Post by Phil Allison"Patrick Turner"
Post by Patrick TurnerPost by Phil AllisonPost by Patrick TurnerPost by Phil Allison** You are blurring an important distinction. The ability to design and
manufacture the drivers for a particular speaker system is a major
advantage - since it gives the designer full control over the finished
product.
But the capital investment to set up a driver making factory in Oz
is astronomic, and totally unviable.
** WRONG !!!!
In the not to distant past there were several factories making thousands of
drivers in Australia. Magnavox, Rola/Plessey and MSP all making a wide
range of drivers including hi-fi woofers and tweeters.
Yes indeed there *WERE* such factories.
Why did they quit?
** Not relevant to the point at issue - the factories were NOT massive
investments nor inherently totally unviable as IS REQUIRED for your idiot
assertion to be true. The local manufacture of domestic hi-fi simply stopped
so demand dried up.
But what I ask is relevant.
I ask again, why did Oz speaker driver making vitually stop?
Profitable industries just don't "simply stop".
They usually stop becaue they are driven to being
unprofitable, by some of the issues I have raised,
tariffs, OS competition, etc.
Post by Phil AllisonNo-where did I say that a speaker maker MUST own their own driver making
facility - some of the most famous like AR did not. But they do need to
be able to have high quality, custom drivers made to a tightly controlled
spec for as long as they are needed.
The supply of such high quality speakers is readily available from existing OS
makers,
many of whom do custom batches for makers.
Post by Phil AllisonOne and two person business cannot possibly afford to do this do this and
"box stuffers" are not even slightly interested.
But as I said before, its impossible to completely control what a driver
maker does; when he's done his run of specials, what you see is what you get,
and the speaker has to be designed around the driver carefully,
to get a total good package.
This is easily achievable by a one or two person business.
I would say there is no need to ever get a customized run of speakers made;
there is more than enough to choose from amoungst the standard lines
of most well regarded names, SEAS, SCanspeak, Vifa, Peerless, et all.
Some makers like to promote themselves as superior to any other by being able to
say
they had SEAS make special drivers for them, but often its so a cabinet
can be made smaller, and cheaper, rather than to offer
full range audio...
Then some of these makers blather on and on about what splendid measurements
they do,
and that they are the only ones who do it right, and everyone else is a
nincompoop.
But hearing is believing, and unbiased controlled AB listening tests between
brands
is never done anywhere, without some dickhead wanting to own the results for
himself.
I vowed never to buy their products because of the BS factor.
So I naturally drifted towards making all my own speakers.
I also made all my own tables, chairs, and lounges for the house, which was a
small
tiny house when I bought it cheaply, and which I doubled in size with my
own hands, thus saving all the trouble of earning the extra 200,000 bucks, (
today's value ) for the higher
mortgage. I didn't like the way Jennings homes operated.
I started my life unafraid of hard work, knowing that being a builder would
save me rather a lot of money when I tried to settle down, and
I transferred the level of competence to hi-fi.
Post by Phil AllisonPost by Patrick TurnerPost by Phil AllisonPresently we have Etone in Sydney and Lorenz in Melbourne making Sound
Reinforcement speakers and hi-fi woofers - my 10 inch sub is an Etone.
There is a market for large expensive woofers,
Why its just a cone, magnet, basket, and you get maybe a couple of hundred $$
for your efforts, but I don't know a living soul who'd use an Etone
in his hi-fi system.
** Your problem whom you do not know - arsehole and very revealing of the
**real problem** with Aussie drivers.
**** Lack of snob value. ****
Call it what you like, but decent speakers are luxury goods, and its one thing
to make a couple of pairs
of truly outstandingly competitive speakers of exceptional high quality,
and using 100 hours+ of labour, but promotion of such wonders takes years,
and won't be viable unless you start with crap and work up.
For myself, I couldn't bring myself to start with crap, and lie or bribe my way
to fame.
If Etone wanna tell us all that what they make is better and cheaper than the
rest,
then they better get on with it.
But to me their operation is invisible.
Anyone dealing with an Oz speaker maker would check to see if the product
measured at least as well as what they already knew was marketable.
But do let me know when you have started a driver making company in Oz,
and have gained the confident orders of the speaker builders of Oz.
Its more difficult then you think.
I did make some sample speakers and I included the info
at my website, but I have yet to sell more than 1 pair in 4 years.
It is extremely difficult to make fine speakers, and a profit, or even a wage.
Its so much easier to make optimised crap.
Post by Phil AllisonPost by Patrick TurnerPost by Phil AllisonPost by Patrick TurnerThere is no need for total control over the finished *driver* product.
** There is no need to wear shoes.
By your reasoning, makers of amplifiers in Oz should also make their own
transistors, or vacuum tubes.
** Nope - that is a piece of your bucket reasoning, not mine.
And furthermore, I don't intend to tell New Sensor how they ought to make the
tubes
to suit the amps I make. The management there is not concerned about very much
innovation, but revels in buying up old names, like Mullard, and Tung-Sol,
and getting the russians to churn out replicas so close, they are the real
thing,
which command a premium price.
meanwhile, the EH KT88 and EH6550 are the same electronically and structurally,
I know, I have measured them for Ra, Gm and U. Neither tube is lie the original
old tubes made from 1957.
Not to worry, the EH russian tubes are very good, imho, and sound
equal of better than NOS, most of the time.
I did try 2 years ago to coax the ppl at EI in Nato bombed Yugoslavia to make a
directly
heated octal based TRIODE with the same pin out as EL34, 6L6, etc,
except for no screen connection, so that the proposed 6PT1 could be plugged
into every set which used an octal pentode or beam tetrode, and I mentioned it
would be easy to do,
since a triode is dead easy to make, it need be no larger than KT90, and if the
new tube had low Ra,
and Pd = to a 300B, then it would suit most 30 watt pentode/terode circuits,
give
better sound, and be a real hit in the market place.
The reaction of my emails at EI were quite appalling.
They tried to say they already had such a prototype, the 400B,
in the R&D stage. The last emails to me read like the guy there was drunk
on the plum brandy.
Nothing eventuated.
Quite a few makers don't like being asked for specials.
Half the time I believe that so called innovative products would be seen as
a threat to the sacred cow status of what should otherwise be a lot cheaper,
such as 300B tubes.
Once having trained the market to be used to paying a certain price,
nobody is willing to undercut it, and make money
on volume sales.
The hi-end world is like the high fashion world, rather fickle, and silly....
Post by Phil AllisonPost by Patrick TurnerPost by Phil AllisonBeing forced to re-design in a changing world of supply and demand
Post by Patrick Turneris normal for any business.
** Pat cannot see the wood for the trees.
He would never be another "box stuffer" now would he ???
What are you then? do you ever get to stuff anything?
** I spend my time *unstuffing* all manner of audio gear.
Not pretending to be someone or something I am not.
Fine. Your'e incapable of making new products then.
No shame in that.
I've been making things all my life, as well as "unstuffing" things.
I spend so much time unstuffing, that I don't get enough time to
do any stuffing, and sometimes I think I am just stuffing around.
Fortunately, I have had to tell folks wanting repairs or custom work done that I
won't be available until
February, when I get through the list I have.
Life has a high SQ......Stuffability Quotient.
Post by Phil AllisonPost by Patrick TurnerIts easy to describe Australian manufacturers negatively by
calling them box stuffers et all,
** When the cap fits they have to wear it. Putting all speaker makers in
the same class is totally wrong.
I think there are a dozen identifiable classes of speaker maker - box
stuffers being the lowest.
Post by Patrick Turnerbut I raise my hat to them all.
** Including to all the shonks no doubt.
Where did I classify anyone as a shonk?
I see shonks, I avoid shonks, I cross the street when they approach me,
pulling the hat low o'er my brow, but never would I raise it to them.
But where I see the well made goods selling at dreamy prices,
I raise my hat with a cheer, since I see an opportunity
to emulate their capabilities, and afford a bowl of rice.
Patrick Turner.