Why so little discussion about Snell ?

My second high-end speaker was Snell Type J (15 years ago). Glad they are still in business. Hope to hear some new ones again someday.

I still have my EIV's, CC, and K's for my HT and I have no plans to upgrade them. I have been a great fan of Snell's and was very disappointed (ditto to the sentiments on this thread) after the Boston Acoustic's acquisition a few years back.

Being a marketing person in a company that acquires other smaller companies, it is not unusual to have this "step child" relationship especially on a budgetary perspective. Unless the new product/brand is that much more promising (i.e. slam dunk/a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow) than other products within the company's portfolio, chances of the company investing (i.e. take a profit loss in the first couple years to gain market share) in marketing/possibly R&D given current volume is very slim. Adding the complexity is the niche-y high end audio market, where it's the first segment to die when the economy is bad and the last segment to recover when the economy picks up. It will take a huge corporate committment to make that happen. And in Snell's case, it more than just R&D (good that they have a new chief engineer), but also distribution, product positioning (awareness/trial driving), etc., the marketing fundamentals.

Believe me, I'm a big Snell fan. But imagine if you are the Boston Acoustic owner (for a second), with only limited amount of funds to play with in a certain fiscal year, would you plow money into Snell, where it'll take a long time/miracle to just make a blimp, or would you spend the same money to bet on other HT in a box/best-buy & circuit city friendly chain, which would really move the needle for your bottom line, which directly ties to how you and everyone around you earn your bonus?

...then again, if it is for me, I would move into the cable business!

I recently purchased a pair of Snell CV here on A-gon. After making some very minor factory approved x-over modification. I must say, I am very impressed with the musicality/neutrality of this speaker. The company is also very accesible and helpful when you phone/e-mail. I have all the confidence that the new line-up will be popular.

After the Hales Design Group pulled out of the consumer speaker market in 2001, the dealer I worked for at that time had a very big hole to fill in their premium speaker offerings. I participated in several manufacturer rep's speaker demos at our shop and spent time with a lot of very interesting product as a result. We eventually chose the Snell line of speakers and I must say we were very impressed by the overall quality of their products. I enjoyed meeting the Snell factory reps and learned a lot during the Q&A session that followed their demonstration.

I use a pair of Hales Revelation Two's and a Revelation Center up front in my home theater sytem, but my current room layout does not allow the practical use of the matching Revelation One monitor as a surround speaker. I chose a pair of Snell's excellent SR.5 bi-polar speakers to use instead and they work great. They are a reasonably close timbral match to the Hales in my layout.

I'm very satisfied with the overall performance of the Snells and the quality of the cabinets, etc. They look great hung on the wall and sound great in my system.

Regards,
JZ

I know this thread is ancient. Just came across it looking for some other info on Snell.

Sad story, I feel. Such great stuff. I remember when I was just getting into audio as a kid and saw Peter Snell demo the Type A. So many great speakers, and so many that are still excellent today. The K, the J, the E, the D, the C. Of course, there are variants in all those types. The E/II and E/III, and Cis and C/Vs, and As are the ones I'm most familiar with. I've lived a long time with the E/IIs, Cis, and C/Vs. The C/Vs were very difficult for me. It was hard to make them work, when they did, though, they were marvelous. The Cis and E/IIs are brilliant. When thinking about smaller speakers, I often will look at Ks or Js.

I needed a new tweeter fuse holder for my C/Vs and visited the shop in Peabody as it was closing. Sad. Lights pretty much out.

The crew at Snell was great, too. Always very personable and helpful. I remember Wally, though he may not remember me.

About their commercial success... Snell speakers were always highly well critically reviewed. Always on the margin.

May their great products live on and on.