R&D

[dallasjustice]

I see speaker manufacturers who claim a speaker took many years to design. The implication is that the design is so unique because it took a huge R&D budget to design it.

Which speaker manufacturers do the most R&D before they release a new speaker?

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Harman?

 

[Purité Audio]

B&O look to have spent time on their A90, the new one, I know the Grimm boys,developed their LS1 from scratch, taking everything back to first principles.
Keith.

 

[dallasjustice]

Harman?

Correct Answer.

 

[dallasjustice]

B&O look to have spent time on their A90, the new one, I know the Grimm boys,developed their LS1 from scratch, taking everything back to first principles.
Keith.

I am a little skeptical of speaker designers who don't have an anechoic chamber. There are ways to get good measurements without one, but it still requires a huge space. I asked Bruno about how he measures and I don't remember him saying anything about an anechoic chamber.

 

[Purité Audio]

Loudspeaker manufacturers with their own anechoic chambers are few and far between , over here B&W have one I believe, but they still contrive to make their speakers measure a little oddly!
I wonder how many manufacturers have only the very most basic measuring set up?
It appears to be an area where almost anything goes as long as you can persuade a customer to buy it.
Keith

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Loudspeaker manufacturers with their own anechoic chambers are few and far between , over here B&W have one I believe, but they still contrive to make their speakers measure a little oddly!
I wonder how many manufacturers have only the very most basic measuring set up?
It appears to be an area where almost anything goes as long as you can persuade a customer to buy it.
Keith

Sometime in the next couple of years, I'm going to upgrade. I'm an old dog, so this could very well be the last time. I won't be taking chances with anything goes. I will be looking for the few and far between.

Tim

 

[Purité Audio]

Tim they probably won't be easy to obtain a home demo , but I would be interested to hear what you think of the Grimm LS1 and the new Kii THREE.
I know Dallas heard the Kiis at RMSF and wasn't convinced and I still haven't hear them, so I could be talking out of my hat ,but I feel the future of high fidelity lies with this type of speaker.
Also the new JBL4362 although more traditional I have great hopes for that design.
Keith.

 

[amirm]

B&O from what I hear has world class R&D. See this for example: http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/category/bang-olufsen/

Their focus as a company though is not the classical high-end so the end result is not as martial to us as a company like Harman.

 

[dallasjustice]

That B&O measurement chamber is awesome. It seems like writing a computer program which can accurately predict off-axis performance might save a lot of time and money. Has anyone ever done that?

B&O from what I hear has world class R&D. See this for example: http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/category/bang-olufsen/

Their focus as a company though is not the classical high-end so the end result is not as martial to us as a company like Harman.

 

[NorthSky]

B&W, KEF, Magico, Revel, Paradigm, PSB, ... several more.

♦ http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/speaker-design1.html

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Tim they probably won't be easy to obtain a home demo , but I would be interested to hear what you think of the Grimm LS1 and the new Kii THREE.
I know Dallas heard the Kiis at RMSF and wasn't convinced and I still haven't hear them, so I could be talking out of my hat ,but I feel the future of high fidelity lies with this type of speaker.
Also the new JBL4362 although more traditional I have great hopes for that design.
Keith.

I'm hoping that soon, JBL will introduce an active 7-series. Right now, there's nothing active with their new driver and wave guide technology between the 3 and the M2. That huge gap is filled by the 7s, but they're passive, so a system would be both cumbersome and unnecessarily expensive. But I'd love to hear the Kii and the Grimm. I don't think there are any close by, though.

Tim