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
Let me make a very concrete example. I present to you all my SNR-1. My main daily speakers.

Tweeters alone will set you back a grand, $500 more in the woofers, and $300 or so to execute the crossover well.  Tweeter similar to used by Gryphon, mid-woofer used by Gryphon, Wilson and others. A bargain compared to retail. 

http://www.taylorspeakers.com/


will make you the cabinets for about $900 a pair.

I've yet to meet anyone who actually built another pair.

https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2017/12/snr-1-two-way-high-end-diy-monitor.html
Assuming I attempted to go commercial with them, there's just no way I could list them at a retail store for less than $15k.


I've yet to meet another DIYer who would put down the cash.


Which proves my main point:  Using speaker driver cost alone as the 'worthiness' of a speaker is an absolute farce.
I present to you all my SNR-1. My main daily speakers.
where are the measurements? its easy to make a nice looking box but thats not what matters. 

I could buy similar drivers to the pulsars, stuff them in a box, tinker with the crossover at a fraction of the cost. Doing an active crossover would provide quicker and better results.I could save myself further time and money by doing without the high quality finish.

Where the extra money goes if you buy the commercial version is irrelevant. It either ends up as profit or rent or whatever but we know that most of the money you pay doesnt go into the speaker youre buying. Why pay more when you can get better results for less? Nobody has access to these companies financal records anyway so who knows where the money goes and how much they pay for parts? 






@kenjit Read the article, it has links to full simulation files.

Why pay more when you can get better results for less?

Which is actually the point. The point is you should buy performance, not parts.

If you can get better for less, do so. That's what the market is about. Denigrating a particular brand solely on part cost is the opposite of buying performance.