Custom Tuning Conspiracy

@kenjit - You clearly spend time on this forum, so should be able to recognize that it's effectively impossible for any discussion to come to a consensus.  Also, very few of the most dedicated audiophiles keep the same system for long periods of time, they are always looking to upgrade with the goal of improving things and also to satisfy their unquenchable drive to try new things.  Most recognize that the final sound quality results from the "sum of the whole" rather than any individual component.

Even if it were possible for someone to custom design a speaker for a customer which would rely on the designer to understand the personal preferences of the individual customers, the market would be limited to people that had the funds, interest, and knowledge to desire it while also not wanting to approach it from a DIY perspective.

I would also argue that a custom car would be much easier than a custom speaker.  For a speaker the preferences are not easily defined or understood.  For a car a customer can describe if they want comfort (Rolls-Royce is essentially fully custom) or performance (Bugatti is essentially fully custom).  If performance is what you want, you can adjust a car to suit driving preferences based on track using speed as the unit of measure, this is commonly done in racing.

With a speaker, you could theoretically design for a specific person using a specific room, album, and song, but all bets are off if a component were to change, the room changed, or there was a desire to listen to different music.  It's a compromise at every level.

I don’t know of any manufacturing model that is based on no profit. The model you are proposing would not be profitable and eventually fail, probably rather quickly.

Its not a model designed to make money. That is exactly the problem with speaker design. Its based primarily on maximizing profit. My technology would be based on meeting the needs of each and every audiophile. It has nothing to do with profit. Why shouldnt it be profitable? If the customer was present while the crossover was being tuned by the designer, he could then state his preferences based on what he was hearing and that would then determine the final crossover circuit. Why is that so hard to implement? How many people in the world wear eyeglasses? Millions. Yet we can somehow manage to get each and every one of these patients into the office for an eye examination and then fit them with custom tuned lenses. If we cared about sound just as much as we do about vision then perhaps it would be workable?

Also, very few of the most dedicated audiophiles keep the same system for long periods of time, they are always looking to upgrade with the goal of improving things and also to satisfy their unquenchable drive to try new things.

and part of the reason for that is because their speakers were not tuned correctly in the first place. Potentially, the upgrade process that you speak of could be curtailed if the damn thing was custom tuned correctly. Dont you think its silly to upgrade a speaker just because the tweeter level was set just that little bit too high? All it needed was a change in resistor and that would have fixed it yet audiophiles spend thousands on cables thinking it will sort their problem out.

Even if it were possible for someone to custom design a speaker for a customer which would rely on the designer to understand the personal preferences of the individual customers, the market would be limited to people that had the funds, interest, and knowledge to desire it while also not wanting to approach it from a DIY perspective.

I dont think you understand how this works. Its not a question of WHETHER we tune a speaker or not. Its a question of WHO does it? The designer or the customer? EVERY speaker you buy is already tuned. There is no such thing as a speaker which is not tuned.

The points you make about the room, components and music choices influencing the tuning reinforces my point. Whose room, music choices, personal preferences and components should the speaker be tuned according to? Mine or the designers?

"Its not a model designed to make money. That is exactly the problem with speaker design. Its based primarily on maximizing profit. My technology would be based on meeting the needs of each and every audiophile. It has nothing to do with profit. Why shouldnt it be profitable? If the customer was present while the crossover was being tuned by the designer, he could then state his preferences based on what he was hearing and that would then determine the final crossover circuit."

- So, who exactly is going to do all the testing, designing and creating these imaginary speakers for no money?

- So, who exactly is going to do all the testing, designing and creating these imaginary speakers for no money?

Its not for no money. But its also not a money making scheme. We can charge as much or as little as we see fit. However we would not be overcharging customers unlike all the other high end companies. We could if we wanted to. 

The problem with current speakers on the market is that its really just the luck of the draw. Both the speaker designers dont know what theyre tuning and the customers also dont know what they want. So it really is a recipe for disaster. 

My technique would be based on a more systematic approach to tuning to enable meaningful comparisons. 

We often hear audiophiles speak about diamond tweeters being too bright. This is hogwash. This is typical thinking by audiophiles who have no experience in custom tuning. Our goal would be to set them straight.