In his incredible TAD speakers, Andrew Jones created one of the top 5 speakers I've ever heard at any price, and I loved the sound of those Pioneers for the price.
Great speakers. I really like those as well. I think they used paper based or woven fabric based woofers though.
So I tend to trust Andrew Jones' decisions and voicing, while appreciating that until you get to price-is-no-object, there are always compromises and decisions to be made when mass producing a product to meet a certain price point.
I think he did a really nice job voicing the Elac models. He left the top end pretty rolled off though. But again, that was an easy fix. And yes, he was very budget limited on those models. And you have to consider cost to produce verses retail cost. That $76 level 1 upgrade I came up with is not that big of a deal for the end user. It doesn't cost much, it's fun to work on, and increases performance considerably. But that modification would have added about $200 or so to the retail cost had they been done at the factory. This is why aftermarket upgrades are so popular.
And both Danny and Andrew are excellent speaker designers, with superb reputations. And so if possible, both should be heard in order that an audiophile can best decide which designer's speakers best meets their preferences and budget.
Yes, but in some cases you can look at the guts of a speaker and get a good idea of the quality of performance you can expect from the quality of the parts used. The Carnegie Acoustics Davanti that I posted a link to for example:
All air core inductors even on the woofer. All poly caps even on the woofer. No sand caste resistors either. All good quality non-inductor wire wound resistors.
And the Elac B-6: Well.....
And all on an very budget based binding post cup.
The Carnegie Acoustics Davanti uses tube connectors (the highest quality connector available on the market), and good quality internal wire.
