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On 10 Aug 2003 14:38:05 GMT, (Richard D Pierce)
wrote:

In article ,
Marinko wrote:
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
=20
The most obvious first piece of advice is that you should stop
building speakers! Chances are that your electronics are more than
adequate, but a relatively recent 'showdown' by Celestion invited
amateur speaker builders to come along and demonstrate their best
work, so that Celestion could compare them all fairly and also pick u=
p
any useful ideas from this wide cross-section. To cut a long story
short, evenj the best and most exotic of these home-built speakers wa=
s
easily outperformed by a =A3300 pair of Celestions.

This is very interesting story, so can you give us some more details or=
=20
web/magazine links? It's not rare for amateur builders to talk about=20
"bad quality, cheap parts and low value" of commercial speakers.

Given the extremely narrow perspective into the realm of speaker
design and manufacturing that, to be frank, makes amateurs
amateurs, this is not surprising in the least. At least one
reason behind this is amateurs are not constrained by nor,
generally have ANY idea whatsoever on what it means and the
constraints imposed with having to build to a price point as one
primary design goal. An amateur worker can sit ther and fiddle
with veneering a cabinet, spending hours or days getting it
"just right" and end up with a result that, if it had to go to
market, would end up selling for an order of magnitude more than
what it is commercially worth.

An amateur might look at a $2000 speaker, add up what he THINKS=20
is the parts cost, totally underprice the cost of labor (often=20
discounting it to zero) and say, "Why, I can build that same=20
speaker for $400!" then rip into the industry for selling=20
overpriced merchandise.

You are completely right, i remember having exactly the same opinion
on the price of speakers many years ago (but i got informed) and i'm
still tempted to do it again when seeing the price of certain
products.....

I'd bet that same amateur would be singing QUITE a different=20
tune when he has to build 200 pairs of the same speaker in 3=20
months time, find a distribution and sales network, pay the=20
people he now has to hire to help him, find dealers, advertise,=20
pay for the warranty repairs because someone ELSE is listening=20
and using and, possibly abusing his creations. That same amateur=20
is going to find out that the $400 that made these speakers seem=20
such a bargain disappeared into a black hole long ago.

But the amateur is right at his own level, for the pair he's building.
He's using leisure time, so he decides to have fun building a speaker
instead of travelling, playing tennis, etc.., economically lost time
so he's right to forget it's value, he gets his money from his job.
Ironically, he may think he's not paid enough for his working time.

Of course, this is not to excuse those commercial manufacturers=20
who DO sell products with "bad quality, cheap parts and low value"=20
of which there are a disturbing number of examples.