Sony Unveils High-End Home Speaker from twice.com

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by Kal Rubinson

I believe that the high-end customer's attitudes are a consequence of Sony's failures over the years.

Kal.......I should have let you write my posts. That is all I was trying to say.

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by Still-One

Dan, I probably did not fully understand your initial post. I guess Sony could have done what Pioneer did with TAD and Teac did with Esoteric and create a new brand for their Hi-End gear.

Jim.......That is exactly one of the points I was trying to make. I still remember when Teac began to chisel away at their brand status introducing mid-fi products similar to Sony's big box store offerings. It got to the point where the mere sight of Teac's name on a product had me walking the other way. This was disheartening for me because Teac was a major influence on my early hi-fi days with their great reel to reel tape machines and outboard discreet Dolby noise reduction units. Fortunately, someone at Teac dropped the gavel that resurrected their direction, and Esoteric was born. The rest is history. They are back in high-end in a big way, developing and delivering some of the audio industry's finest components. If Sony had embraced this same concept, maybe naming the new brand Elevate or some such, and took the same path as Esoteric, we would now be standing in line to glimpse the latest and greatest upgrades for our Elevate systems. It's not too late. They market would encourage this advanced excellence in design concept, but the Sony logo would have to disappear to speed success.

[1KW]

In marketing the "name" is key . I have no problem buying Sony televisions, infact I own 3 of them and one blu ray player soon to be replaced by a Oppo 95. I agree with Dan for expensive hi end audio they need to do what toyota did and create a lexus brand.

[Haurock]

This is an interesting thread. I could be WRONG here, but seems that most Japanese companies who makes products destined for North American markets go through these cycles of excellent to good to bad... Sansui, Pionneer, Techics, Kenwood, Yamaha, Teac, Sony, Onkyo, etc.. have all gone through this cyclical metamorphises.. and I've never understood why. Though my assumption is that the want volume sales and have to lower both prices and quality to achieve that..

[jdandy]

Rock.......One Japanese company comes to mind that has held true to its roots, Accuphase, often commonly refered to as the Japanese McIntosh.

[jdandy]

David.......I think Sony could do very well with the brand name Elevation. I like it. The name alludes to being above the pack. It's fresh. Come on Sony, wake up.

[Face]

I agree that they could do much better with those speakers under another name.

The drivers they're using are near TOTL and very easy to work with. Even a newb to crossover design could build a nice sounding speaker using those drivers. In fact, I'm using the same tweeter in one of the custom speakers I designed and another one I'm working on now.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by Still-One

You are way off here Dan, you need to give these speakers a chance, I have heard a version of these at both RMAF 2008 and 2010. These were not in ho hum rooms. These were driven my large PASS amps, using EMM gear and Kimber Cable . In fact I am sure that both times the room was Kimber's plus they were using Keith Johnson recordings. They could have used any top speaker but they choose these Sony's.

I would take them hands down over Sophia's in a heartbeat.

Jim

I completely agree; I heard thse twice at length at RMAF in 2009 and 2010 with Ray Kimber's Isomike recording and they are amongst the best-sounding speakers I've heard at any price, bar none. I spent an hour talking to the lead designer of these from Sony. I can assure folks here that these are very special speakers indeed, and are the reference speakers in Ray Kimber's system. I did a complete write up on them on another forum if folks are interested in seeing it.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Oh boy, I just can't wait to call all my audio buddies and get them over to hear my new Sony speakers. I'm so excited! Yeah, right.

In my humble opinion, Sony has an image problem when it comes to high end audio, especially in the speaker category. To simply utter the name Sony conjures up images of television, Walkmans, cheap CD players, MP3 players, computers, home theater in a box systems, and on and on. Sure, Sony has produced some very nice components through the years, but always as hit or miss in the market. There was the time when they had their ES series of gear, where some of the first components were knockout performers. Then they began stenciling ES on everything down to the cheap level components, wiping out the prestige of the premium components. They just don't know when to leave well enough alone. Had they developed their Elevated Series ES products like Toyota did the Lexus line, and maintained cutting edge technology with these products, I might be able to take them seriously. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, comes a new pair of Sony speakers at $15,200 a pair, and Sony is expecting to be taken seriously in the high-end audio market again with their new entry. Good for them. I hope it works, and they stay the course, but I still say they have an identity crisis to overcome long before they will make any inroads into high-end audio that amount to serious market penetration. I wish them well in their attempt.

The crazy thing is, these speakers might actually sound pretty good.

Hi Dan,
They not only sound good, they are spectacularly good. I would say the best speakers I've ever heard are Jeff's GamuT S-9s, Dynaudio Confidence C4s, TAD Reference Ones, Evolution Acoustics MMiniTwos, Magicos, and these Sony SS-AR1's; as such they are amongst the very-best sounding speakers I have ever heard.

They are the result of a small, dedicated Lockheed-style skunk-works team inside Sony who are all truly passionate about music.

Oh, and I heard them in a real dog of a system: Ray Kimber's RMAF demo room, with the same custom-designed electronics that David Chesky uses at Chesky Records. One of the four or five best sounding systems I've ever heard.

[Puma Cat]

For those interested, here is the report I wrote up on these speakers in SH Forums back in Oct 2009:

SH Forums - View Single Post - Ruminations from RMAF (Rocky Mountain Audio Fest '09)....

I saw Sugiura-san again at RMAF this year, and it was pleasure to see and talk to him again. One of the most gracious people you could hope to meet in the audio industry. I can tell you from talking to him personally that bringing this speaker to the U.S. was a labor of love for him, and he dedicated much passion inside Sony to get Sony Corporate to allow his team to bring them to the U.S. market.

As a further note, Music Lovers Berkeley/San Francisco will carrying these speakers in their portfolio and they are one of the best high-end stores in the greater Bay Area.