SVS Art Speaker Line

[Warpdrv]

I deal with interior designers every day.... People would sooner buy and appreciate an $800 set of art frames to go over a pair of $600 speakers in a hot minute before they bought a pair of $1400 speakers. It adds form to the function in a very personal, dramatic way. I just came up with random price points, but in all seriousness, frames like what we're building could retail for $1000 a pair and many people wouldn't blink an eye regardless of speaker cost because it would solve a NEED. Another selling point: Wives will let husbands buy bigger, better in walls if they can get bigger art to cover them up.

Excellent thinking.... I really like that concept with a large piece of artwork on the walls concealing speakers - I thought about this when I was setting up the speakers but went in another direction as I have no WAF concerns accept my own and beautiful woodwork fits the bill for me...

The price per DPI of the images may be a bit reason behind the prices of the SVS speakers...

 

[InTheIndustry]

That is correct. The crossover is used to "brighten" the high frequencies coming from the tweeter.

A fabric that is very transparent for sound doesn’t do artwork justice when it is printed on. SVS spent countless hours printing on fabrics and testing them acoustically. What they ended up with holds a gorgeous printed image. They had about twenty different prints on display during CES.

Their new shallow woofer uses neo magnets. Pretty cool design!

The new FS-SA800 amp comes pre loaded with a custom EQ file for the sub your coupling it with, which helps give you flat frequency response.

I don't doubt that their way works, just that it limits people by forcing them to purchase their speakers to get the look.

I understand it's tough. I've been moonlighting on doing the same thing for 2 1/2 years. Part time, of course, but spending "hours" on fabric isn't going to cut it. There are litterally millions of different types of fabric out there as well as many different printing processes and machinery to go through! I feel that our process is going to turn out to be something special. I'm working with a patent lawyer to get the process in our name. I'm expecting the finished samples shortly and will post pics.

Regardless, the original product that offers these features is, I believe, from Artcoustic : www.Artcoustic.com . Both companies will now be offering speakers with art over them. I have 100% faith, though, that SVS offerings will be much cheaper. Artcoustic has well over a couple of hundred pieces of art, shapes, designs, etc. from all sorts of Artists as well as a very large offering of speakers that are covered with art. The concept is nothing new, I've just wanted to offer people something less specialized.

I was a dealer of Artcoustic and felt that the line, while nice, was way too expensive for the avg. or even above avg. consumer. Hopefully SVS will be able to further the idea. Regardless, I’m excited as to what we’ve come up as an alternative to the masses as well.

 

[InTheIndustry]

Excellent thinking.... I really like that concept with a large piece of artwork on the walls concealing speakers - I thought about this when I was setting up the speakers but went in another direction as I have no WAF concerns accept my own and beautiful woodwork fits the bill for me...

The price per DPI of the images may be a bit reason behind the prices of the SVS speakers...

THANK YOU!

Actually, finding digital art or personal photos with enough DPI isn't too hard or terribly expensive. It's when people want something trade marked that is going to become potentially expensive.

I'm working on getting permission to print Marvel and DC comic covers and characters as sort of a pop-culture thing. We should be able to cover our acoustic panels with images as well, even routing out spaces in the panel for the speakers to play through. Think of the possibilities. I would love to do a large print over three large separate panels of like, Spiderman fighting the Green Goblin or something or Silver Surfer battling the Hulk. I think that would lay out extremely cool in a themed theater or basement.

I even scanned in a 9800 DPI image of my "Amazing Spiderman" #14 from 1964 and am having a speaker grill printed up as a test (I love comic book art, especially from that era). My rear channel in my living room theater is a DVC in-wall and this would be a great way to hide it. The image scanned in perfect and the printer said the image will have no problem on the fabric we came up with.

Also, think about this... How many times do in-walls not line up properly to be measured out perfectly from the sides of the TV? It's all dependant on studs, but it's a common problem. A few inches here or there and nobody's really going to sonically notice, but visually it looks awful. Now, we can cover them with framed art and shift everything out properly. Even for use just to cover someone's family room rears.... it's perfect.

 

[Warpdrv]

Yes, with different sized speakers and stud alignments, off setting with the art to balance things out on the front wall is a great idea...

Not everyone has this capability or forward thinking, I think SVS has a good product to market for the DIY kinda person that can't or doesn't want to afford the Custom Installer to get involved.

Your taking that extra step in thinking for your customers and I commend you for that, in fact I would suggest that to get more sales of that particular line of products for you to offer to your customers - I wouldn't limit yourself to acquiring the license for a print such as the "Star Wars" unless a customer is adamant about wanting that theme and then passing the "Cost No Object" on to them... I would think you would have many more reasonable choices without adding in those elevated prices. Of coarse I'm sure you have plenty of custom installs that are a completely "Spare No Expense" scenario and that's awesome.

I personally looked at a large amount of Art Acoustic panels, as I can't really see hanging bland ugly tasteless 2'x4'x4" or 2'x2'x2" panels around my house, but still needed to remove some ringing from the room... But a great deal of them were pretty expensive, depending on size as you have already stated....

I'm sure you have already given all this a great deal of thought without my blathering, this is also meant for the lay person scanning the threads....
Maybe you could keep us posted in how your results come out, with a thread and pics... Good Luck in your adventure...

In the end - the point here is Acoustic Panels and good quality sound DOESN'T have to be though of as ugly - Can be tastefully done, and can easily pass that sometimes ridiculous WAF factor

 

[InTheIndustry]

Yes, with different sized speakers and stud alignments, off setting with the art to balance things out on the front wall is a great idea...

Not everyone has this capability or forward thinking, I think SVS has a good product to market for the DIY kinda person that can't or doesn't want to afford the Custom Installer to get involved.

Your taking that extra step in thinking for your customers and I commend you for that, in fact I would suggest that to get more sales of that particular line of products for you to offer to your customers - I wouldn't limit yourself to acquiring the license for a print such as the "Star Wars" unless a customer is adamant about wanting that theme and then passing the "Cost No Object" on to them... I would think you would have many more reasonable choices without adding in those elevated prices. Of coarse I'm sure you have plenty of custom installs that are a completely "Spare No Expense" scenario and that's awesome.

I personally looked at a large amount of Art Acoustic panels, as I can't really see hanging bland ugly tasteless 2'x4'x4" or 2'x2'x2" panels around my house, but still needed to remove some ringing from the room... But a great deal of them were pretty expensive, depending on size as you have already stated....

I'm sure you have already given all this a great deal of thought without my blathering, this is also meant for the lay person scanning the threads....
Maybe you could keep us posted in how your results come out, with a thread and pics... Good Luck in your adventure...

In the end - the point here is Acoustic Panels and good quality sound DOESN'T have to be though of as ugly - Can be tastefully done, and can easily pass that sometimes ridiculous WAF factor

Don't be silly! Without people/client's/hobbyist’s ideas and critiques how would products ever evolve or become better? In fact, a few things just from your post has given me another type of model and design to consider. It's totally possible without changing ANYTHING we've already engineered.

You are correct, there are literally millions of images available online that will print in ultra high quality for larger panels or screens. These images range from as much as $500 (Royalty free Getty images) to as little as $10 (most are $20 and under). So doing copy righted or TM'd pieces are only for very special circumstances/requests. I'm researching those laws in the evenings after I get home. Example: A single large digital copy of a black and white photo from the original "Star Wars" movie is roughly $1400 for the "right" to print it once. That's pricey, but at the same time not THAT expensive for a large piece of artwork. I can also divide this piece up three separate times to make 3 large 4' x 6' panels.

Other things can be considerably less. I'm just investigating the costs of doing different types of images/subjects that people will ask for beforehand.

Unfortunately, people think "custom" and they always think expensive or "for-the-rich", but that's not how it often is. I started my firm with the idea of offering high value and high performance. Not necessarily ultra elite priced gear. So I am working on this printing stuff with the same idea in mind. What's practical and can I make it cost effective enough to offer for sale to dealers or direct to consumers? Or both? And then, how do I make it profitable enough to justify spending time on?

I will definitely show pics of what we're coming up with. I'm excited as I would like for this to develop into a separate company for us to grow. Any and all ideas you or anyone else may have PLEASE shoot them my way. The only dumb idea is the one I don't hear, because then I can never consider it.

 

[BrandonCHenry]

I like your idea a lot! You could pretty much cover your whole room in a themed print. Concealing everything from speakers and acoustical panels to wiring.
I'm pretty sure all of NASA's images are in public domain. It would be far out (pun intended) to have solar systems, comets, moons, nebulas, etc covering the walls and ceiling.

 

[InTheIndustry]

I like your idea a lot! You could pretty much cover your whole room in a themed print. Concealing everything from speakers and acoustical panels to wiring.
I'm pretty sure all of NASA's images are in public domain. It would be far out (pun intended) to have solar systems, comets, moons, nebulas, etc covering the walls and ceiling.

This is EXACTLY the theme we're going for in our show room!

In fact, we have a 1500 lbs. concrete bar top being made right now with 1000s of fiber optic lights run through it. If has liquid copper, ground glass, and halved Geodes the size of a large fist. The bar top (roughly 18' curved) is going to be the back row of our theater, butted up the back of our curved double-loveseat couch. There's an 11" reveal from the 45" bar height to the 34" top of the couch. This will be concrete as well and have the fiber optics in it. So when sitting down it will be like being surrounded by a starry night sky. We even have the fiber being run up to large ground cylinders of glass at the different chair spots so that when you set your drink down on it the liquid is illuminated from the bottom up and glows. It's SPECTACULAR looking so far but still about 3 weeks from being complete. The bar will look like a lava planet forming in outer space.

And, you are absolutely correct, there are, indeed, many high resolution "royalty free" digital photos available to use for outer space shots. Other neat objects are plant life and buildings. I really like artsy black and white shots of old famous buildings.

NOTE: Our digital prints came back AMAZING. We are in the process of framing them and should be done soon.