Why are the world’s best loudspeakers so expensive?
bbc.com
bbc.com
They have measurements on all speakers and room measurement equipment for "cheap" - the room really makes a huge impact on the sound.
I have the S-800 Speakers and the new Cinema Package
You see this stuff in professional anechoic chambers and mixing studios. I have friend who has PhD in audio signal processing and he doesn't see much point going beyond genelecs. The only downside is that you might get "too accurate" playback for hobbyist taste.
EDIT: Actually the price point is quite similar. Sorry.
Many people refuse to acknowledge that you can work professionally with their products. However, I've seen those speakers in many studios where professional work gets done.
I have experience with their cheap end mixer, and it was good until it started to slowly break down. One component at the time. Luckily it had some excess potential, so in terms of play hours/price it was still OK.
One problem though is that the existence of a company like Behringer making cheap products that are often good enough, is that it can tend to destroy the mid-market stuff that used to exist. Once that happens, your choice is either to buy something dirt cheap, or some ridiculously expensive "boutique" item, because there's nothing left in between any more.
(I'm not suggesting this is Behringer's fault, it just seems to be how things go when a mass market comes along.)
Behringer was somehow the "China of the music & audio world" : cheap clones of more expensive pro gears. While usually visually decent, it could be hit or miss soundwise. Mic preamps, guitar pedals or cabinets were bad for example while monitors (like the one you linked) were OK for the price.
Recently they bought companies like Midas and TC Electronics and I think their products have been getting better. Not enough for me to consider them usually but still :)
About speakers the real problem will only be the room and the benefits of expensive speakers are usually wasted because of that. There is only so much you can do treat a living room without cluttering it. The WAF of bass traps is not high.
So while we do get cheaper products that are 'good enough' from Behringer, for a long time they had a deleterious effect on the industry - I know of a number of products that didn't make it to market because it was known that Behringer would clone the design ..
JBL LSR range is also a low cost budget monitor champ.
These are also studio monitors by the way, so they are not always great for hifi listening - I use separate speakers for that.
These aren't simply "high quality speakers", it's really a separate product category from the kind of audiophile-focused hifi speakers the article is talking about.
> There’s a reason why experts advise against using “ordinary” Hi-Fi loudspeakers for monitoring your audio. These speakers are built to fill a living room and should be listened to at a distance. They come in fancy shapes and exotic wood finishes and are hyped for that full and rich musical sound. Hi-Fi speakers are meant to look and sound pretty.
In contrast, nearfield studio monitors are designed to be placed within a few feet of you in a small room that is close to dead, acoustically speaking. Instead of complementing the source, studio monitors need to be detailed, neutral and reveal problems to the critical listener. If something sounds off, they should let you know.
The difference between a Hi-Fi speaker and a studio monitor is like the difference between a fan and a friend. A fan will flatter you. A friend will tell you the unvarnished truth. That’s probably why most monitors look as sexy as a black brick.
http://www.nethervoice.com/2013/12/04/the-truth-about-studio...
So they all recommended I look at Amphion instead: http://www.amphion.fi/ (Another reasonably high-endish Finnish loudspeaker manufacturer.) A pair of their monitors was more than enough for a straightforward home sound system, and it took my wife's complaints to eventually add a subwoofer to the mix.
Even this pair is accurate enough. We can hear a botched mixing, which arguably may not be beneficial when the audio track is from a classic 80's or 90's TV show...
And the price at the time? €300 per monitor. Genelecs would have started at ~50% more.
They're insanely good value - not perfect, but considering they cost as little as some PC speakers they're better than many of the entry/semi-pro near fields I've heard costing high three figures per pair.
I'm slightly biased against Genelecs. I think they're expensive for what they are, and I've always found the sound distractingly clinical rather than reassuringly objective. I wouldn't recommend them for home listening.
They do appear in studios, but maybe more often in university/research labs. They don't have a lock down among studio owners, who have a lot of other choices.
Room sound is totally a thing. High end studios can literally spend more on acoustic treatment consultancy than speakers. Low/mid studios won't spend that much, but anyone who's serious about monitoring will put up bass traps and absorbent panels to try to tame the more obvious resonances. You'll get objectively measurable benefits that will do more to improve the sound than magic oxygen-free mains cables and hand-knitted USB leads will.
That makes the mega-speaker audiophile thing kind of ridiculous. If you spend more than $10k on a system without treating your room at all, you're simply wasting your money.
I do wonder if studios actually compare monitors before just putting in a low-range to mid-range Genelec setup.
Totally right about the room. It’s the number one factor.
When you have speakers and amp, room acoustics is the next thing. Start with curtains. Clap your hands, if you hear disturbing echo, add something soft.
200e for amp, 60e for two used speakers and 40 for nice curtains. 300e total and you might have better audio than someone who spent 1000e for surround home theater.
Speakers are the no. 1 source of distortion in sound reproduction, and so we haven't exhausted the technological solution space. However, at close range and (relatively) low volumes, you can do a pretty damn good speaker with just good construction techniques, proven designs, high quality components and some R&D. That's why you see a lot of companies concentrating on 2-3 way bookshelves and floorstanders with simple bass reflex subs.
Things get more interesting when you're trying to go really loud and cover a wide audience, or when you go all out.
Interesting speakers:
Danley Sound Labs [1] with their tapped horn subwoofer and their "synergy" horn speakers that have slot-loaded mid- and low- range speakers. They do insane stuff like the TH812, with 8 12-inch speakers, that weighs 584 lbs.
JTR speakers are best known for their "growler" [2], an 88-pound sub with huge output for its size.
Meyer Sound [3] speakers are very expensive, but they do some mad stuff like the X-10 with a servo-controller woofer.
Fulcrum Acoustic [4] uses DSP to correct problems with horn-loaded speakers.
[1]: http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/
[2]: http://jtrspeakers.com/portable/growler/
[3]: http://www.meyersound.com/product/x-10/
[4]: http://www.fulcrum-acoustic.com/technologies/whitepapers.htm...
On the speaker-technology side, Funktion One systems are easily recognised by their polygonal tweeter horns[2], meant to disperse high frequencies in a very specific cone, which makes it easier to avoid dead-spots and phase-interference in complicated environments while directing the sound.
[1]: https://boilerroom.tv/systems-of-sound/ [2]: http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1836
http://stonessoundstudio.com.au/stone/Bybee/Bybee_Slipstream...
http://marigoaudio.com/titanium-power-cable/cd-mats/3-d-sign...
The whole 'audiophiles use music to listen to their equipment instead of using their equipment to listen to their music' springs to mind.
edit: also, in my experience, expensiver speakers handle abuse like clipping or otherwise "bad" input far better than cheap ones. Most likely because cheap speakers operate on the upper end of their abilities and don't have much reserve margin, while a more expensive one is spec'd below what it can actually handle.
These http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OlydiO2EpA8/maxresdefault.jpg nothing to set the world on fire but the sound quality is spot on for me and they are basically indestructible.
/ R & D has a lot of time associated with it. Specifically, time not spent making finished products for sale. People working on the product still need to eat.
/ Anechoic chambers and other specialized equipment are expensive.
/ As the article details, solving for novel/unique problems can involve unique solutions. That will translate to new/ non-standard manufacturing techniques. And that means more costs.
/ The Wife Acceptance Factor. As pointed out in the article, getting small speaker systems to sound as big as the orchestra recorded for playback is a challenge. One approach is to use bigger drivers. Another approach is to use large arrays of drivers. Either way, you get cabinets that have the volume (size, not sound) of refrigerators. Anything that big has a noticeable visual presence. Looking good adds more to the price [If there is a question as to sources on this point, I refer to my ongoing experience as a Klipsch Cornwall owner].
Sidebar: As a BBC article, kinda surprised they didn't profile Tannoy for contrast.
Also, it's too bad they chose to display stock photography instead of, you know, pictures of actual damn speakers.
They are famous for their 2's and 2C's which did away with a box for the speaker altogether. The money went to circuitry and drivers which are enclosed in cloth on all 4 sides. The 1, 1C, 2, 2C and 3 are fantastic and amazing value for the money, probably better than competitors costing 5x as much.
Their newer speakers and some higher end speakers do have boxes and in my opinion don't deliver anywhere near as much bang for the buck.
How good are the world's most expensive loudspeakers?
(To which the answer is: it varies, from very good to horrendously bad. You're paying for status, not performance.)
I'm not sure about your answer, though. I doubt any 20k USD speaker sounds "bad". It's more like: most are not measurably better than speakers that cost only 1/10 as much.
I use an old pair of Wharfedales I was given along with an old yamaha amp as my primary PC speakers and they are truly excellent compared to any dedicated computer set I've ever used, so much so when they eventually break I'll probably hunt down a second hand set to replace them rather than computer speakers.
thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-bookshelf-speakers/