Wither Geddes Loudspeakers?

[gedlee]

(this thread split off from here http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=121253&perpage=10&pagenumber=1 )

Real engineers do the impossible on a budget!!

I live with this day to day, I do the cost analysis. My guidelines are.
1. Make it simple
2. Make it cost effective
3. Make it easy to build
4, Make it easy to operate
5. Make it reliable

ron

Those were my guidelines when I design the Ai product line. Many people don't appreciate that doing a great loudspeaker at "cost is no object" is far easier than doing one that is cost effective. One takes good engineering, the other is a lot easier.

I was very proud of the designs from the those perspectives.

Unfortunately I missed; 6. Make it marketable!!

 

[ronc]

Unfortunately I missed; 6. Make it marketable!!

Of that , i have no idea. Most of my designs have a singular application in industry. Although i have a design i am working on for a CNC plasma cutting device (one man portable) that could change the industry and be a very marketable item.

Back to acoustics: I was young and in college, all that mattered was the amount of sound. As i got older the amount of sound blended in with a concept of qualty (Mac/Marantz peroid). I grew older and searched for more quality and less quantity. This led to various FR BLH designs with different amps. Now i am at a point of a two way system in which there is a BVR to around 250 hz and a waveguide OB that supports a WR driver to the top(time aligned). Its simple,effective and efficent.

ron

 

[Jakob2]

OT

Originally posted by gedlee
Unfortunately I missed; 6. Make it marketable!!

Sometimes it works the other way round. My best advice would be to find an expert in marketing; tell him the unique strengths of your loudspeakers and he´ll be able to develop a matching unique marketing strategy that leads (hopefully) to a selling success.

It may sound to simple to be true, but ask yourself if you are as much an expert in marketing as you are an expert in loudspeaker technology.
If the answer is no.....

Jakob2

 

[gedlee]

OT



Sometimes it works the other way round. My best advice would be to find an expert in marketing; tell him the unique strengths of your loudspeakers and he´ll be able to develop a matching unique marketing strategy that leads (hopefully) to a selling success.

It may sound to simple to be true, but ask yourself if you are as much an expert in marketing as you are an expert in loudspeaker technology.
If the answer is no.....

Jakob2

I think that you must have missed the post where I admitted that I don't know the first thing about marketing, and it makes no sense for me to try and do it. So, if you know a marketing person that works cheap, let me know.

But I hope that everyone realizes that when you spend as much on marketing as you do on engineering, etc. that this basically doubles the cost of the systems - you have to pay for all that marketing somehow. My idea was that if I made a really great loudspeaker at a very attractive price that I could end run the marketing. I guess that doesn't work, and having to double the cost of the system to hire a marketing guy makes the speakers far less attarctive to both the customers and myself.

 

[soongsc]

I think that you must have missed the post where I admitted that I don't know the first thing about marketing, and it makes no sense for me to try and do it. So, if you know a marketing person that works cheap, let me know.

But I hope that everyone realizes that when you spend as much on marketing as you do on engineering, etc. that this basically doubles the cost of the systems - you have to pay for all that marketing somehow. My idea was that if I made a really great loudspeaker at a very attractive price that I could end run the marketing. I guess that doesn't work, and having to double the cost of the system to hire a marketing guy makes the speakers far less attarctive to both the customers and myself.

I wonder if a profit sharing approach would be attractive.

 

[soongsc]

...
In a loudspeaker system, bigger is better. Larger drivers have less nonlinearity for a given SPL. Compression drivers have virtually inaudible nonlinear distortion. Using a large woofer and a compression driver makes a system in which nonlinear distortion is not going to be a consideration.

As the system gets smaller nonlinearity becomes more of an issue and fast. Unless one plays the smaller drivers at lower levels they will reach a point where they are nonlinear and this will be the limiting factor in their usage. As a rule of thumb, for every halfing of the drivers size you would lower the MaxSPL by about 12 dB. Why 12 dB and not 6 dB? Thats because the efficiency will drop by about 6 dB and the nonlinearity will grow by about 6 dB, hence the SPL at which the nonlinearity is an audible factor will drop by about 12 dB. These are "rules of thumb" but you get the idea that going smaller is a big hit in SPL performance.

At a low enough SPL level nonlinearity is not a factor in any loudspeaker.

Now there is also the thermal modulation factors, which also tend to favor bigger. But these are not the topic here.

To fit that kind of a system into normal highly populated living areas is not attractive. People just cannot play that loud most of the time. As a matter of fact, there are lots of people that love to listen to music in the evenings at low levels.

 

[roland bios]

Hi,

About the marketing of the Gedlee speakers, why don't you sell them "factory" direct, with a 30 day trail period?

Regards
Roland

 

[gedlee]

To fit that kind of a system into normal highly populated living areas is not attractive. People just cannot play that loud most of the time. As a matter of fact, there are lots of people that love to listen to music in the evenings at low levels.

Well Asia is certainly different than it is here, I know that. But it is not inconceiveable to make a listening room that is sound proof - mine is. I have listened at > 100 dBc while the kids were asleep upstairs. Loud music is not necessary, but I do find that for any given piece of music that there is a levl at which the dynamics seem to peak. At lower levels the music just isn't as dynamic, then an optimium seems to appear, and then above that it seems to get annoying and harsh. This level - I and I hev never really figured this out - seems to be different for every piece of music. So I hate to constrain myself to only lower levels since sometimes thats not enough to get the full dynamics of the music out.

And then there's film. How anyone can have a home theater with small 6" loudspeakers is beyond me. Movies have huge dynamics built into them for very good reasons. The drama is almost completely controlled by the sound (and sometimes lack of) and this drama is seriously degraded when the sound is weak. Film needs a huge dynamic range if it is to be appreciated with the same intensity that was built into the film by the director. There is no other solution here than go bigger - or go to a theater.

 

[gedlee]

Hi,

About the marketing of the Gedlee speakers, why don't you sell them "factory" direct, with a 30 day trail period?

Regards
Roland

Well I do sell them from the factory, which is here at my home. The 30 day trial period would push up the price about 30% or more in handling costs etc. With large speakers like this shipping is outrageous, like $500 each way. Who pays for the shipping costs if there is no sale and I'd have to assume that each sale would be a return? Each speaker sold could be several returns. I knew a guy who would audition loudspeakers for 30 days just about every 30 days. Never ended up buying any of them, but got to hear a nice array of loudspeakers.

Now if the speakers were so good then why would they be returned? Well thats because they are not "flashy" speakers and may not appeal to the buyer who wants the latest genre of boutique. If the buyer knows what they want then they should know how to read that from a data sheet and the 30 day trial would be unnecessary. The trial is to ease the buyers insecurity about the purchase which is really an insecurity about knowing the technology and what they are looking for in reproduction. That is a risky buyer indeed. And guess what - pandering to that risky buyer drives the price way up for the knowledgeable one. I just don't see this feature as being a long term cost effective approach to sales.

To me its better to have people come here, listen to the speakers and if you buy them I will reimburse you for the trip. I have always offered to do this and I will even now.

Best is to just learn to read data sheets and to buy based on what speaker is the most accurate. My competitors will never show you their data, of course, but you have to ask yourself why.
And why is it that they all say "Well if it sounds good to you" - accuracy be damned.

I have no interest in selling inaccurate speakers because thats what the market wants. It makes no sense to me and I have no competitive advantage - I'm a scientist not an Marketing major.

What I am going to do now is sell kits. I have redesigned the entire line and I will be selling a complete kit as parts. Just assemble, paint, and enjoy. They will be pretty cheap too. I'm going to see if this is more attractive than buying a preassembled unit - which is far more expensive and far harder to ship. And people can't expect a 30 day money-back-guarantee on a kit, so that problem is solved.

 

[soongsc]

Well Asia is certainly different than it is here, I know that. But it is not inconceiveable to make a listening room that is sound proof - mine is. I have listened at > 100 dBc while the kids were asleep upstairs. Loud music is not necessary, but I do find that for any given piece of music that there is a levl at which the dynamics seem to peak. At lower levels the music just isn't as dynamic, then an optimium seems to appear, and then above that it seems to get annoying and harsh. This level - I and I hev never really figured this out - seems to be different for every piece of music. So I hate to constrain myself to only lower levels since sometimes thats not enough to get the full dynamics of the music out.

And then there's film. How anyone can have a home theater with small 6" loudspeakers is beyond me. Movies have huge dynamics built into them for very good reasons. The drama is almost completely controlled by the sound (and sometimes lack of) and this drama is seriously degraded when the sound is weak. Film needs a huge dynamic range if it is to be appreciated with the same intensity that was built into the film by the director. There is no other solution here than go bigger - or go to a theater.

I know as a fact that most people have problems soundproofing thw low frequencies, the only way is to let the speakers hang free and decouple them from the building structure, otherwise concrete structures here really conductes the energy to other parts of the building with very little loss. I can hear a pen drop upstairs. When I was in New York in the 60s, the concrete/brick apartments were also like that. Don't know how they are now.

Soundproofing a wooden house is much easier.

 

[soongsc]

Thank you gedlee. This sounds very reasonable to me and is a splendid reason to use big drivers

@soongsc: I like to listen loud but rarely and i count myself to the group of "the people". So much about generalisations

Well, if you live in a house in a quite open area like in Texas where you have to drive a few miles to the next house, then you are not in the group I am talking about. I like to listen at live level, but can only do so in the daytime when everyone else is at work, but that's also when the noise levels are higher.

I remember a friend that rented an apartment near a university, a few neighbors were playing music really loud, so he turned on his system loud but played English poetry; Then someone shouted out the window "Can you turn the English program down?" Everyone turned their volumes down after that.

 

[gedlee]

As for the Summa's, I also have the feeling that they are a bit too low-priced and and bit too ugly (sorry) for the ordinary customer to be a consideration for him as a true high-end speaker.

I think the kit/DIY idea will do better.

- Klaus

The suggestions are all consistant with the starting approach to the product. But that approach did not pan out as people in the very high price market are looking for boutique brands and sound quality is not a major driving force. To ask a high price you have to have a recognized brand and lots of marketing.

As to "ugly" there is very woide opinion here. Non-audiophiles love the look, audiophiles who expect traditional tend to hate it. At any rate the form follows the function so changing the look would be paramount to throwing away the performance. Then I really would need a big marketing budget.

The market for high-end high-priced loudspeakers is very very small. Thats why they coma and go so often with only a few trickling to the top - temporarily.

 

[KSTR]

As to "ugly" there is very woide opinion here. Non-audiophiles love the look, audiophiles who expect traditional tend to hate it. At any rate the form follows the function so changing the look would be paramount to throwing away the performance.

When I recently introduced (and promoted ;-) the Summas and Ai on a german forum I also got this twofold response on its esthetics. The form-follows-function camp (where I'm in, too) loved it, while some audiophiles said they woudn't like to have a "PA-style" speaker in their living rooms, besides the fact that they are quite wide and chunky instead of the slim and tall designs that are in favour today (with all the compromises of these).

I think the passionate DIYers is a better target group than "the audiophools" and maybe you could become for the waveguide crew what Linkwitz and Kreskovsky are for the open baffle crew...

In any case I wish you all the best because it would be a real pity to see your waveguide (plus associated whole speakers) disappear just for economical reasons. When the DIY stuff is up, I'm quite probably in for a triple (I'll go trinaural)

- Klaus

 

[gedlee]

When I recently introduced (and promoted ;-) the Summas and Ai on a german forum I also got this twofold response on its esthetics. The form-follows-function camp (where I'm in, too) loved it, while some audiophiles said they woudn't like to have a "PA-style" speaker in their living rooms, besides the fact that they are quite wide and chunky instead of the slim and tall designs that are in favour today (with all the compromises of these).

I think the passionate DIYers is a better target group than "the audiophools" and maybe you could become for the waveguide crew what Linkwitz and Kreskovsky are for the open baffle crew...

In any case I wish you all the best because it would be a real pity to see your waveguide (plus associated whole speakers) disappear just for economical reasons. When the DIY stuff is up, I'm quite probably in for a triple (I'll go trinaural)

- Klaus

A lot of this reluctance to acceptance comes from the poor quality of so many PA speakers Lets face it they are right that virtually all PA speakers are not in a class for sound quality with the high-end stuff. Horns in the vast majority of these designs are terrible - I know that.

But times have changed and I think that the era of the high sound quality waveguide is dawning. It will certainly take a long time to win over the die hards. But I really think that when people live with what a high-end waveguide can do they will be hooked. The waveguides won't go away, the technology is there and it will get adapted because it is the right thing to do. But this will take time. I need to figure out how best to disseminate the word and get some product in the hands of people to actually listen to. Everyone who onws a apir love them, but these people are all hermits and no one ever gets to hear there speakers. Thialand set me back, but I'm not giving up.

I just finished building my first "new" design for the kits and it is quite attractive. About 23 inches tall by 11 inches wide - painted in a pleasing color and it should be a very attractive loudspeaker. It looks basicially just like the ESP10 at ai-audio.com and the performance will be about the same. But the price will be dramatically lower because of the design changes.

My plan then is to generate a kit for the 12" model, which IMO is the real winner of the group. Much smaller than the 15 it is only a little less of a performer.

Not given up yet.

 

[FrankWW]

My plan then is to generate a kit for the 12" model, which IMO is the real winner of the group. Much smaller than the 15 it is only a little less of a performer.

YES! Right on!

There is a need identified. How far reaching the need is - that is, how many folk actually want to fulfill it - is not known.

It's often much more cost effective to simply introduce a product in the right venues than to do complex, (read expensive), market research.

Either way, one risks capital, but doing the former does have the advantages of possibly paying its way, generating feedback to you, and creating word of mouth advertising amongst those who are the most likely customers.

Positive word of mouth is more precious than diamonds and rubies because, although the growth rate starts very, very slowly, it accelerates as customer base grows and it doesn't directly cost money. In fact, it can't be bought. Its cost is time in the absolute sense and time spent on quality control and customer service.

 

[peufeu]

As to "ugly" there is very woide opinion here. Non-audiophiles love the look, audiophiles who expect traditional tend to hate it. At any rate the form follows the function so changing the look would be paramount to throwing away the performance. Then I really would need a big marketing budget.

I don't think they're ugly. They sure look like some space alien technology, but I like that. Although, perhaps I would paint them in orange.

Is there a place in France I can listen to those ? The stuff you say in your document about the Summa really makes sense. I've been thinking about directive speakers for a long time, but ribbons don't go low enough, and I hate the typical horns (just like you do I guess).

I was also thinking about in-wall speakers as a solution to diffraction but my current place wouldn't accomodate this.

Also, a word of hope : Every maniac here knows at least 10 other maniacs. I know some pretty crazy ones here, milling their own horns, etc. So if you make the ultimate speaker at a reasonable price, word of mouth will spread.

 

[augerpro]

Earl there must be some way to get the good looks the hifi crowd wants without changing the design of the Summa. Have you looked at bamboo as the enclosure/layer/veneer? It's getting popular because it's cheap and made in china.


Also Mark Schifter at av123.com supplies OEM enclosures to others. He has factories in Brazil and China and the veneers he uses are just incredible. He's also a very enthusiastic and decent fellow.

 

[audiokinesis]

I tried selling Summas to the high end audio world, and sold a grand total of two pairs. Obviously I'm no hotshot salesman. Basically, as far as I could tell none of my customers really "got it" except for a few unusually open-minded high efficiency speaker lovers - one of which was a hornlovin' DIYer anyway.

Maybe the DIY community is Earl's niche, at least at this time.

You see, the DIY crowd is by definition intensely interested in understanding what matters most in loudspeaker design, and eagerly digs into technical challenges and unorthodox solutions. I think the DIY community is also more open-minded and results-oriented than the rest of the high end audio world. Now with Earl getting into offering kits, the DIYer can really be working with the leading edge of loudspeaker technology - and he's probably the one most likely to appreciate it.

I "got it" fairly early on regarding what Earl is doing, and my background is - you guessed it - longtime DIY speakerbuilder.

Duke

 

[gedlee]

YES! Right on!

It's often much more cost effective to simply introduce a product in the right venues than to do complex, (read expensive), market research.

Either way, one risks capital, but doing the former does have the advantages of possibly paying its way, generating feedback to you, and creating word of mouth advertising amongst those who are the most likely customers.

Positive word of mouth is more precious than diamonds and rubies because, although the growth rate starts very, very slowly, it accelerates as customer base grows and it doesn't directly cost money. In fact, it can't be bought. Its cost is time in the absolute sense and time spent on quality control and customer service.

This is exactly the approach that I favor at the moment. I am just not in the position to do market research or mass marketing campaigns nor would I want to. I have to progress toward the goal through diligence using sales and marketing (word of mouth and direct internet sales) and production techniques (make them myself) that are reasonable given the fact that I am paving new ground here. Any big company would be laying down a marketing blitz if they wanted to set a new trend - or, more likely, they wouldn't do it at all because the market research said it wouldn't sell. They would just sell the same old stuff and smile all the way to the bank.

 

[gedlee]

I don't think they're ugly. They sure look like some space alien technology, but I like that. Although, perhaps I would paint them in orange.

Is there a place in France I can listen to those ? The stuff you say in your document about the Summa really makes sense. I've been thinking about directive speakers for a long time, but ribbons don't go low enough, and I hate the typical horns (just like you do I guess).

Thanks - unfortunately there is almost no place that you can hear these speakers. Maybe Thailand!? Ever go there? Or my house I have a pair in Ferrari Red and they look great. The red seems to be the most favored color.