avant gardes paired with audio note. |
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I think its something like lets hit on the big guy here, I am not a fan of Wilson Audio, but I will take a pair of Wilsons any day over any Bose speakers....and sell them!!! |
Just my $0.02: The associated gear can make a world of difference here, as can the acoustic environment. I've heard Thiels sound like crap, but I've also heard them sound wonderful. Likewise for Wilson. At one HE show, Von Schweikert was demoing the VR4jr, and the sound was just OK with a DK Designs integrated. Down the hall, Moscode was using the same speaker to demo their tube-hybrid amp and the sound was fantastic. |
I have never heard Wilson speakers, but I am shocked as to how many people are saying how Bad they sound. I had heard that they were among the best. BTW, those Wilsons that sell for six figures better NOT sound bad.... |
boom boom tizz, boom boom tizz, we will, we will, rock you! |
fatparrot:
i agree with you. i just can't listen to cone speakers too long, without wanting to walk out of the room.
i have been listening to quads for so many years that my ears are not receceptive to cones, or horns |
Guys...this is an AUDIO forum |
So we got a tie: Wilson and Bose by now for Worst speakers ever, both with 10 nominations each! Actually Wilson had 11 and one good one, so I discounted one bad vote with the good vote...
Now if we take in account over-priced I guess the most expensive would be the tie breaker...
Bush is worst than Gore by one point.
I would add another Bad Point to Bush....nuculuear, or vehicle!!! |
A few years ago I heard a pair of B&W 802N with a correspondingly awful Krell amplifer.
Chalk on a chalkboard was more pleasant and less fatigueing. |
I won't pan a specific speaker,but the speakers I consider over rated are the ones with bloated bass,designed to appeal to people who listen to them for five minutes in a retail setting.
My second choice is any tenured professor,who is going through the motions,who makes it obvious that he or she would rather be any place else than reading a fifty minute lecture to undergraduates. |
The most overrated speakers in my opinion is the Wilson stuff. I never understood why so many rave about them. To me they sound dry, almost dead, unbalanced and unnatural. I've heard WP7 and 8, Sophia 1 and 2. Sophia 2 is by far the best of them to my ears but I still wouldn't call it good. Heard 'em at shows, in homes, in shops, with very good gear. Most disappointing was the WP8 at a big show, partnered with top of the line Krell Evolution stuff, Nordost Valhalla all over the place, in a somewhat acoustically treated room, playing high resolution recordings by Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio.. That was terrible! Lots of people found that impressive, I don't know.. Perhaps I'm crazy. :)
Of course there are many worse speakers, I'm just tagging along on the "most overrated.." discussion. I'm sure one could dig up some 60s junk that would be unbelievably bad. :) |
Mrtennis, you state: the worst panel speaker is better than the best cone speaker All depends what ones personal preference is for a sonic signature. Every different speaker design has its strength and weaknesses. |
B&Ws in general which are to me the equivalent of boys band and Britney Spears: only marketing. |
Cerwin Vegas from the 80s anybody want them cheap! |
Funny you mentioned Watt/Puppies. I thought they were so unnaturally bright they sounded as though my dentist was drilling in my ears. Another bad and overrated speaker is the VanSchweikert. I heard many permutations of them and they all sounded BAD - meaning no good. I for one would appreciate the restraint of disrespectful uncalled for comments about OUR President. |
most acoustic suspension speakers are bad. panels rule.
the worst panel speaker is better than the best cone speaker. |
Bush and Perot ey? Lol
Well, I'll take strong leaders over eloquent speaking, silver tongued comm'ies any day!
GO AMERICA!!!!
As for transducers, I thought the NEAR spekers blew hard! Also, Mirage was a waste for me. That, and most of the stuff Best Buy sold (before Magnolia).
Speakers I wish I kept? Probably the little SF Minima Amators |
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Hands down Bose takes it. "if it has no highs and no lows-It must be Bose" |
Without a doubt, Wilson Cubs. After I plugged them in and put some music on, my wife immediately came into the living room and said, "Wow, those are bright speakers."
My ears still hurt when I think about them. Like fingernails on a blackboard.
I owned them for two weeks and immediately traded them in. I was stunned that any magazine, person, or anything with ears had recommended them. And trust me, it wasn't the room, the placement, the amp, the front-end, etc., it was the speakers! Only recording engineers with no more top end hearing would like them. And maybe not even then.
H. |
Anyone ever hear the Reuben Guss speakers at CES some years ago? A friend said they were the worst by quite a margin. About 100 drivers of all sorts of sizes arranged in a rather haphazard manner in a refrigerator size cabinet, and from what he said, they were very expensive, several tens of thousands of dollars, if memory serves. I've seen a fair number of weird ones over the years myself.
Brian |
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Bose 901s. An early edition. |
Revel Salons are the most over hyped speakers I've ever heard. I've listened to the Salons in a number of show rooms and with same result in each case - too bright and not nearly accurate enough in pin pointing instruments within the soundstage (i.e. flat). They do have good bass, but they better for $14K. Nevertheless, you'd never catch a pair of those in my listening room. |
I agree, Thiel's do not sound like music, but hi-fi. Also I think that Martin Logans are very overrated, no body to the music, again hi-fi instead of live concert in my opinion. |
Kennyb,
interesting opinion, I have audition them few times on different ocasions (always clearly better them competition), they are one of the best, as I remember with Hovland and Accuphase AP Avantii III was 3rd or 4-th the best sound on HE 2001 in NY |
I agree with Forever. He is right on the money in my opinion. I can't say what a good speaker sounds like let alone a bad one. I only know what I like! |
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I got to hear a demo between some Fried R4 (I think?) and some Bose 501. The Bose had that lobby sound.....like you were at a live performance, but out in the lobby listening with the doors closed. I'm not exaggerating.....I was surprised it was so bad considering I didn't have any negative Bose feelings at the time.
My brother ended up with the Fried which were great speakers for the time and system. |
YES,I,would have to agree,bose are the worst,only there advertiseing sounds good. |
ZIENTH ALEGRA,PEG BOARD BACK TO LET OUT THE RICH SOUND ,AND EVERY BOSE SPEAKER I HAVE HEARD |
foreverhifi2000 and I do not seem to agree on much.
However, not only do his statements above appear to be quite accurate, they appear to be very insightful and wise as well.
Both from an audio perspective and from a political perspective.
Well said, forever.
-IMO |
I'm not sure what purpose responses to this question serve. In my 40+ years in this hobby, I don't think I have ever heard a piece of high-end audio equipment that would deserve this type of put-down. E.g. we are to believe that a pair of $14,500 Legacy Whispers are outperformed by every other speaker that Tweekman has heard in his lifetime? Really? I suppose that includes the Walmart and Circuit City speaker lines also? Certainly he has heard these as some point in his life. This type of hyperbole helps no one and can hurt honest business people who are trying,after all, to make our lives more pleasurable. I have twice visited Bill Dudleston at his Legacy factory . He is a true gentleman. He has built a successful business from the ground up thru hard work and has a loyal customer base. He also is extremely bright and one of the better speaker designers according to his peers and numerous journal reviews.
I have no objection to people expressing their opinion in a positive way, but such derogatory statements are demeaning, most of all, to the person making such statements.
There is probably no piece of audio gear that engenders more disagreement than speakers. Everyone seems to have their own favorite. Just look at the thread here relating to the best speaker you have ever heard. There are about as many opinions as posters. Isn't it great that we have so many choices? Do we want to put more companies like Dunlavy out of business thru negativism? I think not. Cheers. |
Well, Hell, as long as the moderators don't mind political cant.
THREE TEXAS SURGEONS
Three Texas surgeons were arguing as to which
had the greatest skill. The first began: "Three years
ago, I reattached seven fingers on a pianist. He went
on to give a recital for the Queen of England."
The second replied: "That's nothing. I attended a man
in a car accident. All his arms and legs were severed
from his body. Two years after I reattached them, he
won three gold medals for field events in the Sydney
Olympics."
The third said: "A few years back, I attended to
a cowboy. He was high on cocaine and alcohol when he
rode his horse head-on into a Santa Fe freight train
traveling at 100 miles per hour. All I had to work
with was the horse's ass and a ten gallon hat. Two
years ago he became president of the United States."
Yeeeeeeeeeeee............Hawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww |
Swan's Diva 3.1
I bought these over the internet sight unseen. After five minutes of listening I realized I had made a bad, bad mistake.
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Legacy Whispers, loaded with drivers, which only makes it BARK even louder. Heard them with several high quality amps, nothing helped! An appropriate title would be Legacy Howl-ER & Growl-ER, yea that fits the description. |
Legacy Wispers, loaded with drivers, which only makes it bark even louder. Heard with several amps, nothing helped. An appropriate name would be Legacy Howl-er & Growl-er |
For me it was a pair of Talon Khorus speakers. I'm not sure if it was because they were not properly set up, but they sounded awful!! No midrange at all. Highs seemed OK as I recall, and bass was OK, but vocals were horrible!! Very flat. I walked away wondering what all the hype was about, how they could possibly list for $14K new, and then thinking now I know why they sell for $4-5K used. |
The Delphi Imager speakers or Jimmy Carter. |
A DCM model of recent vintage. I 've heard factory car systems that were better at everything. |
"At least Gore can pronounce 'nuclear'."??? Anyone else see the video of Al looking at busts of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (in Jefferson's house no less) and asking, "Now, who are these people?"? How 'bout Al speechifying across the country saying "You can't get a zebra to change it's spots"? And don't forget his claim that mommy and daddy sang the "Union Label" song to him when lil' Al was still in a crib. That song was written when Gore was 27 years old! Kind of like Hillary claiming she was named after Sir Edmond Hillary because he conquered Mt Everest. She said her mother wanted Hillary to have a name that would inspire her to great heights. I actually saw this interview. By the way, Sir Ed first climbed Mt E. when Clinton was 4 1/2 yrs old. I guess mom just called her "Hey, You!" until then.
Anway, worst speaker (unlistenable, had to make an excuse to get out of the store) was 1998 or 1999 vintage Wisdom Audio driven by Edge electronics. Embarassingly thin, edgy, and lean. This was the two tall columns with two subwoofers. |
Ah come on kevinwann are you deaf or a flamer which is it? |
Kharma Reference Monitor 3.2 Ouch! Bloody ear! |
It always amazes me at how good Wilson speakers sound to me but how harsh they are to other audiogoners. The few times I have heard them they were set up in a relatively small room(16x20) with the richest bass and midrange. The treble was rolled off but still sounded very good. The models were the Witts,6's and Sophia's. It must be the room and component matching. |
I thought the wilsons were setup wrong myself, but the dealer told me dave wilson came and personnaly set them up himself--and if the designer can't setup his own speakers right then he probably can't design them right either. Regardless it makes no sense to me why a dealer would display and drive thier $70k speakers with inferior gear (incidentally they were running off an SS audio research amp/MIT cables/and Theta gear upstream)--but I thought the whole point of selling the product in an audition was to set it up properly so people can actually hear what its capable of. I think the dealers are more to blame than some of us posting (assuming these products are better than we heard). All in all, I don't think its tough to ouperform a Wilson though. After the x-1 was "product of the year" in '95 with stereophile, in next months issue the reviewer auditioned the JMlabs Grande Utopia against the wilson and stated he liked the Utopia more--one month and the $70k speaker is obseleted by a better looking and sounding speaker at $5k less in thier own pages--all from the golden eared reviewers. The TAD model 1 at $40k would outperform the x-1 and the Maxx. http://www.tadaudio.com/home/model-1.html |
Shahinian Obelisk.
Driven by Musical Fidelity preamp and Class A monoblocks with Levinson CD gear. The most unengaging, squashed image, pseudo high end system I have ever heard.
What's with the fuss and cult following. I dont get it. |
I agree with Fattparrot the avantgards are yukee!Jim Smith
needs an ear transplant.
As far as Wilsons go yuppie all the way! |
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This is funny to me....of all my years in retail audio, It never ceases to amaze me how people can BRIEFLY go listen to some SYSTEM set up somewhere, and make comments on WHAT THE SPEAKERS SOUNDED LIKE!!!!
I think most everyone here is making references to having heard some speaker at one time, and thus made judgements.
I've heard some potentially world class speakers, time and time again, set up very very poorly, with very missmatched gear!!! My point is that I think too many people make judgements on CRITICALLY BALANCED gear, which is pushed in a wrong sonoic dirrection one way or another, and they blam ONE PARTICULAR COMPONENT(in this case, the speakers) as being sonically underachieving!!! I mean I"m hearing some very nice equipment mentioned in some very poor light by some people. and I know that a lot of those pieces, set up right, in the right system and hands can sound fantastic!
I can't tell you how many times I've heard people "poo poo" speakers because somehow the rest of the system WAS FLAWED!
...It's kinda like people judging the Pressident, when really the congress, senate, and even Judiciary are influencing things as much or more! |
