Well I doubt rap would sound very good if the bass rolls off that sharply!
But do you guys notice what you're doing: you're judging these speakers based by measurements and not actually listening to them!
Come on now be fair, what's the use of all that "the ear is the final judge of quality" business if you are gonna make exceptions? I would not be surprised if they sound bad, but I would also not be surprised if they sounded better than some quote\unquote HiFi dealers' speakers out there.
I listened to "white van" speakers for a long time myself. No, they weren't bought from a van but they were very cheaply made and had very poor drivers. Sort of like the units shown in Steve Deckert's article here, but not exactly.
http://www.decware.com/paper10.htmMy point is that sound is SO subjective and it's not always easy to know you're listening to what others think is dead awful. This goes for legitimate high fi stuff as well. And it goes the other way too, because often I will be at somebody's house who has cheap gear and my mind will say "oh this is garbage" but the reality is that it ain't all that bad. My friend has dirt cheap radio shack speakers which probably commit many of the design\construction sins that the Dahltons do, but I cannot honestly say his system sounds bad. It's really quite listenable after all.
Still, 500 bucks for those things is insanity. I'd pay no more than 100 for them if I didn't know better. 50 is more like it. I mean, they don't even LOOK expensive fer cripes sakes. They can't be any worse than the junk they're selling at the chain stores, these doofuses just use that seedy kind of drug dealer marketing approach.
I dunno if I'd qualify it as a scam though, as the concept of slimy cretins selling junk to idiots is one of the things that makes America great.
