Ebay speaker scam?

[dougg]

Provided Link: Speaker on ebay.. (http://cgi.ebay.com/THEATER-RESEARCH-TR-1620-HOME-THEATER-TOWER-SPEAKERS_W0QQitemZ5847965699QQcategoryZ94904QQrdZ1 QQcmdZViewItem)


Look at these speakers. What is wrong? Just the cabinets would cost far more then the Buy it now!

Anyone heard of this brand?

Doug

[aricaudio]

> Look at these speakers. What is wrong? Just
> the cabinets would cost far more then the
> Buy it now!

> Anyone heard of this brand?

> Doug

These are crap to the max man. I saw a pair a friend bought straight out of a white van and they are not worth the plastic, and particle board they are made of.
Aric

[bryanjackson]

It'd be sweet if those were real Seas Excel drivers wouldn't it?

They do a really fine job of looking like an audiophile speaker company. Drivers are very very very cheap (cardboard pretty much), crossovers are pretty much non existant, and the cabinet isn't made very well.

Of course at this same price, a Polk speaker has very very very cheap drivers, almost non existant crossovers, and poorly made cabinent. :)

[madrok]

...those are the Seas Excel drivers, they are surely not. Still, $260/pair delivered isn't bad.

What do you mean the cabinets would cost more delivered? That doesn't make it a great deal. If I offered to send you a year of old newspapers for $50, would you say yes? After all, even the shipping is worth more than that...

[dougg]

> These are crap to the max man. I saw a pair
> a friend bought straight out of a white van
> and they are not worth the plastic, and
> particle board they are made of.
> Aric

Yeah kind of figured that "BEAUTIFUL PIANO BLACK LACQUER FINISH" should read "Beautifil polished black plastic".

With a ad like that I would bet they sell alot of them..

Doug

[curt_c]

suddenly moved into a house occupied by squirrels.......

The above was a quote from their site. The 'review' was not even signed...

But it does beg the question:

If woofers are bears, and tweeters are squirrels,
a midrange would be a...

C

[wd]

> Look at these speakers. What is wrong? Just
> the cabinets would cost far more then the
> Buy it now!

> Anyone heard of this brand?

> Doug

-Look at the companys web page. at the bottom all the seals the company has. The FBAA-all of its companys are shady.
<A HREF="http://www.trtheaterresearch.com/">http://www.trtheaterresearch.com/</A>
<A HREF="http://fbaa.us/index.htm">http://fbaa.us/index.htm</A>

[dw2]

Compared to the taste of most on this board, these are likely a bit "cheesey". But if you think about the typical mass retail crowd that will shop on ebay, these really arent that bad of a deal.

I would never buy them.
Most on this board would never buy them.
But I bet 49 out of 50 of all of our neighbors would think they were great.

There is alot of BS in the description, but no more than you see every day in virtually every product sold to the public.
Sell to your market...

[davidld]

And that's saying something :-)

I've heard of this company many times before. This company has an elaborate Web site that looks quite legit and serious--not unlike a lot of sites operated by other small higher-end speaker companies. It's actually a fun read. But I've also seen the name mentioned on the Internet along with other White Van speakers like Dogg Digital.

Not having heard a pair I am in no real position to say they are or aren't worth the Buy it Now Price.

What makes a scam and what is legit business in the speaker business is an interesting question.
Some here regard certain Bose products as a scam too, but they doesn't mean charging top $ for something that can be built for a tiny fraction of the sales price is in any way illegal--indeed it's the American way. How much does a copy of Windows cost Microsoft to make?

If shoppers want to pay $189 + $79 shipping for a pair of these speakers on ebay w/o examining them and listening to them first, who am I to say that they shouldn't or that they will surely be unhappy once they arrive.
D

> These are crap to the max man. I saw a pair
> a friend bought straight out of a white van
> and they are not worth the plastic, and
> particle board they are made of.
> Aric

[rone]

You will probably find the frequency response is like a rollercoaster ride. For the money you would need to spend to correct them, you could have bought better to begin with.

[Mr.Thomas Aaron Hero]

I have heard one of those Bose "wave" radio's and I believe it is a scam and should be illegal for Bose to tell the average consumer that their "wave radio sounds better than stereo systems costing many times the price of a wave radio" I have listened to one and it sounded like a cheap $20 boombox,Only the Wave radio cost $800,That IS a crime in my opinion! and I feel sorry for any one who has fallen for Bose's advertising,They simply LIE!

Aaron Hero

[bogie]

Okay. Let's say the sensitivity is...

90 1w/1m

And you can throw 300 watts at 'em, like the add says...

But it also says 107db max SPL!

So...

90/1
93/2
96/4
99/8
102/16
105/32
108/64

Which means you can kill these puppies with about 50 watts or so.

> Look at these speakers. What is wrong? Just
> the cabinets would cost far more then the
> Buy it now!

> Anyone heard of this brand?

> Doug

[irishbreed]

[shockwave]

Well, I actually have 2 sets of this brand of speakers, and I have been impressed with the quality of the cabinetwork and some of the drivers. My piano gloss black towers are built from 3/4 MDF, and have corner and shelf bracing.
Also, the finish is excellent-actual polished piano gloss paint. The other tower set I own has cherry finish, but I dont know if its veneer or
vinyl, (how do you tell them apart?). Also has
corner and shelf bracing and 3/4 Mdf. My drivers are actual silk dome tweeters, with a rear chamber
and 800 hz Fs. My drivers are actual woven fiberglass with a decent xmax 5-6mm based on visual inspection of the one way max excursion and the 5 mm thick top plate of the driver. My 10
inch side subwoofer is coated paper with a large
40 oz at least magnet, and a 7 mm thick top plate
with a peak one way excursion of 13 mm, so xmax
probably in the 7-8 mm range one way. My matching
surround set is 5/8 MDF with corner bracing, and same fiberglass woofers and silk dome tweeters.
Now for the bad news. None of the drivers are
shielded in my towers, so I cant set my front
speakers very close to my TV. Also as mentioned the crossovers are pretty crappy only 6 db/octave
throughout the set, and the wiring used inside the speakers is very thin. At least my crossover uses decent components-Bennic capacitors, air core or bar core inductors depending on xover frequency, and a pc board . I will piont out that my speakers arent the ones in the picure so i cant comment on those exact models. My model is the TR-2501 piano gloss black surround set, the TR-2840 silver/paino gloss black towers, and the TR-2920 powered cherry/piano gloss black towers.

[davidld]

It seems to me that from a DIY perspective there is more to work with here than some of the guys are claiming. And unlike the other posters here, you have actually gotten to listen to the speakers at some length.

If the cabinets are solid, that's an excellent starting point. You could put in heavier internal wires, but optimistically the crossovers may already take into acccount the wire resistance.

The 6 db per octave crossovers may be appropriate given the drivers. After all, Vanderstein uses 1st order crossovers in his speakers too. Unless you are hearing something obviously not right I'm not sure I would want to second guess the manufacturer on that part, esp if the parts used to build the crossovers are of good quality.

All in all based on your analysis this might not be the scam that is sometimes claimed, indeed they could be decent speakers for the money.

D

[unknownuser]

Guys,

If you did not see or listen these speakers before please do not make any conclusion. I saw and heard these speaker in CES !! show 2005. For the price they asked. I do not see that bad. For the price You will surprised what you get from these Chinese made speakers. The chinese made drivers PE or madisound sold are only cost 30% if you can get in China! Most of these cheap speakers are useing Chinese drivers.

Lynn


(Originally posted by: lynn)

[johnastockman]

> I have heard one of those Bose
> "wave" radio's and I believe it is
> a scam and should be illegal for Bose to
> tell the average consumer that their
> "wave radio sounds better than stereo
> systems costing many times the price of a
> wave radio" I have listened to one and
> it sounded like a cheap $20 boombox,Only the
> Wave radio cost $800,That IS a crime in my
> opinion! and I feel sorry for any one who
> has fallen for Bose's advertising,They
> simply LIE!

> Aaron Hero

Yes, they do lie...considering what they wanted the place I worked at to do, not only the "special" listening room just for their products, but the area of electronics that was kept hidden from customers. The owner said "get lost!".

John A.

[johnastockman]

> Well, I actually have 2 sets of this brand
> of speakers, and I have been impressed with
> the quality of the cabinetwork and some of
> the drivers. My piano gloss black towers are
> built from 3/4 MDF, and have corner and
> shelf bracing.
> Also, the finish is excellent-actual
> polished piano gloss paint. The other tower
> set I own has cherry finish, but I dont know
> if its veneer or
> vinyl, (how do you tell them apart?). Also
> has
> corner and shelf bracing and 3/4 Mdf. My
> drivers are actual silk dome tweeters, with
> a rear chamber
> and 800 hz Fs. My drivers are actual woven
> fiberglass with a decent xmax 5-6mm based on
> visual inspection of the one way max
> excursion and the 5 mm thick top plate of
> the driver. My 10
> inch side subwoofer is coated paper with a
> large
> 40 oz at least magnet, and a 7 mm thick top
> plate
> with a peak one way excursion of 13 mm, so
> xmax
> probably in the 7-8 mm range one way. My
> matching
> surround set is 5/8 MDF with corner bracing,
> and same fiberglass woofers and silk dome
> tweeters.
> Now for the bad news. None of the drivers
> are
> shielded in my towers, so I cant set my
> front
> speakers very close to my TV. Also as
> mentioned the crossovers are pretty crappy
> only 6 db/octave
> throughout the set, and the wiring used
> inside the speakers is very thin. At least
> my crossover uses decent components-Bennic
> capacitors, air core or bar core inductors
> depending on xover frequency, and a pc board
> . I will piont out that my speakers arent
> the ones in the picure so i cant comment on
> those exact models. My model is the TR-2501
> piano gloss black surround set, the TR-2840
> silver/paino gloss black towers, and the
> TR-2920 powered cherry/piano gloss black
> towers.

I was at the last three CES shows, and I don't know what that one guy heard, but the speakers that were actually hooked up (majority of them were not) sounded, well, like the cabinets were poorly constructed and the drivers/XO not well implemented. I guess sound is very subjective and some might like the sound, others may not. I was very fortunate to be able to peruse CES with John Fairchild, a driver engineer who worked at Cerwin Vega, who now runs TRU Technology (tube-based car amps). He is much more knowledgeable than I, but he just shook his head and walked away. Later that year, a friend had purchased some of these speakers (I didn't know until after he spent his $). I listened to them and we compared 'em to some of the projects I have done from Wayne J., Lou C., and Dave Brown. There was no comparison...he sold them to someone else and I made him some of Curt's Triune's. But if you're happy with the sound, then you got a good deal, and it doesn't matter what others might say about them. But for me, they will always be a "white van speaker".

John A.

[max]

Doug,
I bought them 'cause I left all my tools back home in Italy and though for the price the wood should woth it.... and it does.
Mine are TR 2810
These speakers have 1/2' MDF with extra 3/4' side piano MDF per side and extra 3/4' front baffle.
Internal side bracing with double chambers(.94 bottom and .76 top)
I was did build better speakers myself but not as pretty as these are.
If I am selling these I'll buy a new pair for another project.
Feel free to e-mail me for further info
Max