Clement Perry's new reference speaker

tsk, tsk. the usual discount to the trade, with maybe a substantial supplemental kicker due to the price. let's say 30% retail? then you can also factor in the end of the year tax write-off, as a business expense. nice gig. "...oh what fools we mortals be".

The word 'perk' springs to mind.

Good comments TVAD, Gawdbless, Johnnyturbo. And Ronc.
I think Speaker themselves alone cannot produce life like sound. You will have to have everything else 'work' with speakers. Sure, you know certain speakers caliber, even with less than stellar electronics. You just know what it could do with right source, preamp, amp etc. So in this case, If Ronc and other's audition recital is correct, it would be as much the electronics contribution to make the speakers sign and perform at its best. If indeed they did/do.

I know this from my experience with my lowly old fashioned speakers ;-)

Just to fill in a few points to consider I learned hearing Greg's system.

As far as the cost - I think you have to see the speakers in person to realize
how enormous they actuallly are - and these were smaller than Clement's.

Surely the huge size and weight of 600 lbs each for Gregs and 800 lbs each for the largest ones has to account for the materials used and complexity of creating such a rigid large modular structure. (each cabinet is 3 section)

I believe the horn driver and supertweeter are custom made - though I could be wrong. The horn itself looks custom and like nothing I have ever seen.

Acapella horns are also quite expensive I believe.

The multiple sets of binding posts are like nothing I have ever seen before. They are jumbo sized and surely custom made.

I was told that that the discount reviewers typically get (if in fact they decide to keep the product) are not nearly as high on the Sunny's as other products.

Whenever people mention - "oh sure, said reviewer got a huge discount on xxxx product" isn't it obvious that the reviewer could most likely get the same discount on whatever item they decided to keep? People ripped Michael Fremmer for this on the Caliburn turntable - but he could have kept any table he wants - and chose and paid for the Caliburn.

Now I think cables often might be a different story. I believe sometimes cable manufacturers want reviewers to keep their cables on permanent loan so they can try them with whatever new gear comes in, and perhaps become a reviewers reference cable.

I don't know much about the audio reviewing business, but I suspect that almost none of them make a real living just from reviewing, and certainly not the web based 'zines. If there weren't some perks involved, why would they do it. Also how would they afford the kind of reference system required to review. There are thousands of products out there and I think a reviewers choice of a small handful of them to actually live with says alot, regardless of the specifics the finances behind the scenes.

Book and music reviewers get everything for free, and no ones shouts foul because a given label gave them thousands of dollars worth of free media that year.

there are both distinctions and differences between the perks provided, dontcha think? book and record reviewers really do critique/review the wares they are provided. reviews are often neither glowing nor positive. in contrast, audio equipment reviewers are hard pressed to write anything other than positive, if not glowing reviews; and this approach is rationalized and valorized by the "reviewers and publishers.

no doubt, without these 'perks' audio "reviews" would be limited to affordable components and "reviewers" reference systems would look a whole lot like those of their reviewers. wouldn't that be a sorry state of affairs? how would us lumpen know what we are missing? we would not devlop raging cases of audio envy or tradeupitis. perhaps, we would listen to the music rather than the equipment.

my point really is: given extraordinary perks to reviewers, can we, trust what is written? this is especially problematic given the incredibly subjective nature of what we hear, what we value, how we communicate what we have heard in a way that a reader can comprehend, and, the interdependency of components in generating sound and, finally, the ongoing close and interdependent relationship between the reviewer and the manufacturer.

if we, as readers, take all the foregoing into account and really enjoy the reviews as entertainment, and employ a reader beware approach, with the burden resting on the reader to take nothing at face value, then, maybe, just maybe the todo over perks and reviews would f-f-f-fade away.
LA