Would you consider purchasing 10,000USD speakers from an internet direct company?

[Sigberg Audio]

We are an internet direct manufacturer and @gene has been kind enough to allow us to perform a bit of market research to help us understand the US (and international) market, and decide whether to look into alternative distribution as well.

Please only reply to the poll if you are actually in the market for (or already own) speakers in this price range, so the results are as accurate as possible. Thank you for participating! Comments in the thread are welcome as well.

 

[Eppie]

Ah, answered the poll first and then read your comment. $10k would be above my price range but I did consider spending $5k on speakers last year. My answer would be the same either way. When I audition speakers I typically spend a good hour or more auditioning each one before I feel that I have a decent understanding of how they perform. A generous return policy for internet direct sales is important when all you have to go on is measurements. While measurements tell a big part of the story, I discovered first hand that measurements and favourable reviews do not guarantee a satisfactory result.

For example I auditioned a pair of Monitor Audio Gold towers that retail for $7500. Two years ago I would have said that I would buy them based on reviews and opinions alone. They turned out to be one of the most disappointing speakers that I have auditioned. That reinforced the lesson that personal opinions can vary greatly and first hand demonstrations are an important part of the purchasing decision. A 30 day return policy, for example, could be a deciding factor with internet direct sales.

 

[ryanosaur]

OK... I'm not voting because I'm not swimming in the 10K per pair pool. However, If I had the money, and somehow the opportunity to hear them in a legitimate listening experience, preferably my own room and electronics involved, but also willing to consider other auditions...

I think it would be a no-brainer to say yes.

First, having heard the Salk SS9.5 very early in it's life cycle, I was impressed; seriously impressed. It was everything I already have, but just a little more refined. If the disposable income were on my side, I would have signed up.
Second, being a small business kind of guy, I like the idea of supporting a business that has done exactly what you have. You've been very engaging with the public, willing to chat even as you know it may not result in a sale, and have had a very transparent display of your development process and goals for your project.

There are absolutely guys I wouldn't buy from that are ID/small-scale manufacturers. HOWEVER... There are others I have wanted to be able to support... and one ID manufacturer who I have already supported and look for ways to continue supporting in Philharmonic Audio.

Thorbjørn, you are absolutely in that second group. As before, I really respect and appreciate your approach and find your participation on the forums both informative and rewarding to read.

Cheers!
R

 

[Trell]

I seriously considered to buy Genelec 8361 for fronts and other “lesser” models as surrounds for a 5.1 setup, if that counts.

From a support and reliability point of view Genelec have a decades long history, and for me that is very important. As a startup company you’ve an uphill battle here but having public info on how to repair/replace all parts of your active monitors would go a long way to alleviate concerns of you going out of business or “deprecating” them.

I’ve little opportunity to listen to speakers/monitors locally as most of that is long gone where I live, so buying online is what I do. So return policies is, of course, important to me.

What you did not address in your post is various consumer protection laws, and that is also quite important to me.

I did not vote, btw

 

[everettT]

We are an internet direct manufacturer and @gene has been kind enough to allow us to perform a bit of market research to help us understand the US (and international) market, and decide whether to look into alternative distribution as well.

Please only reply to the poll if you are actually in the market for (or already own) speakers in this price range, so the results are as accurate as possible. Thank you for participating! Comments in the thread are welcome as well.

It's been almost 15 years since I purchased anything audio from a brick and mortar store. I do feel that a US distributor (whether online only or not) would be wise for you but realize that wouldn't be immediate.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

What you did not address in your post is various consumer protection laws, and that is also quite important to me.

Yes, you'd typically not be directly protected by them when purchasing from an internet direct company from another country.

In our case specifically, we're located in Norway, which I believe have one of the stricter consumer protection laws. 5 year warranty is basically mandatory by law on consumer electronics. So we're quite used to high service levels and providing support for many years. But as a foreign customer you'd still have to trust that we'd uphold our end of that bargain of course.

 

[Trell]

Yes, you'd typically not be directly protected by them when purchasing from an internet direct company from another country.

In our case specifically, we're located in Norway, which I believe have one of the stricter consumer protection laws. 5 year warranty is basically mandatory by law on consumer electronics. So we're quite used to high service levels and providing support for many years. But as a foreign customer you'd still have to trust that we'd uphold our end of that bargain of course.

But those Norwegian consumer protection laws does not extend to markets like USA? Even inside EU/EES there are differing standards/laws.

From what I’ve read here about your company and very interesting products I think you’re sincere and honest. So don’t take this the wrong way.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

But those Norwegian consumer protection laws does not extend to markets like USA? Even inside EU/EES there are differing standards/laws.

From what I’ve read here about your company and very interesting products I think you’re sincere and honest. So don’t take this the wrong way.

Yes that is correct. My point was only that adhering to strict laws like that is pretty ingrained. But you are correct that you as a foreign consumer is not protected by those laws, so it is up to me to uphold my promise to the customer, and up to you to trust that I will.

 

[lovinthehd]

That would be one of my bigger internet direct purchases but as long as the reputation/return plans are acceptable, wouldn't bother me. I don't have stores to buy audio gear in for the most part without driving several hours, so have been doing internet buying for a while. I would like to see your financials perhaps first

 

[TLS Guy]

Yes that is correct. My point was only that adhering to strict laws like that is pretty ingrained. But you are correct that you as a foreign consumer is not protected by those laws, so it is up to me to uphold my promise to the customer, and up to you to trust that I will.

Thorbjorn, I can not think of a start up loudspeaker company that I want to see succeed more than yours.

I think the American market is potentially your biggest market, as North America has larger rooms than elsewhere. However the American market is now very much married to AV, especially so this forum.

Now, people have a hard time seeing dead ends. The dead end I'm referring to is the absurdity of a 15 channel receivers, at 7 odd K a pop, weighing 75 lb.! There are going to be some very sore heads, and unhappy customers, when on of those 30 plus power transistors goes short circuit and the whole contraption goes into protect mode just out of warranty. Sure as night follows day, quite a few will, given past experience. So the need for active speakers is now greater than ever.

The market is shifting to AV. This is true right across the spectrum. More and more orchestras are going on line. The BPO leading the way with high quality loss less audio, and they are now getting the hang of their Atmos recordings. Opera is an absolute fit for AV.

So that brings me to advise you that you really do need to introduce an active center as soon as possible. You already have a huge advantage as your systems have coaxial drivers as a core part of the design. Being active is a huge plus, as a center speaker has to be placed where it has to be. So this makes a standard passive crossover a severe limitation, as the handling of the transition frequency is different for literally every customer and different if that customer changes rooms, or moves house. Being able to customize this is crucial to exemplary speech intelligibility and all round performance. My experience with AV has driven that home to me.

I do hope your driver supply is secure. The one time I ventured into speaker production was with my design that won the audiophile sound off run by Stereophile. There was assistance to get production going. The key to the design was a certain Focal driver. That driver was discontinued by Focal before the end of the first production run! So that ended that endeavor for me.

I do think you need some sort of presence in America if this is to succeed. I trust your design is easily user serviceable, so that a failed driver or electronic failure could be quickly solved by the customer by just swapping driver, or the electronics. This would be a massive advantage over receivers, for which service is a nightmare.

So I think you will need at a minimum a US location for parts, so that customers have a quick turnaround via UPS or FedEx, not have to ship and receive internationally.
These are my thoughts, and I will send you a PM later.

 

[cpp]

Lets see.
Depends on who the manufacturer is, ( never heard of the one mentioned)
The reputation of the dealer and the manufacturer,
Any available measurements
Return policy,
Warranty,
And key, where is the distributor location

 

[TLS Guy]

Lets see.
Depends on who the manufacturer is, ( never heard of the one mentioned)
The reputation of the dealer and the manufacturer,
Any available measurements
Return policy,
Warranty,
And key, where is the distributor location

Item one: - They are a start up and have not had time to develop a reputation.

They have been totally transparent and published their measurements, the good and the bad on this site.

Their first active speaker Audioholics declared product of the year. They are a company specializing in active speakers, and have no intention of ever producing a passive speaker.

Return policy as far as I know is to be announced.

I think warranty on the electronics is ten years.

As far as I know there is no US distributor, and they plan to ship from Norway. This may be a problem.

They are now about to release their first cardioid active speakers. Optimal results are to be achieved using the speakers with their integrated sub. The speakers are able to achieve incredible clean spl. from relatively compact enclosures. All speakers are active with DSP. No passive speaker, however exotic and expensive, will be able to best them.

As I say, I have never been so excited about a start up speaker company. This is what I see as the future. I see their biggest threat as these ridiculous dinosaur receivers.

I think we are entering the new transition, where speakers will be hooked up the Ethernet cables. I see the future as speakers connected by wire or Wi-Fi to your router. With the death of hard media and rapidly improving Internet stream distribution I see that in the not too distant future, your speakers will be connected to your house Ethernet and you will control it all from you iPhone. No receiver and no AVP. Nice neat installation and happy wife.
Changes are afoot and long overdue. The shake up is coming.

 

[lovinthehd]

For those interested, Sigberg has been posting on ASR for quite a while, could well be more information for someone like @cpp who hasn't noticed them.

ps Here's a thread about the speakers TLS mentioned https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/sigberg-audio-manta-dual-cardioid-active-speaker-development-thread.125195/

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I didn't vote as 10k for pair of speakers is way above my comfort zone, or I should say that I'd expect to build an entire 7.2 system for that cash. I could only suggest one move vote option: "I can accept to purchase directly if the value/ price ratio is higher.". I could probably see myself spending that cash with ID I know well, like SVS or HSU, but like I said, for a complete speakers system.

 

[Kingnoob]

Item one: - They are a start up and have not had time to develop a reputation.

They have been totally transparent and published their measurements, the good and the bad on this site.

Their first active speaker Audioholics declared product of the year. They are a company specializing in active speakers, and have no intention of ever producing a passive speaker.

Return policy as far as I know is to be announced.

I think warranty on the electronics is ten years.

As far as I know there is no US distributor, and they plan to ship from Norway. This may be a problem.

They are now about to release their first cardioid active speakers. Optimal results are to be achieved using the speakers with their integrated sub. The speakers are able to achieve incredible clean spl. from relatively compact enclosures. All speakers are active with DSP. No passive speaker, however exotic and expensive, will be able to best them.

As I say, I have never been so excited about a start up speaker company. This is what I see as the future. I see their biggest threat as these ridiculous dinosaur receivers.

I think we are entering the new transition, where speakers will be hooked up the Ethernet cables. I see the future as speakers connected by wire or Wi-Fi to your router. With the death of hard media and rapidly improving Internet stream distribution I see that in the not too distant future, your speakers will be connected to your house Ethernet and you will control it all from you iPhone. No receiver and no AVP. Nice neat installation and happy wife.
Changes are afoot and long overdue. The shake up is coming.

Speakers connected by Ethernet cables ? What ! ?? Now I do expect dvd to fold but Blu-ray should stay popular since no one streaming services have every title you need tons of them for one movie. Although Blu-ray could fold if people stop buying them .

 

[TLS Guy]

Speakers connected by Ethernet cables ? What ! ?? Now I do expect dvd to fold but Blu-ray should stay popular since no one streaming services have every title you need tons of them for one movie. Although Blu-ray could fold if people stop buying them .

Already on the drawing board. TVs already are Ethernet connected, then there is a cumbersome eArc back to receivers and AVPs. Once the amps are in the speakers where they belong, then the speakers can be Ethernet connected also. That will get rid of the troublesome HDMI connection, and no more big ugly black boxes with 15 amps and processing boards. Lots of money saved, quality and reliability go up like never before.

 

[mono-bloc]

This is an interesting question which does demand considerable debate and questions will be asked, As to what these speakers are like, who makes them and speaker driver names. Focal, See's, Scan-speak, etc As I see it the main problem is where there produced, and who is promoting them, Where the US is a major buyer of all things audio, There not the only fish in the pond, Some of the European and Asian countries would leave the US far behind in the buying capital game. Especially in the UAE and neighbouring countries where purchase tax is non-existent. I think what the intending builder needs to do is promote his product at an audio show, Munich, and Warsaw Poland would be a good start. But there expensive, and there's no guarantee that they will be successful. If you intend concentrating on the American or UK markets, then you really need an agent, in the audio game to promote the product, As to cost, no-one is going to spend any money on a product they have no knowledge of, and a web site is really worth nothing as are measurements . Without the product being on display at a dealers showrooms. As to cost ten grand is probably quite reasonable, But by her time you add freight, and purchase tax, together with the dealers mark up, that price just about doubles. As for selling direct to the public, Good luck if you can find someone silly enough to part with that sort of cash on a promise, of good value. Most people that have expensive systems, are very secretive about what they have in the lounge room. Years ago I acted as a buyers agent, and still have a few clients, who buy hi-end gear through me. There are many good designers out there that have fallen by the way-side, with there speaker products, simply because they have run out of buyers. I could list a few in Australia, but won't. Sorry but I think your doomed to fail, unless your prepared to spend a considerable amount on promotion. And there's a lot out there trying to do the same thing.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Thorbjorn, I can not think of a start up loudspeaker company that I want to see succeed more than yours.

I think the American market is potentially your biggest market, as North America has larger rooms than elsewhere. However the American market is now very much married to AV, especially so this forum.

(..)

So that brings me to advise you that you really do need to introduce an active center as soon as possible. You already have a huge advantage as your systems have coaxial drivers as a core part of the design. Being active is a huge plus, as a center speaker has to be placed where it has to be. So this makes a standard passive crossover a severe limitation, as the handling of the transition frequency is different for literally every customer and different if that customer changes rooms, or moves house. Being able to customize this is crucial to exemplary speech intelligibility and all round performance. My experience with AV has driven that home to me.

I do hope your driver supply is secure. The one time I ventured into speaker production was with my design that won the audiophile sound off run by Stereophile. There was assistance to get production going. The key to the design was a certain Focal driver. That driver was discontinued by Focal before the end of the first production run! So that ended that endeavor for me.

I do think you need some sort of presence in America if this is to succeed. I trust your design is easily user serviceable, so that a failed driver or electronic failure could be quickly solved by the customer by just swapping driver, or the electronics. This would be a massive advantage over receivers, for which service is a nightmare.

So I think you will need at a minimum a US location for parts, so that customers have a quick turnaround via UPS or FedEx, not have to ship and receive internationally.
These are my thoughts, and I will send you a PM later.

Thank you for the detailed reply! And I appreciate that you are rooting for me

• center / LFE is on the drawing board, but still a bit into the future. Meanwhile the SBS.1 can be used as a center channel.
• Yes, driver supply is secure through primary manufacturers (well established both manufacturers and drivers who have a long period of warning before discontinuing OEM drivers). I also have both a personal and working relationship with a Scandinavian high-end driver manufacturer that will likely supply OEM and/or custom drivers in the future.
• Yes, everything is easily serviceable. With the current volume combined with very low (practically non-existant) failure rate, I don't see the need for local parts availability in the forseeable future. All parts are stocked here, and can be shipped to the US with DHL express within 2-3 days.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

Lets see.
Depends on who the manufacturer is, ( never heard of the one mentioned)
The reputation of the dealer and the manufacturer,
Any available measurements
Return policy,
Warranty,
And key, where is the distributor location

The question was general in nature, but I'm obviously specifically interested in the manufacturer that was not explicitly mentioned but quite heavily implied by the OP (me), which is the manufacturer I represent: Sigberg Audio.

Measurements are available, return policy is 60 days, Warranty is 5 years (with a promised 10 years availability on spare parts and lifetime free support).

At the moment everything is shipped from Norway with DHL express.

 

[Sigberg Audio]

This is an interesting question which does demand considerable debate and questions will be asked, As to what these speakers are like, who makes them and speaker driver names. Focal, See's, Scan-speak, etc As I see it the main problem is where there produced, and who is promoting them, Where the US is a major buyer of all things audio, There not the only fish in the pond, Some of the European and Asian countries would leave the US far behind in the buying capital game. Especially in the UAE and neighbouring countries where purchase tax is non-existent. I think what the intending builder needs to do is promote his product at an audio show, Munich, and Warsaw Poland would be a good start. But there expensive, and there's no guarantee that they will be successful. If you intend concentrating on the American or UK markets, then you really need an agent, in the audio game to promote the product, As to cost, no-one is going to spend any money on a product they have no knowledge of, and a web site is really worth nothing as are measurements . Without the product being on display at a dealers showrooms. As to cost ten grand is probably quite reasonable, But by her time you add freight, and purchase tax, together with the dealers mark up, that price just about doubles. As for selling direct to the public, Good luck if you can find someone silly enough to part with that sort of cash on a promise, of good value. Most people that have expensive systems, are very secretive about what they have in the lounge room. Years ago I acted as a buyers agent, and still have a few clients, who buy hi-end gear through me. There are many good designers out there that have fallen by the way-side, with there speaker products, simply because they have run out of buyers. I could list a few in Australia, but won't. Sorry but I think your doomed to fail, unless your prepared to spend a considerable amount on promotion. And there's a lot out there trying to do the same thing.

Thank you for your reflections, highly appreciated! I'll try to answer some of them for us at least.

• Information about the speakers are readily available thorough the website and several development threads on various forums.
• Drivers are for from what are at least in Europe well-known brands, namely Scan-speak and Sica.
• Products are being promoted (including here on Audioholics with ads and reviews through all of 2022), and the upcoming Manta (that are still only available for preorder) has already been picked up as a news item and been written about in 10+ publications in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Italy, the UK and the US.
• I'm aware that building the brand and trust in the market will take years even with promotion.
• We've been present at hifishows, but locally for now.
• The current price of our products includes world wide shipping, but yes, distributors and dealers will add to the cost, hence this poll. Adding dealers/distributors will increase both the cost to consumer and reduce our margins, but likely help speed up brand awareness and sales volume.