Grimm Audio LS1BE- why so expensive?

[sigbergaudio]

@fineMen it sounds like you think a recording can not sound better than the sound quality of the monitors that were used in the studio by the mixing / mastering engineer? I struggle to follow this logic.

 

[JustJones]

The only Focals I have listened to are the Trio11, to me they dissect less than Genelec though I really like the Genelec I've heard. I understand it's preference and since my foray into studio monitors and DSP actives the sound of home passives I've heard leave me underwhelmed.

 

[Pearljam5000]

The only Focals I have listened to are the Trio11, to me they dissect less than Genelec though I really like the Genelec I've heard. I understand it's preference and since my foray into studio monitors and DSP actives the sound of home passives I've heard leave me underwhelmed.

Genelecs Have way more separation, that's exactly how I feel too.

 

[DWI]

Agreed. Especially if we are talking about enthusiast pursuits, e.g. audio equipment, the "people just buy for bragging rights" is one of the most over-used tropes there is. Since the 90's I've met and known audiophiles from rich to poor who have owned cheap stuff to many hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I've never met one who wasn't in to it because they had a true passion and felt their equipment was meeting that passion.

I never really thought being an audiophile was about having money to burn. The few I've known had very little money and were mostly into restoring Lenco's, 1970s Japanese receivers, or low power valves and rebuilding Tannoys.

I was once in my dealer and there was a big pile of stuff to go out, almost reached the ceiling. Could have been $1m of audio. Apparently some guy came in, chose it in an hour and asked it to be delivered to somewhere in West Africa. Not an audiophile in my book, just someone with money.

My loose definition of an audiophile is someone who will only buy audio equipment that they can take apart, or put together in the first place.

 

[DWI]

If you were so sure you would have named them

And open myself to audiophile ridicule/insults? Except that the choice was primarily made by my wife. I've learned to use my right of veto only as a nuclear option. The route to a long and happy marriage, always agree except if in the face of impending disaster.

 

[DWI]

You got me curious, which speakers do you have?

Speakers almost as pretty as your opera house and with equally accommodating acoustic performance. Came over for a concert one night and an opera the next, very flexible acoustics. Did the backstage tour as well. Even the cloakroom is a work of art.

 

[firedog]

If I've understood correctly they include Hypex NCore amps, digital active crossovers, DAC.. the software development was probably costly. Unusual cabinet with large baffle and rounded edges to reduce diffraction. It all adds up. Very expensive but I bet they sound awesome.

They also have a proprietary version of NCore, as I understand it. That also costs money.

People also pay for looks and design. I'm sure there are people who wouldn't put a Kii or a Genelec in their living room, but like the looks of the Grimm. To some of you it may not matter.
In high end hi-fi cosmetics are often a determining factor in sales and there are lots of people who are willing to pay big bucks for looks they like.

 

[DWI]

I rather like deep bass.
Keith

You really need to live alone or have a very well damped room for proper deep bass and it can present quite differently, for example PMC MB2 SE at one end and Magico M3 at the other. The latter is another speaker with Beryllium tweeter. My speakers may not go very deep, but they can rattle windows 50 feet away.

 

[Purité Audio]

The room hugely affects low bass, but acoustically measuring and then implementing filters brings a huge improvement.
Keith

 

[fineMen]

@fineMen it sounds like you think a recording can not sound better than the sound quality of the monitors that were used in the studio by the mixing / mastering engineer? I struggle to follow this logic.

Thanks for mentioning me. There is too much confusion, though. Mostly due to the word "sound quality". It denotes a goddess that is by design not definable. Right? If You can, You may want to track the definition back to the microphone or the synthesizer / guitar pick-up etc. Then, starting there You may want to go back, but please step by step to the monitors in the studio, to the ears of the sound engineer and finally to his mind.

Last thing to do is to think of the sound engineer as an active part in the recording process.

You get the picture now?

 

[sigbergaudio]

Thanks for mentioning me. There is too much confusion, though. Mostly due to the word "sound quality". It denotes a goddess that is by design not definable. Right? If You can, You may want to track the definition back to the microphone or the synthesizer / guitar pick-up etc. Then, starting there You may want to go back, but please step by step to the monitors in the studio, to the ears of the sound engineer and finally to his mind.

Last thing to do is to think of the sound engineer as an active part in the recording process.

You get the picture now?

Not really. The sound engineer is not part of the audio chain, neither are his monitors.

 

[fineMen]

The sound engineer is not part of the audio chain, neither are his monitors.

If You think so of course You don't get into accepeting my argument. As You are a professional manufacturer I'm tempted to reiterate my notion, that the idea of a pure recording, independent from vast manipulations by the sound engineer is a myth. It is used for decades to keep people on the hunt for something unreal (pun intended).

 

[sigbergaudio]

If You think so of course You don't get into accepeting my argument. As You are a professional manufacturer I'm tempted to reiterate my notion, that the idea of a pure recording, independent from vast manipulations by the sound engineer is a myth. It is used for decades to keep people on the hunt for something unreal (pun intended).

It's not about me thinking or not, it's a plain fact that the monitors or the engineer is not a direct part of audio chain. They do however (and obviously) affect the result of the recording. A skilled sound engineer can create great sound quality recordings on poor monitors that he knows well. The quality of the monitors (again obviously) do not actively limit the sound quality on the recording.

"the idea of a pure recording, independent from vast manipulations by the sound engineer is a myth" - this I agree with 100%. But with the risk of misinterpreting you, it seems like you assume these manipulations is bound to mean poor sound quality, but that isn't necessarily the case at all.

Does the fact that the recording has been manipulated through mixing and mastering mean we can't enjoy improved sound quality if we choose high quality speakers (and potentially higher quality speakers than were used in the studio)? Not at all.

 

[fineMen]

... part of audio chain.

I am not discussing misleading terms. Especially not when they are chained to a quite narrow commercial perspective. I exemplified my vison above throughout.

Big spending for deviating products, that depart from the de facto standard is, scientifically proven, not necessary, but harmful to the arts.

But then it may be You who answers the original question, why this piece of middle-of-the-road speaker (acoustically) asks for handing over 30k US$.

 

[sigbergaudio]

I am not discussing misleading terms. Especially not when they are chained to a quite narrow commercial perspective. I exemplified my vison above throughout.

Big spending for deviating products, that depart from the de facto standard is, scientifically proven, not necessary, but harmful to the arts.

But then it may be You who answers the original question, why this piece of middle-of-the-road speaker (acoustically) asks for handing over 30k US$.

I'm not intimately familiar with this specific speaker, and as a manufacturer it is not my place to say whether the competition is fairly priced or not. It's also not my place to say whether they're actually "middle-of-the-road", but I suspect they're not.

I can however in general terms comment on the fact that there are many things that brings the price up on a speaker like this.

• The cost of components, this speaker has fairly high end drivers from Seas and Hypex amplification
• Cost of development / R&D, there are typically countless hours spent on designing, prototyping and perfecting something like this
• Cost of marketing (often the most expensive part of any product)
• Cost of shipping including custom made shipping containers / packaging
• Low volume production brings the unit price up
• Cost of doing a business (most people looking at the price of something forgets this part entirely), so everything from offices and production facilities, wages, taxes, accounting, etc, etc, etc
• Margins (companies usually have the audacity of wanting to make money on what they do)

Finally, especially as you move up the price range a bit, price is often not directly connected to cost, something is (and should be) priced based on the value it brings to the customer. This means the fair price point is no longer an objective measure, but something to be assumed by the manufacturer and ultimately determined by the market (will it sell in a decent volume at that price point or not). An iPhone isn't priced based on a basic calculation of its cost, it's priced based on its perceived value to the customer.

 

[TimF]

Why go there? It is like writing reviews about the hyper expensive tourist space shots offered by those two oligarchs..... This kind of crap is not fit for human consumption....it is about spectacle and snottyness.

 

[jonfitch]

Isn't that the stuff you need from an Alien planet like in Galaxy Quest.

Not if you are just buying truextent foil from matereon. Which is what pretty much everyone is doing other than Revel with Ultima2 or TAD with their beryllium drivers, which are vapor deposition types. If you are just buying beryllium foil from Brush Wellman it’s relatively inexpensive, say around $150 for a 1” tweeter in bulk. This is the same stuff that goes into high end Focal’s Be speakers and headphones, including the $4000 Utopia headphones. Almost everyone is just engaging in insane markup outside of the few parties that are actually manufacturing their own drivers through vapor deposition because beryllium has been associated with expensive drivers for a long time.

 

[fineMen]

...
I can however in general terms comment on the fact that there are many things that brings the price up on a speaker like this.

As an example ...

... An iPhone isn't priced based on a basic calculation of its cost, it's priced based on its perceived value to the customer.

On this board the research by Toole and subsequently its confirmation by Harman, especially Olive are held in high esteem. I understand it as I said before in many alternative formulations. If only all users, sound engineers included, agree on a standard, then the art of recording, or better to say designing a recording for home use can be brought to its best. The standard is kind of set by the so called Olive score.

I argue that the speaker in question complies to this standard, ranking high on the score. So far nothing bad about the LS1.

But, as the question was, by which peculiarities the sky rocketing price of the LS1 can be justified, another perspective is opened. The LS1 has its limitations, like every other speaker. For starters one might still ask if its performance fits the need at all, think of max sound pressure level, intermodulation of this quite humble 2-way design, the vertical dispersion and so on. Not the least the notion, that due to its form factor it will be positioned close to a front wall, hence would lose quite a lot of the benefits from the (only relatively to its size) wide baffle design.

Then one learns, that the leap in price from 9k to 30k is justified by the manufacturer with a beryllium tweeter (formerly it was a hard magnesium/aluminium already) plus some minor optimisations in the electronics.

The beryllium tweeter is from the same OEM, namely SEAS and is expected to be acoustically identical, only that it is like 100..400 more expensive - but nothing else. To justify the price with it is nonsensical. But this trick is admittedly seen often on the consumer market. Electronics, really? A bit of a tweaking here and there, and the benefit for the listener is deliberately left in utter doubt. Lots of talking, no data.

I would say, the price is neither justified by the making, "development" included, low production numbers included, nor by any real benefit for the customer.

Except for the looks. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. And here, it was already there in the first 'cheap' model. May I dare to say that even the 'cheap' model was way too expensive relative to its performance?

With reference to their subwoofer design and the list of "white papers" they cite on their website, I would even say, that the company addresses the product to quite regular consumers who probably need and happily take a lot of guidance from the advertising.

 

[Pearljam5000]

They look like much better value to me, also more beautiful

 

[mightycicadalord]

Not really. The sound engineer is not part of the audio chain, neither are his monitors.

Depends on the music but a lot of the time they are. A tracks mix can be part of an artists vision just as much any other aspect of the song, the engineering side of things works in tandem, not apart of the creative side.