Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@thespeakerdude 

Full support of commercial anything beyond 10 years is rare.  So you have the ability to fully support, today, a product that is 20 years old.  Based on failure rate predictions and field failure rate data there is an appropriate stock of fully assembled amplifier boards and/or individual parts in a warehouse for a 20 year old product. That is a sunk cost the Finance department approved for every product and baked into the cost of every product sold?  

Or could support consist of a limited supply of custom items backed by purchase as needed resistors, transistors, caps, op-amps etc.?  That seems like an approach the Finance department would support.

@thespeakerdude Wow, I listened to Bruno’s talk about the Kii, He is making a speaker just like a microphone, I’ve had this idea for 30 years. The way directional microphones work is there is vents along 2 opposite side and when the sound comes in from the front the sound also comes in from the opposite sides but out of phase thus canceling out except the sound that comes from the front of the mic, the more directional the microphone the more vents there are. Rruno is doing the same thing in reverse electronically in the Kii. Condenser microphones are "active" dynamic microphones are "passive" interestingly enough the "active microphones" are of course better in practically every way but they need power (Phantom, usually 48v). Also all the audiophiles that understand this analogy are probably all using "passive" systems that we know in reverse ie. microphones are not nearly as good in sound reproduction.

One can easily see that this support model is very different for large public companies with strict product plans and clear cut departments that operate the business vs small engineer owned private companies that pursue new ideas and build what might look risky to the large corporation.

The different responses in this thread make sense with different scales of business. What amazes me is the level of intelligence expressed in this thread - starting all the way back to a baseline of Kenjit all the way to engineers and operators of consumer audio businesses. An excellent discussion overall that should help users understand that engineering and science drive most audio innovation and the day of the freewheeling entrepreneur who just experiments in his garage are over. Bullshit may still sell but not for long. 

What amazes me is the level of intelligence expressed in this thread 

Agreed, I gave out prizes earlier in the thread 😁

@donavabdear the Dutch and Dutch 8C is just like the microphone with vents and all (and some DSP), the Kii (Bruno) does it with electronics. Sky is the limit.