Phil,
that is what I am thinking. I have a friend who is an award winning graphic designer who I am going to run this by. He may come up with a simple design solution that could pull the design together that I haven't conceived of. But I do like you idea since I am now leaning towards adding a cloth grill. All it would take is something on the front that gives that image, I don't think the sides or basic shape of the enclosure is the problem, it is the face that is disjointed with the enclosure shape.
Thank you for the thoughts and understanding intuitively what I am trying to do. I just don't want to do a me to product that will get lost in the crowd, a very big crowd.
that is what I am thinking. I have a friend who is an award winning graphic designer who I am going to run this by. He may come up with a simple design solution that could pull the design together that I haven't conceived of. But I do like you idea since I am now leaning towards adding a cloth grill. All it would take is something on the front that gives that image, I don't think the sides or basic shape of the enclosure is the problem, it is the face that is disjointed with the enclosure shape.
Thank you for the thoughts and understanding intuitively what I am trying to do. I just don't want to do a me to product that will get lost in the crowd, a very big crowd.
Both the speakers I used as a reference were mostly used for their shape. I don't think the Focal looks that good, I kinda like the B&W though.
Maybe my preference is because I build my speakers to have that kind of shape:
I did not look at other speakers when I "designed" them. It was more a form follows function thing for me. Simplicity being the ideal.
Wesayso,
If those line arrays are your speakers I would say I like them. At the same time they are really large and I am working in a different perspective of size. Those line arrays would instantly draw your eye, they become the focal point in the room and the large series of drivers in the array have a very geometric strength along with the linear shape of the enclosure on the wall. So that works in the room. Not many wives would go for that though, it is a certain look with a real acoustic premise behind it. It does look bold though, bold is nice when done well.
If those line arrays are your speakers I would say I like them. At the same time they are really large and I am working in a different perspective of size. Those line arrays would instantly draw your eye, they become the focal point in the room and the large series of drivers in the array have a very geometric strength along with the linear shape of the enclosure on the wall. So that works in the room. Not many wives would go for that though, it is a certain look with a real acoustic premise behind it. It does look bold though, bold is nice when done well.
One other comment. Some have made a point of the fact that i didn't put a radius on the edge of the face. Now look at both the B&W and the Focal enclosures and you will see that they are exactly that, flat fronts with no radius on the edge. Now notice nobody said a word about that, that is because those are noted speaker companies selling a high dollar speaker and everyone shuts their mouth about those same facts. Sorry but I think that Focal drivers sound and measure terribly. been there done that. This is one of the problems with the so called audiophile critics, they love something because of the name of the brand and the cost of the item and let all that pass and then someone else comes along who they don't know and they will rip the product apart for those reasons that the larger companies are allowed to get away with. So that is why I say some of what is said here are outlier comments by audiophiles that are very much based in theory and not reality of manufacturing and design. I am attempting to create an excellent product that will upset those who have paid a much higher cost for perhaps an inferior product. It happens all the time in this part of the sound business, price is often king and drives the lust. There are speakers that cost mega bucks that you could build yourself for a few thousand dollars at most paying full retail cost for the drivers and those products are revered as excellent designs. Marketing drives this end of the business, it is not a true functional or design driven part of sound reproduction and is the real reason that the business is faltering. The audiophile market is very well described as a fashion industry, it is what it is.
I commend those who do actual testing and design who have made circuits and audio designs that go so far beyond what you can purchase from the fashion designers, I make a big distinction between the people in the know and those who just espouse talking points but have no real understanding about what reality is.
I commend those who do actual testing and design who have made circuits and audio designs that go so far beyond what you can purchase from the fashion designers, I make a big distinction between the people in the know and those who just espouse talking points but have no real understanding about what reality is.
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Thanks for that. They are build by me with nothing but hand tools in my garage. Even the alu baffles were done with a router and wood cutting bits
, documented here.Fully corrected with DSP to be time coherent, it's all in that thread.
You'd be surprised though how many just pass them by on a casual visit despite their size.
I showed the B&W and Focal primarily to show "simplicity" in shape which I like. I'm also a fan of using contrast here and there, that's why I polished my baffles instead of my earlier plans to anodise them.
I've got to say, I just love the Art Deco chair...
It's the combination of shape colour and materials that makes me love such a design.
Somehow your design as posted on page one does not speak to me in a similar way. If it lives up to what you are talking about sound wise it really should have that visual to match. Stylish but not: look at me! I'd rather have something timeless than fashionable. I drive an old Porsche 911 (lol), to me that's timeless design.
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Wesayso,
Thanks for the comments. I just sent a message to someone I know to get some help on a front grill that will pull in that art deco style. I also am thinking with a stand that I can bring more of that element into the design. I could even use some leather and wood in the stand and really change the overall image. I don't think it is the shape or the sides that messes the design up, I think it is a lack of a front component that is missing the boat. If you look at the top contour the shape actually has some of that boat hull contour, the front is just killing the presentation. Let's see what I can do to fix the visual impact, get away from the original grill concept and pull this back together. I could also add a metal insert that would follow the design line on the side of the enclosure and that again would pull in the art deco type of clean lines. Art Deco is my favorite design era.
Thanks for the comments. I just sent a message to someone I know to get some help on a front grill that will pull in that art deco style. I also am thinking with a stand that I can bring more of that element into the design. I could even use some leather and wood in the stand and really change the overall image. I don't think it is the shape or the sides that messes the design up, I think it is a lack of a front component that is missing the boat. If you look at the top contour the shape actually has some of that boat hull contour, the front is just killing the presentation. Let's see what I can do to fix the visual impact, get away from the original grill concept and pull this back together. I could also add a metal insert that would follow the design line on the side of the enclosure and that again would pull in the art deco type of clean lines. Art Deco is my favorite design era.
That original grill idea kept ringing with me... I'm a car fan and I do like how some companies pull off showing the shape of the grille they used to cary in the 50-60's
without actually having the grille.. Alfa Romeo comes to mind:
Here the complete grille is used...
Yet this one is immediately recognised as well, without actually having the complete grille:
Leaving something out to suggest the shape can work... just something to think about..
BMW also has examples where this was done...
Often the mere suggestion is enough...
without actually having the grille.. Alfa Romeo comes to mind:
Here the complete grille is used...
Yet this one is immediately recognised as well, without actually having the complete grille:
Leaving something out to suggest the shape can work... just something to think about..
BMW also has examples where this was done...
Often the mere suggestion is enough...
Thanks guys and I love the old Alfa Romeo car designs. I'm a car nut also, I worked in custom cars when i was really young and have a hot rod in the garage waiting for me in pieces. I actually contacted a friend who is a graphic artist and told him about the idea to make an art deco look and even an art deco stand to pull this all together. He is not only a friend but was also an instructor of mine for graphic art and advertising design. That is his profession and one other person I sent a message to that I know from those classes who does graphic art. I sent a picture of an old art deco radio for inspiration but told him to run wild with the idea. He's done lots of product designs.
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Just to complete that earlier picture of the wooden box here it is with the grill on it. The logo is off and that is where the two spots are on the grill and some machined spiked feet I used in the past on my own speaker designs. They were easy to tighten unlike many of the round designs out there.
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From the sounds of it, if you just keep plugging away at it I'm sure you'll manage to come up with some intriguing design possibilities. I like what you're trying to do and think you have a good ground to build upon. The radio is interesting. Obviously, the nature motifs from Art Nouveau might also work well with your nautical theme. Some great possibilities here, but as you said marrying the aesthetic to the sonic is where the real art lies.
Quick comment: As you already know, one of the great advantages of Be diaphragms is a rapid decay that is free of resonance ... this gives a distinctive clarity that sets Be apart from other materials. Beryllium has exceptionally good time-domain characteristics, as good as ribbons, with far better power-handling and distortion characteristics.
You have the great luxury of a clean-sheet enclosure by using a high-performance molded cabinet. As other commenters have mentioned, the great majority of molded-plastic speakers on the market are low-end computer-speakers which are aimed at a gamer esthetic (teenage boys and young men). This is not the target market you're aiming at.
My suggestion is to have a rounded, aerodynamic interface between the flat face of the tweeter frame and the rest of the cabinet. This is where diffraction reduction will offer the greatest rewards, and if done right, the esthetics are distinctive as well. I'm not saying go full B&W with an eyeball tweeter on top of a very conventional wood/MDF cabinet, but an overall rounded presentation for the front baffle assembly. Think Mercedes S-Class wood interior trim ... beautifully curved and hand-polished.
The sheer performance of what you have ... a clean 107 dB playback level, state-of-the-art tweeters, and overall performance comparable to top-flight studio monitors ... is far above most audiophile products. By underselling audiophile (and studio monitors) by a factor of 4 or 5, you have a market-credibility problem, and any hint of mass-market molded plastic only confirms that impression. It has to look expensive, even it isn't.
Underselling the competition by a factor of 4 or 5 is a very risky market-entry strategy. You only get to make a first impression once ... and people see the speaker before they ever listen to it. If the first impression isn't right, then it's very hard to persuade anyone to spend a few minutes listening to it.
Demographics: Many DIY'ers have a slight preference for rough prototypes, because that connotes "The Real Stuff" for us. The best speakers many of us have heard were radical one-person labor-of-love projects, so that gives us a bias for rough, unfinished speakers. We are skeptical of speakers that are too beautiful, too finished, too much like Apple products.
But ... that isn't the experience of the high-end buying public, nor of magazine reviewers. They associate the DIY field with beginners making cheap copies of commercial products, or audio-cranks pushing weird theories. Their experience with the top tiers of audio are boutique products at astronomical prices. Although these frequently look pretty weird, they are nicely finished and obviously expensive.
The demographic question is a serious one, since you're putting a lot of time, effort, and money into this project. You don't want a failure, and the market is not just crowded, but filled with people making dishonest claims (and it's been that way for more than a half-century). Loudspeaker manufacturing is a magnet for charlatans or their slightly more legitimate cousins, the marketers. High-end buyers are particularly wary; many have bought speakers they later sold at a loss.
More specifically, who would buy this product? (Audiophiles and music lovers, mostly men, and mostly in the 30~65 year-old age group.) At the price point, they are aspirational buyers, and would like high-end audio at entry-level prices. Your main competitor, as I see it, is Golden Ear audio, since they target their product at the same demographic, and already have a substantial presence in the industry with many favorable reviews. You have to exceed their looks, manufacturing quality, and sound by a generous margin. You're not competing against Focal, B&W, Wilson Audio, or Magico; with your pricing, you're in the aspirational market.
Your product is not known to reviewers, and I would advise in the strongest terms avoiding Stereophile and Absolute Sound until you've been on the market for at least a couple of years and already have a backlog of favorable customer and minor-reviewer content. Then you'll have the market presence to survive the inevitable "hatchet-in-the-head" hostile reviews that these magazines like to give.
You have the great luxury of a clean-sheet enclosure by using a high-performance molded cabinet. As other commenters have mentioned, the great majority of molded-plastic speakers on the market are low-end computer-speakers which are aimed at a gamer esthetic (teenage boys and young men). This is not the target market you're aiming at.
My suggestion is to have a rounded, aerodynamic interface between the flat face of the tweeter frame and the rest of the cabinet. This is where diffraction reduction will offer the greatest rewards, and if done right, the esthetics are distinctive as well. I'm not saying go full B&W with an eyeball tweeter on top of a very conventional wood/MDF cabinet, but an overall rounded presentation for the front baffle assembly. Think Mercedes S-Class wood interior trim ... beautifully curved and hand-polished.
The sheer performance of what you have ... a clean 107 dB playback level, state-of-the-art tweeters, and overall performance comparable to top-flight studio monitors ... is far above most audiophile products. By underselling audiophile (and studio monitors) by a factor of 4 or 5, you have a market-credibility problem, and any hint of mass-market molded plastic only confirms that impression. It has to look expensive, even it isn't.
Underselling the competition by a factor of 4 or 5 is a very risky market-entry strategy. You only get to make a first impression once ... and people see the speaker before they ever listen to it. If the first impression isn't right, then it's very hard to persuade anyone to spend a few minutes listening to it.
Demographics: Many DIY'ers have a slight preference for rough prototypes, because that connotes "The Real Stuff" for us. The best speakers many of us have heard were radical one-person labor-of-love projects, so that gives us a bias for rough, unfinished speakers. We are skeptical of speakers that are too beautiful, too finished, too much like Apple products.
But ... that isn't the experience of the high-end buying public, nor of magazine reviewers. They associate the DIY field with beginners making cheap copies of commercial products, or audio-cranks pushing weird theories. Their experience with the top tiers of audio are boutique products at astronomical prices. Although these frequently look pretty weird, they are nicely finished and obviously expensive.
The demographic question is a serious one, since you're putting a lot of time, effort, and money into this project. You don't want a failure, and the market is not just crowded, but filled with people making dishonest claims (and it's been that way for more than a half-century). Loudspeaker manufacturing is a magnet for charlatans or their slightly more legitimate cousins, the marketers. High-end buyers are particularly wary; many have bought speakers they later sold at a loss.
More specifically, who would buy this product? (Audiophiles and music lovers, mostly men, and mostly in the 30~65 year-old age group.) At the price point, they are aspirational buyers, and would like high-end audio at entry-level prices. Your main competitor, as I see it, is Golden Ear audio, since they target their product at the same demographic, and already have a substantial presence in the industry with many favorable reviews. You have to exceed their looks, manufacturing quality, and sound by a generous margin. You're not competing against Focal, B&W, Wilson Audio, or Magico; with your pricing, you're in the aspirational market.
Your product is not known to reviewers, and I would advise in the strongest terms avoiding Stereophile and Absolute Sound until you've been on the market for at least a couple of years and already have a backlog of favorable customer and minor-reviewer content. Then you'll have the market presence to survive the inevitable "hatchet-in-the-head" hostile reviews that these magazines like to give.
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Busy thread!
The QSC may not be as refined, but they are a lot of fun to listen to. It's a tough market.
I'd say NO, at first glance. Not when I can get a pair of QSC K8 for less money, or a pair of the K12 for $1600.
The QSC may not be as refined, but they are a lot of fun to listen to. It's a tough market.
Thanks Lynn.
I actually was working on a design with the tweeter set back and contoured but it started to look like a shape out of Buck Rogers, I thought it was going to look to toy like. Making it a separate piece like the B&W tweeter starts to look like a clone. It isn't an easy thing to do without going the other direction and making something very plan looking and trying to tell a story.
Okay Pano,
You go back into the cave, I'm going to send a volcano your way. I'll look at the speakers your referencing and see what I think, i don't know them off hand. I know the company but not the specific models, haven't thought about QSC for a long time. Aloha to you.
ps. looked real quick at the QSC speakers, not even in the same league and definitely not something to have in your home. No wife appeal and ugly at the same time. I'm not making a PA speaker, that belongs where I found it on a musician's website.
I actually was working on a design with the tweeter set back and contoured but it started to look like a shape out of Buck Rogers, I thought it was going to look to toy like. Making it a separate piece like the B&W tweeter starts to look like a clone. It isn't an easy thing to do without going the other direction and making something very plan looking and trying to tell a story.
Okay Pano,
You go back into the cave, I'm going to send a volcano your way. I'll look at the speakers your referencing and see what I think, i don't know them off hand. I know the company but not the specific models, haven't thought about QSC for a long time. Aloha to you.
ps. looked real quick at the QSC speakers, not even in the same league and definitely not something to have in your home. No wife appeal and ugly at the same time. I'm not making a PA speaker, that belongs where I found it on a musician's website.
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Hi Steven, I love your concept for the speaker. I think the material you want to use for the enclosure is excellent and can be finished beautifully.
I couldn't tell from the picture whether it had the acoustically required roundovers on the baffle - I presume it does.
Apart from the maligned hockey mask grill, what really bothered me was the "seam" along the top which I found to be a sort of "down market" indicator.
(Your comment about Pinninfarina rang a bell a bell for me - I had a gorgeous little Peugeot 405 I think he did, and it still doesn't look too dated. Nice highway car, good handling).
The guy that sticks in my mind is Raymond Loewy. Given your material, engineering requirements, and today's taste, what would he do for your speaker and stand? As you know, he was an art deco kind of guy but some of his work has an almost art nouveau architectural flavour in its curves.
I saw Lynne's comments. In addition think of what women like. I know they like flowers.
I couldn't tell from the picture whether it had the acoustically required roundovers on the baffle - I presume it does.
Apart from the maligned hockey mask grill, what really bothered me was the "seam" along the top which I found to be a sort of "down market" indicator.
(Your comment about Pinninfarina rang a bell a bell for me - I had a gorgeous little Peugeot 405 I think he did, and it still doesn't look too dated. Nice highway car, good handling).
The guy that sticks in my mind is Raymond Loewy. Given your material, engineering requirements, and today's taste, what would he do for your speaker and stand? As you know, he was an art deco kind of guy but some of his work has an almost art nouveau architectural flavour in its curves.
I saw Lynne's comments. In addition think of what women like. I know they like flowers.
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Molded, inspired by car grill, Art Deco. Not helpfull imo, but fun. First "Beo" product.
Beolit 39 | BeoPhile.com
Beolit 39 | BeoPhile.com
Frank,
Thanks again for the comments. I do know some of Loewy's work, he did all sorts of things including trains I think. I love the real nice deco designs, the Nouveau designs are much more ornate pieces, more what I would call visual art than industrial design. I enjoy both styles and they somewhat overlap. I do think I can draw on the deco styling to pull this all together and attract the type of buyer who will appreciate both the design style and the great sound they are going to get. I see that some people are mixing end uses, I'm definitely not trying to make PA style equipment or go after the musician, that would look very different and would be much simpler to pull off. I'm also not going to compete with the lower cost major brands, I see those every weekend in the paper, columns and bookshelf speakers for $200 dollars and less. If these had an Apple name on them they would sell by the millions just because of the name, pricing wouldn't be the problem in the least.
Thanks again for the comments. I do know some of Loewy's work, he did all sorts of things including trains I think. I love the real nice deco designs, the Nouveau designs are much more ornate pieces, more what I would call visual art than industrial design. I enjoy both styles and they somewhat overlap. I do think I can draw on the deco styling to pull this all together and attract the type of buyer who will appreciate both the design style and the great sound they are going to get. I see that some people are mixing end uses, I'm definitely not trying to make PA style equipment or go after the musician, that would look very different and would be much simpler to pull off. I'm also not going to compete with the lower cost major brands, I see those every weekend in the paper, columns and bookshelf speakers for $200 dollars and less. If these had an Apple name on them they would sell by the millions just because of the name, pricing wouldn't be the problem in the least.
Don't judge by looks. Sure, it's just a generic black box plastic PA speaker, but it actually sounds really good. It's one of the few speakers I've heard that constantly fooled me into thinking someone was standing near me, talking to me. Very good at that.
There is a a lot of snobbism in Hi-Fi, I'm certainly not immune to it. But when I hear something good, and consistently good, I try not to judge by what it "should be", rather by what it actually is.
If the Hi-Fi set are offended by some powered PA speaker from a music store, no matter if it sounds great, all the better for the folks selling Hi-Fi gear. Your target audience won't even consider something like the QSC, so no worry.
And if you think that's a direct criticism of your design, it's not. What you're doing looks very interesting. I just happen to know a few powered speakers in that price range that I would look long and hard at before spending the same, or more, money on a new design like yours. You need to consider what else is out there in the same price range. And I think that writing off something just because you think the genre is flawed, is not too wise. Focal make some very, very nice active monitor speakers that I would love to have. But models I like have a price far above yours, so it's not fair to compare. I have not listened to those that would be in the $1500 a pair range.
I showed your original renderings to my wife (she has a great aesthetic sense and design sensibility). Here are her comments:
1. It looks like a Kitchen Aid 'Mix Master'
2. Keep the sleek design but get rid of the base as well as the ridge that flows up the back (this is what makes it look like a Kitchen Aid)
3. Black is a no no. Steel grey or bronze would be more innovative.
4. The round wires on the grill should be replace by flat wires. The proportions are also 'weird', so both horizontal wires should be lowered a couple of centimeters, and add another horizontal wire below the bottom one; add two more vertical wires proportionally arranged.
5. She likes the screws around the tweeter.
6. It also might look even more elegant with no grill.
7. If you add a grill cloth it should be the same colour as the body.
Those are my wife's comments verbatim. Take from it what you will, but this is judging solely on their visual aesthetics from her point of view.
1. It looks like a Kitchen Aid 'Mix Master'
2. Keep the sleek design but get rid of the base as well as the ridge that flows up the back (this is what makes it look like a Kitchen Aid)
3. Black is a no no. Steel grey or bronze would be more innovative.
4. The round wires on the grill should be replace by flat wires. The proportions are also 'weird', so both horizontal wires should be lowered a couple of centimeters, and add another horizontal wire below the bottom one; add two more vertical wires proportionally arranged.
5. She likes the screws around the tweeter.
6. It also might look even more elegant with no grill.
7. If you add a grill cloth it should be the same colour as the body.
Those are my wife's comments verbatim. Take from it what you will, but this is judging solely on their visual aesthetics from her point of view.
I love the Phillips radio that someone posted a page back. A lot of the early radios, juke boxes and speakers were beautiful art objects. If you're going to market any product, and making money is a priority, I think looks will be of utmost importance. That radio looks like fun the minute you see it. Almost like an old game that you put a coin in for some kind of entertainment. Like with vintage cars, nobody today does styling like they did back then. What a shame.
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