Retailers, please wake up
Yesterday, I bought new speakers for my car. My stock speakers had outlived any sort of usefulness after twelve years of use. The flimsy paper cones cracked at any sign of bass, and female vocals did a rattle-shake thing that sounded absolutely revolting.
I cruised down to a local audio store and browsed around for a while. Listened to several speakers, and ultimately picked one of the cheapest there. I told the salesperson I was looking for some cheap 6 1/2” speakers, cheap since my back window doesn’t really seal all the way so it’s not like any sort of crystal clear audio would be appreciated anyhow. He tried to sell me more expensive speakers. I smiled, knowingly, when he told me I should look at better-than-the-cheapest models, because “they could get louder without blowing.” To this, I nearly laughed. I didn’t, but I did grin. A big grin.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if I was to blow even the cheap speakers, it wouldn’t be the speaker’s fault. The blame would lie on the amplifier. It’s thought that buying speakers with huge watt ratings will keep them from blowing. This is a common misconception, and is rarely the case. It’s much more likely to blow speakers by pushing your amp to levels it cannot handle, therefore causing clipping and distortion. This is the easiest way to blow speakers. In fact, it’s better to power 50 watt speakers with a 100 watt amp than with a 50 watt amp. You actually have less chance of blowing your speakers since they’ll receive a clear signal from the amp.
When will we have knowledgeable salespersons who won’t try to sell you more just because they’ll earn more? Almost all salespersons at large electronic chains work on commission and this is a bloody shame. They lack in-depth knowledge of their products, and they steer people towards inferior, but higher priced items.
There has to be, and is, a better business model. Let’s wake up and realize that product research is only going to become easier and that long-term relationships bring more reward in the long term.
Hold on one second. Did you say you actually when down to the store? I'm impressed but a little confused. I've never heard of Andy Curtis ever leaving the house to buy something other that food.
Believe me, it was a tough decision. The whole time I was there, I wanted to run back to my computer and order them off the net. Audio stuff is one thing that I've bought a reasonable amount of at physical stores so that I could demo it. I actually went to a few different stores when shopping for new speakers (then bought them off the net).
I can tell you that you totally never want to go speaker shopping with him because he is a snob about them. He has to bring his high quality music, and listen to the ones that he knows he can't afford just to hear the true quality of the music, not the speakers.
Andy, did you catch the BSS concert last week and are you going to Spoon this weekend?
Ohhh Nell I completely agree with you!!!! :)
I'm siding with Andy on this. There's nothing wrong with being a connoisseur.
Beautiful composition!
Jeff is absolutely right. There's nothing wrong with choosing the best products. In fact, I argue it's something us Americans should do more often. Buy products that are quality, and built to reflect that, rather than cheap rubbish that will break within a couple of years. Maybe someday we'll move past our throw-away culture.
Also Nellie, I've never asked a salesperson to listen to their most expensive speakers... they are usually audio nerds and like to show off toys, so they throw tunes on expensive speakers just to show off. And plus, it could work out for them if I decide to get about 10 credit cards and start a pile of massive debt.
Plus, no music is "high quality" but some albums are better engineered than others.
where did you go to buy you speakers. you need to tell the salespeople whats up. i love to learn new things.
I'm totally siding with Andy on this one. He has taught me the ways of GOOD music (or at least a few) in addition to GOOD food that goes along with it, but that's not the point. Good Audio quality is truly important if you care about the music itself. I consider it an insult to listen to music that was carefully mastered with their best effort on substandard speakers that you didn't even test out or bought because they had lots of "boom". Course, I might be way off, that's just my personal opinion.
And now that you mention it, I don't believe I've ever seen him leave his house to buy something other than food either.
Andy, it's clear where you stand on the speaker quality issue. My question is where do you stand on the digital vs. analog issue? In order to compare apples to apples, would you rather listen to the Beatle’s White Album on vinyl or digitally re-mastered on a CD?
Just curious.
Ahh that's a good question Tyler. My opinion that CDs are better, unless you have some serious cash to blow. A good turntable costs well over ten grand, while a similar quality CD player can be obtained for a few hundred dollars. Analog probably sounds better, but I'll never know because I can't afford a seriously expensive turntable.
Regardless, DVD-Audio and SACD beat both. Plus, the multi-channel capabilities are just rad. I want to hear the Flaming Lips in 5.1 surround.
Oh and the worst format: MP3. Yes, even 192kbs mp3s sound dull on a somewhat good system. I'd personally never buy tunes off the net simply because of the sound quality. Plus, artwork and so forth is cool too.
So I've always wondered if you take a non solid state preamp/amp, can you smooth off a digital signal to make it sound warmer, or would that just be a waste?
I would give up my cd's and vinyl for a harddrive type solution provided that it accepted some form of lossless compression. They have home audio units like this currently, but they are pricey.
Jeff, I would say that an analog reciever would warm the sound somewhat, as I own a new Onkyo reciever and a '74 model Kenwood, and I use the Kenwood on the computer with a set of Yamaha floorstanders (real floorstanders, not the new 6 1/2" junk) using .ogg format audio, and when using said reciever, my music has life and fullness not found on the new Onkyo. So I believe it is possible. By the way, .ogg is supposedly lossless, and it's open source, so I'd check into it if I were you.
New to the site.
Hey Curtis, welcome to learn ignorance.
Tubes would most likely warm the sound of digital signals. My dream setup would be to use monoblock tube amps to power my left/right stereo speakers plus a digital receiver to power a 5.1 surround system using the same front speakers, just a different amp. The source would be a single DVD/video/audio, SACD, CD player. It'd also be sweet to have a huge hard disk based player on here too... like > 250 gigs. If it has instant-on and no massive fans, it would definitely beat my computer as a music player. Install a sleak version of iTunes on there too, please.
Matter of fact, why doesn't Apple market this? I'd buy an audio-video device that only ran iTunes (no Mac OS X, only Front Row). Uses my television as its display and outputs 5.1, 6.1, 7.2, you name it, formats. The only inputs to it would be a remote and a DVD drive (or Bludisc or HD DVD). And if I stuck a cd in, it would rip it and eject it.
Please Apple? You could do this right.