What to listen for

[thekid]

Point made. The analogy of the salesman is good but that is coming at the situation from a different perspective than the manufacturer.

Too many discussions here get mired down (see most Bose threads.... in discussions of the perception of the manufacturer or their business practices. We are all fellow consumers on this site and should speak to the merits of the products we own/use rather than our opinions of products we don't/won't own.

I was just commenting that in my short time in this forum there is general tendency to make the following equation;
Big Company=Bad Product
Small Company=Good Product

But we have beat this horse to death I am afraid.
We just need to keep it positive here...using your analogy a good salesman sells their product on its merits not by tearing down the products of the competition......

[RGA]

I agree that it's not right to generalize and people can discuss the various advantage of either the big vs small company but really those discussions are more about the business end rather than conceptual end. Big company can make more units at lower cost due to scale of production -- but none of this has anything to do with the design. Geenrally speaking a small company will have products that they taylor to what they themselves like (which of course can be good or bad depending who listens). big companies could do that too but they often farm it out to another group of people -- you make this line you make that line etc.

I am ultimately of the opinion that the product stands on its own merit and it is the same when I review a film - I don't care if Scorcese has made ten great films in a row -- if his new one sucks it sucks - but chances are Scorcese is going to make superior films than McMovie maker Michael Bay.

I give credit to a number of big makers who make very nice speakers for little money -- I just think this tends to be where their strengths lie generally speaking i'm impressed by what they can do with the Paradigm Atom and the B&W 302 than I am with the N804 and the Studio 100v3.

[nightflier]

...Too many discussions here get mired down (see most Bose threads.... in discussions of the perception of the manufacturer or their business practices. We are all fellow consumers on this site and should speak to the merits of the products we own/use rather than our opinions of products we don't/won't own.....

I don't know if that would work. People tend to exagerate the products they own and disparage what they don't own. But therein lies the problem: how can one discuss a product s/he doesn't own? Perhaps not owning any products, but just auditioning them (like the the writers in a/v mags), is more appropriate. Or someone who has money to burn can buy a number of units and altruistically compare them and write about them here. But anyone who decides to purchase a single product has made the conscious decision that it is somehow superior, and thus better than the rest.

Regarding the ongoing discussion, almost every company has some wonderful story about how they started from humble beginings blah-blah-blah... (Polk, Klipsch, and today's whipping boy, PSB, come to mind). But eventually the company reaches a distribution volume where they have to employ that 20-cents-per-hour-little-toddler-in-china to continue to meet the profit-margins mandated by its stockholders. That famous-name engineer who started the company with all his great ideas is slowly value-managed out of decision making, and cheap materials creep into all but the most expensive models. Companies that refuse to do this are swallowed up by those that embrace it wholeheartedly.

Eventually it's no longer about quality but about quantity. It is the perpetual problem of capitalism: a convergence towards monopolies that force-feed their consumers mediocre and similar products (notice how all cars are starting to look the same?). In the end the companies divest themselves of the manufacturing process entirely and become only hollow entities that have lost any and all relation to the actual products under their brand. I don't know what happens next, but I do know that one way small companies buck this trend is by not going puplic (like Kingston, for example), but that may be at the expense of substantial growth and profit losses for not going public.

In my opinion, much of what a company becomes stems from two factors: company philosopy (which is largely dependent on the strength of the leadership - Dynaudio comes to mind), and (cover your ears, libertarians), government regulation. The latter is really codification of societal expectations that are local to the company's home base. These expectations have a tremendous impact on the attachment the company's employees have to the product line, and consequently affect the quality of that product line. If a country has a tradition thousands of years old to produce a stellar product (French wine for example), the local government will stem profit-quantity forces from diluting product quality. Sure there are excellent California wines, but how many of these are still drinkable after 20 years? So maybe Triangle speakers are not selling like snow-cones on the the 4th of July, but they are still of a very respectable quality.

Finally, I also think that foreign consumers themselves also have higher expectations. I am just guessing, here, but I would attribute that to a different education system that emphasizes critical thinking more. By it's very nature, a business-oriented country will likely emphasize and reward an educational system that encourages less-critical consumerism, hence the drive towards quantity over quality.

[RGA]

Mr Ford (the slime-bucket he was) did realize this. You sell Ford cars to the rich -- when that market dried up he doubled the wages of his employees so they could then buy his cars.

The silly thing about the way the industries in the west are heading is they lay people here off and move plant to China -- so the shoe that cost $40.00 to make and which they sell for $200.00 can now be made for $8.00. Person here either can't afford it and goes to Wal-mart (pays employees **** and uses slave labour) or the person racks up credit cards (see debt load across the board and it's getting nightmarish.

The people in China don;t get paid enough to even buy the Wal-mart priced shoe. The middle class gets gutted for the compuer designer making $400K per year(to put out programs no one needs) and the Wal-mart emloyee at $8.50 an hour (Cdn).

If I were a reviewer in a magazine I would probably present my reviews in a similar fashion to the other reviewers. If I want to keep my job I'd have to. In the end what does it mean. I have a great deal of respect for Martin Colloms and his level of experience -- but one of his reference speakers I think is completely dreadful - the Quad ESL 63. It's famous and people like it but it is in my opinion not even a good speaker. Now if a reviewer is using a speaker in his home as a reference to judge other speakers against and you don;t like his reference how credible is he to the reader. It's the same problem that UHF magazine has and most. How do you know what you're hearing is the truth or a preference you've gotten used to.

When I started in this hobby I owned (and still do) Wharfedale Vanguards an at the time well reviewed speaker. When i went out auditioning several years later I kept noting what all the other speakers DID NOT have that my Wharfedales did have rather than trying to be objective (which really is difficult) and judge the speaker on its own merrit. We all have a preference after all and deviations from our preference can seem to be worse even if in fact that it was our reference all along that was problematic.

This is one thing that tool me a while to GET. And sometimes I still have some relapses in the way I talk about given products. I have a clear preference for the Audio Note reproduction sound sytem. But recently hearing what is a rather big departure I also think that the set-up was pleasing and while not my ultimate cup of tea is certainly very accomplished at what it does: The lower sensitivity efficiency Gershman X-1Sub1 with big mega watt SS Oddysey amps and Sony SACD front end. It doesn;t get much bigger of a departure from AN than that and yet I would post a glowing review of it because i can see why people would like the kind of sound.

Same for Magnepan - it certainly isn;t going to make me trade what I have but I also understand the appeal and the bang for buck seems quite high -- and there is the neato factor of the whole thing.

And does it all really matter -- if you buy a speaker you don;t end up liking -- sell it and buy another one.

[abstracta]

This thread only convinces me that the speaker industry today is a lot like the PC industry in the early 90s. Too many companies putting together non-distinguishing products with the same few parts at unsustainable margins.

To try and get around this, big name speaker companies have tried to divert attention to other snake-oil tactics, the most common being to focus attention to the design of the cabinet. The result being audiophiles buying $2500 two speakers that compromise $200 worth of drivers (at most), $30 for the crossover, and I guess the rest going into specially grown MDF or something. I've always wanted to ask Mr. Wilson and the design team at B&W that if cabinet resonance were such a frikken issue with a single 6" driver, why do you build boxes reather than cylinders?

Which bring me to my first rule when buying speakers, and that's never spend more than $500 for a pair of two ways regardless of brand, because if I did, I'd be a retard. Hand me the drivers for any two way speaker and I can likely find them whole-sale, and two way Xover design is hardly rocket science. You guys won't be able to justify the rest of the price difference without getting into the realm of magic.

Next rule when buying speakers is bring my favorite recording to listen to, and if the speakers vanish and don't bring attention to themselves, then they are worth getting. Sadly most electronic store speakers don't fit thsi rule, and the ear bleed inducing Klipsch mentioned at the beginning of this thread certainly don't qualify. I could care less about on axis response characteristics because off axis is where most decently made speakers get their individual flavor anyways.

Regretfully I agree that speaker makers are having to resort to Chinese production to stay competitive, which woulnd't be so bad if the stupid things weren't over-priced to begin with.

[nightflier]

One thing that we can do to alleviate the trend towards mass-produced consumer-oriented sameness is to refuse to buy retail, and to encourage others to do the same. I for one, try to buy my audio gear on the used market. Even if I have to have it repaired, it helps minimize the abuse of labor overseas. It also allows me to own equipment I would never be able to afford new and it validates the quality of older gear that was built to last (I love my Carver amp and holographic spacializer).

And I don't think I'm the only one who thinks this way, as the success of online auction sites suggests. And even on eBay, I steer clear of business selling stuff new (especially NIB stuff), too, because they will in all likelyhood not be authorized resellers and are contributing to the same problems pointed out above. Heck, I don't even think they belong on eBay and I wish I could filter out "businesses" and the inflated "buy-it-now" stuff. To me, a piece of quality gear has to have passed the test of time a bit, past all the product recalls, potential negative reviews, and wear-and-tear of everyday button-pushing and dial-turning. If it is still as good as new after 5 years, has survived the magazine and online reviewers, and shed that fresh-off-the-store-shelf inflated pricepoint, then it is worth a look.

Now this is especially true for speakers. As long as they have been well cared for, speakers should have a useful life of about 20 years or more. I don't agree that material don't matter, however. In my double blind tests, I have found that there is a noticeable difference between speakers that are solidly built of strong materials as compared with the mass-produced plastic-molded stuff. A used pair of 2-year old Sonus Faber bookshelves (~$700) will be more listenable than most speakers in that price range, new or used. Strong materials also permit a speaker to weather that 20 year life better, so I do think materials play a part in sound quality and value.

As for my friend's Klipsch speakers, they appear to be clear and precise, particularly in the mids, but to my ears they are fatiguing to listen to for long periods, even more so than my own Klipsch bookshelves. They have a bit of a canned/metal sound too which I really don't care for. But my friend loves 'em. He will use them mostly for movies and loud listening sessions, so they fit his needs. I did mention that he could buy used Klipsch speakers for less, but he told me that he would never buy used. So I guess that settles that...