Mid Fi to Hi Fi threshold

[PAGS]

Yeah. Crazy shite!

 

[just dave]

I would right after homefry claims his prehistoric gear blows away anything $15k will buy today. It's one thing to say you like it for what it is. It's a whole different matter to say 40 years of material science and computer aided engineering produce inferior products. That's industrial strength crazy.

But that's not why I clicked this thread.
I find it.... um.... strange, I suppose, that people would spend $2000+ on a TV and balk at $2000 speakers. I don't understand that mindset in the slightest.

I like vintage because I feel it's the best bang for the buck sound wise.I think you have to spend a goodly sum to beat it.As far as tv's go I think most people are more visually oriented.To them sound takes a back seat.

 

[Alobar]

View attachment 800092
That's the Focal Aria 900 series. From left to right: 906, 926, 936, and 948. They range in price from $1500 to $5000. What you mentioned would be in the price range of the Electra 1000Be series.

My room isn't all that big; about a couple hundred square feet. My 936's in no way struggle to fill the room with sound. They're fairly sensitive so getting robust volume out of them has never been an issue for me. Robert Deutch at Stereophile described the 926's as a bit anemic in bass in a largish room, but was quite satisfied with the bass of the 936's in his review. In my room they more than shake the chair I sit in. The soundstage is plenty wide and exceptionally deep. It's some of the deepest imaging I've ever heard in fact, and that was a selling point for me. They do a very good job at avoiding making their presence known in the sound. The imaging is clear, deep, and well focused enough that no actual sound seems to emanate from where they stand; just what a good speaker should do. I think they're smooth, honest, and passionate speakers. There's nothing clinical about them. They've revealed music well enough to bring me to tears. I have no regrets whatsoever in spending $4000 for them. There's certainly worse speakers to be had for that money. They're made in France so they have a nice long trip to get to these shores. The one thing I wasn't crazy about in the Aria line was the faux-wood. There's plenty of speakers in the range of $1500-$5000 that have real wood veneer. I opted for the high gloss white which arrived flawlessly finished. The leather wrapped front, bottom, and back is a nice touch though. In the measurements comments in the Stereophile review it was said that the measured performance from the 936 wouldn't be out of place in an expensive speaker (I'm assuming the five figure realm) and that Focal offers that for only $4000 makes them an exceptional value. Having owned a pair for 3 or 4 months now I definitely feel they're a great value for the sound they make. It has been a 100% zero regret buying and owning experience. The dealer even met me at a bar and bought me lunch when I put down the deposit to order them.
If you're not aware, Focal builds some VERY nice speakers. Look up the Grande Utopia EM. They've also made drivers for Wilson Audio Specialties such as the woofers in the Alexandria XLF and tweeters for the WATT and Alexandria X-2 Series 2. At the $4000-$5000 realm a lot of companies are reaching the limits of their technical prowess. That is definitely not the case with Focal and I think their midrange 900 series testifies to that.

It's nice to hear that 4 grand can get great sound. $15k speakers are impressive I suppose but leave me in the dust financially speaking so is hard to get enthusiastic about. I could see $4 or 5k however as attainable,so long as I was very pleased with the sound.

 

[just dave]

I
I believe TV rots the mind Clinical evidence suggests that habitual TV watching produces unfavorable and undesirable cognitive effects. For those reasons I almost never watch TV.

Didn't they say that about rock n roll? I would agree that watching some shows like reality tv,(especially the Kardashians) rots the mind.But I like the educational shows the best, science and nature documentaries are my favorite.

 

[Poultrygeist]

Compared to some of the other Lowther enclosures these higher end C-Horns are average sized.

 

[melofelo]

Those Lowther enclosures look amazing!

 

[bluesky]

To me ... I believe that every person will answer this differently ... Mid Fi < $5,000 > High Fi .... > $10,000 High End.

Agreed... that's 'it' exactly.

Mid Fi to High Fi: $5,000.

High End: $10,000 +.

 

[Ken Boyd]

I'll give old amps their respect. The art of designing a solid single ended or push-pull class A or class AB amp has been pretty well understood for a pretty long time. If you design the circuit thoughtfully, build it with quality components, and screw it all to a solid chassis you're damn near certain to get a pretty good amp. Speakers are a completely different story though. With extremely few exceptions I don't take 30, 40, or 50 year old speakers seriously. They don't warrant the respect technically or sonically. The vast majority of 40 year old speakers wouldn't withstand the scrutiny of analytical measurement or double blind comparison. There's a pretty broad idea out there of what an ideal speaker should sound like as demonstrated by how similar high end speakers sound these days and practically nothing from 40 years ago comes close to it. I have no idea what people like hearing in speakers that so acutely insert their character into the music. I'm actually kind of curious about it.

Got plenty of old speakers that put new ones shame. If you don't take them seriously then its your loss. Their is no shortage of serious audiophiles that look worldwide for many old speakers and pay huge dividends to purchase them and ship them. And just as with new speakers there are good ones and bad ones. but as far as new engineering to make speakers better, my view is the engineers in many cases are not looking for new designs to improve results, they are looking for ways to lower cost.

 

[Ken Boyd]

I would add that the task of making better products and performing better is not something that I believe designers and engineers are not capable, but for the most part corporations look at the numbers and profits usually are made with quantity and in many areas not just the audio industry have we seen a race to the bottom using company names that in the past were known for quality.

How many of the audio names that we see today were once a small company built by an person with an idea to make a better product. Only to be later purchased by a large corporation and then using a name known for its greatness make mass manufactured lower quality products to satisfy the stock owners.

 

[Alobar]

Insane balderdash! You couldn't substantiate the supposition all engineering does is make speakers cheaper to build if your life depended on it. That's like saying all engineering has done for cars is make them cheaper to build. Likewise, insanity.
Designers have engineering tools, materials, quality control methods, and manufacturing processes available to them today that designers 40 years ago literally couldn't have dreamed of. And you're going to tell me all that does is let them build stuff cheaper? You can't possibly be serious. I know better than that because I've worked with those people, operated the machines, and practiced the metrology.
I've worked on machines that would effortlessly hit a +/-.002 tolerance all day long, and I've done exactly that. You're going to tell me that being able to manufacture speakers to those kinds of standards makes no difference? The CMM I used measured out 5 decimal places in three dimensions simultaneously. That kind of accuracy makes no difference, huh? You're typical FANUC robot will hit less than .005" and the cool stuff Seagate Technologies uses will drop platters in hard drives with .0001" accuracy. We use lasers invented to re-burn processor dies for eye surgery and created techniques to cast silicone hydrogel into contact lenses. Engineering has even mastered welding steel to aluminum. And you're telling me all engineering does is make stuff cheaper? Nothing could possibly be further from the truth. You genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.

So just for clarification that new speakers are superior because of tolerances down to the thousandths, which parts of the speaker has these tolerances, and how does this extremely tight tolerance benefit SQ?
Feel free to answer factually, or lacking that, go right ahead and rip me a new ass as well. Your choice.

 

[4-2-7]

Feel free to answer factually, or lacking that, go right ahead and rip me a new ass as well. Your choice.

Dito here, I'd like a new ass as well,



Speaking of asses, what the hell is going on around here with all these new members coming in acting all crossed eyed. No one can post an opinion without a bunch of nasty ass responses and then fight ensue. This is why so many have left the past two years.

 

[tyeeslayer]

Dito here, I'd like a new ass as well,



Speaking of asses, what the hell is going on around here with all these new members coming in acting all crossed eyed. No one can post an opinion without a bunch of nasty ass responses and then fight ensue. This is why so many have left the past two years.

You said it......Time to thin the heard me thinks!

 

[4-2-7]

It's entirely possible for a robot to drop a cone into a driver basket without the use of shims which would require human intervention and the inevitable human error.

Perfect amounts of glue can be applied in perfect circles to achieve perfect adhesion to the engineer's intent.

How is it not obvious that this is a vastly superior method of creating a precision product compared to rooms full of people cutting out cabinets with table saws and routers and building drivers using human hands and jigs?

 

[Alobar]

It's entirely possible for a robot to drop a cone into a driver basket without the use of shims which would require human intervention and the inevitable human error. Perfect amounts of glue can be applied in perfect circles to achieve perfect adhesion to the engineer's intent. Obscene levels of measurement accuracy simply verify that machines are manufacturing to obscene levels of accuracy and consistency.

You see, "entirely possible" isn't the same thing as reality. It may be true, but just as likely fantasy. Maybe you don't know exactly just what the hell they are doing at the speaker factories. When you don't present specific facts how are we to know? I have a suspecian that the farther up the food chain you go in speaker manufacture the more boutique things get and the less robotic and more hand made speakers become, just like the olden days. but there it is, speculation, not reality, necessarily.

How is it not obvious that this is a vastly superior method of creating a precision product compared to rooms full of people cutting out cabinets with table saws and routers and building drivers using human hands and jigs?

I agree that aerospace manufacturing process would make a better fitting speaker, but not necessarily a better sounding one based on precision alone. Could be some diminishing return laws at play here, entirely possible.

I still feel my question remains completely unanswered, that being specifically

which parts of the speaker has these tolerances, and how does this extremely tight tolerance benefit SQ?

Answer that with facts that you have, not what you imagine is "possible", or statements like "how is it not obvious". If it is true and you know the answer it shouldn't be a lot to ask..

 

[4-2-7]

which would require human intervention and the inevitable human error.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

Never before in history have we had the knowledge and technology to more faithfully reproduce a product so close to the designer's intent.

As much as I'd like the "new ass" that's apparently on offer here (my old one itches), I have to agree 100% with this statement. There is much engineering being done to make things cheaper, but equally there is much engineering to make things better quality. It applies to everything manufactured, except boutique hand-made products. There was a time when hand-made meant better and "mass produced" was bad, but now the opposite is increasingly true.

 

[Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

Let's roll the 'tude back a bit folks. Would hate to make this thread...and some members disappear...

 

[Ken Boyd]

Insane balderdash! You couldn't substantiate the supposition all engineering does is make speakers cheaper to build if your life depended on it. That's like saying all engineering has done for cars is make them cheaper to build. Likewise, insanity.
Designers have engineering tools, materials, quality control methods, and manufacturing processes available to them today that designers 40 years ago literally couldn't have dreamed of. And you're going to tell me all that does is let them build stuff cheaper? You can't possibly be serious. I know better than that because I've worked with those people, operated the machines, and practiced the metrology.
I've worked on machines that would effortlessly hit a +/-.002 tolerance all day long, and I've done exactly that. You're going to tell me that being able to manufacture speakers to those kinds of standards makes no difference? The CMM I used measured out 5 decimal places in three dimensions simultaneously. That kind of accuracy makes no difference, huh? You're typical FANUC robot will hit less than .005" and the cool stuff Seagate Technologies uses will drop platters in hard drives with .0001" accuracy. We use lasers invented to re-burn processor dies for eye surgery and created techniques to cast silicone hydrogel into contact lenses. Engineering has even mastered welding steel to aluminum. And you're telling me all engineering does is make stuff cheaper? Nothing could possibly be further from the truth. You genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.

The only insanity is your post which quotes me as claiming I stated all engineering does is make speakers cheaper to build. In my post I stated in "many cases", how that equates to "all" is beyond me. As for the rest of my post, I stand by everything I stated as well to be factual. Anyone that doesn't believe there are older speakers that are better sounding then some new ones, is not very informed.

 

[Alobar]

Feel any way you like. The vast majority of the machine and inspection work I did was prototyping. We used CNC's because we could bang out 3 or 4 parts in 1/3rd the time it would take a manual machinist, and do it to far tighter tolerances. Not sure how you didn't get "specific examples".

Specific examples of what parts of a speaker would actually benefit from the precision of a .002 tolerance. What you list instead are things that shorten the time, and thus expense of designing and building speakers, but still not showing exactly why a speaker requires such high tolerances. Pardon me here as my experience in tolerances are next to nothing to yours but it would seem to me the only real reason to require a part to be made to extremely tight tolerance would be extremely close clearances to another highly precision part. Without lubrication it would seem to me to be problematic to build such parts to work in extreme tight clearance with other precision parts on a speaker. Clearance changes as ambient temp changes. Not saying it is impossible, just that there would need to be a reason for such tight clearance. If there is no tight clearance to other parts, then how does a part on a driver with .002 tolerance get its huge SQ advantage over a vintage one with somewhat less tolerance? And conversely if there is such tight clearances tell us more about how these parts with the precision of parts more fitting of a Mars rover are making the SQ so much better than older speakers.

It's funny you mentioned aerospace manufacturing because the material Focal W cones are made from foam designed specifically for aerospace use.

Now this materials claim I can wrap my head around and yes I can see how stronger, lighter materials with properties more conducive to high SQ IS an advantage. I can also see how having the specific CAD software can shorten the design phase, perhaps giving the designers more permutations to play with and fine tune than the designers of yesteryear. However that can have a way of backfiring as well. Pilots used to actually FLY airliners, but today it is largely a computer show going on in the cockpit and they are there more or less to override. Does that make them better pilots, or worse? Same with engineers who simply feed to a computer what they want. After a while something could be lost to those old to the craft.

Bottom line, I can see advances in materials, and perhaps design advances of today as making better sounding speakers. Requiring parts with such precision that you indicated to Ken a few threads back makes little sense to anything but machinery that requires that sort of accuracy. You haven't shown where specifically that sort of advancement would give any sort of the real SQ required to unseat vintage so hands down completely. As for robotic arms, yes they are cool, speed up assembly and put factory workers out of work, but it is really just a cost cutting measure when it comes to building a speaker. A distant third to materials and design advancement which I give to new speakers (not all of which sound that great either).

 

[BillWojo]

Toolguy, like you I have spent most of my life in the manufacturing field visiting thousands of shops in almost every industry.
Robotics and CNC machining are great for repetitive task that require high precision. CNC wood routers can knock out speaker enclosures in flat pack form to high tolerances in a few minutes, requiring only assembly and finish to be done by hand.
Driver components can be knocked out on CNC lathes and mills at close tolerance very quickly indeed.
Years ago those same components would have been done on manual turret lathes and hydraulic copy lathes. Milling done on machines set up just for that singular operation in a lot of cases.
The precision required was specified by the engineers and held closely to those specs. Special jigs and fixtures built just for that purpose.
Remember the original Apollo missions? We landed folks on the moon and brought them home. Almost all of that space craft was hand built, CNC and CAD was still in it's infancy. When I was a lot younger I met a lot of the toolmakers that worked on those programs, I saw some of the left over "set-up, verification" pieces that they built, some of it would be a major feat to make today even with our best technology.
Technology is great, but don't ever discount what was built years ago without the latest and greatest manufacturing gear.
I still stand by what I said earlier about my antique Altec's and Mac's. The proof is in the sound, not how much "I" spent on them. I rather have a sound system that makes me want to dig for another CD to listen to that some sterile system with insane specs that bores me.
I suspect that a lot of others on this forum feel the same.

BillWojo