Poor Fritz

The rule of thumb in hi-fi manufacturing is to price a product at ten times the cost of parts. Assuming that is for selling through brick & mortar retailers, for direct sales let’s cut that in half. Even at five x parts, the $3500 Fritz is still UNDER-priced.

If Fritz can do it for that price what does that tell us about all the other speaker companies? It tells us that we are being duped. Wake up and smell the coffee, most hifi speakers are overpriced and you know it!

Fritz suggests on his website that his speakers are the worlds best sounding.

This is simply an unproven statement. Do not be deceived by companies that make such bold claims. 

If Fritz was so great, nobody would buy WILSON AUDIO, B&W, VIVID, YG ACOUSTICS, MAGICO, FOCAL, KEF.

The evidence does NOT support the conclusion that Fritz speakers are a cut above the rest.

 Dynaudio and others were doing this for years with Totem and other manufacturers starting out with custom quality wound voice coils, better magnets, or surrounds, and different baskets in special circumstances

Why arent these supposedly better versions already being produced and offered for sale to the public then? 

The problem with Fritz speakers is the wooden boxes they use are no better than a DIY job. If you want high end speakers surely the wooden box needs to be elevated in quality too? If you look at other high end speakers they do use more advanced boxes even if they are made of mdf. 

It's knarly because of the title... Which is how the OP intended it... He likes to troll then call foul when it goes in a direction he doesn't like.

who is the troll?

Erik, 

I still haven't been told what improvements you could do to the SNR1 which incidentally were heavily criticized by the engineers over on diyaudio. Feel free to share your thoughts. 

Duke, 

The goal of speaker design is PERFECTION. If you cannot or will not agree to that, you are in the wrong job. It is all about winning and trying to outdo the competition. There is a war going on and YOU yourself as a speaker engineer are a part of this whether you know it or not. Which faction do you belong to Duke? I have only one interest and that is to find perfection. 

I am not interested in how wonderful the KEF meta LS50s sound, or how wonderful the Audiokinesis Ginas sound. I wanna know how BAD THEY ARE! I wanna uncover all the dirty secrets that so many people are desperate to suppress. Show me why they are flawed and tell me how they can be improved! 

criminal as in deplorable.I stand by that statement. If you are a regular reader of this site you will realize that there are no negative reviews or posts EVER. Perhaps they are all deleted just like many of my posts, that mysteriously disappear? If you look at any speaker companys website the same pattern emerges, No matter cheap the speaker is, you will never see anything negative being said about it.
It is deplorable that speaker companies can make any claim they like and produce no evidence whatsoever. I refuse to apologize for trying to reveal these nasty facts to the wider community of audiophiles.

@perkri

If you disagree with any of the points Ive made the onus is on you to refute me. It is devious of you to think you can win the argument by silencing me.

Clearly you are unable to provide any reasons to refute me which is why you would rather I disappear from this forum.

I am here to stimulate further discussion about speakers but you and others here are simply unable to go beyond name calling. 

So the question for you perkri is this. Who is the better audiophile? me or you? Who is the real troll? The one that seeks to prevent any meaningful discussion by resorting to insults and other extraneous remarks or the one that tries to carry on with the discussion of the topic despite the attacks?

The fact of the matter is that the fritz speaker uses at most $300 worth of drivers in a speaker that sells for $2200. It is natural to ask where all the rest of the money goes. If you are in favor of this price, the onus is on you to convince me that it is reasonable. It is natural to ask, at what price point it becomes unscrupulous? Give me one example of a product that you believe is in fact overpriced so that i can understand your views better.

The tweeter used in the Carrera is a high end, SB acoustics Beryllium tweeter.  A single one is close to $400.  That 7” paper driver is a Scan Speak Revelator and the are around $250

Total cost of drivers is $1300. Cost of speakers is $3500. So how much is he actually making? Can anybody answer that without insulting me? 

You can buy kits that come with cabinets already assembled all you need to do is fit the parts in. 

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/speaker-kits/satori-ara-2-way-speaker-kit-pair/

These are a fraction of the cost of the fritz and use top end drivers. They are $1400.

The braced cabinet design is slanted and has an unusual faceted baffle. It looks much cleaner and professional than the fritz cabinet. The finish on the ARA speakers are high gloss and look very good. 

If you arent concerned about the high gloss finish you could get cabinets made for less than the $700 Madisound charges you. 

As you can see, Fritz speakers are overpriced when you consider the alternatives. 

If you know of someone who buys parts and builds new quality speakers for FREE at no labor cost, please share their name and contact info.

You are completely missing the point. The point is I gave you an example of an alternative to the fritz speakers. The cabinets come preassembled. 
The labor involved is between 15 minutes to an hour depending on your experience. The speakers are just as high quality if not better. They use the highest quality parts and the finish is as good as a commercial product.

What good reason can you give to buy the fritz when you can buy better for a fraction of the cost? 

Are you saying that audiophiles should pay someone an additional $2000 to assemble the kit, if they are not confident to do it themselves? 

It doesnt matter if Fritz needs to cover his expenses. That is not our problem. Why pay more when you can get it for less?

They are close enough for me

No they are not. They are not even full range. They suffer from lobing just like other speakers. Nobody would buy Wilson or Magico or Vivid if the Fritz were superior. So lets be realistic.

@b_limo 

Do the Fritz have any weaknesses in sound quality? What improvements could be made if the speakers were sold for ten times their current price?

Maybe not so much on your bose cubes.

@mofojo 

I don't have any Bose cubes. And when did I ever say that i was using Bose cubes to try to hear the differences between amps and dacs? You're just making things up in order to try to insult me but you have now failed because the assumptions you made were FALSE.

Nobody should buy a fritz until they are told about what aspects of the sound quality are BAD. 

All people have done so far is extol the virtues of Fritz speakers as if to say they are PERFECT all the while knowing that they are not perfect. 

So does anybody dare to criticize the great master speaker designs of Fritz or are his speakers PERFECT AND FLAWLESS?

EVERY speaker has dirty secrets that the audio industry does not want you to know!! Every speaker I have bought even from B&W had weaknesses. The fact of the matter is, threads like this shamelessly promote all of a speakers strengths and deliberately suppress their weaknesses. 

If this post gets deleted, I will no longer be participating in a forum that promotes and condones suppression of DIRTY SECRETS within the industry. 

If those speakers had a Wilson badge they would be 5x as expensive and to my ears comparable sound quality (and better than older Wilsons) given the size restrictions.

So are you saying the wilsons are a complete scam? That appears to be exactly what you are saying Erik Tufnel.

And lastly, I don’t think you’d even know what perfection was if it slapped you across the face, which by the way, I’d pay good money to see.

and you would? How? 

Also, I have never ever seen you talk about amps, preamps, dacs or cabling.

I start with the thing that makes the biggest difference which is speakers. 
Amps make no difference. I have heard dozens of amps at home and in stores. Cabling makes no difference at all. 

Why cant you tell me what the bad aspects of the Fritz speakers are? All i have ever heard you do is extol the virtues of speakers but never any criticisms

He has come to the stark realization that there is no way that even he could build a speaker that would make him happy.

He has actually come to the realization that THEY, i.e. the criminal speaker industry, is unable to satisfy his ultra high standards due to their incompetence and low standards. 

You are right that he is miserable but only because he has been betrayed by the speaker industry by false grand promises of high sound quality for years and years which were never realized.

He is the epitome of an audiophile yet is victimized by his fellow audiophiles. How ironic.

I honestly don’t know how the moderators here justify not banning him as he contributes nothing and just pollutes the site. So I it goes...

There is no rule that says you will get banned for not contributing anything that 100% of forum users will agree with.

The fact of the matter is I am the greatest asset not only on here but in the audiophile world. If I disappear from here that is a massive loss that you wouldn't even realize. 

I have been to all the hifi exhibitions, visited many hifi dealers, watch all the youtube speaker reviews and heard dozens of speakers in real life. I have gone through the nightmare of being unable to find perfect sound. I am now seeking a solution. 
Whereas the rest of you lot are still stuck on the 'peaker merry go round buying and selling one speaker after another. I was there many years ago. I am now several levels beyond that. That is what makes me superior. The rest of you lot are happy listening to the likes of Kef reference ones and kef blades that havent even been custom tuned to your ears. But I demand better than that. So what does that tell you about how high my standards are compared to you lot? I hear problems that most of you lot cant hear even if it hit you in the face. By jove i have heard speakers that were wired out of phase by the hifi salesperson who couldnt hear it until i pointed it out. I am perfect.

Some of us could not do it right even for $22000. We pay others to do it better.

so if i wanted to charge you 2000 bucks to change your lightbulb, would that not indicate that i was being unscrupulous?

When you see a doctor, why do you pay money? Experience, expertise, training, and good advice.

Its highly offensive to suggest that there is any expertise involved in screwing a pair of drivers into an mdf box. Where is the expertise in that? 
There is nothing wrong with earning money by making speakers. The question you can't answer is this. At what point does a speaker become overpriced? What you seem to be suggesting is that no matter how high the price is, as long as someone is willing to pay for it, its reasonable. Its people like you that have made hi end audio so horribly overpriced. Not only does this make it unaffordable but it promotes scamming.

Healthcare is a horrible example to use as that is just another area where people are being overcharged for little work.

And by the way, I solely got him banned for a month.  If 10 of us got together and e-mailed Tammy we could vote this yahoo off this site.

Why do you say that as if its something to be proud of? you ought to ashamed of yourself for getting me banned unjustly.
and if word got out that audiogon promotes this kind of activity where they suppress any opinions that people like you disagree with, what will that do to the reputation of audiogon? 
Its going to reinforce the idea that the audiophile industry is all just a big sham.

If you dont like the truth Bruce, you are the one who should avoid reading what i write. If you disagree with what I write, it is unacceptable to resort to name calling.

Not only are you obtuse, but your math doesn’t work.How can you buy drivers for 300.00, pay a cabinet maker  and still save two thousand dollars on speakers that cost 2200.00?

By buying the mdf and gluing it together yourself obviously. It would cost far less than $2200 I kid you not.

The fritz speakers are pretty overpriced it seems. The FRITZ CARBON 6
2 Way stand mounted monitor costs $2200 and uses sb acoustics drivers which are about 300 bucks in total.

So youre paying about $2k just for the box plus labor. I'm sure you could get a cabinet maker to do the box for much less than that. If you could get the mdf cut for you, you could even glue the box together yourself with a few clamps and some glue. Just drill two holes for the drivers and youre done. You would then save $2k. 

Get yourself a mini dsp and you'd get even better performance than the horrible passive crossovers used in the Fritz. They dont even tell you what slopes they use so you have no idea what youre getting.

In conclusion, high end audio is overpriced and these speakers are no exception. Also you need to remember that hifi speaker drivers are overpriced too. The only thing with that is there is nothing you can do about it. You cant make your own drivers. Its just a bit of metal and paper in most cases if you think about it.