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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
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
I used to know this audiophile, he was the classic case of the guy always whining about overpriced snake-oil interconnects, especially the overpriced part. Tried telling him yeah sure, they're overpriced based on the cost of the wire, insulation, and connectors, but what about the massive time and trial and error and everything they put into it? Oh its not that hard, he assured me, over and over again telling me how many of these things he'd reverse engineered or even torn down and copied. 

Strange though, every one of his supposedly just as good DIY cables sounded to me like crap. 

One time he calls me up all excited, cracked the DaVinci Code, had one DIY cable just absolutely indistinguishingly as good as this kilobuck interconnect he'd copied. 

Well, you want it to be true now, don't you? I mean, who wouldn't? Even if you were the proud owner of the $3k interconnect, if you could build a few more for $300 wouldn't you want to do that? Course you would.

So I was really hoping for it to not be just another piece of crap. Which it was. Total POC. Which even he had to admit.

Problem was, it turns out, his whole system was full of so much DIY POC it had everything distorted to the point he couldn't even hear any difference between these two interconnects. Until he put them in my system. Which made the differences obvious even to him.

Now to put in perspective, this guy had been working on this almost nonstop for like 30 years. By which I don't mean a long time. By which I mean THIRTY YEARS! To say he was crestfallen does not even begin to cover it.

Speakers, btw, same thing. Audiophile club here had a $100 speaker contest- parts budget $100. Per pair. Only they got a break- cabinet costs not included. That's a huge break! Even so, there were at the time several $100 retail speakers on the market that sounded better than the contest winner.

Not saying DIY is a waste of time. Not saying all professional products are better. Saying the good stuff isn't overpriced at all, and the best is really good value. Saying more often than not you're better off trying to find the best than build it. 
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,700 posts
 
DIY is absolutely one very real means to great sound at astounding savings. Been there, doing that and so loving it!

It does take some skill and experience to get to the point of making gear as good or better than big dollar brands.  That experience does cost money, but learning is part of the fun for many DIYers.  
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
@millercarbon 

he couldn't even hear any difference between these two interconnects.

thats because there is no difference between interconnects. Any difference you think you hear is imaginary .


meadowman's avatar
meadowman
143 posts
 
A few additional factors to consider.  The DIY speaker guy is for the most part, designing a speaker to mate to his room, with his ancillary gear to please his ears with his music.  I have had the pleasure of listening to several "life time of design"  DIY speaker builds and they all sounded good, some sounded great.  Now take those 4 box/open baffle/line array/wide band with a woofer  et. al. designs out of the designer's room, haul them to another room or another house, hook them up with different amplification and sources.  Play different music.  Same results as the designer's system?  Bollocks! 
  The real trick for the commercial speaker designer is to come up with a design that sounds good to great in a ton of different rooms, with a ton of different amps, sources and on a lot of different music.  Guys like Jeff Joseph have a talent to create great sounding speakers that can work in a lot of environments, with a lot of sources, amplification and with a lot of different music.  Oh and they have to be able to replicate the design in some version of "mass production".   Create shipping cartons, design literature, market their designs, ship them, warrant them and the list goes on and on and on. 
  What if there was a way to leverage the DIY results ( your room, your, ancillary gear, your music) within the context of a commercial design? 
  There are a lot of examples of exactly that.  Legacy Speakers, the new Bryston Active models, Gayle Sanders new designs, Siegfried Linkwitz speakers all have at least some user adjustable parameters to allow them to perform in a variety of set ups and locations.  
  Full Disclosure, I am an audio retailer.  Only one of the above manufacturers do I represent.  Joseph Audio is not it. 
  DIY is a great avenue for the listener who wants to participate in their own system's design.  The knowledge gained can be invaluable.  It is also a lot of fun.  DIY builds are not generally intended to be sold to a wide swath of the audio community and therefore are not constrained by the myriad of concerns faced by a commercial design. 

kenjit
1,771 posts
 
Guys like Jeff Joseph have a talent to create great sounding speakers that can work in a lot of environments, with a lot of sources, amplification and with a lot of different music.  

No they dont. Commercial speakers do not satisfy every audiophile. Thats why there are dozens of choices
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