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

[Sigberg Audio]

(..)

That's true of everything, but does little to qualify things as such. I've built 9 pairs of speakers and 3 pairs of subwoofers over the last 6 years and 4 amps. I have drivers I have almost forgotten about and have studied this topic pretty much endlessly even well before that to even get to that point. That puts me in a slightly different consumer awareness category. Nothing unique about that now and obviously not your target market. We're everywhere though on the net and these forums.

Either way, I wish you luck.

I disagree with several aspects here, but I suspect partly it will not be fruitful to discuss, and partly they are generic reflections not specific to our products or our pricing, so I will let that stand without debate.

It seems you think yourself to be somewhat "In the know" in a way that makes you able to see through some kind of scam or randomly priced products. There are actually quite a lot of competent people out there who belong to the industry, are experienced DIYers, or both. People of both variations have listened to our products, so I'm not so worried about the value proposition.

As mentioned before, it's difficult to understand the cost of bringing commercial products to the market, and looking at it from a DIY perspective I understand how the prices can seem high. I can however assure you that no one involved will be swimming in money anytime soon.

 

[TLS Guy]

1. Improve performance how? Better OBJECTIVE speaker measurements? Will active speakers with 3 built-in amps have frequency response of +/- 0.5dB? Or better subjective performance?

2. So active speakers will completely do away (make obsolete) the room corrections like Audyssey, Dirac, Trinnov, and Anthem ARC. I don’t use room corrections, but good luck trying to convince all the people who love them.

I'm busy today. Suffice to say that we have discussed the point at issue before, but not for some time. However I will give you a tease, and tell that the answer to your question lies in the fourth dimension of the universe.

I have just cleared last night's snowfall. The Twin Cities Metro is under threat of the worst snow storm for thirty years, so I have just been betting ready, greasing the nipples on the tractor/blower.

I have an important meeting here this after noon, after that I reply at length.

 

[highfigh]

As mentioned before, it's difficult to understand the cost of bringing commercial products to the market, and looking at it from a DIY perspective I understand how the prices can seem high. I can however assure you that no one involved will be swimming in money anytime soon.

YouTube has a video about the fact that automakers still use clay molds for design and showed the cost to be in the $650K range. Must be worth doing, since it only adds 65 cents to the cost of each of a million vehicles built.

 

[Mikado463]

I'm busy today. greasing the nipples on the tractor/blower.

Wow, what a vision that has brought !!!

 

[ryanosaur]

Wow, what a vision that has brought !!!

You need to get out more.

 

[fmw]

You need to rattle some cages. I did, and worked with our local cooperative to build the nations first fiber optic rural network. The whole network was converted to a PONS fiber system with fiber to every home and business. I lived on a lake in the Paul Bunyan Forrest and I could get a gig up and down years ago, which is better than I can now do in the metro here, and I can't even get fiber to my home yet. However half a gig is going the job at present, but up load speeds are not as good as I would like.
The advantages to rural systems are huge, as maintenance costs are drastically reduced and they can sell cable TV over the same fiber network. I was then able to ditch Direct TV.

We have nothing like a cooperative here. I live in farm country. There isn't a piece of land less than 10 acres for miles. It is not cost effective to run fiber out here. I've discussed it with the local phone company. They won't touch it. The nearest business, other than a handful of people who do business from home, is miles away. That small town is already equipped with cable internet. It simply isn't going to happen. I once tried to buy a leased line for $1500 per month 20 years ago from the phone company and they refused to run the line and sell it to me. I've learned to live with slow internet even though I make my living in e-commerce and have for the past 26 years. We adapt to what life throws at us like everyone else.

But I have no interest in moving my business somewhere else. I'm a geezer. I enjoy watching the deer feed in my hay field while I have my morning coffee. No city for me.

 

[TLS Guy]

1. Improve performance how? Better OBJECTIVE speaker measurements? Will active speakers with 3 built-in amps have frequency response of +/- 0.5dB? Or better subjective performance?

2. So active speakers will completely do away (make obsolete) the room corrections like Audyssey, Dirac, Trinnov, and Anthem ARC. I don’t use room corrections, but good luck trying to convince all the people who love them.

The fourth dimension of the universe is time. Passive crossovers have built in time delay, in proportion to the order of the crossover. So a fourth order crossover delays the woofer a whole cycle behind the tweeter in a two way, and two cycles behind the tweeter in a three way. It has been shown that more than a quarter wavelength time shift is a problem. That is why first order crossovers have had their devotees. The problem is that first order crossovers have huge overlap, and frequently put drivers out of their design bandwidth. Now you won't see any of this in standard loudspeaker measurements. But I can tell you that if you drive a speaker with fourth order crossovers with a square wave and record the trace from a microphone, what you see is pretty much a perfect sine wave!

In fact you can use delay to the point where an FR looks perfect, but the speaker is useless and human speech unintelligible. So this speaks to transient response.

This effect is all the more serious as you lower the frequency of the crossover, this is just one of the reasons I will never design a passive crossover below 400 Hz at the lowest, and by the way nor should anybody else.

With active crossovers and now with DSP added, time alignment at crossover is achievable. This is a huge advance. So I think in the near future transient response will feature in measurements, and I expect square wave responses will be included going forward. Right now a speaker's square wave would shock you. The only speaker that has reproduced a reasonable square wave is the Quad ESL63. Two out of phase can cancel a square wave in mid air.

 

[mono-bloc]

I'll happily look at other forums as well, thanks for the tips! With regards to reviews, the SBS.1 are actually at Jay's now.

You can't go wrong with "JAY" He's a straight shooter and calls it the way it is, No sugar coating. As reviews go he's the only one that buy's the product , he's reviewing / testing. Regardless of cost.

 

[TLS Guy]

You can't go wrong with "JAY" He's a straight shooter and calls it the way it is, No sugar coating. As reviews go he's the only one that buy's the product , he's reviewing / testing. Regardless of cost.

I just watched that Jay bloke's review of the MoFi coaxial designed by Andrew Jones.

That chap does not have any type Lab that I could recognize. No measurements, and a boat load meaningless verbal diarrhea. This included BS about speaker cables and even power cords.

I would not trust a word that chap said. You don't need to own a speaker to give it a review. And yes, you do need a lab to give a speaker a proper fair review and I saw nothing to remotely suggest that fellow could recognize a lab even if you threw him in one and locked the door. Actually I doubt he could find his way out of a paper bag.

 

[mono-bloc]

I would not trust a word that chap said. You don't need to own a speaker to give it a review.

You really are a complete moron,

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The fourth dimension of the universe is time. Passive crossovers have built in time delay, in proportion to the order of the crossover. So a fourth order crossover delays the woofer a whole cycle behind the tweeter in a two way, and two cycles behind the tweeter in a three way. It has been shown that more than a quarter wavelength time shift is a problem. That is why first order crossovers have had their devotees. The problem is that first order crossovers have huge overlap, and frequently put drivers out of their design bandwidth. Now you won't see any of this in standard loudspeaker measurements. But I can tell you that if you drive a speaker with fourth order crossovers with a square wave and record the trace from a microphone, what you see is pretty much a perfect sine wave!

In fact you can use delay to the point where an FR looks perfect, but the speaker is useless and human speech unintelligible. So this speaks to transient response.

This effect is all the more serious as you lower the frequency of the crossover, this is just one of the reasons I will never design a passive crossover below 400 Hz at the lowest, and by the way nor should anybody else.

With active crossovers and now with DSP added, time alignment at crossover is achievable. This is a huge advance. So I think in the near future transient response will feature in measurements, and I expect square wave responses will be included going forward. Right now a speaker's square wave would shock you. The only speaker that has reproduced a reasonable square wave is the Quad ESL63. Two out of phase can cancel a square wave in mid air.

There are ACTIVE speaker systems that use EXTERNAL active crossovers/EQ/DSP and external amps.

Is that okay or do they need to cram everything INSIDE the speakers?

 

[TLS Guy]

There are ACTIVE speaker systems that use EXTERNAL active crossovers/EQ/DSP and external amps.

Is that okay or do they need to cram everything INSIDE the speakers?

Well, you certainly could. My amps and crossovers are external, however I'm using current dumpers, that are big and heavy amps. Class D amps have a much smaller form factor and make little heat. The space taken for the DSP is trivial. I don't see your problem as it is no different to current sub practice. So you would have one Class D amp for the woofer and a small class D amp for the tweeter, to a two way. For a three way there would be one extra amp. In any event I think we will move to speakers and subs being sold as an integrated design, which is what should happen, then all the electronics could be in the sub, where there is lots of space.

 

[highfigh]

There are ACTIVE speaker systems that use EXTERNAL active crossovers/EQ/DSP and external amps.

Is that okay or do they need to cram everything INSIDE the speakers?

How far from the amplification do you want the speakers to be? The speaker wiring is the one type that benefits from being short- line level audio signals can be sent over long distances without loss and that's one thing that can't be said about the signal posy-amplification.

 

[TLS Guy]

How far from the amplification do you want the speakers to be? The speaker wiring is the one type that benefits from being short- line level audio signals can be sent over long distances without loss and that's one thing that can't be said about the signal posy-amplification.

I suspect initially speaker connections will be via balanced low impedance cable. Long runs are possible and no problem. RCA cables would only be OK for short runs. I suspect that we will quickly move on to speaker connections via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi.

 

[cpp]

I suspect that we will quickly move on to speaker connections via Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi.

Interesting. Will that require for an Ethernet wired speaker connection some type of wall jack between the speakers and the amp/AVR or will manufacturers just offer Ethernet connections on all of their gear in junction with the normal speaker lugs.

 

[ryanosaur]

Currently, Dante compatible devices distribute signal over Ethernet. While there is still a premium on their product, it looks pretty cool and super useful, especially if one were to go all Active. One QSC Audio Processor offers 24 analog I/O and up to 32 Dante channels worth of processing... so one could run 44 signals through their DSP management, distributing all but 12 channels through Ethernet assuming you have a Dante compatible decoder at the Amps.

 

[TLS Guy]

Interesting. Will that require for an Ethernet wired speaker connection some type of wall jack between the speakers and the amp/AVR or will manufacturers just offer Ethernet connections on all of their gear in junction with the normal speaker lugs.

I would think that good business practice would require a choice of connection options. So I would expect to see XLR, RCA, digital and ethernet options.

 

[everettT]

Currently, Dante compatible devices distribute signal over Ethernet. While there is still a premium on their product, it looks pretty cool and super useful, especially if one were to go all Active. One QSC Audio Processor offers 24 analog I/O and up to 32 Dante channels worth of processing... so one could run 44 signals through their DSP management, distributing all but 12 channels through Ethernet assuming you have a Dante compatible decoder at the Amps.

And not for nothing, PoE can easily become a viable solution to powered speakers. We've got to move forward with advancements that have been in place for the last 10 years.

 

[TLS Guy]

And not for nothing, PoE can easily become a viable solution to powered speakers. We've got to move forward with advancements that have been in place for the last 10 years.

This discussion is now starting to get sensible. I had a long time B & M audio and AV dealer over yesterday. He said that the current receivers (He handles Marantz) are blowing up at an alarming rate now, and turn around on repairs is four months and longer. Customers are not happy. He confirmed what I knew that AVPs seldom give trouble and are far more reliable. So we really need to make a move to active speakers. That new 15 channel receiver everyone is breathless for Gene to review, is in my view a monstrosity and yesterday's, product and technology. We need to move on and fast. So yes, we need speakers like Sigberg are producing and I absolutely endorse their decision to not get involved with passive speakers.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

There are ACTIVE speaker systems that use EXTERNAL active crossovers/EQ/DSP and external amps.Is that okay or do they need to cram everything INSIDE the speakers?

Well, you certainly could. My amps and crossovers are external…

Well, then we are in agreement.

Let’s make all speakers ACTIVE, but give people the option of using EXTERNAL amps and crossovers.