Very High end Speakers Boenicke audio - Page 3

if its just contributing its own effect, its not a 'music playback system', its an instrument in its own right.

but how many instruments make good 'MPS's?

Ok, I get it. He has a Hoehn the jeans he's wearing!

Corny jokes aside, these look like fabulous speakers. Nice review at 6moons, but that's always hard to go by; they seem to like everything. I'd love to have a chance to give them a listen one day, perhaps at one of the big shows like CES or THE Show.

Did it occur to anyone else that what they've done with the wood carvings is quite similar (in concept) to what JVC did with the interior wood chambers of the DX1000?

when I look at these I can't help but think "horn"

it like all they're doing is trying to introduce some sort of quasi-infinite baffle system, possibly with a passive radiator (can't tell) and possibly just with the open port on the bottom (oh god, ported, must be the DEVIL and we should BURN IT DOWN because it actually lets the sound TOUCH something like AIR )

these honestly look "smart", and probably sound great (I'd love to hear them as well)

as far as B&W trying to "minimize all resonation", they have their own method of doing what Boenicke has done, from the B&W website:

in other words, instead of playing around with horns, reflections, etc from the back of the driver, they have the "tubes"

neither is "wrong", just very different engineering approaches

I've blasted Kanye West on a $16,000 pair of italian speakers with about $60k of front-end electronics, sounded pretty good

and I listen to T.I. on my 'stats, also sounds pretty good

so to answer your question: me.

By purchasing any of the W-Series Loudspeakers you note and accept that overall dimensions of the speaker enclosure can vary up to 1.5% *if the bandwidth of air humidity change in the room *of operation / storage is as wide as 20% (and if changes of humidity are slow enough so that the wood will fully adapt) and up to 2.5% if the bandwidth of air humidity change in the room of *operation / storage is as wide as 40% (and if changes of humidity are slow enough).
These figures hold true for the Swiss Stone Pine, Spruce Fir Moon Wood and similar kind of wood. If other wood is chosen, aforementioned figures can be higher.

This quote is from the website. I would have to invest in some serious HVAC work before I could have these in my house. I live in an area where I have seen the RH go from 29 to 37 in one day.

Munk....I believe you said you had heard these, how did they sound and what can you compare them too?

I very much doubt the figure 98%. What about percussion and brass, not to mention the human voice?

I agree with others that the wood resonance issue is just advertising hype. At best its an argument nor for accuarcy of reproduction but for a euphonic sound, i.e. ear-friendly distortion. It also seems to strike a chord (!) in someone who wants to think of his/her stereo as an instrument rather than a piece of technology.

One of the better simple early speaker designs set speakers in concrete tubes, filled with sand. Effective, but not something the advertising guys can hype up. "Sounds like your sidewalk?"

I think the main attractions of wood are that it's widely available, easy to work with and aestheically pleasing, but not necessarily the best substance acoustically.

I'd never buy those. They're nice furniture, but that's about it.

First, solid wood is a terrible medium for speakers. I know, I know, it has loads of sex appeal and marketing prowess. How else better to point out the "cheapness" of competing speakers?

The problem is that wood moves a LOT. Anyone who has done woodwork can tell you how pieces they cut in the evening are a different size in the morning. That only shocks the noobs - anyone who has worked with wood learns to deal with it. So if the size of the speaker is constantly changing, it's NOT going to sound the same.

If you think that mimics instruments, think again. I've been playing a wood clarinet over 25 years. Yes, it moves with temperature and humidity. The difference is that you tune it. You have retune with swings in temperature and humidity. These speakers canno be tuned, so they must go out of tune. Is that what you want to drop five figures on?

MDF and plywood are far more dimensionally stable than wood. So while you can ding those manufacturers for "cheapness," their speakers are far more consistent.

Second, you really don't want cabinet resonances in your music. They color and veil. Is that really what you want? Most of us listen to open headphones - the entire point of that is to get away from unwanted resonances. Further, my favorite speakers don't have cabinets at all. The Quad ESL-63s, for example, just have a frame. The Orions I'm working on have dynamic drivers, but are open baffle and free of cabinet colorations. To my ears, open baffle and dipole speakers sound much, much more "real" than cabinet speakers.

Finally, running a ribbon as a monopole is a mistake. The entire point of a ribbon, in my opinion, is the delicious dipole effect they have. I've lived with dipole ribbons for about seven years - there is just something fundamentally "right" about them.

So I'd never buy these. If you want pretty furniture to ooh and aah over the craftsmanship and brag to your friends about the price and how they were handmade in Switzerland, then they're for you. If you want the best music reproduction possible, get some Quads, Magnepans, Apogees, Matrin Logans, or any one of many fantastic DIY projects.

I agree with Uncle Eric except with his sentiment at the bottom where boxed speakers are conspicuously missing from being potentially "best" for music playback.

Vienna Acoustics has a similar philosophy to this guy from what I've seen. Even Stereophile was torn, because they weren't accurate seeming to always have a changing sound about them with resonance. For speakers I do not see this as a good thing, because different places have different temperature and humidity. What sounds good in one area will sound worse in another due to the inconsistent nature of it all.

Some on the other hand may treat it as a live experience every time constantly changing. This is what Stereophile seemed to adore them for and caused the greatest conflict.