Hello Everybody,
First a quick intro - I'm Tom and I'm the founder of Moos Audio. My history in the audio world goes back over a decade and includes 3 years at Linn's R&D department in the UK. I also have a fairly unique background in wireless audio, and have my name on several patents. I'm a big fan of all things analog, but at the same time I also have an appreciation of the power, and benefits, of digital processing *if done right* - this comes from my academic background. To me it's all about the music, and that means doing whatever it takes - digital, analog, or both - to get as close as possible to that elusive "true" rendition of the recorded material.
@OzarkTom - Thank you for finding Moos and kicking off this discussion, really appreciated!
And yes, there will be other models down the line, including larger ones!
@JLM re DSP - You are absolutely right that designing a speaker correctly must be the foundation. Would I postulate using a DSP to correct what is inherently a bad design? Absolutely not, as there are many problems a DSP simply cannot correct. But even with an excellent physical design, there is *always* room for improvement - and that's where judicious use of DSP can make a subtle yet important difference, *especially* when everything else has been done extremely well. In terms of the Mini Aero, the strategy was first and foremost to come up with an extremely good physical design, and to combine this with the power of DSP. The Aero's cabinets are just about completely acoustically dead due to extensive bracing and internal metal reinforcement; the tweeters are offset to minimise diffraction effects; the port is made of aluminium, with solid flares machined from solid aluminium on both ends, and is fused into a thick aluminium back panel for maximum structural stability; we paid great attention to internal energy dissipation and to controlling standing waves, etc, etc. We really went to great lengths to make sure this was an exceptional physical design first and foremost - very, very few compact monitor go to the lengths we went to, even for 'cost no object' designs.
@JLM re wireless - as per our website, the wireless transport "is the first to achieve reliable transmission of 100% lossless, bit-accurate, high-resolution digital audio content at up to and including 24bit/96kHz. The system supports playback of 24bit/192kHz". We have been demonstrating playback based on 24bit/96kHz transmission virtually round the clock here at CES, in a Las Vegas hotel. The RF (wireless) environment here is totally saturated, to the point where it is almost impossible to get a WiFi connection. Even under these conditions we have been able to play with remarkable resilience. And yes, wireless audio used to suck - but things change.
@Norman Tracy - thank you for the eloquent exposition re benefits of DSP and active crossovers; could not have said it better myself!
@Rclark - so I am inevitably biased, but yes, they ARE spectacular. Let's put it this way, they sound better than what used to be my main system, consisting of Musical Fidelity M6PRX, Linn Klimax pre, and Musical Fidelity M1DAC (I also own a couple of other high-end DACs), and a pair of very nice monitors (I shall not name them out of professional courtesy as, in some way, we are competitors). Don't get me wrong - my main system sounded fantastic, as you would expect given the components. But the Mini Aero sound better.
Finally - the price. I'm glad to see we all agree that $2500 is a bargain! There is a logical explanation for this: (1) we have invested a considerable amount into parts so we get great pricing, (2) we are selling the Mini Aero direct, and (3) we are keeping our margins very thin. We did this because we want to bring serious high-end sound to as many people as possible.
