"Its more similar to the pair that Mike Lundy made for Rons Review, which I think were in the 1700-1800 range."
The Jay's iyagi video says of his pair of Encores "this was built by a builder, Frederick…"
One of the pair of speakers in the Jay's iyagi video has a distinctive W-shaped grain in the top layer of the baltic birch laminate.
The same W-shaped grain is seen in the Encore in the New Record Day video.
So, these are the same speakers. Are they $1700-1800 Mike Lundy made speakers or $2,500 speakers made by Frederick?
You're inferring a lot of things that noone is saying.
They ARE made by Frederick, NOT Mike.
Yes, they ARE the same pair that Ron had.
I was referring to the parts used in the crossovers, as they are internally specced similarly to the ones Mike built used foil inductors and mills resistors.
The cost differences are likely down to shipping and other costs that aren't obvious from the outside. Frederick would need to give his own explanation on that regard.
Yes, parts quality matters, but for all intents and purposes, the difference in performance at this level over our own kit will be subtle, especially when you're already at the top
They are still voiced the same as the kits we offer.
The difference between coil and foil inductors are subtle, same goes for resistors once you step up above the bottom of the barrel options from pennies to $2, is a bigger jump than $2 to $8 or even from $8 to $30.
Sure, the unit Jay has is specced above what we normally offer at the top end, but so is Danny's personal pair. We don't stock Mills resistors any more, but in blind AB testing, it wont be easy to pick them out from the top end model we offer.
But to say that they aren't representative of the Encores we normally offer is incorrect. they're going to have much more in common than different.
The reason our speakers can be assembled for ~$1500 comes down to the builders being local to us. If we had to ship a bunch of parts and cabinets around to have them built, then the costs would obviously go up. Quite a bit in fact, easily to $1900-2000. Especially if all of the upgraded parts had to be sourced at retail prices and shipped.
If they had been built in-house by us, they would likely be $1700-1800 for a finished speaker using the same components that Frederick used.
Something else to keep in mind, shipping to Canada, the import duties/fees would also add hundreds to the final cost, that someone in the US would never need to deal with.
