Ripoff sold in Canadian malls
From Home Theater Forum:
The truth about Nuance Speakers
A salesman said they are the #1 selling speaker in Canada. Is this true?
Probably not but a lot of people do buy them. Nuance audio is a Canadian speaker company based in Markham Ontario that is sold throughout the country in various shopping malls and stores. In any given store that sells these you may be looking for a specific product (like a DVD player) but the salesperson will want to show you these "amazing new speakers". So off you go to the demo room.
I heard them and they sounded quite good, especially that spatial 3D sound
So what was it they played for you? The man chopping the wood? The song Vogue by Madonna? Perhaps it was the hula girls? Maybe the Roger Waters tune? All these tracks have one thing in common which is Q sound. They do have some great imaging like the salesperson claims but its only because of Q sound encoded discs. To put it simply, Q sound makes the audio seem like it comes from the sides and behind you when in fact no speakers are there. Remember- its not the speakers that do this. Any speaker will have this effect (to a degree) as long as you play a Q sound encoded disc.
But the speakers are so big and loud, they have to be good!
Yeah them towers are quite impresive. Big bad-boy in your face sound. But there's a reason behind this, they do it to appeal to the 18-35 demographic. Big 12" subs, lots of drivers and 6 feet tall. Everything a testosterone ridden 20 year old needs. As for the actual sound of them...well I have done my own listening tests and I can honestly say they fall way short of what is considered good sound.
How come when I told the salesperson I wasn't interested he said he would slash the price by 50%
Because he can afford too. He could probably afford to slash it another 50% on top of that and still make a good doller. These things are ridicuously overpriced to begin with. When he slashes the price he's fooling you into thinking your getting a bargain. Its a great selling tactic that unfortunatly works.
But they have a 10 year warranty!
Yes they do. Most speaker companies have 5 year warranties so a 10 year warranty seems like they must have faith in their product. The truth is that the drivers (woofers and tweeters) are very cheap and inexpensive for the company to replace. Without going into great detail the woofers are paper with a laminate of sorts on the surface to give them a more expensive polypropelene look. Paper drivers, for the most part, are a thing of the past as new and better materials become available.
I checked out their website but couldn't find any pictures or specifications
Nuance belives we should all "trust our ears and to not be fooled by flashy specifications" and that specs are not needed. Well then I guess its a crap-shoot as to whether your amplifer at home will properly drive them to a real world listening level. This spec called sensitivity makes all the world of a difference of how loud a speaker will go and yet they don't supply it. Wow, a company marketing their product on their website and there is not even one picture of it. Very strange.
Now I'm starting to wonder about Nuance...is there anything else I should know?
Glad you asked. For one, they do not advertise. Also, Nuance does not allow any professional reviews of their products. They have even threatened to sue Andrew Marshall, publisher/editor of the Canadian magazine Audio Ideas Guide if he borrowed or bought a pair to do this. And if that isn't enough, journalists (like Andrew Marshall) are not allowed to go into the Nuance closed door demos at such events as the Canadian Hi-Fi Show and Montreal Festival du Son.
In short, these speakers are not a good value. They will sound louder and better than many speakers that grace many Canadian livingroom's. But those speakers are a few hundred dollers, not thousands like a full set of Nuance. And for thousands, you can buy a much better sounding quality speaker that doesn't employ shady tactics. Quite frankly, Nuance Audio is a disgrace to Canada's reputation in the audio world for we manufacture some world class speakers.
[Edit: removed link. Why advertise them? - Admin.]
