Time coherence - how important and what speakers?

Roy is a marketing guru as well as speaker designer. Some may argue that positive word of mouth is the fastest most effective way of getting a product accepted in the marketplace. Positive feedback can be generated just as easily through intrigue as it can from hands on product experience. Having said that, it's extremely important for the product to meet or exceed the expectations heeped on it in order to sustain momentum. In this instance I can't think of a better way to penetrate such a subjective and fickle constituency than to go into their discussion forum and raise company and product awareness. By attempting to increase the basic education level of those who may be in the market for a new pair of bespoke speakers, Roy is establishing both credibility as scientist and a speaker designer. Given Roy's knowledge and practical experience, his knowledge transfer in this thread may have even served as a change agent for the way we listen and judge music reproduction.

When developing a bespoke product, there are always distinguishing elements that identify it as a "best in breed". In most cases this bespoke item is the product of creative engineering, which is based on solid principles of science, technology and ample testing, ultimately resulting in superior performance. No subjectivity is involved on the peformance, the product works at a level equal to or above the competition. To truly be bespoke, superior performance must be integrated into an aesthetically pleasing "wrapper" that displays the manufacturers attention to artistry, detail and craftsmanship. To round out the bespoke nature of the product the manufacturer must create a special customer relationship experience, which will ultimately generate word of mouth praise and in many cases a cult following. See customer loyality in the Marketing 101 handbook for further details.

Simply put, Roy Johnson believes he's created a bespoke product. By coming on this board Roy has introduced himself to many potential customers. By articulating his incredibly deep knowledge of physics/math and speaker design he's raising the credibility bar in our eyes and possibly changing the way we think about listening to music. By tackling the tough questions on this board and by calling some of us on the phone, Roy is building up a good customer relations strategy that should breed success, if of course the product lives up to expectations.

Roy is obviously very smart on a variety of levels, not the least of which is marketing. Most good marketers when trying to fight off larger and higher resource competitors will go after obvious flaws in the competition in order to add doubt in Mamouth Co. X and provide distinguishing characteristics that separate them from companies Y & Z. To be perfectly honest I am extremely impressed by this entire thread and the quality of discourse. I've not only learned a ton about speaker engineering and design, but have been introduced to a man who obviously has the passion and drive to develop a product that raises the bar in experiencing the reproduction of music. I haven't even heard Green Mountain Audio speakers, but I'm intrigued enough to make inquiries and learn more from people who have listened to his products. I'm intrigued enough to toss my perfectly good speakers aside and purchase a pair of C-3's. Now that is solid marketing! ;-)

Well, Roy could use some dealers so we could hear before we buy. I don't understand the resistance in that area.

A couple of months ago I went to a local audiophile retailer to listen to Avalon Eidolon's. When I got there the owner said he didn't carry Avalon's anymore. I asked him why given the very upscale market this store was located in. He said he dropped the Avalon's because tastes have changed dramatically (the Bose affect) and the average consumer (regardless of income level) is just not educated enough to understand the differences in sound relative to price. In other words he just couldn't move a pair of $23K speakers, there just wasn't a big enough market.

Given the above, IMO retailers like Best Buys, Circuit City, Hi-Fi Buys and other mega stores are making it too easy to be a LAZY consumer. I think time is an important factor in this equation. We have tons of millionaires in the Atlanta area and I think it's difficult for many of them to spend the time to do the research necessary to investigate the broad range audiophile manufacturers and the art of sound reproduction. Because time is such an issue in their lives they either want to get a recommendation from a friend who has an audiophile system installed in their home or be able to drive 10 minutes to the local Hi-Fi mega store, walk into a sound room and listen to Joe Schmo sales guy give him the "we'll take care of everything" pitch. Secondly the consumer has been saturated by misinformation from Gigantore Audio Products Inc., making it more difficult for the small quality audio manufacturer to get his product out to the consumer. I'm SURE there are also many other factors in this equation as well. Audiokenesis and others may be able to shed some additional light on this subject.

This doesn't answer your question with respect to GMA, but I think it's an illustration of where many audiophile retailers are with respect to carrying certain high dollar products. They simply can't move certain products.

We have several dozen dealers- a list is available. Admittedly not a large number, but they do cover a fair portion of the US, some of Canada, and Puerto Rico. There are some international distributors too. Many have been with us for more than a decade. Most serve their local markets- they are not involved in the Stereophile/TAS product of the month club. Our few, select dealers that do significant internet business can be located easily.

If we seem to move too slowly... a long time ago we saw that if we grew too fast, quality and ergonomic issues would arise with the cast marble process- another reason to avoid the sales fluctuations created by magazine-based retailers. I can understand how all this gives the impression we're resistant to new dealers.

I think it's important for the health of our industry to patronize retailers who go out of their way to listen to everything, and avoid those who primarily sell whatever is new or hot. Our acoustic memories are short. So are our consumer memories- one can hardly count the number of audio maufacturers that no longer exist, once well-known. And many of them failed after a few years of marketing to only the big mail-order retailers, finding themselves dropped in favor of the new.

This of course, means that those products, and their designers never had much of a chance to evolve, so today we see a lot of "me-too" product- I think a result of slip-shod R&D efforts, even from quite large firms, because product is being rushed to the market- selling because it's new for this Fall, not because it's a significant improvement in the art.

I feel strongly that non-time coherent speaker design is one indicator of this lack of extended R&D effort in the speaker community. Another is the ignorance of what "radiation resistance" means. That is one of the most important parameters of speaker design that determines the sound you hear over at your chair.

Radiation resistance is determined by the quantity and the sizes of the drivers chosen and their crossover points. It is the term for the acoustic load on the driver, and is why a larger woofer has more "slam" than a smaller one which goes as low on steady test tones- the bigger woofer sees a higher radiation resistance down there.

That is just the LF range- the effect of varying or inadequate radiation resistance higher up the scale means that the tone balance and dynamic response change with listening distance. This is not my opinion, but a principle of operation firmly grounded in physics and explained in the peer-reviewed AES papers re-printed by Old Colony Sound Labs.

Best,
Roy Johnson
Green Mountain Audio