ASR speaker (and electronics) review - is it really objective?

[redshift]

hum~ Trouble is, those are the ones who are willing to spend a fortune out of their not so full bank account for sound quality.

Nice speaker driver and displacement cannot be replaced by say DSP or active EQing in some smark lifestyle products, and small ones don't produce good sound at SPL able to fill a living room. if you want nice speaker components designed into some furniture or painting like the IKEA sonos one and able to active adapt to a room with decent SPL and bass extension... yea surely it can be done, but I doubt only the tech giant founders alike would like to pay for the cost of such things for geeks in any hobby we likely will be enjoying playing around and optimizing anything to achieve some better result and not put some smart stuffs and let it do itself.

Another hindering factor is longevity of a product, when even active speakers are always questioned with it's long term reliability and serviceability (Since I think most ppl won't think decent audio products are dirt cheap and upgrade like a phone or so), those smart speakers are even more doubtful

That is rather narrow minded.

I’d bet the market would grow if non intrusive “real” Hifi gear would be introduced for the masses. And I am not thinking about sound bars and IKEA/sonos frivolous and disposable flexy, flimsy pieces of consumerist jank.

Point of reference: cans and near field gear.

 

[Frank Dernie]

That is rather narrow minded.

I’d bet the market would grow if non intrusive “real” Hifi gear would be introduced for the masses. And I am not thinking about sound bars and IKEA/sonos frivolous and disposable flexy, flimsy pieces of consumerist jank.

Point of reference: cans and near field gear.

Everybody I knew had HiFi (ie for the masses) in the 1970s. What killed it off was the steady increase in other gadgets to spend money on and miniaturisation of stuff making the laws of physics which largely dictate the size and ideal location of speakers in a room incongruous.
Most people I know don't like wide band full dynamic range music enough to make any effort to achieve it at home. Since they are the vast majority they are helped by most recordings being mixed to suit ear buds and car stereos.

I find earphones, or at least ear buds, great on a bus, train or 'plane, otherwise cans are not a nice experience either comfort wise of a little line of micro-musicians in my head.

I don't have anywhere where nearfield listening would be essential, including sitting here at my computer.
So I have big speakers in my sitting room, bedroom and study.
My kids generally, even the musicians, fit into the category of not being prepared to make any "sacrifice" to get good sound. So they don't have good sound at home.

 

[YSC]

That is rather narrow minded.

I’d bet the market would grow if non intrusive “real” Hifi gear would be introduced for the masses. And I am not thinking about sound bars and IKEA/sonos frivolous and disposable flexy, flimsy pieces of consumerist jank.

Point of reference: cans and near field gear.

Well I mean serious money, for reality most of my friends after listening to my genelec basic 8030C setup they liked the sound, but when I told them in Thomann these are at a budget price of <$1000 per pair and if they wanted I can help hem set up easily they just shake their heads, a few are even Porsche drivers. If you need to develop a nice active hifi gear the market will be really narrow, you can ask D&D how many buys their 8C which isn’t a floor stander and have the app to correct in room rather easily. Even audiophiles mostly doubtful of their long term reliability, not to say something even more non traditional hifi looking.

 

[redshift]

Everybody I knew had HiFi (ie for the masses) in the 1970s. What killed it off was the steady increase in other gadgets to spend money on and miniaturisation of stuff making the laws of physics which largely dictate the size and ideal location of speakers in a room incongruous.
Most people I know don't like wide band full dynamic range music enough to make any effort to achieve it at home. Since they are the vast majority they are helped by most recordings being mixed to suit ear buds and car stereos.

I find earphones, or at least ear buds, great on a bus, train or 'plane, otherwise cans are not a nice experience either comfort wise of a little line of micro-musicians in my head.

I don't have anywhere where nearfield listening would be essential, including sitting here at my computer.
So I have big speakers in my sitting room, bedroom and study.
My kids generally, even the musicians, fit into the category of not being prepared to make any "sacrifice" to get good sound. So they don't have good sound at home.

That is the tragedy of Hifi in the living room and it is continuously perpetrated as a search for the unattainable perfection at any price.

All it would take is for the regular Hifi aficionado to be able to source a pair of reasonably priced neat onwalls/small floorstanders without the associated regalia, audiophile bling and obscurity.

Say Apple, IKEA or Sonos release a nice high fidelity wallmount without the creaky “cheapness” associated. That would completely kill the low to mid range segment of prosumer audio.

 

[redshift]

Well I mean serious money, for reality most of my friends after listening to my genelec basic 8030C setup they liked the sound, but when I told them in Thomann these are at a budget price of <$1000 per pair and if they wanted I can help hem set up easily they just shake their heads, a few are even Porsche drivers. If you need to develop a nice active hifi gear the market will be really narrow, you can ask D&D how many buys their 8C which isn’t a floor stander and have the app to correct in room rather easily. Even audiophiles mostly doubtful of their long term reliability, not to say something even more non traditional hifi looking.

I don’t think Genelec have a problem shifting their gear in volumes for the near field aficionados (WAF’s and all that) and the usual YT personality/musician that mixes and masters his/her own electronica. I seriously doubt those monitors cost more than $100 USD to make.

They are raking in the profits from the shift in audio consumption and production while the usual MDF carvers observe their piece of the cake continuously shrink.

 

[Frank Dernie]

That is the tragedy of Hifi in the living room and it is continuously perpetrated as a search for the unattainable perfection at any price.

All it would take is for the regular Hifi aficionado to be able to source a pair of reasonably priced neat onwalls/small floorstanders without the associated regalia, audiophile bling and obscurity.

Say Apple, IKEA or Sonos release a nice high fidelity wallmount without the creaky “cheapness” associated. That would completely kill the low to mid range segment of prosumer audio.

Nobody has repealed the laws of physics though.

 

[redshift]

Nobody has repealed the laws of physics though.

Then all that is left is a compromise. I’m all for competently executed compromises.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I seriously doubt those monitors cost more than $100 USD to make.

Do you have an engineering manufacturing background enabling you to have confidence in this assertion or is it speculation.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Then all that is left is a compromise. I’m all for competently executed compromises.

Well that is what we already have.
Loads of little speakers with the bass and poor dynamic range capability that go with smallness.
There are loads of them, all different looking and with variable SQ but all constrained by the laws of physics.
That is the compromise you are stuck with.
I do have some small DSP corrected stand mounts which go deep, but of course that means positioning is critical (yes, you guessed it, the laws of physics have not been repealed)

 

[redshift]

Do you have an engineering manufacturing background enabling you to have confidence in this assertion or is it speculation.

I mean they are shifting those by the truckload and those injection molded/stamped tools for the aluminum cabinets has paid for themselves a long time since. 50 bucks tops including finishing and shipping

As for the drivers. We’re not talking about rocket science here. 50 bucks tops including Q&A / production line testing and calibration.

Genelec charges 500 and Thomann slaps on another 500. And they are still shifting like mad because good stuff is good stuff.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I mean they are shifting those by the truckload and those injection molded/stamped tools for the aluminum cabinets has paid for themselves a long time since. 50 bucks tops including finishing and shipping

As for the drivers. We’re not talking about rocket science here. 50 bucks tops including Q&A / production line testing and calibration.

Genelec charges 500 and Thomann slaps on another 500. And they are still shifting like mad because good stuff is good stuff.

Ah, so no.
You are showing yourself to be an ignorant self opinionated gobshite with nothing to say worth reading so onto my ignore list for you. Bye.

 

[redshift]

Well that is what we already have.
Loads of little speakers with the bass and poor dynamic range capability that go with smallness.
There are loads of them, all different looking and with variable SQ but all constrained by the laws of physics.
That is the compromise you are stuck with.
I do have some small DSP corrected stand mounts which go deep, but of course that means positioning is critical (yes, you guessed it, the laws of physics have not been repealed)

Yes, small drivers & cabinets compromises the low end, but why does it have to imply that it isn’t a worthy compromise to make?

It certainly doesn’t seem to affect the near field bazaar. I’m perfectly happy with my PSI’s and Silver 50’s without the sub support.

My 16L cabinet volume wall mounts reach 34Hz (tuned to 30Hz) without sub support.

 

[redshift]

Ah, so no.
You are showing yourself to be an ignorant self opinionated gobshite with nothing to say worth reading so onto my ignore list for you. Bye.

Haha, sensitive stuff…

 

[YSC]

I mean they are shifting those by the truckload and those injection molded/stamped tools for the aluminum cabinets has paid for themselves a long time since. 50 bucks tops including finishing and shipping

As for the drivers. We’re not talking about rocket science here. 50 bucks tops including Q&A / production line testing and calibration.

Genelec charges 500 and Thomann slaps on another 500. And they are still shifting like mad because good stuff is good stuff.

nah, you forget all those expertise need to continuously QC, develop and individual unit calibration with some hidden pots to make their FR within their +/-0.5db promised range, and then you get spare parts stock building, power, salary, tax, company development and reasonable profit margin, remember Genelec have a history to keep parts available for at least 5-10 years worth of repair, a lot of times their stock can make 20 years old stuffs repairable all those I can tell you is hell of a pressure, unless say you assume a company CEO and senior management should only earn the same as a Mcdonald waitress or myself, and anything they earns extra is a rip off

 

[redshift]

nah, you forget all those expertise need to continuously QC, develop and individual unit calibration with some hidden pots to make their FR within their +/-0.5db promised range, and then you get spare parts stock building, power, salary, tax, company development and reasonable profit margin, remember Genelec have a history to keep parts available for at least 5-10 years worth of repair, a lot of times their stock can make 20 years old stuffs repairable all those I can tell you is hell of a pressure, unless say you assume a company CEO and senior management should only earn the same as a Mcdonald waitress or myself, and anything they earns extra is a rip off

Yeah, I was just considering the manufacturing costs. Obviously a nice fat margin should cover for the rest.

 

[YSC]

Yeah, I was just considering the manufacturing costs. Obviously a nice fat margin should cover for the rest.

yea, and back to your topic, some more lifestyle and smart stuffs I can imagine is B&O, the beolab 90 looks more of art piece decloration than a normal boxy tower speaker, but it's costing more than a M3, I presume due to parts selection, smart ass tech development for living room, and then fit it in some artistic enclosure, and considering how many units you could possibly sell to recover manufacturing cost and crisis of stocking

All in a sudden you step into sports car category of pricing, and in that market I believe you can't really allow multiple vendors to survive in parallel.

of coz when considering reasonable sacrifice, something like apple home pod actually did quite a good job in self EQing and being omnidirectional, and don't cost a sports car, but then it failed, coz serious audiophiles don't like the apple ecosystem, and then before serious measurements are out, most will hold on and see how it goes, and then sales would be in some trouble, and when those targeting lifestyle more than sound/cares about sound, most walk in just pick the best looking ones and ignore everything else

 

[Chromatischism]

The initial 'meh' impression was largely due to room modes which @amirm had not started correcting back then (R3 was one of the earliest speakers to go on the bench). He re-heard the speaker correcting for that when reviewing another (think Revel) speaker later when he realized room modes were causing problems, and his impression was a lot better.

Many people in the KEF R3 thread have asked for this correction to be included, but it has never been done. So anyone landing on that thread will come away with a bad impression, unless they get to page 20+ of the thread (which I doubt many bother with).

There have been several "meh" impressions to great measuring speakers. There are several reasons for that including the listening setup, the room, and his personal preference. That is why I recommend weighting the objective measurements heavily in your decision. Maybe 80% measurements and 20% his subjective listen. In that case both the Buchardt S400 and KEF R3 (with EQ to tame the 3+ kHz brightness, and don't listen to either of these speakers directly on-axis) are definitely buys.