CES – Reflections on size, value and worth
Having a delayed 11-hour flight home, followed up by jet-laggy awake at 3am hours spent wondering when my body clock would restore to overcast Greenwich Mean Time, gives one a unique ability to reflect upon the wider implications of what’s seen at CES. Here’s a perfect example:
Pick two loudspeakers, both similarly priced and both making some of the best sounds at the show. In this case, compare the Kiso Acoustic HB1 (at THE Show) with the Marten Heritage Getz (in the EAR room on the 29th floor of the Venetian Towers). Both speakers cost around $20,000 per pair. Both fed by very different amplifiers (Krell FBI in the Kiso room, and 912 and 509 powering the Marten) in very different rooms, but both turned in an excellent performance. The Kiso gave more of an electrostatic-like delivery, while the Marten turned in a more dynamic but still very open sound. The Marten had the better bass, but the Kiso delivered one of the most open-sounding mid and treble of the show. Given that differential, it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility that if these were the only two speakers on offer, for every five pairs of $20k speakers sold, three would be Martens and two would be Kiso.
Sadly, I doubt that.
You see, for your $20k, you can buy a tall, weighty, piano gloss floorstander with multiple drive units, or you can buy something that stands just over a foot tall and sporting just woofer and tweeter. You can buy a loudspeaker that weighs as much as a car engine, or you can buy one that is not much heavier than a hubcap. In other words, in terms of the sheer physical nature of both loudspeakers, you are buying more when you buy the Marten. And that will hugely influence the buying decision.
We should buy on sound quality and sound quality alone, but my time spent in the Kiso room saw many people waking in and quickly walking out with that ‘you have got to be kidding’ look. The few people who got past that initial impression instead had that ‘this might be my next loudspeaker’ look. I know – I’m one of those few.
I really don’t think price gauging happens in either case; the Kiso’s cabinet is artisan built, and a design impossible to replicate without involving a luthier and a lengthy construction process (anyone who’s purchased a truly hand-made acoustic guitar will attest to how long and how expensive – but how worthwhile – that process is). All the while the Getz is a beautifully made, extremely heavy (albeit more conventional) box shipping from Sweden. You get what you pay for in both loudspeakers; you are just paying for different things.
The fact remains the Kiso speaker challenges perceptions in a way so few products do at this level. We are used to occasional small, expensive loudspeakers – the Magico Mini II being the most obvious model – but even those are not really that small and are built like a tank. This is a tiny, light and good sounding speaker that costs big money; in ‘sound per dollar’ terms, it more than justifies its existence, but not everyone will ever see it that way. So, is a loudspeaker’s worth is tied into its performance, or its dimensions? Is audio really ready for high-value items that deliver the goods, but in a very small package, or are we so locked into ‘bigger is better’ value judgements that we can’t see the worth of the smaller speaker?
www.kisoacoustic.com
www.marten.se
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Comments
Funny you should post this, as I was thinking about a similar subject this morning on my drive to work. There have been many threads on AVGuide that endeavor to justify or excoriate certain designs based on how hard they are to design and build. In one way, this doesn't make sense. Consider the following thought experiment:
-- Speaker A: one part made of common materials that the designer accidently discovered can be connected between the source and your brain for perfect sense of the original recording. Thus, as measured by accuracy, this speaker delivers a much better experience than anything at its price level or below.
-- Speaker B: thousands of exotic parts, elaborately designed using the latest FEA and CAD systems, and with exotic and scientifically rational materials; sound is competitive (measured by being comparable to similarly priced products and better than lesser priced products) but has many inaccuracies (power response, freq response, distortion)
Now both "speakers" are priced identically (and patented). The logic commonly used would have speaker A considered a bad value and speaker B a good value. This is clearly nonsense.
But, humans being involved, usually the differences aren't so stark. So, the issue as I see it is twofold. First, many listeners don't trust their ears, and design/build complexity is another source of information about what to believe. That's understandable, though experience can address it. Second, there is a group of listeners generally angry about expensive gear, and the design/build complexity issue provides a point of attack. That's unfortunate; all I can see as a positive action is the opportunity to point out the really good less expensive gear.
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
I would say that both Speakers A & B are bad value for money... A, because the manufacturer is substantially overcharging simply because the product sounds good (with no regard to how cheap it was to design and make)... B, because it is just a combination of expensive parts that don't really deliver better sound quality than cheaper options...
If a manufacturer stumbles upon a way to create the ever elusive "Perfect Loudspeaker"... and is able to sell it profitably for $2K, then there is really no good reason (other than greed) to charge $30K for it....
This is a rather simplistic outlook. As in the case I cited earlier, the difference in size and construction between the two designs might constitute great differences in overall price. Imagine speaker A is large bluff floorstander, while B is a small bookshelf design. The first might well be impossible to build cheaper, while the other is a hot-rodded variant of a much cheaper design. Which one is better? My gut feeling is that the bigger model would be better than the highly tweaked one, but this is not necessarily the case.
And the problem with 'perfect' arguments is they are always notional. There is no evidence that such a thing has been created at $30k, let alone $2k.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Note that I did not specify the price level of the speakers in the thought experiment. I think you are right, though, in assuming that if speaker A is priced at $30k (as you assumed) then some people will be angry, accuse the manufacturer of being greedy, etc.
There are, perhaps, two ways to define value:
1. Value is high when I get an unusually good result from the product compared with what I could get for similar money with other products that are on offer. By this standard, speaker A is a very good value.
2. Value is high when I get a good result and I didn't pay very much for it ('very much' being defined by what is comfortable given my economic means). By this standard, speaker A is a very good value for some and not for others.
While both are reasonable views for any given person to hold, 1. is a universally applicable (i.e. objective) definition and 2. only applies to segments of the population sometimes as narrow as one person (and thus is subjective).
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
The perfect loudspeaker has been available for some time from QUAD! Not $2K I admit, but well worth the $12K.
Not necessarily. Quads do not work in every room (the standard models work best relatively close to the side walls in a long, thin room). Many dislike the lack of deep bass and dynamics from standard Quads (I've heard them very heavily modified in the opera room of late Alistair Robertson-Aikman of SME... you'd be surprised how much more can be pulled from a ESL-63 by planting it in a 165lbs of brass, bracing it heavily, lopping off the diffracting top and bottom plates and rebuilding the crossover).
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
ALAN & TOM,
nice houghts...however, what i think is beautiful is the reverse effect that companies like cambridge audio, Vandersteen, etc - to name a few are having on usually higher priced companies like Wilson, Magico, etc by forcing them to put more performance into lesser priced products.....reviewers can help that trend by highlighting these great valued products a little more
I couldn't agree more, although I suspect the machinations of the likes of Cambridge Audio will have little impact on the likes of Soulution and the Reference 3A Dulcet flies under the radar of Magico's Mini II.
In some respects, more's the pity. Part of this is they don't really compete with one another. Very few people in the market for a $50,000 loudspeaker are going to end up with a $5,000 model, because they are unlikely to ever hear a $5,000 loudspeaker in their quest for their next product. Perhaps if they did, there might be some all-round improvement.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
While I appreciate the point you are making Mr. Plus, I strongly disagree with the notion that we should buy on sound quality and sound quality alone. Obviously sound quality is of the highest importantance but it is just one metric for a given system whose purpose is for the enjoyment of music. Given that music is a language of emotion, those emotions necessarily factor into the decisions we make about our audio equipment along with the rational decisions we make regarding them. Bigger surely is not necessarily better, but when a speaker costs $20k, it should absolutely delight its owner in every possible way. There is no excuse for shoddy workmanship or not seeming "expensive" whatever that means to a given buyer.
There is no shoddy workmanship in either the Kiso or the Marten speaker system. The workmanship on both is excellent, but it's like comparing a Stradivarius with a 1959 Gibson Les Paul played through a Dumble Overdrive Special. Both are extremely good at their respective jobs (and both are similarly and disturbingly expensive), but both do different jobs; a Strad is no good for playing a blazing guitar solo, and Paganini sounds poor through PAF pickups.
The problem we face is that we walk out of demonstrations of excellent small speakers just because they are small.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
I didn't mean to imply the workmanship of either speaker was poor; I was writing generally in that sense. I do agree with you that it is a shame the speakers were judged on their size alone and not their performance.
I would agree that purchasers should feel free to define what they are purchasing as they wish. If someone values a particular wood finish, or prefers a particular brand, or takes into account reliability or service factors --- it all can make sense for a given person. The latter factors, such as dealer advice on system matching or in-home demonstration can be central to higher performance.
What I am concerned about, and I think this aligns with Alan's original post, is the endeavor to make particular design and construction methods a universal ("everyone should care") component of the value equation. The argument commonly made is that "a product that seems to be simple to design (as if we knew!) and simple to build cannot be more valuable even if it demonstrates higher performance". The stated logic is that value stems from design complexity, build complexity and amount of materials. Related to this, value is claimed to come from the manufacturer having low margins (an idea with a host of issues). One can take such a view individually, but it seems wrong-headed as a universal, and is the objectionable concept. It seems wrong-headed because the logic drifts in the direction of "product purely as art object". As a philosophy it puts the focus on the aesthetics of means and it removes attention from the end goal which is the experience of music. Thus it is an inappropriate philosophy for publications aimed at helping people experience the art of music.
I appreciate technology as much as anyone, but only in the context of the higher goal. In that sense, if we found a small speaker that offered very high performance, we would want to ask what the underlying technology is that causes such performance and then we could appreciate that (rather than rejecting it because the technology is small).
These observations are independent of the price of the product in question.
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
I think one major disadvantage of producing expensive bookshelf or mini monitor is that it will be attractive only to a very small selected group of customer. If a person is going to buy $20,000 pair of speakers, I assume the person will have a pretty good size room to start with already. So I expect most people will want something that is full range (relatively) and able to fill a good size room with sound. I don't see too many people with lots of cash around but is limited for space that they would need a mini monitor unless they have lots of cash and want something small for their second system, in a library perhaps. Personally if I am going to spend $20,000, I also need something that can produce good full range sound in my room. I am not surprise that many people did not give $20,000 mini monitor a chance.
Speaking as a Londoner, I'm not so sure that all those who have $20k to spend on a loudspeaker will necessarily have a room suitable for a large speaker. At its 2006 peak, premium London real estate commanded nearly $2,500 per square foot. Even today, with a weaker (for us Brits) exchange rate and a drop in real estate prices, $1,800 per square foot is commonplace in high-end regions like Kensington and Chelsea. Manhattan and Tokyo prices are not far behind.
Worse, in some of these regions, even if you have the money to spend on the real estate, it simply isn't there. Try finding a room 16' wide, 24' long and 10' high in downtown Tokyo or in riverside apartments in London's Chelsea Harbour - it's almost impossible (unless you have six or seven million dollars kicking round).
OK, this is a small subset of an already small market, but I've experienced more than a few desperately inappropriate loudspeakers in small city rooms. When you've heard how Apogee Scintillas sound in a room 10' long and 7' wide, or Linn Isobariks in an 8x6' box, a truly high-end small speaker is appreciated. Even disregarding the sound for a moment, having a pair of huge speakers in a tiny room just feels wrong... and oppressive.
The crazy thing is people in cities continue to stuff inappropriately large loudspeakers into inappropriately small spaces, because the idea of a small speaker just doesn't sit right.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
That assumption does not apply to Manhattan at all. There is a significant market in New York of people with $20k+ budgets who do not have the space for large full range speakers.
Mr. Sircom, Tom Martin,et al. (sorry if a little long)
Primarily as I am poor, I can't imagine paying $20k for a speaker, let alone $239K (Hansen Audio Grand Masters). Perhaps this argument is waisted on me. Perhaps not.
One thing that most folks "believe" is that more is better. Whether a house, a car, a boat (whether a motor yacht or that powered by the wind, speed boat...), etc, ad nausea. More need not be better. Kind of like a “McMansion” vs Sarah Susanka's “The Not So Big House” type. Quality over quantity. Or a new 'Vette vs a new Evora (or whatever metaphor you can think of).
Some folks completely disregard the thought process and development of a truly excellent product. That's what people essentially are paying for..engineering , R&D, re-engineering, craftsmanship, quality of the components.. and so on. How many hours were spent designing and improving the original Infinity IRS V speakers? How much of it was spent getting the technologies to work together? In comparison, how much time was spent developing the famous BBC LS3/5 loudspeaker types? I suggest a similar amount of time and effort (I don't know this for a fact, but it does seem reasonable). The intended use of the loudspeakers is at least as important as their perceived complexity and/or quality of materials. But so too is the elusive “pride of ownership”, or exclusivity. That can be “priceless”.
I am of the school that "less is more" for a number of reasons. As stated, I am of very modest means. And I'd rather have something that does a job well (albeit somewhat limited) than do it's job “OK”, but with a wider breadth and/or width. Usually the basic design is sound. There may be room for improvement, but the improvements often are hidden in custom drivers or enclosures and minor revisions, using various materials in combination with differing geometry. This requires time. And time is money. This is why I have a few small 2 way type monitors, and lived without any subwoofer to help out. I simply could not afford good bass. So I lived without it. When a friend offered a nice KEF powered sub for free, I accepted it. I do enjoy music in a different way playing the sub and would miss the sub if it were to leave. I also own a few DIY type single driver loudspeaker types, that I absolutely enjoy . No one can argue that the results of these two loudspeakers are very different, but both are enjoyable.
I don't think this argument hangs on high prices; It merely kept me occupied during some jet-lag because I had recently heard two very different loudspeaker designs that just happened to have similar price stickers. You could make the same value judgements at almost any price. That said, when a speaker designer is constrained to a low price, the decisions surrounding value and worth become more polarized; you are probably more likely to hear a better designed two-way standmount monitor speaker than a five-way floorstander if you only have a few hundred bucks to spend, for example.
The interesting thing is the 'less is more' approach you have deployed to produce what I would imagine is a very well-sorted low-cost system all too often goes completely out the window when the budget increases. From both designers and end users.
Maybe it's time for a reassessment.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Before I continue, I just want to make sure that it's clear that my $30K example was just an arbitrary figure and not that I'm assuming that any specific speaker is overpriced... Since I have no idea what the full cost (including R&D, Materials, Storage, shipping etc) is on products, I don't claim that any specific product is overpriced...
So now back to the discussion at hand:
Which seems to come down to whether a product should justify it's price based on sound quality or total costs...
I see it this way:
If I produce a pair of $30K speakers that justify the price based on the materials used + R&D, etc... but the speakers sound no better than an average $3K speaker, then for most audiophiles it would be poor value for money .... so my expectation is that it would have little or no demand... And I would either need to go back to the drawing board and design something competitive or possibly find a new line of work...
Now let's suppose I designed a pair of speakers that every reviewer at TAS agreed was the best speaker they ever heard... Also, based on full costs (R&D, Material, etc) and making standard Hi-Fi Industry profits, I should price the speaker at $5K.... Would you consider it to be good value for money if I sold the speaker for $50K??? (keep in mind that it sounds better than $240K speakers and every speaker you've heard)...
What I believe should happen is that I should charge $5K for the speakers... and let the demand for the speakers based on all the rave reviews from reviewers and consumers make me rich.... rather than trying to milk as much profit out of a few very wealthy individuals...
Strangely, it doesn't happen that way. What tends to happen is a form of expectation bias kicks in - "the reviewers say this $5k product is better than the super-expensive Titans of the industry. That can't be right!" And when they get to hear the $5k product, listeners are already half-way to dismissing the product.
In addition, there's a stratification to high-end sales. We are almost programmed to think if $$$=good, then $$$$=better and $$$$$=best. This means that if someone came up with a $5k speaker that creamed everything costing more than $5k, it would likely only affect sales in the $5k-$10k category. Those in the market for a $20k loudspeaker are unlikely to even consider a $5k speaker, no matter how good that $5k speaker is.
Dealers are (or at least should be) commercial entities, and that means if faced with the possibility of making 1x margin from a $5,000 speaker sale or 10x margin from a $50,000 speaker sale, the dealer will do everything in its powers to secure the $50,000 speaker sale, sometimes aided and abetted by the manufacturer of the $50k speaker. Yes, a dealer will sell more $5k loudspeaker systems than $50k loudspeaker systems, but the chances of selling 10x as many $5k loudspeakers in anything like the same time-frame is remote these days. At its most unscrupulous, 'doing anything in its powers' could mean stacking the deck against the $5k speaker in demonstrations, refusing to have anything to do with the speaker brand, spreading rumor and FUD about the cheaper brand and more. Such things happen all too regularly in the automotive, musical instrument, food and fashion sectors... and audio is not immune from such happenings, either.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
Sadly, I'm sure you're right about that..... There really is a lot of price prejudice in Hi-Fi (like with many other products)...
Though, I still believe that the $5K speakers in my example would have a strong chance of being the best selling $5K Speakers... Even thought there sales would be limited to persons in the $5K to $10K range (or persons who stretch their budget to get to $5K based on the reviews).... So it should still be very successful.... But I agree that persons in the $20K + market probably won't even consider it....
This reminds me of a thread I started on another forum (probably a year ago) about whether persons listen to products below their budget when they go shopping for new Hi-Fi.... The general consensus was that most persons don't listen to anything significantly below their budget.... Which I really think is sad, since you won't really know whether the sonic improvement of $10K speakers (assuming sound is your priority and not build quality, warranty, etc) over a $3K pair is worth it, unless you actually listen to a good pair of $3K speakers....
What you said about not looking for much under the budgets component may be true but I would think that majority of audiophile enthusiasts tend to start with something small and over time upgrading. I don't think there will be too many people starting with their first pair of speakers at $20,000 and never looked at anything less.
Ajani, to answer your question ("If a company, making standard Hi-Fi Industry profits, should price the speaker at $5K.... Would you consider it to be good value for money if I sold the speaker for $50K??? keeping in mind that it sounds better than $240K speakers and every speaker you've heard?") with a clear "yes". If the speaker sounds better in all regards than all other $50k speakers and every other speaker, then yes it is a good value for money (probably great value for money in fact). We have consistently tried to define the criterion for value as "show me better performance for less". If I can't, then something is a good value by that criterion (and In your example it is by definition the case that I can't show you better performance for less). Such a speaker isn't affordable for everyone, but it is a good value based on reasonable criteria that can be consistently applied.
One could of course define other criteria for establishing value (mass per dollar or most production cost per dollar etc). Since our publications are concerned with the experience of reproducing sound, we have defined value in terms of that goal. We make no attempt to study the business model of the manufacturer -- it is not the expertise of our editors. It is possible (likely?) that some manufacturers would be better off with different pricing or other alterations to their approach. In a competitive market it does seem unlikely that there are a lot of manufacturers mis-pricing their products in as significant a way as your example suggests. In addition, every manufacturer or VC I've talked to is interested in return on investment not gross margin %.
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
Fair enough... that's a reasonable criteria for a magazine, but i think there is a disconnect between that definition of value and the definition(s) most consumers would apply....
To use the same $5K speaker example.... If instead of charging $50K, I decided to sell them as the most expensive speakers in the world at $15M, they would still pass the criteria for value as there is nothing providing "better performance for less".... As a consumer, If I have $15M to spend, I'm going to expect quite a lot more in terms of build quality and Aesthetics than that speaker would provide....
But yes, I agree that I doubt too many products are being sold for ridiculous gross margins, since Hi-Fi is a competitive market...
As a consumer my definition of value for money is based on a few factors (sound quality being the main one, but we'll get to that):
First - Build Quality - I've seen a number of budget products that received great reviews based on sound, in several Hi-Fi publications, but when I checked out the actual consumer reviews... those products got poor marks for reliability... As I result I didn't buy those products... Because even though I want the best sound I can afford, I need a product that can consistently deliver that sound over time... not just for a few weeks or months until it falls apart...
Secondly - Aesthetics - Yep, for many consumers, once a product costs a certain amount we expect it to look the part.... I'm not going to pay $5K for an amp that looks like an entry level, plastic faced NAD integrated....
Finally - Sound Quality - Note that this is not absolute sound quality (as in the magazine's criteria) but relative sound quality... So if I have $10K to spend on speakers and I find a pair of $10K speakers that is the best sounding speaker I've heard for the money (so nothing better available for less)... whether I buy it will still depend on how close cheaper speakers come to it in sound quality... So I might well decide that a $3K speaker gives me 95% of the sound quality of the $10K one and that the remaining 5% improvement is not worth the extra $7K...
Obviously, relative sound depends on the individual... so it would not make much sense for TAS to review products based on that.... As such judgments should be left to the individual consumer...
Your approach makes sense to me. Note that while our test methodology uses the absolute sound to gauge and analyze the quality of sound from a given product, any assessment of value we give must be relative to other products. That is actually a method I can recommend to consumers:
Step 1: judge sound quality (as measured by closeness to the absolute sound, based on your realism triggers and inhibitors)
Step 2: repeat step 1 for other products
Step 3: rank products based on absolute sound quality (and other criteria like dealer service, relability, aesthetics)
Step 4: add prices to the list and pick the best product for your money, given your life
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
$20k for a 2 way speaker with a 4" woofer? Have people lost their minds?
How about a pair of of Revel Studio2s for $16k with $4k left over for a subwoofer?
It seems as though the writers at TAS are smitten with the tweaky weirdo aspects of hifi and don't really have much practical knowledge to pass on to consumers.
I think you are missing the point. The Kiso speakers are designed specifically for those city dwellers who could never use a pair of Revel Studio 2 (or similar) because they live in tiny NYC/SF/London/Paris/Tokyo apartments. They may have paid a million bucks for the real estate, but the listening room space is only 10' x 7'.
Such people have a right to demand the best in audio too, despite the compromises their room imposes on their buying decisions. As a Londoner born and bred, I've lived in apartments that were sometimes so small that even a pair of LS3/5a speakers could produce excessive boom unless you heavily bass trapped the corners. And yet, we think the idea of a very high quality mini monitor absurd. We naturally assume that if you have a large budget, you need a large loudspeaker, but this is not always the case.
There's some logic to this. Those who didn't walk out of the Kiso room chuckling were all from the likes of NYC or SF or London or Paris or Tokyo... The acid test would be whether they really do deliver something a lot better than the far cheaper mini-monitors most city dwellers have to settle for. I suspect if they do, they'll find a niche in an already crowded market.
Yes, this will always be a minority sport. Most audiophiles have the floor space to accommodate full-range loudspeakers. And most of those who don't will be more likely to choose speakers like the new Nola Metro Grand Reference (or the Marten Heritage Getz) than a tiny standmount. But not all.
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
I never heard or see the Kiso but from my experience, bookshelf, mini monitors etc are not neccessarily happy in tiny rooms either. It is always a compromise between near backwall placement for bass reinforcement vs pulling them out in the room so they can disappear completely. I think the attraction for mini monitor, especially something like Magico Mini is not because one has a small room but because some rather unique sonic benefit of mini monitor. If I have large sum of money but with tiny room in NY City, money is well spent first on room treatment so that the room can actually accomodate a good pair of speakers, be it floor standing or bookshelf. Personally there are some floor standing speakers that work just as well as mini monitors in smallish room that is well treated as well. Sonus Faber Cremona M comes to mind, for one. I have a feeling that a good portion of those who want mini monitors want them because they can be placed out of the way and not disturbing the decor so sonic benefits will be likely secondary. There aren't really that many mini monitors that are designed to perform best on a bookshelf or up against the walls, if I am not mistaken.
This is all very true. I should make it clear that there's noting potentially irreparable about very small room acoustics, just that the room will likely need a lot of treatment. Although it does preclude using loudspeakers like Thiels, because the recommended loudspeaker-to-listener distance would pitch either speakers or listener outside the room itself, it does make some full-range loudspeakers a practical possibility. I think the process just becomes more self-selecting, eliminating many brands because they are too large, or place impossible demands on the room itself.
There are a few mini-monitors that are designed for boundary use, though. Perhaps not surprisingly many come from the UK...
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
I understand that it is usually easier to get pleasing sound in a small room with a smaller speaker rather than a larger one, but through the use of acoustic treatments and room correction it can be done. I also understand that many audiophiles cannot or will not use those tools.
The way I see it there are many excellent monitor speakers available for around 25% of what the Kiso costs. I'm skeptical that the Kiso could be considered a good value when compared to speakers like the Dynaudio C1, Focal Diablo, KEF 201/2 and Paradigm Signature S2 among others.
I agree, and could add a dozen or more loudspeakers that potentially have as much to offer at a fraction of the price. Maybe some similar sized models that deliver more for less.
The point of this exercise was not necessarily to praise the Kiso as a practical solution (it may well be, but that's for a more extensive review to determine) but to highlight how difficult it is to remove size from the value equation, even if the performance is top-flight.
Look at it another way, taking real products out of the equation. If someone designed the best loudspeaker on the planet, and through some curious get-out clause in the laws of physics, it happened to be an eight inch, $10,000 cube, would it sell? Or would people choose something not as good sounding but offers more obvious and direct material value for money?
Alan Sircom
Editor, Hi-Fi Plus Magazine
London, England
editor [at] hifiplus [dot] com
I had the pleasure to listen to the HB-1 from Kiso Acoustics for a period of 3 weeks in my Hi-End Room back home. What a fantastic sound they are able to produce and what a clear and wide stage too.
My sistem has a SDR3000+2000 from Spectral as front end, DMC 15ss and DMA 360 s2 with mit cables ORACLE V1.1 to the usual speaker Magico V3. The Kiso is not impressive for the size but let me tell I was impressed by the sound they did deliver.
Nice Loudspeaker.
I have just returned from the High End Show in Munich. As a horn loudspeaker manufacturer, I am seldom inspired by small relex speakers. However I was seriously impressed by the Kiso speakers....they are the finest speakers of their size I have ever heard and stand up well against any speaker, size or price regardless. Built like a musical instrument, that is how they sound...musical! Congratulations to Toru Hara!!
Fred Davies
Ax Horn Loudspeakers