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I feel bad for speaker manufacturers

Think about it. If you were going to start a company that manufactures audio components, which would you pick? Arguably the worst business to get into would be the speaker business. Right? First, it’s painstakingly hard to market a new speaker that can break through in today’s ultra-competitive environment. Second, the development costs are relatively high because you have to invest in expensive cabinetry (at least on the high end) , electronic components, and drivers. And except for bookshelves, you have to absorb or charge so much more to get your product to your customers because of the relatively large size and heavy weight of the product. Third, and again especially if you have any floor standing speakers of any size, which, let’s be honest, any speaker company that wants to make money will have to have, you have to pay to hump these things to shows around the country and likely internationally as well.

Now let’s compare the life of a cable manufacturer. Let me state up front that I am a big believer that cables, interconnects, digital cables, and power cords can make a big difference in the ultimate sound of an overall system. Tires on a car, right? And yes, they also have several variables to deal with: silver, copper, tinned, dielectric, shielding, connectors, cryogenic, etc. But they’re all small, light, and relatively cheap. You can ship your product for next to nothing with almost no risk of damage, and you can travel to audio shows carrying all of your wares pretty much in a medium-sized backpack. Oh, and then there’s this. While speaker manufacturers are lucky if they can retail their products for four to six times their cost of production, cable manufacturers get to retail their wares for ten, twenty, or even fifty times or more of their manufacturing cost. There’s the well-worn tale of speaker manufacturers coming to shows in a rented minivan while cable manufacturers show up in Ferraris. It’s sad but funny because there’s some truth to it. I credit @erik_squires with generating this thread because in his recent thread he made me think about how hard it is to successfully create and market a truly successful speaker today. Anyway, it almost seems unfair, especially since speakers contribute so much to the ultimate sound of our systems while cables, while crucial, contribute RELATIVELY much less. What say you?
soix
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
Speaker manufacturing is not rocket science


Actually, no. the other way around. Anyone can stuff a driver in a box and call it a speaker.

OTOH, John Dunlavy was asked why he got into speaker design, after a successful career in cutting edge works, like the spiral backed antenna and other things that for the longest time were restricted works, as in black.

His reply was ( I paraphrase), "because it is the most difficult thing I know of".

So it goes all the way from idjit boy cutting a hole in a box, to total brain stress and breakdown... where one is dealing with 6 branches of physics, all tied intimately together and at their absolute peaks.

Where the end user can or cannot understand the difference between the two efforts -- that is the key, here. To top it off, there is no guarantee that idjit boy cannot reach high level sound qualities (as realized by a majority) by cutting said hole in box, vs that of Mr science and his totally stressed out 6 branches of physics in his multi-million dollar labs. Mr science may work well in his lab, but still make speakers that no one wants to listen to.

So, does the designer of the speaker know what they are doing, and does the buyer of the speaker know what they are hearing? And a thousand variations of those two end markers.

Since human hearing is a very individual thing with individual wiring (as varied as intelligence) and built by the act of hearing and learning, we get to sets of variations in perception that means only the basics can be translated, re the idea of hearing and speculating that something sounds good or bad--and speaking such to others..

There are no absolutes, here, and such is not likely to ever effectively appear.

Arguing about any of that...is a serious waste of time. No chance at resolution. All the fundamental data points say that there is nothing to resolve, no matter how much any one of us may frown and grunt and try to force any of it into factualization..

Likened to atoms, where we can get a group consensus, in a loose way.. but not an absolute consensus on/in the individual. (each element of the periodic table requires a certain amount of atoms to group together for their atomic aspects to emerge, and the number of atoms required to group together and have that bulk elemental aspect set appear....is different for each element)

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sbhx284's avatar
sbhx284
1 posts
 
Like every hobby, if you are willing to spend an exorbitant amount of money, someone will be there to take it from you.
Audiphilia both benefits by and suffers from an incredible decentralization of producers. There are imaginative and talented people creating a dizzying diversity of products that present us with tremendous choice (and a never-ending supply of things to argue about) but they are also creating a market fog that makes it difficult and expensive to get noticed. Small producers have a very uncertain path to survive no matter how good their product is.
My problem with speakers is that too few suppliers offer something that is unique and beautiful enough to be shown off yet integrated into the living room. AXPONA 19 was yet another display of fabulous technical achievement designed for the half of the world that possess a Y chromosome.
erik_squires
16,051 posts
 
It's not. You plug the information into a computer and it spits out the characteristics.

This is a bit of a glaring over-simplification. Yes, simulation tools are available to anyone for a fraction of what they would cost, if they were even available, decades ago, which makes the speaker designer's work much easier and lets them iterate through possible design choices with breathtaking speed and cheaply.

That doesn't make someone with simulators a decent speaker designer. :)
michaelgreenaudio's avatar
michaelgreenaudio
1,019 posts
 

"So, show me the example where rotating a block of wood in a box measurably alters it’s acoustic properties, please."

an interesting an unexpected conversation

Just got off the phone with a reviewer who is getting ready for more of my products to write about. He happened upon this thread and had some questions for me and interesting comments.

From his point of view these threads need to be ultimately troll free if they are ever going to be helpful for the, as he said, "real audiophile". He had some choice words toward the trolls but also said that he feels readers are probably more discerning than we give them credit for. It was an 1.5 hour talk and he filled my ears with encouraging thoughts. What was interesting is he brought up the trolling happening here without me ever saying a word. He wasn’t surprised to hear me blow off these few and complimented me on my "cool".

One thing he said which I thought was interesting is when the troll comes up and makes a misstatement and then continues to repeat themselves it gives the opportunity for me to share the designing with accuracy. For example in the case of the Tuning Bar Technology this reviewer now has a better understanding of the hows and whys of the design and process as compared to before. Obviously we don’t have rotating blocks of wood inside of our speakers so the whole "premise" (reviewers word) of the troll is false, but he went on to say that the good press I get and will be getting is even more noticeable because of the attention the troll has highlighted.

Kind of a reverse psychology thing. The trolls are having a reversed effect on the readers. It was also interesting to be asked how my speaker and wire sells have been. When I shared they have been up and growing he pointed out that audiophiles are like bloodhounds, if a troll attacks a designer these days on public forums the reader is more apt to explore the product in question.

I’ve always wondered about this since I started posting over on Stereophile and now here, cause when I get trolled here it has always been followed by increased sales and very positive client reviews.

I don’t know I just enjoy listening & designing and find some of these forum type events as fascinating to a degree.

hope everyone has a great weekend!

Michael Green

http://www.michaelgreenaudio.net/

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