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Why pay so much for super high end?

Most speakers costing $50,000+ use Seas, Scan Speak or Accuton.

In DIY forums most speakers designed use bargain drivers and usually are only 2.0 designs not bookshelf or center speakers to complete a surround system.

I’d love to have a Scan Speak 11 speaker system for atmos with 3 way bookshelves, center and floorstanders.

Why aren’t the designs out there and why are you guys pissing away all your money.

Personally I won’t get an upgrade from my speakers unless it’s of this caliber and neither can I afford nor want to donate money to these thieves.

A 3rd party 11 speaker atmos scan Speak system would be nice but I’m not spending $250,000.

Why on earth aren’t there designs out there for this and why do you all piss away your money?

I don’t get why hi fi isn’t all DIY even honest factory direct companies mark up 300%.

Unless you pull in $1+ million a year and don’t have any time I don’t get it.

Are you guys lazy?

Someone easily could design a great crossover and cabinets for everyone and the days of paying over $3,500 for a pair of loud speakers if you got some time or know a friend who could build cabinets would be over. I know of people who could design cabinets that rival $100,000 speakers and cost less than 1% than that.  Someone with some experience could easily design a diamond, beryllium and soft dome and various versions for various tastes.

I don’t get it. Speakers are so simple.  Crossovers cabinets and drivers.

You guys just throw your money away I don’t understand it why?


funaudiofun

Showing 15 responses by soundsrealaudio

soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
davt 

For health reasons perhaps you should move to colorado and smoke something else.

soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
Fun Fun

Do you think that in a blind test most people would recognize a $10,000 difference in speakers over $15,000. Personally I don't think so.
soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
Dear Mr. Fun--Fun

I am a dealer of high end audio and have been for about 12 years. In my twenties I worked for a hi fi shop in Denver that did sell a few hi fi items, Kef, ADS, Luxman but that was in the 70's. So one would think that things would improve at a pretty good clip. I have yet to see it loudspeakers. It is almost like hobbyists that enjoy music systems say to themselves, " I think I could make a loud speaker better the these. Then they are off and running. Big MDF boxes with three drivers. WOW isn't that special. You hire a cabinet guy to go to work, you buy drivers, none are as good as you would like them to be but latter you will order direct from the factory and have them add a couple of windings and call them custom, then you play around with crossovers and settle for one, then late you will upgrade the parts and say what a huge improvement that makes.

Now you are in business. Marketing comes  next.

So I wish I did't have to say this but I agree with you.

Maybe not about the other stuff you said regarding the people who buy them.

  

soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
mb1 audio

 Magico made a pretty good attempt at speaker design. First using plywood in the face of their monitors ( plywood has great pullout strength for screws adding stability to the drivers )  and then heading towards aluminum. Vivid Audio has shaped their drivers which is perhaps more important then shaping the cabinets. The drivers are designed to allow the back waves to flow more freely past the magnet and spider towards the dampening. Looking at most drivers even on very expensive speakers it is easy to see that a large portion of those back waves are just going to bounce off the magnet and spider and fly back through the thinnest part of the cabinet, the very thin cone. There goes the clarity. 

It should be noted that heavy speakers boasting their size and weight actually work against physics in that heavier materials resonant at a lower frequency. Low frequencies are much harder to deal with. Much harder. Larger cabinets will always propel greater amounts of cabinet resonance into the room. The reason is simple. If the area of the cabinet is 100 times the area of the driver then the cabinet only has to resonate at 100th the amount of the driver to deliver the same amount of energy into the room. The test for this is to stop at a traffic light next to a car with a subwoofer in the trunk. The sound is amplified by the surface area of the car..



soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
The thing about the waves off the back of the driver is that they have an output that is equal to the output into your room. The usual way to deal with that is add MDF bracing upon bracing which adds weight and more weight which lowers the resonance and makes the problem worse.  High resonance is much easier to deal with. Ping on a wine glass, to shut it down you merely touch it with your finger. That won't happen when you rap on a larger and heavier pan for example. Take out the 12" woofer from a speaker and you can see how vulnerable they are. 
Ideally to deal with resonance a speaker should be small and light. Or as small as possible and still maintain enough volume to load the drivers. 

The other advancement that makes a huge difference is composite technology. That is what happens when you touch the vibrating wine glass. Your finger and the glass work together to stop the resonance. Some speakers do that. My guess is that most don't. Vandersteen uses some carbon fiber in their model 7. Carbon fiber is excellent because sound waves pass through those long carbon molecules which vibrate and turn to heat. Works on planes that avoid radar detection. The radar waves don't bounce back to the source rather they are quickly converted to heat. 

It is easy to recognize how fast and clean electro static speakers are. The back waves are dumped into the room and the cabinet doesn't have to deal with them. They obviously have other problems.


soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
wolf I am going to come to NY and put some carbon fiber in your -------------------------LOL
soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
Wolf_Garcia


Help us out here will you please. 



soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
Please don't read this, unless of course you are totally bored, no football on tv, not a good book in sight and you are just sitting around waiting for america to become great again. 

I think a better blind test for speakers would be to take two speakers, same brand, one costing twice as much as the other and ask the listeners or testicles which one they prefer. Not necessarily just hearing a difference but choosing a speaker they would want to live with. 

Now I don't care who you are that is a good one. Raises the issue, do people simply go for the more expensive speaker because it has one extra driver?





soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
Wolf 

The good news for you is that you know what good sound sounds like. Most people don't and really have no way to know. Not the ideal scenario. Perhaps when people drop a load of money on so so gear it is the equivalent of going to Trump University.  They smarten up the hard way. 

dicockrum must be really bored to follow this " pathetic tread" .

soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
maple grove don't be a sexist. " interesting audiophile ( person )

soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
cdk84

Clearly  we are not evolving. 

soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
mb1

So hear is a company with a real serious commitment to advancing the technology. So grant funding for the development of a loudspeaker. For 250.000 pounds sterling. Now that is what I am talking about.

"The new grant application was entitled ‘the Bishop project’ and outlined an R&D program to develop a new multirole dynamic drive unit technology that would compliment the enclosure technology developed in the A.C.T. One loudspeaker and allow for the development of a new flagship loudspeaker. The application was submitted to the DTi under the SMART Funding initiative and was successful. Wilson Benesch were awarded £250,000 from Her Majesty’s Government. At the time of writing in 2016, no other British audio manufacturer has successfully applied for and won grant funding from the British Government."



soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
mr_m

Please admit that you had nothing better to do with your saturday. What else would you do, read the news? That might throw you over the brink.
soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
fun...fun

So Wilson Benesch spent 250,000 pounds sterling to develop a good driver for their speakers. Sounds like the kind of speaker development that audiophiles would like to see more of. I would think. 


soundsrealaudio's avatar
soundsrealaudio
756 posts
 
Well that does sound like a blast...Can I come and listen when you have it set up. I would love it.  There is so little fun in Hi Fi any more. Expectations keep getting higher. 
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