Why are good speakers expensive?

The reason why a good speaker is expensive is that it can emit good sound, the material is good, and the speaker is not finished. In the process of determining the size of the speaker, various designs and debugging take up a lot of time, and a speaker has to go through many times of reinvention. In fact, it doesn't take much effort to really get to the production link. Acoustics is a very complicated system engineering. It is not a simple matter to play back the invisible things through a concrete box.

Good speakers are expensive. In terms of hardware, the speaker unit is tossing enough. There are also the selection of diaphragm materials, voice coil materials, vibrating ring materials and magnetic steel materials, the calculation of parameters, and the parameters needed for various design speakers need to be constantly adjusted before they can be finalized. Sometimes, choosing only one vibrating basin material is as troublesome as Edison's finding the filament of a light bulb. Not to mention the choice of other components. It is said that hivi failed countless times in the process of selecting voice coil copper wire to meet the heat dissipation problem in high power state.

After the hardware is finalized. Box design, * * * vibration frequency needs to meet the most ideal size and so on. These are not simply a few boards that can be assembled. Here is the best design of the box size, considering the minimum standing wave, what structure is inside the box, and what strength the box needs to achieve. Very complicated.

If you want to make a speaker that meets the needs of enthusiasts, then the details are even more challenging. Such as the purity of wood veneer, terminals, sound-absorbing materials, connecting wires outside the box, etc.

In short, a good speaker does not depend on how high the hardware is. Hardware can be screened and finalized, and the key is debugging. Many people think that finding a few speakers can get a fever, which is really naive.

Why are good speakers expensive? Speaker assembly: speaker unit, sound box and frequency divider. It can be described from these three aspects. First, good speakers must have good unit speakers, and high-quality speakers must be expensive. High-quality units such as beryllium tweeter, ceramic unit, carbon fiber unit and diamond tweeter are definitely high in terms of complex process cost and production cost. Second, the box, a good box, the logs are stacked layer by layer, and then through multiple technological processes such as calculation, pressing, molding, pasting, spraying and polishing. They are all used to form speakers like gorgeous handicrafts, not overnight. It is very useful to make precious wood (such as walnut and rosewood). ), which is more valuable and consumes more manpower and material resources. If you have seen the video of Bao Hua X-healthy speaker, you can know that other strange speakers, such as Nautilus and Morning Glory, are more complicated. After ten years of grinding a sword, the value will never be cherished and owned by ordinary people. Third, the frequency divider, the frequency dividing point data is accurate (the horn parameters match the box volume), and then the frequency divider is composed of inductors, capacitors, resistors and connecting wires of top brand or military grade, so as to realize its distortion as much as possible.

There was once a colleague who was an expert in family acoustics. Using this skill, his job became a part-time job, and the research on speakers became his main business. Tell us about the gap between domestic audio and foreign speaker technology when you are free, and have a deeper understanding of speakers.

There are two main factors that affect the price of speakers:

First, the technology of impression. Through the research of colleagues, the biggest technical gap between domestic and foreign speakers lies in the diaphragm inside the speaker. For speakers with good sound quality, the diaphragm needs to be thin, uniform and tough. Therefore, almost all good speaker diaphragms are imported, and the price will be more expensive.

Second, the brand of the speaker. Speaker originated from abroad, and the brand of speaker was established earlier in foreign countries than in China, so it has time advantage and brand advantage. In the global market, famous speakers are produced abroad, and good speakers are also produced abroad. Compared with domestic speakers, imported things have to be taxed, and the natural price is more expensive.

Of course, it is expensive for a reason. Expensive is not arbitrary. What is not only superficial, but also internal! Take the speakers as an example, they are sold for tens of dollars each, and hundreds of thousands and tens of millions are also sold. If you don't believe me, you can go and see how much the speaker set of 360 boss Lao Zhou is worth. Is Lao Zhou stupid? Obviously not, a good set of speakers is expensive in the following aspects.

First, the external decoration of the speaker is diamonds and crocodile skin. While watching a foreign movie, a rich man showed his speaker to his guests. He said that the exterior decoration of the speaker was made of crocodile reproductive organs, which really surprised me!

Second, the wood of the speaker frame is famous wood, such as sandalwood, which has been polished and carved by famous teachers!

Third, the speakers are all privately made. Real high-end speakers are not mass-produced, but hand-pasted, all made by famous teachers!

Fourth, and most importantly, the main control circuit board of the speaker is printed in gold and silver. As we all know, gold and silver are the best conductive metals, and the resistance of silver is only 0.0 16 ohm, so it has good conductivity, small resistance, small attenuation and little distortion. Restore the original sound

Therefore, it is expensive for a reason!

You know, it's good, of course it's expensive. There has never been a real price/performance ratio in this world. The so-called price-performance ratio (cheap) must have some defect. If consumers think this defect is irrelevant, then it is naturally price-performance ratio, and if this defect happens to be what users care about most, then this thing is rubbish.

What kind of people are enthusiasts? Seek the perfect expression of sound. The speaker doesn't need to consider the cost of materials. If you make the sound well, you can sell it at a high price. As long as someone accepts the price. There are factors such as brand, technology and experience. A pair of speakers can be used for many, many years and have been seen for decades. Brand guarantees that speakers can still sell a lot of money after decades of inflation, and even selling second-hand speakers is many times more expensive than buying brand-new ones. Technology and experience ensure that it can be used for so long, and the sound is very nice.

Having money to buy a good speaker is a hobby investment and won't lose money. Moreover, once the speaker volume is reduced, the sound quality will inevitably be bad. Unlike digital products, every product has to be carefully adjusted before leaving the factory. The speaker price reduction naturally leaves the factory without fine-tuning the necessary parameters, and finally the brand and the equipment in the user's hands will die.

A bookcase with more than 20,000 bookshelves in Britain was once dismantled, and the actual parameters of the partition board assembly were recorded in detail with a pencil. Because there are errors in components, sometimes components with a certain parameter need to be used after calculation, but no finished product has this parameter. If the sales volume is high, they will customize it directly. If the sales volume is low, they will manually screen the components provided by the component manufacturers, and use the components that are closest to the design parameters by using the error, and those that deviate greatly from the design parameters will not be used. This screening method has extremely high labor cost and extremely low component utilization rate. Do you think it can be cheaper?

As an electro-acoustic speaker e-commerce entrepreneur, I have my own views. First of all, we need to know the components of a speaker system, mainly including the cabinet, speakers and power amplifier circuits. These three parts largely determine the value of the whole set of speakers. I mainly talk about the influence of speakers on the price of speakers.

As the core component of the loudspeaker, its sound quality affects the price positioning of the whole loudspeaker in the market.

The configuration of the speaker is the leading factor of the sound quality trend of the speaker. Therefore, the reason why a good speaker is expensive is not only its high-end speaker configuration, but also the technical cost related to the sound quality debugging of the speaker. In addition, the cost of high-end atmospheric speakers and high-performance power amplifier circuit boards can create a good speaker that makes ears pregnant.

Generally speaking, you get what you pay. Why is a good speaker expensive? Because it's expensive for a reason.

In fact, a good sound system can make many friends listen to it for five to eight years.

Making speakers involves many fields such as design, calculation, manual technology, materials, etc. Imagination and aesthetic feeling are the finishing touch.

Take Rosso Fiorentino speaker factory that we visited and filmed in Florence, Italy as an example:

First of all, the box design of the speaker is extremely complicated, which not only has a luxurious and beautiful appearance, but also hides many mysteries that are difficult to understand from the appearance.

First of all, the speaker uses a variety of materials to change the inherent dyeing of a single material, such as all-solid wood and all-density board. The reasonable collocation of various materials makes the timbre more balanced and natural, which is better in theory; Rosso Fiorentino widely uses high-density, aluminum alloy metal plates and special high-strength glass panels for combination. Some speaker designs use some dyes to create "beautiful distortion", but Rosso Fiorentino is obviously not. Its design should first reduce these dyes, and separate independent chambers between units, and first require more neutrality and cleanliness.

Aluminum alloy metal plate can strengthen the rigidity and weight of the box and reduce the * * * earthquake when the unit works. For the restoration of the * * * earthquake, there is a specially designed unit fixing method, which is also a very clever design. Rosso Fiorentino's requirements are uncompromising design, which not only increases the number of processes, but also increases the manufacturing cost, especially since these processes are all made in Florence, Italy.

The high-strength glass panels located on both sides of the high-density box are not only simple to decorate, but also can suppress the resonance generated when the speaker works.

In the fixing of the unit, the general manufacturers install it directly from the front baffle with bolts. Rosso Fiorentino's treble unit and ultra-treble unit use extended bolts, and then add a metal plate at the back to fix the whole unit. The front of the unit is covered with a layer of colloid damping, and the back is fixed with a damping rubber ring instead of a nut. This design can make the whole unit not directly contact with the aluminum plate, completely isolate the micro-vibration, offset the * * * vibration when the unit works, and present a suspended installation, which is a great initiative. The bass unit supports the rear of the unit with wooden poles, which is very strong and convenient for transportation.

Secondly, the side of the box has a unique sandwich design. Firstly, a space is reserved from the side of the box. Marble particles made in carrara (like Florence, belonging to Tuscany) are packed in a box, ranging from 0,8mm to 1.2 mm, and then put into the reserved box. According to the box model, the components used, the installation quantity and the best installation position are accurately calculated. The function of this design is aimed at low frequency processing, and clean, correct and rich bass can be obtained for diving. The low frequency level of good reproduction recording has always been one of the important indexes to measure the design of speaker. Is Rosso Fiorentino an ingenious design?

The design of the box is not only that, but also an exclusive technology: the manufacturer stuck an aluminum foil and a specially formulated black mixed material on the panel inside the box (for technical secrecy, what substance will not be announced to the public), which was originally considered as a damper that can control resonance, and its function is to change the propagation speed of high frequency and increase the natural overtone when the high frequency is extended, not only relying on the high-pitched and ultra-high-pitched units themselves, but also complementing each other. This explains that Rosso Fiorentino speakers have good high-pitched ductility, but there is no harsh feeling when listening.

With the help of advanced and scientific computer acoustic simulation design (real professional acoustic design software is very expensive), professional anechoic room test equipment and on-site acoustic space inspection and playback, theory and practice are combined, and the requirements for units and frequency dividing components are also very strict. They will be required to customize units and frequency-dividing components from large factories according to their own design parameters. Only by being strict in professional control and picky in details can such product design be achieved.

Even the frequency divider of the entry box adopts luxurious components, which are meticulous in workmanship, just like the flagship process. Includes customized German Mondorf capacitors, resistors and inductors. All are welded by hand. In the design of the frequency divider of the flagship speaker, it is a horrible three-layer scaffold, and the capacitance is as big as a "coke can", which is simply a rear-stage power amplifier, not including the active design of the subwoofer.

Even the fixing tape is neat and flawless. See the two elastic bands on the fixed resistor? These two points are strikingly consistent. No additional cutting points are visible:

Every component can see the strict requirements of the manufacturer. Anyone who has seen the feet of Rosso Fiorentino speakers will be amazed at its design and processing. Not all speakers can be equipped. The structure of the foot nail is also exquisite. The movable gasket in the middle is made of nonmetal. You should have guessed that there is a vibration effect between the metal and this gasket, which plays a certain damping and isolation role. Also dealt with is the installation of the horn terminal. As can be seen from the previous introduction, the manufacturer deals with every link that produces vibration one by one, and isolates unnecessary vibration effects as much as possible.

The fixing method widely adopts the way of mother and child screws, that is, the mother screw is embedded in the box first, and then the child screw is installed, so that there is no need to worry about "germination" in future disassembly and assembly, and rubber rings are installed in key parts; The terminal is plated with platinum, which is quite hot.

Rosso Fiorentino's large concert hall can also refer to the introduction video:

Speakers and headphones are different products. HiFi headphones are basically the product of hype, but speakers are not.

From the market point of view, the speaker industry has been a relatively mature market after years of development, and there is a relatively sound standard system to measure the quality of speakers, but headphones are not.

As for why there is such a big difference between headphones and speakers, my previous article has explained in detail.

Unique 1 19: What's the difference between headphones and speakers? Which is better? Wonderful workmanship 1 19: the difference between speakers and headphones from the perspective of human auditory adaptability

On the other hand, in principle, if you want to make a top-end high-end speaker, the cost will inevitably remain high. Specifically reflected in the following points:

1. Unit cost. Top speakers are usually frequency division systems. Let's start with the bass unit. The bigger the woofer, the better. Usually, the bigger the bass unit, the better, similar to the "first-level rolling" in photography. The sound we hear is actually produced by the vibration of the speaker, and the sound we hear is directly proportional to the air volume pushed by the vibration of the speaker. Large-sized woofers emit the same volume, that is, push the same volume. The shorter the distance they need to move, the more linear the loudspeaker will be, and the less nonlinear distortion will be. At the same time, the speaker moves back and forth by the same distance, and the air volume pushed by the large-size bass unit is larger, and the obtained volume is also larger. When it comes to the cost of the bass unit, we have to mention the magnet and basin frame of the unit. The bigger the magnet is, the cost may increase several times or even dozens of times. Moreover, at this stage, the high-end magnets commonly used by major speaker companies are mostly patented materials, and they have to pay high patent fees at a high cost. However, a large-sized bass unit requires a large-sized basin. At the same time, in order to ensure the strength and rigidity of the whole speaker, the basin of high-end bass unit is mostly cast aluminum, and the cost of cast aluminum basin is also very high.

For high-pitched units, the traditional dome unit diaphragm materials are roughly divided into silk membrane and alloy. Diamonds and so on. Generally speaking, the higher the diaphragm strength of dome tweeter, the higher the vibration separation point, the smaller the high-frequency distortion and the better the high-frequency performance. In my opinion, to meet the so-called HiFi standard, at least alloy units should be used. Of course, alloy units are also divided into aluminum alloy, titanium alloy and so on. At present, the most ideal dome treble material may still be diamond diaphragm. However, even if the "diamond" diaphragm is planted artificially in industrial mass production, the cost is still high. If all costs are calculated, a 25mm diamond treble can probably buy several Sennheiser HD800S.

Most alto units are still dynamic structures, with B&; W as an example, B&; W's midrange unit is basically a benchmark, using Al-Fe-B magnets and materials conforming to the diaphragm. This set of things is not cheap, and the higher-end mid-range units are often more expensive.

2. Frequency divider cost. Except for some low-end speakers of Tianlang, few HiFi speaker brands do not use the frequency division system. For frequency division system, frequency divider is very important. Although multi-action iron headphones and ring iron headphones also have frequency dividers, the cost of frequency dividers for headphones is almost negligible. However, the speaker is not. The components of RLC frequency division network for speakers are relatively expensive because of their relatively high power and voltage and high quality requirements for capacitors.

If we admit that high-end fashion and leather bags are expensive, then we can easily understand that good speakers are expensive.

Because they are all expensive for one reason: handmade.

Speakers, motherboards, capacitors and frequency dividers are expensive, but the manufacture and assembly of the box requires a lot of manpower and time. Small-scale production is the main reason for the high price of advanced speakers.

Above handwork, it is artistic.

To put it bluntly, high-end speakers are a rebalancing of internal sound quality and external artistic temperament at a higher level.

This is also the most missing link that domestic speaker brands can't reach the top level in the world. Always imitate, never surpass.

Even if there is no electricity, every high-end speaker is an impressive work of art, and when it is electrified, it is an artist who can sing.

Therefore, men like high-end speakers, just as women like high-end fashion and purses.

There is a noun called dyeing.

Color development, also known as "sound dyeing", refers to the change of sound or indoor frequency response caused by some audio equipment, which endows the original sound with additional timbre characteristics. (Baidu)

The speaker must be dyed with sound, and the speaker dyed with sound cannot accurately reproduce the sound signal added to the speaker. Such as roar, high-frequency harsh sound, rough or uneven dry tenor, etc. Generally speaking, it is more tolerable to miss some sounds during sound playback than to add some sound dyes to music that were not available before. For example, the frequency response range of electron tube amplifier is not wide, and many high frequencies will be missed during playback, but we don't feel bad. Some speakers intentionally add sound coloring when making. For example, a small-caliber speaker with bass sounds good for the first time, but after listening for a long time, the bass feels burnt.

Therefore, a good speaker should minimize sound pollution, which puts high demands on the design and manufacture of box, speaker and frequency divider. I won't discuss boxes, speakers and frequency dividers in detail here, because each one can talk at length.

Good speakers are expensive for a reason!