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Pulsars and the Mythical Armchair Speaker Maker

There’s another thread going about Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers which I did not want to derail, but it is showing up some common logical fallacies and dead ends I wanted to talk about.


As anyone who has read my posts knows, I’m a huge proponent of DIY for speakers and cables especially. Not that I think you should only go with DIY but because the more audiophiles who can build their own we have in the community the less snake oil gets spread around as fact and there’s less worshipping of the price tag as the almighty determiner of speaker performance.


The myth I want to talk about is kind of related. It is the idea that we should value speakers based purely on driver cost. JA’s Pulsars suffer from this because they seem to use off the shelf components, in very nice cabinets, with perfectly executed crossovers. The thing that I don’t understand are buyers who look at driver cost, and say "well, these speakers should cost no more than x amount, so I’m not buying them... "


I call hogwash. Speakers are more than a collection of parts. They are curated components brought together by a designer and manufacturer. Those same people who are likely to engage in this behavior:

  • Can’t actually design a speaker themselves
  • Would NEVER build a DIY speaker even as a complete kit because it doesn’t have a brand, nor would they buy an assembled DIY speaker.
  • Would probably go with a speaker with in-house drivers which have an even higher markup
  • May not have very good ears anyway


My point is, knowing the price of the parts does not make you at all qualified to judge what the final price should be. That is, fairly, in the hands of the market, and it doesn’t actually make you a better listener or more informed buyer. I would argue you end up buying speakers for brands with even more of a markup and more likely to have questionable performance.


It’s perfectly reasonable for a manufacturer to charge for parts, and skill. So, yes, talking tech and drivers and crossover components is always fun, but please stop evaluating the price of finished goods until you’ve attempted at least designing one pair yourself.

And again, DIY is a lot of fun, and if you want to go that way, you should, but let’s not denigrate high value, high quality manufacturers and delers by reducing them to part assemblers any more than you'd judge a restaurant based on the cost per pound of chicken.


Thank you,

E
erik_squires
soix
9,398 posts
 
Big +1 @erik_squires and well said.  You could give me and Mario Battali the same ingredients to make a bolognese sauce, but does anyone think they'd prefer mine?  Ha!  Would you pay more for Mario's sauce?  I know I would if I really want to enjoy my dinner at a high level.

You're paying for knowledge, expertise, development time and costs, manufacturing labor, shipping, warranty, and the final results of all of this.  Like Erik said, the market will be the the fair and final arbiter of price and the success of the product.  As far the Pulsars, given their popularity and positive reviews, I think it's hard to make the case it's overpriced.  Also, Silverline's newest version of the SR17 is a similar product in that it uses premium drivers, a well-designed crossover, and a nice cabinet.  And guess what?  It's priced right in the same range as the Pulsars.  That, to me, is indicative of a competitive market at work and fair pricing.  Also, you have to factor in that companies like these are small, boutique manufactures and sell in much smaller numbers than the big guys, so their costs per unit are naturally going to be higher.  But they still have to compete with the big guys so they're still limited at how much they can charge. 

The only caveat I'd say is the direct-sale model where the dealer markup can be avoided.  Yes you could potentially get more value buying this way -- assuming you can find a speaker you really like -- which is tough because there's nowhere to hear them.  But that's a different business model and has downsides of its own. 

Some of you seem to be implying some of these speaker manufacturers price their products agregiously and at whatever they want like they're monopolists.  The competitive market would weed this behavior out rather quickly.  And I highly doubt Jeff Joseph and Alan Yun are driving around in Ferraris -- that'd be the cable manufacturers.  Save your ire for them. 
erik_squires OP
16,011 posts
 
I agree that custom/ bespoke makers, including my buddy Fritz and Taylor, have amazing value and performance.


They’re struggling. Why? Brand recognition.


At a recent audio Show, myself and a pair of musicians from Blue Coast rated Fritz’ speakers best of show. Few people have the internal discernment to say "yes, these are great, and a bargain, I’ll buy them"


Instead, they revert to part price comparisons, and end up buying branded speakers which are no better values.


This is why I call BS on all these arm-chair builders.


soix
9,398 posts
 
They’re struggling. Why? Brand recognition.

@erik_squires -- Yup, that may be the biggest problem with the direct-sale business model.  It's a real uphill battle for them.  

Never heard of Taylor.  Did you mean Tyler?  Heard nothing but good things about Fritz speakers.  Thought I remember reading he uses a series crossover?  Or am I just making that up?  Why are series crossovers so infrequently used BTW?
wrm57
1,040 posts
 
+2 Erik.
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
I used to know this audiophile, he was the classic case of the guy always whining about overpriced snake-oil interconnects, especially the overpriced part. Tried telling him yeah sure, they're overpriced based on the cost of the wire, insulation, and connectors, but what about the massive time and trial and error and everything they put into it? Oh its not that hard, he assured me, over and over again telling me how many of these things he'd reverse engineered or even torn down and copied. 

Strange though, every one of his supposedly just as good DIY cables sounded to me like crap. 

One time he calls me up all excited, cracked the DaVinci Code, had one DIY cable just absolutely indistinguishingly as good as this kilobuck interconnect he'd copied. 

Well, you want it to be true now, don't you? I mean, who wouldn't? Even if you were the proud owner of the $3k interconnect, if you could build a few more for $300 wouldn't you want to do that? Course you would.

So I was really hoping for it to not be just another piece of crap. Which it was. Total POC. Which even he had to admit.

Problem was, it turns out, his whole system was full of so much DIY POC it had everything distorted to the point he couldn't even hear any difference between these two interconnects. Until he put them in my system. Which made the differences obvious even to him.

Now to put in perspective, this guy had been working on this almost nonstop for like 30 years. By which I don't mean a long time. By which I mean THIRTY YEARS! To say he was crestfallen does not even begin to cover it.

Speakers, btw, same thing. Audiophile club here had a $100 speaker contest- parts budget $100. Per pair. Only they got a break- cabinet costs not included. That's a huge break! Even so, there were at the time several $100 retail speakers on the market that sounded better than the contest winner.

Not saying DIY is a waste of time. Not saying all professional products are better. Saying the good stuff isn't overpriced at all, and the best is really good value. Saying more often than not you're better off trying to find the best than build it. 
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