Recently read the comments, briefly, on the Stereophile review of a very interesting speaker. I say it’s interesting because the designers put together two brands I really like together: Mundorf and Scanspeak. I use the same brands in my living room and love the results.
Unfortunately, using off-the-shelf drivers, no matter how well performing, immediately gets arm chair speaker critics, who can’t actually build speakers themselves, and wouldn’t like it if they could, trying to evaluate the speaker based on parts.
First, these critics are 100% never actually going to make a pair of speakers. They only buy name brands. Next, they don’t get how expensive it is to run a retail business.
A speaker maker has to sell a pair of speakers for at least 10x what the drivers cost. I’m sorry but the math of getting a speaker out the door, and getting a retailer to make space for it, plus service overhead, yada yada, means you simply cannot sell a speaker for parts cost. Same for everything on earth.
The last mistake, and this is a doozy, is that the same critics who insist on only custom, in-house drivers, are paying for even cheaper drivers!
I hope you are all sitting down, but big speaker brand names who make their drivers 100% in house sell the speakers for 20x or more of the actual driver cost.
Why do these same speaker snobs keep their mouth shut about name brands but try to take apart small time, efficient builders? Because they can. The biggest advantage that in-house drivers gives you is that the riff raft ( this is a joke on an old A'gon post which misspelled riff raff) stays silent. If you are sitting there pricing speakers out on parts cost, shut up and build something, then go sell it.
It's easy to find a tweeter < $50 that's super smooth and clean sounding when it only has to handle 10 W or less, but an entirely different thing when you apply power to it. That's where, IMHO, the adults are separated from the boys.
For this reason alone, though I may not use them, JBL professional products get a knod of respect from me always.
I dare say I have my fair share of experience with a range of pro driver brands, and if JBL pro gets the approving nod from you, you might as well include quite a few other brands down the road. Not asking of you to do so blindly, but compared to other pro manufacturers JBL, as much as I respect them, aren't necessarily sitting on a high horse here - believe me. I had my mind wrapped around them rather exclusively years ago with a big love in particular for their more powerful and horn-hybrids studio range and the likes of the K2 S9500 (those 1400ND woofers, not least the 1400PRO version - the first neodymium magnet woofers to be put into production, if I recall correctly - are dynamite), but in the years to come came to realize others went on to challenge JBL, and in core areas even exceed them. I'm not only thinking brute power handling force and durability here, but as well when speaking compression drivers and what's considered the more "audiophile" aspects, not least of which is lower SPL "attentiveness" and overall finesse. Those brilliant engineers back then like Keele and others put their lasting mark certainly on Altec, Electro-Voice, JBL and more (of which my own pro cinema EV's are a product child), but fortunately we have a range of current designs from other, european brands to carry on the torch. Btw. right now listening to Sinatra's 'My Way,' and you'd think his songs were meant to be reproduced by large format horns and drivers :)
Btw. right now listening to Sinatra’s ’My Way,’ and you’d think his songs were meant to be reproduced by large format horns and drivers :)
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin owned 3 Paragons EACH to listen to their own Master Tapes. Since a Single Paragon is Stereo, they had to be using a Paragon as a single speaker instead of stereo (effectively 6 speakers systems in 3 cabinets.
I don’t think everything JBL ever did was outstanding
The reviews on the JBL 305 Studio monitors are fantastic, they were too bright for my taste. I got the passive version, the Studio 230, that was also based on the trickle down tech from the M2. You can’t compare the amp in the 305 with $$$ of the Bob Carver electronics and Mapleshade cables I drive these with on my desktop, they just opened up like a flower, (uh oh, did I just become an armchair snob)😯
I'm not sure who you're talking about but I had bad luck with using Mundorf Supreme Caps in a design. I actually talked to Danny Ritchie and he confirmed that the Mundorfs were a poor choice also. Of course, he recommended Sonic Caps, so I called Sonic Cap and spoke to a designer at Sonic Cap. He also confirmed what Danny said, but added that he thought that his Sonic Cap would be a lateral move from the Hovlands I was originally using. Now that takes guts to admit that. I put back the Hovlands plus bypassed them with Dueland Copper 0.01mfd caps(also purchased the Silvers) and all is right again and maybe a little bit better. I learned two important lessons, maybe three; First, trust my ears, second talk to engineers, designers, and not salesmen. The third might be don't listen to people on this or any other site that make suggestions that work for their situation that's different to yours.
I don't understand the argument, but want to say not all of us want to invest in a kit we have no way to hear until paid for. Accuton, Seas, Scanspeak, etc all make quality drivers that push the sota, but who's demoing the finished products? I think Kharma uses Accuton components and have you seen the price for their speakers?
The argument is snobs calculate the cost of the "parts" of a speaker and pass judgement, overlooking the design and overall SQ. This rankles the DIY crowd in general. Personally I am parts agnostic, turn it on and if it sounds good I don’t care if it is $ in parts or $$$.
My bias/snobbery is that matching an amp and a speaker is a crap shoot and happens to be the most profitable strategy for manufacturers (sell you two products amp + speakers plus an additional set of cables). I think it should go away, all speakers should be designed from the ground up as an active "system", sold as a one box solution, and reduce the risk of a mismatch. Since we are discussing JBL here is an example:
To the DIY crowd, what is your opinion of this much speaker for the money, the JBL 4305P Studio Monitor. Could Joe Sixpack do better if I sent him off to shop for speakers, amp, preamp, and a DAC with the same dough? @phusis@ghdprentice what are your thoughts?
People make judgements about things they really don’t know about all the time. So what’s the problem? It’s not going to change so best to take it for what it is and move on.
I totally agree with you AMT's are much better than any dome tweeter but the mundorf one only goes to 27,000 the monitor audio platinum MPD Twitter goes to 100,000 clean on the G2, on the G3 they redesigned it a little bit and it only goes to 60,000, the theory is that the higher it goes the cleaner and clearer and more accurate and natural everything will be down below and I have the monitor audio platinum 200 G2 and the highs or so three-dimensional airy and spacious I absolutely love it and I also have my speakers on Townshend podiums what a effing difference that made it was like night and day better, it was like I had upgraded my electronics to much more expensive gear.
I’m a big fan of Monitor Audio and think that they are a brand that has done an exceptional job in engineering for cost and performance at the same time. Really amazing stuff.
Going out to 1 MHz doesn’t make a tweeter audibly better, but in the past was kind of a proxy for stored energy, and lack of inductance but now we can measure that directly. Mundorfs are absolutely exceptional drivers, and the Monitor Audio can be as well. :) Sure does give you bragging rights, however!!
Besides FR there is also compression and distortion, and in this case as well, Mundorf tweets are absolutely world class. They are not hte only world class AMTs though. Beyma for instance are incredibly well regarded.
I haven’t heard every tweeter on earth, especially since the covid pandemic, but I will say that I’ve never heard better performing tweeters. There may be some that sound better, and some that measure better, and I am sad I haven’t experienced that.
I’ve experienced the ScanSpeak AirCirc motors and they are also very very good, but have yet to measure one to the extent I have measured the Mundorf. Part of why I was measuring the Mundorfs was I was talking to the folks at Raal and doing it as a cooperative investigation. :) They know their stuff really well also, but sadly never heard them.
Let’s take the example of excellent $10,000 speakers with in-house custom drivers. Most people have no idea how much the drivers cost, so you never read about it in reviews and you don’t have hens showing up to nit pick them on part cost.
There’s no way those retail store speakers have more than $1,000 in drivers. You can’t maintain a speaker company for more than that. In addition, even with brands I really really like, I posit they are closer to 5-7% of cost in drivers. So they may spend $750 in the drivers, while selling you a $10,000 speaker.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but I am saying that your opinion of the speaker brand and quality will be altered just by knowing the cost of the drivers. That Class-A rating and glowing show reports will absolutely have you reaching for your wallet, and calling them giant-killers so long as you have no idea of the driver cost.
The exact same speaker, with the same review, and performance is suddenly not worth a listen when you know the actual driver cost. And this is where the small cottage builder is at a complete disadvantage. They may in fact use more expensive parts than the mega-brands but you don't know the mega-brand part cost so you can't look down on them the same way.
So please for heaven’s sake stop doing that to little brands with off the shelf components when they are great products and amazing deals. We need more cottage-industry builders, not fewer.
Especially Kenjit and a few others who base retail price on parts costs. Ridiculous.
I am most interested in upgrading my Legacy original Focus speakers in a high end system with my hopefully final speakers after 50 years of about a dozen speakers (Focus for 20 years, ML Monolith IIIs for about 10 years, Acoustats X, 1+1 and 2+2 for another 10 years prior. 4 other cheap box speakers prior).
Names I am listening to are Acora Acoustics (great American speaker), Aequo Adamantis, Zellaton Plural Evo (probably the end) and cannot afford Von Schweikert Ultra 7 or Rockport Orion. Rejected mass produced B&W, dislike Magico, Wilson and YG.
I demand a lot from my speakers now. They fail in dispersion and box sound (they don't disappear) and ambiance/imaging/soundstaging. It's going to cost a lot to retain all the benefits of a dynamic, full sounding speaker which is easy to drive and fits into a moderate size custom listening room.
I don't want horns, stats, ribbons or planars. I need a speaker which can deliver both intimate and huge sounds, from guitar, vocal, harp, etc. to symphonies, opera, big band and heavy metal. That's a lot to ask for and the speaker designers I'm interested in listen to and appreciate acoustical music (mostly European manufacturers with a few U.S.). B&W make great quality speakers at a reasonable price but their tonal balance is just unappealing.
Small manufacturers can only make a limited quantity of a superior product. They also cannot afford massive marketing costs and rely on word of mouth. It's a very tough business model and hate the complainers that just total up the parts costs to establish a sales price.
@fleschlerI’d suggest adding the Joseph Audio Pearl, Usher TD20, Verity Audio Arindal, Vandersteen Kento, and Boenicke W13 SE to your list given what you’re looking for. FWIW, and happy hunting!
I demand a lot OF speakers now, You have a very nice room, go with a 7.2.4 setup and enjoy the thrills. Think, you can get a LOT more dynamics and imaging from coverage of 11 speakers plus two subs than just one pair of speakers. Get these active Focals and save your money on buying more amps or rack space. I know there might be some "snobs" in this thread that frown on pro gear, don't let that stop you:
Erik this makes no sense to me why are in house or parts the company makes from scratch inferior? It would seem to me the builder can more closely spec parts and control tolerances. I'm not saying that every custom built driver is better than an off the shelf driver it's obviously a case by case basis. It does seem a weird argument to make I guess you're really bored. 😉
My bias/snobbery is that matching an amp and a speaker is a crap shoot and happens to be the most profitable strategy for manufacturers (sell you two products amp + speakers plus an additional set of cables). I think it should go away, all speakers should be designed from the ground up as an active "system", sold as a one box solution, and reduce the risk of a mismatch. ...
There’s also attempts at profitable strategies from at least some of those making active one-box solutions. Not trying to downplay the advantages of going active, but the one predominant takeaway here is removing the passive crossover between the amp and speaker. All the hoopla on "matching the individual driver to an amp channel" has gotten old long ago, and while there are ways to optimize amp-driver coupling from a holistic design point-of-view that can potentially incorporate a broader range of facets, all the while also cutting corners, most of these are pebbles next to the single big rock of getting rid of the passive crossover. Indeed, one box solutions work around compromises as well - quite a few, actually - and to my mind they’re blowing up aspects on the importance of amp-driver integration in an esoteric cloud to cover up the all-too-obvious advantage of going active, which I’ve already mentioned, while effectively also discouraging those who’d like to venture in the direction of an outboard active solution. So, from my chair your highlighting the unfortunate mismatch between passively configured speakers and the amp(s) driving them really comes down to that introduced by the passive crossover itself.
To the DIY crowd, what is your opinion of this much speaker for the money, the JBL 4305P Studio Monitor. Could Joe Sixpack do better if I sent him off to shop for speakers, amp, preamp, and a DAC with the same dough? @phusis@ghdprentice what are your thoughts?
From a same-budget perspective and a select range of sonic parameters I’d say the JBL’s as a package are tough to beat vs a passively configured "adversary." However we wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples, and so many aspects can come to the fore as a deciding factor that can’t be boiled down to bundled active vs. passive on principle alone. Moreover, the JBL’s to some, i.e.: in a particular context, may be considered an acquired taste, if nothing else by virtue of their dynamic capabilities, waveguide-loading and the use of a compression driver which as an active package may come across as a more blunt, direct/open, and (in some regards) honest presentation that truth be told isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. My personal take and not least given enough options would be favoring the bundled, active package vs. a passive ditto - in named context. Optimally though I prefer the outboard active solution.
Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin owned 3 Paragons EACH to listen to their own Master Tapes. Since a Single Paragon is Stereo, they had to be using a Paragon as a single speaker instead of stereo (effectively 6 speakers systems in 3 cabinets.
If they did indeed use three next-to-each-other and mono-coupled Paragon's, while emulating perhaps a stereo + center source(?), it would certainly make for a very interesting sound scenario. They'd have great capacity and (possibly wide) center lock for sure.
All the hoopla on "matching the individual driver to an amp channel" has gotten old long ago,
It "burns" me when I see a product trashed from an audio "snob" that simply mismatched the speaker to the amp, the cable, or the room.
My personal take and not least given enough options would be favoring the bundled, active package vs. a passive ditto - in named context. Optimally though I prefer the outboard active solution.
That is audio wisdom, well said. I have a pair of DefTech W7 active speakers on my porch that are in the DTS Play-Fi ecosystem that I chose for convenience and a bargain, they were on a close out. They sound great, and not just for the price. They are in a sun room surrounded by windows just sitting on stands. Being streamed to wirelessly with the play-fi app.Low price, small convenient, = no brainer.
@soix Your choices are welcome and two of the three that I heard, are excellent speakers for the most part. The Joseph Audio Pearl, Usher TD20, Vandersteen Kento, and Boenicke W13 SE were heard or are known to have the qualities that I am not looking but not in attendance.
The Boenicke’s sounded better than their measurements indicate with excellent analog playback. Not as big and full as I am looking for. The Boenicke is a fine speaker but too small sounding and has a much lower efficiency (86-89 db depending on frequency which is not smooth and usually tests lower) with excellent dispersion (I only heard the non-SE version),
The Vandersteen Kento has built-in woofer amps, reticent highs although measures great (87 db efficiency 3 to 8 ohm impedance) and dispersion is very good but not great off axis. A very listenable speaker though. Vandy’s always sound sweet to me, not a bad thing (early inexpensive ones sounded distorted though).
The Joseph Audio Pearl 2 is has more detail than body, although it is much more pleasant than more expensive Wilsons and superior to B&Ws and has plenty of bass (maybe too much-for a large room). It too has a low 86 db efficiency with a nice 6 ohm low impedance. I have not heard the 20/20 Graphene version or Pearl 3. They look just like Von Schweikert VR series.
I haven’t heard the Usher TD20 and Verity Audio Arindal speakers.
What I am after is an end-game speaker that I can afford for my listening room and my taste in sound. My end game speaker is the VS Ultra 7, I don’t want a low(er) efficiency speaker with a built in woofer amp like the VS VR55.
@kota I absolutely don’t want a surround sound system for mono and stereo recordings. As an amateur recording/mastering "engineer," I only want to hear mono and stereo sound coming from two speakers (three track with a center channel). That’s how the majority of my music was recorded and mastered (my own and most of my 48,000 LP/78s/CDs/R2R). Powered focal speakers do not meet my needs or wants (I want to stick to passive speakers). Thanks though for your suggestion for thrilling sound.
Note that the speakers I'm auditioning are super coherent with mid-range drivers that cover 80-90% of the range of music and are in the low 90 db efficiency that have impedances either of my amps can easily drive.
Erik this makes no sense to me why are in house or parts the company makes from scratch inferior
Which is exactly the problem. You are equating cheaper with inferior. I’m not saying in-house drivers are necessarily inferior. I’m saying they are less expensive for the manufacturer to put in. The moment a company can go to in-house drivers the profit margin jumps for the same speaker, and if it isn’t there’s something seriously wrong with your management.
Perhaps a great example that is in the public domain is JM Lab buying Focal (or perhaps it was the other way around). One made speakers, the other drivers. As soon as they purchased the driver maker the cost per driver dropped using the exact same drivers from the same factory built by the same driver technicians.
So when we happen to know off the shelf costs we get our panties in a wad because a manufacturer "only" spent 20% on drivers (which is high and boutique cottage industry size) vs. a mega brand which may have spent 7% and no one says a thing.
What I am after is an end-game speaker that I can afford for my listening room and my taste in sound.
What I posted is totally MY taste, so I get it. If I had a mission like yours the goal is to get the taste in sound YOU want. For an end game that would lead me to three brands, JBL (the M2 if you want to hear your masters as they were recorded, they have an outboard active crossover so you can choose your own amp), Revel, (if you like a little more bloom with your accuracy), or Martin Logan if you want sheer "wall of sound" envelopment.
BUT, I don’t think your mission (every song played through those speakers fits your taste to a T) is going to end no matter what speaker you get unless you get this F360 tube preamp by Black Ice audio, watch the Z review and would love your feedback:
@kota1 I finally ended my 20 year affair with stat speakers with ML Monolith IIIs and Requests (2nd system). Despite my former room size of 25X23X11.5 vaulted, the Monolith sucked. 26 years ago, I met my wife who hated the speakers as beamy, lacking true bass, thin and bright. I should never have purchased MLs and stuck with the Acoustat 2+2s. I sold the MLs and purchased the Legacy Focus. She loves the sound and more so the Von Schweikert Ultra speakers which she has only heard in $1+million systems at shows but playing my LPs and CDs in huge ballrooms.
I will report on the Zellaton Plural Evos in a month in my room. I just heard the Acora Audio SC2 in a showroom with EAR & Nagra equipment, a mismash of medium to high end cabling (3 or 4 brands). Amazingly competent sound, lacking in excitement but with zero negatives. A superior quality sound speaker. I'm undecided until I hear speakers which are capable of delivery great sound for every genre. I also heard the Devore Orangutan 96. Wow, a super lush sound for voices, small instruments(als) but quite awful for full symphonics (made a 1955 Wolff recording sound just old and compressed until the Focus or Acoras which make it sound like the orchestra is in the room with you). The speakers I'm hearing are boutique and relatively expensive. Acora speakers have twin 7" paper mid-woofers with tremendous dynamic punch and quite deep bass. It was a pleasure to experience such sound from a relatively small speaker (good looking too in granite).
The single most expensive part of speaker manufacture is the laber by a huge margin. As an example my subwoofers use about $1000 worth of parts, drivers, and materials. One subwoofer enclosure has 168 hours of labor start to finish. Shop time is now $200/hour. This comes to $33,600! Retail is around 3 X parts and labor = $103,800 for one passive subwoofer! With modern tech in a shop set up specifically to make these subs will find efficiencies that could cut these figures in half. The best you could do would be $50,000 MSRP. This is why with rare exceptions you can not find a well built subwoofer in the commercial market. The entire construction process will be cataloged on Imgur when I am finished.
As for regular loudspeakers, the secret of fantastic audiophile speakers is not in the drivers. They are a dime a dozen. The secret is in the enclosure and crossover design. The DIYer has limited access to the kinds of test equipment needed to design SOTA loudspeakers but even now, advancements in computer and digital technology are making the speaker designer obsolete. You can have a preamplifier with a full 4 way digital crossover, room control and EQ. All the computer has to do is measure the system via a microphone and in 10 seconds you can have a perfectly designed loudspeaker for your room. You still have to build an enclosure that is functional and hopefully attractive, so there is work for the DIYer to do and be proud of.
JBL made a bunch of clinkers, they all did including Klipsch. Paul Klipsch came up with the center channel because his K horns had to go in corners which in many rooms were to far apart creating the famous "Hole in the Middle" WIth a center channel you could close the hole and make even more money. The center channel then spread to systems that did not need it just to make more money. A properly set up system does not need a center channel, even for movies.
Todays loudspeakers are way superior to any of the older units due to modern enclosure design concepts and test equipment.
The single most expensive part of speaker manufacture is the laber by a huge margin.
Which makes my point, that the driver cost is a tiny part of the value in a commercial speaker, and that cottage makers can put a lot more driver value into a speaker by virtue of being small operators with tiny labor costs.
As an example my subwoofers use about $1000 worth of parts, drivers, and materials. One subwoofer enclosure has 168 hours of labor start to finish. Shop time is now $200/hour.
Let me stop you right there, while I'm not saying labor isn't a big factor, that $200/hour only applies if you don't own the shop. That's equivalent of a $400,000 / year salary and I don't know a single cabinet maker who makes anywhere near that much.
@erik_squiresI still don't get it why would it be cheaper to make your own drivers vs buying them? And if it's so much cheaper why don't more speaker makers do it? I think its likely more expensive at least until you've amortized your startup costs.
I wrote a bunch but realized this is such a common concept that others probably wrote on this better. Google for: "profit margin vertical integration" and this is what I came up with, which is pretty good:
An at most, minor tidbit, according to a tiny bit of research online and in my handy dictionary, the word riffraff is to be written thus or at times is hyphenated: riff-raff.
Exactly. I am trying to put it into the perspective of a commercial operation where the cost of doing business is inflated by Insurance, employee benefits, wear and tear on equipment and tooling etc. Since I own my own shop and I am the only employee I just have to worry about wear and tear on the machinery and tooling. I could make the subwoofers in small quantities for considerably less which I am not going to do. I am publishing the process in case someone else wants to try making a similar enclosure. See enclosures here https://imgur.com/gallery/Q4uR1s3
All this backs up your thesis that an individual with skills, modern drivers and digital technology can make a very competitive loudspeaker.
I am one of those speaker snobs. Though I think that the companies that I like build speakers (and drivers) for a lot less than the companies that use "customized" of the shelf drivers.
KEF, RAAL, and Yamaha are the companies that I have recently invested speaker money on, and one huge aspect in my interest was that they made their own drivers. I also felt that comparable sound from other companies was much more expensive.
Case in point, the Yamaha NS5000 compared to much more expensive Magico gear. The KEF Blade Meta compared to the very best from any company. The RAAL CA-1a at $2K compared to the very best phones, at $5K+. Forget about the RAAL SR1a which I think is the best phone at any price.
@kota1 Absolutely. The only reason I would need a center channel is if I was able to playback a R2R 3 channel recording, such as a Mercury Living Presence, DGG classical and a few other labels which put out Blu-ray 3 channel recordings. Otherwise, two channel stereo sound is all that is required.
@mijostyn I disagree concerning the statement drivers are a dime a dozen. Sure ,a field coil driver is so cheap everyone can use them. NOT! I’ve been investigating boutique (but not small) speakers which have unique design and fabricated in the shop drivers, such as the Zellaton. Who else makes a foam core driver? Maybe you think their drivers aren’t any better than dime a dozen off the shelf drivers? How about ceramic drivers that are modified by boutique shops, such as Von Schweikert? You think these are off the shelf dime a dozen? Harbeth goes to extremes in his videos in indicating why the proper manufacture of basic drivers has to implemented perfectly or else inferior quality sound results.
As @erik_squirespointed out, labor is not necessarily the highest cost. As to parts, the cabinet can often be the highest cost in design, material and labor but not for many run of the mill, mass production facilities (especially thin wall box speakers). How much of the cost is the box for a Harbeth or Devore speaker? Probably a lot less (price adjusted) than a Vivid, Rockport, Magico, Wilson, Estelon, Von Schweikert, Avante-Garde, etc. The most significant cost of an Acora Acoustics is the stone material and it’s manipulation into a cabinet, not the drivers which are quasi-off the shelf.
Erik I understand vertical integration very well but you missed my main point if it made so much sense and so much more profit why do so few speaker makers make their own drivers?
Because it's difficult and expensive to do, vertical integration makes sense as long as one of the parts/processes of your business isn't inordinately difficult or labor/capital intensive. The lack of speaker designers making their own drivers basically speaks for itself.
The only reason I would need a center channel is if I was able to playback a R2R 3 channel recording
The only reason you can say this is because YOU are sitting in the "sweet" spot, everyone else in the room is screwed to some degree. Absolutely backward thinking because this is from an "audiophiles" perspective.
Here is the deal, if you use a dedicated center channel any where you stand in that room you can still tell what sound is coming from the center. Now on my desktop system I don’t have a center because there is one chair, granted. But for a listening room, no. See Robert Harley’s book "High End Audio", regarding Meridian’s Trifield playback algorithm for playing back 2-channel sources over more than two speakers. He writes "it fills the center of the soundstage, presents a wider sweet spot . . . profound ability to solidify the soundstage.
“That’s just silly. I think. One of my favourite things is the centre speaker, because the nice thing is when you anchor stuff to speakers, especially the centre, you can walk around the room and it doesn’t move. If it’s just phantom, you walk over to the right and the phantom centre follows you to the right, just like it does in stereo — which is one of the drawbacks of stereo. I like actually walking around the room, I’ll stand over here on the side between the right side and right rear and the picture still stays the same. I mean, the balances are different, so I’ll be hearing more of whatever’s coming out of those speakers, but everything’s still in the same place, right? The vocal’s still coming from the centre, and I love that.
@ditusa Thank you. So it is rather rare to build foam core drivers then. That was my point rather than no one else does it. Maybe no one does it the same either as Zellaton uses Dr. Podszus method.
As to why most speaker manufacturers use "off the shelf" drivers is because it is more cost effective and easier. Some of these drivers are relatively expensive so they aren't "a dime a dozen." The very popular Accuton ceramic drivers range from about $500 to $2000 each. I don't think that's cheap. Imagine a floorstander with 3 2 $2000 Accuton woofers, a $500 Accuton mid and another $500 Accuton tweeter. That's $5000 just for the raw drivers. That speaker would retail for $50,000 with the manufacturer getting maybe $30,000. After their costs, maybe $10,000 in profit.
@kota1 I disagree. As to obtaining the true stereophonic sound of a recording based on a stereophonic mastered recording, only two speakers are required and only two speakers are generally used in mastering. The quality of the speakers, associated equipment and room determine how accurate the stereo image is reproduced. I have heard fantastic audio systems that present a "live-like" image of the performers. Why would I want or need more by installing a center speaker? I don't. As to dispersion, that is one of the three reasons I want a high end speaker which disappears, retaining imaging and resolution in a wide seating pattern. You should hear Audio Physics Virgo or any of Von Schweikert Ultra speakers in good setups. I've heard them and there is no need for a central channel speaker. Now, when you talk about Duntechs, Dunlevys and my Focus, they are big box, one person listening speakers. A 3rd center channel Focus would be great. My Legacy Signature IIIs with their rear tweeter provides a superior open sound and dispersion where everyone in the room enjoys great sound.
Actually, my friend's high end mini-monitor speakers have fantastic center fill and great imaging/dispersion. I'm not stuck on thrills but on the reproduction of the recorded event.
@kota1Why do you think the boutique (like Paradigm) and high end manufacturers make their own drivers? For quality control. When Accuton drivers are ordered by high enders they specify the parameters, have the drivers altered to meet their specifications and often matched as well. Cheapy off the shelf speakers are a dime a dozen because that's what they are worth. They should not be used in high end speakers. Tekton speakers probably use drivers you mention. Maybe even the Carver Amazing speakers. Plenty of drivers in each and they aren't ceramic, beryllium or diamond. Tekton's are cheap and Carver's was expensive. Talk about dispersion and imaging, the Tekton's bad and Carver was phenomenally good in mids and highs. My original Focus speakers use cheap Mexican woofers, cheap ribbon tweeter and common cone and Kevlar mid-range drivers. It's so rare that it does sound so great (huge crossover and excellent heavy cabinet). It has been superseded by higher end speakers at greater cost.
OK, if you are talking mastering a stereo recording I agree, two speakers with the engineer sitting in the sweet spot is what you need to master the recording. Now, where our personal "preferences" take a fork in the road is you feel it is the "quality" of the speaker that determines how accurate that image is produced. To me that is simply a money pit. We both agree you are an expert on audio matters. You have years of experience, a custom built room, and enough disposable income to pursue the "quality" speakers you mention. You are required to sit in the sweetspot and let stereo do its thing.
I agree with Tomlinson Holman:
three items correlate well with Holman's answer to the question; "What determines the bit rate needed for audio on media?"
Frequency range
Dynamic range
Number of channels
As Mr Holman is quick to point out, any audio engineer confronted with the question, “what do you want to do with a higher bitrate?”; will always ask for more frequency range and more dynamic range because they don't know what to do with more channels. "It's a new paradigm." "Just to go to 192 KHz sampling rate to satisfy passing bats instead of human beings is pretty crazy, but adding channels is of very great value."
If your personal taste prefers two expensive speakers I got no beef with that. It is the most expensive, least realistic way to recreate what the MUSICIANS actually did in the studio (not what the engineer palyed back on the desk. My layout is similar to the Tooles (as in Floyd), right down to having not one but TWO center channels and a VOG channel:
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
