Wither Geddes Loudspeakers?

[gedlee]

(this thread split off from here Geddes on Distortion perception )

Originally posted by ronc
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]

Originally posted by Jakob2
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]

Originally posted by gedlee


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]

Originally posted by gedlee



...
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]

Originally posted by soongsc

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]

Originally posted by 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

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]

Originally posted by gedlee



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.