The survival of the fittest.


I am constantly surprised at the vast number of speaker manufacturers. But many fall by the wayside. Plenty of reasons why they fail, but more interested in why certain makers continue to succeed.

Sound
Marketing
Fit and Finish
Price
Product availability
New technology
Manufacture association
Profit margin
Luck

I realize most of these in combination contribute but if you had to rank them my money is on the marketing and fit/finish, in that order with sound holding up the rear. Thoughts?
jpwarren58
Another great company that's been around for 47 years is Monitor Audio. And I believe the reason why is because they're always pushing the envelope improving technology and striving to make their speakers sound more natural. That's what separates the good from the bad or the mediocre I believe they're always pushing to make things sound more real.
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I will add Sansui.... Even today their old amplifier had a good resale value....Quality of design and market timing which is a more appropriate designation than "luck"...

Timing explain much in the ascent and descent of companies....

Then quality/pricing and timing are for me the 2 main factors in all histories...
"Marketing- no discernable marketing"...Tekton has had full page adds in Stereophile and the Absolute Sound every month for years...I think that's called marketing.
Survival of the fittest? What are
 you talking about? This is going to stir!

There are three markets. The lower priced “Tekt••” brand type of cheaper, not so famously engineered type, but appeals to the big bangers, not so much to the elegant truer sound of upper market (ie highly engineered) and more expensive speakers.

Then there are the most highly engineered speakers (Wilson, Focal, Sonas Faber) plus a page more of successful speaker manufacturers. These know what they are doing with sound, regardless of cost.

Then there are the “micro” engineers producing speakers of extraordinary engineering, pushing boundaries I suspect very few have experienced. Duntech was an earlier engineer, now we have AudiomachIna (you need
to read and understand the white paper) to see how revolutionary the XTAC system is. Not price. Nor volume of sales. Just a real understanding of how speaker systems work. Another, Kyron Audio. A mass of awards, unique engineering.

From reading months of posts from people who seem to have a forum to advertise “their preference of speaker brand”, and this right is vehemently argued. I have now understood that most in this forum are not so subtle advertisers of a particular brand, regardless of its price/quality, rather than those who would explore outside the common cheaper offerings. I know I will have a big backlash from a certain “MC” who professes to know everything audio.

I would encourage all prospective purchasers of speakers, to understand what output/quality of sound you look for, and instead of being convinced to aim for the mainstream, look for the quiet engineers who might just convince you
to look afield and possibly achieve the sound you were after, after all.

This forum was once a technical and engineeringly group of audio enthusiasts that got called audiophiles. Those that thought about little but HiFi.

Now we have amateurs pretending to be audiophiles because the have
the “cables, burnt the right direction”, which is said to benefit by being lifted off the floor”, cups of metal on the wall, fuses costing as much as some components and so arguments continue. Without some sort
of qualification, these differences seem moot.

 I see posts asking for opinion a on this or that, what is better than that. What strikes me is that many of the posters are too lazy to find out the information themselves. Leading to the question, are there after real knowledge, or are they setting up a confrontation? And there are many of these inane posts.

What used to be a great forum of help and education has turned into a myopic group of self satisfiers who have lost the ability
to look afar and draft in new audio technology and have honest discussions about it.

Maybe I am getting past reading the vast pointless posts. But a few still catch my
eye and these I can really converse with.

I hope the standard of this forum ( and its contributors) improves.

🇦🇺