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Pulsars and the Mythical Armchair Speaker Maker

There’s another thread going about Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers which I did not want to derail, but it is showing up some common logical fallacies and dead ends I wanted to talk about.


As anyone who has read my posts knows, I’m a huge proponent of DIY for speakers and cables especially. Not that I think you should only go with DIY but because the more audiophiles who can build their own we have in the community the less snake oil gets spread around as fact and there’s less worshipping of the price tag as the almighty determiner of speaker performance.


The myth I want to talk about is kind of related. It is the idea that we should value speakers based purely on driver cost. JA’s Pulsars suffer from this because they seem to use off the shelf components, in very nice cabinets, with perfectly executed crossovers. The thing that I don’t understand are buyers who look at driver cost, and say "well, these speakers should cost no more than x amount, so I’m not buying them... "


I call hogwash. Speakers are more than a collection of parts. They are curated components brought together by a designer and manufacturer. Those same people who are likely to engage in this behavior:

  • Can’t actually design a speaker themselves
  • Would NEVER build a DIY speaker even as a complete kit because it doesn’t have a brand, nor would they buy an assembled DIY speaker.
  • Would probably go with a speaker with in-house drivers which have an even higher markup
  • May not have very good ears anyway


My point is, knowing the price of the parts does not make you at all qualified to judge what the final price should be. That is, fairly, in the hands of the market, and it doesn’t actually make you a better listener or more informed buyer. I would argue you end up buying speakers for brands with even more of a markup and more likely to have questionable performance.


It’s perfectly reasonable for a manufacturer to charge for parts, and skill. So, yes, talking tech and drivers and crossover components is always fun, but please stop evaluating the price of finished goods until you’ve attempted at least designing one pair yourself.

And again, DIY is a lot of fun, and if you want to go that way, you should, but let’s not denigrate high value, high quality manufacturers and delers by reducing them to part assemblers any more than you'd judge a restaurant based on the cost per pound of chicken.


Thank you,

E
erik_squires

Showing 6 responses by chrshanl37

chrshanl37
830 posts
 
Another interesting thread Erik. As a Chef I can certainly appreciate the food analogy here.

For instance, one could go to a butcher shop and buy a prime grade cut of steak, go home and fire up the grill, throw in a baked potato, steam some broccoli or grill some asparagus and couple that with a nice bottle of wine and essentially re-create what you could get at a decent steak house for a fraction of the cost. This is a very easy thing to do and requires very little culinary skill or knowledge. Which seems to be the premise of kenjits argument.

However if you are looking for a true gastronomic experience where ingredients are being paired or cooked in a very technical manner requires a true craftsman who has invested years into honing their skills and expanding their knowledge. It is much harder for the layman to re-create that.

Throw on top of that entire dining experience from the impeccable service to the ambiance and you then begin to see what you are truly paying for.

The problem with the argument is scalability. You cannot just stuff speakers into a box and say they are only worth x amount because thats what you paid for them any more than you can say a meal is only worth the price of the ingredients. In order to scale it into a business you have to take on the ancillary costs.

Many who have never run a business have no idea that there are costs involved that the consumer cannot even conceive of. Restaurants are among the worst with average margins of about 4-5 percent. It’s quite common for people who have enjoyed big successes in typical business get in to the restaurant game and lose everything.

I suspect audio, especially speaker building is very similar in that regard in so much as the hidden costs to scale it would probably come as a shock to most people.
chrshanl37
830 posts
 
Soix thats why I said “one could” vs “anyone can”. That was assuming no formal culinary training but had a basic grasp on how to cook a steak you “could” pull off a meal you would get at a “decent” steakhouse I didnt say the best. Not sure what happened in your situation but it sounds like you made a huge mistake somewhere along the way. Hopefully you fair better with your Bolognese which is much more difficult :)

kenjits proposal is similar....if one had a basic grasp of using tools....they could buy everything they needed from Madisound including cabinet and crossovers and with no skills at designing a speaker whatsoever, build one. Not the best but decent.

But that really wasn’t the crux of my point, I was making a statement about determining the value of a product based solely on the cost of the raw materials alone while ignoring the hidden costs and the skill involved to make something better than decent which has to be priced accordingly.


chrshanl37
830 posts
 
I wish someone would start a speaker co. invest in the tech to develope their own drivers, build quality custom cabinets and then design and bring to market a speaker that sounds better than the Pulsars and sell them for the cost of materials. I’d jump at such a bargain. It would be a good run for audiophiles while it lasted! Which wouldn’t be very long.
chrshanl37
830 posts
 
Kenjit if a speaker retails for $8k how much should a designer have wrapped up in parts cost to make it a value in your opinion?
chrshanl37
830 posts
 
“If you consider the cost of buying the drivers, paying somebody to do the box and the cost of dsp amps, thats an indication of the approximate cost.”

I’m aware of all of that but you still didnt answer my question. What’s the number? I’ll even settle for a %.
chrshanl37
830 posts
 
I ask because I had a pair of Ryan Audio R610’s that were great...actually they were better than great and very well reviewed. Ryan Audio makes all of their own drivers in house and I believe they also make their cabinets and binding posts. Amazing build quality. I believe they retail for around 2k a pair. 

But as much as I liked them I also have a pair of speakers that were designed with off the shelf drivers and cabinets. They retailed for about $2500 a pair and they are immensely better than the Ryans (to me) and cost a a bit more. I have compared them to many other 2-way speakers including one of my all time favorites Proac Response 2.5’s and they are better, especially the bass. They are the speakers I have always judged other speakers by within that price range. In fact I would spend twice as much on a pair if I had to. The secret sauce is the crossover. The question is am I a sucker? Am I getting ripped off because the designer spent less on parts?

I have become very good friends with the speaker designer through the years and he is now retired. I recall a conversation we had where he told me that even though he kept his costs low and sold his speakers at a relatively low price, the best year he ever had making speakers netted him a measly profit of around $30k. 
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