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The problem with PLC

Firstly what is PLC? PLC stands for the PERFECT LOUDSPEAKER COMPANY. It is a hypothetical speaker company that would manufacture a perfect speaker and sell it to the public. 

Now here is the problem with this idea. Imagine a genius somewhere invents a perfect speaker. It can do 20~20Khz with 0.01% distortion at all levels/frequencies. It is as flat as a pancake and has CTPRT or Custom Tunable Polar Response Technology. 

Now he decides to put it in a plain unmarked cardboard box and put it on the market. No dealership, no marketing. Stereophile calls PLC and asks for a sample to review. PLC agrees and sends them out a pair. The selling price? $700 a pair. 

The review would go something like this. ''Here we have a newcomer to the speaker industry. The PLC speaker One designed by expert tuner, Master Kenjit CEO of PLC. A budget speaker. Looks very plain and ordinary. Sounded a bit flat. Not highly recommended as it did not sound very special. But nice first attempt. Suitable for college students on a budget.''

Measurements:

Perfect from 20-20khz. We have never seen anything like it. ZERO resonances. Impedance flat as a pancake. Miraculous. But didnt sound very good, so we cannot give it a Stereophile recommendation.

 

Now with a review like that few audiophiles would buy it. But lets say an audiophile takes a chance and buys a pair. He listens to it for a few months and decides its not quite right...

PLC speaker does not manage to sell enough pairs to continue operating and closes down a few years down the line. 

Now this is a hypothetical situation but this is EXACTLY what could happen even if the PERFECT speaker came along and put on the market. Unfortunately there is a saying which seems applicable that you should not cast pearls before swine. 

If the speakers had a beautiful gloss finish, were priced at $50K a pair and was sent out to all the high end dealers, and all the youtube reviewers were paid to provide excellent reviews, then it would be a totally different story. 

And therein lies the problem with perfect speakers. 

You need perfect audiophiles that understand perfect sound before you bother inventing perfect speakers. End of story. 

kenjit
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,540 posts
 

The moral of the story is kenjit is his own best audience.

All the best,
Nonoise

macg19
659 posts
 

PSEK anyone who figures out the acronym wins a prize...

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,100 posts
 

I’m sure you could build a better speaker for a tenth the price.

parker65310
209 posts
 

As soon as I started reading this nonsense I knew immediately it must be kenjit. The vacuous windbag that claims to know everything, but clearly doesn’t know anything because he doesn’t even own a stereo. There is literally no such thing as the perfect speaker. This is why there is so much variety. Perfection doesn’t exist because every person and their ears are unique. What sounds great to one person doesn’t to another. His only goal is to bag on audiophiles generally and speakers in particular instead of understanding that measurements on paper don’t truly tell you how good or bad speakers truly sound (much of what our ears hear are not captured in measurements). It’s also ultimately about the synergy of an entire stereo system including the listening space.

zazouswing
138 posts
 

I dunno. Rooms aren’t perfect. Ears aren’t perfect. Amps aren’t perfect. I would think a perfect audiophile could compliment any imperfect speaker with an opposingly imperfect amplifier and end up with a perfectly balanced sound. Maybe audiophile should be more of a verb and less of a noun. 
 

It may be true that low cost equipment flies under the radar. My question - how many print subscribers here? Much like musicians, if we funded our critics better, would would be in a better position to comment on the extent of their content. As it stands, you get what you pay for. It’s enjoyable to read a clever, well written story about a subject that may interest you - at least more enjoyable than listening to somebody talk about how their straight ruler lined up with the frequency curve. Talk about judging with your eyes….

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