hg said:
I don't know for sure in this market, but I do know that it's not the case for headphones and accessories.
I don't know for sure in this market, but I do know that it's not the case for headphones and accessories.
davedotco said:
PS Another thought struck me about the nonsense of running subwoofers without filtering the mains. When a ported speaker rolls off, which is likely to be at a frequency containing significant information for small drivers like the OPs, the port and the driver start to move out of phase. In the presence of any significant input signal at these frequencies the unloaded cone will move from one "stop" to the other. There won't be any significant output at these frequencies but the higher frequency motion will no longer be oscillating around the linear centre but operating for much of the time at the very nonlinear extremes of the cone travel introducing gross amounts of distortion.
It would be very unwise to operate such a speaker without filtering the bass or, indeed, play deep bass into it without a subwoofer. I am assuming the passive crossover does not include a high pass filter to limit the motion like a pro speaker probably would because the consequence of not doing is likely to be only low fidelity rather than any significant risk of speaker failure. As the cone moves towards the extremes the suspension will stiffen up and the driving force will reduce greatly as much of the coil moves out of the magnetic field in the gap. I suspect the risk of mechanical failure is modest if the driver has been designed with this in mind. Anyone?
JoelSim said:
Someone said earlier that the margins on KEF products was 30%. I don't know if this is true but this looks too low to me to run a typical hi-fi shop in the high street. Although the absence of online discounters selling KEF products obviously helps but with large margins on audiophile cables...
Can someone tell us what the typical margins are on the main hi-fi products and hi-fi accessories like expensive audiophile cables? I don't for a moment believe they are the same because audiophile cables need a lot more selling than than KEF speakers. As a proportion, audiophile cables have much lower manufacturing costs and much higher marketing costs compared to KEF speakers and a fair chunk of that marketing cost has surely got to go towards persuading dealers to sell one largely indistinguishable cable instead of another?
SteveR750
Well-known member
davedotco said:
PPS I have now had a look at the plates/manuals for a small number of the more expensive home audio subwoofers. Companies like Revel which you would expect to do things properly do indeed have high passed line outs on their subwoofers. Really cheap pro subwoofers like those from Behringer have filtered line outs and, obviously, the more expensive pro subwoofers do things properly.
However, companies like B&W and KEF which I would have expected to do things properly do not have filtered line outs on their subwoofers. The KEF subwoofer cannot even change slope to match a sealed rather than a ported satellite main speakers although I could not find the manual for the most expensive KEF subwoofer. It has has shifted my view a bit of KEF and B&W as home audio companies. But it is all interesting stuff.
Have things degenerated to the extent that there might be some demand for a niche sector within home audio for high fidelity products?
hg said:
Naughty post hg.
It also implies that there is a requirement for accurate hi-fidelity equipment, which does not appear to be the case in the budget and mid-fi sectors of the market.
I often have a go at (particularly) budget speaker manufacturers who use the port allignment to maximise bass output in the 100hz region with the resultant loss of control an octave lower. The bloated, unatural bass that this produces is so ubiquitous that most buyers seem to accept it as normal.
I do not get into peoples homes anywhere near as much as when I was a dealer, but I am still asked 'as an expert' on ocasions to 'check out' systems. Mostly they are appalling, often the more expensive thet are the worse they are and the issues almost always revolve around the bass region. Subwoofers, when used, are invariablt set too high and overlap too much, the results are horrible.
On encountering this for the first time I would set the system up correctly and explain what I was doing, the owners invariably hated the results, "no bass" was the usual comment when they really meant no boom. I don't waste my time anymore.
SteveR750
Well-known member
davedotco said:
I agree Dave, Bass is an easy selling tool, in the absence of any other lifelike qualities in a pair of speakers. OK, few speakers will make your stomach vibrate like a Trace Elliot at 11 other than the PA it's mic'd into. An accurate clean midband is the starting point. My first hi fi speakers were a pair of AR 18BX which were infinite baffle, I now realise that so many boxes I've had since with ports have been so vague below 160Hz or thereabouts (D on a 4 string bass).
EDIT - here is a goood "test" for bass. Zoo Station by U2 on Achtung Baby! It's a massive bass line, that most systems just churn out. The good ones have some rhythm to it, the better ones you could transpose it onto a guitar as you listen. None of my previous systems I could do that, as I had no certainty where Adam Clayton was playing.
A man after my own heart.
Though never a big fan of Trace Elliot you should at least be able to distinguish it from (say) an Ampeg setup even at 'domestic' listening levels. If you can't hear the difference between a Trace or an Ampeg 18 inch or 8 x 12, whats the point?
So much of what is important in the reproduction of bass instruments happend at a much higher frequency than people think which is, I think, very confusing to the hi-fi enthusiast. The couple of octaves above bottom E (on an electric bass) are what matter, not the sub bass. Sadly we have descended to the point that bass response is all about quantity, not quality and the customer who complains that there is too much bass is a rare thing.
I used to have a pair of the original AR18s, the flat fronted ones, driven by a 3020, great system at the time.
Though never a big fan of Trace Elliot you should at least be able to distinguish it from (say) an Ampeg setup even at 'domestic' listening levels. If you can't hear the difference between a Trace or an Ampeg 18 inch or 8 x 12, whats the point?
So much of what is important in the reproduction of bass instruments happend at a much higher frequency than people think which is, I think, very confusing to the hi-fi enthusiast. The couple of octaves above bottom E (on an electric bass) are what matter, not the sub bass. Sadly we have descended to the point that bass response is all about quantity, not quality and the customer who complains that there is too much bass is a rare thing.
I used to have a pair of the original AR18s, the flat fronted ones, driven by a 3020, great system at the time.
SteveR750
Well-known member
Dave, I'm not a bass player hence my amp ignorance, that's for the smelly guys in the band 
In a similar vein, if you cannot hear the difference between a 2 x 12 cab and a 2 x 10 cab, let alone a crossed pair recording of a valve head into a 4 x 12 cab vs a 15W combo driven to within an inch of its life and DI'd off a PA mic. The aural clues are in the 200 - 800Hz range, and more often than not a ported speaker interacts with a room to obliterate those subtleties.
In a similar vein, if you cannot hear the difference between a 2 x 12 cab and a 2 x 10 cab, let alone a crossed pair recording of a valve head into a 4 x 12 cab vs a 15W combo driven to within an inch of its life and DI'd off a PA mic. The aural clues are in the 200 - 800Hz range, and more often than not a ported speaker interacts with a room to obliterate those subtleties.
I'm not much of one either, though I did hang out with a 'proper' bass player in the late 70s, early 80s. I also, on occasion designed and built bass stacks (and the occasional drum monitor) for various people.
These days there is a fascination with 'deep' bass and speaker manufacturers are happy to provide it even if it does wreck the overall sound quality. I don't think it is ported speakers per se, more the way the port is used to maximise bass at all costs.
Which brings me back to bass setups, I would always make sure that the sub bass, pretty much everything below 50hz in fact, was filtered out, this gave the system fantastic 'attack' and kick, which is what my customers wanted. The filtering was built in and non adjustable, the musicians would have not liked it if they had known, even then 'restricting' bass output in any way was not 'manly'.
These days there is a fascination with 'deep' bass and speaker manufacturers are happy to provide it even if it does wreck the overall sound quality. I don't think it is ported speakers per se, more the way the port is used to maximise bass at all costs.
Which brings me back to bass setups, I would always make sure that the sub bass, pretty much everything below 50hz in fact, was filtered out, this gave the system fantastic 'attack' and kick, which is what my customers wanted. The filtering was built in and non adjustable, the musicians would have not liked it if they had known, even then 'restricting' bass output in any way was not 'manly'.
davedotco said:
You don't think the large numbers of people buying cheap ugly 2 way active pro-audio monitors are driven in a large part by a desire for value for money sound quality? I think they probably are to a fair extent. A home audio amplifier plus passive speakers may look better but they are a lot more expensive and typically fall short in comparison on sound quality in a high fidelity sense. This view tends to be reinforced by the posts in this forum.
Having said that, when companies like Harman have conducted controlled blind tests on the preferences of home audio enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts they have found that pretty much everybody prefers standard high fidelity sound from their speakers. It seems to be marketing in the broad sense that overrides this and gives us what we find in the shops and in this forum. Which is not to say people's preferences for things other than high fidelity is not real but it is to an extent learnt and likely to fade or change on exposure to other sounds and cues.
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