So many fantastic companies "fly under" the radar. I assume many of these brands are unknown in US/Canada as the membership here is predominantly North American. I guess the bigger question is why are they unknown here? Have the unsuccessfully tried to get a foot hold or not even bothered as their sales are successful elsewhere?
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Taters, I've paid dearly for due diligence. When I finally swore off the high-end (I should say high-advertised) stuff was when I paid air-fare to fly the Vandy dealer over here to "adjust" the 5AC speaks, drove 90 miles each way to the airport and back, bought him lunch, the whole smash. He spent all of 10 minutes with some Radio Shack gizmo to "centre" the Vandies and the rest of the day trying to push some $8k speaker cables on me. We did a swap-out with my Blue Jeans and I found myself, in my own damn living room, apologizing, that I could not hear a difference. Then I had to drive him back to the airport. Took me about a week to realize I was very angry, and started looking in to how this stuff is made and through the channels it is sold. Like I said, find out how hard it is to talk to the guy who actually makes the stuff, and deal directly with him/her. It has cost me at least 50 large to realize that for under 10 grand you can get the best sound out there, American built, and it will just tickle your ears. Sorry man, it's not funny... but I did laugh. This is why I try to never buy from a dealer. There are some very rare excellent dealers, but they are indeed very rare. Back to the original topic - there are way too many speaker manufacturers out there, given the size of the high end market. So what's happening is that prices are much higher than in any other industry (relative to the cost to mfg). It's the only way for a speaker mfg to try to survive on such low volumes. You simply don't need 100+ manufacturers of $20K+ speakers. And there certainly are that many around. After a visit to Oswalds Mill Audio (OMA), I realized how big of a rip off this company is. They are actually just a contractor - none of the design and engineering is actually done in house. When I researched the drivers in their speakers, and spoke to some other members on forums, it became clear that their margins are 10X. Which is obscene, especially since they sell direct. Their Mini speaker, for example, has $300 worth of drivers (I actually bought them myself). The Mini retails for $26,000. You'll get about 20% off as a "special, rare" discount. Even allowing for a generous profit margin and the design and materials of the beautiful enclosure and simple crossover, there's no way that this pricing makes any sense. What I also did was look at OMA AC1 speakers (base price $108K), and use the original vintage RCA field coil drivers that even OMA doesn't use. Even OMA claims that the field coil RCA is the best midrange driver, and their AC1s use a step-down non field coil RCA driver. These drivers can be purchased for about $2500 on eBay, for a pair. I paid about $7500 for perfect pair of the field coil version. In total, I ended up spending about $30K on a speaker that even OMA would admit is better that their $108K model. And it was designed and built by an expert. He received about $15K for his time and materials, and he's happy. The other $15K went on drivers. OMA spends less than $5K on the drivers of their $108K model, and then hires designers and builders that are no less competent than ones you can find yourself. Summary - Saved $70,000 and got a better product. YOU should become your own 'underground' speaker designer. Research, read, and talk to the community. Then hire a company to design and build the speaker for you. Most vendors are not inventing anything new, they are taking the same tech and designs that have worked for nearly 100 years, and repackaging it, then slapping on a 10X margin. Some vendors truly have interesting tech (e.g., MBL, Acappela horns with their ion tweeters, and others). Why give someone else 50% of your budget when you can go direct? Give your money to the people actually doing the work, the ones who actually innovate. Not a middle man. |
i've a few for you Taters: Selah Audio in NC - you hear a little about them now & then. They make very good sound line-array speakers & the owner is a very good person to talk to. Moon Audio - Drew Baird runs this operation from Raleigh/Durham area. Very good & cost effective cables (atlas they used to be inexpensive. Don't know if he's raised his prices a lot) Green Mountain Audio in Colorado Springs - my favorite cone-driver speaker manuf. I've owned his speakers & my brother still does. Like someone wrote earlier. I'm not on his payroll - just an enthusiastic supporter of his really good sounding speakers, One of the very few speakers that are time-coherent, which is the only way to go. K & K Audio - which is run by Kevin Carter. His best selling product has been his phono stage. Very little spoken about him though he does have a forum over on Audio Asylum. Really nice fellow to deal with - calls a spade, a spade & very knowledgable. |
Verastarr Cables, boutique cables at real world prices. "The brick-and-mortar shops raks 50 percent off the top" deepee99, you're spot on with that assessment. I have not paid retail on anything in over 10 years. It's quite appalling to see the ridiculous pricing in high end audio. It's seems to me some of the manufacturers are more focus on audio jewelry than the art of music. |
Here's a couple in one sense of this post: New York Audio Labs Scott Nixon. He had an aftermarket crossover for the B&W 800 speakers 30 years ago that had the industry buzzing. He also developed a line of digital audio processors called Anodyne, that fell prey to a trade mark infringement because of the name. He developed the very first Peachtree product (electronics). He had a line of products under his own name as well. Very elusive. |
Hey brethren, I’m not saying one outfit’s gear is better than another’s. But electrons move in a certain, defined, predictable and unalterable way. Along that way their passage gets corrupted whether by tubes or silicon or wire resistance and capacitance. So it's your choice of which distortion you like best. But over short distances in a home system these factors are hardly, if at all, measurable. AB comparisons are nigh impossible in a show-room, because of the many other variables objective and subjective. A louder amp or a more efficient speaker will almost always sound better. All’s I’m saying is, get rid of as many middle-men as possible and you will come out ahead. That’s simple math. Checked your hearing lately? I bet if you’re 50 years old you can’t hear much above 4 or maybe 5 kHz, so why pay a premium for stuff that on a test bench with a scope can turn out 100 kHz? Inter-connects, i.e. speaker leads and the co-ax that connects everything, are just pushing electrons down, or rather outside, a pipe. The rest is snake oil. |
I suspect a lot of folks don’t find differences between expensive high end cables and modestly priced or even cheap cables but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any differences, perhaps even big differences. It just could mean the experiment was flawed somehow or the system didn’t reveal the differences or the listeners were not as skilled at detecting differences as they perhaps believe or that there was a problem somewhere in the system. Or the cables were not installed in the right direction. No offense to anyone intended. Certainly differences would be expected to be smaller if the cables were not broken in or the cables under test were unplugged and plugged back in without sufficient time for the electro-mechanical interface to get properly reestablished. That’s why it’s sometimes a good idea to take any test results with a grain of salt or even throw them out, often they’re just outliers. That's also why The Amazing Randi feels quite secure offering $1 Million dollars to any senior audiophile who can hear the difference between expensive high end cables and Monster Cable in controlled blind tests. |
Taters, I've paid dearly for due diligence. When I finally swore off the high-end (I should say high-advertised) stuff was when I paid air-fare to fly the Vandy dealer over here to "adjust" the 5AC speaks, drove 90 miles each way to the airport and back, bought him lunch, the whole smash. He spent all of 10 minutes with some Radio Shack gizmo to "centre" the Vandies and the rest of the day trying to push some $8k speaker cables on me. We did a swap-out with my Blue Jeans and I found myself, in my own damn living room, apologizing, that I could not hear a difference. Then I had to drive him back to the airport. Took me about a week to realize I was very angry, and started looking in to how this stuff is made and through the channels it is sold. Like I said, find out how hard it is to talk to the guy who actually makes the stuff, and deal directly with him/her. It has cost me at least 50 large to realize that for under 10 grand you can get the best sound out there, American built, and it will just tickle your ears. |
deepee998 posts01-23-2016 8:03am"I can get absolutely top-end
tube gear hand-built in Montana or Nelson, B.C., or Massachusetts for 10
percent of what McIntosh or ARC would charge, and with better circuity.
The math is pretty simple. " The math is not nearly so simple, and you're dreaming if you think you can buy the equivalent of an ARC Ref5SE for $1,300. Among the many things you're overlooking in your simple math is the economy of scale from which even a small company such as ARC or Mac benefit. |
I like the way you say don't squander your money on cables just yet. I take it from that comment that you feel cables are overrated. I have borrowed many cable from the cable company in Pennsylvania. Even though I can hear a difference in cables I am not always sure if one is better than the other. It is so subjective. I also like when you said you can buy top rated tube gear for 10 percent of the cost of Mcintosh or Audio Research. It sounds like you have really done you're due diligence. |
Taters, there are a lot of good options out there. And since you started this thread looking for underground high-end, well, you’ve seen some great suggestions here from the other posters. I can get absolutely top-end tube gear hand-built in Montana or Nelson, B.C., or Massachusetts for 10 percent of what McIntosh or ARC would charge, and with better circuity. The math is pretty simple. The brick-and-mortar shops rake 50 percent off the top, then you’ve got to shovel $10k at Bob Hartley of TAS for a brief hoo-hah review. This sweats a small company pretty hard. I like buying from somebody who actually makes the thing and answers the phone and has no advertising budget (hence, underground). Wish I could give you better advice on solid-state gear, but my s/s stuff was built by the Bedini brothers 30 years ago and I can still call them up if I have an issue, which I never do with their amps, but they’re fun to BS with. Somebody mentioned Magnapans, they’re still around, you can call them up, the son or daughter answers the phone and hands you off to the owner if he/she can’t resolve it. I would investigate all the possibilities recommended by the other posters, not just me. My first recommendation would be to call ’em up (or email them) and see who answers and how quickly they get back to you. And don’t squander money on cables just yet. Start with Blue Jeans Cables in Seattle and work your way up if you really feel the need to. |
You make a lot of good points. I never realized how much overhead there was going through the traditional sales route. Besides all the advertising cost you then have to give the dealers a big chunk of change just to sell you're products. I have often wondered why more companies just don't go factory direct and save the consumer a lot of money. |
I don’t disagree with your surmise, Taters. I’ve owned Vandies from the 2CEs up to the 5ACs. I hold Dick Vandersteen and his products in the highest regard. But I think if you gave the Tylers a listen you might see (hear) my point. You can’t go wrong either way, but why pay for dealer mark-ups, and ads and write-ups in The Absolute Sound? You would not believe how much money TAS and the rest of that rotten lot sweat out of guys like Dick Vandersteen. Ask him. Then talk to guys who don’t play that game. |
Yep. I owned a pair of Vandersteen 5A carbons ($32k), replaced them with a pair of Tyler Acoustics D-12x speakers for $8k, and like them much better. Depends on your listening needs. The Vandies are great speaks but their "sweet spot" is about one foot wide dedicated. Tyler's Decade line, at least the D12xs, will open up the sound staging until you're tired of feeding the band. Ty's in Tennessee, just phone him up and talk to him. The D12xs use Class D amps in the woofer sections but unlike the Vandies, which use an AB amp in a sealed bottom, the Decades are a ported, transmission-line design. My other shout-out to Tylers is they are very efficient and give incredible detail at low volumes. Again, I'm not on his or anybody else's payroll. It's a word-of-mouth thing. |
For speakers, you can't touch Tyler Acoustics. They will blow the doors off Vandersteen's best at about one-fourth the price. If you're into tubes and ballsy amps, have a look at Tube Nirvana.net. Don Sachs in Nelson, B.C. builds a preamp to die for and also rehabs the legendary HK Citations. I own all these products, have no financial interest in their makers, but you can save a ton of money. Don't look for their ads in the slick magazines. These are all hand-built in one- or two-man shops, for the pure joy of it. |
The first two that come to mind are Convergent Audio Technology and Spectral - very little advertising, but generally recognized as making fantastic products. If you want to go further off the grid, Wavestream Kinetics (product of Scott Frankland, the "F" from MFA) makes fantastic preamps, but again, almost no ads or publicity. |
Other somewhat obscure companies that make noteworthy products include: Neat (speakers that are reasonably priced) Gradient (speakers, like the "Revolution" that are very flexible in terms of room placement) United Home Audio (refurbished and improved reel to reel tape machines) Odyssey Audio (high value, reasonably priced electronics and speakers) |
Roger High Fidelity made in USA. all internal component are heavily over-spec (from resistors, wires to transformers) ,comes with lifetime warranty!. Even let you tour their factory if you buy their top products. too bad I don't have deep pockets, and I also don't agree to the use of global feedback in their amplifiers.. my 2 cents philip |
