posted this a while back on various forums but didnt get anywhere.

has anyone ever auditioned or heard CAT speakers (california audio technology)
calaudiotech.com

apparently high end custom speakers but they do have some affordable sets that can be custom fitted.

please help i would love to know if anyone has experience with these.

thanks

posted this a while back on various forums but didnt get anywhere.

has anyone ever auditioned or heard CAT speakers

Will they be declawed and detailed?

From what I understand the claws cause harsh treble and a disjointed soundstage. And the tail causes the low end to be fuzzy and bloated.

:D

i have heard them in person. i think one of thier best ones. i really didnt like the sound they produced. strained at volumes and there wasnt a soundstage. considering the price, i would have gone to maybe some jbl everest's at less than half the price. not very many dealers, and no reviews to speak of.

That's one screwed up web site. I went there to take a look and had a hell of a time finding information on their loudspeakers. I only spent a couple of minutes there before I got frustrated and bailed out. Whoever designed the site needs to go back to school. :rolleyes:

Goondog,

I can help you out with whatever you need concerning CAT (I'm a dealer). Products range from 1500 a pair to big $$$, it all depends on what you're looking for. All cabinets, drivers, and crossovers are now made in-house, as well as having custom-built amplifiers OEM'd with CAT and CAT MBX logos. The product has been reviewed in Home Theater magazine, and Robb Report's Home Entertainment and Design (install of the year for 2007 was an all-CAT estate in Austin, TX). The reason you don't find many review's of their product is because it's not a one-size-fits-all solution, like most manufacturers. If every job is different, and every job is custom-made to suit the client's desires and budget- what good does a magazine review do for you? You're not there to hear it anyway, AND it's not in your house!

If you're interested in listening to their products, let me know- I can arrange a demo for you (I'll need to know your area though).

ifor,

Do you remember where and when you demo'ed CAT speakers? Please share, because if there's a dealer out-there demo'ing bad product- it needs to be rectified. Usually, the fault lies with the dealer- not the product. I've heard stories where the dealer didn't know that half the amplifiers in the system were OFF during the demo, and then blamed the speakers for not sounding right (hard to sound right if half the drivers aren't making sound!).


There was a period of time during the early 2000's where CAT was demo'ing on the CEDIA floor with the Cinemaforte group, but they didn't run the demos, and had very litle control of their product (other mfr's ran the demos- part of the reason for the demise of Cinemaforte).
CAT now demos offsite at tradeshows, during CEDIA last year they had a suite at the Hyatt that demo'd both 2 channel and surround products. At CES there was a demo room at the Renaissance hotel right next to the South Hall that also demo'd 2 channel and surround- not to mention there's a dealer in Las Vegas that has a 32 channell theater that's one of the better CAT MBX theaters in the country.


For what they do, and what they offer- there is NO ONE in the AV industry that matches CAT. I'm not saying that there aren't other manufacturers that make product as well as CAT- Wilson, Triad, RBH, Evolution Acoustics, VonSchweikert, the list goes on - ALL make excellent product! BUT none of them make custom products to fit in walls, cabinets, furniture, boats, planes, cars/RVs etc. NONE of them custom engineer driver arrays and crossovers on a PER-JOB basis to get the best frequency, phase,and impulse responses in the ACTUAL environments that the speakers are installed-in. Some copmpanies come close; JBL Synthesis does an awesome job with their design services and digital EQing (but no cstom speakers to fit odd locations), Wilson has done an amazing job training their dealers to vowel rooms and to set-up their product correctly (but you can't install them in-wall and get the same response). Triad actually omes the closest to what CAT does; they offer the same products for in-room, in-wall, and in-cabinet but they won't send the loudspeaker designer to your house to rebuild the crossovers so they sound perfect in your installation; even if you get the Platinums. CAT does that, and you can get it on the cheapest speaker they make- if you want (it's very cost in-effective to do so, but you could do it). I've installed systems that are as cheap as 20k for a family room surround system that have included CAT on-site engineering.

Is their website well done? NO. Does it really matter? NO. If you let the webste of a company determine whether you buy their products, then you're a marketer's dream! I personally, would rather EXPERIENCE the product firsthand and make my own decision. IF, when you've actually tried the product AND you don't like it, THEN comment about how the website is so bad, and the product wasn't to your liking. Here's a clue: if a company can spend all kinds of money to pay someone like Factory Design Labs to do their website and marketing plan, how much are they making on you when you buy their products? Or to restate that in a different way: How much are you OVERPAYING for the product you receive?

CAT loudspeakers are constructed of 1" HDF, Avonite/Corian ($50 per square foot, at .5" thickness), and custom made tweeters, midranges, woofers, and crossover components that are many times more costly than the competition's entire finished product! Here's an example:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=855460

the speakers that are pictured in that thread are 12 FEET tall, 5 TONS for the pair, and self-powered. The cabinets are made from 8" thick Avonite laminations (that's 16 plys at $50 a square, so it's $800 per suare foot just for the enclosure MATERIALS, not even the labor to assemble it!) Then we throw in custom-made 22" subwoofers, 12" custom subwoofers, 9" custom woofers, 5.5" custom midranges, 1.25" custom tweeters, a gallon of Ferrari paint, 2 weeks worth of a custom painter's time to paint and wet-sand and polish the speakers, the custom fabrication of a plate and tubular steel stand that can support 5000+ pounds- have IT painted to match, 4 custom made amplifiers (16k each) to power the speakers, 2 guys for 2 days each to set them up, and then an engineer at 8k per-day to tune the speakers and their associated DSPs to sound correct in a 30,000 square foot, car showroom! Suddenly, $560,000 for the pair isn't so bad. And by the way, IF someone wanted those speakers for their house- but didn't want to see them? fine- and you'd actually save some money (paint, stands, etc. nolonger necessary).

The reality is, although CAT is known for making very large, very expensive, rather outlandish looking speakers- most humans don't buy those. Most humans buy stuff like the $3000/pair Catalinas that can give even the best studio monitors a run for their money.

Do a search though the archives for CAT or CAT MBX and you'll find that this isn't the first time I've gone off on a rant like this- and it's usually because someone makes a misinformed comment about a product that they listened to 6 - or 7 years ago on a tradeshow floor, or at a dealer who never actually sold a pair of speakers, and is now out of business- and suddenly thinks that the world has frozen for nearly a DECADE, and product hasn't improved.

Is CAT a more expensive choice than the alternatives? that depends on how you look at things: Is it more expensive to build a home out of cinder block? and is it really fair to compare the cost to a house made from wood sticks?- they really are 2 very different things.

Dan

thanks for the information Dan!
My installer is also a dealer, we just dont have any to listen to.
we are setting up a 20x18x9 dedicated room with AT screen and was leaning towards triad and deftech inwalls before the CATs were suggested.
the monterey 1.7 line will probably be the choice that are in budget.
i just dont have any idea what they sound like, but my installer said that in the price range they will go up against anything else on the market.
he does have some demos that he will be recieving so that i can get an idea in the near future.
thanks for the info. ill keep this thread posted when i get to listen.

Great!

Who's your dealer?

Dan

it was a dealer in orange county here in the la area. i cant remember the name but i have seen their room in a couple of ads for other stuff.

i am a jbl synthesis dealer and i was not very impressed with what they were showing me.

Cavalti? in Newport Beach?

or was it Roberts?(LA)

or Brentwood Communications?(LA)

- being a Synthesis dealer explains alot though, I've noticed that people swing either one-way or the other, but rarely have I met anyone that cares for both products. The sounds are rather different from each other. I can totally imagine what it is about the CAT sound that you wouldn't like vs the Synthesis. Let me ask you this question; do you think that it's possible your experience with Synthesis biased you against CAT? Do you know what I mean? Like dealing with Paradigm or B&W every day might bias someone against Klipsch....you know, that comfort zone that develops when you hear a certain sound day after day.

It's a question I have to ask myself everytime I audition something new: can I listen to this without any preconceived notions or any bias? I don't mean anything by the question, just something I'm curious about- especially when I hear people's comments at a show like CEDIA or CES.

Dan

it was Cavalti.
i would like to think that i am not biased. great wording, though. you put it in a way as to not start some flaming.

but i am a dealer for Dali, Triad and Gallo. we try to have product that covers the range we need for different applications.

i never try and decide what to bring in based on what i hear from ces or cedia. i worked in different places selling everything under the sun (it seems).

ive been doing this too long to really care about listening for nuances. but i can tell fairly quick wether a sound is good or not. something just didnt sit right with me when had demod them. he knew i was a dealer visiting so i wasnt there to waste his time, but he showed me anyways. i thought that somethig wasnt working right, for the price he quoted anyway, but it wasnt my place to point this out.

That's a rather diverse spread! I'm glad you understood what and why I was asking.

Who knows whether anything was wrong or not- you may have just not liked them, it's cool, we all have different tastes- right?

Dan

PS -I got the lowdown on the situation with your demo, PM me.