Best Speakers

Brilliant news. I wonder if anyone from AVI will grow a pair and turn up??? I doubt it. I'm sure we will get a report after pie-fi.

Well , it looks as if the life has been sucked out of this thread ( or has it?) and those AVI culty vampire chaps will have to find a new host thread to infest , spread their evil rantings and lure a few more innocent victims into their despicable temple of doom and despair .

  Bring it on .

 Grow a pair of what ?

What a bizarre statement. Are you ok?

Bizarre? The thread should be renamed thus.

Never felt better! There's only one speaker company left who won't have their products compared to a real hi-fi. They won't go to the Bristol Show to be compared to 170 real hi-fi companies and the cult members won't go to pie-fi to compare their systems against real hi-fis. 

Now for the best bit. Someone has started athread specifically for AVI cult members to talk about their speakers:

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/welcome-to-new-members/biggest-disappointment

What a great day.

How extensive is your experience of listening to AVI speakers jj?

Ummm... You do know that the ADM9's have been reviewed (and 5 star rated) by WHF?

http://www.whathifi.com/review/avi-adm91

And the previous version also got 5 stars:

http://www.whathifi.com/review/avi-adm9

I may not like the claims AVI makes, how they talk about traditional audio brands, mags and audiophiles or how they "advertised" on this forum in the past, but I don't doubt that they make a quality product. 

And that is the whole point isn't it? AVI claiming that people who go to hi-fi shows are not normal. It makes me want to give them a wide berth. The way they ''advertise'' under false names on the forum. Would you trust their business model? No, me neither. 

No doubt the product will suit a small number of people in the hi-fi market. that's fine and nobody has a problem with that. If someone has £1,500 and wanys active speakers, then great. However, we have seeen them recommended for someone looking to spend £350 on speakers, another one was £600 on a DAC, another one £800 on a CD transport (which he'd still need, even with active speakers), £4,000 on a CD Hard Drive etc. So in the end we have no other option but to laugh at them.

Another option is to join us. 

Go on, you know you want to! 

I think you have that the wrong way round, jj.

Do you not think it's the silly ideas of the hifi 'foo' brigade that the 'normal' world is laughing at ?

e.g. - placing bags of 'black ravioli' underneath your amplifiers, and deluding yourselves that it improves the sound from your loudspeakers.

HiFi is dying by it's own hand because of the ridiculous concepts promoted by 'quacks' and charlatans, and the pathetic attempts to distort the values of established science and engineering, which are what actually produces the best sound equipment.

JC

I'm not entirely sure that you know what your own point is.

HiFi is generally a niche market in any case, people who go to HiFi shows are in fewer numbers I'd imagine than actual owners and people who take their own kit to such shows are much fewer still, so define normal in this context. I don't know whether or not AVI themselves make any claim in this regard, but I personally have questioned the reasoning and only found out recently that that's what some people do. Normal or not, it's certainly not for me as I don't feel the need to validate my purchases.

Regarding the suitability of the product, they fit the bill for a far wider market than you are prepared to accept and their business model would seem to be perfectly good I'd say, with rather a lot of forum members having the same system in their sigs, but the greatest success would appear to be overseas by all accounts.

The AVI actives were almost unique at their inception and their popularity is growing, they have also it seems, spurred manufacturers to start putting out their own incarnations of a complete system in one package (Dynaudio Xeo range and MoosAudio to name but two). More and more people are using actives and even pro audio monitors are increasingly used in a hifi context. It may be that AVI are simply ahead of the curve, but the reality is that products like these are increasingly common and more popular bceause they off another alternative to traditional hifi with all the quality, but less faffing with boxes and people generally seem to want less faffing with boxes, they want simple plug, play and forget solutions which include mini and midi all in ones. This can also be seen with TVs going the 'smart' route offering web browsing, streaming and TV functions. The AV industry as a whole, is moving or has moved to digital in general, so the remaining sectors that hang on will need to change to survive, no doubt hifi in the traditional sense will remain in some form, but it will be a greatly diminished market.

So laugh away all you like (in a maniacal way I'd imagine), I think you might be in the small and decreasing minority, ie not normal.

Think you're a bit muddled there, mate. ATC (where AVI learnt their craft) had actives for a long time, as did Dynaudio, B&O, Quad and others. Martin Logan have always had an active component. Active computers speakers have been around for a long time, the only thing AVI added - and credit to them - was to add a DAC.

Unfortunately, the world is moving on, and AVI are beginning to look a bit tired. Dynaudio, Canton and Moosaudio, and even KEF have left them behind, and that may be why we're suddenly seeing them being plugged on this forum and at least one other. I'd be surprised if their market share was increasing, given the new competition. I also think the floorstander was a mistake. It might sound OK, but it's ugly (my OH wouldn't have one in the house), inflexible and expensive for a speaker you can't compare with any other. 

Now for something sensible like breakfast. A shipment of Vegemite with my name on it just arrived!

No, I'm really not. The ADM9s were not simply active speakers, but included a DAC and preamp, so the very thing that AVI added was the very thing that made the product almost unique.

I'm not sure that I'd consider that AVI have been left behind. They still offer more flexibility for use and have an impressive headroom in power. The front ported design makes them more position friendly also.

I had Dyn actives, good, but the rear port can make them difficult to position, Moosaudio will be expensive when they get to the UK, less flexible due to limited connectivity, lower powered and smaller drivers. KEF and Canton? Pc aimed and not really state of the art. In reality, there are not many products that offer what the ADM9s do for the price. Manufacturers are just testing the water at the moment, but maybe soon some real competition will arrive. I just don't see it yet.

I think you are on jjbomber's wavelength -  regarding all-in-ones - given his recent purchase and enjoyment of the Naim UnitiLite (using n-Stream and his iPhone/iPad).

For a short while I considered AVI ADM9.1s as a 'downsizing' solution, but the box count, cables and mains sockets required would have been too many in our particular instance.  My wife still prefers to play CDs, I prefer iTunes. Also I still like FM radio and AirPlay, BBC iPlayer equally. An ADM9.1 solution would have meant an Apple TV and a CD transport and an FM tuner.  Factor in the active speaker's requirement for two mains cables/sockets (and speaker stands) and it was not looking very 'minimal' at all. So - at least on a practical level - ADM9.1s were out (no matter how many people tried to convince me I shouldn't still like FM radio, or that my wife's preference for CDs shouldn't get in the way of 'progress').  So I went for other (passive) options and ended up choosing my M-CR603 where AirPlay, FM, CD, streaming etc. all live in one box on the end of one mains cable.

Expense was another factor. After the proceeds from the sale of my Naim set-up (and an annual bonus),  I didn't want to blow too large a chunk of the 'pot' on hi-fi.    I wanted new furniture and a holiday and a new HD TV and some re-decorating done and a £500 rug we had fallen in love with (and some money left in the bank) so £1200 actives + tuner and CD player + Apple TV were more than I was prepared to part with.  (People sometimes forget that the ADM9s are still an expensive, hand-made, luxury hi-fi item from a bespoke British company, when compared with most people's budgets.)

The ADM9s are, no doubt, superb (and truly minimalist for someone needing only one compact source like an ATV or SBT), but they are not 'the future' except for those well heeled enough to consider £1250 - £1400 'good value' in a world where most of the population think a £99 dock (or mini-system or PC speakers) to be lavish excess :-)   (I have seen people far, far wealthier than me agonise over whether to spend the extra on a £200 set of plastic 5.1 'lifestyle' speakers when buying a new TV.

The future is plastic and it costs £99 and there is a fair chance it's made by Logitech.

I have to disagree here, a.l. I'm not sure what yardstick you are using to denote ugly, but I think the ADM40's look better than the previous speaker arrangement I had (Tannoy DC8's on Partington stands). More importantly, the mem-sahib also thinks they look 'smart'. The 40's are 'one piece' and look more like a bit of furniture than a sonic warfare installation, they are way more popular with the females in my family and blend in to the surroundings better. And since the drivers are so good, they rely less on cabinet acoustics and precise placement in order to produce a 'good' sound. This means that the positioning of the other furniture in the room is not subordinate to the needs of the speakers.

As for being a speaker you "can't compare with any other"; I can't see how this is AVi's fault. There are pre-existing 'price points' within the market but these are created by bigger manufacturers with wider ranges of offerings so that one product doesn't impinge upon the 'selling space' of the next product. And AVi is under no obligation to fit a given price point, anyway. Their stated intention was to build the best speaker they could - but at a price point that could be afforded by more than just a handful of uber-rich. You have to remember that AVi is just two guys and they have bills to pay and livings to earn, just like the rest of us - they're not doing undertaking a HiFi vanity project and they're not a large company with a huge infrastructure and support mechanism. It matters to them if the ADM40's dont sell, whereas a larger company is better placed to absorb a 'duff' model.

I think AVi have - unintentionally - established their own price point, rather than trying to fit into one that was already there. That is one of the benefits of being a (very!) small company. The downside is that, if the products fail to sell, they have so much more to lose than larger companies.