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Danny Richie's latest...

The ‘improvements’ cost more than the original speaker!

Keith
 
Purité Audio said:
The ‘improvements’ cost more than the original speaker!

Keith
Click to expand...
I wouldn’t do it myself. Some of his kits are for expensive speakers too. There seems to be customers that are satisfied with his upgrade kits and is why I don’t understand all the negativity here.

If people were complaining about being ripped off, then I’d understand.
 
Rick Sykora said:
But new does get you new drivers and warranty…

The problem is many do not have equipment to ensure the upgrade gets them a better outcome (if the upgrade is truly better). Hearing a difference may not be an improvement in accuracy. It is too easy to be deluded into believing your effort got you a better outcome than investing in newer speakers. In this case, Danny wants you to spend more than the original purchase price and does not show you how NoRez and crossover changes affect the overall tonal balance of the speaker.
Click to expand...
If the customer likes the sound better, then none of that matters. I used noRez on my subwoofers and it does dampen the panels. The knock test before and after confirmed it. The GR Research subs are so much better than what I was using, I don’t know or much care how much if any difference the NoRez makes, I just stuck it on cause it’s part of design.
 
xray said:
That would require them to admit they were wrong and made an error in judgement. To some that's worse than being ripped off.
Click to expand...
Maybe so, but if I didn’t like the upgrade I’d at least let GR know about it.
 
Todd68 said:
If the customer likes the sound better, then none of that matters. I used noRez on my subwoofers and it does dampen the panels. The knock test before and after confirmed it. The GR Research subs are so much better than what I was using, I don’t know or much care how much if any difference the NoRez makes, I just stuck it on cause it’s part of design.
Click to expand...

What if they do not like the result better? You have some positive experiences and that is fine, but we are just giving the consumer more information to make an informed decision. You seem to think that is negative and some of it can be, but so far you have not offered more than opinion. That does not go very far here.

ASR is more about understanding why something is better or worse than other sites. I have said that NoRez can be helpful if used in the right quantity. Its overapplication can also be detrimental and buying more than you need is simply throwing money away. Danny's upgrades often specify NoRez without any demonstrated benefit to the original speaker. Am about to do some testing to show what impact NoRez and other damping materials have and how they differ. Danny claims NoRez is better than Sonic Barrier, but does he offer any concrete measurements? He does not even do that for NoRez itself.
 
Rick Sykora said:
What if they do not like the result better? You have some positive experiences and that is fine, but we are just giving the consumer more information to make an informed decision. You seem to think that is negative and some of it can be, but so far you have not offered more than opinion. That does not go very far here.

ASR is more about understanding why something is better or worse than other sites. I have said that NoRez can be helpful if used in the right quantity. Its overapplication can also be detrimental and buying more than you need is simply throwing money away. Danny's upgrades often specify NoRez without any demonstrated benefit to the original speaker. Am about to do some testing to show what impact NoRez and other damping materials have and how they differ. Danny claims NoRez is better than Sonic Barrier, but does he offer any concrete measurements? He does not even do that for NoRez itself.
Click to expand...
... and GR research does not show frequency response graphs from 200 Hz and down. <?>
 
Todd68 said:
I used noRez on my subwoofers and it does dampen the panels
Click to expand...
I have no doubt it works. There are many alternative solutions that are cheaper and equally as effective. That said, I give Danny credit as it is a clean solution that is pretty easy to work with and cut into the correct size from posts I’ve seen. Albeit costly. Btw. The knock test is really not a very reliable way to tell if a speaker is properly “damped”.
 
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Rick Sykora said:
What if they do not like the result better? You have some positive experiences and that is fine, but we are just giving the consumer more information to make an informed decision. You seem to think that is negative and some of it can be, but so far you have not offered more than opinion. That does not go very far here.

ASR is more about understanding why something is better or worse than other sites. I have said that NoRez can be helpful if used in the right quantity. Its overapplication can also be detrimental and buying more than you need is simply throwing money away. Danny's upgrades often specify NoRez without any demonstrated benefit to the original speaker. Am about to do some testing to show what impact NoRez and other damping materials have and how they differ. Danny claims NoRez is better than Sonic Barrier, but does he offer any concrete measurements? He does not even do that for NoRez itself.
Click to expand...
Fair enough, although I do know basic electronics and can and did do a bit of repair work, I’m not trying to learn technical aspects of audio design and the best way to use measurements. So good for you if that’s your goal.
 
But I presume you would be interested to know if the ‘upgrades’ are actually worthwhile?
Keith
 
While the glue sets on my NoRez test unit, decided would check on another aspect that Danny tends to neglect- baselining. Here I show the Stereophile measurements for the Wharfedale 10.1 in comparison to his...

1725454518279.png


The blue trace is from a Stereophile review and the yellow from Danny's shown on his usual 25 dB scale. Clearly, they are very different, but some of it is different measurement conditions. Still would expect more similarities for the same design. By this look, could just as easily be comparing 2 different speakers. Based on the very smoothed GR measures was tempted to buy a pair of these as seemed a real bargain. Not tempted so much anymore.
 
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Todd68 said:
Did Wharfedale publish frequency response graph of their own?
Click to expand...

Not that I found but these are pretty old speakers. Really not done by many manufacturers that is why used Stereophile one.
 
Doublej said:
Rick,

Any conclusions from your No Rez test?
Click to expand...
Rick has a thread on his tests.
www.audiosciencereview.com

A comparison of the effectivity of various speaker damping materials

Have seen a lot of discussion about speaker damping and many applications seemed to be ad-hoc. Admittedly, even the use of damping for Directiva r1 was more of a guess than I was comfortable suggesting. Having acquired many different types of materials from different DIY projects, I felt it was...
www.audiosciencereview.com www.audiosciencereview.com
 
Have not bothered much with tracking everything GR does, but thought this recent video was interesting as Danny is now on defense from another camp - an apparent poke by reviewer Andrew Robinson. Robinson has 300K+ youtube subscribers. He recently poked at expensive crossover parts and those marketing them. His position was a simple one - if it sounds good, do not care much what is inside.

This sent Danny reeling and he posted a response. Tbh, only skimmed it as I really rather not waste much time on it. My perusal was enough to know it was Danny’s usual propaganda and was chock full of his usual superlatives and lots of handwaving. Did not see any use of measurements or objective content in his response. At the end, he does put out his usual invite for Andrew (and others) to visit GR. Doubt Robinson will take the bait.
 
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