The Snob Appeal Premium
I have learned that speakers are a typical victim of "Designer Label Syndrome". Supposedly an $8 billion a year market (hard to believe) speakers are fairly simple beasts with little substantive improvements over the last 50 years. Ever since Paul Klipsch ( a character in his own right) read the Bell Labs 1934 papers and revolutionized speaker technology there have been few similar revolutionary improvements to the speaker. So- if you are an enterprising manufacturer of speakers (which are relatively cheap to build) how do you extract more and more money from the consumer ? Answer: Synthetic demand driven by cachet' ! Like a pair of Louis Vuitton sneakers @ $650 a pair vs. New Balance runners @ 60/pr. It's snobby bragging rights stuff I'm describing here- perceived vs. actual value in a product.
Here's an anecdotal example:
I recently set out to build a high end mid-fi system (ARC preamp, power amp, Dac 9) for a large room "main house" (not a listening room) system. The goal was big, full, rich sound in a room full of furniture, chow dogs, kids and untreatable other things like 20 foot ceilings, multiple openings such as a balcony to the upstairs bedrooms, etc. Basically an audiophile's nightmare.
I auditioned a number of speakers- Perlistens supported by JL Fathom subs, B&W Signatures, Bryston Model Ts, Vienna Acoustics Mahlers and Bethovens. IMO all of these are somewhat similar towers (except the Perlistens). The price point was not as important as the sound- given the limitations of the application.
In the shopping for new or used I found a number of odd prices. The most unusual finding was a brand new set of Model Ts here in Audiogon advertised for $4K with a 20 year factory warranty. The dealer had one slide around of his hand truck and it put white paint smears on a corner of the Boston Cherry cabinet. Hmmm- 4 grand vs. 12 grand for a small fixable cosmetic flaw? I bought them. They sound fantastic. Some elbow grease and a furniture marker pen made the flaw vanish.
I asked the dealer (Paul Kraft in Easton PA- great guy BTW) why the Audiogon Blue Book for a Model T was so low. His answer was "snob appeal". Apparently there is a big bragging rights premium paid for having the UFO looking B&W Signatures vs what the snobs call the Bryston Model Ts "Axioms in a fancy suit". I later learned that there are some prominent reviewers who refuse to listen to A/B speaker comparisons behind a silk curtain unless they know what brand is being scrutinized. To me that means "payola".
Do the Model Ts sound better to me than the Mahlers, Bethovens, B&Ws? No. But they don't sound worse either (in my application). Do the above sound $8,000-$14,000 better than the Brystons in the listening rooms of the dealers? IMO NO WAY. To be fair price/value does color my perception much like a bottle of $40 Rumbauer Zin tastes better to me than $200 Silver Oak expense account wine.
I'm guessing this post will anger brand snobs and garner snarky comments because their taste in sound is different than mine. Although this missive is really about personal perceptions of value v. sound I found my education on pricing fascinating and I feel great about finding amazing value in the brand new Model T's that needed 30 minutes of TLC to be at home in my family room.
Moral of the story: Try em before you buy em, and look for value. It's fun and rewarding with no buyers remorse.
I watch a lot of reviews on Youtube and have recently been struck by how many listeners - whether they be high-enders or stubborn mid-fi sympathizers - seem star-struck by recent Wilson offerings. However, what spoils the party is the additional cost of the components worthy of driving them in the manner to which they are accustomed. Still, you can see them mentally dreaming and scheming about stratospherics more than I remember.
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I was a professional high-end furniture maker for 20 years, and really want to tackle one of the better kits or "plan" speakers. Have watched the Bagby Youtube's and others. I am drooling at the higher quality drivers. My remaining stash of high grade hardwood boards is just sitting there. Used to have a small bandmill through I ran veneer grade walnut and cherry logs. Advancing age halted my furniture business, but I can certainly handle a speaker build. I am only interested in the most proven designs and am not prepared to run acoustic analyzers in a hit or miss manner to determine maximum fidelity as I have seen some builders do. |
I wouldn't try to build a solid wood speaker cabinet - the kit or plan speakers are no doubt engineered from more uniform materials such as mdf or ply. However, I would perhaps use fine woods for corner accents. I do have some very good .75" thick cherry veneered mdf that is calling out for a speaker build. I do remember a solid wood Klipsch speaker from the early 90's that was a Roy Delgado design - it was one the CF series and some of them were made from solid, clear quartersawn oak - a material uniform enough to work with predictably from an acoustic standpoint. The solid wood one was considered the best of the series. When I was looking for these on Ebay years ago I found one of the solid wood ones (I could see that from photo inside the cabinet,) but it was more than I wanted to pay at the time. https://www.audioasylum.com/reviews/Speakers/Klipsch/CF-4-EPIC-SERIES/HUG/48564.html |
I am not sure if it was the CF 4 or an earlier number. I was a professional high-end furniture maker for 15 years and know what I am looking at. The Ebay seller who had the CF listed provided a photo of the interior of the cabinet which showed more clearly than the exterior shot that the cabinet was made of strips of solid, quartersawn white oak about 3-4 inches wide. Some of the gluelines had not been throughly cleaned up of squeeze out. I should have bought it then - $1,300.00 as I recall. I suspect there was a small run of these solid wood boxes as the CF series was not popular anyway with dedicated Klipsch fan because the series did not stick to the "original sound," and building a solid wood box would not have been economical at all. |
Are Hardwood Speakers Really Bad? There is a way to make hardwood speakers that might be tractable, but the front and back baffles have to be made of MDF or ply. Correct grain orientation of the sold wood panels eliminates contrary seasonal wood movement. As this maker in the video above shows cabinet resonance can be obviated with damping materials. Also, a great many DIY'ers use wood braces. Granted, these are relatively small in cross-section, so wood movement is not much of an issue. I only mention it because sold wood has it's uses in cabinet construction - it's not automatically some bug-a bear. Also, solid wood cabinets are easier to finish than veneered cabinets which can be finicky because of the thinner and thinner veneers being used. If the factory finish is something like poly then the strippers needed can soak through the veneer and loosen the underlying glue. If these refinishing process is not the first rodeo and previous refinishing involved sanding the veneer, then you can get perilously close to sanding through the veneer which is a mini-disaster from a decorative standpoint. Anyone wanting to build a solid wood or mostly solid wood cabinet would also be advised to use a high quality shellac and keep water away from speaker. Most definitely keep alcoholic beverages away from it too, but the advantage of shellac is that it looks great done right and can be easily stripped with alcohol. Also, if possible use vertical grain wood if at all possible - it moves less and stays flatter. Ultimate wood would be vertical grade old growth macrophylla mahogany. Not cheap and not easy to find. Quartersawn Sitka Spruce might be really good but also expensive. Somewhere on Youtube there is a video of a European maker whose solid wood speaker cabinets use resonance and tailored crossovers to good effect. I think he was Polish - can't find him though. |
