Speaker manufacturers or box manufacturers with off the shelf drivers?

well, are you familiar with cost of entry to an industry? off the shelf drivers could be state of the art vs a small company trying to make their own drivers. its similar to a small company trying to build a jet plane. since many of the established driver manufacturers have been around for decades and have already done the R&D, why bother even competing with then unless you have a significant advantage somehwere? (ie: alien provided materials technology no one else has).

secondly, the box...is what shapes the sound, like a instrument cabinet. body of a guitar, or a chello. significant work involves in the shaping and building of it, which is easier than building the drivers. you can buy 3d simulation software to simulate the internal volume etc, plus if you have good machining or carpentry skills, you can build them. if its just a box, then that Radio Shack, but high end boxes are layers of dense materials from wood to carbon fiber to metal.

Scanspeak drivers are great, by the way.  Not the totally off the wall high priced spread, but really good.

All i got was people do not understand economic activities such as comparative advantage, or have disillusions about mainstream budget and housing spaces.

But none of this is a surprise to me.

 

high end boxes are layers of dense materials from wood to carbon fiber to metal

no. its mostly mdf. 

whatjd    Always enjoyed the work of Robert Frost. Thanks for sharing.

I don't think it's quite the same as GM. Their classic example that comes to mind is Camaro vs Firebird. Very similar cars using the same platform. In the beginning they used brand specific engines. Each brand was allowed to tune their own suspension to help built different identities. Ultimately they ended up almost identical. Marketing people know two flavors will increase sales. Major auto manufactures have the resources and skill set to built whatever they want as long as it is profitable.

Look at the smaller auto manufactures that source their engines and many other parts from other manufactures and vendors. It is not economically practical for small auto manufactures to expand their operation into building engines and commodity parts (starters, bearings....) only to sell a small number of cars. Lotus cars come to mind. They use Toyota engines and likely other parts as well. If they decided to expand into manufacturing engines they would likely fail.

Most speaker manufactures are like small auto manufactures. They buy drivers from driver manufactures and crossover parts from various vendors. Some outsource their cabinets. The parts they choose to use doesn't guarantee that the end product will be good or bad. It's up to the designer/engineer to design, choose components, develop and execute a viable product at the target price point.

Yes, what's inside the box is (should be) secondary. How a speakers sounds to the buyer should be the most important aspect. "Box" is speaking figuratively. Yes, the design, materials, parts and implementation of the design will dictate how the speaker will perform.

Obviously not all speakers are boxes with drivers and crossovers. Along with manufacturing Arion speakers we also import and distribute Analysis Audio speakers. Both our brands are exclusively open baffle designs using light membrane technology. All the Analysis drivers are designed and built in house. Arion AMT drivers are designed and built in house. We build our own drivers because they don't exist on the open market. Doing so is expensive but allows us the ability to fulfill our design goals.  Magnepan, Quad, Martin Logan and others fall in the same category.