New MOFI speaker (Andrew Jones)

man, great deal indeed, as they cover return shipping too in event of return...

that is some seriously aggressive retailing... (and vast confidence in the product..or something else not as complimentary ... 😂).

@mofimadness 

appreciate your clarification

i do wonder... is the user @mofimadness affiliated with mobile fidelity?  if so this should be considered as advertising, and should be paid for...

no doubt a-j is a proven designer of many well respected box speakers, a master of making intelligent tradeoffs in design, and a proponent of concentric drivers

to me, this one seems cool, on the face of it, due to its higher sensitivity and benign impedance, relatively substantial baffle, kind of in the devore o-series direction, though from the s-g's subjective comments, the tweeter seems voiced to be on the livelier side, a more modern sound, perhaps

this said, when i see a tweeter coupled with a 10 in woofer, in any 2 way, concentric or not, i have to wonder how pure, how correct sounding the critical midrange reproduction is

’giant killer’

’at $3,699 msrp, nothing under 10k can touch them... few under 20k’

a-j is a very talented designer, no doubt this standmount sounds quite good

but fellas, can we not lose our heads and try keep the spin cycle in check? after a cursory listen at a show?

enthusiasm and passion in our hobby is very welcome, especially for well performing modestly priced products, but over the top, unrealistic touts deserve the eyerolls they undoubtedly will engender -- not being a kill-joy here, let’s please just keep it real, building a bridge too far serves no one...

for instance, off top of head example, you bring those, i bring a set of maggie 1.7i... we will see who be david and who goliath? you get my drift...

@larryi

I would also like to add how much I appreciated Andrew Jones' representation of the Mo-Fi speaker at Capital Audiofest.  He does a terrific job of explaining the design, including engineering challenges and the compromises that are made in implementing the particular design.  He has been my favorite representative from when I first heard him at CES talking about TAD speakers about 20 years ago.  

It is a small wonder how he manages to keep his very friendly and engaging demeanor over the entirety of a long show.  He is an extraordinary trooper.

i agree

andrew jones is a rare commodity in this industry, technically excellent, talented and imaginative in design, and also very articulate, charming, likeable as a person and spokesman

it is very easy to listen to him speak, stay engaged, and not be turned off by a sense ego mania or hype ....

@nonoise

thanks for posting that ’mini-take’ - sometimes just a very few well written, to-the-point paragraphs are much more informative than a multi-page review or a lengthy video review on youtube, so much fluff can and should be boiled down to the very essence more often

why is this so special?

as @roxy54 said...

it may well not be special... but it is new, from a well known, well liked, respected designer, thus worthy of evaluation and spreading the word around, so to speak

but we are all wise to note the distinction between 'new' and 'special'.... time needs to pass for something to be deemed ’special’

@prof @roxy54

this jay character lost all credibility with me when he posted a y-t vid saying pass labs amps were mid-fi

he simply hasn’t a clue what hi-fi is if he believes that

as more reviews, written and online, emerge from various sources over the past few weeks, i think a reasonable picture of what these speakers are is emerging

while i haven’t heard them myself yet (not a priority for me personally), i would summarize as follows

-- more traditional look, big box, wide-ish baffles, need decent stands, imposing in a room (to me it is interesting given the concentric drivers, the speaker may need to be raised up more than usual - to compared to say a pair of harbeths with higher mounted tweeter - for correct height and treble dispersion)

-- good to very good, full-ish bass response, somewhat lively forward mid/lower treble, but rolled off high treble with a ’big speaker’ sonic presentation not to be mistaken with more typical standmount bookshelf models - as such, can lead to some fatigue if not well mated to suited upstream components

-- placement and setup quite important (isn’t it always?!) to get proper degree of room boundary interaction, which in turn affects perceived bass response and overall tonal balance of the speaker... i suspect without proper stands issued that quite a few users don’t have the speakers at the proper height

-- excellent driver integration or coherence up and down the frequency range, to be expected with well designed custom drivers, crossover and concentricity, core strengths of andrew jones’ work coupled with good efficiency/easy impedance and thus can be driven by many/most real world amps

-- wide baffle and room interaction makes it pretty obvious the speakers sound has some noticeable ’boxy’ characteristics, which may or may not be an impediment, depending on what the listener has otherwise experienced

-- overall good to very good performance for the $$

ahhh, the evil profit motive... mustn't have any of that now....

there is a used set being resold out of oregon... listed on the other site... knock yourselves out folks 😁

there is also a very recent youtube video with steve mccormack being interviewed, stating he is very impressed with his set of these -- he is up there in age these days, but i would still trust his assessment more than most others on the ’tube...

woj pacula is an excellent reviewer... one of the best out there

i recall a little while back his review of the spendor classic 100 and comparing it to the harbeth mon 40... wonderful review, so insightful and complete, and absolutely spot on in his sonic observations imo

good speakers, no doubt

but somehow i have a picture in my mind of a warehouse chock full of these speakers on sitting on pallets, looking for good homes

i suspect to keep the cost per pair low, many many pairs were manufactured in a sizable bulk order, and a full container load has landed here in the usa...

in any case, it results in a great offering to potential customers interested in hearing a pair in their own systems

larry - great point, one which had eluded me earlier

sp 10 is 91 db/wm whereas sp-8 is only 87 db/wm --- that is a significant sensitivity difference... a major selling point of the 10 was its fairly high efficiency allowing use with lower powered tube amps, single ended sweeties... that is something definitely traded away if one goes with the 8’s

smart next product in the launch plan

i always kinda wonder how the midrange purity would be with the tweet crossed over into the 10 in woof, neither perfectly suited to the vocals range ... 8 in driver may well produce more precise, purer mids, at some sacrifice to the bass depth and impact, and overall easefulness of the sound

i am sure one or more of the talking heads on the ’tube will do a comparo soon! ... or maybe someone here!