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Andrew Jones out at ELAC!

amirm

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No details. He lives in W. Hollywood, CA. I suspect there is a non-compete that is running off.
Non-competes are not enforceable in California. He maybe honoring one anyway but wouldn't have to legally.
 
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jtwrace

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thewas

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From KEF to Pioneer/TAD to ELAC and now Mofi, not really on a rising slope...


 
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jtwrace

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From KEF to Pioneer/TAD to ELAC and now Mofi, not really on a rising slope...


As someone who has worked for some of the largest brands (not audio), working for a smaller company at times with more control is more appealing. You want to change "x", you change "x" and carry on. Not having a lot of red tape is very appealing for engineers. Throw in the fact that he's able to start something new and it's a dream job as long as he can produce what's required in a very tough market.
 
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jtwrace

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thewas

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As someone who has worked for some of the largest brands (not audio), working for a smaller company at times with more control is more appealing. You want to change "x", you change "x" and carry on. Not having a lot of red tape is very appealing for engineers. Throw in the fact that he's able to start something new and it's a dream job as long as he can produce what's required in a very tough market.
Sure, as an engineer I also prefer working at a smaller company, the size is not problem but that he moved from something of a highest engineering level (KEF - large, TAD - small) to something like... Mofi. Such a company might give you more freedom, but this isn't enough if the resources (material and most important immaterial) are limited. Anyway, time will tell...
 

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I have inexpensive (<$1000) speakers from Pioneer and Elac by Jones. In both cases, they hit way above their cost class. Thus, I wish Andrew well in the future. Undeniably, he has had an impact on speaker design. That said, a glance at the MoFi website (a company to which I had never before paid any attention) shows a low platform from which he'll start. Some may see this as an advantage; no tangle of corporate background. I see it as a costly and long-term proposition -- with a ton of competition.

I don't exactly know why Andrew and Elac (and Tad, Kef, Pioneer, et. al.) parted company, but I strongly suspect that the press explanations are PRBS. We will see what MoFi thinks it is up to, and whether Jones' skills can build them a speaker market. I must wonder if they fully comprehend the investment and patience it will take to grow roots, then height, then finally fruit?

A sort of parallel, but with a better starting point, is PSAudio's late and almost absent entry into speakers. They started into the design intent of very high price, doomsday spec speakers many years ago -- and just finally delivered one. That despite having a pretty heavy-hitter speaker engineer. Peering at Paul's infomercials over the years, the speaker product he predicted turned out not to be the final design. At all.

That and the market is nothing if not crowded as heck. There are a bunch of factories that are trying to build a speaker that costs $200 and sells for $4000.

We'll see. I'm not betting against Andrew Jones, nor am I betting on him. I'll watch from the sidelines and hope for a good outcome.
 

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I haven't watched this yet, but it could be quite interesting:

Aha, interesting. According to Andrew Jones, he will create speakers that are mid-segment in terms of price ($ 2,500 ?, a guess on my part). Andrew Jones starts from the beginning and seems to have been given free rein, but that the speakers should fit into Mofi's company philosophy, their other offerings. They seem to be working on vinyl so my guess is ........ hm..speakers with a retro, vintage look that aesthetically fits together with turntables. Far-fetched or what do you think about that guess?:)
 

Ericglo

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As someone who has worked for some of the largest brands (not audio), working for a smaller company at times with more control is more appealing. You want to change "x", you change "x" and carry on. Not having a lot of red tape is very appealing for engineers. Throw in the fact that he's able to start something new and it's a dream job as long as he can produce what's required in a very tough market.
Sure, as an engineer I also prefer working at a smaller company, the size is not problem but that he moved from something of a highest engineering level (KEF - large, TAD - small) to something like... Mofi. Such a company might give you more freedom, but this isn't enough if the resources (material and most important immaterial) are limited. Anyway, time will tell...

I agree with both of you. My thought is at this point Andrew's design philosophy isn't going to change. He has probably tested every driver on the planet. I am sure he knows all of the manufacturers of all of the components. My guess is he already has an idea for new speakers and may have been working on them during his absence. I bet he can get some high quality cabinets like Dennis Murphy has and have some speakers out pretty quickly.

But thewas is correct that if Andrew has ideas that he wants to research then this company might not be the place to scratch that itch.
 

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He has been working on it for a year, and his reasoning makes a lot of sense. Sounds like he is leveraging MoFi's "studio" history, which suggests something along the lines of a "studio monitor" product. And it makes sense to be able to do what he is interested in doing.
 

More Dynamics Please

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Charles Sprinkle set a good example for what can be accomplished when he left JBL to help start Kali Audio and has engineered and produced outstanding speakers at reasonable price points with considerably fewer resources than he had available from Harman.
 

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From KEF to Pioneer/TAD to ELAC and now Mofi, not really on a rising slope...
Such a wrong way to put things. There is more to life than "perceived professional trajectory". I admire people that are not slaves to this mindset. I wish him all the best an am thankful for how my Elacs sound in my office. He is a talent and an exceptional engineer and communicator, a great guy indeed.
 

HooStat

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I thought it was interested that Andrew Jones mentioned that it would be hard for him to fit into a lot of established companies because he would have to fit into an existing speaker product line. By this I assume he meant existing suppliers, existing products, existing design philosophies, etc. Plus, he didn't want to be making the same speakers that he did in his other companies -- those products already exist. What is the point of going somewhere else and doing version 2, 3 or 4 of your products from other companies? I think the example of Charles Sprinkle is a good one. Do something fresh and interesting.

I am hoping that he will design "studio" quality speakers for home use. For example, Neumann makes great stuff, but it is all very ugly from most domestic perspectives.
 

thewas

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Such a wrong way to put things. There is more to life than "perceived professional trajectory". I admire people that are not slaves to this mindset. I wish him all the best an am thankful for how my Elacs sound in my office. He is a talent and an exceptional engineer and communicator, a great guy indeed.
Well that is your point of view, jumping from one company to the next every some years is not really a sign of a free mindset but can have also other "qualities" . I know I won't make friends in this thread but find people like him overhyped and don't like such a person cult. There are dozens of loudspeaker engineers in the world which have contributed much more to the evolution and understanding of loudspeaker design but you won't find their names and YouTube interviews all over, like you write 'he is an exceptional communicator and guy". But it seems that such strategy works well, let's see how long he will stay at Mofi before he jumps to the next one and his fans following and cheering him.
 
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thewas

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I am hoping that he will design "studio" quality speakers for home use. For example, Neumann makes great stuff, but it is all very ugly from most domestic perspectives.
I sincerely hope I will be proven wrong but I strongly doubt that a company that is specialised in "audiophile recordings' and started their recent entry into audio devices with turntables will make something neutral and well measuring like a Neumann, but it's a good way to sell such an image, see B&W and Abbey Road studios or the Mofi 'studio" and Fender turntables...
 
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