The mistake armchair speaker snobs make too often
Recently read the comments, briefly, on the Stereophile review of a very interesting speaker. I say it’s interesting because the designers put together two brands I really like together: Mundorf and Scanspeak. I use the same brands in my living room and love the results.
Unfortunately, using off-the-shelf drivers, no matter how well performing, immediately gets arm chair speaker critics, who can’t actually build speakers themselves, and wouldn’t like it if they could, trying to evaluate the speaker based on parts.
First, these critics are 100% never actually going to make a pair of speakers. They only buy name brands. Next, they don’t get how expensive it is to run a retail business.
A speaker maker has to sell a pair of speakers for at least 10x what the drivers cost. I’m sorry but the math of getting a speaker out the door, and getting a retailer to make space for it, plus service overhead, yada yada, means you simply cannot sell a speaker for parts cost. Same for everything on earth.
The last mistake, and this is a doozy, is that the same critics who insist on only custom, in-house drivers, are paying for even cheaper drivers!
I hope you are all sitting down, but big speaker brand names who make their drivers 100% in house sell the speakers for 20x or more of the actual driver cost.
Why do these same speaker snobs keep their mouth shut about name brands but try to take apart small time, efficient builders? Because they can. The biggest advantage that in-house drivers gives you is that the riff raft ( this is a joke on an old A'gon post which misspelled riff raff) stays silent. If you are sitting there pricing speakers out on parts cost, shut up and build something, then go sell it.
I demand a lot OF speakers now, You have a very nice room, go with a 7.2.4 setup and enjoy the thrills. Think, you can get a LOT more dynamics and imaging from coverage of 11 speakers plus two subs than just one pair of speakers. Get these active Focals and save your money on buying more amps or rack space. I know there might be some "snobs" in this thread that frown on pro gear, don't let that stop you:
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Erik this makes no sense to me why are in house or parts the company makes from scratch inferior? It would seem to me the builder can more closely spec parts and control tolerances. I'm not saying that every custom built driver is better than an off the shelf driver it's obviously a case by case basis. It does seem a weird argument to make I guess you're really bored. 😉 |
@kota1 wrote:
There’s also attempts at profitable strategies from at least some of those making active one-box solutions. Not trying to downplay the advantages of going active, but the one predominant takeaway here is removing the passive crossover between the amp and speaker. All the hoopla on "matching the individual driver to an amp channel" has gotten old long ago, and while there are ways to optimize amp-driver coupling from a holistic design point-of-view that can potentially incorporate a broader range of facets, all the while also cutting corners, most of these are pebbles next to the single big rock of getting rid of the passive crossover. Indeed, one box solutions work around compromises as well - quite a few, actually - and to my mind they’re blowing up aspects on the importance of amp-driver integration in an esoteric cloud to cover up the all-too-obvious advantage of going active, which I’ve already mentioned, while effectively also discouraging those who’d like to venture in the direction of an outboard active solution. So, from my chair your highlighting the unfortunate mismatch between passively configured speakers and the amp(s) driving them really comes down to that introduced by the passive crossover itself.
From a same-budget perspective and a select range of sonic parameters I’d say the JBL’s as a package are tough to beat vs a passively configured "adversary." However we wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples, and so many aspects can come to the fore as a deciding factor that can’t be boiled down to bundled active vs. passive on principle alone. Moreover, the JBL’s to some, i.e.: in a particular context, may be considered an acquired taste, if nothing else by virtue of their dynamic capabilities, waveguide-loading and the use of a compression driver which as an active package may come across as a more blunt, direct/open, and (in some regards) honest presentation that truth be told isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. My personal take and not least given enough options would be favoring the bundled, active package vs. a passive ditto - in named context. Optimally though I prefer the outboard active solution. |
@kota1 wrote:
If they did indeed use three next-to-each-other and mono-coupled Paragon's, while emulating perhaps a stereo + center source(?), it would certainly make for a very interesting sound scenario. They'd have great capacity and (possibly wide) center lock for sure. |
All the hoopla on "matching the individual driver to an amp channel" has gotten old long ago, It "burns" me when I see a product trashed from an audio "snob" that simply mismatched the speaker to the amp, the cable, or the room. My personal take and not least given enough options would be favoring the bundled, active package vs. a passive ditto - in named context. Optimally though I prefer the outboard active solution. That is audio wisdom, well said. I have a pair of DefTech W7 active speakers on my porch that are in the DTS Play-Fi ecosystem that I chose for convenience and a bargain, they were on a close out. They sound great, and not just for the price. They are in a sun room surrounded by windows just sitting on stands. Being streamed to wirelessly with the play-fi app.Low price, small convenient, = no brainer. |
