Hi Dave,
Would you put the Fritz Speakers in the same category as Salk Audio?
I'm not sure that I could go that far based on the minimal experience I've had with either. For one thing, Salk's display was set up in a room the size of a ballroom and sounded great despite the size of the room. Plus, all the Salk's were run from really expensive high end gear. On the other hand, Fritz' speakers were set up in a tiny, cramped hotel room and driven by, literally a bargain basement appliance store receiver. Yet Fritz' speakers still managed to sound good and despite the awkward setup of the hotel rooms that had most of the exhibitors set up the wrong way, Fritz was one of the few speakers that actually presented some imaging. Even the Dynaudio displays couldn't really present any decent imaging or soundstage in those terrible rooms, but Fritz did.
The value proposition is something yet to be decided. There was a range of speakers from ~$600 to $1700. Before I dropped that kind of coin on a set of speakers, I would want a more substantial audition. At that price, we're well into B&W and Dynaudio range. Fritz' cabinets looked pretty nice from what I could see but nowhere near the high end furniture quality of Salk's.
I wanted to give a shout out to Fritz primarily because I think there may be some potential there worthy of looking into further. I didn't get the chance to ask him about cabinet construction or other details that might set his speakers apart from others in that range. But I like his lack of pretentiousness and his cajones for displaying his speakers with such commonplace bargain basement equipment (and still trust that they would sound good).
