Why aren't we bringing the equipment prices down with more published blind test demos?

[restorer-john]

I concur, my first amp a JVC JAS11 cost $260AUD in 1977. My latest amp a Fosi ZA3 cost me $149AUD. Speakers seem overpriced due to import and freight costs.

inflation calculator:

$260AUD in 1976 is worth $1,943.54AUD today​

You paid way too much for the JVC back in 1977. They could be had for well under AUD$200 at time. Even in the UK, their street price was only £85.

That said, the Fosi has more power (under double), but that's all it has going for it. Oh, and it's small, if you don't count the SMPS brick you have to hide someplace.

The Fosi has higher high frequency distortion, no phono stage, no twin line inputs and certainly no twin tape loops. It has no tone controls, no balance, no loudness, no ability to switch two pairs of speakers and you can't even plug a pair of headphones into it!

You should have kept the JVC JA-S11. LOL.

 

[test1223]

The boxes are all braced and damped properly, no high end over engineering of course.

Here it is over engineering for you but even very credible speakers brand like Revel have a very heavy high end line.

Listen to them and you throw away some of the 100 kg speakers with toy drivers.

And here it is of cause no over engineering

By the way. The best PA drivers with requested changes or modification from the high end manufacturer themselves are working in a lot of the high end speakers. These modifications involve for example heavier stiffer coating of the cone, so you can tune the driver to play lower frequencies. The compromises is here to sacrifice efficiency for lower bass.

Or they reducing the air flow at the coil so that distortion at higher levels is lower with the compromises of sacrifice very high continuous power operation.

It seems you are biased and and use cherry picking to claim that (all?) high end speakers are over engineered and not as good as your favorite PA speakers brand?

 

[EJ3]

Lol, great point. If 50+ members (like myself) still roll of the speakers in higher end frequencies as they used 20 years ago, they might want to re-check if still warranted. Lots has unfortunately changed over 20 years and some might need a boost instead. It is great to have a pretty REW graph, but how you "hear" that graph will obviously depend on a number of factors, most importantly one's hearing.

My 20 something year old son can still hear 15khz clearly from iPhone test, while I am unfortunately barely at 13khz, probably more likely 12.5khz. My youngest that is 8 can hear easily above 17khz. Not a scientific test, but still indicative. Older family and friends declined to participate on the basis that their hearing is immaculate

I have a blank in my right ear (between 7K & 8K I hear nothing at all in my right ear, & then I hear to about 15K [in both ears]). So, I hear from below 20 Hz to 15 KHz with a gap from 7K to 8K on my right side. The solution is that my wife (after having either run bars and therapeutic massage places either that we have owned [or before we were married, her cousins owned] that always had music on, does not want to hear music at home or in the car.
Her peace is quiet. But, she does not bitch at me about it (and I know that if I am in a mood to listen louder, I'll just take my truck & drive to my mother's & enjoy my music at a higher level for the 30-40 minutes that I will get my loudness fix in that way.
Due to our travels, we end up being apart for months at a time & that gives me enough time to "blast my music".

 

[Graham849]

You paid way too much for the JVC back in 1977. They could be had for well under AUD$200 at time. Even in the UK, their street price was only £85.

That said, the Fosi has more power (under double), but that's all it has going for it. Oh, and it's small, if you don't count the SMPS brick you have to hide someplace.

The Fosi has higher high frequency distortion, no phono stage, no twin line inputs and certainly no twin tape loops. It has no tone controls, no balance, no loudness, no ability to switch two pairs of speakers and you can't even plug a pair of headphones into it!

You should have kept the JVC JA-S11. LOL.

True enough. Actually paid $499 including cassette deck, turntable and speakers that hissed. The Fosi is dead silent and Is playing flacs thru DO100. At other end of my room I have Atoll preamp and Cambridge Amp with plenty of inputs and headphones. Horses for courses. (And a wiim mini provides digital to analog.)

But yes as an 18yo loved that JVC.

 

[DBA ndreas]

It seems you are biased and and use cherry picking to claim that (all?) high end speakers are over engineered and not as good as your favorite PA speakers brand?

I think that they sound really good comparable to every possible competitor that I know. However others may have a different opinion, which is totally ok for me. The weight difference to real high end speakers is not critical in my opinion, as we are talking about 80 Hz and up for the PA speaker. When you add another 30 kg for the subwoofer, it gets comparable. The pro audio world has some really interesting products that can rival the hifi high end, even in the sound reinforcement area and at much lower pricing.

 

[Holmz]

Just pointing out the issue, not to the solution.

Really you have not pointed out very much that is not well know.

 

[EJ3]

Just pointing out the issue, not to the solution.

I view it as: get it to the graph as best as you can (now you have a known [ZERO]) starting point then, just like with a great recipe, adjust spicing, etc. to your own taste.
Then, if you have the starting point and something has happened with a piece of gear that needs to be changed, you can get back to the known starting point and adjust to taste again. The KISS principle.