What do the next 2 years hold in store for speakers+DAC+DSP?

[srrxr71]

Great reply! I suspect the Chinese will move more into the loudspeaker space more over the next few years. They have been electronics for a while now, and IAG Group (which makes Mission, Wharfedale, Quad) is headquartered in China. At the moment they are making mass market speakers with a few high end brands, but have yet (to my knowledge) moved into speakers that we would consider to be objectively good, like KEF's, Kii's, Dutch&Dutch, and so on. I hope they make speakers that are priced like Toppings and SMSL but perform like Genelecs. If anybody can do it, they can.

The story of how many years they spent just working on the physical interface between the coaxial tweeter and midrange is fascinating. They were working on that since before KEF’s patent expired apparently.

Designing this stuff is not child’s play.


Funny thing is that performance and quality don’t really sell. IAG would be perfectly happy just selling their brand name products and change up the looks every so often.

Looks sell more than performance sadly.

It’s the new disruptive companies making quality stuff now. Nobody has even heard of them. Kii audio? What’s that? Dutch and Dutch? Is that a hot chocolate?

Only Genelec has both history and cutting edge technology. Neumann too.


Consumer audio had always been a joke. Probably only KEF and Revel are the only ones that do quality. I wouldn’t have even known that without this site.

All the real innovation is in the studio monitor scene. These new products are targeted at producers. Not consumers.

 

[Sokel]

Innovation has to be fed the right way.
Let's put aside B&O with their super successful but expensive products and look at the more affordable Devialet.

They have pushed mercifully stuff in the audiophile market almost unimaginable before them,Class D.full DSP,full digital path,etc.
Difference is that they did it in an attractive package adding some tricks (like the Class A stage which every decent cheap mic preamp interface may have,etc).

Same with their Phantoms,they packed all the tech a traditional audiophile can digest AFTER they got their audiophile pedigree settled.

What innovators need is not only acoustic engineers and EEs but a different science,a really good marketing team.

 

[srrxr71]

Innovation has to be fed the right way.
Let's put aside B&O with their super successful but expensive products and look at the more affordable Devialet.

They have pushed mercifully stuff in the audiophile market almost unimaginable before them,Class D.full DSP,full digital path,etc.
Difference is that they did it in an attractive package adding some tricks (like the Class A stage which every decent cheap mic preamp interface may have,etc).

Same with their Phantoms,they packed all the tech a traditional audiophile can digest AFTER they got their audiophile pedigree settled.

What innovators need is not only acoustic engineers and EEs but a different science,a really good marketing team.

Devialet is a great product. But mostly I find them at the airport. I think all United hubs have them.

Incredible product. Point source and that bass with that form factor. But no room correction as I understand it.

My understanding is that while the product was amazing in performance most people stopped using it because of that app you had to use. You are forced into using it.

If I were forced into picking all my music in the KEF connect app or the BluSound node app I would stop using those products too. Thankfully they both allow you pick your music using other apps.

So you can make an amazing product but lose all your customers over bad software. Bad software almost lost KEF too.

Pro audio have to make sure their software is on point. It just has to work. Also pro audio will never limit your ability to input anything from any source.

 

[Sokel]

Devialet is a great product. But mostly I find them at the airport. I think all United hubs have them.

My understanding is that while the product was amazing in performance most people stopped using it because of that app you had to use. You are forced into using it.

If I were forced into picking all my music in the KEF connect app or the BluSound node app I would stop using those products too. Thankfully they both allow you pick your music using other apps.

So you can make an amazing product but lose all your customers over bad software.

Agreed,but the thing is that they made it into the audiophile market,their amps was sold like hot cakes here in Europe and the fact that one had the ability to even hung them on the wall like a painting and their looks help a lot with angry spouses

(they must have one of the nicest remote ever)

 

[srrxr71]

Agreed,but the thing is that they made it into the audiophile market,their amps was sold like hot cakes here in Europe and the fact that one had the ability to even hung them on the wall like a painting and their looks help a lot with angry spouses

(they must have one of the nicest remote ever)

The amp is very expensive as I recall. Probably it is an amazing amp and the looks are the things about it. I feel you can pay less for the performance though. Which is what this thread is asking.

Considering what the amp costs yes the Phantoms are bargains.

The remote volume is just a genius idea.

 

[Sokel]

The amp is very expensive as I recall. Probably it is an amazing amp and the looks are the things about it. I feel you can pay less for the performance though. Which is what this thread is asking.

Considering what the amp costs yes the Phantoms are bargains.

The remote volume is just a genius idea.

It depends,at the beginning it was about 3.5k euro street price here,I now see it at 4.5-5k for the smaller 2x140 watt @6 Ohm one (but it's a whole system,preamp, amp, DAC, streamer, phono stage,not just an amp)
But yes,you can go way higher than that with the bigger models.

Back on topic,ideas and solutions are there already,the problem is that it has to up numbers to make it affordable and that needs the main bulk of audiophiles.
So?Clever marketing,Devialet has already shown the way.

 

[srrxr71]

Devialet could have been so great. They could have been that product I could have recommended to all my non audiophile friends.

Don’t buy Sonos but get Devialet. Save up for it if you have to.

But that app. That’s the whole problem with all the products. The streamer that is built in is useless if you have to use that app.

It really could have been the best selling speaker and the talk of half the threads here. But they had to limit you with that app.

I wanted to try their portable but when I found out it needs that app then I lost all interest in it.

Why can’t I just Bluetooth to it?