The Official Salk Sound Owner's And Discussion Thread - Page 104

Varrius:

You are basically accusing Jim of false advertising, bait-and-switch pricing, and price-gouging. You question Jim's profit. Personally, I hope that Jim is making a profit and that Salk Sound is a financially stable company with the economic resources to continue to provide innovative products for audio enthusiasts. I also hope that Jim is able to plan for his family's financial future. My gosh, he has worked hard enough. He took the risk, he had the great ideas, and he built the business. He used to build speaker cabinets in the snow with a table saw. The SongTowers are speakers, for goodness sake. Jim isn't selling life-saving medication to the highest-bidder. You have a lot of nerve.

You wanted the SongTowers but couldn't afford them, and you are bitter. For other listeners, they might prefer other speakers. For others yet, they might not consider the SongTowers to the best "value," and they prioritize "value" over sound quality. Regardless, I find your comments extremely offensive. I don't care who you are, where you came from, how many posts you have, or how long you have been posting. You are a disgruntled troll. You are apparently a very unhappy person, or if you aren't, you should be, IMO. Maybe you should get some help.

Appologies if I insinuated that the ST's are overpriced. Indeed they are a special speaker, I have said that before. My dissapointment, and I don't feel that I've been overly negative to begin with, is only that they aren't really in the same league I thought they were, especially since the price was increased (yes I know it was a while ago, I was looking at them before that too). Perhaps the website could be adjusted to read a "somewhat" affordable loudspeaker, instead of very affordable. IMO, there's just too much competition out there that is close to half the price to consider them "very" affordable. If we are talking "hi-fi" only, then perhaps they are very affordable, or perhaps they wouldn't live up to expectations (I honestly couldn't say personally). But, they are often mentioned with many of the other "mid-fi" options here on the forums. While they may outperform them, they are also considerably more expensive.

In addition, the posters here should probably consider that many of the other ID brands may include shipping and whatever veneer (granted it's probably a standard veneer) costs are associated with the speakers. I guess all I'm really saying is, can we just stop recommending Salks alongside Axiom, Ascend, Aperion, Rockets, etc? They really don't fit in the same pricerange when all is said and done.

No doubt my opinions are more suited as a blog than a forum response, which was unsolicited to begin with. If I could go back and delete it all, and the responses, I would. I truly didn't mean for it to get a bit out of hand, as it has. I'd just leave it up to everyone doing their research to determine what the final costs to them would be, and what the competition for their pricerange is.

See once a thread gets too active for too long it attracts all the crazies

Ok... "FANBOY"

Just so everyone knows, Nuance sucked another person into buying Salk speakers today.

You have had your say so the gentle readers can evaluate. We understand your OPINION. Please move on unless you want to post something objective (like measurements etc..).

Thanks for the response, I do recall that you've always been above board in your speaker reviews! My exception was obviously to the sweeping generalizations (of others) in regards to ID speakers in comparison to Salks. Since the majority of my speaker purchases have been "value leader" ID brands I tend to take such attacks somewhat personally. I would still love to audition Salks someday, pity there don't seem to be any around SW florida!

Wow! And here I was trying to be civil. I don't recall saying that nobody else should value the ST's sound enough to purchase them, quite the opposite.

Let me rephrase my long winded posts into a summary:

Jim, your speakers are exceptional, however I will not be purchasing them because they are out of my price range, and there are many good value options priced below yours. If your intentions are to create a mainstream loudspeaker that competes with the masses, you've got the speaker, but not the price. If you could care less, Happy Valentine's day and have a great year!

Fair enough, it's way out of hand as it is. I'm done, provided I can avoid any additional personal attacks.

Uh.. doesn't really apply. My first post in this thread was on page 21. But that is funny as hell

[QUOTE=Varrius;15824806If your intentions are to create a mainstream loudspeaker that competes with the masses, you've got the speaker, but not the price. If you could care less, Happy Valentine's day and have a great year![/QUOTE

That part of your posts says it all....it is so personal and well anyone can understand...Please move on.

Raspberries

Guilty! Yes he did. I sent my deposit into Jim for a satin black pair of ST's
I still plan to keep at least 3 sierras considering I still enjoy them very much. The salks are simply a step up in terms of clarity in the mids & highs and should be considering they are twice the cost

I want to thank nuance(Brandon) for lugging his down to my place yesterday. They survived the journey unscathed(thanks in part to my sleeping bag transportation idea).....he he. We had a great opportunity to A/B them directly against my sierras in my room with my music, perfect! I would not call nuance a fanboy just because he praises his speakers. Heck, I still love my sierras and will always recommend them depending on ones budget & needs. Nuance kept his opinions to himself mostly and let my ears determine the differences. Us WI boys are keeping Jim busy lately

I love the idea of moving up to a tower speaker and can't wait to integrate them into my 2.1 ch system!

On a side note, we auditioned the parasound 2100 preamp and loved it! It outperformed the proceed pre in terms of top end clarity and the mid range was fuller. It was extremely neutral sounding and what a great price(so who bought one out of the two on a-gon yesterday)

Take care guys!
Brandon

Brandon

Excellent to hear that news! I'm not entirely surprised because you've been able to hear Nuance's SongTowers. Once I first heard STs, it was impossible to forget their sound. I had no choice, I had to buy them. And I am quite far from an impulse buyer. Which tweeters did you get? It would be of interest to many here if you got the Hiquophon dome tweets so the two Wisconsin Brandons could become the AVS resident experts on their differences.

Because of yours and TJHUBs earlier posts about room EQ and using REW, I got interested in this. I've been watching AudiogoN for used B&K receivers or preamps to buy. The receivers and preamps share the same preamp circuitry and processor chips. These B&Ks have built-in parametric EQ that functions only in the range of 20-300 Hz - just the thing to EQ room anomalies in bass performance. It is entirely manual, unlike Audyssey. The other day I found this receiver, and bought it. I've also ordered the measurement microphone and connection box to use with the REW software. So when I get all that stuff up and running, I'll be trying my hand at room EQ. I should publicly thank Tim (hifisponge) for his very useful help and advice he gave me on room EQ and REW.

Thank you for the inspiration, and congrats on your new SongTowers.

Richard

Hey Richard,

My experience hearing nuances ST's was very similar to your explanation in the PM you had sent me. I did prefer the upper mids & highs on the ST's over my sierras which are great in there own right! I ordered the soft dome version for the fact that I only listen to rock and NEVER classical or jazz. Both Jim and Dennis typically recommend this same option for others in my position. Yes, the Brandons will have each version of the ST's and who knows, someday we can bring them together and have a mini Salk shootout and maybe Terry's HT2's too

The B&K processor should work out well for you then. I had a B&K 200.3 amp a while back and liked it. What mic setup did you go with? I just use my RS meter now considering its fairly accurate for the low end stuff and thats all I am looking to EQ now anyway. REW and my BFD work great on flattening my rooms low end response and I could not be happier! Even running the setup "flat" sounds good in my mind. If you have any questions on REW or etc, let me know, I might be able to help What sub are you runnning? Keep us posted on your results.

Thanks for welcoming me into the group.

Brandon

When you get your STs, Nuance can show you the Secret Salk Handshake, but you must wait for delivery. If he has already revealed that secret prematurely, we'll have to hunt you down .


I also have a two channel B&K amp, an EX4420, running the STs. It is similar to the 200.2 they now sell. I plan on using the receiver's amps to drive my center and surround speakers.

I ordered the Behringer ECM8000 microphone, but it seems like the RS meter might do the job as well. When I have questions about using REW, I'll be sure to contact you.

My sub is a DIY using this driver. Its in a roughly 2 ft³ sealed cabinet that should give tuning at 25 Hz. I drive it with this plate amp.

I am unaware of this, but excited to be part of it

Looks good! I think when the times comes I will order the Behringer mic also in order to do full sweeps including my mains. I have heard good things about the parts express DIY sub kits. You should follow our sub GTG thread(warp's house) coming on the 28th. I will have my Rythmik sub along with many other DIY subs, a JL, a SVS Ultra & etc there.

Later,
B

Nice, Dennis. Thanks for letting us into the magicians dungeon.
I was hoping to get a sneak-peak at "the Beast" (HT4) but I would have to guess that you managed to avoid that one with your lens...

Kind of an orderly mad scientist feel, and I must say, I was not expecting to see the floor at all, much less clean-ish..

Music stains everywhere, though. Like the room has been drenched with notes and tones.

I read a post here the other day that seemed to require a response. I see by the number of responses since then that I probably should have set aside work on the HT4 (or whatever it will be called) to answer sooner.

Varrius - sorry you took such a beating for your comments. Actually, you have every right to your point of view and I understand it fully. It deserves a response if for no other reason than to let you and others know how we approach competition and pricing.

In terms of the former, we do not look upon other ID companies as competition. A few years ago, I tried to explain this to the head of another ID company who considered us his competition. At the time, we were just starting out and he was irritated that he had lost a sale to us. He, too, was a very small company. I explained to him that if he were able to garner all of our business, he would still be a very small company. So, in my mind, "competing" with us (or us competing with him) was a waste of time.

At that time, the ID marketing model was not looked upon in the most positive light. After all, legitimate speaker companies had dealers. But we chose the ID model because we knew it would allow us to deliver higher quality speakers at far lower cost. The ID model allowed us to eliminate the 40% dealer margin and a whole host of other marketing costs. This meant we could invest in better drivers, crossovers and cabinets, resulting in superior speakers for the money.

Based on this thinking, we consider our competition to be large speaker manufacturers selling at retail and offering less speaker for the money. This is a HUGE market. Our thought was that if we could work in conjunction with other ID companies to demonstrate the clear advantages of the ID model, the ID market segment would grow substantially and we could all benefit - all ID companies and customers included.

So, we do not regard other ID companies as competition. Rather, we regard them as compatriots in a joint effort to deliver far higher quality speakers to a very grateful group of owners. And if, as a group, we do that well, we will all prosper.

I might point out that since that time, the ID model has become well accepted and we feel it will continue to grow. It is simply the most economical way to deliver high quality products to the consumer.


Now on to the second topic - pricing.

One way to develop a product is to pick a market segment, choose an appropriate price target and let that drive the development process. If you want to sell a speaker for $1000, you set appropriate budgets for drivers, crossovers, cabinets, packing, etc. You then develop the best speaker possible within those budgets.

That is not the development model we utilize.

We develop not to a price point, but rather to a performance point. We eliminate non-essentials to keep the costs as low as possible, but we establish minimum performance criteria that simply must be met. We then let the price fall where it may and let the customer decide if that price is warranted.

There are many ways to cut costs with a speaker like the SongTowers. The most obvious is having cabinets produced off-shore. The cost would be FAR lower than we could produce them in-house and this would allow us to sell the SongTowers at a lower price. But we ran across far too many horror stories about quality and delivery problems. It doesn't do any good to offer a low price based on a cabinet that you can't reliably get. It is one thing to sell a speaker at a low price. It is another thing entirely to actually deliver that speaker in a timely and consistent fashion.

For us, another negative aspect of off-shore production was the inability to offer our customers unlimited finish options - something we have done from day one.

Finally, there is something that feels right about providing a few jobs here in Michigan.

So we decided early on to build the cabinets ourselves and worked very hard to develop production methods and processes that would allow us to do it at the lowest possible cost. (I'm rather proud of what we were able to accomplish in this regard.)

The next cost-cutting area to consider would be finishing. We use very expensive finishing materials from Italy. We could certainly use lower quality finishing materials and fewer coats of finish. But the results would look more mass-produced. So we decided to stick with the methods that provided us with a lot of very positive owner feedback in the past.

How about drivers? When we introduced the SongTowers, Dennis Murphy developed a crossover version for the Vifa DX-19 tweeter. This tweeter would have cost us about $75 - $100 less per pair and the performance hit would not have been that great. But Vifa discontinued the tweeter. So even if we were willing to give up a little quality here (which we probably would not have done anyway), we no longer had the choice.

If you look at sites like Parts Express or Madisound, you will see literally hundreds of low cost drivers to choose from. In the industry, these are often referred to as "mid-fi" drivers. These drivers are the bread and butter of the driver manufacturers and end up in most mass-oriented designs because they offer fairly decent performance at a very good price.

But these same driver manufacturers also like to demonstrate their prowess and develop what are often referred to as "hi-fi" drivers. A lot of R&D goes into these drivers. So the drivers are higher priced - too high for most mass oriented speaker designs built to a price point. Of course, the driver companies sell comparatively few of these drivers. This lower volume, in conjunction with higher R&D costs, results in much higher prices for hi-fi drivers. But it you are looking to develop truly great speakers (and after all, that is our goal), these are the drivers you want to use.

Keep in mind, every driver has a given level of distortion and a certain amount of veiling. And there is nothing the crossover designer can do to change those performance characteristics. Hi-fi drivers will have less distortion and less veiling than mid-fi drivers. So if you want speakers with accurate, low-distortion performance and minimal veiling, you simply have to use higher performing, more expensive drivers (which means the resulting speaker design will be more expensive). There is no free lunch here.

I could go on and on. The point is, there are many areas where we could cut costs in order to lower the selling price. But would we want to put our name on the resulting speaker? In the end, if we don't feel confident enough to put our name on a speaker, we simply will not sell it.

So in terms of the SongTowers, we have cut costs everywhere we think it makes sense. The resulting bill of materials is what it is. Would we like to sell them for less? Sure we would. But we simply will not cut quality in order to meet some arbitrary price point (which some people would still feel is too high anyway).

I realize that this means there are a group of people, Varrius included, that will not see fit to purchase our speakers. And that is perfectly OK. There are plenty of ID companies (some would refer to them as our "competitors") out there ready to fill his needs. So we are not leaving him out in the cold by any means. That market segment is currently being met and there is no real need for us to go there.

Are our philosophies on competition and pricing right? Who knows - only history will tell. But last year we enjoyed our best year ever and so far this year, despite the economy, sales are more than double what they were at this time last year. I don't know if I'd care to grow much faster. So, for the time being at least, we'll leave these philosophies intact.

I hope all this makes sense and we can now move on to other topics. Got to go now, I have to get back to those HT4's...

- Jim

Varrius, Jim, Dennis, et al.

I apologize for my harsh comments to Varrius. I should have exercised restraint and minded my own business.

Dennis:

Ah, the secret laboratory.

I think that you deserve a better desk chair (even if that chair is your better desk chair).

Dennis,

I have the identical desk chair you have only it is part of my dining set. I bought the set in the early 90's from Scandals which was a knock off of the old Scandanavian Design furniture places at the malls back then. As with speakers you get what you paid for, the set is not of the highest quality.

Bill

Not likely--besides, the beast is upstairs. If you have a keen eye, you can spot some of the drivers I tried out before settling on the final mid and tweet.

I guess I am old and cranky. I know I am not as nice as Jim (my wife will attest to that), but I just read the posts and they made me upset. I know Jim and became defensive....not because of the speakers but for the comments about Jim's business model. I will bow out.