Kindhorman,
Thanks for the reply and a very interesting story about your product.
That's interesting as I thought B&W was some kind of pioneer in this idea. I've looked at their 802 Diamond and I think the enclosure for the mid can be built easily using laminated MDF (and due to the shape, little MDF to be wasted).
You sound like a real engineer. I hope you get a backup from your brother or kids regarding salesmanship, if you know what I mean
Your selling point is quality, so imho you don't need to create a new demand with something new. Educating the market takes time (as you have experienced). You can go with what the market already like, including the shape. It seems the Be is a steal, but the market still need a little education about what it is.
Just an idea, Open Baffle or dipoles take lesser room and easier packaging than horn. Active processing and the engineering aspect will ensure IP protection as only those with "real" knowledge can produce such thing (especially with own proprietary DSP). It would be a "catchy" product, and I believe that active sound characteristics has big market (dynamics and bass).
Haha, may be you should advertise your product side by side with Bose or other market leader (and create an A/B switch). I don't know if that is legal or not
Thanks for the reply and a very interesting story about your product.
That's interesting as I thought B&W was some kind of pioneer in this idea. I've looked at their 802 Diamond and I think the enclosure for the mid can be built easily using laminated MDF (and due to the shape, little MDF to be wasted).
You sound like a real engineer. I hope you get a backup from your brother or kids regarding salesmanship, if you know what I mean
Your selling point is quality, so imho you don't need to create a new demand with something new. Educating the market takes time (as you have experienced). You can go with what the market already like, including the shape. It seems the Be is a steal, but the market still need a little education about what it is.
Just an idea, Open Baffle or dipoles take lesser room and easier packaging than horn. Active processing and the engineering aspect will ensure IP protection as only those with "real" knowledge can produce such thing (especially with own proprietary DSP). It would be a "catchy" product, and I believe that active sound characteristics has big market (dynamics and bass).
Haha, may be you should advertise your product side by side with Bose or other market leader (and create an A/B switch). I don't know if that is legal or not
Jay,
Thanks for the comments. On that Bose comparison from what I know anybody who has attempted to do a comparison test has been dragged into court, they are very litigious. That is one of the reasons they have gotten away with saying the things they have for years, nobody would have the funds to fight them in court.
I just got off the phone with a now retired aerospace engineer who I worked with. He gave me a very good recommendation for a position managing an injection molding company. When I worked with him I was in-charge of the tooling, welding, documentation and inspection department of a tier two company. Our main programs were the Apache helicopter main and tail rotors and many rotor blades for other helicopters and other parts of many planes. MY department supported a 450 man manufacturing facility. I had a boss but worked closely with the director of Engineering.
Thanks for the comments. On that Bose comparison from what I know anybody who has attempted to do a comparison test has been dragged into court, they are very litigious. That is one of the reasons they have gotten away with saying the things they have for years, nobody would have the funds to fight them in court.
I just got off the phone with a now retired aerospace engineer who I worked with. He gave me a very good recommendation for a position managing an injection molding company. When I worked with him I was in-charge of the tooling, welding, documentation and inspection department of a tier two company. Our main programs were the Apache helicopter main and tail rotors and many rotor blades for other helicopters and other parts of many planes. MY department supported a 450 man manufacturing facility. I had a boss but worked closely with the director of Engineering.
I am also looking into those options as well. Wonder what the differences between Indiegogo and Kickstarter are. Kickstarted has some apps to make it convenient to look into various projects and interact with the creator and supporters, but I have not seen anything like that from Indiegogo.
Kindhornman, what I normally do with audio shows is to just display new designs and present information, but I find that most people cannot understand in such a short time and kind of ask questions based on the general understanding out there like "what material the interconnect is made of". I kind of like to have various people in the business audition in the process of development, with hopes that they will say some good words when the product hits the market.
Pricing is really tricky. But what can be considered is look at the size of a product, consider what the living standards of customers generally will have to house a product that size, look at your own cost, then consider what the price really should be. Of course it is also necessary to consider whether you will have customers looking for the kind of sound you are providing and can afford it. Generally I do consult with audiophiles and stores to see what price they would think would be a good selling point as well.
I wonder which audio magazine has the pic of your speaker on the cover? I think it is free advertisement. It really gives you more references when you sell. If the reviews are positive or at least to you liking, just ask them for a lot of their magazines. I once saw a pair of our speakers on a CD cover, and just bought a lot at lower than dealer price as gifts to give out. Free advertisement like these really benefit both ways.
Pricing is really tricky. But what can be considered is look at the size of a product, consider what the living standards of customers generally will have to house a product that size, look at your own cost, then consider what the price really should be. Of course it is also necessary to consider whether you will have customers looking for the kind of sound you are providing and can afford it. Generally I do consult with audiophiles and stores to see what price they would think would be a good selling point as well.
I wonder which audio magazine has the pic of your speaker on the cover? I think it is free advertisement. It really gives you more references when you sell. If the reviews are positive or at least to you liking, just ask them for a lot of their magazines. I once saw a pair of our speakers on a CD cover, and just bought a lot at lower than dealer price as gifts to give out. Free advertisement like these really benefit both ways.
This is good! It's a meta-discussion of why we do audio, rather the usual nuts-and-bolts of diyAudio.
Kindhornman has a very ambitious project to put a superior level of design and materials technology into a market that, to be frank, isn't all that receptive. The ugly fact is that the people in audio who have made the serious money have been a rapper (Beats), a former MIT professor who used his know-how to create a Nike-like marketing empire (B**e), and two different self-proclaimed "gurus" who created the Big Two review magazines ... which eventually became the de facto gatekeepers of the entire US high-end audio industry. It's not a pretty picture.
If you look at the last forty years of audio, that's where the money was. Everyone else was lucky to break even, or at best create a small specialist company selling into a narrow niche. The majority of the survivors in the industry could not have made it without the blessing of the Big Two gatekeepers, who have the power to destroy new entrants with a single negative review.
Audio Note (Ongaku et al) was clever enough to build up a critical mass of owner satisfaction and word-of-mouth over two years in the US market before going anywhere near the Big Two gatekeeper magazines. By then, a snarky review lost its sting, and just made the reviewer look foolish.
Although the it's tempting to blame the dealers who slavishly follow the lead of the gatekeeper magazines, they are in an impossible position. They are selling very large, expensive, and slow-moving furniture into a fashion-driven market.
A single damn-with-faint-praise review, or even a detectable lack of enthusiasm, is enough to condemn tens of thousands of dollars of inventory to fire-sale status. The only reason there are any hifi dealers at all are the steady sales of professionally installed home-theater systems. That market has less "churn" than the audiophile market, and the customers mostly want a large, sharp picture on a 100+ inch screen in a dedicated room of their McMansion.
Kindhornman has a very ambitious project to put a superior level of design and materials technology into a market that, to be frank, isn't all that receptive. The ugly fact is that the people in audio who have made the serious money have been a rapper (Beats), a former MIT professor who used his know-how to create a Nike-like marketing empire (B**e), and two different self-proclaimed "gurus" who created the Big Two review magazines ... which eventually became the de facto gatekeepers of the entire US high-end audio industry. It's not a pretty picture.
If you look at the last forty years of audio, that's where the money was. Everyone else was lucky to break even, or at best create a small specialist company selling into a narrow niche. The majority of the survivors in the industry could not have made it without the blessing of the Big Two gatekeepers, who have the power to destroy new entrants with a single negative review.
Audio Note (Ongaku et al) was clever enough to build up a critical mass of owner satisfaction and word-of-mouth over two years in the US market before going anywhere near the Big Two gatekeeper magazines. By then, a snarky review lost its sting, and just made the reviewer look foolish.
Although the it's tempting to blame the dealers who slavishly follow the lead of the gatekeeper magazines, they are in an impossible position. They are selling very large, expensive, and slow-moving furniture into a fashion-driven market.
A single damn-with-faint-praise review, or even a detectable lack of enthusiasm, is enough to condemn tens of thousands of dollars of inventory to fire-sale status. The only reason there are any hifi dealers at all are the steady sales of professionally installed home-theater systems. That market has less "churn" than the audiophile market, and the customers mostly want a large, sharp picture on a 100+ inch screen in a dedicated room of their McMansion.
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I believe you are correct - and also with the crowd funding model. If you haven't already, have a look at what LHLabs have done.
They have effectively created a "brand" far beyond their wildest dreams.
Not what you are trying to do, but there's plenty of lessons there. Especially around international shipping and where you send the first production units - and customer expectation management.
And, quietly in the wings, behind the builders (eg Gary D, Lynn O, Hugh D, Tom D) and all the regular contributors are a legion of people like myself who are missing the time, skill or experience to contribute to the same degree. But are watching and listening.
Now, this has been going on since SP did it in paper or the BassList did via email - but "web 2.0" has completely changed the speed and scale that these things can happen.
So, to end where I started, I believe you are correct.
I also believe that starting your own thread here, and getting prototypes listened to and critiqued by well regarded active members near you will significantly assist the processes.
Likewise, finding and engaging the "voices" (eg. John Darko in Australia) of the non-mainstream audio movement around the world will be important.
I say all this on the presumption that you'll achieve your goal - a $10K rrp speaker for $1k5 + shipping. Which I believe you can do, for all the reasons you mentioned.
(currently listening to an Australian Chamber Choir live recording of Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah via my Ariels, driven by a JLH and a Bozenblitz SRPP preamp. I didn't make the FM radio - the FM-3 needs repairs. And the 2a3 PP is still a pile of parts - sorry Lynn
)
Lynn,
I think you have summed up the nature of the hi-end market very well. And you are correct that being a dealer of these products is a very iffy proposition. On that comment about home theater installations I agree, a friend of mine does that and has often told me of big bucks installations that in the end us the cheapest in-wall type of commodity junk, the sound is a secondary consideration after the video installations.
Thoglette,
Thank you for the encouraging words and the suggestions. I will look into your Australian suggestions and also having some of the local audio people give a real review of my prototype systems. If it wasn't for the power of the internet I don't think anyone with less than a million dollars of capital backing could possibly enter the audio market, it is all brand name marketing if you are using the old models of sales. Thankfully that has changed and the smaller entrepreneur now has a chance to disrupt the status quo.
I think you have summed up the nature of the hi-end market very well. And you are correct that being a dealer of these products is a very iffy proposition. On that comment about home theater installations I agree, a friend of mine does that and has often told me of big bucks installations that in the end us the cheapest in-wall type of commodity junk, the sound is a secondary consideration after the video installations.
Thoglette,
Thank you for the encouraging words and the suggestions. I will look into your Australian suggestions and also having some of the local audio people give a real review of my prototype systems. If it wasn't for the power of the internet I don't think anyone with less than a million dollars of capital backing could possibly enter the audio market, it is all brand name marketing if you are using the old models of sales. Thankfully that has changed and the smaller entrepreneur now has a chance to disrupt the status quo.
I also belong to the high efficiency+ horn + supertweeter faction. I also agree with Lynn 100% about speakers NOT being able to cover all types of music. The problem is not as much the speaker as the way the source was recorded. I believe that the better a speaker is, the worse marginal sources will sound. A really in your face pop or rock recording, even at hi res requires a different type of presentation than a low microphone count orchestra or choral recording.
I believe that our listening habits are very much "having gotten used to" the speakers, the room, our listening habits (zap around vs entire works). Source can be very much secondary depending on the musical qualities of the captured performance.
As far as the hardware goes, I have had excellent results with the 12" Fane Colossus neodymium drivers coupled to an elliptical tractrix horn being fed by a Faital 1.4" driver with plastic membrane. I am experimenting with various UHF solutions. Currently I have 2 Infinity EMITS stacked per side. All single ended pentode tube amplifiers. The crossover is passive and built into the power amplifiers.
I believe that our listening habits are very much "having gotten used to" the speakers, the room, our listening habits (zap around vs entire works). Source can be very much secondary depending on the musical qualities of the captured performance.
As far as the hardware goes, I have had excellent results with the 12" Fane Colossus neodymium drivers coupled to an elliptical tractrix horn being fed by a Faital 1.4" driver with plastic membrane. I am experimenting with various UHF solutions. Currently I have 2 Infinity EMITS stacked per side. All single ended pentode tube amplifiers. The crossover is passive and built into the power amplifiers.
Hi Rowuk, I've been curious about the Fane Colossus drivers for sub applications ... but it sounds like a viable alternative to the GPA 416 as well. I like the combination of Neo magnet and double spiders, which can be more symmetric than a single spider (one spider is reversed to complement the other spider).
I also agree about optimizing a system to music as we find it. This is the music-lovers option, maximizing listening satisfaction with commercially available recordings, regardless of format. It's all too easy for audiophiles to paint themselves into a corner with a system that only sounds listenable with a handful of ultra-high-quality audiophile recordings ... that aren't that interesting musically.
My yardstick for music-lover vs audiophile is the value of the music collection vs the total cost of the system. True story ... I've met audiophiles with $100,000 systems that only sounded good on a handful of 96/24 digital recordings and 180-gram audiophile pressings. Put down that glossy magazine, dude!
I also agree about optimizing a system to music as we find it. This is the music-lovers option, maximizing listening satisfaction with commercially available recordings, regardless of format. It's all too easy for audiophiles to paint themselves into a corner with a system that only sounds listenable with a handful of ultra-high-quality audiophile recordings ... that aren't that interesting musically.
My yardstick for music-lover vs audiophile is the value of the music collection vs the total cost of the system. True story ... I've met audiophiles with $100,000 systems that only sounded good on a handful of 96/24 digital recordings and 180-gram audiophile pressings. Put down that glossy magazine, dude!
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Dual symmetric spiders would tend to offer reduced even order harmonics while leaving the odd order components pretty much untouched, all things being equal. Given that your amps are P-P, this might be a bit too much of a 'good thing'.
Perhaps leaving in just a bit more 2nd HD (to tailor the harmonic profile of the components) *might* not be that bad in your case; just saying.
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Having listened to large numbers of typically somewhat ambitious systems that's the conclusion one could easily come to. However, the reality is still that nearly all systems introduce too much extra, audible distortion from a variety of often subtle causes, and these are the reasons for "in your face pop or rock" frequently being impossible to listen to at raised volumes - it takes being exposed to a system that has been sufficiently optimised, to raise the bar in all the right places, to understand that the problems are not the recordings - but totally a function of the playback system.
It requires getting one's mind in the right headspace to truly understand and appreciate this, but once there one can never look back. The most ambitious sound reproduction projects will most likely still disappoint in various ways until this is taken on board - IME it is absolutely crucial to get a solid handle on this.
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At some point, aren't we fighting the Fletcher-Munson curve? If you keep turning up the volume of an ideal loudspeaker, I would expect the frequency balance (perceived) to run askew at some point. Theoretically, the frequency balance could be optimized for the desired range of output levels.
Most of my listening is to acoustic (non-amplified) music, which only sounds realistic over a limited range of output levels. If I were planning to listen to popular music at high levels, I would rebalance the system accordingly.
Gary Dahl
Most of my listening is to acoustic (non-amplified) music, which only sounds realistic over a limited range of output levels. If I were planning to listen to popular music at high levels, I would rebalance the system accordingly.
Gary Dahl
Not in my experience. I always draw the analogy of how our listening responds to live music playing, whether a simple acoustic instrument - say grand piano, or a large brass band, or a rock band using only their instruments' amplification, no PA. If you're a significant distance, physically, from the instrument players then the sound will have a certain quality - if you then walk towards the centre of the players, until you are literally only a few feet away from them then the music will have increased in intensity, but at no point does it sound false, or 'wrong' - it always sounds real. When audio reproduction works correctly, the subjective experience is identical to this, as one moves further, or closer to the speakers - and adjusting the volume control, and nothing else, does the same thing, as well.
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Is that a first hand experience? I have been interested in complete understanding of that phenomenon...
Suppose A is a better speaker than B and X is a better recording/source than Y. Which one is better Y in A, or Y in B?
Many bad recordings or bad systems have too many excess HF garbage. So imagine what happen if our speaker is flat from midrange to 40kHz. Compare to a speaker that is tilted down towards HF and naturally roll-off before 20kHz, like in many designs. In this case, I believe we will agree that the flat and wider response speaker is a better one?
But there may be different cases or situations, where a marginal recording/source sounds terrible not because of the speaker being better but the opposite.
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Yes - assuming you tune your system so it's tonally correct for a certain level of playback (ie, at actual level, -10dB from actual, whatever) then as soon as you change the playback level from there the tonal balance is no longer correct. Of course in reality there's a range before you'll notice. But this brings up lots of other issues like knowing what the original reference level was for each recording. You are essentially assuming that 0dB FS (for digital recordings) is the same from album to album, but there's no guarantee that it is.
Jay, IME it has always been that the better the system is, in every area, the better the marginal recordings come across. Quite often what happens as one approaches that almost magical boundary, of sufficient quality, is that the difficult recordings become progressively worse, at a subjective level - this is analogous to the well known pain barrier of the running athlete, who reaches a point where he feels that it's impossible to continue - but if he manages to persist then something 'strange' happens, a new energy is tapped into, and he can continue even more strongly than before. This is the sort of experience I have with audio - get over that "pain" hurdle, of something still holding back the quality, and the vistas of those marginal recording open up, fully ...