I thought a speaker of this significance deserved its own thread. This video is offered here before being shown on AVShowrooms. Enjoy 
Von Schweikert's Universe Loudspeaker, a designer's lifetime achievement
- Thread starter Peter Breuninger
- Start date
Great stuff...very interesting. I know that many may think me crazy...but when looking at mega-sized, full-on statement speakers, their ability to fit within a living environment is still worth it even if some might say that is a 'compromise' that is inconsistent with SOTA, all-out-assault systems. This is one reason why i continue to be impressed with the big Wilsons...they can be focused down to an 8' listening distance which for their size and impact is an incredibly tight space.
i do not know the setup requirements of this 4-box speaker...but certainly relative to Tidal Sunrays with their 2 6' tower subs, or Arrakis speakers which require big rooms with very high ceilings, i find this an intriguing option with dedicated subs that presumably could be somewhat 'tucked away' relative to these larger systems.
Anyone heard it? JackD201?
i do not know the setup requirements of this 4-box speaker...but certainly relative to Tidal Sunrays with their 2 6' tower subs, or Arrakis speakers which require big rooms with very high ceilings, i find this an intriguing option with dedicated subs that presumably could be somewhat 'tucked away' relative to these larger systems.
Anyone heard it? JackD201?
Lloyd-Do you just keep a mental checklist in your mind of "what's best?" You make very slow and deliberate decisions on what gear you buy and you tend to keep it for a long time which is obviously smart from an economic perspective. However, you seem to have a keen interest in what is going on in the audio world and want to know what all of the pretenders and contenders are up to and how they rate against each other even if you have no real interest/intent in purchasing any of them. Long live Zandan and RBCD.
You got me entirely right mep...i always keep a mental checklist. always. Largely because i am also opportunistic about my purchases...if i know something is on 'list' and it randomly pops up, i might accelerate the plan to take advantage of the discount. For example, i intended to keep my SF Strads for a long, long time...i had never made a purchase that big before and always owned small speakers too (SF Guarneris were the preceding speaker). I told my dealer at the time i traded in for the demo SF Strad pair...if you ever find X1/Grand Slamms...those are the only speakers i could realistically think of upgrading to.
He remembered those words...and a mint pair showed up that had been in storage for 15 years. the guys wife got fedup paying for storage costs halfway around the world...and he sold them. The plastic laminate had still not been taken off the piano lacquer, and the spikes never installed. Truly mint. It took me 30 seconds to agree the trade. That was 2 years after my SF Strads came in which i was fully intending on keeping for years more to come.
I am not actively pursuing any speakers at the moment...in fact, i am actually looking to try Stillpoints Ultra Vs under my Wilsons based on several recommendations from owners of Wilsons who use them. However, i keep the mental checklist just in case...and also in case i have an opportunity when traveling to hear them.
And finally, yes...long live Zanden and RBCD (and Amazon...at 3 bucks a CD, the CD collection has grown far more than my system!)...
Unfortunately, RBCD is a dying technology. To my knowledge, there is no place on line that you can download CDs. There are plenty of places to download MP3s and thankfully places to download hi-rez files, but there are no places that I'm aware of to download RBCDs. Every day, the number of brick and mortar stores that carry CDs dwindle. The retail heyday of CDs has long since come and gone. If you are wedded exclusively to RBCDs, you better buy them while you can or enjoy the collection that you have.
mep, mep, mep. Sigh. TOTALLY and utterly absurd post.
There are MANY places to download RBCDs. I purchased a dozen just last week.
HDTracks. Bleep. Merge Records. ECM. Rhino. Nonesuch. Band Camp. And 50 others. PLEASE do your research.
And most of all..from artist sites directly. I downloaded the latest releases directly from Dengue Fever, Jimi Hendrix, Field Music, Hem, and
more.
By the way, there were 193 MILLION CD sold in 2012. Dead? Really? Declining, yes. But FAR, far from dead.
Andre-If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Please tell me one single online store that has a wide selection of CDs available for download at 16/44.1 that crosses multiple genres and the selection choices are deep like you would have expected at a brick and mortar store ten years ago.
You realize if these are world-wide sales that is far less than one CD sold per American-never mind the rest of the world.
None will compete with a classic Tower Records brick and mortar. We all know that.
Artists are now selling FLAC, ALAC, and WAV downloads of their music on their OWN sites. MAJOR artists too. Like U2,
the Jimi Hendrix estate, Grateful Dead, etc.
I just took issue with your uniformed blanket statement.
50% of the music I buy, and I buy a lot, are FLAC 44.1 downloads.
However for LOSSLESS music sales, physical CDs are by FAR, not even CLOSE, the number one delivery medium.
You want to some cold numbers? Vinyl is ONE PERCENT of that. "HD" downloads (higher than 44.1/16) is a TINY slither of that.
I realize that. The fact it is that the CD is the still the NUMBER ONE (by a (LONG LONG shot) way that people consume lossless music.
To shed some light on the demographics. Adele sold 2.1 million CDs, and Taylor Swift around 3 million.
Dude, I am not married to the CD. Or ANY physical medium. I would have loved if 96 Khz/24 bit became the minimum standard ten years ago.
That number has to be way off. Music sales on physical media for 2012 was around 10Bn. That is far more discs than 193 mln.
You just made my point Andre. Physical CDs are "by far, not even CLOSE, the number one delivery medium." And my point is and was that physical CDs are getting harder and harder to obtain compared to a few years ago. Physical CDs are a dying medium whether you want to admit it or not.
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