Top 10 Current Speaker Manufacturers in the World!!!

[ptykozoon]

TOP TEN PIZZA MANUFACTURERS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!11
Criteria:
Pizza must measure within normal cheese to sauce ratios based on the following basic guidelines. Cheese must be within normal pizza boundaries - 1/16in to 1/4in height. Sauce must be tomato based, alignment must be spread evenly on top of the dough in a conventional dispersion and arrangement. Dough must be grain based, cheese bitter/spicy ratios may not exceed accustomed capacities, etc.

Must be cooked via oven/pizza oven and uphold premium crispiness and overall yummy texture.

Must feature innovative and cutting edge pizza design, i.e. cheese in crust, pizza cut in unconventional patterns, utilize squirrel based cheeses, sushi as toppings, etc.

Restaurant or delivery, cannot be store bought (Digornio is often mistaken as delivery).

Am I the only one experiencing a lesson in futility?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

TOP TEN PIZZA MANUFACTURERS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!11
Criteria:
Pizza must measure within normal cheese to sauce ratios based on the following basic guidelines. Cheese must be within normal pizza boundaries - 1/16in to 1/4in height. Sauce must be tomato based, alignment must be spread evenly on top of the dough in a conventional dispersion and arrangement. Dough must be grain based, cheese bitter/spicy ratios may not exceed accustomed capacities, etc.

Must be cooked via oven/pizza oven and uphold premium crispiness and overall yummy texture.

Must feature innovative and cutting edge pizza design, i.e. cheese in crust, pizza cut in unconventional patterns, utilize squirrel based cheeses, sushi as toppings, etc.

Restaurant or delivery, cannot be store bought (Digornio is often mistaken as delivery).

Am I the only one experiencing a lesson in futility?

You left out one important factor. Pizza must be Goldmund brand.

 

[ridikas]

AcuDefTechGuy - Are you jealous? Relax big guy. You have the Salon2's, some of the best speakers in the world! Although the full Goldmund Epilogue system would destroy them, it's most definitely unreasonably priced

Tell me more about your Reference KEF's. Do they do anything better than the Revels? I have a hard time finding a dealer who stocks them, so if they're not any better, then maybe I'll just forget about them...

I'm also curious, what do you think of the B&W Diamond Nautilus 802's, or 800's in comparison to your Salon2's? Or any of the Focal Utopias?

 

[cpp]

Hey Norbertas did you ever tell us where you auditioned all of those speakers the other day ?? Maybe we would like to go hear them to.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I just flew back from England. I mean France. I mean Spain. I mean Germany. Well, somewhere in Asia. I mean Africa. I mean Europe. Just audition those Goldmunds.

Wow. I do declare myself jealous. Really. I. Am. So. Jealous. Oh. Man. Envious.

Now I must fly to the Vatican in Rome and confess directly to the Pope since my heart is so full of envy for the Goldmund.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Hey Norbertas did you ever tell us where you auditioned all of those speakers the other day ?? Maybe we would like to go hear them to.

I will fly there tonight if we ever find out. I might call that dealer or dealers first to confirm the existence of those speakers since I don't want to waste my miles.

 

[cpp]

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpp View Post
Hey Norbertas did you ever tell us where you auditioned all of those speakers the other day ?? Maybe we would like to go hear them to.


AcuDefTechGuy: I will fly there tonight if we ever find out. I might call that dealer or dealers first to confirm the existence of those speakers since I don't want to waste my miles.

No need to buy a ticket to fly. I will send my plane for you and we can pick up a few others along the way.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

No need to buy a ticket to fly. I will send my plane for you and we can pick up a few others along the way.

LOL.

Cool. Do you have a pair of Goldmund on your jet as well?

 

[cpp]

Quote:
Originally Posted by cpp View Post
No need to buy a ticket to fly. I will send my plane for you and we can pick up a few others along the way.
LOL.

Cool. Do you have a pair of Goldmunds on your jet as well?

sure I can pick up a few at Wally World on my way..., But we do have a Holiday Inn Express, does that count

 

[lsiberian]

TOP TEN PIZZA MANUFACTURERS IN THE WORLD!!!!!!11
Criteria:
Pizza must measure within normal cheese to sauce ratios based on the following basic guidelines. Cheese must be within normal pizza boundaries - 1/16in to 1/4in height. Sauce must be tomato based, alignment must be spread evenly on top of the dough in a conventional dispersion and arrangement. Dough must be grain based, cheese bitter/spicy ratios may not exceed accustomed capacities, etc.

Must be cooked via oven/pizza oven and uphold premium crispiness and overall yummy texture.

Must feature innovative and cutting edge pizza design, i.e. cheese in crust, pizza cut in unconventional patterns, utilize squirrel based cheeses, sushi as toppings, etc.

Restaurant or delivery, cannot be store bought (Digornio is often mistaken as delivery).

Am I the only one experiencing a lesson in futility?

I love my Uno's come at me bro.

 

[Paul_Apollonio]

Measuring using truncated time data

That particular Sonus Faber speaker measures poor, no doubt. But there are other ones that measure within +/-2dB. Albeit a lot more expensive.

I have personally owned 6 different pairs of Goldmund speakers. Speakers that were manufactured from the late 80s to early 2000s. All on the lower spectrum of their price range. Bought them used (most on Audiogon), from $600pr. (Goldmund Prologues) to $5000pr. (Goldmund Logos1).

I currently own the Goldmund Logos1 bookshelfs. They have a 1" Peerless/Vifa tweeter (DX25TG04-05) and a 7" Peerless mid-woofer (830875). I took some measurements of them personally. Here are some results (no smoothing applied of any kind):

The droop after 15kHz is due to the Audix measuring mic.

They roughly measure +/-1.5dB. Of course I couldn't get accurate measurements below 500Hz, due to no access to an anechoic chamber. I had to keep the MLS length of 4ms-5ms to avoid room reflections.

While absolutely necessary to remove the speaker from the room, eliminating everything that takes more than 5msecs to reach the mike after the initial direct sound guarantees you will be missing important data needed to completely characterize your speaker system. If you cannot measure outdoors, try a ground plane measurement where you point the box towards the mike. (Hope you don't have shag carpeting). 5 thousands of a second later, the speaker has not stopped if this is a full range device. It may give you an approximation of free field response above 200 Hz, but you won't see resonances that are not room related, especially at lower frequencies. Once you measure in the free field (Outside) then play a bit with truncating the signal at different times, will you be able to tell what it is that short periods leave you missing. Speakers can take far longer than 0.005 seconds to stop moving, especially if you have a large moving mass on a large cone driver.

Easy to say, not so easy to measure outside without sufficient space.. Or if it is ten below zero.. Brrr.

 

[Paul_Apollonio]

Best in the World Brands

I guess if Bose is on the ten best in the world list, their lawyers are here somewhere making sure they are on everyones list. (Or I missed their latest and greatest again.)

Best in the world? At marketing, for sure. They have fantastic engineers, and unbelievably good facillities, and rules about profit margin too. (BIG MARGIN!!)

Best sound I heard at CES was Egglestons. Sonus Faber was excellent too. What is amazing is how much absolute crap inhabits the Venetian Hotel, land of the high end.

About 90% of them do not understand the basic physics involved, (Or could care less) and I can tell JUST from looking at the cabinets.

2% are truly engineers/artists, and the rest are struggling trying to do their best.

Lots of guys work in their garage, but what comes out of that garage is either good or bad. Just cause you have a company capitalized with 100 Million dollars, does not mean the products are excellent. It is far more likely to guarantee that the profit margins meet certain minimums than the quality does.

In the end, for the guys who run the companies, it is about thier paycheck. Without the margins for big profits, they fail or leave. One can make a reasoned argument about the value of a given measurement, but if it measures bad, it is going to sound bad period. Always does.

Best in the world is always in an engineers head. Right after he builds it, he realizes what he could have done to make it better.

I think it smarter to forget the badge, and listen to the product. More than once, I have heard a company make a great $10,000 speaker, that blew away something they made which cost more $$$$$. Forget the brands, especially the BIG brands. You may have 100 models or more for some companies. That means some are built for a price point, and some are built for a target market.

Oh, and whoever thinks that thier opinion is as valid as the next guys, you deny the validity of measurement and science.
Lots of people do it, but it is still baloney. We have objective standards. Those who do not work in marketing or sales. Their only Standard is $$$$.

 

[GranteedEV]

About 90% of them do not understand the basic physics involved, (Or could care less) and I can tell JUST from looking at the cabinets.

Care to elaborate what kind of cabinets you're refering to?

Lots of guys work in their garage, but what comes out of that garage is either good or bad. Just cause you have a company capitalized with 100 Million dollars, does not mean the products are excellent. It is far more likely to guarantee that the profit margins meet certain minimums than the quality does.

And that's the crux of it. I'd just as much love to shell out for some Gedlee, Philharmonic, Salk or Vapor speakers as much as I'd love some high end TADs, Revels, JBL LSR, and KEFs.

End of it all it's a package deal and there's a ton of well marketed crap out there as well as niche garbage made for people who like warm tubey sound. It has to perform well, not be well established or 'unique'.

One can make a reasoned argument about the value of a given measurement, but if it measures bad, it is going to sound bad period. Always does.

+1

And if it measures good, there's likely still plenty of measurements left untaken.

Oh, and whoever thinks that thier opinion is as valid as the next guys, you deny the validity of measurement and science. Lots of people do it, but it is still baloney. We have objective standards.

I'll agree with this though i'll add that it's about the best balance of tradeoffs for a given individual. two speakers can measure great, only in totally different ways

 

[walter duque]

I guess if Bose is on the ten best in the world list, their lawyers are here somewhere making sure they are on everyones list. (Or I missed their latest and greatest again.)

Best in the world? At marketing, for sure. They have fantastic engineers, and unbelievably good facillities, and rules about profit margin too. (BIG MARGIN!!)

Best sound I heard at CES was Egglestons. Sonus Faber was excellent too. What is amazing is how much absolute crap inhabits the Venetian Hotel, land of the high end.

About 90% of them do not understand the basic physics involved, (Or could care less) and I can tell JUST from looking at the cabinets.

2% are truly engineers/artists, and the rest are struggling trying to do their best.

Lots of guys work in their garage, but what comes out of that garage is either good or bad. Just cause you have a company capitalized with 100 Million dollars, does not mean the products are excellent. It is far more likely to guarantee that the profit margins meet certain minimums than the quality does.

In the end, for the guys who run the companies, it is about thier paycheck. Without the margins for big profits, they fail or leave. One can make a reasoned argument about the value of a given measurement, but if it measures bad, it is going to sound bad period. Always does.

Best in the world is always in an engineers head. Right after he builds it, he realizes what he could have done to make it better.

I think it smarter to forget the badge, and listen to the product. More than once, I have heard a company make a great $10,000 speaker, that blew away something they made which cost more $$$$$. Forget the brands, especially the BIG brands. You may have 100 models or more for some companies. That means some are built for a price point, and some are built for a target market.

Oh, and whoever thinks that thier opinion is as valid as the next guys, you deny the validity of measurement and science.
Lots of people do it, but it is still baloney. We have objective standards. Those who do not work in marketing or sales. Their only Standard is $$$$.

By any chance are you familiar with John Sollecito from JSE Infinite Slope.

 

[ridikas]

Ok, been listening to more speakers. Here's my report:

Revel F32 - This is a speaker I've previously wrote off. I had a chance to listen to a pair again, but this time in a treated room, with high end electronics. They sounded very good. Still not the best I've heard, but better than most speakers out there. The treble was sweet and non fatiguing, but slightly grainy and closed off. It lacked what some audiophiles would call "air." Same goes for the midrange. The bass however was excellent! At $4000pr. it's an awesome deal. The cabinets were dead and non resonant. I did not hear any coloration from the MDF. It's usually audible in the lower midrange and makes things sound very thick and warm in that region.

Revel Ultima2 Studio2 - Same room and electronics as with above. What can I say, they certainly know how to perform a disappearing act. Smooth wall of sound. Great bass. Very low distortion. Virtually impossible to hear any discontinuities between the tweeter (waveguide!) and the midrange driver. And same goes for the midrange to the woofer transition. This is the smoothest speakers that I have ever heard in my life. The tweeter still lacked some air and sparkle and same goes for the midrange. But they do so many things right, that overall these are some of the best speakers in existence. The cabinets were solid and non resonant. I do wish that they would offer a piano black finish as an option. At $16,000pr. are they $14,000 better than the F32's? I don't think so. But if one wants that last 5% of performance, then it will become very pricey, very quick

PSB Synchrony One - In some ways similar to the Revel F32's. Very low distortion, very effortless presentation. They lack some midrange crispness that the Revels have. I like their inexpensive Vifa tweeters ($24) and Peerless mid-woofers ($60). But both drivers lack that air, liquidity, glassiness, crispness that slightly more expensive offerings from Seas, SB, and ScanSpeak posses. Dead non resonant cabinets. Although I wish that they offered a piano black finish as an option.

Jamo - Various offerings. Not my cup of tea.

NHT - High value inexpensive speakers. Not as good as the similarly priced Epos line.

Boston Acoustics - Similar to the NHT speaker line.

So what do I have left to audition? The KEF Reference, certain higher end Sonus Faber models, and that should complete my journey. I should get this done by the end of the week.

What have I learned so far? Cabinets, cabinets, and better cabinets!!! ALL MANUFACTURERS should take note from Revel and PSB. And I'll leave it at that!

What else? Waveguides! They make for extremely smooth tweeter to mid-woofer transition. They have excellent off axis and power response. But my question to these manufacturers is this: Why stop at only a measly 4" waveguide? Why not go all the way and make it a 6", or a 7", or even an 8"? A 4" waveguide is only useful to 2.5 - 3kHz at best. Why not have something that will extend down to 1.8kHz? This way it would cover the entire tweeter's range. PSB has an extruded aluminum baffle, with machined driver cutouts, rubber ring molds, etc. Revel has a fancy small waveguide with a non circular shape and their logo stamped in. Since these companies have already invested in all of these tools, are they telling us that they can't mold a 7" ($0.10) waveguide part in China? I'm looking at you PSB, that Vifa tweeter only has the smallest of waveguides. Mount it deeper into that extruded baffle of yours and have your Chinese buddies make a rubber/plastic waveguide that will snap into place. Done! And at $16,000pr., what excuse does Revel have?

And lastly? Speaker DRIVERS!!! Kevin Voecks at Revel said it best... "Looking at a set of measurements, if they're not good, we can say absolutely for sure that the speaker will not excel in listening tests. The converse is not completely true. Looking at a good set of measurements we could say this is a good speaker, but the difference between a really good and really great speaker is still beyond our ability to absolutely predictably measure."

Companies like Revel, PSB, Paradigm, KEF, etc. who use extreme engineering to produce the best measuring speakers in the world, need to listen up. There's an absolutely good reason why companies like ScanSpeak, Seas, and Vifa have been in business for 40-80 years! It's because they produce the very best measuring and SOUNDING drivers on the planet. Let's take a speaker like the PSB Synchrony One, with it's meticulous engineering and attention to detail. That Vifa tweeter (while good) is not meant for a $5500pr. high end speaker. It just doesn't sound all that great. The Seas metal dome (at just $20 more) completely destroys it in every possible way. It's very open, airy, liquid, crisp, etc. So why not use it? Same goes for Revel. With the type of price that they're asking for the Salon2's, I would expect nothing, but the ScanSpeak Revelator line of drivers. The Revelators simply destroy the Revel's in-house drivers. Drivers with that kind of clarity, low distortion, and a non fatiguing sound, mixed with Revel's world class engineering, would produce loudspeakers absolutely out of this world.

Am I excited for any upcoming products? Only one The Revel Performa3 line of speakers! They will finally use HiFi drivers (and not their own) from SB Acoustics. SB Acoustics makes terrific sounding mid-woofers and tweeters. They are on the level of Seas and ScanSpeak. This is an extremely exciting time for all of us audiophiles. Revel engineering, with world class sound. I cannot wait for June 2012!

 

[ridikas]

Ridikas is back! Sooner than anticipated

All loudspeakers were listened to in a treated state of the art room, with multi thousand dollar mono block amps, DACs, preamps, music servers, wire and all sorts of other nonsense.

Dynaudio Confidence C2 Signature - Wow What a pleasant, three dimensional sounding speaker. This might be the very best speaker that I have heard on this little journey of mine. Crisp, open, airy, liquid, glassy type of sound. I would say it even sounded better than the Revel Ultima2 Salon2's. If I was to nitpick, the only fault is slightly loose sounding bass. The Revels were better in that area. But everything else, Dynaudio C2's are a wow. Retail at $15,000pr.

Dynaudio - DM, Excite, Focus, and Contour lines. Ranging from $800pr.-$10,000pr. This is where it all went downhill for Dynaudio. Somewhat grainy, hard, steely type of sound. Just not my cup of tea.

Sonus Faber - Toy Monitor, Toy Tower, Liuto Monitor, Liuto, Cremona Auditor M, Cremona M, and Elipsa models. Ranging from $1000pr. to $23,000pr. Let's get something out of the way first... In my humble opinion, Sonus Faber makes the very best and sexiest looking speakers in the world. With B&W Nautilus being a distant second competitor. Sonus Faber's woodwork is exquisite. Their attention to detail is second to none. Their finishes are perfect I also commend them for consistently using the very best drivers in the world. From ScanSpeak, Seas, and Vifa. But as much as I want to give more, these are all of the compliments that I can muster.

Chocked off sound across the entire product line, grainy, unfocused, dull, lifeless, etc. With so much going for them, where did it all go wrong?

Possibilities:

Crossover, crossover, crossover!! Poorly designed crossover. These ScanSpeak drivers should sound fabulous, I know from experience. My guess is that the warmness, graininess, dullness is coming from the drivers operating out of their optimal regions. Meaning, higher order of linear and non linear distortions are audibly present.

Suggestions:

Sonus Faber, you have the best looking speakers in the world, with the best measuring and sounding drivers in the world. Please hire someone (who knows what he/she is doing) to design and test a crossover for you

Also, a speaker like the Cremona Auditor M should really be using a 7" mid-woofer and not a 5.5". At that price point ($5500pr.), customers require a higher output with more bass.

Give these ScanSpeak's a proper cabinet! They're all higher qts woofers, over 0.40. This means that you should be looking into a nice 20 liter sealed cabinet for the 7" Revelators

I hope more manufacturers would listen to their crossover parts (I'm looking at you too Revel). Most of this veiled, grainy, dull sound can be somewhat fixed with very clean (and inexpensive) sounding capacitors, like the offerings from Solen and Jantzen. Make sure your inductors are not only air-core, but are also varnished under vacuum and baked in the oven. Erse makes beautiful inexpensive inductors. Listen to your resistors too! Metal oxide power resistors from Roederstein Resista sound open, airy, crisp, and virtually grain free. While similar MOX resistors from Eagle sound grainy and quite the opposite. If you don't know what to listen for, or how to choose MOX, or metal film resistors, take the safe road. Use Mills, Dale, Ohmitte, or any other brand of non-inductive wirewounds. Try to use silver plated wire for a grain free presentation. You can buy military spec'd, Teflon, Silver plated, 12AWG wire on eBay in bulk for $0.15 a foot.

At these price points, high end manufacturers should have no excuses.

Only one manufacturer left. The elusive KEF and their Reference line. Stay tuned...

 

[ridikas]

Interesting day... I had a listen to the entire Klipsch Heritage line of speakers. It included the Klipschorns, La Scala II's, Cornwall III's, and the Heresy III's. Ranging from $1700pr. to $9000pr.

I've always been a Klipsch fan and find them to be a value leader amongst the vast sea of loudspeaker manufacturers. I especially find them great for home theater.

Klipschorns - Absolutely effortless presentation. Dynamic wall of sound. Efficiency unlike anything else. Amazing bass from the 15" woofer and the folded horn + room. Crisp, clean, IMAX movie theater quality sound and clarity. They do need a fairly large room and corner placement to complete the bass horns. This makes them a rather esoteric item. Corner placement forces them to be toed in at 45 degrees, making it difficult to find a sweet spot especially in a smaller room. Other than that, terrific speakers.

La Scala II's - Everything that the Klipschorns do, minus the bass. Will require a subwoofer.

Cornwal III's and the Heresey III's - Better bass than the La Scala II's, but you now start to lose some of that midrange clarity/magic/crispness and a tad bit of sensitivity.

I had a very interesting time listening to this line of speakers. It sorta came out of the left field.

 

[Hocky]

You must live in the best city for hifi in the world.

 

[lsiberian]

Why stop at only a measly 4" waveguide? Why not go all the way and make it a 6", or a 7", or even an 8"? A 4" waveguide is only useful to 2.5 - 3kHz at best. Why not have something that will extend down to 1.8kHz? This way it would cover the entire tweeter's range.

1.8kHz is very low for a reference build. Even a 2-way would normally cross higher up. A 3-way should be crossed between 4khz and 5khz. What you propose seems unnecessary.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Like we've asked a million times already, where are you listening to all these speakers?

That is not a very difficult question to answer.

So just tell us the locations and names of some of these stores. You don't have to mention every single one of these stores.