Are these damned brands or not good speakers?

Newly:

It's like anything else ... purchase from a well known or at least better known company and have access to product, service, support, predictability, reputation, R&D; etc. or purchase from a boutique company and get possibly better or more custom product and best effort with everything else. Surrounding this realtionship is the consumer's appetite for risk (which is the reality) and state of the art performance (which may be the myth).

As a consumer, I stay away from the real boutique products, no matter how well touted they are because product reliability and corporate predictability, are as important to me as product performance. Having a component in the service shop even occasionally is not for me. If I were a dealer, I would feel the same way for the same reasons.

I shake my head when I read reviews of the real boutique items because invariably they cost a load of cash; are handled by only a handful of dealers (none are ever near me); are as quirky as any other product out there; and to top it off, the reviewer rarely has the product in his possession for more than a few weeks ... so how can you predict reliability?

To answer your question ... they probably are all good speakers, but how would you ever know and who would take the chance?

Regards, Rich

Rar1: Good points, we all remember the (possibly justified) hype around and then implosion of companies like Audio Alchemy, but what in your opinion qualifies a company to be called a "boutique"?

I have a pr of Caravelles that i bought used,and am very happy with them,very well built,sound great too!there is a couple reviews in the product review section ,also reviews for Green Mountain speakers,,they sound better to me than some of the well known highly regarded speakers ive heard at high end shops that cost as much and more than the Caravelles retail for,,,i dont feel the need to upgrade,im satisfied!

"they are EXTRA-ordinary speakers"
Says who, the hyped audio reviews. Always read caerefully all reviews, comsumer comments, read it 10 X's with a microscope, read between the lines, you'll begin to notice cracks and holes in the "review" =BS.
Sorry but I'm not impressed with these new futuristic sounding titles.
I spent 1 yr reading and posting comments on the Madisound speaker discussion forum, asking questions about drivers.
I got a few answers there and was part of my long timely research project in finding the right speaker for me.
I went with a DIYer design, a guy from Madisound and turned out to be a total dud, a wasr=te of $2K, lucky for me DEnnis Murphy took them off my hands for 1/2 price.
I then bought a kit from madisound and am now a very happy camper.
So do your research.
Big ads in audio mags do not impress me, not one bit.

Paul

Compared to starting an automobile manufacturing firm or a nuclear power generating company the barriers to entry for starting a loudspeaker company are very small. As a result there are plenty of small companies entering the field. There is absolutely no reason that a small boutique firm cannot produce and outstanding product. The technical knowledge of loudspeaker design is fairly well understood and in the public domain. There are multiple sources of high quality drivers. Plus any decent woodwork shop can build a high quality cabinet. If the boutique designer has a good ear and takes the time and effort to refine his product it can be competitive with the products from larger manufacturers.

Sometimes the boutique firm's product is higher priced than the bigger firms' offerings because of poor economies of scale resulting from limited production runs. Other times the boutique firm can offer comparable performance for a lower price because it doesn't have an advertising budget, doesn't maintain a large inventory, much smaller staffing requirements, no big production and warehousing costs and eliminating multiple middlemen by selling direct to the customer. It's wrong to paint small manufacturers with a broad brush. As consumers we must do our homework and find those firms that offer excellent performance and high value. They could just as easily be a large or small firm.