Why so little discussion about Snell ?

Snell as a company has been tossed around about a bit from owner to owner and from chief designer to chief designer. As such it's hard to speak of Snell in terms of "typical" consistentcies.

I used to sell Snell's in the 1980's when I worked for HIFI Buys in Louisville. Wonderful speakers, sweet and warm sounding with not a lot of effort required to make them sound good. Use decent interconnects and spikes or "tiptoes" and they just sound awesome, across their entire line.

I currently own a pr. of E Series IV's (driven by an NAD receiver and CD player using Monster's best in a biwire configuration). In a word: wonderful.

Two reasons for the lack of "buzz" about Snell....Kevin Voecks, who picked up the torch after Peter Snell died, moved on after his tenure at Snell (he now runs Revel--not heard them but I bet they sound great), which resulted in the lack of vision driving Snell. And the acquisition by Boston Acoustics, which began to relegate Snell to the back of the room becuase the volumes were low compared to BA's numbers.

If Boston wants to sell that division, I can probably come up with some investors.

Did Boston gobble up their designers? Both companies have a high regard for pair-matching through sophisticated QA. Friend of mine was just let go at Boston because they lost their huge Gateway OE contract....

Hello Snell fans.

My name is Wally Kilgore, Sales Manager for Snell Acoustics.

I just found this discussion group through one of our loyal customers. I wanted to take the time to make a few comments regarding our company. While we are owned by Boston Acoustics we have maintained autonomy with regards to design, manufacturing and marketing. Our current line was designed by David Smith, who after seven years resigned to pursue other interests. At the time David Smith was only the third Chief Engineer in Snell's history.

In January of 2003 Snell announced that David's replacement would be the renowed engineer Joseph D'Appolito. Dr. D'Appolito is famous for first utilizing a driver array in speaker design. The D'Appolito Array has been used by many speaker companies including Snell(the CV, B-Minor are two). Dr. D'Appolito has also written the only book on loudspeaker testing. Snell will introduce Dr. D'Appolito's first speaker for Snell in April, the K7. Series 7 will be built in the same cabinet shop that Snell has maintained in Haverhill, MA for over 20 years. It is built with the same high standards set by Peter Snell. The design is beutiful and the sound is unmatched.

Snell has tried to remain available in as many markets as possible but the current trend in loudspeaker distribution has made that difficult. Retailers are either being purchased by national chains or they are moving to Custom Installation.

I appreciate the fact that our loyal owners still love our products and continue to discuss them in these venues. We hope that as the current custodians of Peter's company that Snell continues to build high quality, high value loudspeakers.

Please feel free to contact me at info@snellacoustics.com
Wally Kilgore

Ah Snell Acouostics! The company name brings back fond memories of my Snell A2i's. They were such a great speaker for me, that I too wondered why they are not on of the most sound after quality speakers on the market. When I blew up a driver (pilot error, no fault of Snell) Snell, through the serial number was able to perfectly match a replacement driver for me. They took great care of me as a customer.

Good luck Wally.

Paul