Single Speaker Demonstrations

[terrybooth]

Similar to the LP12 being beaten in a bake-off and blaming that on the LP12 needing a service from a dealer.

Pretty safe bet. In my experience, the LP12 needed a service every three to six months.

[SteveTheShadow]

Here's a quote I found on TNT Audio:

"Rumours and hearsay spread, that unsuccessful Linn demos were dismissed by their guru as being invalid due to participants wearing digital watches with inbuilt speakers. Telephones were banned from demonstration rooms and listening rooms at home because the little speaker in the earpiece was enough to destroy the quality of the tri-amped 'briks."

Not attaching any importance to it. But I remember the hi-fi press being full of this nonsense in the mid to late 80s. It wasn't much of a leap from a digital watch beeper to Peter Belt, as it turned out.

[Macca]

Ivor T did a blind test to see if he could tell when there was an unconnected speaker in the room. He couldn't.

Not surprising really when you think of all the other influences a room has on the sound.. The idea that a watch or telephone speaker could affect the sound is risible.

[terrybooth]

I do remember visiting someone's house in the late 70s/early 80s- can't remember exactly why now - who insisted on covering the TV with a carpet when the hifi was being played.

Not many skips from 'don't trust your ears, if it sounds bad there must be something in the room affecting the sounds' to 'if it sounds bad, there must be a witch in the room'.

[Daniel Quinn]

Did ivort remove his head

[Macca]

No t that I'm aware

Really pretty sporting of him to have a go since he must have known he had bob hope.

It was all part of the 'new way' of selling hi-fi, I guess. Never bothered me 'cause I had no money back then anyway. You work in sales long enough you start to realise it is all psychology and the worth of the product or its price are pretty irrelevant. Even with hi-fi.

[Lindsayt]

Coming back to comparator demos, wouldn't that give a large advantage to the most efficient speakers as they'd be louder and therefore sound more "impressive" than the other speakers?

Klipschorns would fly out the door, whilst Briks would never get a look in.

[_D_S_J_R_]

Didn't happen that way. Klipsch smaller models still got off the floor and threw the music at you

Some of us did try hard to play fair, you know...

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Some manufactures in the 80's, Mission springs to mind, deliberately voiced their speaker to stand out on the speaker wall through a comparator, and when you got home and plugged them in you were suddenly puzzled as they screeched at you. Another example of the cons that were perpetrated on you by retailers and manufactures.