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Living Voice speakers article


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Guest Old Man Rubber
11 hours ago, cafe67 said:

My favourite bit:

Quote

Here is a loudspeaker that looks as good as it sounds; most of the time, it is one or the other. Since the bass horn rolls off below 70 Hz, the speakers are usually mated with the Elysian sub-bass units. 

so... it's stupendously expensive and doesn't work properly.

 

Who buys this stuff?

 

edit:  Seems like a lot of this esoteric Hi-Fi is basically a grift

Edited by Old Man Rubber
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3 hours ago, Old Man Rubber said:

My favourite bit:

so... it's stupendously expensive and doesn't work properly.

 

Who buys this stuff?

 

edit:  Seems like a lot of this esoteric Hi-Fi is basically a grift

 The art of grifting requires the grifter to find an unsuspecting mark, e.g white van speakers.

Living Sound can't fool cashed up music lovers into parting with $1m, anymore than Magico, Wilson or Cessaro can with their flagship offerings. 

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Guest Old Man Rubber
18 minutes ago, deanB said:

Living Sound can't fool cashed up music lovers into parting with $1m, anymore than Magico, Wilson or Cessaro can with their flagship offerings. 

Are music lovers really the target market?  There are plenty of cashed up fools who inherited their money that seem to fritter it away on garbage, get surrounded by enablers/hangers on etc. who look externally like they could be talked out of a lazy mill for the speakers in their beach house.  I mean, even Bose can make a speaker that goes under 70hz, why can't these guys?

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Can't cheat the basic laws of physics

< Since the bass horn rolls off below 70 Hz, the speakers are usually mated with the Elysian sub-bass units. The Elysian is a pair of gigantic folded horns, >

 

Size of the horn dictates the roll off hence 70Hz, the sub bass horns in the Elysian are folded for good reason otherwise they wouldn't fit in the room

 

some horn theory: size and bass cutoff

 

https://www.ln271828.net/horn-c.htm

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6 minutes ago, Old Man Rubber said:

Are music lovers really the target market?  There are plenty of cashed up fools who inherited their money that seem to fritter it away on garbage, get surrounded by enablers/hangers on etc. who look externally like they could be talked out of a lazy mill for the speakers in their beach house.  I mean, even Bose can make a speaker that goes under 70hz, why can't these guys?

The achilles heel of all horn speakers is bass frequency. Powered subs are included in the price of the Vox Olympian system.

So if you think it's cashed up fools who buys the esoteric stuff, why did you ask "who buys this stuff" in your first post? 

Research & development, manufacturing, marketing, selling and backing up esoteric speakers isn't grifting.

The art of grifting is doing the minimum for maximum reward.

 

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Guest Old Man Rubber

Doesn't this count as grifting?  Despite the claims of the workmanship etc. in the product, there is no way the costs get anywhere near 50% of the ask which leads to the question of what a reasonable margin might be on a set of speakers that require a rather prosaic subwoofer to get them to produce a lower frequency than a 1980s boom box.  

 

I'd wager the production cost is less than 5% of the ask.

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32 minutes ago, Old Man Rubber said:

Doesn't this count as grifting?  Despite the claims of the workmanship etc. in the product, there is no way the costs get anywhere near 50% of the ask which leads to the question of what a reasonable margin might be on a set of speakers that require a rather prosaic subwoofer to get them to produce a lower frequency than a 1980s boom box.  

 

I'd wager the production cost is less than 5% of the ask

You're speculating, some would say carping. Back your claims up with something more factual.

I've given my thoughts on the use of the term "grifting". That's about as far as my interest in the discussion goes.

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5 hours ago, Old Man Rubber said:

My favourite bit:

so... it's stupendously expensive and doesn't work properly.

 

Who buys this stuff?

 

edit:  Seems like a lot of this esoteric Hi-Fi is basically a grift

Um............

Have you heard any large horn systems?

As Ian says you can't change the laws of physics.

Horns that go low are large.

Horns that don't go too low are still large.

You can use the corner of the room to extend the mouth of the horn to get more extension but they will still be large.

I personally don't think "a lot of this esoteric HI-Fi is basically a grift" at all.  You get some things that seem poor value for money.

A good horn system can be a amazing experience and this holds true for a lot of esoteric Hi Fi.

A great horn or high efficiency system can be magical as can a great system made of esoteric components.

Value is very much dependant on the pockets of the purchaser and value they place on how much they have to spend to get better sound.

There are lots of people who see any audio system bigger than a bose style system or any more money spent on a hifi system that is dearer than a bose system as being a grift.

 

The margins in Audio are very different when your a tiny manufacturer who may only sell ten pairs of speakers a year, or amplifiers or whatever it may be.  Some of these people are wealthy some are living a pretty meagre existence and doing what they love.

 

LPG

 

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Guest Old Man Rubber
16 minutes ago, zipstartcanoe said:

I'll take that wager - what did you want to put up?

I dunno, who is going to ring them up and ask what the materials and labour cost?  Pretty clearly there isnt half a million in brass or knurled veneer.  How much do they charge for the concierge to install them?

Does he travel first class by air or exclusively by the company packet steamer to preserve his golden ears?

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4 hours ago, Old Man Rubber said:

Are music lovers really the target market?  There are plenty of cashed up fools who inherited their money that seem to fritter it away on garbage, get surrounded by enablers/hangers on etc. who look externally like they could be talked out of a lazy mill for the speakers in their beach house.  I mean, even Bose can make a speaker that goes under 70hz, why can't these guys?


nobodies forcing you to buy them ???

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Guest Old Man Rubber
14 hours ago, Honreekea said:

you're on: $20 you're wrong

@Honreekea and  @zipstartcanoe I will donate $100 to StereoNet if you can come up with a plausible explanation why the production cost of those speakers would exceed $50,000USD.

 

Bear in mind:  They are veneer faced plywood boxes.  Brass is $4/kg.  Casting for brass is relatively cheap.  The workers assembling them are doing it between fitting out yachts and are not ye olde craftsmen.

 

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Ignoring, material and component costs,  tooling costs, supply chain and inventory management cost, waste/rejection rate costs, etc etc, then depending on the finishes deployed, there are circa 2000 man hours of very highly specialised bespoke craftsmanship involved. Theses are not knocked up by guys building these speakers one day and installing your Ikea kitchen the next.

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Guest Old Man Rubber
8 minutes ago, zipstartcanoe said:

Ignoring, material and component costs,  tooling costs, supply chain and inventory management cost, waste/rejection rate costs, etc etc, then depending on the finishes deployed, there are circa 2000 man hours of very highly specialised bespoke craftsmanship involved. Theses are not knocked up by guys building these speakers one day and installing your Ikea kitchen the next.

They must work very slowly.  Are they counting the time it takes for the glue to dry on the plywood? ?

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I didn’t know the discussion is merely about price in this thread?

I don’t know how many ppl have heard the Vox Olympian?

I heard the finely finished version in Munich and the lesser finished version in Spiritland in London.  They are excellent speakers and much better than many similar priced conventional box speakers, and there are plenty of those.

The Olympian is also a fine piece of furniture.  The veneer and finish contribute little to the sound quality but a large part of the cost.  For those who appreciate craftsmanship and require a fine sounding piece of furniture, there is certainly a market for it.

For me I rather have my Eames chair and German horns!

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