To a point, yes. More thoughts and ideas are always good, but they can’t all be doing the same thing with the same parts.
Custom Tuning Conspiracy
I have a theory that the reason custom tuned loudspeakers are not offered to the market place is because it would essentially destroy the whole speaker industry. If every audiophile had their speakers custom made for them, there would simply be no need for further speakers to be made, until the next generation of audiophiles came along which would take decades.
If you think about it, most speakers are mass produced junk. They are made in vast quantities so that more profit can be made.
Even the few companies that do offer so called custom speakers are not really customized. Companies such as Gr research and Fritz offer their range of speakers hoewever GR research tunes all their speakers flat by default and Fritz does not tune his speakers to his customers exact specifications.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a speaker company that made speakers according to your exact specifications? You would choose the material, shape, drivers, components, configuration, crossover slopes and frequency response. It would be made to measure.
The people that mock this idea say that speakers dont need to be made to measure. This is nonsense. Every speaker on the market already sounds different from one another. Audiophiles then go on the merry go round and buy one speaker after another, each speaker never quite fulfilling their needs. How much time would be saved if the right speakers were made for you right from the start?
Not only would it save time it would save resources and energy. Every speaker model is produced in their thousands. Yet perhaps only a dozen people will eventually find that particular model suits their ears. So that means several hundred speakers have been made and will eventually end up in the junkyard. What a waste of time, energy and resources?
Should there be more companies doing truly custom tuned speakers among the vast sea of mass produced junk producing companies?
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I think you used the correct word, conspiracy… as in conspiracy theory. You are pondering an idea and using assumptions of intent, overly broad assumptions about the state of the world and how it works to come to an absurd conclusion. The manufacturing industry uses enormous brain power to find profitable niches an to fill them. The design of speakers constitutes a substantial cost and the cost of production comes down the less variability in construction. I have worked in global manufacturing for nearly forty years… in the functions of design, marketing, logistics, and manufacturing. The idea of custom speakers is a good one, but one at this juncture is likely to remain a small niche. Over time as fully automated, computer generated flexible manufacturing evolve, then the financial viability of customized speakers will become more viable as a market segment. We are not there yet. |
I personally got around the problem by refusing to buy any more speakers and tuning my own. But most audiophiles will not have the ingenuity I have to do the same therefore there is a need for companies to do it for them. Just because I have pointed out a conspiracy within the speaker industry does not mean I should be the one to solve it. Why dont you solve it if you think you can? Also part of the problem is the audiophiles themselves. If we cant convince them that custom tuning is the way forward, things will never change. Incidentally, YOU are a bad example of how custom tuning should be done. You have gone to all the trouble to make your own speaker, yet you did not even bother to custom tune your crossovers you just tuned them flat as a pancake which defeats the whole purpose. So thankyou for joining the discussion, at just the right time. You are a perfectly bad example. |
I must agree with you there.
Yes but I thought the audiophile community is already quite a small niche isnt it?
Yes perhaps you are right. Eventually I will be vindicated and I will have the last laugh. |
The reason such a speaker company doesn’t exist is because there is no business plan or marketing for such a product. Or in plainspeak: it won’t make money. The main reason it won’t is because the consumer does not know a Thiel-Small parameter from a roll-off slope. Another reason is you can fine tune your speaker (or any speaker) by already established market players. You can go to GIK Acoustics and buy room treatments. Or you can go to Schiit Audio and buy an equalizer with 6 bands of LC equalization. Both methods will do the exact same thing without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a one-off speaker that may be useless to you in another room or as your ears age. The mousetrap not only has to be better, but it has to be affordable as well. |
Actually the financial viability is an excuse. High end speakers can already cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. So there is plenty of money already going into the pockets of the companies. I dont agree with you there is any issue with financial viability. Its more an issue with greed. We need to give audiophiles more for their money rather than pretend that it will cost even more money to provide better results. |
Obviously it wont be as proftable to do custom tuning as mass produced junk. So that just confirms the conspiracy doesnt it? A consumer would not need to know their theil small parameters from their response curves. That would be part of the job of the company doing the tuning. The main thing is the end goal which is to ensure the speaker is tuned to the customers ears rather than the designers. I have said this many times but it keeps falling on deaf ears. Equalization and room treatment is going to be only a part of the process of custom tuning. We are talking about tuning the speaker itself here. Neither room correction or equalization is a subsitute for that. We need the cabinets to be tuned. Do you want MDF, Plywood, Aluminum, or a mixture? Do you want scanspeak revelators or Sb acoustics? Do you want first order time cohesive slopes or 4th order linkwitz riley? Perfect .707 QTC or bessel? QB3 or flat? Consumers need to be made aware of what choices are available so that they can then decide what they want or dont want. |
@kenjit - Assuming that such a company did exist, here's a couple of questions: (1) How would the customer specify their personal design requirements? (2) Would it be an in-home process to account for the rest of the systems and room acoustics? (3) Do you believe that a perfectly customized speaker would always and forever be the perfect speaker for the customer? Audiophiles often prefer different speakers for different styles of music, so I'm not sure that any single speaker could be ultimately fulfilling. I think the best case scenario is a set of beloved speakers which isn't that different from what audiophiles often have now.
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I can’t believe that this conversation is actually going on. For the past three years I’ve been working on a project that tries to address some of the things that the OP has brought up. Although we’re far from 100% custom we do try to give the customer more options. It’s called blueprintacoustic.com. I’m looking to send out some sample speakers for people to review. If you have an interest please PM me. Thank you Ray |
The customers would receive a visit from our tuners. They would bring along a spherical cabinet or traditional rectangular boxes. A selection of drivers would be provided. Then the tuning process would begin. First a hearing test would be done. Then the customer would choose between linkwitz riley, butterworth or first order slopes. Most speakers on the marketplace use fairly typical slopes. Equalization would be done to match the sound to the customers ears / preference / room. Various other options would be possible such as cabinet materials, bracing, other shapes, or other requests. Once everything is agreed and part payment received, the production would begin. The rest of the payment would be required before the delivery date. |
There must be well over 300 brands and styles of speakers, not even counting brands that are no longer in business. If someone can’t be satisfied with such a wide range of products, then I fell sorry for them. |
Most audiophiles are not satisfied with whats available. So something is wrong. Even if there are 1000 speakers out there thats still a small number compared to the number of audiophiles. How many audiophiles are there? Must be hundreds of thousands. So to satisfy us all there would need to be at least 1 million speakers out there. Rather than spending a lifetime searching for the perfect match, shouldnt there be a quicker way? |
"Most audiophiles are not satisfied with whats available. So something is wrong. Even if there are 1000 speakers out there thats still a small number compared to the number of audiophiles. How many audiophiles are there? Must be hundreds of thousands. So to satisfy us all there would need to be at least 1 million speakers out there. Rather than spending a lifetime searching for the perfect match, shouldnt there be a quicker way?" - Stop making up all this crap, it really is quite sophomoric and just a bunch of word salad, missing proper punctuation. |
Dylan, you do realize that the alternative to my theory would be to listen to a speaker that was designed according to the designers ears in their room and their preferences dont you? Thats no different than going to a restaurant to eat food that has been cooked by someone else. If you want something mediocre then why are you an audiophile? Being an audiophile is about wanting the very best. If you want the best, you have to ensure that the speaker is tuned to your preferences and to your room. Why should the designer know better than we do about how the crossover should be tuned? Perhaps to his ears he wants +2db at 10khz but to my ears I need -1db at 10khz? perhaps he has chosen linkwitz riley fourth order, but what we really want is a shallow first order on the bass and a second order on the tweeter? Perhaps the cabinetry was made of MDF but in reality it needed to be made of metal or concrete to sound its best? The possibilities are endless Dill. Wake up and smell the coffee! |
Your example is no different than demanding auto companies design every car to each individuals size, driving style, taste in body style, number of cylinders, HP, ......... There are more than a few people who spend millions on autos, but that doesn't mean we all do. And if you knew anything about macroeconomics, you would understand that the cost of doing business would be (and is) cost prohibitive. It doesn't matter if "High end [cars] can already cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. So there is plenty of money already going into the pockets of the companies." That money does not cover the cost of providing luxury cars to every car owner. And unless you live in a different world than the rest of us, a very few percent (yet still many thousands of people) can afford what would be a break even price for the company to make individual speakers for every person. Did you ever see the movie Meet the Patents? You are like the airline customer service rep on the phone with Greg Focker: “Yeah, you gave me the wrong suitcase. Uh-huh. Yes, it's a black Samsonite. Uh-huh. Ok, well don't you think that the Samsonite people, in some crazy scheme in order to make a profit, made more than one black suitcase?” (on the phone)
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"If you want something mediocre then why are you an audiophile? Being an audiophile is about wanting the very best. If you want the best, you have to ensure that the speaker is tuned to your preferences and to your room. Why should the designer know better than we do about how the crossover should be tuned? Perhaps to his ears he wants +2db at 10khz but to my ears I need -1db at 10khz? perhaps he has chosen linkwitz riley fourth order, but what we really want is a shallow first order on the bass and a second order on the tweeter? " - You are creating problems & situations, then trying to solve them when just about nobody cares and just the existence of them is questionable. You continually try to ram this crap down our throats when it should be abundantly clear, to you, that just about everyone couldn't care less. It seems like your wish for attention is your goal here. Are you really getting the attention you want here?
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A car is more complicated than a speaker. It has much more parts. With a speaker, the main area that needs to be tuned is the crossover. Customizing a speaker is much easier than customizing a car. A speaker is just a wooden box with drivers. A car has hundreds of parts. Your argument is like saying we should just make eyeglass lenses in specific sizes because it would be cheaper that way. Unfortunately the world does not work like that. Eyeglass lenses are made to measure as you very well know. And the same goes for clothes. If you want a perfect fitting pair of trousers, you need them to be made to measure because none of the existing sizes fits you perfectly.
That is exactly the conspiracy which i am here to expose. If a speaker company can produce a speaker for $200, and it has no bracing and cheap parts, then it would only cost a few hundred dollars more to use ultra high quality parts. If you knew anything about the cost of drivers you would know that the difference between a cheap driver and a high end driver is often only about a couple of hundred bucks. Yet the price suddenly goes up by ten times. So dont give me this nonsense that there are costs to cover. You are speaking as though speaker companies make zero profit out of these high end speakers. |
What problems have I created? The problems were already there from the start. They have been swept under the rug by the speaker companies and I am the one exposing them. I am the unsung hero of the speaker industry. A big part of why good speakers are hard to find has to do with the crossover not being custom tuned. Who would you rather tune your speakers. You or them?
You are the one whose intentions are questionable. Why are you always popping up in my discussions if you are such a naysayer? What are your true intentions Dill? Are you having doubts about whether your speakers are truly satisfying? |
Thanks @dekay - I needed that! |
Kenjit,
I don’t have a problem with conversations starting, or even attention seeking. I have a problem with:
Erik |
Kenjit what you propose already exists for those willing and able to pay for it. Everything else is a progressive or regressive form of compromise based on affordability. I struggle to see the problem? This is similar to every manufactured good with a variety of price points and commensurate compromise. |
@kenjit - You clearly spend time on this forum, so should be able to recognize that it's effectively impossible for any discussion to come to a consensus. Also, very few of the most dedicated audiophiles keep the same system for long periods of time, they are always looking to upgrade with the goal of improving things and also to satisfy their unquenchable drive to try new things. Most recognize that the final sound quality results from the "sum of the whole" rather than any individual component. Even if it were possible for someone to custom design a speaker for a customer which would rely on the designer to understand the personal preferences of the individual customers, the market would be limited to people that had the funds, interest, and knowledge to desire it while also not wanting to approach it from a DIY perspective.
I would also argue that a custom car would be much easier than a custom speaker. For a speaker the preferences are not easily defined or understood. For a car a customer can describe if they want comfort (Rolls-Royce is essentially fully custom) or performance (Bugatti is essentially fully custom). If performance is what you want, you can adjust a car to suit driving preferences based on track using speed as the unit of measure, this is commonly done in racing. With a speaker, you could theoretically design for a specific person using a specific room, album, and song, but all bets are off if a component were to change, the room changed, or there was a desire to listen to different music. It's a compromise at every level. |
Its not a model designed to make money. That is exactly the problem with speaker design. Its based primarily on maximizing profit. My technology would be based on meeting the needs of each and every audiophile. It has nothing to do with profit. Why shouldnt it be profitable? If the customer was present while the crossover was being tuned by the designer, he could then state his preferences based on what he was hearing and that would then determine the final crossover circuit. Why is that so hard to implement? How many people in the world wear eyeglasses? Millions. Yet we can somehow manage to get each and every one of these patients into the office for an eye examination and then fit them with custom tuned lenses. If we cared about sound just as much as we do about vision then perhaps it would be workable? |
and part of the reason for that is because their speakers were not tuned correctly in the first place. Potentially, the upgrade process that you speak of could be curtailed if the damn thing was custom tuned correctly. Dont you think its silly to upgrade a speaker just because the tweeter level was set just that little bit too high? All it needed was a change in resistor and that would have fixed it yet audiophiles spend thousands on cables thinking it will sort their problem out.
I dont think you understand how this works. Its not a question of WHETHER we tune a speaker or not. Its a question of WHO does it? The designer or the customer? EVERY speaker you buy is already tuned. There is no such thing as a speaker which is not tuned. The points you make about the room, components and music choices influencing the tuning reinforces my point. Whose room, music choices, personal preferences and components should the speaker be tuned according to? Mine or the designers? |
"Its not a model designed to make money. That is exactly the problem with speaker design. Its based primarily on maximizing profit. My technology would be based on meeting the needs of each and every audiophile. It has nothing to do with profit. Why shouldnt it be profitable? If the customer was present while the crossover was being tuned by the designer, he could then state his preferences based on what he was hearing and that would then determine the final crossover circuit." - So, who exactly is going to do all the testing, designing and creating these imaginary speakers for no money? |
Its not for no money. But its also not a money making scheme. We can charge as much or as little as we see fit. However we would not be overcharging customers unlike all the other high end companies. We could if we wanted to. The problem with current speakers on the market is that its really just the luck of the draw. Both the speaker designers dont know what theyre tuning and the customers also dont know what they want. So it really is a recipe for disaster. My technique would be based on a more systematic approach to tuning to enable meaningful comparisons. We often hear audiophiles speak about diamond tweeters being too bright. This is hogwash. This is typical thinking by audiophiles who have no experience in custom tuning. Our goal would be to set them straight. |
Kenjit, your arguments are like those of a child. In imagination land, no one wants to earn a profit or get paid well for their personal expertise. In imagination land you can customize every individuals speaker to their taste and pay only for the parts and build costs. The designers expertise in tuning the speaker to every individuals taste is worthless in this land. S/he will be paid a minimal wage to keep costs to a minimum. This also goes for everyone involved in creating these speakers. Nothing better than spending years and money to become an expert only to be uncompensated. |
Speaker is sounding a bit soft around 40hz. Bass is blooming a bit much. Male vocals are recessed, while brass instruments are a bit forward. There is an annoying ringing in the upper register of the piano, very bright. Cymbals are lacking air. Soundstage is ok from left to right, but front to back is not well defined, nor is the top to bottom. Imaging is mostly ok, but horn instruments all sound like they are coming from the center of the soundstage. Thats what I’m hearing from your imaginary speakers being manufactured by your fictitious company. I expect them to be perfect to my ears, that is what your company promises. Oh wait, you don’t actually know how to address these issues, do you? Cause there is no company, nor will there ever be. Will there?
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@kenjit taking on the big speaker industrial complex. One post at a time….. |
"Customization" increases costs. It is easier and cheaper to design one then sell multiple units than to custom design for each client for a single sale. Trying to design speakers to match each customer's "subjective" tastes is NOT an easy task - how do you know what I like? And you have to do it for each customer. There will likely be a lot of trial and error until meets customer's tastes - this is a lot of time and effort for one customer. What if the customer refuses to be satisfied with the results, will the manufacturer have to eat the time and effort? No @kenjit you'll find few customers paying a speaker manufacturer substantial money to get a speaker manufacturer to create a "subjectively" ideal speaker - it's easier and cheaper to buy ready made speakers. And no, @kenjit speaker manufacturers have no incentive to do this extensive custom work per each customer - more work and grief for lower profit (customization may increase profit markup per speaker, but less total number speakers will be sold) |
