Just what we need: another autocrat.
The problem with the speaker industry
The goal of high end speaker design is to reproduce the input signal PERFECTLY. Despite this, every speaker has a different frequency response and often sound very different from one another. You would expect a far greater similarity. So can we really trust the speaker designers to design speakers that achieve the goal of high end audio? Audiophiles do not agree either when it comes to deciding which speakers are better than others at achieving the goal. Neither the speaker designers nor audiophiles can be trusted to figure out what sounds best. Speaker companies have given up trying to achieve perfect sound and so have the audiophiles. Instead, the goal of high end audio has become to find whatever suits your ears and your preference. This is WRONG. All speakers are wrong and so are all audiophiles. The only way to solve this riddle is to require speaker designers to be qualified. Every other profession requires credentials. What the industry needs is a regulatory authority to make sure that only the most perfect speakers can enter into the marketplace. Prices would need to be fair. There would be severe penalties for companies selling speakers that did not meet my standards. This could include fines or even imprisonment. Speaker designers would need their hearing checked annually. Additionally listening skills would be assessed too. What I believe this would achieve is to root out all those bogus speaker companies out there run by charlatans. No more DIY made on the kitchen table companies. No more done in the garage type speaker companies. Overcharging would be prohibited. No more nasty wooden boxes. Only spheres would be allowed. As chairman I would be paid to ensure that EACH AND EVERY speaker is listened to by ear. Every single tone would be analyzed from 20hz up to and including 20,000hz. Any notes that were not in tune would be documented and sent back to the manufacturers for further retuning. A stethoscope would be used to analyze cabinet behavior. PERFECT silence would be expected at all loudness levels. The speaker would be given a complete workup before being allowed to be sold. I believe that the high end speaker industry is broken and needs to be fixed. I believe that I have been chosen to do this.
- ...
- 14 posts total
Watch this guy. Maybe you can be friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GmOUb5ITP4&ab_channel=Audioholics |
Dear Kenjit - I disagree with your premise that the goal of a high-end speaker is to reproduce the input signal perfectly. I am not in any way trying to be snarky or cynical, but IMO, the goal of a high-end speaker is to SELL. No sane person is going into business to deliberately create a product that will not sell. Perhaps for cable or amplifier manufacturers, they would want a laboratory-grade speaker to help them assess their products better. But I don’t think the designers of home speakers seek the same end product as you do. I recall an episode of Gordon Ramsey where he tells the owner of a failing restaurant that he (the owner) was a great cook, but his restaurant was failing because he wasn’t cooking dishes his customers wanted to eat. Watch the movie Big Night, which is a great movie by the way, about a fine Italian restaurant with no business and the Italian place across the street with a huge business and crap food. |
- 14 posts total