State of the industry - Roy Gregory Editorial
- Thread starter Elliot G.
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You mean like in an immediate first week switch lol , ... wilson / darts for Magico/ solution .
No horn company has the advertising budget to make that happen !
I wonder what M. Fremer thinks of J. Valin's Walker turntable. Is he still using it? Magico and Wilson are well represented at TAS.
shoot, I don't qualify yet, for now I'm using a beam tetrode ....yikes ;-)
The amp build uses a tube in G2 triode mode, so I can add to the hordes of Horns and triodes.
I agree with that. Those are good speakers. Sound similar to the audio note uk/snell type e. Lack kaboompf though and its still a dome tweeter. But a good choice if your space budget doesnt allow horn mid/tweeter and 15” bass.
it's in the making, adn although the number of tubes is decevingly small most components are hand made in a painstakingly specific process...(think handmade precious metal capacitors and resistors). I've heard a sneak preview a while ago, and that was a whole Watt of sheer glory, colors upon colors....Still some way to go for you to make the big time…
As a speaker designer you have naturally an higher bias than the majority of our members ...
But even considering it, I can't see how we can address half a million speakers from the material of the cone or dome perspective. IMHO the $499500 spent elsewhere are more relevant to the sound type of the speaker. And sorry, again IMHO, examples at Munich do not prove anything on these matters.
Indeed, drawing conclusions from good sound at shows is fine, drawing conclusions from bad sound and/or a thin, anemic tonal balance at shows is plain silly.
The latter can have a number of reasons, none of which are related to the quality of the gear itself.
For one thing, the power starvation of gear all competing for the same miserable line may affect diverse gear differently. And set-up issues abound.
nothing extra ordinary BUT for the execution....an G2 Anode pl509 in Triode mode (Cees Brakenhoff), getting the most out of a mesh that was not designed for this duty. Lots of bulky iron and special parts, if you see how large the monoblock will be you'd not believe they only do a few Watts.
that was not designed for this duty. Lots of bulky iron and special parts, if you see how large the monoblock will be you'd not believe they only do a few Watts.Hi Morricab,
Although our tastes are more similar than different, we are in the minority of the hifi public. The tastes of the majority of audiophiles are more “analytical” / “neutral” / sterile / “accurate”.
In North America, the dealers at lower price points virtually don’t exist anymore . That lower end gear provides just a little extra detail, not emotion. So people don’t want to pay a premium for it. At the high end, the dealers - many of whom “have been doing this for 50 years”, push Wilson with Boulder/ D’reckestino as the BEST. (They’ve been around and know.
)Beyond that , if someone got hooked to audio, one really needs to get lucky and tap into a social network of fans and dealers to find anything beyond audiophile drek. Avantgarde may be the biggest horn brand at the high end, and I think there’s only a single Avantgarde dealer in the USA , maybe 2. ( this could be the distributor’s fault. Avantgarde tried to get rid of the big distributor lady, the one with the charming personality , behind her back - in favor of the Ayon people in Arizona. Everything fell through when the ayon distributor sniffed this out, and somehow she hung on. ) But even so , if Avantgarde got a great distributor, how many dealers would we have ? maybe 5, 7 max, and they would be known only to audiophiles Who’ve been around.
The Magazines , and the sycophantic sloberrers who write for them , present audio fans with market hype from manufacturers. And they reflect that general hifi drek preference pattern. They Push CH, Boulder, Constellations, Soulution, D’reckestino, Pass, Wilson, and Magico.
Michael Farmer always had that hifi, bright, sterile taste for Wilson with the old tweeter and Lyra (covering my ears as I type this…but he compares gear and draws sharp contrasts, somewhat neutralizing his analytical taste, so he’s helpful to the gear decision maker).
Valin, on the other hand, was always a Avantgarde horn, Omni, and planar guy. He didn’t “fall in love” with the hifi dreck stuff until he discovered magico - soulution, and became their chief marketer. Valin couldn’t “be next HP” just pushing magnepan and a small handful of other brands. He had to rave about box speakers to be relevant.
The sad reality is that the lower end of the hobby doesn’t exist. And most people at the high end of this hobby just like a sterile sound.
And these hifI guys confirm their bias by reading the magazines like the analytical sound, who tell them that the sterile gear sounds “just like the real thing.” When Stereophile covers the very same brands as the analytical sound, they stress “great engineering” and “talented designers” who are able to pull every detail from the recording” results. That is the hobby today. Market is serving up what these people want.
JV did so much Magico that he had to stop reviewing them since it looked like every other issue it was on the cover and had another amazing review. No matter what you might think of Avantgarde, not a sound thing, but they have never had a lot of distribution in the US. This is not just an AG issue but its an issue with many of lesser known and newer in the US brands. Trying to find dealers who will show the products, can afford the products, have space for the products and aren't committed to the Big Two or three brands. Today if you are a dealer and sell one of the two Major high end products the dealer has a very large investment in space and dollars so why would these other products want to be stuck in a corner and not shown at all or at thier best?Hi Morricab,
Although our tastes are more similar than different, we are in the minority of the hifi public. The tastes of the majority of audiophiles are more “analytical” / “neutral” / sterile / “accurate”.
In North America, the dealers at lower price points virtually don’t exist anymore . That lower end gear provides just a little extra detail, not emotion. So people don’t want to pay a premium for it. At the high end, the dealers - many of whom “have been doing this for 50 years”, push Wilson with Boulder/ D’reckestino as the BEST. (They’ve been around and know.
Beyond that , if someone got hooked to audio, one really needs to get lucky and tap into a social network of fans and dealers to find anything beyond audiophile drek. Avantgarde may be the biggest horn brand at the high end, and I think there’s only a single Avantgarde dealer in the USA , maybe 2. ( this could be the distributor’s fault. Avantgarde tried to get rid of the big distributor lady, the one with the charming personality , behind her back - in favor of the Ayon people in Arizona. Everything fell through when the ayon distributor sniffed this out, and somehow she hung on. ) But even so , if Avantgarde got a great distributor, how many dealers would we have ? maybe 5, 7 max, and they would be known only to audiophiles Who’ve been around.
The Magazines , and the sycophantic sloberrers who write for them , present audio fans with market hype from manufacturers. And they reflect that general hifi drek preference pattern. They Push CH, Boulder, Constellations, Soulution, D’reckestino, Pass, Wilson, and Magico.
Michael Farmer always had that hifi, bright, sterile taste for Wilson with the old tweeter and Lyra (covering my ears as I type this…but he compares gear and draws sharp contrasts, somewhat neutralizing his analytical taste, so he’s helpful to the gear decision maker).
Valin, on the other hand, was always a Avantgarde horn, Omni, and planar guy. He didn’t “fall in love” with the hifi dreck stuff until he discovered magico - soulution, and became their chief marketer. Valin couldn’t “be next HP” just pushing magnepan and a small handful of other brands. He had to rave about box speakers to be relevant.
The sad reality is that the lower end of the hobby doesn’t exist. And most people at the high end of this hobby just like a sterile sound.
And these hifI guys confirm their bias by reading the magazines like the analytical sound, who tell them that the sterile gear sounds “just like the real thing.” When Stereophile covers the very same brands as the analytical sound, they stress “great engineering” and “talented designers” who are able to pull every detail from the recording” results. That is the hobby today. Market is serving up what these people want.
The electronic brands you mention are all SS and since you don't like any of them your statement is predictable Those are all among the top products available. Perhaps the brand you like is not too good at finding and supporting dealers. ARC and VAC( tubes) have plenty of dealers and add those to the ones you mentioned and you have the majority of the top electronic brands available.
Your bias is so obvious.
Does anyone know if wilson had to intervene with TAS since Valin was pushing Magico so much?
So you re saying JV is responsible for what i had to endure in munich in the M6 solution without a soul room lol.
I agree with you on most things but i would nt say CH is bad .
Part of my munich visit was to find out the best SS.
The best was the gryphon and RKoda.
Pylium and CH second place but also good.
Dagostino lean sterile.
Darts sharp at occasions but that might be due to the fact the stenheim tw got overloaded.
And then to think a great musical brand as CAT is standing on the sidelines.
Same goes for Lamm probably ( unfortunately i have not much expirience with LAMM)
Ps ceasar have you heard the latest wilsons , talk about sharp edgy .
Something wasnt right to my ears
I agree with you on most things but i would nt say CH is bad .
Part of my munich visit was to find out the best SS.
The best was the gryphon and RKoda.
Pylium and CH second place but also good.
Dagostino lean sterile.
Darts sharp at occasions but that might be due to the fact the stenheim tw got overloaded.
And then to think a great musical brand as CAT is standing on the sidelines.
Same goes for Lamm probably ( unfortunately i have not much expirience with LAMM)
Ps ceasar have you heard the latest wilsons , talk about sharp edgy .
Something wasnt right to my ears
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I dont think yoone can paint any of the latest speakers from Magico or Wilson as sharp or edgy without taking the associated electronics and cables into consideration. I thought the latest Wilsons in Munich did an excellent job of reproducing what they were fed with. It just that these feeds were juniversally bad in all rooms.
And the Magico M6s, while sounding nasty in almost every show I heard them in over the last several shows, not coincidently often with the same nasty feeds as in Munich, sounded very musical fed by Luxman electronics at AXPONA this year, with the SYSTEM being among the best of show.
In my experience, the best speakers, both today and from years past, are less coloured than people think, and, providing there is no significant mismatch with the chosen amplifier, the resulting sonic signature has more to do with the characteristics of the upstream equipment than the speskers themselves.
Kerry
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