Things you wouldn’t buy

It’s really sad that Tim De P had his designs built by MF. Michaelson should’ve went down the route of selling dodgy watches and left the Hi-Fi world to others.

I thought this was a thread for individuals to say 'things they wouldn't buy'. Why are you questioning my choices, you quoted a rather long list, some of which I would disagree with, but they're YOUR dislikes, and non of my business. nonuffin agreed with me on B & W and KEF speakers, you are not questioning him, and no I would not buy a Radford. If your such a fan of valves go buy a valve amplifier.

What's up get out of bed on the wrong side? I was interested as to why that's all. People can question my choices if they like I haven't got a problem with it. 


And I already have a valve amp but thanks for the advice. 

I wasn't criticising I was just interested as to why. I certainly don't have a problem with your choices why would I? That would be very odd.

McIntosh - looks shite

Linn Kans - sounds shite

Ported speakers are an odd one. Generally I’d agree but there have been exceptions. Two of my fave speakers of all time are ported. Duevel Planets have twin ports of different sizes firing downwards. They sound great but they are omnis and a very unusual design.

The others are my MM De Capos. Nothing about their sound suggests that they are ported. Usually you get an audible boost at the port frequency and they never seem you have an snap or speed to them. I’d love to know why this is.

Good design?

Anytime I see people dismissing all ported speakers out of hand my first thought is 'lack of experience.'

Always liked the passive woofer or semi active bass driver type of speaker, never had an issue with ported speakers. Like all things you get good and bad, to the individual at least.

But then I am a funny one I know what I like; I do not let appearance, the opinions of others, or specifications bother me.

I am fortunate enough to have heard a lot realy high end kit and have always come to the conclusion_______________________ WTF is all the fuss about.
Stereofool Magazine speakers of the year and such and I just do not get it.

Two glaring examples Goldenear and Vivid Audio, are you kidding at that price, when in my opinion my 80's vintage Klipsch KG4's make better music.

I do like Vandersteen Speakers never heard a bad one, to my ear at least. If I had the money a set of Quatros would be mine. That being said my 2CE Signatures never fail to put a smile on my face, and they cost relative peanuts when I bought them new 9 years ago.

Most affordable commercial speakers have lousy drivers plain and simple, you pay for the finish on the cabinets which are mostly not that good anyway.

That is why you will get far better sound out of a well thought DIY effort, it might not look good, getting it to look good will double the price if not more. The drivers can be the best you can afford, the cabinet can be made out of decent material of your choice and can be braced properly the crossover can have the best components in it.

I have experienced this on far to many occasions when we have put a DIY speaker made by someone who knows his oats against speakers costing 4-5 times more the universal verdict has always been the DIY ones came out tops in sound.

This WAF nonsense comes into play and the guys buy some bling and are never happy.
I have one friend who always judges a speaker by its looks and build, the sound of the thing comes second. I cant look at that thing it will drive me up the wall he always says.
Irony of it all is that he is always griping about his kit and throwing mega bucks at it trying to tame it. Keep telling him speakers first but it falls on deaf ears.

J. Gordon Holt.

"We seem to have come to a tacit agreement that it's no longer necessary, or even desirable, for a home music system to sound like the real thing. We speak in hushed and reverent tones about reproducing the ineffable beauty of music, when in fact much real music is harsh and vulgar and ugly. We design the all-important musical midrange out of our equipment in order to try—vainly, I might add—to recreate the illusion of three-dimensional space through what is essentially a two-dimensional reproducer. And whenever we hear a loudspeaker or a CD player that shows subversive signs of sounding more 'alive' or 'realistic' than most, we dismiss it out of hand as being too 'forward' or 'aggressive.' As if a lot of real music isn't forward and aggressive!

"The idea that all we are trying to do is make equipment that gives the listener some sort of magical emotional response to a mystical experience called 'music' is all well and good, but it isn't what High End is all about. In fact, high fidelity was originally a reaction to the gorgeously rich-sounding console 'boom boxes' that dominated the home-music market during the 1940s!

"We've lost our direction....The High End in 1992 is a multi-million-dollar business. But it's an empty triumph, because we haven't accomplished what we set out to do. The playback still doesn't sound 'just like the real thing.' People, let's start getting back to basics. Let's put the 're' back into 'reproduction.' Let's promote products that dare to sound as 'alive' and 'aggressive' as the music they are trying to reproduce."

Strong stuff. Fifteen years later, Gordon is comfortably retired in Boulder, Colorado. I e-mailed him Labor Day to ask him about that 1992 polemic. My questions are in italics, followed by Gordon's unexpurgated answers.

Do you still feel the high-end audio industry has lost its way in the manner you described 15 years ago?

Not in the same manner; there's no hope now. Audio actually used to have a goal: perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space. That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. As Art Dudley so succinctly said [in his January 2004 "Listening," see "Letters," p.9], fidelity is irrelevant to music.

Since the only measure of sound quality is that the listener likes it, that has pretty well put an end to audio advancement, because different people rarely agree about sound quality. Abandoning the acoustical-instrument standard, and the mindless acceptance of voodoo science, were not parts of my original vision.

More
www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/1107awsi/index.html

No Never, go peddle yer wares elsewhere Tinker.

Well said.

I think a port is an easy way to get more bass out of a given box size. Quantity over quality? In many cases, I reckon so. Im surprised more folk don’t use the two ports approach. It’s a decent idea to addresss the one note bass of ported speakers. Only Neat and Duevel seem to have done this, although there may be more that I haven’t seen.

Had wee Mission 751s

Luved em.....front ported, rocked like a (big bag of rocks).

Paired with an Audiolab 8000 .... Deep Purples / Made in Japan....... Never sounded better.





They would piss on a Wilson Alexandria / Audio Research Ref combo..........!!!!!

One of the problems with modern reflex design speakers is skimping on magnet power. Ported boxes require very well electrically damped drivers with high flux magnets to control cones and avoid overhang and the resultant ill defined bass. Good magnets cost money, most speakers are built down to a price!