Polk Audio SR 6500

[Echo42987 10+ year member]

Happens every day and vice versa..Theres exceptions to every rule,but no way no how does Harmon or Bose know how to make a better speaker than Focal,Seas,Morel etcAll of companies in which are a fraction of the size of Harmon and or Bose...

Does Ferrari make a better car than Chevy,or Toyota?

Fvckin A right they do....

Yeah but Harmon and Bose don't really need to because they have such a high end name. Bose doesn't need to change their marketing at all because EVERYONE knows who they are....They could make there stuff sound worse and still get more profits...

lol but I see your point and it could go either way!

But I still want to get ahold of the Polk SR's. I have Polk towers and surround in my basemant and absolutley lover the Soung Quality they have. It can't be beaten IMO. It's truly incredible!

-Nick-

 

[Ignatowski 5,000+ posts]

Yeah but Harmon and Bose don't really need to because they have such a high end name. Bose doesn't need to change their marketing at all because EVERYONE knows who they are....They could make there stuff sound worse and still get more profits...
lol but I see your point and it could go either way!

But I still want to get ahold of the Polk SR's. I have Polk towers and surround in my basemant and absolutley lover the Soung Quality they have. It can't be beaten IMO. It's truly incredible!

-Nick-

They are good speakers none the less,overpriced IMO

 

[OldOneEye 10+ year member]

Figured I would merge your posts.

Have you ever been to a large companies R & D department? I've been to Rockford Fosgate, Directed and Miteks to name a few. How much has Morel's design changed in the last several years (not much, still the hexacoil, still the large voicecoil). Very little time is spent "stealing" designs (engineers are a curious lot, they like knowing how stuff works, and they have a budget to buy competitors stuff to see how it ticks... for the most part, amplifier and speaker design have been in the same place for decades), most time is spent coming up with new ideas.

As for knowing 10 times as much, who do you tink Harman hires? When they go shopping for talent, they get the best they can find. Gary Biggs, Mark Eldridge type of caliber. The sales manager I deal has been quoted so many times in trade magazines they might as well make him a associate editor. So even if the guys at Morel know 2 times as much, they get buried when a big competitor has 10 times the engineers and six sigma guys figuring every place they can make better product more profitably.

The speaker guy at Directed won several Grand Prix awards for products he designed over the years. Again, big companies who "steal".

Polk Audio product got reviewed by a guy who is also a consultant (and has done consulting for Polk Audio). So I'll call a spade a spade and say that while the guy knows more about product than most reviewers (how its designed, etc.) he probably has some internal bias to deal with versus bias from other guys.

Keep in mind products that don't advertise heavily (or are more reliant on measurements) still get very good reviews. Image Dynamics got a great review for the ID Max 12. One of the last issues had a sub review that basically said it was one of the best subs they have ever tested.

Bad reviews, they might never get published. I think Rob Hephner (the guy at CarSound magazine) mentioned that a certain shape of sub never got a published review because didn't do well. Other items had similar fates. Product that doesn't do well doesn't get published. They aren't consumer reports.

Ferrari is owned by Fiat. If you have ever driven an older Ferrari versus a new one, or have worked on one you will see a change in Philosophy. Did an Aston Martin or a new Jaguar. In initial quality and Scion XB will probably eat a Ferrari for lunch. But that isn't what people care about at that price point or that brand.

I would disagree with your arguement about 75% of the time. Just because a company doesn't make high end product (and trust me, Harman does, Mitek makes stuff that went on the space shuttle), doesn't mean there engineers can't. Again, look at the Ford GT. The marketing and sales guys are the guys who decide what they will make or not make based on how much they think they can sell.

Polk Audio's product is their own design, trickled down from their home line. It isn't a Morel, or a Dynaudio, or a off the shelf, sourced from some chinese manufacturer that everyone else gets it.

Not defending Polk per say, just pointing out that the little guys still face the same laws of supply/demand, physics, economies of scale, invisible hand, etc. that the big guys do.

Juan

I would dissagree with this statement 100% , large companys R&D usually consists of Spy's that steal ideas and designs from little companies and call them their own....Morel (for example)is a small company that knows 10X more than the peeps at Infinity and or Polk on how to make great SQ,I could also use ten other smaller companies but for the sake of argument ill use Morel.

So it doesn't trickle down...IMO

Goodyear tire is also a great example of BIG THIEVES from smaller companies

As for the Polks being a great speaker,I haven't owned a set but they got excellent reviews at Car Audio Magazine.

I always picture in my head when a magazine gets a item for review and that product thats being reviewed is also made by an advertiser that advertises in the magazine (like Polk is) IF they did get a poor review they would risk loosing advertising dollars by that MFG and full page magazine ads cost as much as a mid size Beamer...Take that with a grain of salt

Happens every day and vice versa..Theres exceptions to every rule,but no way no how does Harmon or Bose know how to make a better speaker than Focal,Seas,Morel etc

All of companies in which are a fraction of the size of Harmon and or Bose...

Does Ferrari make a better car than Chevy,or Toyota?

Fvckin A right they do....

Does a 300C resemble a Bentley?Whis is better?Which is a bigger Co?

Does that new POS Caddy 2 seater car resemble a Benz SL model?

I could go on and on

Bigger companys steal **** all the time

Fvck Willy Wonka,he stole the ummpaloompas ideas anyways

sorry ass midgets

 

[Beat_Dominator 5,000+ posts]

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A note though, Dynaudio and Morel, and Seas....are all forign companies. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they get the BEST of the Best in europe. Of course some will cross the pond but in all I bet the engineering talents are surprisingly close. Then there are companies like JmLab/Focal over there that are pretty massive in their own right.

But yes, Harman's R&D is probably one of the best out there. Ferraris/Jags/Astons/Rolls' ALL were known to fall apart back before they let themselves be consummed by larger corps.

 

[Gary S 10+ year member]

All good companies, big or small, are going to copy other inventions where it's legal and not patented... it's a natural part of competition; moreover, it's a natural part of human learning to watch how someone else does it, and then copy that and improve upon it. How do you think you learned to talk? - you watched lips and listened, and then imitated. All the better manufacturers are learning from each other and improving on previous inventions.

What disturbs me is that too many products are the same, "me too" products... it's as if some audio products are turning into comodities... the biggest differences seem to be cosmetic... (and woofers that look like car wheels, LOL!) as an example, amps on the outside can look very different... but on the inside, most are the same... try to find an amp that is not tri-mode anymore, with an inverter permanently wired in one channel... I'd like somebody to name just one amp that is not a trimode design... I'm betting there is not one out there... which means all the amps out there today are essentially Rockford Fosgate clones... even the Asian companies went the way of Fosgate!!!! But home audiophiles would laugh at those designs.

 

[bri487 5,000+ posts]

So what if a small dealer carries them? Does that make Polk Audio better at that point?
Unfortunately people aren't rational when it comes to the stuff they buy for their cars or the cars themselves. No offense to Zapco or Arc, but what kind of speaker design team do they have behind them? Polk Audio and Boston for example have a shitload of R & D because they spread it out over a ton of different proudct. Ditto Harman (JBL and Infinity car). Sure its "mass market" but when you have hundreds instead of handfuls of engineers, it is bound to trickle down.

At this point Polk is running a deal where if you buy them and don't like them you can send them back for a full refund (at the dealer level). How often do you see anyone taking product back without a gun to their heads?

Juan

zapco only has esb of italy.

 

[OldOneEye 10+ year member]

Is ESB of Italy a $5.5 billion company? Harman is. Heck, to give you an idea they are worth 150 times more than Rockford Fosgate, and Rockford Fosgate is a pretty big company with a pretty sorted product offering and engineering team.

If you told me we were talking about the software industry, where one giant just buys everyone else (or steals their designs and invite them to sue so they can bankrupt them in legal fees) I would agree.

But there is alot of engineering going on, and companies you are referring to aren't just standing still (I will say this, JL Audio is smaller than Rockford (I'm guessing) and they beat them to market with the Clean Sweep), Rockford is smaller than Harmon International, and they beat them to market with the 3Sixty processors. Harman has one they are going to ship in the next few months that will do what what the clean sweep and 3Sixty do and even more. It might seem they are "copying" each other, but based on development times and what have you they are all just responding to the market.

Juan

zapco only has esb of italy.