• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Fleetwood Sound - Deville speakers

Pearljam5000

Master Contributor
Joined
Oct 12, 2020
Messages
5,626
Likes
6,028
What do you guys think?
Screenshot_20221116_230332_Gallery.jpg
Screenshot_20221116_230442_Chrome.jpg
 
These idiots have lost their mind.
 
Ugly as hell and wildly too expensive. I fully expect they sound quite bad.
 
For a guy charging $18K on the strength of sound quality, you'd think he'd care enough about sound not to bump the mic with his chin.

Anyway, from what I know about speaker design, they didn't say anything wildly wrong in the port video... nor did they say anything to justify the price. Bottom ports aren't that unusual though.
 
Last edited:
You can find my measurements of the Fleetwood DeVille at https://www.stereophile.com/content/fleetwood-sound-company-deville-sq-loudspeaker-measurements

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

The hump at 100-200hz is not encouraging, although I guess that might be a measurement artifact, but probably not the resonance at 300hz... and the chaos beyond 10khz is bracing to look at. Looks like a headphone measurement! My guess is they sound OK if you're in a mellow mood and don't pay too close attention to the treble, but maybe not so great off-axis.

I guess if you pay $18K for speakers you are probably inclined to devote a seat for listening also, idk.
 
@John Atkinson - this may be a breach of professional decorum, so feel free to ignore this question, but if you've had any interactions with Fleetwood Sound, do you have the sense that they are profitable? I really have to wonder at the prospects of trying to sell enough $18K niche-appeal speakers to pay for a 25,000 sqft wood shop. Even out in the sticks of PA, that's not free.

To be clear, I'm not saying "no way could they sell enough of these"... more like I'm curious about the volumes that brands like this typically sell. Are there really enough people out there interested in this exact type of speaker to pay for that whole space??
 
Last edited:
As it can be seen from the off-axis plots (and also JA states) the directivity of the horn tweeter is much higher than of the woofer, which will lead to an audible sound power imbalance in normal rooms, a full CEA2034 spinorama would show that even better.
Considering what kind of superb loudspeakers can be purchased for that money, this one falls to the typical "highend" category for me, at least its direct sound isn't as coloured as on most products of that category.
 
"Conicals don't behave or sound like any other horns," Weiss explained. "They work differently. They have no constriction at the throat like curved-wall horns, which produce that honky, nasal coloration.

:facepalm:
 
The hump at 100-200hz is not encouraging, although I guess that might be a measurement artifact, but probably not the resonance at 300hz... and the chaos beyond 10khz is bracing to look at. Looks like a headphone measurement! My guess is they sound OK if you're in a mellow mood and don't pay too close attention to the treble, but maybe not so great off-axis.

I guess if you pay $18K for speakers you are probably inclined to devote a seat for listening also, idk.
That hump doesn't make sense with the oversized box used. The last octave does make sense for the box volume used. I wonder how lower tuning would work. The hump would give the speaker a punchy sound. I wonder the crossover frequency. Looks to be 3Khz. 2khz or slightly lower might be better. THD is probably low. Just WAGs.
 
Last edited:
Now they're just trolling us.
Oh yeah, actually there was another article that went into the OMA speakers a bit, and they're supposedly in the mid-6 figures. Given that, I think it's easy to see how they can afford that workshop. They only need to sell 2 or 3 flagships per year to take care of overhead, I'd guess.
 
Oh yeah, actually there was another article that went into the OMA speakers a bit, and they're supposedly in the mid-6 figures. Given that, I think it's easy to see how they can afford that workshop. They only need to sell 2 or 3 flagships per year to take care of overhead, I'd guess.
Maybe they're operating on different acoustic principles than I learned, but I'd say those look like they tossed together stuff to look Steampunk. I guess if the owners are happy...
 
Maybe they're operating on different acoustic principles than I learned, but I'd say those look like they tossed together stuff to look Steampunk. I guess if the owners are happy...
If by “different” you mean 1940s tech combined with putting appearance and high cost above sq, then yes… different.
 
Back
Top Bottom