Jaw dropping enhancements in sound quality

Mike, some pics of your new speakers would be interesting, I'd love to have a peak. Feel free to PM if you don't want to post.

Kmac, I always thought the Linkwitz Orions looked like a nicely designed speaker. I think you can get them as a kinda flat-pack kit, so you might like to check that out?

 

Just to clarify, I'm not claiming speakers are a rip off - it's just reality that the parts cost of retailed products is a very low proportion of the paid price in the UK. This needs to be born in mind when looking for jaw dropping improvements. Too many people think they can spend a couple of hundred pounds extra and get a huge step up in performance. But the truth is that £200 is in reality no more than £40. The only rip off that does come to mind immediately is the Art Emotion Signature - £4K for £400 of parts - the build cost is identical to the lower priced model.

 

I not going to upgrade till I get a huge injection of cash and thats unlikely to happen

I was just interetsted in how much do you have to spend with speakers. Shin's comment that after 4k+ you are just paying for prestige is interesting. Could perhaps stretch to that some day.

I like the sound of my current speakers but started this thread as I was wondering if I was missing out on some "awesome" sound.

 

And one I would personally disagree with. Indeed I can't think of many loudspeakers below £4K that I would be happy living with.

 

On a completely different note I have realsied that the quality of the recording is also a huge factor in overall sound quality. Was very dissapointed by most of the songs in the new KT Tunstall album as they seemed to be heavily compressed to the point of "noise with a beat".

Just going to go after better recorded CDs and enjoy them - some recordings seem to sound awesome on most systems - Joe Cocker's Sheffiedl Steel comes to mind in this category.

 

maybe yes, maybe no. the source was the head of dynaudio international DIY sales in the 90s - while dynaudio was still doing that. i refused to believe it too - but he was persistant that it costed only 14 german marks (7E) to manufacture d330. this obviously doesn't include any other costs - R&D, marketing, hype etc. and btw, there's quite a few speakers around with it for something apparently made in such a small quantities...
porkies or not - i also know someone here who made a few excellent DIY speakers utilizing D330 and he managed to get the driver through his channels for 80 german marks only back in the late 90s - an equivalent to 40 euros or 28 pounds.
i'm afraid we are talking here about a classic example of "price per performance", not "price per costs"....

 

Putting the sound before the source material is the first sign of madness. Good systems make everything sound great.

 

Yes....and it's not always the most "accurate" systems that do that. Maybe I could add, good systems can make even crappy recordings "fun" to listen to (at least).

 

for me the biggest single jaw drop was from room correction.
This was actually a retrograde step in terms of cost since the Tact RCS + sda amp was less than my original Chord cpm2600
which i sold and got enough money to fund the change so it cost me nothing
In my small room it was a revalation (and still is)
Now have a Lyngdorf TDA2200 (so Tact RCS is going cheap : see for sale on this web site)

 

£4k seems to me like a rough sweet spot for quality vs. sanity of price. Lets face it those £10k+ loudspeakers aren't that much better considering the price proportions and more often than not are a sideways step that just costs vastly more - Wilson Audio is a great example. Good speakers in the right setup but designs at around half the price still compete.

Pete came round here a couple of weeks back and commented that he saw speakers of equal quality to the ones I was using for £65k. I was disgusted personally that someone would even consider charging that. Not even your favourite band playing in your living room for the rest of your life is worth that, let alone a facsimile.

 

Most of the very worst speakers I have ever heard are in the £10K+ price range. At this price, compromise and error is unforgiveable, but too many expensive speakers seem to me to be deliberately odd, a product of a designer's whim rather than sensible sonics.

I completely agree with SM on this - buy used, and be prepared to spend a bit of money, although there are some bargains to be had if you're lucky.

-- Ian

 

Wilson are IMHO a bad example. Look at offerings like the Tannoy Westminster Royal, the JBL Everest, the Avalon Isis and various Westlakes, TAD's and others, and to my ears, they represent a quantum leap in perfromance, offering minimal compromise across the entire audible frequency range.

Of course there are bad speakers at this price point - there's a lot of audio jewellry that is all style and no substance. But, for me, £4K will see major compromises somewhere, usually either in bottom end extension or dynamic headroom. I guess my speakers would retail around £25K. And if I had the money, I would pay that for Westlakes or similar - the difference to me between these great speakers and the likes of the Proac D38 or B&W804 are profound.

 

I'm not saying I'll take any music as long as it sounds good....just that within the genres I normally listen to I would prefer to select based on the quality of the recording.

 

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What in particular will make a bad recording sound great in a system - is this more to do with the source component or source, amplification and speakers equally?

 

Well I am still quite happy with my Kef R-107 loudspeakers, I have heard a lot of newer more expensive and cheaper speakers, plenty which sound impressive, or better here or different there, most of the models which extend in the lower frequencies are silly money, and the newer Kef just don't do it for me.

I am not saying my old speakers are perfect, the treble could be improved, and this is the most common percieved improvement I hear with newer stuff, hence I am still going to investigate the posibility of fitting Raal treble units or other.
I also think something like a Tact 2.2 pre with room EQ may make a substantial difference in some areas due to room problems, and the added Kube circuit. Though whether its prefered to a Krell pre and Theta DAC is on my mind, and for the price of the Tact I could get better replacements for my current DAC and pre second hand.

Though I have to say I think these are from an era where building speakers was a bit more respectful.
Anyway, I have replaced the upper and lower assembly crossovers and treble units a few or more years back, plus bought four new bass drivers (old driver surrounds failed) and two new mid units (not yet used, only bought because they were available) over the last few years.
For the price of these components (almost a third of RRP if I am guessing correct?) I could have bought something decent second hand, including a good condition pair of R-107.

I have had these since the early 90's and could quite easily use them for another 15 years, particulary if I modify and improve the treble end, and maybe even with room EQ I will be more happy.

I think stating likey costs of drivers as 5% of total cost is nothing more than guestamates, though I cannot for definate say what £2000 speakers do or do not have £100 of drivers and what their crossover and cabinet construction costs. Any examples here?

I do think there is more cost involved in DIY than just buying some drivers and MDF. A £100 worth of drivers and a £60 sheet of MDF = a Retailing £2k speaker? What about the rest of it, will it be designed for the general public to evaluate, or only to sound good to ones own ears in ones own listening enviroment with the quality assumption based on ones own opinion, or will its performance rely heavily on the modified responce with expensive EQ?
Time. How much is your hourly rate?
Cabinet materials.
Drivers.
Crossover components with variables for experimentation.
Dampening materials.
Cables and connectors.
Tools.
Measuring equipment.
Patience.

It all comes to more than a handfull of £100 drivers and a sheet of 18mm MDF, and are you guaranteed a better performing, more desirable product, than the latest £2k best buy? If you are using room EQ to make it easier, how much is the total cost of the EQ set up.

I could not build a coupled cavity speaker capable of 18hz with the fit finish and measured performance of my R-107, with the drivers and materials my speakers use, for the 20% cost of the speakers original RRP. that would be £660 roughly. Bass drivers were over £300, mids around £140, treble units around £75 if I remember correct? The crossovers, two per speaker, and the Kube circuit were not cheap, and would be rather complex and require more than just a solder iron and guess work to complete.

 

Being worth listening to.

Good sound is the icing not the cake.

Paul

 

You can't separate them like that. Music is sound, and if the sound is bad the music is less enjoyable.

I like KT, but frankly that album is so compressed it is unpleasant to listen to. I don't want my senses abused.

 

TAD driver prices, price per piece!
http://www.colab.be/colab/tad_technical_audio_devices/tad_technical_audio_devices.html

 

Keith,

those are retail prices. We all know Cessaro pay around 45% of that.

 

There actually aren't any bad recordings IME - just some that highlight system compromises. I own around 1000 albums and can enjoy every single one of them.