1963)
Dalquist DQ-10's
Memory fades on other big box speakers I may have had when I was in college etc..
Lot's of gear as well which could fill a small pamphlet for the Audio Obsessed!
Ironic that my favorites are two way stand mounters and certainly not the most expensive I have owned.
Regards,
Dave
dave_b
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Most speakers today are at least "good"The analogy I like to make would be rottentomatoes a website the culls critics across the country and gives a movie a fresh tomato or rotten tomato rating.
There may be a film (think speaker) that virtually all the critics like. The overall Rating for X movies is 98% fresh. This is THE movie to see.
Movie 2 gets 85% Fresh and 15% rotten. Still good but nowhere near the marks of the first film(think speaker).
But looking deeper at the individual reviews and you see a little more information.
Assume both films (speakers) had 100 critics evaluate.
The first film(speaker) had 100 critics who on a scale of 5 stars 90 of them give the film 3/5 (which is the threshold to pass) and 8 give it 4/5 while the other 2 give it 2/5.
So 98% liked the movie (speaker) enough to recommend them. No one Hated the speaker but no one LOVED the movie (speaker) either.
Movie (speaker) 2 had more dissenters. 15 gave it 2 to 2.5 our of five - however 80 awarded it 5/5 claiming it the best movie (speaker) of the last 2 decades (speaker), while the other 5 gave it 4/5 rating.
The majority rules and statistics favour the first movie - and rightly so - there is MORE of a chance you will walk away thinking that it was a GOOD movie (speaker) but film(speaker)2 has a much greater chance that you will walk away thinking this is the best movie (speaker) that you have seen (heard) in the last 20 years or ever.
Polarizing movies and speakers or anything else such as food run a greater risk of offending the palette but they also have a much greater chance of heightening the reward.
McDonalds has been hugely successful largely because they make a very bland product - bland is largely inoffensive to the taste buds and can appeal to a large number of the population. Thai Spicey soup or Salmon has much stronger taste that many people could gulp up everyday while others scrunch their face up and are ready to hurl just smelling it. The Filet of Fish is inoffensive but it's no Sockeye cokked over fire in white wine.
I personally don't want to own or watch or listen to the 3/5 above averaged but unlikely to be a genuine star kinds of movies/speakers. It may sound "good" but I'd rather risk my time on the stuff that could be a 5 star shake me to the core experience - even if I have a slightly higher risk of getting something that is not to my taste.
This is why a film like Forrest Gump beats a Pulp Fiction at the Oscars. The latter has a much much higher chance to offend the audience while the former is mainstream inoffensive and charming and sweet. More people have a much higher chance of liking Forrest Gump (obviously since it won). Pulp Fiction though in critic circles tends to be regarded considerably as the better film and one of the best of the decade or ever made. Pulp has more risk to be disliked but it also has a higher chance to be on your top ten or 20 of all time list.
While a B&W tends to be well regarded gets good reviews I don't recall reading a lot of wide support that they shake people to the core and they were the best sound ever heard at a show, or wow I can't believe that they transformed my view of the audio industry.
I read more of that kind of ga-ga about Wilson so it has perhaps a greater chance of being a star. I have not heard that yet though but I've only auditioned 4 models. So far for me they're both in the 3/5 good but nothing shaking me to the core kind of stuff.
Edits: 02/11/12
thanks for your extended conversation. appreciate your time and thought. the analogy falls short since:
a) you don't LIVE with movies (you know what i mean, it's not supposed to be a 'keeper' where you live by it for the art - music - reproduced)
b) it's not a medium for appreciate an art form
c) movie critics are not audio critics where technical aspects are broken down. movies have to tell a well-told story.
H.F.N.
I suppose no analogy is ever perfect but we'll have to disagree. No loudspeaker is a perfect music reproducer - all of them are grossly inaccurate no matter what the magazines or manufacturers or engineers tell you. If they tell you it's accurate they're lying.
So now with that known you have say 100 well qualified degree holding engineers who will come up with a loudspeaker they feel is best at reproducing music.
What do you get from these people?
1) Horns are best - higher efficiency is better
2) wide dispersion speakers with the heaviest possible damping materials available to deaden resonances.
3) cabinets designed in complete opposition to number 2 - to have a live box with the idea to get rid of the resonance from the box as fast as possible - to follow the direct wave such that it is inaudible to the human ear
4) Low efficiency long throw driver designs
5) Transmission line speakers to generate more bass from a small box
6) active designs to keep wiring as short as possible
7) the point source theory that the best sound is a sound where the speaker emulates a point source - all music comes from a single point in space
8) Massive speakers in a line array with 20 drivers per side because big and powerful is better and each driver can cover a narrow frequency response better than one driver doing everything.
9) omni-directional - instruments have sound that go in all directions - speaker ought to recreate that kind of approach
10) direct radiator - want to beam the sound forward because 9 works for instruments but recordings are not made that way and so they need to reproduce the way the disc was made
11) Tannoy - the treble needs to come from the center of the woofer - this resolves the single driver doing all the work in a two way but in the same space as a single driver
12) It has to be flat on and off axis frequency response - all other considerations are secondary
13) 12 is nice and fine but how does it actually sound? If it sounds like crap then let's change it to make it sound better - even if it is down 2db at 1khz if it sounds better do it.
14) Dipole panels - they're faster and have less THD (generally). This is the primary consideration - speed and a lack of box - bass and dynamics and efficiency and treble extension and ease of positioning be damned as well as sane pricing.
15) modular - attach separate boxes to each other - tweeter on top
16) big woofer better than small woofer
17) use the room in the design - corner loading - vs avoid the room - try to get it out of the equation - free standers.
18) Speakers using various drivers to generate sound, paper, silk dome, kevlar, polypropolene, diamond, beryllium, Hemp, ribbon, electrostics, metal, plasma, field coils, alnico, and on it goes.
And it goes on and on. All of these makers have people with degrees in engineering who think they are right and the other approaches are wrong or less right.
So to establish what is controversial is a problem.
I am not sure what controversial is - from my list above there are several makers who make speakers in those general "camps" and in every case they sell very well.
At the lower price end of the market speakers tend to have similar designs - probably because they're cheapest to make. So that tends to be what people might view as mainstream or less controversial because they are made and sold in the largest number - but so is McDonalds - cheap and bland sells.
It might be controversial to sell a Gordon Ramsey deluxe burger for $28 but that doesn't mean it's not a vastly superior burger.
I guess I don't see controversial speaker designs. So long as an individual has actually bothered to audition it they are entitled to make any opinion of it they wish.
You make the point - you have to LIVE with the decision - quite right. And what you choose to live with I may not. This applies to cars, cameras etc. A camera may win in every technical aspect - but camera B comes in blue and I want a blue one. I buy the blue one because I really don't care that much about prints at 40 by 80.
And because all speakers are inaccurate and more to the point inaccurate in different ways you need to determine which inaccuracy you can stomach. I will much prefer a speaker that has greater frequency response errors than one that is much better in that regard but has a slight tilt in the upper midrange lower treble and that has sucky dynamics and compresses badly at decent volume levels. Some people need the tilt in the treble because they can't hear high frequencies very well anymore. So while it may irritate the hell out of me - they may not even notice it.
.
nt
care to lower yourself and offer a simplistic answer?
H.F.N.
controversial. Otherwise there are bound to be compromises in the design. How the controversial aspects are circumvented is the challenge for the audiophile. A middle ground nice speaker will not achieve greatness.
Cheers
Bill
why go out of your way to achieve greatness and risk the controversial speakers?? (i'm talking for a newbie unsure of plunking down money). there are so many other speakers to make a SAFE decision and be comfortably happy. you use ""nice"" in a pejorative way. why?
H.F.N.
Dont nice guys finish last? I meant nice as full of compromises. In the lower registers of bass, the warmth of mid and the clarity and sweetness of treble. Niceness also hinted at politeness of sound. Controversies arise when there are some great features which some may not quite hear. Audiophiles need opportunities to tune the room, fine tune the sources and lend an ear to perceived greatness.
Sorry if I did not quite make myself all too clear.
Cheers
Bill
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FORD OR CHEVY
i assume you mean the masses are just asses.
H.F.N.
Not at all and honestly not sure where you got that out of my previous post. I was referring to different strokes for different folks. Some are ford owners some are Chevy owners. Simple as that
your ""simple minded"" post didn't make that clear. Mr. Simpleton.
H.F.N.
Yeah but I think the original poster meant something more along the lines of a Trabant.
nt
Search the forums you find many have love hate comments on both brands you mentioned. So I will end with what hi quality audiophile product is not controversial?
not so true - many many brands elicit less rant-and-rave. alot! many many have good-to-very-good ratings in a general sense and surely some speakers are simply plug-and-play meaning not sensitive to placement and recordings, etc. Gallo is one brand among the commercial brands.
H.F.N.
I would settle for someone sending a pair of Revel Salon 2 in gloss black my way free for nothing.
nt
.
.
don't see connection, sorry.
H.F.N.
We can't understand everything all the time. It was perhaps not the most suitable analogy, especially for folks that are literal more so conceptual. If you are genuinely interested in alternative perspectives that perhaps don't reinforce your existing beliefs, thankfully my other posts to the thread are somewhat more literal.Cheers.
Edits: 02/11/12
If you're setting up a system based on a "consensus" of opinion, you are needlessly limiting yourself- perhaps to mediocrity. As an imperfect analogy- I'd offer that White Zin tastes good by a vast majority of the general wine drinking population. But, any experienced wine afficionado will most likely choose a vintage Bordeaux, Cali Cab, or Oregon Pinot from good years. Yeah- White Zin might be a safe choice to please a crowd, but in most cases, isn't the best choice for each individual- if only they knew what he/she was missing.
Use your own ears, eyes, and palate to be 100% certain.
There are two kinds of fools: one says, This is old, therefore it is good ; the other says, This is new, therefore it is better.
- William Ralph Inge
not at all applicable. there's a difference between *courting* controversy and settling for a consensus among hobbyist-affectionados (sp?). The people who buy cheap wine are not hobbyists-dead-set-on-high-quality (as in A.A.) so many of who will pay high amounts of money. also, if you polled this A.A. site on the general board and asked for the top three speakers under $500 you'd be alot happier than asking the general public for the top three wines under $15; frankly i'd be spitting out the wine suggested by that survey of joe blows and i'm not wine connoisseur but my standards are higher in hi-fi reproduction and i wouldn't be running from the room if i had to live with the top speakers under $500 suggested by A.A.'s general board.
H.F.N.
Oh please not the wine comparison nonsense again!
That's a very persuasive argument you make.
There are two kinds of fools: one says, This is old, therefore it is good ; the other says, This is new, therefore it is better.
- William Ralph Inge
Do I have to map it out for you?
Nah. After browsing just a few of your 18,000+ posts, I yield to your obvious expertise at nonsense. My bad.
There are two kinds of fools: one says, This is old, therefore it is good ; the other says, This is new, therefore it is better.
- William Ralph Inge
Too bad as you seem to be a very judgmental fellow.
I will give you a hint that you will no doubt ignore: hi-fi is about sound reproduction, wines do not reproduce anything else on the face of the earth.
Who mentioned "hifi" to this point? I thought the poster was asking something else. Oh well, now that you have raised it...Hifi - or the accurate reproduction of some event or series of events coded to a playable medium - is a simple, easily understood ideal or goal. However, when describing what we think accurate music reproduction is we rely on personal opinions, influenced by myriad internal and external factors. The ideal/goal may be the almost the same, but our understanding of the criteria and methods we use to define and achieve it at a personal level might vary considerably.
Even with the live event, where there is no reproduction per se, the reasons we attend differ; what we experience differs; how we hear and interpret it differs... by extension, audiophiles might create systems that get them to heart of a performance better than competing products. They might describe their systems as more real, more able to replicate some event and simply more accurate to them; their fi is higher than others. Of course, what they consider real may not be what you consider real, or hifi. There is no absolute truth in personal opinion.
But what about 'absolute hifi' or 'audio truth?' Such 'absolutes' belong more in the realm of objectivity. Having developed research protocols for living in a previous life, I doubt that (m)any significant studies - clinical or population - exist that do not involve some personal judgement: what methodology, what measurement instrument... what statistical tool, what assumptions underpin said tool... how do we reconcile internal and external validity?... now we are back into the realm of the personal, albeit more completely informed and hopefully with minimal bias.
So, for most audiophiles hifi is an ideal that we might choose to move towards, some distant goal that shapes our direction; let us not confuse it with our present reality or oversimplify said reality to such a label. The enjoyment of reproduced music is personal, as is the enjoyment of wine. Of course the are distinctions between the two, but both are enjoyed and can involve complex decisions at the personal level, no matter how much we are focussed on the high in fi.
At least, that is my take on it for now. I might change my mind tomorrow.
Cheers.
Edits: 02/12/12 02/12/12
I'm arguing apples and oranges are both fruits. You're charging-in claiming "nonsense", and stating these fruits are different colors. Yeah- I kinda' know that. But thanks for the tip.
There are two kinds of fools: one says, This is old, therefore it is good ; the other says, This is new, therefore it is better.
- William Ralph Inge
Great day in the morning!
You are actually a cable manufacturer!
And you think you have room to talk about others spouting nonsense?
is the cheapest, most easily used (even amateurs can wield it to effect) tool for diverting and corrupting an argument. Wield it indiscriminately at people's characters, motivated not by genuine concerns about credibility but personal biases, and the wielder ends up seeming like a total douche bag.
You raise some interesting points and encourage occasional constructive discussion... why the deep need to repeatedly turn discussions into personal attacks?
As an aside, Chris also manufactures Teflon capacitors that have had many people reassess how accurate - how hifi - capacitors (in the context of an audio system) can sound. that is something I thought you would appreciate in a manufacturer.
Please, take care.
So it's a cheap argument!
My long ago dead brother always told to ask myself this simple question in life in assessing all new people I would be dealing with: "what does this guy sell?". He, unfortunately, died young leaving a few million dollars behind...
I guess caps have more cred than cables.
Are we allowed to say that on this forum?
After reading some examples of your rather prolific posting career at AA, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that I know a schoolyard bully when I see one.The only thing worse than a bully, is a bully who doesn't think he can get popped in the nose in front of the schoolyard.
There are two kinds of fools: one says, This is old, therefore it is good; the other says, This is new, therefore it is better.
- William Ralph Inge
Edits: 02/11/12 02/11/12
Wow! A bully?
Well at least you are running with a current theme.
nt
what's your point?
H.F.N.
you will have no speakers.Any speaker is controversial as none is perfect, none can work in any space, none can be diven with any amplification...
Edits: 02/10/12
I don't think you actually understand the meaning of "controversial".
And although my spoken and written english is not perfect, I understand it better than majority of US population, (unfortunately for US).
Edits: 02/10/12
It had nothing to do with that as I don't have the foggiest who you are and where you come from. I simply mean to point out that, to my mind, it takes more to call something a "controversy" than having a bunch of audiophiles disagreeing on what constitutes a good speaker.
I could be wrong...
For me every one is controversial as you will always find someone that does not or and someone that do like it. The fact that some controversies are more published does not make one them any more valid than those that are less published.
Therefore, buying any one speaker is controversial choice.
If he wanted to discuss specific ones, he should have stated so, which he refused, making his with no point of reference and question ultimately meaningless.
Yep, what is the point of the original post?Perhaps when posting these types of questions we could be clear:
> Do we need help with a specific purchasing decision?
> Are we seeking greater general understanding? Or
> Are we putting forward some hypothesis to debate?Then it would be clearer to all and it might save some people wasting their time posting when an original poster has something entirely different in mind.
Cheers.
Edits: 02/12/12
i did name two speaker brands that seem to elicit strong opinions both ways (B&W and Wilsons) but i tried to play down those examples, as stated in my o.p. as i did not want the post to turn into YET ANOTHER dialogue of love/hate comments about those two speaker brands. my post is not meaningless - controversy does exist and it does have meaning beyond mere disagreement here and there. you can have this proven by placing a post called "Bose is wonderful" and (a more neutral example) "harbeth is wonderful" and see the difference.
H.F.N.
Do not know how to spell it better for you.
If you want to discuss controversy about those two specific speakers do so.
General question is meaningless as EACH and ANY, absolutely EACH and ANY, speaker choice is controversial as EACH and ANY speaker is flawed. As a result there is not a speaker that suits all tastes/preferences/spaces.... The only difference between let say B&W "controversy" and let say Monitor audio "controversy" is how much you hear about one or the other.
If one suits your tastes/preferences/spaces... that is one that you should buy and enjoy - buying based on the someone elses t/p/s... or future resale value is idiotic.
perhaps you lack English language use on some level. "flawed" (your wording) and "controversy" (my repeated wording) are two words with significantly different meanings. do i need to spell out the differences? nextly, don't play the subjective card (depends on taste, all tastes are different, everyone prefers something different). that is just plain mindlessly obvious and leads to nowhere.
H.F.N.
I know exactly what I wrote.
Not surprisingly, you are either not capable or willing to understand what has been written. And than you try to categorize my post as "subjective card" only.
IMHO, quite typical for your posts. Buy.
So you either have complete agreement or controversy? I think that there is a logical fallacy covering this at work here, something about the absent middle.
nt
There are two kinds of fools: one says, This is old, therefore it is good ; the other says, This is new, therefore it is better.
- William Ralph Inge
stale argument: the old relativity card being played with no distinction made.
H.F.N.
Sorry- just ran out of Troll food.
There are two kinds of fools: one says, This is old, therefore it is good ; the other says, This is new, therefore it is better.
- William Ralph Inge
translation: can't support your reasoning. might as well keep reverting to the relativity line. let me help you practice thoughtless thinking:
"everything is subjective"
"all is relative"
"no one size fits all"
have i missed any cliche truisms to comfort the mind?
H.F.N.
.
why? why would a controversial speaker sound good? if controversy has any meaning at all, it means the speaker brand in question has strong, very stong opinions in both directions and most probably using differing criteria. so why would a controversial speaker - any speaker you care to name - be good even for most people?
H.F.N.
You have partly answered the question for yourself: "...be good even for most people". 'Most people' does not equal all people. The musical experience is personal as can be the choice of system used to transduce it. There are likely limitless specific reasons why someone might choose a controversial speaker; to reduce them to a simple label (ie. exclusive, snob, etc.) as has been the case in this thread says more about the labeler than labelee and is a barrier to understanding.There is more that could be said regarding the Most People group, marketing, audio misfits (endearing interpretation please), controversy, and paths more and less trodden, though I have touched on it in a post below.
Two things that might help people contribute in a helpful way (ie. help the understand what you want mean and want):
> With regard to your O.P., why do you want to know?
> Can you provide further examples of controversial and non-contraversial then state you don't want this to deteriorate into a brand battle?Cheers.
Edits: 02/11/12
Controversial is in the eye and ear of the beholder. So is sounding good.
Obviously, some people find "controversial" speakers sound good, or they wouldn't sell them. Many people, many different tastes.
Controversial? Tube Vs. SS Vs. Switching amps. People still buy them.
I'm not sure what you are really asking.
Jack
The obvious and correct answer, to my mind at least.
I agree, why buy something that loses value at an alarming rate.
Audiophiles buy the wacky stuff to get this feeling of exclusivity.
I asked who were the good speaker designers in a thread I started and it was as though I questioned the virginity of their daughters.
What is whacky? No one has yet provided an example of this.My Audio Note speakers might be considered whacky or controversial - yet they were designed by arguably one of the top 5 acousticians who ever walked the earth in L.L. Beranek and then improved upon by Peter Snell - put Snell on the map.
But most manufacturers in this industry consider them "wrong." Which speaker volumes about the "most manufacturers" IMO and IME.
I can sell my speakers for more than I originally paid for them 5 years ago - try that with a mainstream speaker from the big boys that change designs every 3 years to improve their market share.
Edits: 02/14/12
This may have limited relevance as I don't consider myself an "audiophile." However, the speakers I have ordered could be considered a little whacky. I ordered them because they should, more completely than less 'controversial' alternatives, satisfy my defined practical and sonic criteria. They also meet my desire to support committed craftsmen (some local) and have some involvement in their realisation. Exclusivity per se was not a factor.As for losing money at an alarming rate, the system as a whole will hopefully achieve it's goals with more success and at less cost than more common approaches; by extension, this applies to the speakers. The speakers could be sold after a year or so of use for a greater proportion of their purchase price than a similarly priced B&W or Wilson (if one exists in the case of Wilson); likewise after ten years. People may take an alternative path for reasons other than exclusivity, gullibility, or other undesirable character traits. Conversely, someone may take a well trodden, accepted path for reasons other than fear and being a dull uninspired label-shopper.
Taking a different perspective, if someone derives immense pleasure from (and retains) something that financially depreciates more quickly than less satisfying competing products, have they lost value at an "alarming rate" or gained genuine value?
Admittedly, my example may be the exception rather than the 'rule'; however, I hope it demonstrates that not all whacky speaker buyers are seeking exclusivity and not all audiophiles are "audiophiles."
As for your comment "I asked who were the good speaker designers in a thread I started and it was as though I questioned the virginity of their daughters.", this says as much about your approach as others' reactions. However, given your profession, surely you are well aware of this, no?
Take care.
Edits: 02/11/12 02/13/12
You really think we're that insecure?
What the hell does 'controversy' have to do with how wonderful something sounds? No speaker can do everything extremely well. Lots of them can do a lot of things in a compromised way, offending no one except those who love excellence. A few can do the important things superbly well, trading off some less important things to accomplish that.
But yeah, for those into this for the money, stick with your Average Joes and limit your losses.
let's take an analogy: women. you have a chance to date-and-must-marry one of T-W-O women. you have seen detailed pics of both and both rate 8.5 on your scale of 1 to 10. beauty is equal in physical form. the character, values, outlook on life are unknown to you (except what you can guess from the pics). aside from the photos, you have to go on what respected others have said who have met them ('respected others' for the audio hobby would mean fellow A.A. members you respect for their tastes in equipment; 'met them' for the audio hobby would mean fellow A.A. members who have heard the loudspeakers). are you going to choose the woman that LESS of your valued friends/others have chosen?
H.F.N.
And you think this imaginary situation in an impossible world has some relation to buying audio gear? A wife for life vs. a pair of speakers? This is a male daydream, comparable to little kids comparing the best way to die. And where does love come into this?We are a long way from where this thread started out. We were talking about gear off the beaten path vs. very popular gear. And, to bring your silly analogy to bear, if you gamble and lose on the El Padooda speakers that Neill talked you into buying without audition, you don't have to go to a judge to get rid of them. And you can whack Neill on AA or come to Amherst and whack him in person!
Oh, by the way, the El Padooda speakers are wonderful, trust me.
Edits: 02/11/12
you missed the point of my analogy. entirely. i tried to make it ultra-simple. the basic point - lost on you in your meanderings - is to choose what respected others have consistently chosen OVER something that elicits vitriolic response. this assumes no personal audition (or in the analogy of women: inability to meet her) is possible.
how hard is that to understand?
H.F.N.
It's the dealer in you talking.
"The dealer in me" would obviously sell just the popular stuff. You don't get rich selling weird stuff. Though, as it turns out, I don't sell whacky stuff either, just stuff a little off the beaten path.
This conversation has drifted a bit. What would actually qualify as whacky these days? Some of the odd looking horns? Or just anythng without a large following? If the latter, then I'll go back to what I just said. Dealers who want to make money don't sell stuff without a large following, without lots of reviews that make people feel confident, etc. Those who sell unusual stuff do it out of love. Or idiocy. Or, of course, a bit of both.
he didn't say the dealer in your writing or presenting ideas in this thread. he's right: you present money arguments. don't know or care if that is your behavior in the trade.
you really really don't get it.
H.F.N.
You are a saint!
No, a happy, retired idiot who doens't depend on his business for a livelihood.
Good for you!
Insecure is not the word!
If you look back to early days of sound reproduction, all the speakers were horn or horn based. All were very efficient - bandwidth limited, some coloration, too. Higher fidelity required a lot of room.
Klipsch folded their horns and put them in the corner (radical! unconventional!) which went a long way to solve the size problem.
"Conventional" cone drivers came along and allowed speakers to become smaller, still, and have greater frequency extension - but became more complex - and less efficient - all requiring more powerful amplifiers with lots of current reserve, and losing a little "directness" for which horns are famous. (quite radical and demanding at the time when power amplifiers would require a ton of tubes)
And we have some planar speaker technology (Quad) that through the smart use of electrostatic membranes got detail really well, at the expense of slam and bass extension. Also required a few tricks to keep the amplifier power down. And other makers (Apogee, Martin Logan, Magnepan) - all have similar limitations, but also different strengths!
I suppose what I am saying is that a portion of today's unconventional radical technology might be just the thing for a subset of purchasers - and may indeed build that better mousetrap in sound reproduction.
"Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad"
Walker was a genius, some of the people in audio today, especially speakers, are charlatans plain and simple.
In fact, I've not listened to many loudspeakers that didn't have a good share of bad points to go along with the good ones.
Because the good ones were soooooooo good. Sort of like love, ain't it!
Wow, you are a difficult person aren't you?
I just wonder which speakers the original poster thinks people should be auditioning - which ones AREN'T controversial?
Maybe Vandersteen, but plenty find them TOO smoothe and lacking in detail.
Perhaps Merlin, but I've listened to a number of iterations & they aren't my cuppa.
So what are some likely candidates?
how hard can people make my post???????? kindly read my follow-up posts to other people's replies.
H.F.N.
A few years ago a new hi-fi store opened in Montreal so I went there just to see the place and talk to the people. When I mentioned that I was impressed by Vandersteen Fives the co-owner responded something to the effect "oh, those are speakers for my father..."
A brand's image and aura are of utmost importance and many want speakers from a newer off-beat company.
If it wasn't for high margins and the relative simplicity of building them I am sure we would never see so many manufacturers out there.
Makes it fun to watch though.
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