[earwicker7]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sacd lover /img/forum/go_quote.gif Could you post a couple examples of negative reviews? I stopped subscribing to Stereophile years ago when equipment I knew was mediocre received rave reviews.

Well, I just started reading this month's issue, so if I notice any, I'll mention them soon. I don't keep the back issues... when I'm done, they go in the trash. But I can assure you that they do happen; EVERY time I read one, I think "So much for the 'Stereophile only prints positive reviews' idea."

Keep in mind that one person's trash is another person's treasure. Just look at the differences of opinion on the Edition9--some people hate it, others say it's the best they've ever heard.

 

[munk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by earwicker7 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, I just started reading this month's issue, so if I notice any, I'll mention them soon. I don't keep the back issues... when I'm done, they go in the trash. But I can assure you that they do happen; EVERY time I read one, I think "So much for the 'Stereophile only prints positive reviews' idea." Keep in mind that one person's trash is another person's treasure. Just look at the differences of opinion on the Edition9--some people hate it, others say it's the best they've ever heard.

I agree, I also know a lot of companies that started out with horrible products that got there start through mags like stereophile and are making top notch audio now. If an overly positive review gives us tomorrows b&w's then who cares. No one is going to blindly drop a wad of money on a high-end set of speakers or any other audio equipment till they ues or hear them for themselves anyways. And if they do blindly fallow they are idiots and wouldn;t know if the product sucked or not anyways.

 

[munk]

Clarification (I was wrong):

"Facts about audiomanufacture speakers


- for example, the W20SE's enclosure consists of 110 liters of pure solid wood. 38 liters of that is air. that tells eveyone enough about how much the enclosure is "resonating".
this enclosure is not designed to resonante, and that is what it does: it adds pretty much nothing of what is commonly understood by "resonance", for two reasons:
since there is only very little sound pressure build-up inside (almost all energy dissipated by the back side of the cones is being transported out into the room) plus the cabinet's wall thickness is 1.5 inches at the thinnest point and almost 10 inches at MOST points.
it should be clear to anyone that the cabinet surface does really not add much to the overall output.

- to those who think that boenicke audio chooses real wood instead of MDF just to make more money or create a marketing hype:
you do not have a reality-based idea of material-sound. in fact, we know that this term actually does not exist - because it does not exist in most peoples' minds.
that does not mean that there is no such thing as a material-inherent sound in reality (that sound is only dependent on the material, its temperature and its stress). it is only indirectly discernible, but of great relevance to every piece of equipment, be it a CD, a tonearm, a flute or a speaker.
clarification:
if you knock on two wood boards, you will get tones. the one board that is one inch thick will create a different tone than the same one that is only half as thick. that difference in tone is NOT determined by the material-inherent sound - i am not talking about that.

if you mount a speaker unit on a solid block (let's assume a huge block, say a cubic meter) of aluminum, MDF or spruce fir wood, the speaker driver on that block will sound different. why? because the blocks resonate different and therefore act as different parasitic sound sources? not very likely. those blocks are no sound sourecs of their own.
its the driver that sounds different (that is why i above said "only indirectly discernible") because it gets different mechanical vibrations reflected back to itself by the block. it is impossible to absorb mechanical energy by 100% - in reality, it is always somehow reflected back to the driver unit and turned into heat by damping materials.
now, i can assure you that the reflection (that is inavoidably constantly mixed to the direct signal) of sprce fir wood is something most people with good ears would perceive as far more natural (meaning less coloured!) than the harmonic resonance patterns (reflections) of MDF or aluminum. that is a fact. aluminum sounds highly coloured, slow and tacky. so does MDF, but not as bad as aluminum. most of us do not hear those colorations anymore because it is almost all-around.
of course we are ready to prove that anytime to anyone willing to listen to our speakers or recordings - which is easier to accomplish.

make the following experiment: take two identical speaker drivers with an aluminum phase plug. replace that phase plug by one from solid wood, but exactly the same dimensions. it will make quite a difference. do the same thing with a voice-coil of a speaker driver - even more of a difference.

- our speakers are not tuned to any instruments or any frequency bands or whatever.
although they are built to one millimeter accuracy (as musical instruments are) it is clear that in the real world, the speakers are not perfectly dimensionally stable. real life is not perfect
they are not designed to emphasize one thing and leave another thing away.
you can listen to a drumset or a trumpet on them, too , and most likely you will be a bit impressed.
although they are built with instrument builder's know-how, they do not try to mimic a particular instrument - that approach would be naive, in deed. they are a stand-alone product.

- what is of course very exactly tuned and calculated is the coupler transmission line that is patented and unique. that means that the length of the line, the tapering and the opening is exactly tuned to the corresponding driver that sits at the line's beginning.
if done correctly, you get a resonance-free line that uses almost no damping material to work perfectly and totally uncoloured. none of the traditional TML problems occur here.
that means you can use almost all the energy created by the back side of the cone (instead of trying to deaden it somehow), impedance-transform it to the surrounding air on the room and use it to increase the speaker's overall sensitivity (plus about 4dB) and low-cutoff frequency: this design allows us to go at least half an octave below the speaker driver's resonance frequency at full level.
the other thing, not expressable with figures, is the quality of the bass: no other cabinet type (except for big horns) offers a similar speed, punch and control. bass-reflex and closed systems sound slow and weak in comparison"

 

[AudioCats]

hmmm, more reviewers ?

 

[tvrboy]

I just came across this thread randomly and the very first thing I thought was "this guy Munk must be a guerilla marketer hired by this speaker company to generate interest on web forums." I guess since he has his own "unbiased" review site that's not the case, but he sure sounds like a shill for the company. Having a lot of experience with technical web forums (although i guess motorcycle road racing is not related to headphones) I am very suspicious of any poster who brings up a new product, gives a link to buy the product, then keeps posting in defense of it over and over again! I also have a marketing degree and I know people who do this for a living.

 

[munk]

Sorry I did come across as a fanboy I am regretting the post to be honest lol. I Do really like the speakers and they were different and like most forums there was some debate but what ever they are unique speakers either you likem or you don't. Anyways lets either let this thread die or get back to debating wood as a media over other box choices and focus less on the "boenicke" side of the argument.

 

[nlaudio]

Maybe nice, but it seems kinda expensive for a simple eight-inch two-way speaker.

For that kind of money I could put together a monster horn system and have enough left over to buy a car.

 

[nlaudio]

I'd talk to Bill Woods at Acoustic-horn.com. He doesn't make speakers, but you can use his horns and his advice to put something amazing together, if you can do a little DIY.

 

[AudioCats]

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that is the money you could be saving with GuyCo.

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[Nosmo King]

OK are these speakers meant to be used at home or in an audatorium? And what is the MSRP on these?

 

[Jason Jackson]

I was going to start by saying "pedantic..." But on second thoughts it is strange attire for the workshop.

 

[00lunar]

I'm going to do some necroposting here, but what the hell. I have Svens W5 right now, and they deliver the best sound from bookshelf monitors I've heard.

 

[captian73]

Very High end Speakers Boenicke audio I'm afraid that title is very much misleading as there's nothing 'High-End' about them. TBH the drivers are average at best, although I do have the Peerless SLS 6.5 in a transmission line subwoofer enclosure, but there are better drivers than Peerless subs and Fountek fullrange.
 
 
 
I saw the W5 speakers going for $4,500 which is laughable becasue for well under $250, you could build a pair yourself. Spend over that and you start getting into Morel, Seas, Scanspeak Iluminator drivers or Revelator drivers, Eton drivers (which go into Avalon speakers) or Audiotechnology Flex Units (as used by Sonus Faber), and you'd really be in business. As for the crossovers, manufacturers are notoriously renowned focusing cheap and ill matching crossover components, even in speakers costing $10,000.
 
W5 Shopping list:
 
Peerless 830945 SLS 5.25" Woofer - https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/approx-5-woofers/peerless-830945-sls-5.25-woofer/
Fountek FE85 3" Full Range Speaker Driver - http://www.parts-express.com/fountek-fe85-3-full-range-speaker-driver--296-717
 
Speakerplans - Many people ready to help you with enclosure design, and many CNC services are available, just google it.
Crossover Designs - Parts-express forum and ask about crossover design.
 
As for simple but effect enclosure design (below)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHRCOpc5zI
 
 
 
 
Much as i love Peerless subs and Fountek full-range speakers that Boenicke use, I wouldn't put them up against the like of Hybrid Audio or Morel drivers or many other raw drivers.

 

[00lunar]

  Very High end Speakers Boenicke audio I'm afraid that title is very much misleading as there's nothing 'High-End' about them. TBH the drivers are average at best, although I do have the Peerless SLS 6.5 in a transmission line subwoofer enclosure, but there are better drivers than Peerless subs and Fountek fullrange.
 
 
 
I saw the W5 speakers going for $4,500 which is laughable becasue for well under $250, you could build a pair yourself. Spend over that and you start getting into Morel, Seas, Scanspeak Iluminator drivers or Revelator drivers, Eton drivers (which go into Avalon speakers) or Audiotechnology Flex Units (as used by Sonus Faber), and you'd really be in business. As for the crossovers, manufacturers are notoriously renowned focusing cheap and ill matching crossover components, even in speakers costing $10,000.
 
W5 Shopping list:
 
Peerless 830945 SLS 5.25" Woofer - https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/approx-5-woofers/peerless-830945-sls-5.25-woofer/
Fountek FE85 3" Full Range Speaker Driver - http://www.parts-express.com/fountek-fe85-3-full-range-speaker-driver--296-717
 
Speakerplans - Many people ready to help you with enclosure design, and many CNC services are available, just google it.
Crossover Designs - Parts-express forum and ask about crossover design.
 
As for simple but effect enclosure design (below)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itHRCOpc5zI
 
 
 
 
Much as i love Peerless subs and Fountek full-range speakers that Boenicke use, I wouldn't put them up against the like of Hybrid Audio or Morel drivers or many other raw drivers.

Normally I'd agree with you. But the thing is, that W5 does sound incredibly, even though that Fountek and rest of components have very low price. With those boxes it's about engineering, what Sven Boenicke did with drivers and box itself. I'm not saying that those are the best ones out there, as I don't know that. But out of all >$4,000 speakers I've heard, W5 are hands down the best, and not by a small margin. I've heard many, I own LS50, which are considered as really good. Yet, those are no match.
 
My point is that if someone would deliver sound similar to W5 for that $250 you've mentioned, or even $500 or $1000, I'd agree with you. But nothing like that happened thus far. Of course we're talking monitors that can be bought. As I'm interested only in those.

 

[Lutrty]

I'm still waiting for any of these experts that state that they are able to build a similarly sounding & looking W5 for $250, to actually do it (I'm not considering those laughable copies you see online - for sure done with a lote of dedication).
 
Anyone that has in fact heard this speaker can easily confirm that they beat many +$4500 alternatives. I did compared them namely with Dali Epicon 6 and SF Olympica and I preferred the W5 by a large margin. I bought a W5se 3 years ago and could't be happier.
 
When some people refer to these speakers as being 'high-end' is not because of the price but because of the tone and impressive soundstage that exceeds that of speakers costing 2x more.
 
Instead of criticizing the pricing of the Boenicke's, one should praise how such a special speaker can be made with those affordable drivers.