NY Times visits Ojas

[egbx]

The system (and the experience of it) is a good example of a holistic approach, that I believe Turnbull is quite adept at. Finding fault in it because it might not measure “well” or because the speakers are spotlighted is missing the point, and missing out.

As a system to reproduce music, it suceeds tremendously. How it gets there is not trivial or a fluke. It takes knowledge, skill, intuition, perseverance, art. It is not BS.

Go have a listen if you have a chance. It is not “good enough” or “good for such obsolete technologies”. It is just really good. It probably doesn’t measure well in some respects. I bet it measures well in important and audible respects. It is not the only possible way to get to that level of real performance , but it is one heck of a valid way. Demonstrably so. The proof is in the listening. I observed the exact effect described in the GQ article - people of all walks of life sitting quietly in rapt attention, without any prodding or policing.

 

[MattHooper]

The system (and the experience of it) is a good example of a holistic approach, that I believe Turnbull is quite adept at. Finding fault in it because it might not measure “well” or because the speakers are spotlighted is missing the point, and missing out.

As a system to reproduce music, it suceeds tremendously. How it gets there is not trivial or a fluke. It takes knowledge, skill, intuition, perseverance, art. It is not BS.

Go have a listen if you have a chance. It is not “good enough” or “good for such obsolete technologies”. It is just really good. It probably doesn’t measure well in some respects. I bet it measures well in important and audible respects. It is not the only possible way to get to that level of real performance , but it is one heck of a valid way. Demonstrably so. The proof is in the listening. I observed the exact effect described in the GQ article - people of all walks of life sitting quietly in rapt attention, without any prodding or policing.

But OMG, it isn’t designed on the latest very best practises and might display some frequency deviation that you won’t find a genelec or Neumann speaker! It’s got to be trash and not worth nobody’s time, and it’s just going to mislead the poor public who listen to it and think they are enjoying it!

 

[Monos]

But I’m not comparing to monitors, I’m asking if there’s a marked improvement over pro audio options—let’s say mid-line consumer “sticks” even, not even comparing to e.g. l’acoustics systems more comparable with price (even cheaper?). Of course it’s cool to see people experimenting & creating their own systems, even prioritizing not mass-market, more bespoke form, & I’m sure it’s good & would love to hear it (not an option from the midwest, let alone own a system.) I’m simply asking if comparable performance can be had from a pa. I really don’t care about Turnbull’s tech chops or personality etc., which Im sure is fine.

disagree. I think the system is a fun example of the different takes available for producing an audio experience.

But that’s my point — an “audio” experience, not a musical experience, which imo audio should serve.

I’m not trying to be a jerk (it comes naturally!), more that I have the perspective of a shoestring budget composer who often relies on electronics to transmit sound, & so always curious where clarity can be found at the expense of visual aesthetics. Of course like many, I often drool over altec remakes & all that japanese hifi stuff, but again, in what specific regards are such systems an improvement over contemporary consumer pa systems? I ask as someone who doesn’t want miss out on the best when building a venue pa or something, if these are indeed an improvement.

people of all walks of life sitting quietly in rapt attention, without any prodding or policing.

Well, the public does what they’re supposed to do in museums: act cultured. I’ve seen them sit in rapt attention at the dumbest things. I don’t necessarily disbelieve that the system sounds great, but from my experience I’ve heard that a lot about some really not so great things. I bet if the speakers were Jbl pa boxes wrapped in a faux-wood sticker & spotlit in a museum they’d also sit in rapt attention.

 

[MattHooper]

But that’s my point — an “audio” experience, not a musical experience, which imo audio should serve.

I could’ve said “musical experience” instead. It’s clear people are having great musical experiences listening to that system. The reason I said “audio” was to note the role the gear was playing in the experience. People can and do have a musical experience from any type of playback gear - whether it’s a cheap turntable crappy earbuds or playing their favourite music on their laptop. But the right gear can elevate the listening experience in terms of the sensuousness of sound itself, the sonic impact, which can come from the right arrangement and selection of gear.
A lot of feedback suggest that this system is doing just that.

Otherwise, I understand the other points you were making.

 

[egbx]

But I’m not comparing to monitors, I’m asking if there’s a marked improvement over pro audio options—let’s say mid-line consumer “sticks” even, not even comparing to e.g. l’acoustics systems more comparable with price (even cheaper?). Of course it’s cool to see people experimenting & creating their own systems, even prioritizing not mass-market, more bespoke form, & I’m sure it’s good & would love to hear it (not an option from the midwest, let alone own a system.) I’m simply asking if comparable performance can be had from a pa. I really don’t care about Turnbull’s tech chops or personality etc., which Im sure is fine.


But that’s my point — an “audio” experience, not a musical experience, which imo audio should serve.

I’m not trying to be a jerk (it comes naturally!), more that I have the perspective of a shoestring budget composer who often relies on electronics to transmit sound, & so always curious where clarity can be found at the expense of visual aesthetics. Of course like many, I often drool over altec remakes & all that japanese hifi stuff, but again, in what specific regards are such systems an improvement over contemporary consumer pa systems? I ask as someone who doesn’t want miss out on the best when building a venue pa or something, if these are indeed an improvement.


Well, the public does what they’re supposed to do in museums: act cultured. I’ve seen them sit in rapt attention at the dumbest things. I don’t necessarily disbelieve that the system sounds great, but from my experience I’ve heard that a lot about some really not so great things. I bet if the speakers were Jbl pa boxes wrapped in a faux-wood sticker & spotlit in a museum they’d also sit in rapt attention.

Yes you could build an equally compelling experience with professional gear. It would not necessarily be cheaper. The really good pro stuff is very expensive. The mid-level stuff does not perform nearly as well. An example: with a great piano and player, with great miking, only the top level gear sounds like the instrument. It is uncanny to bring up the piano faders slowly and the character of the instrument not change except in level. You loose that level of performance with the mid-level stuff. We keep trying (budgets being what they are), but whenever you get to work with the top stuff, it is immediately clear that you are in a different ballpark altogether. d&b audiotechnik, Meyer, L’acoustics. Worth every penny.

Yes - I’ve seen people enjoying dumb stuff. I see people transfixed with music in a live environment very frequently. I know it is in many ways a subjective thing, but as an educated and experienced professional I honestly think that people by and large “get it”. The energy in the room when the music is great is so different than when it isn’t. Why have performing arts, if not that?

 

[Doodski]

We keep trying (budgets being what they are), but whenever you get to work with the top stuff, it is immediately clear that you are in a different ballpark altogether. d&b audiotechnik, Meyer, L’acoustics. Worth every penny.

Are you a professional? Any chance you can give us generalized tidbits in your profile?

 

[kemmler3D]

View attachment 376468I just did at the SF MOMA. Totally worth it. Big system in a good sized room, with appropriate acoustic treatment, not the typical super-live echoey museum space.

This guy is doing many things right, the system sounds really good. Special I would say. Nitpicking, I think it may be a little lean in the top octave but it could also be the material, none of which I was familiar with. But the way it delivers the music in the room is just really present, in a beautiful way. Coherent in spades, across the range and down to really low LF. Very neutral. Effortless.

Of note is that Turnbull is using cool, eclectic, fantastic music. No “audiophile” recordings, just some great music that I was happy to enjoy as such and not as “audio”. He played some Daniel Lanois on CD, and this on vinyl:

Kahil El'Zabar's 'Spirit Groove' ft. David Murray, by Kahil El'Zabar's Spirit Groove

8 track album

spiritgroove.bandcamp.com

I found his music choices wonderful. I wish I’d stayed all day listening to great music on a great system, with many people in the room clearly affected in much the same way.

I’m a sound engineer and have been around live music professionally for over 40 years. Worked with high-end audio back before it turned completely insane. I think the OJAS system is well engineered and worth a trip to enjoy. If I had the money and space I’d be interested in replicating a system like that.

Sorry to revive an old thread , but I think some people could enjoy this and also the exhibit at the museum with some fun gear from the past. The emphasis is on design, not so much performance. Still, it was a kid in a candy store day.

Art of Noise

A multi-sensory exploration of how design has changed the way we’ve experienced music over the past 100 years.

www.sfmoma.org

I also went today, overall I wasn't disappointed but I wasn't blown away. I was lucky and got one of the floor seats right in the center:

Big disclaimer: they were only playing vinyl and I wasn't really familiar with any of the songs that came on. As such, I think the speakers are clean but I couldn't tell you that the distortion was definitely as low as it ought to be given the total cone area. I have no reason to think it isn't, either. As we know, minimum THD from vinyl swamps what a system like this ought to be capable of.

Overall, I would say the acoustics were good in there. Pretty dead but not obviously overdamped. The bass was impressive, seemed to go all the way down (again, with vinyl you can't be totally sure) and didn't seem to have any serious issues, although it was pretty hot where I was sitting (floor bounce?) and didn't seem nearly as strong walking around the rest of the room.

Dynamics seemed as good as you'd hope for from a system like this. It had a bit of "slam" or whatever you want to call it.

I think the overall in-room response seemed reasonable-ish, but with a fairly noticeable downward tilt. I spent a little time listening to my genelecs (true flat response at my listening position) before heading to the museum - my first 10 seconds of listening to the Ojas, I felt like the response was downright dark, but it was partly the song that was on.

The stereo image to me seemed pretty diffuse in the midrange but certain higher frequency stuff seemed a little more "alive" and localizable... I got the sense that the segmented horn probably had as much diffraction as you'd think, and prevented a razor-sharp stereo image from forming most of the time. The image didn't seem rock solid, but it was very wide and enveloping, so mission accomplished, probably.

If these were to get measured on a klippel, my guess is you'd see some ripples from 2khz up, but nothing crazy, with the on-axis probably looking worse than the PIR, and a pretty pronounced downward tilt on the power response, I'd bet it's more than 1dB/octave. Warm is the word here. It all adds up to something quite decent, but somehow it didn't sound like a ruler-flat system to me.

Overall a nice experience, possibly the only time I've been in the presence of 24" (?) woofers, and worth a stop if you're in SF. Whether the speakers are world-beating or not, it was nice to see a bunch of people spending time doing focused listening and appreciating the playback equipment. If there's a resurgence of interest in hi-fi because of Turnbull, well, so be it. Right for the wrong reasons, or whatever.

I kind of preferred the big Altec horns in the vinyl room at Tower Records in Tokyo though...

 

[Waxx]

Those old altec/JBL systems got a special vibe to it, that is partly only the sound, but also the visual. In a double blind test they will sound inferior to modern systems, but seeing the speakers is part of the experience here. What OJAS does is nothing new, it's just recycling old ID's and selling it with a lot of hype for a lot of money.

But those kind of systems just work for a part of the target, you can't deny that. And it's not only old people, i know quiet a few younger also who prefer this above Genelec & Co, even with the objective knowledge. I also like it. The main problem i have with OJAS is price and the claims he makes. But those kind of systems remain popular with a certain part of the public, even knowing they are technical inferior. OJAS is on that a bit like the Morgan car company who still today makes cars like this Morgan Plus6

These go for over 120K a piece, are technically far inferior the equal priced BMW M2, even if it's egine is a BMW engine (B58), but nobody cares and expect it to be as good as car. It's not about that, it's about the "experience" of driving and owning such a car. There is also a long waiting list to get such a car as they are bespoke and hand build in the UK. OJAS does the same with speakers. His biggest bussiness is the one he does not advertise, custom setups for rich NY hipsters who saw his system in events like the one the OP Posted and also want one.

 

[kemmler3D]

Those old altec/JBL systems got a special vibe to it, that is partly only the sound, but also the visual. In a double blind test they will sound inferior to modern systems, but seeing the speakers is part of the experience here. What OJAS does is nothing new, it's just recycling old ID's and selling it with a lot of hype for a lot of money.

But those kind of systems just work for a part of the target, you can't deny that. And it's not only old people, i know quiet a few younger also who prefer this above Genelec & Co, even with the objective knowledge. I also like it. The main problem i have with OJAS is price and the claims he makes. But those kind of systems remain popular with a certain part of the public, even knowing they are technical inferior. OJAS is on that a bit like the Morgan car company who still today makes cars like this Morgan Plus6

View attachment 378169

These go for over 120K a piece, are technically far inferior the equal priced BMW M2, even if it's egine is a BMW engine (B58), but nobody cares and expect it to be as good as car. It's not about that, it's about the "experience" of driving and owning such a car. There is also a long waiting list to get such a car as they are bespoke and hand build in the UK. OJAS does the same with speakers. His biggest bussiness is the one he does not advertise, custom setups for rich NY hipsters who saw his system in events like the one the OP Posted and also want one.

Good comparison. For people who are not technically inclined or interested in audio, a speaker that "looks the part" in a dramatic way can have a unique and strong appeal. I mean, in fact, half of the entire exhibit (aside from the listening room) is about the industrial design of audio products. Teenage Engineering had a whole room to itself. The look is half of the appeal or maybe more.

Would a couple JBL M2s in the room at SF MOMA have sounded as good? I wouldn't bet against it. Do they look interesting enough to get people into a museum to listen to a random selection of records? Well, no.

 

[egbx]

Are you a professional? Any chance you can give us generalized tidbits in your profile?

I am. I have worked decades in live production in all kinds of settings - corporate, political, concerts, performing arts. By training and vocation I’m an audio engineer - I’m happiest doing live sound for great music. Providing transparent, musically appropriate, involving and engaging sound reinforcement is my passion. In over 5,000 shows worked, I’ve experienced a lot of amazing music up close and personal.

When I was in school, my side gig was working at a great little shop that combined sane, affordable good quality audio with high end stuff. Hafler, Thorens, KEF, B&W, Acoustat, PS Audio, SOTA, Dynavector, Grado, Sequerra tuners, Sequerra speakers, and lots of used Mac and Marantz tube stuff, Quad ESLs, Linn Sondeks etc etc… We were one of the first Krell dealers. We sold CD players before they were available in the US (the owner went to Japan and brought back a bunch of JDM (100V) CDP-101s that we sold with stepdown transformers LOL.

Combining that honest high-end audio ethos (from before the lunatics and scam artists took over) with proper, rational sound engineering techniques is how I approach my work.

What people frequently don’t realize is how much is learned from the active listening experience *over time*. In this, audio is similar to things such as the enjoyment of great food. What is great food? You could codify a bunch of metrics to determine the intrinsic merit of a meal, or a cup of coffee. You wouldn’t come close to knowing how good that meal is by just crosschecking the metrics. You may get to know the chemistry of the thing, intimately. You might even be able to know how much it doesn’t suck. But greatness is perceived (and achieved!) through other channels. It doesn’t mean that the science can be ignored. Physics rules. Yet it’s not only physics.

 

[Snarfie]

Yes you could build an equally compelling experience with professional gear. It would not necessarily be cheaper. The really good pro stuff is very expensive. The mid-level stuff does not perform nearly as well. An example: with a great piano and player, with great miking, only the top level gear sounds like the instrument. It is uncanny to bring up the piano faders slowly and the character of the instrument not change except in level. You loose that level of performance with the mid-level stuff. We keep trying (budgets being what they are), but whenever you get to work with the top stuff, it is immediately clear that you are in a different ballpark altogether. d&b audiotechnik, Meyer, L’acoustics. Worth every penny.

Yes - I’ve seen people enjoying dumb stuff. I see people transfixed with music in a live environment very frequently. I know it is in many ways a subjective thing, but as an educated and experienced professional I honestly think that people by and large “get it”. The energy in the room when the music is great is so different than when it isn’t. Why have performing arts, if not that?

IMO Pro stuff/gear in a studio Pro control room is playing sound/ music in an eviroment that has around a 30/70 investment ratio. This means 30% gear an 70% room treathment. It is obvious the Pro gear sound by far better than mid level gear that music plays in probably a <90/10 investment ratio (a carpet shelf with books) as described here above.
Now Ojas listening room is as i could read treathed and has an appeling environment thats fine an probably sounds great. Question is if you come home ( with your >6K Ojas gear) guess atleast 90% has a acousticly questionable audio room with gear Pro or mid-level stuff you probably don't get the experience by far. Developments in speaker build DSP is used more an more a suggestion for Ojas which does not fit in the cool experience i guess. I really like a Dutch&Dutch (DSP corrected) setup versus a Ojas setup in a average room see what people choose the experience or balanced sound?

Besides speaker placement it would be mandatory that a disclaimer is part of the sales proces explaining that people has listend in a well treathed audio room (if so) an can't expected the same experience if there audio room can't match the specifications like reverb time frequency respons measurements whitin an certain db limit.

 

[Cbdb2]

Question is if you come home ( with your >6K Ojas gear) guess atleast 90% has a acousticly questionable audio room with gear Pro or mid-level stuff you probably don't get the experience by far.

I may be mistaken but what your taking home for $7k is a pair of these $400 speakers designed for restaurant ceilings (and smaller boxes). AFAIC they won't sound great and they are definitely not art.

JBL Professional Control 328C

8" Coaxial Ceiling Loudspeaker with HF Compression Driver ...

jblpro.com

 

[Snarfie]

I may be mistaken but what your taking home for $7k is a pair of these $400 speakers designed for restaurant ceilings (and smaller boxes). AFAIC they won't sound great and they are definitely not art.

JBL Professional Control 328C

8" Coaxial Ceiling Loudspeaker with HF Compression Driver ...

jblpro.com

What i meant more is not so specific Ojas gear and or cost but high end shops in general some using treathed listening rooms an not telling/explains customers what they are listening to specific the condtion so they got an idea regarding there own room conditions. Besides that i never ever got specific questions about the acoustic condition regarding my own listening room. Only when i bring it up i noticed that the knowledge is shocking low or absent. Starting about DSP is the same or you get arguments that are brought forward with basicly no knowledge more vague opinions. First thing i do visiting a (serious) audio shop is i clap my hands to listen to the reflection/reverb time i got a reasonable impression whats going on.

 

[egbx]

I also went today, overall I wasn't disappointed but I wasn't blown away. I was lucky and got one of the floor seats right in the center:

View attachment 378162

Big disclaimer: they were only playing vinyl and I wasn't really familiar with any of the songs that came on. As such, I think the speakers are clean but I couldn't tell you that the distortion was definitely as low as it ought to be given the total cone area. I have no reason to think it isn't, either. As we know, minimum THD from vinyl swamps what a system like this ought to be capable of.

Overall, I would say the acoustics were good in there. Pretty dead but not obviously overdamped. The bass was impressive, seemed to go all the way down (again, with vinyl you can't be totally sure) and didn't seem to have any serious issues, although it was pretty hot where I was sitting (floor bounce?) and didn't seem nearly as strong walking around the rest of the room.

Dynamics seemed as good as you'd hope for from a system like this. It had a bit of "slam" or whatever you want to call it.

I think the overall in-room response seemed reasonable-ish, but with a fairly noticeable downward tilt. I spent a little time listening to my genelecs (true flat response at my listening position) before heading to the museum - my first 10 seconds of listening to the Ojas, I felt like the response was downright dark, but it was partly the song that was on.

The stereo image to me seemed pretty diffuse in the midrange but certain higher frequency stuff seemed a little more "alive" and localizable... I got the sense that the segmented horn probably had as much diffraction as you'd think, and prevented a razor-sharp stereo image from forming most of the time. The image didn't seem rock solid, but it was very wide and enveloping, so mission accomplished, probably.

If these were to get measured on a klippel, my guess is you'd see some ripples from 2khz up, but nothing crazy, with the on-axis probably looking worse than the PIR, and a pretty pronounced downward tilt on the power response, I'd bet it's more than 1dB/octave. Warm is the word here. It all adds up to something quite decent, but somehow it didn't sound like a ruler-flat system to me.

Overall a nice experience, possibly the only time I've been in the presence of 24" (?) woofers, and worth a stop if you're in SF. Whether the speakers are world-beating or not, it was nice to see a bunch of people spending time doing focused listening and appreciating the playback equipment. If there's a resurgence of interest in hi-fi because of Turnbull, well, so be it. Right for the wrong reasons, or whatever.

I kind of preferred the big Altec horns in the vinyl room at Tower Records in Tokyo though...

View attachment 378163

I had similar impressions. I liked the voicing of the OJAS system. I find that downward tilt is increasingly appropriate as you scale up the room volume, needed coverage area, and SPL desired.

With larger systems, a downward tilt works out best. Exactly how much is a
moving target, and you want to aim for a response that doesn’t require much tweaking at the typical levels and uses. A flat system may sound great coasting along at 80dBA (and much music is happy at these levels), but would be harsh at 100dBA (and much music is happy at those levels). This is due to many factors including our non-linear ear response at different SPLs, and the need to spray out full frequency response to a much larger area. Throw in presence peaks in vocal microphones and the need to close mic everything, and suddenly a tilted response works out real nice. A good operator will naturally compensate, but you want a system that doesn’t require much EQ to sound correct at the intended levels.

The OJAS system is a not PA rig, but I think it is similar in intent and design. Another parallel is in the low end amount. Most good sounding rigs have a significant bump in the low end. Truly flat in the bottom 2 octaves tends to be underwhelming. Of course the integration from subs to mains is crucial. That bump in the low end helps to sell a big sound without being painful. Again because of Fletcher-Munson, a louder low end tricks the brain into thinking the whole sound is bigger, kind of like a loudness control that’s been optimized for higher SPLs. Above 100Hz you want to be flat, IMO.

 

[Travis]

He's back in the news again:

Ojas (Devon Turnbull) and Klipsch (Roy Delgado) Collaboration - Just Announced

Saw this in GQ Digital Ed: https://www.gq.com/story/speakers-fit-for-a-shrine Klipsch website page with the new information https://www.klipsch.com/products/ojas-ko-r1 There is a great video embedded in the page as you scroll down (typically speaker button muted) - a discussion between Roy...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Travis]

The system (and the experience of it) is a good example of a holistic approach, that I believe Turnbull is quite adept at. Finding fault in it because it might not measure “well” or because the speakers are spotlighted is missing the point, and missing out.

But that’s my point — an “audio” experience, not a musical experience, which imo audio should serve.

I’m not trying to be a jerk (it comes naturally!), more that I have the perspective of a shoestring budget composer who often relies on electronics to transmit sound, & so always curious where clarity can be found at the expense of visual aesthetics. Of course like many, I often drool over altec remakes & all that japanese hifi stuff, but again, in what specific regards are such systems an improvement over contemporary consumer pa systems? I ask as someone who doesn’t want miss out on the best when building a venue pa or something, if these are indeed an improvement.

I could’ve said “musical experience” instead. It’s clear people are having great musical experiences listening to that system. The reason I said “audio” was to note the role the gear was playing in the experience. People can and do have a musical experience from any type of playback gear - whether it’s a cheap turntable crappy earbuds or playing their favourite music on their laptop. But the right gear can elevate the listening experience in terms of the sensuousness of sound itself, the sonic impact, which can come from the right arrangement and selection of gear.
A lot of feedback suggest that this system is doing just that.

Dick Hyser measured audio speakers for decades, and published his measurements and thoughts in Audio Magazine. He rote his iconic AES paper on The Acoustical Measurements of Time Delay Spectrometry, patented it, and was used in the first audio analyzers which are the foundation for all of the speaker testing and measurements in this Forum. He received an AES Silver Medal for that work. He also published extensively on the subjective aspects of audio, and was. He also had things in the works explaining the quantum mechanics of audio. His bibliography and papers are here, made available Free from AES:

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.aes.org/technical/documents/openaccess/AES_TimeDelaySpectrometry.pdf

He summed it up before his untimely death:

Richard C. Heyser: “Perhaps more than any other discipline, audio engineering involves not only purely objective characterization but also subjective interpretations. It is the listening experience, that personal and most private sensation, which is the intended result of our labors in audio engineering. No technical measurement, however glorified with mathematics, can escape that fact.” [My emphasis]

Travis

 

[Cbdb2]

He's back in the news again:

Ojas (Devon Turnbull) and Klipsch (Roy Delgado) Collaboration - Just Announced

Saw this in GQ Digital Ed: https://www.gq.com/story/speakers-fit-for-a-shrine Klipsch website page with the new information https://www.klipsch.com/products/ojas-ko-r1 There is a great video embedded in the page as you scroll down (typically speaker button muted) - a discussion between Roy...

www.audiosciencereview.com

A fashion magazine reviewing speakers? Tells one all you need to know. And of course the source had to be vinyl. This is not about audio this is about fad. Take 60 year old technology, call it art, its not, and sell it for 5 times what its worth. I would not be surprised if no one wanted these in 5 years when this fad is over. And fashion magazines do not write "news".

 

[Mr. Widget]

I missed this thread when it first popped up... I don't understand the vitriol.

The guy has a vision and an aesthetic and is true to that vision and his aesthetic. You can prefer a different approach for objective, subjective, or practical reasons. (size, cost, etc.) But why the hate and disparagement.

Devon landed on my radar at the SFMOMA show last month and I have been reading up on his work and watching the YouTube videos since. He is quite honest and transparent. He tells you where you can buy his parts if you want to recreate what he has done and honestly discusses his background and openly admits to his lack of deep technical knowledge. His designs are simple and work reasonably well. His aesthetic is appreciated by some and not by others which is the nature of aesthetics.

He recently released a new speaker that he and Roy Delgado of Klipsch co-developed and Klipsch is fabricating at their Hope Arkansas plant. It is based on the Heresy and is not for everyone, but certainly looks cool for those into the look and if someone likes the sound, the looks, and can afford it, what is the harm?

I am not his customer as I have the skills to make my own and address the technical issues as I see fit, but it makes me happy that there are people exploring these alternative paths and introducing people to audio that isn't another bluetooth box.

 

[Ste_S]

A fashion magazine reviewing speakers? Tells one all you need to know. And of course the source had to be vinyl. This is not about audio this is about fad. Take 60 year old technology, call it art, its not, and sell it for 5 times what its worth. I would not be surprised if no one wanted these in 5 years when this fad is over. And fashion magazines do not write "news".

I suppose I shouldn't be suprised by the negativity in this thread, but still....

When trad hi-fi is dying*, he's getting it talked about in places outside of its usual niche, and bringing in a younger audience, sitting down and properly listening to (some very good) music. How anyone can think this is a bad thing is beyond me.


*Not that I'm mourning the death of trad hi-fi.

 

[Waxx]

I don't hate that guy, he is not like Nordost or that PS guy or so. But it's overhyped fashion stuff leaning on shoulders of giants of the past., not a high engineered speaker. And that should be said.

They probally don't sound that bad, but 9K for such a system is way to much. If it was 3K or so i would not even mind (handbuild and so). But this will sell, don't worry. Many hipsters don't care and just want a cool looking speaker and have the money for it. And it's that market he targets, not the ASR crowd (and i'm sure he does not care about what is said here).