Matt, I see what you mean. I once had a looong chat with a Swiss selling only high end manufacturer called ROWEN. They make enormously powwerful amps and innovative speakers with a 5 octave band dRiver and a hf DRIVER CALLED LMT - which is somewhat similar of the Heil tweeter. Look em up at www.rowen.ch
The 90 min long conversation informed me of how much they hated bass reflex technology and how they designed for Swiss homes that are vault-like with poured concrete being the default building material, as compared to wood and dry wall in the US. Plus Swiss homes are much smaller on average, so ideal speaker placement is more difficuult. This means they designed their speakers to work in sub-optimal locations and demonstrated this to me in the show room by putting obstacle around the speakers that normally would mess of the stero image. in their case, it made little to no difference in the "real world" speaker placements they showed. Impressive.
Lumen White have the Artisan and the Aquila as well. They are pioneers in the use of ceramic drivers, and have won best in show at CES in the past and at other places too. Their turntable is to die for as well - The Mystere $60K.
Check em out as well.
The 90 min long conversation informed me of how much they hated bass reflex technology and how they designed for Swiss homes that are vault-like with poured concrete being the default building material, as compared to wood and dry wall in the US. Plus Swiss homes are much smaller on average, so ideal speaker placement is more difficuult. This means they designed their speakers to work in sub-optimal locations and demonstrated this to me in the show room by putting obstacle around the speakers that normally would mess of the stero image. in their case, it made little to no difference in the "real world" speaker placements they showed. Impressive.
Lumen White have the Artisan and the Aquila as well. They are pioneers in the use of ceramic drivers, and have won best in show at CES in the past and at other places too. Their turntable is to die for as well - The Mystere $60K.
Check em out as well.