Hi there,

I cannot reasonably understand how you can compare the £500 Quads with £1200 Tannoys. The difference here is £700 in price, surely it would have been fairer to have all the speakers of roughly the same value ie. £1000 to £1200 or £500 to £600 as in the case of the Quads. To me it does not seem a fair asessment whatsoever.


Regards


Mick Cox

I'd actually support their position because it gives a little bit of context. If I were in the market for standmounters, I'd be curious as to what a little extra money might get me rather than just focussing on a tight band.

The thing that is missing (if you were to mimic the mind of an educated buyer with £500-£1200) is a second hand wildcard like, for instance, Dynaudio Countour 1.3, Jamo Concert 8 or Celestion SL600.

Hello Christopher,

Thanks for the feedback, I can see your point of view but we are looking at 140% difference in price. If secondhand gear was bought into the frame we would have to assume that most people would buy secondhand products. I don't think it would be wise to compare seconhand equipment as most people buy new. Having said that, I've recently come back into the fold after 40 years and bought a little set-up, so my knowledge of the scene is very limited. Changing the subject, what are your thoughts on British manufacturers websites? I find them very bland, mostly uninformative apart from Bowers and Wilkins who seem to try and give you as much information as possible. Compared to our friends on the continent, France, Germany, Italy, where their sites are superlative give you as much information as they possibly can, tell you what they build their products from, how they build them with detailed information of design and materials used as against the British lacklustre websites. Also, to quote just one,Sonus Faber (Italian) their design, build and quality of materials are just truly beautiful. They are not just orange crates or boring square boxes, they are a work of art you can put in your home, not in your garden shed. Why is it that when you need any information on a British product, you have to go into an American website, this has been my experience. What do you think?

Regards

Mick Cox

Mid fi and upwards most people actually buy second hand. People rarely throw Quad equipment out for instance and these things commonly have four or five owners therefore you could say that there are several second hand owners for each owner of a boxfresh product.

It also doesn't necessarily follow that the more money you spend, the more you get. In the Spendor range, I actually prefer their S6e to their S9e. I understand your point though.

I do agree about the B&W site. Exemplary. Others less so. Croft for instance www.eminentaudio.co.uk take a long time to update new models and going back to Spendor; they also take a long time to update with their new lines www.spendoraudio.co.uk. Spendor still doesn't have the new gorgeous new speakers that they introduced at Bristol on their website.

You really wonder what goes on in the marketing departments of these companies.

Hello Christopher,

I wasn't aware that the secondhand market was so large. I shall definatley have a look at the Spendor products although if their website isn't bought up to date there is not a great deal of point. I have been a salesman for half my life having come out of engineering originally. When I started in sales, many a great salesman said to me, 'Mike, presentation is 90% of the sale, and this I came to realise was true and I've followed this example ever since, therefore allowing me to be successful in my career change. When you consider the marketing departments of these companies and the money per annum it must cost these companies, you would think they would make a far better job of it. I'm sorry I cannot excuse them because they have the best opportunity media wise to market their products more successfully, rather than relying on a simple lacklustre photograph.

All the best

Mick Cox

Hello Christopher,

Just a quickie, at the end of August last year I ordered a pair of Quad 22L2's which had just been launched. Three months later there still wasn't one pair of speakers in this country. The last telephone call to Quad was 'oh well, we don't know when they will be here'. This saying in reverse is a case of 'opening the stable door before the horse had bolted'. Again showing a failure in the marketing.


Regards


Mick Cox

Just a word on the test Mick - I must admit that when I was initially sourcing the products I had thought that the Tannoys were £1,000, so the price span ended up being a bit broader than I had first intended. That said, the intention was always to give an idea of what’s available across a broadish spectrum, and in the event, those Quads certainly held their own against the more expensive models.
We’ll keep publishing a variety of group tests, some tightly focused, others offering a more general view of their respective markets. And of course, let us know what you want to see, and we’ll try to work it in there.

Hello Dave,

I see your point on choosing the speaker range. Is it possible that AVReview could expand perhaps to the continent and give us your expert opinion on perhaps? Von Schweikert, Achpella, Bolzano Villetri and Sonus Faber. Of course not the high end, something more to the lower end between £1,000 and £2,000. I think it may be interesting. What do you think?

Regards

Mick Cox

I must admit the only one of those that I'm personally familiar with is Sonus Faber, but I'm sure some of our writers will be more up on the Euro gear - I'll look into it.

Mick,

How much do the Bolzano Villetri http://www.bolzanovilletri.com/ go for? They make some fascinating stuff. What I like about this kind of omni directional speaker is that they tend to image amazingly - not at all what you expect. They're beautifully made but I could never own a pair because the upturned driver would be too inviting a nesting place for our cats.

The first Omnis that I heard were only relatively recently when I bought some Canon S35 for the bedroom for £10 (£9 to £35 is the going rate). They're quite an interesting design because they were actually designed by Allen Boothroyd (Meridian), British built and were more expensive than I remembered at the time - something like £250 in the late 80's/early 90's. I was very, very surprised by their ability to image & subsequently found that that is an 'omni' characteristic.

http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/695canon/

Above is quite an accurate review.

Christopher,

The Balzano Villetri start from £2,000 - £22,000 a bit too much for me although I might manage £2,000. On learning of your recent purchase, what a bargain! where do you find them? Back to the Villetris the Campanile series 3000 do have complete speaker covers so your cats won't be able to get in. The speakers set opposite each other firing into each other is quite unusual but that's about all I know, only that they are beautiful and superbly made. I'm going to have a look at this second hand equipment, where do you look to pick up a good bargain?


Cheers


Mick

Mick,

I got the Canons on Ebay & I was the only bidder. Ebay is good where something is unfashionable. A screaming example of this at the moment is the Denon 2900 which have now dropped to around £170 from £850 only a few years ago - very tempting. FM tuners are also similarly unfashionable.

Ebay is bad for classic valves where it's inflated prices of the best Leak and Quads. It has also been a disaster for LS3/5a and Garrard 401/301. The other sites I use are www.loot.com, www.exdem.co.uk, www.hififorsale.com. I've never found anything in a boot sale.

In the next few years, my next serious purchase is likely to be a set of speakers and a set of those Villetris could well make the shortlist.

With regards to bolzano villetri, i must say - thrilling speakers, the good looks vs. unusual sound design.. it should be evaluted
There are several nice remarks and reviews from US.
"..one of the finer sounding and least expensive loudspeakers available on the market....I purchased my review sample!" - stereotimes.com publisher says.. doesn'tlook like a full-scale trick. I'm going to visit one of UK dealers very soon

Going back to one of the earlier points regarding the spread of prices in a group test, last week my friend and I demoed some speakers. Monitor Audio Silver RS6's (£600), Dali Ikon 6's (£900) and Dali Mentor 6's (Officially £2195, but the shop was selling them for £1700), although the gap between the prices for the RS6's and the Ikon 6's isn't huge, the mentor 6's are nearly double.
This is because in both cases we have wives to answer to and although they are willing to accept the idea of an occasional purchase, they won't accept constant changing of the system. I am running a £600 Cd player into £1800 of pre-power amplification and £900 speakers, I would love to upgrade my CD player, but it will result in divorce. I view all group test score as being price dependent rather than direct comparison i.e. a £900 speaker earning 7/10 is probably better than a £500 speaker earning 9/10 but not as good value.

I'm currently struggling to make a decision between buying a Bose Acoustimass 15 Home cinema syatem or the recently acclaimed Acoustic Energy AEGO T5.1 speaker package. Another option is the Q Acoustics 1010 speakers. The intended use is for Home Cinema and also music listening (predominantly).

Can any member kindly advise on the best possible choice/option(I'm especially keen to know about the Acoustic Energy AEGO T 5.1 package).

Thanks and very much appreciated.

Edwin.

We were keen on the Aego T too, http://www.avreview.co.uk/news/article/mps/UAN/1063/v/1/sp/332953698647344980332. Can't speak for the others yet, but we should be getting to them in time.

Perhaps someone could help me as I am very confused by what my local hifi shop has told me. I went in recently to enquire on the cost of upgrading my Arcam Diva 72 cd player to the 192 which was priced at £500 but he then went on to tell me I would be better off changing my speakers (Quad 11L's) and he advised the Audience 52 speakers at a similiar cost. Would this be a better option than upgrading to the 192? Also I have biamped and biwired to my speakers and apparently the 52's are only 2 way.

Where would I get a second hand CD192, ebay?

As regards my biamping I am using an Arcam A72 and a Arcam P75 using QED Silver Anniversary XT Biwire. That's why I do not understand why they told me to use Dynaudio speakers, perhaps there's a bigger profit margin on the speakers and surely the Cd192 would sound better?