Anyone have thoughts on the Peak Consult Zoltans?

I used to work for a dealer which sold them.

They are very nice speakers but are not worth $35,000.00

You can get better sound for far less money.

I would advise you to find a pair of Usher Be 20's they cost half as much and are more transparent speakers with deeper bass and they are 90 db efficient. They are one of the greatest bargins on the market today. Immagine a $16,800 pair of speakers which can compare to the best $50,000.00 pairs of speakers out there, and that is the Usher.

To sir speedy, Wrong wrong wrong, The Usher's are the equil to any of the $40k mega buck speakers like the Avalon Diamonds, or the Kharma's. Remember Usher makes all their own drivers except for the remarkable Eaton woofers, so they can save a fortune based on cost of driver acquistion. Also they have a lower operating cost and produce drivers in much larger quantities.

I have seen the drivers first hand and they are world class.

My rallying point is the audio snobishness that will dismiss a product because it is too inexpenisve and not absurdly priced! The Zoltan is just such an animal. It is a very nice speaker but not worth 35 big ones! Add up the parts and the wooden cabinet and it is no where near the cost plus a reasonable mark up. This is why I am so hot on people hearing the Usher's. World class speakers that are reasonably priced and beautifully made!

I would also note that Stereovox is the Peak importer! DUH.

I am not saying that just the Zoltan is overpriced but many similar speakers are! I have also posted a similar post to the WP 8. The WP 7 were $22,000.00 now they are $28,000.00
if you figure that the new tweeters cost a bit more it still doesn't add up to that major a price increase to cover the raw parts!

Companies like USHER and many others are building statement products that are priced resonably and not based on the "well it sounds as good as something else in that price point" so we will price it the accordingly!

The WP the Zoltan the Verity, JM Labs, Avalon, Kharmas, are all very fine products but whose prices are getting way out of hand, if you add up the driver costs, factor in cabinet construction and add a fair mark up it is is still way out of hand, how many poor Mormon speaker builders are running companies with such a low mark up the can drive a Ferrari?

What I am rallying for is for people to wake up and not subscribe to the audio snobisim which is making this hobby unaffordable except for the uber wealthy which is why I sell Usher and Cayin, Nuforce, and Plinius, etc and many of the other brands that I sell and endorse because the level of sounnd quality and engineering suport it!

and at the crack of Ferrari at Toyota prices. Any good car builder can take a $25,000 mass produced Japanese car and put $25,000 or so into it and bury a Ferrari! NO it won't get you laid like a Ferrari, or be as sexy but speed it what it is about. My buddy took a 1989 Ford 2.3 litter car and put about $25,000 into it and that same car does generates 660 hp on a dyno and it will on a track out run a $130,000 Ferrari in a quarter mile run!

Yes go ahead and snicker but that is exactly the point I am rallying for great sound that won't put you in the poor house because the product has a name or has garnished good reviews. Look at the technology and the build quality and then give it a good listen there are scores of smaller and not as well companies in this industry that make unbelievable products that are affordable.

If we were all to sucumb to the name recoginition and pure review thing there never would have been a Mark Levinson, Krell, Ayre, Audio Reserach, CJ etc. Every gold label company at one time was new and unknown and through the sprit of competition and market persistantce grew to become the companies they are today, but as Preston Tucker erronously thought, if you build a better product and price it fairly the world will beat a path to your door.

I guess if you want to be taken seriously in this industry you must price everything in the tens of thousands price range then stand back and watch the people get impressed.

Boy Stereovox, I'm glad you believe in your products, but your condescending line that Chinesse made products can no way compete with the European or American products is the stuff of the uninformed and xenophobic.

The world has changed, remember that some thirty years ago "made in Japan" was a euphomisim for the shotty and cheap? Now made in Japan is synonomous with superior quality!

I judge a product by its' technical merits and by its' build and enginnering quality, not by where it is made and its snob appeal.

Usher has not been well known outside of Asia due to poor represenation, not becuause the products they build aren't world class. The reason Usher can build the products they do is that Usher is a $70,000,000.00! company!

Usher is the Asian version of B&W! Usher builds the only beryillium midrange driver currently available and they make their own beryillium tweeter as well.

The humility of Usher is evidenced by the fact that if they can find a better driver than what they themselves can build they will buy it, even when the driver is quite expensive. The BE series uses the same Eaton of Germany woofers that Kharma and Marten design use!
Usher also hired one of the most talented crossover designers around, Dr. Joseph D'Appolito.

You may be misunderstanding my position, I am leading audio's next generation. I am finding companies whose products are as good as anything currently available for less money because of what they produce and how they produce it.

For both American and European manufacters the time to laze about in the sun is over! For audio as well as for most industries. The quality of Chinese made goods will force many European and American companies into smaller and smaller production runs for more and more money!

You can't fight the future but to join with the inevitable, Chinese goods will continue to either directly or indirectly take over many industries.

I carry products from all over the globe: Denmark, France, Japan, England, Scottland, Israel, New Zealand, and of course the United States, and China both main land and Taiwan which has for many years produced extremely high quality goods. Usher is Taiwanese, not Chinese by the way!

My view is to bring the cost of great audio down to more and more people, so I will champion great products where ever they are made.

So how about this I will bring my cheapie, 300lb hand made beryillium and Eaton drivered $16,800.00 a pair BE 20 to compete with your $35,000.00 Peak audio Zoltan's any day of the week. Lets do the shoot out and see how many people will buy which product.

I will and have to side in some way with sirspeedy, about working conditions in China but how does one know what the working conditions are in any other countries factories. and etc.

Yes sir speedy Sterovox is passionate and he believes in his products, and I believe in mine. You as an educated consumer need to listen and hear the merits of a particular product and make the best decision you can/ Don't be swayed just by the press or by price, let the music be your guide.

This one goes out to Allanbhaganinfo. I respect your opinion but we are one of the first few dealers in the country to deliver and install a pair of the BE 20s.

I would agree with you that the first Dancer series model, the extremely good 8571MK II's are not true competion to a $35,000.00 pair of Peaks, but the BE 20's are a different keattle of fish entirely!

When you examine what the BE 20 offers: a brand new state of the art pure Beryillium midrange driver, coupled to Usher's allready superb Beryillium Tweeter and you add in the magnificent Eton woofers, here is where you have the makings of a reference speaker giant killer at anywhere at 1/2 or even a 1/3 or more of these other reference class speakers!

Karma Grand ref has a Ceramic midrange and tweeter and two Eton woofers in a carbon fiber based cabinet. The Kharma's are $80,000.00 a pair!

The BE 20's have a pure Beryillium midrange and pure Beryillium tweeter and two Eton woofers in a 300lb sandwich cabinet of birch, mdf, and lead sheeting which makes the cabinet also incredibly innert and costs $16,800.00.
Sounds like you are getting a lot of the same design merits doesn't it?

I have heard the BE 20's both at the shows and at my client's home. We all went "ahhhhh" when we unboxed the speakers the finish was so stunning. The sound quality and build quality of these speakers is remarkable, and I would challenge you or anyone else to do a side by side comparison against the BE 20.

Does this sound like a rave, well your right it does. After spending close to tweenty years selling extremely expensive cost on object audio, along comes a company like Usher and their Texan gentilemen distributor, to bring remarkable sound and build quality at sane prices back to the market.

This is the reason I am an Usher zealot. Why should I want to charge 30k or 40k or 50k for a speaker when I can offer my clients very similar mind blowing sound for so much less, I call that integrity and serving my clients.

Yes I want to scream to the audiophile world "I am feed up and I won't take it anymore, buy Usher and be happy for a lot less!"

To Sterovox,

Your arguments are both amusing and just plain wrong!

First of all, I am no internet dealer. In fact, I do no internet sales of any kind! I am a brick and mortar dealer with close to a half million dollars worth of equipment on my floor! I do not sell outside of my region and I do not discount nor am I trying to sell to "budget oriented customers." Our website isn't up yet and we have not announced our presence to the world yet but we will.

Instead, we have been quietly assembling a very wide selection of some of the world's best audio and video gear.

You are right. I am on a mission. I sell state of the art products at all prices from companies that I and many famous reviewers feel represent some of the best products in the world. I sell products from Japan, France, New Zealand, Germany, Israel, England, Scotland, the United States, Taiwan and China. If I told most of the readers of these posts the truth, that many top European high end companies are building their products in China or some of the parts are being outsourced from China it would shock a lot of people.

In fact, the latest issue of Stereophile talks about the superior builds quality and artistry of the famous Quad speakers which are now being made entirely in China. In the review the writer states that the new Quads are much better built than the old Quads and are stunning in both finish and build quality! Isn't England also in Europe?

Also your anti Chinese bent is downright distasteful. The Chinese people were way ahead of the Europeans for many, years. China leads the world in the sciences and the arts. It was the Communists that keep the Chinese people down and off the world stage.

You call a value priced product cheap, and poke fun at how heavy the speakers are. Let’s compare the technical prowess of Peak Consult or lack their of:

First before you decided to import them, no one knew who Peak Consult was. How long have they been in business?
Usher is a 30 year old company committed to the highest levels of quality. Their state of the art factory is certified ISO 9001 which represents laboratory grade manufacturing. Their work force is college educated and is treated very well.

I said in another post USHER makes their own pure Beryllium drivers. The only other company to do so is JM Labs/Focal and even JM Labs hasn't built a midrange driver out of Beryllium! Usher also has created their own driver technology from scratch. Peak, if I remember, buys their drivers from Audio Technology.

I guess then making your own extremely technologically advanced drivers is therefore lacking in imagination and ingenuity. Before you say "copy cat of JM Labs," the Usher Beryllium tweeter measures better with lower distortion! ALSO I will say it again, USHER MAKES THEIR OWN pure Beryllium Midrange Driver and are the only ones to do so! This midrange driver was extremely expensive to produce and took two years of development time!

Usher is also a $70 million dollar company that has the research money to develop their own technologies. You are misunderstanding Usher in calling their speakers clones of others when their intent is to offer a wide range of products for the Asian market. USHER speakers are easy to drive and offer remarkable performance for the money.

Many reviewers have already rated numerous Usher models as offering outstanding sound quality and build quality.

If it is the clone game, gee, I think you could call a $16,000.00 two way the new Wilson Watt!

Yes, the two way Incognito X sounds like a remarkably good two way, but I will stand on my contention and I will gladly bring my 300lb Taiwanese {not Chinese made} monsters to compete with your $35,000 Zoltan's any day of the week.

As per fine Danish woodworking, the build quality of the cabinets is equally stunning and shows the finest artistic talents and care.

As for your comments about Sonus Faber clones, then I guess anyone who has made a two way with Scan Speak drivers could also be called that.

I will agree with you that Usher does build some clone or homage products, but that is an Asian company building a wide range of products for the Asian market. Imitation in the case of the Threshold clone shows a fondness for the original, which is no different than someone now coming up with a new version of the famous Dynaco Stereo 70.

No Stereovox, you are the one trying to justify a $90,000.00 turntable. Is this for the connoisseur or the snob with more money than sense! I am sure the turntable is quite fantastic, but how much better is it really than one of the multitude of other reference turntables that are priced at $10,000.00 or so. Artistry? Or is it just throwing money at it to enrich the pockets of the greedy retailer and the importer! I would love to hear how much better your $90,000.00 turntable is over Lloyd Walker's magnificent Proscenium Gold turntables which is $30,000.00?

My company stands for the new generation of high end audio.
Our focus is to sell the best in equipment which is superbly made and reasonably priced!

I will be happy to let you believe in your delusion that because a product is made in Europe, and I sell many really excellent European products including Danish speakers as well, that is it better because it is made in Europe.

My call to arms is for all companies to work to produce products that are excellent and affordable. I find it delusional for you to compare your $16,000.00 two way to the four way BE 20 and stand there trying to be credible.

Wake up, the world is on notice that both mainland China and Taiwan are heralding in the new industrial revolution. American and Europe builds less and less, not because the Chinese are making goods cheaper, but because they are making goods of remarkably high quality and doing it competitively! This is the way of the world. Most Japanese goods are no longer made in Japan either.

It is for this reason that superior Chinese and Taiwanese companies are taking over the world of manufacturing. The build quality of these goods is fantastic and the technological innovations are the reason most of the world's finest laptop computers are made in Taiwan.

Let you and Sound by Singer sell all the Peak Consults you like to people with more money than brains. I will be happy to educate my customers, the people who are willing to listen and to judge a product by its technical merits and artistry for themselves