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Stephen McLuckie
 
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Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

"Farrell8882" wrote in message
news:Ac%9c.30674$K91.88721@attbi_s02...
A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an

answer
for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but that's not an
excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either defend or

expound on.

I recall reading a very good point-by-point analysis here (or somewhere

people
here would be familiar with) that takes apart Bose (both the speaker and

the
myth), exposing what a really shoddy piece of workmanship a Bose speaker

is.
It's technical, but not incomprehensible.

I only paid partial attention because I'd never buy anything by Bose, so I

had
no reason to read any more deeply. I've seen it a couple of times in the

last
few years, including sometime this winter.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?


This is probably what you read: http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

Stephen


  #2   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

"Stephen McLuckie" wrote:


"Farrell8882" wrote in message
news:Ac%9c.30674$K91.88721@attbi_s02...
A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an

answer
for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but that's not an
excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either defend or

expound on.

I recall reading a very good point-by-point analysis here (or somewhere

people
here would be familiar with) that takes apart Bose (both the speaker and

the
myth), exposing what a really shoddy piece of workmanship a Bose speaker

is.
It's technical, but not incomprehensible.

I only paid partial attention because I'd never buy anything by Bose, so I

had
no reason to read any more deeply. I've seen it a couple of times in the

last
few years, including sometime this winter.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?


This is probably what you read:
http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

Stephen


That website (which uses measurements I made for Sound & Vision) is un-tutored
ang quite misleading. For example it states that most $1300 audio systems have
frequency ranges of 15 Hz to 25 kHz. While 25 kHz is not unusual the number of
packaged commercial systems that can do a realistic 15 Hz is exactly zero.
Further the bandwidth, shape and abberation shown in those curves is quite
typical of what you get from the systems in the price range the website claims
are much better.

FWIW, the reason Bose is so successful, and perhaps so hated in some circles,
is that they sell certain customer segments what they really want (small,
nearly invisible, nicely styled) and not what we think they should want.

The Wave Radio is a great example; its a highly styled, easy to use boombox
that's perfect for certain customer segments (seniors, accountants, house
wives) who could really use a boombox but who wouldn't be caught dead with one.

IMO the primary knock against Bose home audio products is premium price. But
even then you're not going to get demonstrably better performance for the same
or less money if your not an experienced enthusiast. The competition will also
usually be more difficult to install.

  #3   Report Post  
lcw999
 
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Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 19:57:20 +0000, Farrell8882 wrote:

A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an
answer for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but
that's not an excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either
defend or expound on.

I recall reading a very good point-by-point analysis here (or somewhere
people here would be familiar with) that takes apart Bose (both the
speaker and the myth), exposing what a really shoddy piece of
workmanship a Bose speaker is. It's technical, but not incomprehensible.

I only paid partial attention because I'd never buy anything by Bose, so
I had no reason to read any more deeply. I've seen it a couple of times
in the last few years, including sometime this winter.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?


__________________________________________________ ________

Bose has excelled at doing frequency response manipulation based on
some intense study. There are some frequencies that the Female gender
is slightly more sensitive to..Dr. Bose has used these studies to
manipulate a number of areas in the audio spectrum to create rather
cozy and pleasant sounding devices.

Back, somewhere in the early '70s I think Admiral radio had used a
fairly elaborate "ducted" low frequency system to present a very
impressive bass from a tabletop radio. A friend of mine that owned an
office supply company had one in the large open space that most Office
supply houses have...it was impressive in the low end. I was very
impressed...having lived around some Altec-Lansing A7 theatre systems.

This was a ducted system that had been used World
Wide with variations. I always assumed it was a kind of "public
domain" and could be used by anyone. However, Dr. Bose was able to
"modify" this ducted system and get a patent in the U.S. Many have
wondered how this was accomplished.

So, to shorten all this, by manipulating the mids and highs and
implementing the lower-frequency ducted system he has been able to
turn out speakers/radios, etc, that, on initial hearing...they sound
very pleasant, etc.

However, if your hearing is a bit critical you will soon discover
that something is missing in this type of manipulation..things are
just not all there. However, some people get used to all this..and
swear by it! Such is life!

I'm sure there is more to this story that this...however, this is
as I have observed through the years.

So, if one listens around in a serious manner and decides the Bose
is best, over a period of time, then by all means go ahead buy
it..keeping in mine that you might well want to trade to something
else with a year!

Leonard...

  #5   Report Post  
Oceans 2K
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

I've owned a lot of audio gear in my 20 year "affliction". I am not a
reviewer by any means but I seem to have a revolving door in my listening
room. The one set of speakers that I just could not live with were a pair
of Bose 601's in the late 80's. Thumpy artifical bass. Hooty mids.
Recessed, dead highs. No matter what I paired it with...same story. Did
the room position thing...same story. Tried to break em in with pink
noise...same story.

My brother had a pair of 301's a few years back. He reluctantly borrowed
them to me so I could feed my habit. Same story but worse (these listed at
about $300/pr).

I think that was last gear I bought at Crutchfield.

TC
"Farrell8882" wrote in message
news:Ac%9c.30674$K91.88721@attbi_s02...
A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an

answer
for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but that's not an
excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either defend or

expound on.

I recall reading a very good point-by-point analysis here (or somewhere

people
here would be familiar with) that takes apart Bose (both the speaker and

the
myth), exposing what a really shoddy piece of workmanship a Bose speaker

is.
It's technical, but not incomprehensible.

I only paid partial attention because I'd never buy anything by Bose, so I

had
no reason to read any more deeply. I've seen it a couple of times in the

last
few years, including sometime this winter.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?




  #6   Report Post  
Buster Mudd
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

I worked in hi-fi retail for a couple years in the early 1980's.
People would come in and ask for Bose by name far more than any other
brand name. After a while you got tired of trying to educate the great
unwashed, and you just took their cash. Y'know what? I didn't lose any
sleep over it.

The question isn't "why shouldn't someone buy Bose?" because if
someone's gotten that far they probably will be perfectly happy with
Bose. They *should* buy Bose.

The question should be "why would someone buy Bose...or anything, for
that matter...without first auditioning & evaluating numerous other
products at the same pricepoint?"

And the answer would be: "Advertising budget"

  #8   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
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Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Farrell8882 wrote:

A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an answer
for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but that's not an
excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either defend or expound on.


The number one problem with Bose is not their sound, which is passable,
but that the exact same thing can be had via Cambridge Soundworks for
a couple of hundred dollars. Cambridge soundworks of course changes the
mounts and wiring terminals and color just enough so as to pass the
minimum amount of changes to not infringe on their patent, but it's
essentially the same thing.

Why pay 400% markup over the same thing without the label?

For $800-$1000, she can get a full setup that will sound several times
better. Tannoy and KEF, for instnace, make very good minisystems,
as does Energy. Real rubber surrounds on the speakers instead of
foam. Connectors that can be used with any receiver. Screws instead
of glue to hold it together. $10 speakers(their cost) versus $1-2
ones BOSE uses.

No, these aren't high-end soundsystems, but they are a step up.

  #9   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote:

Farrell8882 wrote:

A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an

answer
for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but that's not an
excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either defend or expound

on.

The number one problem with Bose is not their sound, which is passable,
but that the exact same thing can be had via Cambridge Soundworks for
a couple of hundred dollars.


I, for one, don't think so. It is true that Cambridge does have some high-value
content systems but the cost-reduction is evident upon inspection.

Cambridge soundworks of course changes the
mounts and wiring terminals and color just enough so as to pass the
minimum amount of changes to not infringe on their patent, but it's
essentially the same thing.


Why pay 400% markup over the same thing without the label?


That's a good reason; but frankly the chances of returning a Cambridge product
for warranty is quite high.


For $800-$1000, she can get a full setup that will sound several times
better. Tannoy and KEF, for instnace, make very good minisystems,
as does Energy.


I like those systems but, frankly,they are in the same league sound-wise.

Real rubber surrounds on the speakers instead of
foam.


And, besides implied longevity, and well-known sensitivity losses.what
difference does this make?

Connectors that can be used with any receiver.

For the most part that's true; but nearly all low cost multichannel systems use
spring-clip terminals. And even if they don't ...... who cares; don't all
aspiring audiophiles use stripped wire or spade lugs?

Screws instead
of glue to hold it together.


I've never seen any modern loudspeaker cabinet held together with screws. As
for drivers and I/O terminals the most common problems I encounter are drivers
or terminals loose in particle board cabinets by having stripped screws in
particle board that "weren't glued" to the cabinet.

$10 speakers(their cost) versus $1-2
ones BOSE uses.


This is another common thought. Any mfr that doesn't make their own drivers
(most) pays a mark-up which. of course,, increases the final price of the
system and also reduces the internal control over quality.

IFAIK Bose manufactuers many of their own drivers and would have a lower
internal cost. So what? Wjy does the end-user care one way or another?

No, these aren't high-end soundsystems, but they are a step up.


From what? I would agree that I could; assuming you too, put together and
install a better sounding system than joe-average walking the streets, for a
given price than one would pay for a Bose.

But few non-enthusiasts could do likewise. And even fewer would be able to
install it. That's the magic of Bose ...... sell people what they want; (small,
nearly-inviisible, smartlyy styled) not what might be best-sounding to
enthusiasts or preferable to salesman of other products.

People also cpmplain about the special "Bose-Only" demomstration areas. Of
course, that is high-powered marketing, but I've never heard a single
enthusiast complain about a similar, even MORE obstrusive, technique "Single
Speaker Demostration" employed by Linn Sondek in the 80s.

Perhaps that's because Linn Sondek was never a major competitor.

  #10   Report Post  
Gary Eickmeier
 
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Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

But few non-enthusiasts could do likewise. And even fewer would be able to
install it. That's the magic of Bose ...... sell people what they want; (small,
nearly-inviisible, smartlyy styled) not what might be best-sounding to
enthusiasts or preferable to salesman of other products.

People also cpmplain about the special "Bose-Only" demomstration areas. Of
course, that is high-powered marketing, but I've never heard a single
enthusiast complain about a similar, even MORE obstrusive, technique "Single
Speaker Demostration" employed by Linn Sondek in the 80s.


My thanks to Tom for all of the frank and supportive statements about my
favorite company. I know Bose is reviled in the audiophile community for
trying to sell to the masses. I think they do have some lower level
lines that do not and should not appeal to US, but we certainly can't
make the statement that they make nothing but cheap stuff; if you have
ordered a Bose car system, you paid the price.

I have spoken with Dr. B several times, and been to the factory and had
lunch with him, etc. I asked him why they don't come up with some super
901 system with subs and everything, just to show the state of the art
in some sort of all-out effort for the hi-fi shows. He just is not
interested in a market segment that small. He told me to look into the
professional line if I wanted to build a super system.

Well, actually, I am satisfied with my dual 901 setup with subs, tho I
need to upgrade the subs to what Tom told me about, the SVS.

Anyway, the frustrating thing about Bose is that they do not and will
not ever cater to us, creating a mutual who cares society. I have
discovered some principles about how to use these speakers that show me
that they may be even more correct a design and more important than even
they believe, but that is my personal quest. And no one else much cares,
even Dr. Bose.

I'm rambling.

Gary Eickmeier



  #11   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

The number one problem with Bose is not their sound, which is passable,
but that the exact same thing can be had via Cambridge Soundworks for
a couple of hundred dollars.



I, for one, don't think so. It is true that Cambridge does have some high-value
content systems but the cost-reduction is evident upon inspection.


You may think so, but actual testing and analysis of the speakers
verifies it.(actually taking them apart)

Is it so hard to believe that CSW would make a legal "clone" of the
design and market them for a more sane 3-5 times over cost as
opposed to 20 times over cost?

That's a good reason; but frankly the chances of returning a Cambridge product
for warranty is quite high.


Well, actually, my parents have a CSW 2.1 system on their computer
and it's been great for the last 4-5 years. The CSW higher-end
models are actually good values in low-end audio - much better than
Kenwood or Sony or these other "HTIAB" systems.

For $800-$1000, she can get a full setup that will sound several times
better. Tannoy and KEF, for instnace, make very good minisystems,
as does Energy.


I like those systems but, frankly,they are in the same league sound-wise.


Now I KNOW you are smoking something. The KEF system is true
dome tweeter/woofer setup in each surround and it's measured
at +/-3db with no gaps in response. It also has a real 8 inch
subwoofer.

Oh - they also have integrated mounts in each speaker, which
the Bose do not. Add the stands to the Bose and suddenly it's
no longer a tiny thing.

And, besides implied longevity, and well-known sensitivity losses.what
difference does this make?


Did you even LOOK at the charts in that link that was posted?
Even you could see that it's well - nasty. 13.5K high end?
I can buy a $20 4 inch speaker that goes up to 15hkz cleanly.

Screws instead

of glue to hold it together.


I've never seen any modern loudspeaker cabinet held together with screws. As
for drivers and I/O terminals the most common problems I encounter are drivers
or terminals loose in particle board cabinets by having stripped screws in
particle board that "weren't glued" to the cabinet.


The thing is the drivers. can you take them out and replace them
or are they glued together in such a manner so as to make them
user-repairable.

IFAIK Bose manufactuers many of their own drivers and would have a lower
internal cost. So what? Wjy does the end-user care one way or another?


Fine. You pay $1300 for $100 in parts. Enjoy.


No, these aren't high-end soundsystems, but they are a step up.


From what? I would agree that I could; assuming you too, put together and
install a better sounding system than joe-average walking the streets, for a
given price than one would pay for a Bose.


The CSW line is a step up from Bose and typical HTIAB systems. It's
not close to a real system, though, that you could actually build
with $1300. $1000 will get you a very nice 5.1 setup, and $300 a
decent basic receiver.

But few non-enthusiasts could do likewise. And even fewer would be able to
install it. That's the magic of Bose ...... sell people what they want; (small,
nearly-inviisible, smartlyy styled) not what might be best-sounding to
enthusiasts or preferable to salesman of other products.


The Tannoy and Kef are smaller, visually. Kef has styling that is
amazing. So does Norh - the tiny ones look great in a corner.
As for nearly invisible, most small systems require a mount which is
ugly and almost the size of the speaker.

http://www.norh.com/products/prism/index.html
The 3.0 Prism is perfect and angled to fit in a typical corner.

http://www.norh.com/products/prism/gal.html
They look very attractive as well - huge WAF.

* Single full range driver
* Frequency response: 75Hz to 20,000 Hz.
* Maximum constant power is 20 watts
* Sensitivity 87 dB

This is what Bose should be able to do - as these are $199 a
pair, shipped(no tax). 4 plus a center($275) is $673.
Add a decent subwoofer and you're at $1000-$1300.

  #12   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote:

Nousaine wrote:

The number one problem with Bose is not their sound, which is passable,
but that the exact same thing can be had via Cambridge Soundworks for
a couple of hundred dollars.



I, for one, don't think so. It is true that Cambridge does have some

high-value
content systems but the cost-reduction is evident upon inspection.


You may think so, but actual testing and analysis of the speakers
verifies it.(actually taking them apart)


I've not only taken them apart I've measured several sets of CSW speakers over
the years. They are certainly no better than Bose construction and arguably
worse. And the measured performance of the majority of their speakers in a
given class are definitely 'competitive' meaning not-much-better.


Is it so hard to believe that CSW would make a legal "clone" of the
design and market them for a more sane 3-5 times over cost as
opposed to 20 times over cost?


I'm guessing that if CSW could command a premium liek that they'd be foolish
not to. But they can't .... whose fault is that?

But my point is generally missed here. Bose markets speakers that consumers
actually "want" not what we think they should want.

That's a good reason; but frankly the chances of returning a Cambridge

product
for warranty is quite high.


Well, actually, my parents have a CSW 2.1 system on their computer
and it's been great for the last 4-5 years.


That's good. My experience has been that if I'm likely to get a speaker that
breaks during testing it will be from CSW.

The CSW higher-end
models are actually good values in low-end audio - much better than
Kenwood or Sony or these other "HTIAB" systems.


IME HTIB speaker systems are in two performance leagues; the ones you mention
above and then the Bose,CSW, KEF et al league.

Those systems have many characteristics in common. None have a true subwoofer -
they're all common bass modules. All satellites have sharply falling dynamic
capability at the lower end of their bandwidth and all have a crossover hole
between approximately 150 and 300 Hz. All the satellites have significant
midrange and upper frequency response tonal irregularites and divergent
directivity.

IOW they are more alike than they are different. None are hi-fi products. This
debate IMO simply comes down to a simply buyer decision ....is size more
important than price? Or how much am I willing to pay for the small size?
Nobody gets hi-fi speakers in this deal with these product lines.

Actually if I were looking for a $1300 system I'd start with Hsu research,
Paradigm and/or PSB. But it's not me.

For $800-$1000, she can get a full setup that will sound several times
better. Tannoy and KEF, for instnace, make very good minisystems,
as does Energy.


I like those systems but, frankly,they are in the same league sound-wise.


Now I KNOW you are smoking something. The KEF system is true
dome tweeter/woofer setup in each surround and it's measured
at +/-3db with no gaps in response.


Measured by who? The marketing department? I'm not trying to be overly
argumentative here but the KEF systems I've evaluated in recent years in this
price range are in this league.

It also has a real 8 inch
subwoofer.


Now there's an interesting idea "real 8 inch subwoofer" ????

Oh - they also have integrated mounts in each speaker, which
the Bose do not.


That's a good point.

Add the stands to the Bose and suddenly it's
no longer a tiny thing.


That's also true.

And, besides implied longevity, and well-known sensitivity losses.what
difference does this make?


Did you even LOOK at the charts in that link that was posted?


"LOOK" at the charts? Please; that guy pirated MY measurements. S&V was
credited but I personally made those measurements for them. I've also seen
"charts" of dozens of other speaker systems both published and not. CSW and
other competitiors in the HTIB market do not have significantly better measured
performance. Many of them are demonstratively better but continue to have
enough error that they do not reach a higher plateau. I'd say most of them
sound 'different' but not necessarily better.

Even you could see that it's well - nasty. 13.5K high end?
I can buy a $20 4 inch speaker that goes up to 15hkz cleanly.


Wow; let me at those. And by the way at what angle? The Bose charts were
averaged over +/- 30 deg for L/R, +/- 45 deg for center and +/- 60 deg for
surround with the modules angled according to recommendations. If you line them
up and restrict measurement to directly on-axis you'll get a more extended
'measurement .... but one which no one will ever actually hear in-situ.


Screws instead

of glue to hold it together.


I've never seen any modern loudspeaker cabinet held together with screws.

As
for drivers and I/O terminals the most common problems I encounter are

drivers
or terminals loose in particle board cabinets by having stripped screws in
particle board that "weren't glued" to the cabinet.


The thing is the drivers. can you take them out and replace them
or are they glued together in such a manner so as to make them
user-repairable.


Sure; but at this market segment people often just use particle board cabinets.
I've had drivers literally fall out of the cabinet when being unpacked because
the particle board was so loosely packed that the screws just worked loose with
handling and shipping.

But being realistic exactly how many customers in this market segment are ever
going to repair their own speakers? In this market segment some models have
permanent grilles so that user-replacement would be cosmetically dangerous as
well.

IFAIK Bose manufactuers many of their own drivers and would have a lower
internal cost. So what? Wjy does the end-user care one way or another?


Fine. You pay $1300 for $100 in parts. Enjoy.


I don't pay for nothing. I'm not interested in products in this performance
category. I'm thinking that you aren't either. I'm wondering why the outrage at
Bose and seemingly not at Monster Cable and the other hucksters!!

No, these aren't high-end soundsystems, but they are a step up.


From what? I would agree that I could; assuming you too, put together and
install a better sounding system than joe-average walking the streets, for

a
given price than one would pay for a Bose.


The CSW line is a step up from Bose and typical HTIAB systems.


Not in my opinion. Neither is remotely close to hi-fi. It's a choice about
price and style.

It's
not close to a real system, though, that you could actually build
with $1300. $1000 will get you a very nice 5.1 setup, and $300 a
decent basic receiver.

But few non-enthusiasts could do likewise. And even fewer would be able to
install it. That's the magic of Bose ...... sell people what they want;

(small,
nearly-inviisible, smartlyy styled) not what might be best-sounding to
enthusiasts or preferable to salesman of other products.


The Tannoy and Kef are smaller, visually. Kef has styling that is
amazing. So does Norh - the tiny ones look great in a corner.
As for nearly invisible, most small systems require a mount which is
ugly and almost the size of the speaker.


That's another good point.


http://www.norh.com/products/prism/index.html
The 3.0 Prism is perfect and angled to fit in a typical corner.

http://www.norh.com/products/prism/gal.html
They look very attractive as well - huge WAF.

* Single full range driver
* Frequency response: 75Hz to 20,000 Hz.
* Maximum constant power is 20 watts
* Sensitivity 87 dB

This is what Bose should be able to do - as these are $199 a
pair, shipped(no tax). 4 plus a center($275) is $673.
Add a decent subwoofer and you're at $1000-$1300.


I'd be a little skeptical of a single driver full range system (isn't that what
the 901 is?) that is based on fanciful ideas such as:

"Speaker designers have known for over forty years that the box is not the
ideal shape for loudspeakers. The worst shape would be a cube. The reason is
that all sides are equal in length and parallel. The rectangle box is slightly
better because not all sides are equal in length but all sides are parallel.
Parallel boxes reflect energy back and forth. The energy inside the box
competes with the energy being produced outside the box. As the woofer returns
backwards, it creates a reflected energy that bounces back and presses directly
against the woofer. The driver literally is fighting against its own energy.

The Prism has no parallel surfaces. Each angle is less than 45 degrees. This
means that energy created by the loudspeaker is compressed upon itself."

Whew. But I'm always skeptical. I don't have any special affinity for Bose. But
I do respect the willingness to put customer "needs" (small size, easy to use,
all-in-one and vouched-for by Paul Harvey) at the top of their merchandising
list.

As I've said before Bose brings music to many people who otherwise wouldn't
have it (young females, seniors, etc) simply because they realize that our
"hi-fi" sound is not the number one priority for most of them.

And yes; I'll agree that I could acquire and assemble a system that would sound
better for $1300; but most people don't have me to do that for them.

There's one more aspect I like about Bose merchandising for this class of
product. It helps to free the naive buyer from the store/salesman influence.
The "cables" are already included.

  #13   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

I've not only taken them apart I've measured several sets of CSW speakers over
the years. They are certainly no better than Bose construction and arguably
worse. And the measured performance of the majority of their speakers in a
given class are definitely 'competitive' meaning not-much-better.


They do make several lines of small speakers. The typical ones you find
in computer and electronics stores are not their upper-end models
are better.

http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/s...item=k1pkm28zz
This is virtually the same on paper as the Bose, but more accurate
and a lot less costly. I've heard both and the CSW edges out the
Bose by a small margin.

The $499(easy to find at ~350-400 street price) movieworks 108
system is actually not so bad. Bose doesn't make anything
as good as this(which is really telling as an Energy Take 5.2
sytem stomps on both)

Is it so hard to believe that CSW would make a legal "clone" of the
design and market them for a more sane 3-5 times over cost as
opposed to 20 times over cost?


I'm guessing that if CSW could command a premium liek that they'd be foolish
not to. But they can't .... whose fault is that?


They don't spend millions on marketing like Bose to artificially
generate the image. Note the incident with Bose and the noise
cancelling headphones they were supposed to make for the military.

They foisted off known old stock and cheap assmeblies to make
a quick dollar. They should have been run out of business for
running such a scam with taxpayer money. Eventally the military
was out their money and had to get a real manufacturer to make
one for them that worked.

Well, actually, my parents have a CSW 2.1 system on their computer
and it's been great for the last 4-5 years.


That's good. My experience has been that if I'm likely to get a speaker that
breaks during testing it will be from CSW.


They got the better $100 2.1 system. They don't sell it anymore,
but it side-by-side stomped on the Bose system. They did a
double-take and bought a pair of Tannoys instead for the same
money.

The CSW higher-end

models are actually good values in low-end audio - much better than
Kenwood or Sony or these other "HTIAB" systems.


IME HTIB speaker systems are in two performance leagues; the ones you mention
above and then the Bose,CSW, KEF et al league.


Bose is in the former with Kenwood and the like.

They use spring-loaded terminals, untreated paper cones,
have no tweeter(a 2-3 inch dynamic tweeter um - isn't one.
It's called a midrange), and are made out of thin LDF
instead of industry standard MDF.

Definately not in the upper ranks like KEF.

Those systems have many characteristics in common. None have a true subwoofer -
they're all common bass modules.


Sorry - look at the KEF. Also look at the Energy Take 5.2 That's
a real sub they mate with it in both cases.

All satellites have sharply falling dynamic
capability at the lower end of their bandwidth and all have a crossover hole
between approximately 150 and 300 Hz.


Nope. Energy and KEF do not. And there are many others that are
made as well as they are.

All the satellites have significant
midrange and upper frequency response tonal irregularites and divergent
directivity.


Again, no they do not.

http://www.energy-speakers.com/take5...ers_specs.html
80-20Khz +/-3db for the satellites. MDF, binding posts, seperate
tweeter, poly cone woofer, and rubber surrounds.

The bass they recommend is a standard E:XL-S8 subwoofer with
400watts peak and a response from 29-100hz +/- 3db

That's what you get for $600-$700 from other manufacturers
if you want a microsystem. 6*4*5.5 inches is pretty darn small
for speakers. Among microsystems, the Energy is a very solid
option that completely stomps on most other ones, including
Tannoy and several other brands because it does a simmilar
or better job for a lot less money.

KEF:
http://www.kef.com/KHT/
Well - lookie here - they added some new lines this year. There
used to be only one. Let's look at the original, the 2005.2:
80-27Khz +/-3db - Sats.
30-140Hz for the subwoofer. 250 Watts.

But let's look at the tiny new 1005 system:
First off they are tiny, sleek, and look like wall sconces more
than speakers. Definate high WAF.
120hz-22Khz +/-3db - Sats
Smaller internal cabinet volume than the Bose satelites and
much smaller visual impact due to rounded and curved edges.

38-150hz - subwoofer. 100 Watts.


So you are flat out wrong. KEF's smallest and cheapest system
they make has flat response and no "hole" - for less money
than Bose. And a real 8" woofer.(if a bit weak - still, the
Bose doesn't put out anywhere near 100W)

I've heard the midrange 2005.2 system and it's superb - just
amazing sound from something so small. Best small system
short of something esoteric like mounting NoRHs on the walls
that I have heard. A 10 inch high excursion double voicecoil
speaker in a box with a 250W amplifier - that qualifies as
a "sub" in my book.

debate IMO simply comes down to a simply buyer decision ....is size more
important than price? Or how much am I willing to pay for the small size?
Nobody gets hi-fi speakers in this deal with these product lines.


The KEF are better, smaller, and cost less. Win win win.

While Bose has been sitting on its butt for decades making minor
changes to aging technology, other firms have been innovating.

Go hear the KEF system in person. I think you'll be amazed.

Actually if I were looking for a $1300 system I'd start with Hsu research,
Paradigm and/or PSB. But it's not me.


I prefer Tannoy's MX line myself. Good low-cost capable speakers
that aren't "bright" like many small speakers.

Now I KNOW you are smoking something. The KEF system is true
dome tweeter/woofer setup in each surround and it's measured
at +/-3db with no gaps in response.


Measured by who? The marketing department? I'm not trying to be overly
argumentative here but the KEF systems I've evaluated in recent years in this
price range are in this league.


Actual tests. 4 inch woofer and a 1/2 inch dome tweeter. It's
not rocket science to build a decent little speaker these days.
Their spec pages state +/-3db and so far, all KEF speakers test
very close to their claims. Bose - doesn't even PRINT their
specs.

It also has a real 8 inch

subwoofer.



Now there's an interesting idea "real 8 inch subwoofer" ????


As opposed to a bunch of Bose flabby 5.5 inchers?

Actually, the system I had in mind has a true 10 inch subwoofer
rated at 250W. I didn't know that they had expanded into a whole
range of offerings. The 9000 series looks quite interesting, in fact.

I'll see if I can listen to them somewhere soon. If they sound as
good as I think they should, based upon the drivers, we may have
a new "low profile/flat" speaker candidate on our hands. 5 inches
deep and rounded - they sure fit into the decor well in the pictures.


Pricescan lists the 1005 system as selling for $649, and the
2005.2 system for $1299, about the same price as the Bose
surround system. Add in the price difference and mounts on
the Bose and you could easily buy a decent little receiver
and spend no more money but get several times the sound quality.


Even you could see that it's well - nasty. 13.5K high end?
I can buy a $20 4 inch speaker that goes up to 15hkz cleanly.



Wow; let me at those.


Sure.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=264-820
There's your 15Khz full-range 4 inch driver for $20.
It's not great, but it does show the Bose has no excuse. 13.5Khz
means they need a seperate tweeter.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=297-356
Here's what I had in mind. It's $45.25 here, but if Bose
were buying direct, their price would likely be near $20.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=269-685
If you've seen this speaker, you're not dreaming - it is
a standard unit used in several HTIAB type setups. Slap in
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=275-065
or simmilar and make a decent-range satellite.

And this is just crap from an E-tailer. A place like Madisound
sells real high-quality drivers. They carry many brands. The
Aurasound seem to be superb for small full range use.

The NS3-193-8-S43 seems like a perfect choice and is only 3 inches.

Small decent range speakers do exist that aren't that expensive,
espeically if you are a big company that buys millions of them
at steep discounts.

This is what Bose should be able to do - as these are $199 a
pair, shipped(no tax). 4 plus a center($275) is $673.
Add a decent subwoofer and you're at $1000-$1300.


I'd be a little skeptical of a single driver full range system (isn't that what
the 901 is?) that is based on fanciful ideas such as:


Well, it is possible. Something like a Fostex FX200 comes close.
The F200A is 30hz-20Khz, which is respectable, if really expensive.
  #14   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote:

Nousaine wrote:


....snips......



I've not only taken them apart I've measured several sets of CSW speakers

over
the years. They are certainly no better than Bose construction and

arguably
worse. And the measured performance of the majority of their speakers in a
given class are definitely 'competitive' meaning not-much-better.


They do make several lines of small speakers. The typical ones you find
in computer and electronics stores are not their upper-end models
are better.


I'm including comparative products. BUt, by and large, the CSW speakers in any
performance catagory are well below average for the segment. I've even had CSW
stereo speaker products where both original pair failed and then one of the two
replacements failed. But this not unusual in many "value" product segments.

http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/s...ory=ht_package
&item=k1pkm28zz
This is virtually the same on paper as the Bose, but more accurate
and a lot less costly. I've heard both and the CSW edges out the
Bose by a small margin.


And what's your point? My opinion is that competing CSW products in this
performance class do not offer significantly better performance. The real issue
is price and style.


The $499(easy to find at ~350-400 street price) movieworks 108
system is actually not so bad. Bose doesn't make anything
as good as this(which is really telling as an Energy Take 5.2
sytem stomps on both)


The Energy is a better system. Never said otherwise. But it's not as easy to
install and it's materially larger. So; I'm not really arguing with anything
you say but am just trying to put some perspective on the real issues with the
perspective of having evaluiated and measured hundreds of loudspeaker systems
of all price/performance categories.


I'm guessing that if CSW could command a premium liek that they'd be

foolish
not to. But they can't .... whose fault is that?


They don't spend millions on marketing like Bose to artificially
generate the image. Note the incident with Bose and the noise
cancelling headphones they were supposed to make for the military.


What incident? Can you be more specific? On the other hand, if I follow your
line of reasoning then the millions Toyota spends on the Lexus image
automatically means their cars have poorer performance.

Again the money Bose spends on that image doesn't affect you and me in any way.
But, it has helped certain market segments get performance thay would not have
with competing products either because they don't like the styling or they
couldn't install it. And I don't 'hate' them because they service market
segments that nobody else wants.





Those systems have many characteristics in common. None have a true

subwoofer -
they're all common bass modules.


Sorry - look at the KEF. Also look at the Energy Take 5.2 That's
a real sub they mate with it in both cases.


That's what you say. By my standards none of those have real "subwoofers."


All satellites have sharply falling dynamic
capability at the lower end of their bandwidth and all have a crossover

hole
between approximately 150 and 300 Hz.


Nope. Energy and KEF do not. And there are many others that are
made as well as they are.


So you say. I've measured and inspected those and dozens of other systems. They
most certainly do.



All the satellites have significant
midrange and upper frequency response tonal irregularites and divergent
directivity.


Again, no they do not.

http://www.energy-speakers.com/take5...ers_specs.html
80-20Khz +/-3db for the satellites. MDF, binding posts, seperate
tweeter, poly cone woofer, and rubber surrounds.


So you accept manufacturing specifications as true performance measurements? I
see.


The bass they recommend is a standard E:XL-S8 subwoofer with
400watts peak and a response from 29-100hz +/- 3db


As before. Energy and every other 8-inch "subwoofer" sold today are not real
subwoofers. Very few 10-inch models qualify.


That's what you get for $600-$700 from other manufacturers
if you want a microsystem. 6*4*5.5 inches is pretty darn small
for speakers. Among microsystems, the Energy is a very solid
option that completely stomps on most other ones, including
Tannoy and several other brands because it does a simmilar
or better job for a lot less money.


Again your argument has only one thread ....value.



KEF:
http://www.kef.com/KHT/
Well - lookie here - they added some new lines this year. There
used to be only one. Let's look at the original, the 2005.2:
80-27Khz +/-3db - Sats.
30-140Hz for the subwoofer. 250 Watts.


Reading Tech Sheets isn't generally a good method for evaluating performance as
we'll see soon.


But let's look at the tiny new 1005 system:
First off they are tiny, sleek, and look like wall sconces more
than speakers. Definate high WAF.
120hz-22Khz +/-3db - Sats
Smaller internal cabinet volume than the Bose satelites and
much smaller visual impact due to rounded and curved edges.

38-150hz - subwoofer. 100 Watts.


I'll bet that it doesn't actually reach 150 Hz at the upper end and won't do 25
Hz with 10% distortion.

So you are flat out wrong. KEF's smallest and cheapest system
they make has flat response and no "hole" - for less money
than Bose.


So they claim. I've tested more than one and, while they do have more extended
high frequency extension they also have performance errors similar to Bose.

In a strange way that almost makes me think that the Bose system of not
publishing system specifications is intellectually more honest than publishing
a sheet of them that basically does not realistically express real performance.


The 80 Hz bandlimit for example. Most manufacturers claim 60 - 80 Hz for
satellites when, in use, they often cannot produce realistic low distortion SPL
anywhere near the bandlimit. As an ilustration I recently measured a more
expensive satellite system with a spec'd lower bandlimit of 36 Hz.

When driven with 2.8 volts and measured at 2-meters the system is -3 dB at 83
Hz and when driven to full output (10% distortion) it will only produce 70 dB
SPL @ 62 Hz. This system has 2 6.5-inch woofers in it. And it's one damn fine
speaker but it's 'specifications' do not describe real performance. It
basically is an "80-Hz" system.

And a real 8" woofer.(if a bit weak - still, the
Bose doesn't put out anywhere near 100W)


This is another area where I'll throw in another gripe I have about "power
ratings" of active speakers or any powered system. Power ratings aren't
standardized and for the most part are meaningless. Every manufacturer wants to
put a big "power amp" number on the spec sheet but, IMO, I don't want to know
how much power is needed to drive this speaker to full output. What I want to
know is how much SPL will come out of the speaker. It shouldn't matter to me
one way or another if one company needs 1000 watts to get 100 dB and another
can do it with 20 watts. But many people will mistakenly assume that the "1000
watt" system will be 50 times better than the "20 watt" system.

Just one of my current and long-standing gripes and why I publish SPL @ 10% @
2-meters figures (Bass Limits) for all speakers tested.

While I agree that Bose probably doesn't put 100 watts into the woofer; I'll
also arhue that the 100 watts printed on the spec sheet of an 8-inch powered
subwoofer is also meaningless.


I've heard the midrange 2005.2 system and it's superb - just
amazing sound from something so small. Best small system
short of something esoteric like mounting NoRHs on the walls
that I have heard. A 10 inch high excursion double voicecoil
speaker in a box with a 250W amplifier - that qualifies as
a "sub" in my book.


The power rating is essentially meaningless, as is the number of voice coils
and as are the words "high excursion" in this context. What would qualify it as
a "subwoofer" is 85 dB SPL @ 20 Hz (the threshold of audibility at that
frequency) with less than 10% distortion.
I'll bet that model won't do that.

debate IMO simply comes down to a simply buyer decision ....is size more
important than price? Or how much am I willing to pay for the small size?
Nobody gets hi-fi speakers in this deal with these product lines.


The KEF are better, smaller, and cost less. Win win win.


I'd say that value would be their advantage. So ....? Why hate Bose for
comanding a premium. Do you hate Monster Cable for selling zip cord at inflated
prices? If there's a villain in the house I'd be looking at accessory and
vacumn tube electronics.


While Bose has been sitting on its butt for decades making minor
changes to aging technology, other firms have been innovating.


Such as making an auralization system for architectural acoustics?


Go hear the KEF system in person. I think you'll be amazed.

Actually if I were looking for a $1300 system I'd start with Hsu research,
Paradigm and/or PSB. But it's not me.


I prefer Tannoy's MX line myself. Good low-cost capable speakers
that aren't "bright" like many small speakers.

Now I KNOW you are smoking something. The KEF system is true
dome tweeter/woofer setup in each surround and it's measured
at +/-3db with no gaps in response.


Measured by who? The marketing department? I'm not trying to be overly
argumentative here but the KEF systems I've evaluated in recent years in

this
price range are in this league.


Actual tests. 4 inch woofer and a 1/2 inch dome tweeter. It's
not rocket science to build a decent little speaker these days.
Their spec pages state +/-3db and so far, all KEF speakers test
very close to their claims. Bose - doesn't even PRINT their
specs.


So you take "spec sheets" as a reliable performance indicator. I don't. And
I've measured KEF speakers and since Raymnd Cooke died and Laurie Fincham left
for Harman/THX they've not been the same.



Even you could see that it's well - nasty. 13.5K high end?
I can buy a $20 4 inch speaker that goes up to 15hkz cleanly.



Wow; let me at those.


Sure.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=264-820
There's your 15Khz full-range 4 inch driver for $20.
It's not great, but it does show the Bose has no excuse. 13.5Khz
means they need a seperate tweeter.


Thank you for the link. I went there and that driver has an octave wide 12 dB
peak at 7 kHz (their own graphs show that), which if compesated would give the
speaker a useful bandwidth of 10 kHz. Is that what you want them to use?


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=297-356
Here's what I had in mind. It's $45.25 here, but if Bose
were buying direct, their price would likely be near $20.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=269-685
If you've seen this speaker, you're not dreaming - it is
a standard unit used in several HTIAB type setups. Slap in
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=275-065
or simmilar and make a decent-range satellite.


So you really like that 10 dB peak at 4 kHz. How are you going to deal with
that notch lower in frequency?



Small decent range speakers do exist that aren't that expensive,
espeically if you are a big company that buys millions of them
at steep discounts.


Why not apply for Chief Engineer or Director of Purchasing at the Mountain? :-)

This is what Bose should be able to do - as these are $199 a
pair, shipped(no tax). 4 plus a center($275) is $673.
Add a decent subwoofer and you're at $1000-$1300.


I'd be a little skeptical of a single driver full range system (isn't that

what
the 901 is?) that is based on fanciful ideas such as:


Well, it is possible. Something like a Fostex FX200 comes close.
The F200A is 30hz-20Khz, which is respectable, if really expensive.


You left out the fanciful idea about how non-rectangular enclosures work.
  #15   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

And what's your point? My opinion is that competing CSW products in this
performance class do not offer significantly better performance. The real issue
is price and style.


But the price difference is a whopper. $1300 versus $250.

For $250, it's a decent budget system. For $1300 with the Bose
name and a $100 receiver unit included, it's just not a good deal.

The Energy is a better system. Never said otherwise. But it's not as easy to
install and it's materially larger. So; I'm not really arguing with anything
you say but am just trying to put some perspective on the real issues with the
perspective of having evaluiated and measured hundreds of loudspeaker systems
of all price/performance categories.


Both the Bose and the Energy are equal in setup difficulty as they
both require little mounts/stands and as for wires - gosh - any
speaker wire will do.

They don't spend millions on marketing like Bose to artificially
generate the image. Note the incident with Bose and the noise
cancelling headphones they were supposed to make for the military.


What incident? Can you be more specific? On the other hand, if I follow your
line of reasoning then the millions Toyota spends on the Lexus image
automatically means their cars have poorer performance.


It's more like Cadillac. Millions on image and yet a common Lexus
beats them for reliability and driving experience.

Sorry - look at the KEF. Also look at the Energy Take 5.2 That's
a real sub they mate with it in both cases.


That's what you say. By my standards none of those have real "subwoofers."


The Energy 8 inch sub is the same one they sell with the Mirage
FR:X line, just with a different label on it. It's small, but it
IS a real subwoofer. In fact, the sub costs $300 by itself.

So you say. I've measured and inspected those and dozens of other systems. They
most certainly do.


Then show me the data, because the KEF system doesn't do this.
I doubt if you've actually measured the KEF system yet. It
will surprize you.

http://www.energy-speakers.com/take5...ers_specs.html
80-20Khz +/-3db for the satellites. MDF, binding posts, seperate
tweeter, poly cone woofer, and rubber surrounds.


So you accept manufacturing specifications as true performance measurements? I
see.


Based upon that, Bose shouldn't even make ANY sound at all
because they refuse to print specs. I can pull up graphs
though for the Qef Uni-Q driver they use for the low end
and the tweeter they use. They seem like they would have
a moderate but acceptable dip where they crossover, but nothing
worse than many other speakers like Tannoy and B&W.

Certainly no chasm like the Bose. The tweeter in the KEFs
will go higher than 13.5Khz - that I can guarantee.

Again your argument has only one thread ....value.


Not really - I'm terying to point out that better than Bose can
be had for less money. Bose is overpriced and a smart consumer
realizes this and buys a better system for the money.

38-150hz - subwoofer. 100 Watts.


I'll bet that it doesn't actually reach 150 Hz at the upper end and won't do 25
Hz with 10% distortion.


Wel, since the Bose box has upwards of 30-40% distortion when raised
to decent sound levels...

So you are flat out wrong. KEF's smallest and cheapest system
they make has flat response and no "hole" - for less money
than Bose.


So they claim. I've tested more than one and, while they do have more extended
high frequency extension they also have performance errors similar to Bose.


Have you tested the 2005 system? It's certainly better than the
Bose in every way.

The 80 Hz bandlimit for example. Most manufacturers claim 60 - 80 Hz for
satellites when, in use, they often cannot produce realistic low distortion SPL
anywhere near the bandlimit. As an ilustration I recently measured a more
expensive satellite system with a spec'd lower bandlimit of 36 Hz.


80hz is doable with good drivers. With decent SPL and low distortion.

Now, 36hz - that's almost certainly pseudo-science.

This is another area where I'll throw in another gripe I have about "power
ratings" of active speakers or any powered system. Power ratings aren't
standardized and for the most part are meaningless.


Come on. Bose is flat out anemic compared to even the Energy sytems.
Others have pulled apart their amplifier unit and it's dreadful
compared to say, a lowly Denon 1600 series receiver.

While I agree that Bose probably doesn't put 100 watts into the woofer; I'll
also arhue that the 100 watts printed on the spec sheet of an 8-inch powered
subwoofer is also meaningless.


True - My guess is that the 250W version really puts out about
100w continuous, and maybe 50W with near zero distortion. Still,
50W is a decent amount of bass.

The power rating is essentially meaningless, as is the number of voice coils
and as are the words "high excursion" in this context. What would qualify it as
a "subwoofer" is 85 dB SPL @ 20 Hz (the threshold of audibility at that
frequency) with less than 10% distortion.
I'll bet that model won't do that.


Probably not. Otoh, I think 20hz is silly. Most people consider the
same at 25hz to be acceptable as a small subwoofer.

The KEF are better, smaller, and cost less. Win win win.


I'd say that value would be their advantage. So ....? Why hate Bose for
comanding a premium. Do you hate Monster Cable for selling zip cord at inflated
prices? If there's a villain in the house I'd be looking at accessory and
vacumn tube electronics.


I dislike all three when they are touted as better "values"
to the beginning audio enthusiast.

Actual tests. 4 inch woofer and a 1/2 inch dome tweeter. It's
not rocket science to build a decent little speaker these days.
Their spec pages state +/-3db and so far, all KEF speakers test
very close to their claims. Bose - doesn't even PRINT their
specs.


So you take "spec sheets" as a reliable performance indicator. I don't. And
I've measured KEF speakers and since Raymnd Cooke died and Laurie Fincham left
for Harman/THX they've not been the same.


But they are better than Bose. Me? I personally stand by my
JBL 4400 series. I have real graphs for them and they aren't
stunning on paper, but they really DO what the graphs suggest.

There's a reason I still recommend the little 4408As for $299
each. They sound damn good for what they are. No marketing
or ubsurd claims, either.

I do agree with you on that. Take Klipsch - they rate their
speakers at ubsurdly high sensitivity and yet they test at
a normal 88-90db(most 87-89db test closer to 80-85db). At
least the JBL actually *do* the 89db they are rated at.

Btw - I still remember having the loudest system in college.
2 4408s and a big Yamaha CA-1000 amp. Holy crap they were
loud (heh) My neighbor had a big stack - made by DAK
or something - 5 speakers and a claimed ungodly loud rating
as well as about 4 ft high and 2.5 ft wide.

He blew out his midrange while I was only halfway as loud
as I could go

Oh - I also respect what you say about subs. JBL PRO makes
some big subs for motion picture use. I'd probably build
my own, but IMO, a "woofer" is 6-10 inches and a "sub"
is 12-18 inches. Q: is there anything larger than an
18 inch made currently?

Sure.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=264-820
There's your 15Khz full-range 4 inch driver for $20.
It's not great, but it does show the Bose has no excuse. 13.5Khz
means they need a seperate tweeter.


Thank you for the link. I went there and that driver has an octave wide 12 dB
peak at 7 kHz (their own graphs show that), which if compesated would give the
speaker a useful bandwidth of 10 kHz. Is that what you want them to use?


Well, that is if I was looking for a Bose-like speaker. Frankly,
partsexpress has crap. I usually shop places like Madisound.
You left out:

And this is just crap from an E-tailer. A place like Madisound
sells real high-quality drivers. They carry many brands. The
Aurasound seem to be superb for small full range use.


The Aurasound are slick little drivers. I'd still use a 2-way
setup anyway or even a 3 way(sure the crossover is more technical,
but unless you can do this sort of thing, you're not a real
"designer". I personally like Morel and Seas. They seem to
blend well together in some circumstances. One 3-way I had
on paper that I'm interested in testing had a +/- 1db response.
by carefully choosing rather pricey components from the two
makers.

This was back when the whole "Jupiter Audio" nonsense was
happening. I posted a counter system using 3 speakers, and
it should stomp on Ellis Audio by the look of it. Of course,
$600 per speaker in drivers is a bit rough - lol.


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=297-356
Here's what I had in mind. It's $45.25 here, but if Bose
were buying direct, their price would likely be near $20.


No comment on this I note. This was the one I had in mind.
A good driver from a respected name. I'd suspect that this
would crush most full-range drivers quite easily.

Small decent range speakers do exist that aren't that expensive,
espeically if you are a big company that buys millions of them
at steep discounts.


Why not apply for Chief Engineer or Director of Purchasing at the Mountain? :-)


Heh. I don't fit well in retail or marketing because:
1: I will only represent or sell a product that I feel is best
for the situation - or at least adequate. What my boss wants
me to push be damned.
2: I will gladly tell people where they can obtain a solution to
their problem - even if it isn't our business.
3: I care not for the bottom line. IMO, if your company NEEDS
500% margins over cost to stay in business, it's broken. My
sugestions have usually been met with "too expensive" - as
if $10 more really requires $50 more in markup.
(meanwhile the management droids get millions in salary)

Oh - sorry - lol - got off on a bit of a rant.

Well, it is possible. Something like a Fostex FX200 comes close.
The F200A is 30hz-20Khz, which is respectable, if really expensive.


Btw - GHEEZ that's an expensive speaker. Ouch.

You left out the fanciful idea about how non-rectangular enclosures work.


That's NoRH's blather. I chose them because they are angled to fit
in a corner, nothing more.



  #16   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote:

.....some snips....

Nousaine wrote:

And what's your point? My opinion is that competing CSW products in this
performance class do not offer significantly better performance. The real

issue
is price and style.


But the price difference is a whopper. $1300 versus $250.

For $250, it's a decent budget system. For $1300 with the Bose
name and a $100 receiver unit included, it's just not a good deal.


As I said 'value' is the operative factor. Neither sounds that god.


The Energy is a better system. Never said otherwise. But it's not as easy

to
install and it's materially larger. So; I'm not really arguing with

anything
you say but am just trying to put some perspective on the real issues with

the
perspective of having evaluiated and measured hundreds of loudspeaker

systems
of all price/performance categories.


Both the Bose and the Energy are equal in setup difficulty as they
both require little mounts/stands and as for wires - gosh - any
speaker wire will do.


But we shouldn't foget that the Bose comes with wires that are already
terminated on one end. They also have a very nice large fold-out system
diagram. Of course this means nothing to you and me; but to many consumers this
is no small matter.


They don't spend millions on marketing like Bose to artificially
generate the image. Note the incident with Bose and the noise
cancelling headphones they were supposed to make for the military.


What incident? Can you be more specific? On the other hand, if I follow

your
line of reasoning then the millions Toyota spends on the Lexus image
automatically means their cars have poorer performance.


It's more like Cadillac. Millions on image and yet a common Lexus
beats them for reliability and driving experience.


I think you're wrong here; at least with regard to the cars I've driven (STS vs
LS400; and the large SUVs.) I guess I can't speak for reliability but in
driving and styling it's Cadillac by a fair margin. The Lexus SUVs are a big
disappointment to me. But again the cache/image is the thing.


Sorry - look at the KEF. Also look at the Energy Take 5.2 That's
a real sub they mate with it in both cases.


That's what you say. By my standards none of those have real "subwoofers."


The Energy 8 inch sub is the same one they sell with the Mirage
FR:X line, just with a different label on it. It's small, but it
IS a real subwoofer. In fact, the sub costs $300 by itself.

So you say. I've measured and inspected those and dozens of other systems.

They
most certainly do.


Then show me the data, because the KEF system doesn't do this.
I doubt if you've actually measured the KEF system yet. It
will surprize you.


Ths stuff has all been published in S&V. But you're right I haven't dome a KEF
system for some time. Actually I just shipped out a KEF HTIB 2 weeks ago that
had been gathering dust awaiting the signal to measure it because it was
getting in the way. Now I wish I hadn't.

I'm wondering what the company looks like these days and who's really doing
things. It's true that Dick Small and Laurie Fincham are both KEF alumni but
I'm not so sure that they are still the top brand of old. I ship both
Celestion and KEF back to the same address.

But I've never found a 'small' home theater set or HTIB that doesn't have a
dynamically weak upper bass/low midrange area between 150 to 300 Hz. That's
because the common bass module (even tho the crossover dial may be marked 200
Hz) seldom has response above 150 Hz and the satellites are rapidly falling in
output capability at the lower end of their bandwidth.

Subwoofers in this category typically have maximal SPL capability at 60 Hz and
above but fall at 12-24 dB per octave below 62 Hz. Few are capable of producing
reasonable SPL with low distortion even down to 32 Hz.


http://www.energy-speakers.com/take5...ers_specs.html
80-20Khz +/-3db for the satellites. MDF, binding posts, seperate
tweeter, poly cone woofer, and rubber surrounds.


So you accept manufacturing specifications as true performance

measurements? I
see.


Based upon that, Bose shouldn't even make ANY sound at all
because they refuse to print specs. I can pull up graphs
though for the Qef Uni-Q driver they use for the low end
and the tweeter they use. They seem like they would have
a moderate but acceptable dip where they crossover, but nothing
worse than many other speakers like Tannoy and B&W.


I think that response graphs taken at moderate output levels fail to tell the
whole story. Dynamic capability in the lower end of response is also important.
For example the Boston Acoustics CR55 is a wondeful speaker (nearly dead-flat
with tightly controlled directivity) down to 100 Hz (80 Hz claimed) but the
lowest frequency where it can deliver clean SPL is 80 Hz @ a paltry 80 dB. The
4 1/2-inch woofer just can't do any better than that.

The matching subwoofer that came with the system would produce 108 dB SPL @ 62
Hz but only 70 dB at 25 Hz (capability falls at 23 dB per octave below 62 Hz;
bandwidth uniformity of 83%.) This means that when an equal-intensity wideband
signal that would drive the subwoofer to maximal ouput with an 80 Hz crossover
would produce 108 dB at 62 Hz but only 70 dB at 25 Hz.
And the satellite with subwoofer overlap would be somewhere in between but
nowhere near 108 dB. This whole scenario is intensified with the typical HTIB
...... the satellite woofers are usually smaller and begin limiting at higher
frequencies; often the subwoofers are smaller and can't do 25 Hz but they can
have significant SPL at 60 Hz.

Even this is pretty good compared to most HTIB systems. But in my experience
the dynamic range "hole" exists with all HTIB and small HT systems I've seen.

It is true that this effect is quite large with Bose as it is in any system
with less than 6.5-inch midrange drivers. Indeed I think the 200-300 Hz hole in
the Bose is one of its big demonstration points. A suck-out on that range gives
the impression of great clarity.

Certainly no chasm like the Bose. The tweeter in the KEFs
will go higher than 13.5Khz - that I can guarantee.


But if it's a Uni-Q it will have the classic 3-bump response error that comes
with the reflections of the tweeter from the cone walls as sound exits the
driver. I, personally, have never found this to be particularly annoying but
it's been measurable in every Uni-Q I've had.

And, of course, please note that the 13.5 kHz upper bandlimit was an "average"
over +/- 30 degrees and not on-axis as were the specifications for the drivers
you referenced.


Again your argument has only one thread ....value.


Not really - I'm terying to point out that better than Bose can
be had for less money. Bose is overpriced and a smart consumer
realizes this and buys a better system for the money.


Isn't that what I said? :-)

38-150hz - subwoofer. 100 Watts.


I'll bet that it doesn't actually reach 150 Hz at the upper end and won't

do 25
Hz with 10% distortion.


Wel, since the Bose box has upwards of 30-40% distortion when raised
to decent sound levels...


How do you know this?


So you are flat out wrong. KEF's smallest and cheapest system
they make has flat response and no "hole" - for less money
than Bose.


You're guessing on the hole. But again the major consideration in your argument
is 'value.' Nothing wrong with that but again I think that enthusiasts such as
me and yourself tend to underestimate that Bose is willing to sell people
speakers that they want and not those that we think they should want. For most
of those customers it's Bose or nothing.

So they claim. I've tested more than one and, while they do have more

extended
high frequency extension they also have performance errors similar to Bose.



Have you tested the 2005 system? It's certainly better than the
Bose in every way.


No I haven't. Have you tested the 2005 Bose Lifestyle system? :-)

The 80 Hz bandlimit for example. Most manufacturers claim 60 - 80 Hz for
satellites when, in use, they often cannot produce realistic low distortion

SPL
anywhere near the bandlimit. As an ilustration I recently measured a more
expensive satellite system with a spec'd lower bandlimit of 36 Hz.


80hz is doable with good drivers. With decent SPL and low distortion.


Not if they're smaller than 5-25-inches. 6 or 6.5 is a useful minimum size for
a system with true dynamic capability at 80 Hz. Smaller drivers simply don't
have the displacement for that job.

Now, 36hz - that's almost certainly pseudo-science.


Oh no; I can imagine there are a number of ways of getting such a measurment.
But it doesn't have any useful meaning in real life.

This is another area where I'll throw in another gripe I have about "power
ratings" of active speakers or any powered system. Power ratings aren't
standardized and for the most part are meaningless.


Come on. Bose is flat out anemic compared to even the Energy sytems.
Others have pulled apart their amplifier unit and it's dreadful
compared to say, a lowly Denon 1600 series receiver.


But how does that matter in any given way? As I said before I don't care what
power is needed to produce SPL what I want to know is what SPL comes out of the
speaker.


While I agree that Bose probably doesn't put 100 watts into the woofer;

I'll
also arhue that the 100 watts printed on the spec sheet of an 8-inch

powered
subwoofer is also meaningless.


True - My guess is that the 250W version really puts out about
100w continuous, and maybe 50W with near zero distortion. Still,
50W is a decent amount of bass.


Maybe. That depends on some other things like the moving mass and compliance of
the driver and the BL product and the enclosure design.

But again as an end-user that's all transparent to me. I need to know how much
SPL at low distortion I can get and how uniformly that is distributed over the
subwoofer bandwidth. I don't care how much power that takes; and I sure as hell
shouldn't discriminate against a manufacturer who can do a given job while
sucking less power out of my wall.

The power rating is essentially meaningless, as is the number of voice

coils
and as are the words "high excursion" in this context. What would qualify

it as
a "subwoofer" is 85 dB SPL @ 20 Hz (the threshold of audibility at that
frequency) with less than 10% distortion.
I'll bet that model won't do that.


Probably not. Otoh, I think 20hz is silly. Most people consider the
same at 25hz to be acceptable as a small subwoofer.


But 25 Hz isn't "subsonic" either. And let's not forget that the fundamental
ofthe lowest note of an organ with 32-foot stops is 16 Hz. Sure if you never
play that kind of material who cares?

But in my opinion few "subwoofers" are really subwoofers. They are, for the
most part, simply common woofers. Indeed the reason I have a self-designed
custom "subwoofer" is more than just partially because I couldn't buy a
commerical unit that would play modern recordings as intended with sound of 10
Hz on them.


The KEF are better, smaller, and cost less. Win win win.


I'd say that value would be their advantage. So ....? Why hate Bose for
comanding a premium. Do you hate Monster Cable for selling zip cord at

inflated
prices? If there's a villain in the house I'd be looking at accessory and
vacumn tube electronics.


I dislike all three when they are touted as better "values"
to the beginning audio enthusiast.


But those are touted as "sounding better" when, in fact they either sound
exactly the same as one another or perhaps even worse.

I'm so used to hearing the high-end snobbery that it's sometimes refreshing to
hear a new Bose buyer pull rank. It's the same thing but at a far lower cost.


Actual tests. 4 inch woofer and a 1/2 inch dome tweeter. It's
not rocket science to build a decent little speaker these days.
Their spec pages state +/-3db and so far, all KEF speakers test
very close to their claims. Bose - doesn't even PRINT their
specs.


So you take "spec sheets" as a reliable performance indicator. I don't. And
I've measured KEF speakers and since Raymnd Cooke died and Laurie Fincham

left
for Harman/THX they've not been the same.


But they are better than Bose. Me? I personally stand by my
JBL 4400 series. I have real graphs for them and they aren't
stunning on paper, but they really DO what the graphs suggest.

There's a reason I still recommend the little 4408As for $299
each. They sound damn good for what they are. No marketing
or ubsurd claims, either.

I do agree with you on that. Take Klipsch - they rate their
speakers at ubsurdly high sensitivity and yet they test at
a normal 88-90db(most 87-89db test closer to 80-85db). At
least the JBL actually *do* the 89db they are rated at.

Btw - I still remember having the loudest system in college.
2 4408s and a big Yamaha CA-1000 amp. Holy crap they were
loud (heh) My neighbor had a big stack - made by DAK
or something - 5 speakers and a claimed ungodly loud rating
as well as about 4 ft high and 2.5 ft wide.

He blew out his midrange while I was only halfway as loud
as I could go

Oh - I also respect what you say about subs. JBL PRO makes
some big subs for motion picture use. I'd probably build
my own, but IMO, a "woofer" is 6-10 inches and a "sub"
is 12-18 inches. Q: is there anything larger than an
18 inch made currently?


Not that I'm aware of. Hartley used to sell those really bad 24-inch models and
Eclipse had a 32-inch car woofer for a while but I think those are all gone.

It's even getting hard to find 18s anymore. JL Audio had a great 18 but it's
been discontinued. Much of the reason for this is the excursion improvements
being made for 12 and 15-inch models. For example when I was designing my
system the JBL 2245 18 was being used by others making infra-systems'; but I
was able to acquire custom TC Sounds 15-inch unit swith 2/3 more Vd than the
JBLs. This was primarily because the 23.4mm Xmax of the TC Sounds more than
offset the 10mm JBLs 60% more cone area.


Sure.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=264-820
There's your 15Khz full-range 4 inch driver for $20.
It's not great, but it does show the Bose has no excuse. 13.5Khz
means they need a seperate tweeter.


Thank you for the link. I went there and that driver has an octave wide 12

dB
peak at 7 kHz (their own graphs show that), which if compesated would give

the
speaker a useful bandwidth of 10 kHz. Is that what you want them to use?


Well, that is if I was looking for a Bose-like speaker. Frankly,
partsexpress has crap. I usually shop places like Madisound.
You left out:

And this is just crap from an E-tailer. A place like Madisound
sells real high-quality drivers. They carry many brands. The
Aurasound seem to be superb for small full range use.


I wasn't leaving out Madisound. Larry Hitch is a good friend and will be
hosting the upcoming PSACS April meeting.

I don't thin PartsExpress is crap either. I think they're just great. Like
publishing the fhe CLIO frequency response of that woofer you mentioned.


The Aurasound are slick little drivers. I'd still use a 2-way
setup anyway or even a 3 way(sure the crossover is more technical,
but unless you can do this sort of thing, you're not a real
"designer". I personally like Morel and Seas. They seem to
blend well together in some circumstances.


John Stone of SEAS was a presenter at a PSACS meeting last year. I'm sure he'll
be at Madisound for the PSACS meeting too.

Morel, on the other hand, often seems to have some construction difficulties.
I've often seen drivers glued up poorly and much of their stuff seems, like
Bose, overly priced for what you get.

One 3-way I had
on paper that I'm interested in testing had a +/- 1db response.
by carefully choosing rather pricey components from the two
makers.

This was back when the whole "Jupiter Audio" nonsense was
happening. I posted a counter system using 3 speakers, and
it should stomp on Ellis Audio by the look of it. Of course,
$600 per speaker in drivers is a bit rough - lol.


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=297-356
Here's what I had in mind. It's $45.25 here, but if Bose
were buying direct, their price would likely be near $20.


No comment on this I note. This was the one I had in mind.
A good driver from a respected name. I'd suspect that this
would crush most full-range drivers quite easily.


That one looks much better than the first 2. But it doesn't have 20 kHz even
directly on axis. And it's falling quickly at 100 Hz. I'd certainly use one but
the $45 makes it less competitive. And by the way how do you know that the
price might be in quantity?

These companies like Vifa and Seas are not large outfits and while to do OEM
work I'm wondering if they have the capacity to manufacturer large lots for
other than current customers.

For example a interested party of a well known European speaker manufacturer
told me that his company had (worldwide) 60 employees including him.

And let's talk about DIY speaker manufacturers. How about KEF and Dynaudio. In
the 80s and early 90s I sometimes made custom speakers for friends. This
required me to purchase drivers from places like Madisound and Zalytron (I'm
guessing this was pre-PartsExpress.)

But with KEF (who also sold drivers through audio dealers) and Dynaudio there
seemed to be a trend with cone speakers. Sometimes 2 drivers (other than
tweeters) with identical part numbers would differ radically from the published
specifications. For example a 7-inch midrange with a published Fs of 45 Hz
might actually have an Fs of 75 Hz and the matching unit might be 60 Hz. Or a
woofer with a published Fs of 20 Hz might actually be 2-5 Hz lower or higher.

After awhile I think I figured out what was going on. KEF used to select
drivers for their up-market products so that when you burned out a driver in
either channel you had to return BOTH speakers for repair (they had to install
selected drivers.) This meant that KEF didn't manufacture drivers to a given
tolerance; they mase a car-load and then selected individual units for given
speakers.

So what would be the logical thing to do with the drivers that were
'out-of-tolerance' for any speaker model being produced? Sell them to the DIY
market.

How about Dynaudio, at that time a OEM manufacturer, what would a clever
company do with individual units that didn't qualify under the OEM standards
.......selll them to the DIY market .....all under a given part number. So when
I bought a pair of 7-inch mid/woofers spec'd at 45 Hz Fs I may have actually
gotten a pair of speakers that failed spec on an OEM run with a completely
different surround, motor, or spider assembly.

Small decent range speakers do exist that aren't that expensive,
espeically if you are a big company that buys millions of them
at steep discounts.


Why not apply for Chief Engineer or Director of Purchasing at the Mountain?

:-)

Heh. I don't fit well in retail or marketing because:
1: I will only represent or sell a product that I feel is best
for the situation - or at least adequate. What my boss wants
me to push be damned.
2: I will gladly tell people where they can obtain a solution to
their problem - even if it isn't our business.
3: I care not for the bottom line. IMO, if your company NEEDS
500% margins over cost to stay in business, it's broken. My
sugestions have usually been met with "too expensive" - as
if $10 more really requires $50 more in markup.
(meanwhile the management droids get millions in salary)

Oh - sorry - lol - got off on a bit of a rant.

Well, it is possible. Something like a Fostex FX200 comes close.
The F200A is 30hz-20Khz, which is respectable, if really expensive.


Btw - GHEEZ that's an expensive speaker. Ouch.


That's your response to your original post :-)


You left out the fanciful idea about how non-rectangular enclosures work.


That's NoRH's blather. I chose them because they are angled to fit
in a corner, nothing more.


But I thought you were offering them as a response to Bose. If a company will
sell a product with BS and you'll buy them with the reason that "they'll fit in
a corner" it seems to me that your arguments about Bose are.... well just
pretty similar to mine.

  #18   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

For $250, it's a decent budget system. For $1300 with the Bose
name and a $100 receiver unit included, it's just not a good deal.


As I said 'value' is the operative factor. Neither sounds that god.


True. For $1300, I'd still probably go for two excellent speakers
and add in comparable surrounds later on as $500 for a pair versus
$1300? For $1300 you can get something very good or make your
own. Some of the kits online are quite good.

Both the Bose and the Energy are equal in setup difficulty as they
both require little mounts/stands and as for wires - gosh - any
speaker wire will do.


But we shouldn't foget that the Bose comes with wires that are already
terminated on one end. They also have a very nice large fold-out system
diagram. Of course this means nothing to you and me; but to many consumers this
is no small matter.


Lol. Sometimes I do wonder about them. Most speakers these days
come with diagrams. The amplifier certainly does. I'll give
Denon that - they make some of the most understandable and
overkill manuals in the business.

It's more like Cadillac. Millions on image and yet a common Lexus
beats them for reliability and driving experience.


I think you're wrong here; at least with regard to the cars I've driven (STS vs
LS400; and the large SUVs.) I guess I can't speak for reliability but in
driving and styling it's Cadillac by a fair margin. The Lexus SUVs are a big
disappointment to me. But again the cache/image is the thing.


GM builds unreliable crap barely better than Ford. The Lexus SUV -
yeah, it bites. The point of a true SUV is to go off-road, and
to do that, you need small and agile. You wonder why the Lexus
is so bad? Because it's really a 4wd oversize van with fancy
sheetmetal. The STS is eh - okay I guess. Did nothing for me
compared to a GS400. Of course, strap yourself into a SAAB 9-5
with the big turbo in it...(grin) It's no 911, but it's no
Caddy either.

Then show me the data, because the KEF system doesn't do this.
I doubt if you've actually measured the KEF system yet. It
will surprize you.


Ths stuff has all been published in S&V. But you're right I haven't dome a KEF
system for some time. Actually I just shipped out a KEF HTIB 2 weeks ago that
had been gathering dust awaiting the signal to measure it because it was
getting in the way. Now I wish I hadn't.


If it was the little one, I'd say not to bother. The midrange
$1300-$1500 2005 model is quite decent - the first minisystem that
approaches real speakers, IMO. My father uses Tannoy R1s for his
surrounds and they are about as small as you'd really want to go
and get acceptable sound. But *if* you have to go small, these
aren't half bad. Me - I'd probably go for wall-colored MMGs
or simmilar if near-zero footprint was a must.

I'm wondering what the company looks like these days and who's really doing
things. It's true that Dick Small and Laurie Fincham are both KEF alumni but
I'm not so sure that they are still the top brand of old. I ship both
Celestion and KEF back to the same address.


Yeah, other than their top end stuff, it's all too like the rest of
them. OTOH, while cheap, their low-end is like Tannoy - somewhat
acceptable and a notch above most of the other budget lines.

The lack of blare(read: proper HF design to keep the tweeter
in line) alone is a big deal. Most small speakers fail
this litmus test miserably. It's more of a design thing
than a driver problem - and not that hard to deal with, yet
most companies are so darn cheap that they don't even try
to address it.

But I've never found a 'small' home theater set or HTIB that doesn't have a
dynamically weak upper bass/low midrange area between 150 to 300 Hz. That's
because the common bass module (even tho the crossover dial may be marked 200
Hz) seldom has response above 150 Hz and the satellites are rapidly falling in
output capability at the lower end of their bandwidth.


I've heard a *few* - but yeah - most all of them are utter crap.
They sound like... Well, I have this informal test I do. I really
have superb listening skills being a musician, singer, and having
studied it all in school. So it's actually pretty accurate.

The "test" is how far away can I walk from the speaker before it
sounds like a "speaker" - or a source of music. Kind of like how
a clock radio sounds in the next room - it's just "blare over there"
and more volume does nothing to make it sound more realistic.

For most HTIB type speakers, that's about 8-10 feet.
For a pair of Tannoy S8s, it's about 30-40 ft. Quite acceptable.

This is one reason Maggies do so well - they have huge range
in this sort of test. The point of all of this is that with
enough SPL and dispersion, the sound envelops you and you
can't reliably tell one direction from another without the
sound specifically going there(typical of a real movie theater)

Your mind gives up at some point trying to figure out where all
the sound is and just zones out - and you just enjoy the music
or movie.

Tiny speakers can't really do this, IME - we both agree on this.
They never sound realistic no matter what they are playing.

Subwoofers in this category typically have maximal SPL capability at 60 Hz and
above but fall at 12-24 dB per octave below 62 Hz. Few are capable of producing
reasonable SPL with low distortion even down to 32 Hz.


I personally cut subs off with a hard filter or digital processor
at 60hz. Higher than that is directional in my house and is
going to be interfered with by the true LF sounds. This means
good mains. 6-8 inch woofers and 40-50hz cleanly.

I think that response graphs taken at moderate output levels fail to tell the
whole story. Dynamic capability in the lower end of response is also important.
For example the Boston Acoustics CR55 is a wondeful speaker (nearly dead-flat
with tightly controlled directivity) down to 100 Hz (80 Hz claimed) but the
lowest frequency where it can deliver clean SPL is 80 Hz @ a paltry 80 dB. The
4 1/2-inch woofer just can't do any better than that.


I sometimes do simmilar tests with the drivers out of the box - as
resonance is faking it, IMO. True - the cabinet helps some, but
for many makers it's a cheap way out. Almost any $5 driver can
be made to sound acceptable with enough cabinet tweaking.

I like designs with no ports/vents in them myself. More WYSIWYG.
Yes, I've seen B&W 602 size speakers like this that barely reach 60hz,
because there is no magic gimmick to reinforce bass.

IMO, a good driver should sound decent enough outside of a box.
I hear very few that do. Morel and Seas and Scanspeak
are pretty good at this "test", though.

The matching subwoofer that came with the system would produce 108 dB SPL @ 62


(snip)

frequencies; often the subwoofers are smaller and can't do 25 Hz but they can
have significant SPL at 60 Hz.


All highs, no lows... (grin)

The idea that a 6 in ch driver can do realistic bass - I guess I'm
with you on this - I'm old skool(sm) It takes mass, and that
usually means a decent amp and a 2-3 way speaker that can do 50-60hz
cleanly before we get to talk about a sub.

BTW - yes, I've heard a LOT of god-awful flabby and chuffy subs
over the years. It's not rocket science anymore, but it does
require a better than $30 15 inch speaker.

It is true that this effect is quite large with Bose as it is in any system
with less than 6.5-inch midrange drivers. Indeed I think the 200-300 Hz hole in
the Bose is one of its big demonstration points. A suck-out on that range gives
the impression of great clarity.


Probably so. I didn't understand this until a few months ago
when I was in a Bose store in the mall and it hit me that they
are made to sound "good' in very noisy environments like typical
audio stores due to this type of effect. The same with cars -
it's nowhere near accurate, but then again, the road and engine
and wind noise in a typical car is like a huge wet blanket
on the midrange. You need skewed speakers to sound accurate
unless you want to spend big bucks(like $100 per speaker or more).

But if it's a Uni-Q it will have the classic 3-bump response error that comes
with the reflections of the tweeter from the cone walls as sound exits the
driver. I, personally, have never found this to be particularly annoying but
it's been measurable in every Uni-Q I've had.


Well, it's no monitor to be sure, but not rubbish either.
As you say, it's not particularly annoying.

Wel, since the Bose box has upwards of 30-40% distortion when raised
to decent sound levels...


How do you know this?


Others have measured it. Typical of most HTIB setups, the bass
"module" is made out of LDF or plastic or simmilar and resonates
quite readily.

80hz is doable with good drivers. With decent SPL and low distortion.


Not if they're smaller than 5-25-inches. 6 or 6.5 is a useful minimum size for
a system with true dynamic capability at 80 Hz. Smaller drivers simply don't
have the displacement for that job.


It depends. Some do - some do not. Many *do* suck at low frequencies.
I'm constantly amazed at the utter rubbish that makers foist off on us
in most speakers. You can tell it's a $10 driver just by looking at
where it is made and the obvious errors and quality control issues.

The moral is that you need to really make your own speakers as
the rubes charge you ungodly markups. $300 in parts yields
a hell of a tower speaker(one) if you are halfway competant.

But 25 Hz isn't "subsonic" either. And let's not forget that the fundamental
ofthe lowest note of an organ with 32-foot stops is 16 Hz. Sure if you never
play that kind of material who cares?

But in my opinion few "subwoofers" are really subwoofers. They are, for the
most part, simply common woofers. Indeed the reason I have a self-designed
custom "subwoofer" is more than just partially because I couldn't buy a
commerical unit that would play modern recordings as intended with sound of 10
Hz on them.


This is actually one of my most common gripes. I love my 4410s because
they have big 10 inch woofers in them. Woofers. Not subwoofers.
Because 10 inch drivers are necessarry for decent low-end. Mine do
35-40hz cleanly, but suck gobs of power as expected.

For organ music - a seperate big 15 inch sub would almost be
mandatory - 8 or even 10 inchers won't cut it. That the
organ has a seperate set of pipes for the foot pedals is
a clue that that last octave or two needs a seperate speaker
system.

Oh - I also respect what you say about subs. JBL PRO makes
some big subs for motion picture use. I'd probably build
my own, but IMO, a "woofer" is 6-10 inches and a "sub"
is 12-18 inches. Q: is there anything larger than an
18 inch made currently?



Not that I'm aware of. Hartley used to sell those really bad 24-inch models and
Eclipse had a 32-inch car woofer for a while but I think those are all gone.


I remember a 24 or 32 incher custom one at the Exploratorium in San
Fransisco. They had a knob hooked up to a tone generator and could
go from 40hz down to about 10hz. Pretty fun, actually, as your body
would start to react at the very bottom end. I always wanted one

but I
was able to acquire custom TC Sounds 15-inch unit swith 2/3 more Vd than the
JBLs. This was primarily because the 23.4mm Xmax of the TC Sounds more than
offset the 10mm JBLs 60% more cone area.


Nice to know. How much do they cost?

I wasn't leaving out Madisound. Larry Hitch is a good friend and will be
hosting the upcoming PSACS April meeting.

I don't thin PartsExpress is crap either. I think they're just great. Like
publishing the fhe CLIO frequency response of that woofer you mentioned.


What they have IS documented well enough - but I just wish they
carried better drivers. When you are faced with 20 $10-$20
choices...

John Stone of SEAS was a presenter at a PSACS meeting last year. I'm sure he'll
be at Madisound for the PSACS meeting too.

Morel, on the other hand, often seems to have some construction difficulties.
I've often seen drivers glued up poorly and much of their stuff seems, like
Bose, overly priced for what you get.


Their tweeters seem to be okay. The idea was a Morel tweeter and
a Seas or Scanspeak midrange and/or woofer.

That one looks much better than the first 2. But it doesn't have 20 kHz even
directly on axis. And it's falling quickly at 100 Hz. I'd certainly use one but
the $45 makes it less competitive. And by the way how do you know that the
price might be in quantity?


Well, yeah - as I said, any smart designer would use a seperate tweeter,
even in a surround speaker.

And let's talk about DIY speaker manufacturers. How about KEF and Dynaudio. In
the 80s and early 90s I sometimes made custom speakers for friends. This
required me to purchase drivers from places like Madisound and Zalytron (I'm
guessing this was pre-PartsExpress.)

....
After awhile I think I figured out what was going on. KEF used to select
drivers for their up-market products so that when you burned out a driver in
either channel you had to return BOTH speakers for repair (they had to install
selected drivers.) This meant that KEF didn't manufacture drivers to a given
tolerance; they mase a car-load and then selected individual units for given
speakers.


JBL used to do this as well for a while. It got really annoying in
fact, so I ended up swapping out the tweeters for aftermarket ones
and the sound improved greatly. It made no sense that I had to
replace them in pairs.

So what would be the logical thing to do with the drivers that were
'out-of-tolerance' for any speaker model being produced? Sell them to the DIY
market.


Go fig. What makers don't do this today? If I was making speakers,
I'd be picky and rather have 100 to sell that are proper as opposed
to 1000 that are all over the place.

It would be good to know which makers sell their crud to the DIYer
crowd and where to get the decent ones.

But I thought you were offering them as a response to Bose. If a company will
sell a product with BS and you'll buy them with the reason that "they'll fit in
a corner" it seems to me that your arguments about Bose are.... well just
pretty similar to mine.


Well, NoRH sound decent enough, the blather aside. That he's
using a superb cabinet design helps a LOT to deal with the
frankly average drivers. I'm still amazed that he doesn't
slap a small supertweeter on al of the cabinets to offload
some of the stress from the main driver.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=297-409
This seems to be an acceptable self-contained unitlike you'd
see on most budget systems. NoRH should try to put something
like this on a couple of models.

  #19   Report Post  
Bruce Abrams
 
Posts: n/a
Default Marketing of High End (was Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?)

A very interesting issue comes as a result of David's comments below. Bose
has built an enormous business marketing the hell out of (generally) poor
sounding equipment and selling at exhorbitant prices. There are plenty of
"high-end" companies who sell much better sounding equipment at equivalent
prices. Why do you suppose that someone over at one of the high value
equipment makers (like Rotel, B&K or Adcom) hasn't partnered up with someone
over at one of the high value speaker makers (like Paradigm) to put together
and market a "Bose Killer" system? I'd think some combination of Rotel
electronics and Energy, Paradigm, KEF, etc. speakers that would clearly
outperform the $2,800 Bose Lifestyle 35 system, could be successfully
marketed as an alternative.

"L David Matheny" wrote in message
...
*snip*

If you're suggesting that Bose markets their systems primarily to
the clueless, I doubt that you will get many arguments on that.


  #20   Report Post  
Kalman Rubinson
 
Posts: n/a
Default Marketing of High End (was Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?)

On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 18:24:39 GMT, Bruce Abrams
wrote:

A very interesting issue comes as a result of David's comments below. Bose
has built an enormous business marketing the hell out of (generally) poor
sounding equipment and selling at exhorbitant prices. There are plenty of
"high-end" companies who sell much better sounding equipment at equivalent
prices. Why do you suppose that someone over at one of the high value
equipment makers (like Rotel, B&K or Adcom) hasn't partnered up with someone
over at one of the high value speaker makers (like Paradigm) to put together
and market a "Bose Killer" system? I'd think some combination of Rotel
electronics and Energy, Paradigm, KEF, etc. speakers that would clearly
outperform the $2,800 Bose Lifestyle 35 system, could be successfully
marketed as an alternative.


I think you underestimate the cost of making an effective campaign.
There probably is not sufficient margin the any of those lines to pay
for it.

Kal


  #21   Report Post  
Farrell8882
 
Posts: n/a
Default Marketing of High End (was Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?)

From: Bruce Abrams

Why do you suppose that someone over at one of the high value
equipment makers (like Rotel, B&K or Adcom) hasn't partnered up with someone
over at one of the high value speaker makers (like Paradigm) to put together
and market a "Bose Killer" system? I'd think some combination of Rotel
electronics and Energy, Paradigm, KEF, etc. speakers that would clearly
outperform the $2,800 Bose Lifestyle 35 system, could be successfully
marketed as an alternative.


B&W shares a distributor with Rotel. If I wanted I could buy both from the same
dealer where I live now. Don't know if there's any brand synergy. Where I used
to live, though, I was not able to buy both at my B&W dealer, so I guess not
that much is made of the common distributorship.

NAD and PSB are distributed by and, AFAIK, sold by the same dealers everywhere
in the US, I believe. They had a system once, a one-piece CD player-receiver
hooked up to a pair of PSB Alphas that sold for ~$799.

Lately, the PSB Image series and the NAD BEE series have been getting a lot of
good press, so I imagine dealers have been selling a lot of those combos.

As I imagine you know, Bruce, Paradigm and Anthem are owned by the same company
in Canada. I don't ever hear of them doing any cross-brand promotions. The only
brand of electronics I'm aware of my Paradigm dealer selling even is Sony. I'm
sure there are others -- I just couldn't tell you what they are.
  #22   Report Post  
Bob Marcus
 
Posts: n/a
Default Marketing of High End (was Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?)

Bruce Abrams wrote:

A very interesting issue comes as a result of David's comments below. Bose
has built an enormous business marketing the hell out of (generally) poor
sounding equipment and selling at exhorbitant prices. There are plenty of
"high-end" companies who sell much better sounding equipment at equivalent
prices. Why do you suppose that someone over at one of the high value
equipment makers (like Rotel, B&K or Adcom) hasn't partnered up with
someone
over at one of the high value speaker makers (like Paradigm) to put
together
and market a "Bose Killer" system? I'd think some combination of Rotel
electronics and Energy, Paradigm, KEF, etc. speakers that would clearly
outperform the $2,800 Bose Lifestyle 35 system, could be successfully
marketed as an alternative.


Well, anything can be successfully marketed if it's a good product and
you've got a sufficient marketing budget. But if you believe that Bose got
where it is today on the basis of a huge marketing budget, doesn't that
suggest that a smaller company or consortium of companies would have a hard
time competing with them? To make it work, you'd have to invest in getting
display space in every Best Buy and Circuit City in America, complete with
training their staffs to explain the advantages of your system--and don't
think Bose is going to make that easy for you.

Look, a lot of people buy Bose because they think (based on things they've
read and heard about it) that it's a quality product. But come to think of
it, a lot of audiophiles have bought a lot of much more expensive equipment
for no better reason. So I'm not sure audiophiles as a class can look down
their noses at people who buy equipment based on marketing and reputation.

And, as Tom Nousaine notes, many of the weaknesses of Bose products are not
really a function of bad design, but of design decisions that trade off
sound quality against other factors, like looks and ease of use. Once you
decide that your sats can only be 4 inches wide, there's no way your system
will ever be flat between 100 and 200 Hz. Sure, for $2K or so, you could
make a good little system out of a NAD L70 and a set of PSB Alphas. I
presume it would sound significantly better than Bose. But it won't look as
sleek (to your wife, not to you), and it won't be as easy to put together.
All the marketing bucks in the world aren't going to get your wife to love
it.

bob

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  #23   Report Post  
Sean Fulop
 
Posts: n/a
Default Marketing of High End (was Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?)

So I'm not sure audiophiles as a class can look down their noses at
people who buy equipment based on marketing and reputation.



Ohhh, yes we can! That's because we audiophiles buy crap based on
marketing and reputation *in specialized boutiques* which cater to some
kind of elite "connoiseur", while the average consumer admits to not
being any kind of a connoiseur, and buys crap that's "good enough for
them" (based on marketing and reputation) at non-boutique stores. Don't
you understand the sociological mechanism of snobbery? What kind of
audiophile are you, anyway?

On the other hand, legend has it that it used to be the case (though now
with poorly engineered "high-end" CD players and other assorted gaffes,
it isn't anymore) that the worst crud in a high-end boutique sounded
better and just generally was better than the best item at a general
electronics shop. This was certainly always true of turntables, for
instance. Back in the eighties, Radio Shack employees (anybody remember
the "Realistic" brand?) thought that "Thorens" were things you had to
watch out for while smelling the roses. And Thorens isn't even all that
high-end.

Nowadays, we are seeing the sort of vestiges of this history, where
high-end boutiques sell CD players like they were 10 times better than
"Kenwood" or whatnot, when realistically they are not much better, and
are sometimes worse in fact.


-Sean
  #26   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote:

.....snips to only pertinent issues ......

GM builds unreliable crap barely better than Ford. The Lexus SUV -
yeah, it bites. The point of a true SUV is to go off-road, and
to do that, you need small and agile. You wonder why the Lexus
is so bad? Because it's really a 4wd oversize van with fancy
sheetmetal. The STS is eh - okay I guess. Did nothing for me
compared to a GS400. Of course, strap yourself into a SAAB 9-5
with the big turbo in it...(grin) It's no 911, but it's no
Caddy either.


You want to know the basic truth? The most reliable and durable cars I've ever
owned have been my 3 Corvettes (new '94, used '95 and new '01 @ 250 k miles
between them with 1 fuel pump replacement) which have been better than my 2
Hondas, 2 Volvos, 1 Saab, 1`Fiat, 3 Fords, ! Studebaker, 2 other Chevys and so
on.

Subwoofers in this category typically have maximal SPL capability at 60 Hz

and
above but fall at 12-24 dB per octave below 62 Hz. Few are capable of

producing
reasonable SPL with low distortion even down to 32 Hz.


I personally cut subs off with a hard filter or digital processor
at 60hz. Higher than that is directional in my house and is
going to be interfered with by the true LF sounds. This means
good mains. 6-8 inch woofers and 40-50hz cleanly.


Those are really hard to find IME. And you're wasting the dynamic capability of
the "sub" woofer.

BTW - yes, I've heard a LOT of god-awful flabby and chuffy subs
over the years. It's not rocket science anymore, but it does
require a better than $30 15 inch speaker.


There ain't nosuch thing as a $30 15 AFAICT. Even those cheap instrument
speakers aren't all that cheap.

Wel, since the Bose box has upwards of 30-40% distortion when raised
to decent sound levels...


How do you know this?


Others have measured it. Typical of most HTIB setups, the bass
"module" is made out of LDF or plastic or simmilar and resonates
quite readily.


Let me ask this: who has measured this? I've heard such claims but have not
seen replicable confirmation. Indeed the only "measurements" of Bose speakers I
can recall were made by ....me.

80hz is doable with good drivers. With decent SPL and low distortion.


Not if they're smaller than 5-25-inches. 6 or 6.5 is a useful minimum size

for
a system with true dynamic capability at 80 Hz. Smaller drivers simply

don't
have the displacement for that job.


It depends. Some do - some do not. Many *do* suck at low frequencies.


Which ones "do"? Smaller cone drivers simply do not have the basket geometry
and suspensions to allow increased displacement with "stroke."

I'm constantly amazed at the utter rubbish that makers foist off on us
in most speakers. You can tell it's a $10 driver just by looking at
where it is made and the obvious errors and quality control issues.


????? If you mean Israel and un-even glue up I'm guessing you mean a popular
brand that you seem partial to. But, on the whole I'd agree ..... we propably
get off-spec parts over the counter.

The moral is that you need to really make your own speakers as
the rubes charge you ungodly markups. $300 in parts yields
a hell of a tower speaker(one) if you are halfway competant.


IMO that's why companies like Paradigm, Harman and Bose vertically integrate
..... to eat the middleman margin and retain control over quality.

was able to acquire custom TC Sounds 15-inch unit swith 2/3 more Vd than

the
JBLs. This was primarily because the 23.4mm Xmax of the TC Sounds more than
offset the 10mm JBLs 60% more cone area.


Nice to know. How much do they cost?


Contact TC Sounds in San Diego.

  #27   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

I personally cut subs off with a hard filter or digital processor
at 60hz. Higher than that is directional in my house and is
going to be interfered with by the true LF sounds. This means
good mains. 6-8 inch woofers and 40-50hz cleanly.


Those are really hard to find IME. And you're wasting the dynamic capability of
the "sub" woofer.


True, but finding is half the fun, no? That I have 10 inchers
in the front speakers kind of helps some. I put out better bass
than most systems with a subwoofer. No magic - just bigger than
6 inch speakers and a little quality.

BTW - yes, I've heard a LOT of god-awful flabby and chuffy subs
over the years. It's not rocket science anymore, but it does
require a better than $30 15 inch speaker.


There ain't nosuch thing as a $30 15 AFAICT. Even those cheap instrument
speakers aren't all that cheap.


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=290-345
There is. Unfortunately. I see $60 15 inch sub listed as well, and
we all know that retail pricing is at least double what a major
speaker company buys them for.

The cheapness of speaker makers is becoming almost legendary.

With massive outsourcing causing quality to suffer, almost
anyone can spend the same in parts and cabinets and make
a better speaker untill you hit the $1000+ range, where
some specialized/customized designs start to appear.

Even Tannoy's under $1000 speakers are cheap crud
that almost anyone could out-do. Among the best
cheap crud available, mind you, but a "kit" doesn't
require even $400 in materials to equal them, even
if you are paying retail pricing.

Others have measured it. Typical of most HTIB setups, the bass
"module" is made out of LDF or plastic or simmilar and resonates
quite readily.


Let me ask this: who has measured this? I've heard such claims but have not
seen replicable confirmation. Indeed the only "measurements" of Bose speakers I
can recall were made by ....me.


I don't know about the measurements, but the construction is well
documented as many people have pulled them apart to take a look.

Of course, even Kef and Paradigm and Tannoy and so on use cheap
as posible materials in most anything other than their flagship
models. I'd certainly not use screws and plastic veneer and
the wires they use.

My current "hobby" project is to make a speaker comparable
to what Ellis Audio sells but for $600 a pair and start selling
them at just above cost - maybe $50-$100 flat markup per pair
for labor.

I have a feeling that the audio industry is very much like
Real Estate and the Stock Market of old - huge markups and
commissions for basically being a secretary and shuffling paper
around. 500% markup is nuts. I think eventually audio and
Real Estate will move towards a flat fee scheme, which will
mean a win-win for everyone. Last I checked, E-Trade was
trouncing Merryl Lynch in profits - at $5 a trade.

A $600 speaker competing with $2000 ones - that should
shake up the industy some.

They already did this with computers, afterall. 20+
years ago, they were sold with crazy markups. Now, they
are a commodity and as of last month, 75% of the U.S.
now has internet access. Almost 50% has a computer.

It depends. Some do - some do not. Many *do* suck at low frequencies.


Which ones "do"? Smaller cone drivers simply do not have the basket geometry
and suspensions to allow increased displacement with "stroke."


As I said, A few do, but it's liiterally a handful. Most cost too
much, so moving to a larger driver makes sense. IMO, a 7-8 inch
is just right for most low frequency work in a "bookshelf" speaker.

4-6 isn't going to work and remain affordable.

I'm constantly amazed at the utter rubbish that makers foist off on us
in most speakers. You can tell it's a $10 driver just by looking at
where it is made and the obvious errors and quality control issues.


????? If you mean Israel and un-even glue up I'm guessing you mean a popular
brand that you seem partial to. But, on the whole I'd agree ..... we propably
get off-spec parts over the counter.


There are actually two compnaies with the name Morel that make
speakers, so I've heard - and one is cheap crud. The other is
okay but not "good" for their woofers and above average for
the tweeters.(yes, there is a legal battle going on)

Seas and Scanspeak seem to make decent midranges and woofers.

http://www.morelusa.com/ - crud.
http://www.moreleurope.com/morelhtml.htm - click on the Morel Ltd Link
and read the popup. I'd still rate Morel woofers as "ehhh".
Their car audio line is also "ehhh".

Their tweeters are good, though.

JBLs. This was primarily because the 23.4mm Xmax of the TC Sounds more than
offset the 10mm JBLs 60% more cone area.


Nice to know. How much do they cost?


Contact TC Sounds in San Diego.


www.tcsounds.com - bookmarked. Thanks.
(checks)
2 *inch* X Max? Holy crap. Heh.

  #28   Report Post  
MYKEY
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

just an observation: bose uses a very small speaker(s) for mids and highs
and a very small sub for lows. the cabinet design tries to make up for
the tiny speakers, the crossover design tries to make up for the tiny
speakers. more power is required to drive it for the size because of that
design concept.
the automotive bose tries to filter out ignition noises and the fidelity seems
to suffer because of it.
when i listen to a bose speaker, i notice the missing subsonics, missing mids,
and the missing high end sizzle.
i dont think anyone will convince me that a little speaker sounds like a big
one. but i do think that the satellite subwoofer concept is a good one when
using more appropriate hifi speakers. this concept saves space and money
but bose did not invent that concept.
(Farrell8882) wrote in message news:Ac%9c.30674$K91.88721@attbi_s02...
A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an answer
for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but that's not an
excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either defend or expound on.

I recall reading a very good point-by-point analysis here (or somewhere people
here would be familiar with) that takes apart Bose (both the speaker and the
myth), exposing what a really shoddy piece of workmanship a Bose speaker is.
It's technical, but not incomprehensible.

I only paid partial attention because I'd never buy anything by Bose, so I had
no reason to read any more deeply. I've seen it a couple of times in the last
few years, including sometime this winter.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about?


  #29   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote:

....some snips......

Nousaine wrote:


BTW - yes, I've heard a LOT of god-awful flabby and chuffy subs
over the years. It's not rocket science anymore, but it does
require a better than $30 15 inch speaker.


There ain't nosuch thing as a $30 15 AFAICT. Even those cheap instrument
speakers aren't all that cheap.


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=290-345
There is. Unfortunately. I see $60 15 inch sub listed as well, and
we all know that retail pricing is at least double what a major
speaker company buys them for.


Please; this woofer is not a 15-inch "subwoofer". Go ahead and try to make a
subwoofer out of it .... I dare you :-)

The cheapness of speaker makers is becoming almost legendary.

With massive outsourcing causing quality to suffer, almost
anyone can spend the same in parts and cabinets and make
a better speaker untill you hit the $1000+ range, where
some specialized/customized designs start to appear.

Even Tannoy's under $1000 speakers are cheap crud
that almost anyone could out-do. Among the best
cheap crud available, mind you, but a "kit" doesn't
require even $400 in materials to equal them, even
if you are paying retail pricing.


So your condemnation of Bose applies to everybody else too? IMO folks like
Paradigm, Celestion and PSB were licking the crap out of DIY speakers a decade
ago. Indeed at a PSACS Meeting held at Bosch?Blaupunkt a decade ago where
memberes were encouraged to bring any DIY project in to be measured and
documented with the Blaupunkt B&K measurment gear (we had a poured concrete
3-way 'egg' shaped speaker and another dozen+ of speakers and a few amplifiers)
and a $300 pair of Celestion 6.5-inch 2 ways used as monitors in the lab
literally 'blew-away' any of the DIY speakers. Let me say that again ....
destroyed ann the DIY efforts.

Others have measured it. Typical of most HTIB setups, the bass
"module" is made out of LDF or plastic or simmilar and resonates
quite readily.


Let me ask this: who has measured this? I've heard such claims but have not
seen replicable confirmation. Indeed the only "measurements" of Bose

speakers I
can recall were made by ....me.


I don't know about the measurements, but the construction is well
documented as many people have pulled them apart to take a look.


Again; you said that Bose had 30-40% distortion at some unspecified output
level. I asked first "how do you know this?" and later "who has documented
this?"

But now you don't know? I'm guesisng that your comment was a guess. Faor
enough.

Of course, even Kef and Paradigm and Tannoy and so on use cheap
as posible materials in most anything other than their flagship
models. I'd certainly not use screws and plastic veneer and
the wires they use.


Why not? If it doesn't affect the sound why does it matter?

It depends. Some do - some do not. Many *do* suck at low frequencies.


Which ones "do"? Smaller cone drivers simply do not have the basket

geometry
and suspensions to allow increased displacement with "stroke."


As I said, A few do, but it's liiterally a handful. Most cost too
much, so moving to a larger driver makes sense. IMO, a 7-8 inch
is just right for most low frequency work in a "bookshelf" speaker.


Sure but it will have directivity near the crossover point that makes matching
difficult. This is why we don't see 8, 10 and 12-inch 2 way speakers anymore.

  #30   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

BTW - yes, I've heard a LOT of god-awful flabby and chuffy subs
over the years. It's not rocket science anymore, but it does
require a better than $30 15 inch speaker.

There ain't nosuch thing as a $30 15 AFAICT. Even those cheap instrument
speakers aren't all that cheap.


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=290-345
There is. Unfortunately. I see $60 15 inch sub listed as well, and
we all know that retail pricing is at least double what a major
speaker company buys them for.



Please; this woofer is not a 15-inch "subwoofer". Go ahead and try to make a
subwoofer out of it .... I dare you :-)


Heh. You and I know that - but tell the speaker makers.

Even Tannoy's under $1000 speakers are cheap crud
that almost anyone could out-do. Among the best
cheap crud available, mind you, but a "kit" doesn't
require even $400 in materials to equal them, even
if you are paying retail pricing.



So your condemnation of Bose applies to everybody else too? IMO folks like
Paradigm, Celestion and PSB were licking the crap out of DIY speakers a decade
ago.


That was a decade ago, though. The gap has shrunk to very small
differences if you have the time and skill to do a proper design.
Often, it's because you can use the same driver that they use
in the speaker you are copying but get a model or entire line
better version from the maunfacturer and still be under budget due
the insane markups.

But, IMO, at about $1000 or so, it starts to get to where the
major manufacturers decide to care and do some real testing
and designing.(say, Tannoy Saturn as compared to their MXm line).

Indeed at a PSACS Meeting held at Bosch?Blaupunkt a decade ago where
memberes were encouraged to bring any DIY project in to be measured and
documented with the Blaupunkt B&K measurment gear (we had a poured concrete
3-way 'egg' shaped speaker and another dozen+ of speakers and a few amplifiers)
and a $300 pair of Celestion 6.5-inch 2 ways used as monitors in the lab
literally 'blew-away' any of the DIY speakers. Let me say that again ....
destroyed ann the DIY efforts.


Sure. I suspect that with the advent of decent software and
better drivers today, it is much closer. Ellis Audio, for instance,
does exactly this. From what I hear, it's a decent enough speaker,
though why he doesn't makke a tower in addition, I don't know.

Oh - and there are materials today that they didn't have 10 years
ago, like MDF that is roughly 50% harder.

I don't know about the measurements, but the construction is well
documented as many people have pulled them apart to take a look.


Again; you said that Bose had 30-40% distortion at some unspecified output
level. I asked first "how do you know this?" and later "who has documented
this?"


I'll have to look for it - but I do remember running across that figure
as being typical of systems like Bose(5-6 inch woofers in a box) when
run at decent levels. Many so called "subs" also resonate like mad.

Of course, even Kef and Paradigm and Tannoy and so on use cheap
as posible materials in most anything other than their flagship
models. I'd certainly not use screws and plastic veneer and
the wires they use.


Why not? If it doesn't affect the sound why does it matter?


Well, sure - but a small part of the speaker IS construction
and asthetics.



  #31   Report Post  
randyb
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

(Nousaine) wrote in message news:%6pcc.77199$gA5.931261@attbi_s03...
Joseph Oberlander
wrote:

...some snips......

Nousaine wrote:


BTW - yes, I've heard a LOT of god-awful flabby and chuffy subs
over the years. It's not rocket science anymore, but it does
require a better than $30 15 inch speaker.

There ain't nosuch thing as a $30 15 AFAICT. Even those cheap instrument
speakers aren't all that cheap.


http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...number=290-345
There is. Unfortunately. I see $60 15 inch sub listed as well, and
we all know that retail pricing is at least double what a major
speaker company buys them for.


Please; this woofer is not a 15-inch "subwoofer". Go ahead and try to make a
subwoofer out of it .... I dare you :-)

The cheapness of speaker makers is becoming almost legendary.

With massive outsourcing causing quality to suffer, almost
anyone can spend the same in parts and cabinets and make
a better speaker untill you hit the $1000+ range, where
some specialized/customized designs start to appear.

Even Tannoy's under $1000 speakers are cheap crud
that almost anyone could out-do. Among the best
cheap crud available, mind you, but a "kit" doesn't
require even $400 in materials to equal them, even
if you are paying retail pricing.


So your condemnation of Bose applies to everybody else too? IMO folks like
Paradigm, Celestion and PSB were licking the crap out of DIY speakers a decade
ago. Indeed at a PSACS Meeting held at Bosch?Blaupunkt a decade ago where
memberes were encouraged to bring any DIY project in to be measured and
documented with the Blaupunkt B&K measurment gear (we had a poured concrete
3-way 'egg' shaped speaker and another dozen+ of speakers and a few amplifiers)
and a $300 pair of Celestion 6.5-inch 2 ways used as monitors in the lab
literally 'blew-away' any of the DIY speakers. Let me say that again ....
destroyed ann the DIY efforts.

Others have measured it. Typical of most HTIB setups, the bass
"module" is made out of LDF or plastic or simmilar and resonates
quite readily.

Let me ask this: who has measured this? I've heard such claims but have not
seen replicable confirmation. Indeed the only "measurements" of Bose

speakers I
can recall were made by ....me.


I don't know about the measurements, but the construction is well
documented as many people have pulled them apart to take a look.


Again; you said that Bose had 30-40% distortion at some unspecified output
level. I asked first "how do you know this?" and later "who has documented
this?"

But now you don't know? I'm guesisng that your comment was a guess. Faor
enough.

Of course, even Kef and Paradigm and Tannoy and so on use cheap
as posible materials in most anything other than their flagship
models. I'd certainly not use screws and plastic veneer and
the wires they use.


Why not? If it doesn't affect the sound why does it matter?

It depends. Some do - some do not. Many *do* suck at low frequencies.

Which ones "do"? Smaller cone drivers simply do not have the basket

geometry
and suspensions to allow increased displacement with "stroke."


As I said, A few do, but it's liiterally a handful. Most cost too
much, so moving to a larger driver makes sense. IMO, a 7-8 inch
is just right for most low frequency work in a "bookshelf" speaker.


Sure but it will have directivity near the crossover point that makes matching
difficult. This is why we don't see 8, 10 and 12-inch 2 way speakers anymore.



That DIY challenge was pretty long ago-10 years-especially with
today's computers and software firmly in the hands of DIY. It would
be interesting to update that challenge (and where do you draw the
line with people like Linkwitz and his DIY designs)and I am sure there
are plenty of DIY over on the Madisound board ready to take up the
challenge if a magazine (Sound and Vision, Sensible Sound etc.) would
publish the results-I would certainly find it interesting.
  #32   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

(randyb) wrote:




That DIY challenge was pretty long ago-10 years-especially with
today's computers and software firmly in the hands of DIY. It would
be interesting to update that challenge (and where do you draw the
line with people like Linkwitz and his DIY designs)and I am sure there
are plenty of DIY over on the Madisound board ready to take up the
challenge if a magazine (Sound and Vision, Sensible Sound etc.) would
publish the results-I would certainly find it interesting.


Actually there was some pretty good modeling programs extant at that time
(SPEAK and SPEAK for Wijndows, and soem others.) The problem was access to
measurement equipment to validate drivers, design, construction and
performance.

It is true that with PRAXIS and other pc based gear availability of validation
equipment is much better. And some of the kits are much better.

On the other hand, basic speakers at any given price point from Paradigm and
PSB it's inconceivable that any amateur could make a better speaker for
anywhere near the price.

What the DIY producer can do .... is make cabinetry that is elegant, unique and
magnificently finished. There's nothing wrong with that but, after building,
measuring and listening to hundreds of OEM and DIY full range and satellite
speakers over the years I can think of exactly 2 that could not be equalled or
bettered by a commerical product for significantly less money.

On the other hand, subwoofers are where the most pay-off can be found for the
DIY dollar. Digital storage media has given up new generation recordings with
frequency content down to 6 Hz.

Yet, there are no commerical consumer subwoofer products with output below 15
Hz (even the one that claims 8 Hz doesn't have it). So this is THE place where
a DIY project can deliver performance unattainable from a commerical product.
It won't necessarily be inexpensive. For example my custom subwoofer, all the
electronics/transducers purchased at accomodation prices, still required nearly
$5000 in cash (not counting bartered labor).

It will deliver 120 dB+ SPL from 12 to 62 Hz @ 2 meters with less than 10%
distortion in a room and has response to 10 Hz at the 2 or 4-meter listening
positions. Working at these frequencies practically any hardened enthusiast
could do as well ..... but it's not inexpensive to better the best commerical
products.
  #33   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

What the DIY producer can do .... is make cabinetry that is elegant, unique and
magnificently finished. There's nothing wrong with that but, after building,
measuring and listening to hundreds of OEM and DIY full range and satellite
speakers over the years I can think of exactly 2 that could not be equalled or
bettered by a commerical product for significantly less money.


And here we disagree. With enough time, testing, and tweaking of
the design, a DIYer can easily equal the low-end offerings from
most every manufacturer.

Also, designs and plans for older speakers from the 80s and 90s are
available, as well as several major manufacturers that offer kit
versions of their high-end speakers. All of this data gets absorbed
and passed around. A decade ago, The Web was in its infancy. Now,
it facilitates the exchange of this data to such an extent that a
smart DIYer can start up their own speaker business and do well
enough.

Take KEF or B&W or Tannoy. A pair of MXm-2s doesn't have any magic
happening in the cabinet - it's a rectangular box with a few
tweaks to improve the bass since it's ported. The technology,
other than the shielding, is well-understood 1980's designing.

Contrary to popular belief, the big companies don't spend very
much if any time developing their lower-end "budget" models.
Certainly nothing that a DIYer with enough time and patience
couldn't do.

The guy who runs Ellis Audio has been at it for several years and
has easily more man-hours than KEF would spend on a comparable
sounding speaker. KEF would of course have several people working
for a few months on the design versus his several years by himself.

  #34   Report Post  
Penury
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 23:13:49 GMT, Joseph Oberlander
wrote:

Nousaine wrote:

What the DIY producer can do .... is make cabinetry that is elegant, unique and
magnificently finished. There's nothing wrong with that but, after building,
measuring and listening to hundreds of OEM and DIY full range and satellite
speakers over the years I can think of exactly 2 that could not be equalled or
bettered by a commerical product for significantly less money.


And here we disagree. With enough time, testing, and tweaking of
the design, a DIYer can easily equal the low-end offerings from
most every manufacturer.

A good example is Lynn Olsen's speaker systems the Ariel and ME2.
The components are available for $500 to $1,000 (depending on
crossover parts quality) per pair, plus the wood. Lynn takes you
through the design process and cabinet construction at:
http://www.nutshellhifi.com/Ariel.html
People all over the world have built and improved on the
construction details over the past 10 years since they were
introduced. Complete parts kits for these speaker systems are
available at:
http://www.northcreekmusic.com/ArielFAQ.html
I built a pair of ME2s for a friend and have heard the Ariels, and
feel you would have to spend at least $5,000 per pair for comparable
performance.

-=Bill Eckle=-

Vanity Web pages at:
http://www.wmeckle.com

  #35   Report Post  
lcw999
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

On Wed, 07 Apr 2004 23:13:49 +0000, Joseph Oberlander wrote:

Nousaine wrote:

What the DIY producer can do .... is make cabinetry that is elegant,
unique and magnificently finished. There's nothing wrong with that but,
after building, measuring and listening to hundreds of OEM and DIY full
range and satellite speakers over the years I can think of exactly 2
that could not be equalled or bettered by a commerical product for
significantly less money.


And here we disagree. With enough time, testing, and tweaking of the
design, a DIYer can easily equal the low-end offerings from most every
manufacturer.

Also, designs and plans for older speakers from the 80s and 90s are
available, as well as several major manufacturers that offer kit
versions of their high-end speakers. All of this data gets absorbed and
passed around. A decade ago, The Web was in its infancy. Now, it
facilitates the exchange of this data to such an extent that a smart
DIYer can start up their own speaker business and do well enough.

Take KEF or B&W or Tannoy. A pair of MXm-2s doesn't have any magic
happening in the cabinet - it's a rectangular box with a few tweaks to
improve the bass since it's ported. The technology, other than the
shielding, is well-understood 1980's designing.

Contrary to popular belief, the big companies don't spend very much if
any time developing their lower-end "budget" models. Certainly nothing
that a DIYer with enough time and patience couldn't do.

The guy who runs Ellis Audio has been at it for several years and has
easily more man-hours than KEF would spend on a comparable sounding
speaker. KEF would of course have several people working for a few
months on the design versus his several years by himself.


Joseph..I would tend to agree with Mr. Nousaine here. I tend to
"kid" him about some hardline stances on other issues, but in the
matter of sub-woofers, I tend to follow what he says pretty
close! Noting that he has a monster DIY sub system that can be
driven by Crown amps that put out about 5000 watts...I would
consider him a bonafide DIY'er. Note also that he does write
articles about various classes of subs...a good series to get you
"in the ballpark" when looking at a given class of sub. He has
listened to more subs than I ever will in my lifetime.

Note that he said "...exactly 2 that could not be equalled or
bettered by a commercial product for "significantly" less money.

I dabbled at this a few years ago...found his statements ring
very true. I now have a commercial sub...when placed correctly
that rumbles around 16-18cps..setting forth dishes, etc vibrating
upstairs. I'm getting some air movement at 15cps but I shall not
question Mr. Nousaine on this point. Being a pipe-organ buff I do
appreciate a deep solid throb in the large pipes set off with the
pedals. A controlled "throb" is of more interest here than a sub
losing control at these frequencies where we've gone into the
"feeling" area as opposed to the "hearing" area. The placement of
mikes in this recording scenario is critical.

Leonard...


  #36   Report Post  
Nousaine
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote:

Nousaine wrote:

What the DIY producer can do .... is make cabinetry that is elegant, unique

and
magnificently finished. There's nothing wrong with that but, after

building,
measuring and listening to hundreds of OEM and DIY full range and satellite
speakers over the years I can think of exactly 2 that could not be equalled

or
bettered by a commerical product for significantly less money.


And here we disagree. With enough time, testing, and tweaking of
the design, a DIYer can easily equal the low-end offerings from
most every manufacturer.


IME that is simply not the case. And I'm a big DIY fan but quite frankly very,
very few DIY projects sound as good as a Paradigm Titan. One of the big limits
is buying drivers one or two at a time and having the facilities to verify
actual performance and no ability to build or order to spec.

Also, designs and plans for older speakers from the 80s and 90s are
available,


So? who cares? And exactly how do you get modern drive units with the same
electrical/acoustical performance?

as well as several major manufacturers that offer kit
versions of their high-end speakers.


From a manufacturer I'd be guessing that you'll get out-of-spec parts for the
kit version. OTOH the kits from TAE and Madisound that are based on D'Appolito
designs are more sure bets.

All of this data gets absorbed
and passed around. A decade ago, The Web was in its infancy. Now,
it facilitates the exchange of this data to such an extent that a
smart DIYer can start up their own speaker business and do well
enough.


As was true in the 70-80s. Legacy was started in a garage. The 'tale of the
tape' in that era was that in the "Audio" Equipment Annual there were 300
speaker manufacturers listed every year but only a third of them made it from
year to year. This was because a 'speaker" business was so easy to 'start.'

A few local customers/dealers, a day-job and a little extra cash would get you
going as long as you were making speakers in small batches. But the pitfalls
were a good review somewhere with exploding demand that couldn't be met or,
more likely, acquistion of production facilities and inventory on the 'bet'
that demand would continue to grow by 100% every year for a long time;
forgetting that 1 to 2 units, 2 to 4 units and 4 to 8 units is not the same as
100,000 to 200,000.

Take KEF or B&W or Tannoy. A pair of MXm-2s doesn't have any magic
happening in the cabinet - it's a rectangular box with a few
tweaks to improve the bass since it's ported. The technology,
other than the shielding, is well-understood 1980's designing.

Contrary to popular belief, the big companies don't spend very
much if any time developing their lower-end "budget" models.
Certainly nothing that a DIYer with enough time and patience
couldn't do.


Certainly "could" do but in my experience seldom do .... unless they have
access to professional expertise and validation equipment. Actually that's
exactly why clubs like PSACS and SMWTMS were formed and wildly successful ....
to pool resources so that amateurs could have access to professional experts
and equipment that few could afford themselves.

It's on that basis that I say that remarkably few DIY projects equal the level
of sonic excellence attained by the better speaker companies at ANY price
level. I will concede that DIY projects often equal or better the more pathetic
"high-end" speakers.

And it's certainly true that with amplifiers a DIY project can fully equal
commercial product. But in the latter regard it's simply just cheaper and
easier to buy a good amplifier.

Let me take this on another tangent. With my custom subwoofer I knew that I was
going to need substantial EQ at 10-12 Hz. My choices were to build a simple
dedicated fixed EQ ... or simply buy a Symmetrix 551E 5-band parametric
equalizer ($250 street price) which would already have a professional-grade
case, could be used in related projects if needed, would probably have a resale
value and save me some time.

It was easier, faster and only moderately more expensive to just buy the
function I wanted than to DIY it.

The guy who runs Ellis Audio has been at it for several years and
has easily more man-hours than KEF would spend on a comparable
sounding speaker. KEF would of course have several people working
for a few months on the design versus his several years by himself.


This is just a guess on your part. Furthermore the KEF engineers won't have to
spend time answering the phone and cleaning the bathrooms either.

And I question the "several years" assumption. If a speaker designer spent
years on a design how did he manage to eat during that time? Day-Job? Oh well
then he really didn't spend years then?

And isn't 3-months from 8 engineers still 2 man years?

  #37   Report Post  
randyb
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Joseph Oberlander wrote in message news:NW%cc.92415$K91.201387@attbi_s02...
Nousaine wrote:

What the DIY producer can do .... is make cabinetry that is elegant, unique and
magnificently finished. There's nothing wrong with that but, after building,
measuring and listening to hundreds of OEM and DIY full range and satellite
speakers over the years I can think of exactly 2 that could not be equalled or
bettered by a commerical product for significantly less money.


And here we disagree. With enough time, testing, and tweaking of
the design, a DIYer can easily equal the low-end offerings from
most every manufacturer.

Also, designs and plans for older speakers from the 80s and 90s are
available, as well as several major manufacturers that offer kit
versions of their high-end speakers. All of this data gets absorbed
and passed around. A decade ago, The Web was in its infancy. Now,
it facilitates the exchange of this data to such an extent that a
smart DIYer can start up their own speaker business and do well
enough.

Take KEF or B&W or Tannoy. A pair of MXm-2s doesn't have any magic
happening in the cabinet - it's a rectangular box with a few
tweaks to improve the bass since it's ported. The technology,
other than the shielding, is well-understood 1980's designing.

Contrary to popular belief, the big companies don't spend very
much if any time developing their lower-end "budget" models.
Certainly nothing that a DIYer with enough time and patience
couldn't do.

The guy who runs Ellis Audio has been at it for several years and
has easily more man-hours than KEF would spend on a comparable
sounding speaker. KEF would of course have several people working
for a few months on the design versus his several years by himself.


Joseph,

There may be a simple way to see if things have changed in the last 10
years. I have a great deal of respect for Tom's measurements and
evaluation techniques as I am sure many here do. See if Ellis, Salk,
Dennis Murphy , (or one of the othters) would part for a few days with
one of their best creations and see if Tom would be willing to measure
them. I can think of several speaker designs that the DIY crowd hold
close to their hearts. Maybe take it off line to see if any of the
parties are willing (oh, and let me know the results)

  #38   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

Nousaine wrote:

And here we disagree. With enough time, testing, and tweaking of
the design, a DIYer can easily equal the low-end offerings from
most every manufacturer.


IME that is simply not the case. And I'm a big DIY fan but quite frankly very,
very few DIY projects sound as good as a Paradigm Titan. One of the big limits
is buying drivers one or two at a time and having the facilities to verify
actual performance and no ability to build or order to spec.


It's not rocket science to get good drivers anymore, though you often
do need to buy a few to fine tune the design. Or, you can copy some
other DIYer's successful design but upgrade it and refine it a bit more.

From a manufacturer I'd be guessing that you'll get out-of-spec parts for the
kit version. OTOH the kits from TAE and Madisound that are based on D'Appolito
designs are more sure bets.


My point was that you assume a DIYer needs to start from scratch.
I coudl for instance, take an Ellis Audio or Shamrock Audio or
simmilar speaker that uses off-the-shelf components and use that
as the basis for something better.

As was true in the 70-80s. Legacy was started in a garage. The 'tale of the
tape' in that era was that in the "Audio" Equipment Annual there were 300
speaker manufacturers listed every year but only a third of them made it from
year to year. This was because a 'speaker" business was so easy to 'start.'


Well, people who can't run a business are a whole other unrelated
problem.

A few local customers/dealers, a day-job and a little extra cash would get you
going as long as you were making speakers in small batches.


No problem here.

But the pitfalls
were a good review somewhere with exploding demand that couldn't be met


That would only be a problem if you were a novice at management.
It's not hard to get on the phone and have a place like Madisound
ship you 100 units if you so require.

or,
more likely, acquistion of production facilities and inventory on the 'bet'
that demand would continue to grow by 100% every year for a long time;


Again, only a fool invests in facilities and inventory. Lean and low
overhead wins every time. I don't see very many out of work lawyers
or consultants. Why? Because they don't have half a million tied
up sitting in the warehouse.

In the last 5 years or so, a inventoryless business model has
become possible due to advances in technology.

forgetting that 1 to 2 units, 2 to 4 units and 4 to 8 units is not the same as
100,000 to 200,000.


And this again is why so many businesses fail. They aren't ever
happy with the art of creating something and want more and more and
still more. Then they implode.

Contrary to popular belief, the big companies don't spend very
much if any time developing their lower-end "budget" models.
Certainly nothing that a DIYer with enough time and patience
couldn't do.


Certainly "could" do but in my experience seldom do .... unless they have
access to professional expertise and validation equipment.


Well, I don't consider those people to be DIYers but hacks, plain
and simple. If they can't do proper designing and research and
get the proper test equipment(or borrow facilities), then they
aren't the real deal.

It's like the person who builds his own telescope versus someone
who kludges together a few parts as a hobbyist.

It's on that basis that I say that remarkably few DIY projects equal
the level
of sonic excellence attained by the better speaker companies at ANY price
level. I will concede that DIY projects often equal or better the more pathetic
"high-end" speakers.


But that was exactly my claim. That a DIY type speaker can easily
equal or better most of the the lower-end speakers that dominate
the under $1000 marketplace. Why get a 6 inch woofer in a MDF box
when you can do better for the same money yourself?(providing you
actually do some real design work)

The guy who runs Ellis Audio has been at it for several years and
has easily more man-hours than KEF would spend on a comparable
sounding speaker. KEF would of course have several people working
for a few months on the design versus his several years by himself.


This is just a guess on your part. Furthermore the KEF engineers won't have to
spend time answering the phone and cleaning the bathrooms either.


No, it's one of the few things that I know. I used to keep tabs on
JBL back when they were their own company. I know how they designed
speakers from a manpower point, and the less expensive models are
done with a small team and a few hundred hours of combined work.

And I question the "several years" assumption. If a speaker designer spent
years on a design how did he manage to eat during that time? Day-Job? Oh well
then he really didn't spend years then?


He didn't care about profit. He has a good job and makes speakers
in his spare time.

And isn't 3-months from 8 engineers still 2 man years?


Yes it is. Peope are people, though, and one man can do in a decade
if need be by himself what a whole slew of workers can. IF he does
the work. Most peolpe don't.

  #39   Report Post  
Joseph Oberlander
 
Posts: n/a
Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

randyb wrote:

There may be a simple way to see if things have changed in the last 10
years. I have a great deal of respect for Tom's measurements and
evaluation techniques as I am sure many here do. See if Ellis, Salk,
Dennis Murphy , (or one of the othters) would part for a few days with
one of their best creations and see if Tom would be willing to measure
them. I can think of several speaker designs that the DIY crowd hold
close to their hearts. Maybe take it off line to see if any of the
parties are willing (oh, and let me know the results)


Sounds interesting. Of course, the line has to be drawn as to where
small established firms with a few employees and DIYers are different
from major large firms. At some point, the small firms were DIYers,
so in theory it must be possible.

Perhaps include independant companies with less than ten employees? 20?

For instance, NoRH would qualify as there are only a few employees.
The level between DIY and commercial firm is razor thin in this case.

Also get a couple of the Madisound kits in there as well.
  #40   Report Post  
ebsimonds
 
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Default Why shouldn't someone buy Bose?

(Nousaine) wrote in message news:Kk5ac.130243$Cb.1466684@attbi_s51...
Mark Howell
wrote:

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 19:57:20 GMT,
(Farrell8882)
wrote:

A friend of mine asked me "Why _not_ Bose?" and I really don't have an

answer
for her. I know audiophiles routinely revile the brand, but that's not an
excuse I'm comfortable sharing. It's not one I can either defend or expound

on.

Here's one reason. The P.O.S. Bose amplifiers in the Delco/Bose
stereo in my Cadillac have failed repeatedly, and one of them actually
caught fire -- the stench was unbelievable although actual damage was
minimal.

So as far as I'm concerned, Bose literally stinks!

Mark Howell


Well that surely sucks. OTOH I've performed extensive and detailed evaluation
of a couple hundred production OEM sound systems and nearly 500 when you count
prototypes and concepts and by and large Bose delivers the best on-road
sound.Their best car systems are better than 80-90% of the home systems I've
listened to...... perhaps 300 over the past quarter century..... in pure sound
quality terms.

Of course, it is true that I've seen no more than a couple really good Bose
home systems.


You obviously haven't listened to the Bloze system in my C4 Corvette
or my C5 Corvette.

Both are without a doubt the crappiest sounding systems I have ever
heard. The Chrysler Infinity system in my wifes '91 Voyager is a
better sounding system than the one in my 2-1/2 year old Corvette.

The only "improvement" in the C5 vs. the C4 is the fact that it's
easier to replace it in stages if you're inclined to do so.

EBS
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replacing a Bose radio Christopher Glaeser Car Audio 2 July 26th 03 08:21 PM


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