Yes! This and suspension are my next mods for sure!

 

3db is 50% , I'm sure anyone could hear the difference.

And IA never said who makes their speakers ?

 

Beau M was correct actually. 3dB is the lowest level difference that most people can discern as a change. The 50% is the increase in electrical power required to produce +3dB, but it is not 50% louder. There are big differences between Electrical Power, Sound Power, Sound Pressure, and Loudness.

The human brain tends to envision things linearly, but our perception of sound is logarithmic. It is not intuitive for most folks. While 3dB is just barely perceptible, 10dB will be perceived as twice as loud (and require 10 times the power).

Most folks dramatically misunderstand amplifier power and it's effect on sound output. I've had folks say to me that they were really concerned about the 200W on our sub channel, that they really felt like they needed 250W. Seems like a large difference, right? But that's less than 1dB. No human on the planet can hear that difference.

I have said previously. We use multiple OEM/ODM suppliers from the US, China, and SE Asia. There are only a handful of speaker manufacturers in the world, but there are thousands of audio brands. They are almost all made on the same production lines. Our speakers roll off the same production lines as household top-of-the-line names. And some great speakers roll off the same lines as some real garbage. Are you a big Alpine fan? Not bad, they are selling much better speakers these days. But they don't make them. They are better because they are using a good build house and started using Klippel in the design process. Like Morel? They only make some of their own stuff, the majority of what they sell is made in China. Focal makes their own stuff (or at least most), and they have some interesting proprietary methods, but at the end of the day there are other build houses that can do the same thing for less. The same thing is true for the MINI you are driving. It has a MINI marque on the hood. But there are thousands of parts made by thousands of sub-contractors under that hood, built do BMW/MINI's specs and standards.

It's not that hard to build a good speaker (relatively speaking). The problem is that it's not CHEAP. You need masters-degree-level knowledge in physics to truly understand what makes good sound. Marketing departments take advantage of this and have convinced most hobbyists that X brand or Y company is a better speaker for Z reason. Usually it's BS.

 

I'll add to this… there can be value in owning the production line, but it's not required for a good quality result.

For example, some of Sam Adam's beer is produced in the same factories that brew Schlitz, using the same tanks. Does this mean Sam's is awful? No. Nor does it mean Schlitz is particularly good.

What both have in common, though, is very consistent quality, because the people who run the factory are good at running that kind of factory. The difference in the product comes from the ingredients, processes, and the design intent.

Similarly, the same contract factories that make Apple's iPhones with jeweler-like precision also make sloppy $79 pre-paid phones. The difference is that the product designers specify different processes for the factory to execute, buy or spec different components, and have paid for different results.

I don't care who makes IA's speakers. Unless the factory is staffed by incompetents (and such factories don't last long in the premium market), they don't have a lot to do with the quality and performance of the speakers that end up in IA's kits.


Cheers. And my apologies to anyone who enjoys Schlitz.

 

6dB when using current.

3dB when speaking acoustic.

I can hear 1 dB difference!

 

Being honest, depending on your skill level there may or may not be an alternative, for a plug and play the Integral Audio is a great system. However, if you take the time to piece together the system and can do the install, really the only thing that could not be handled by anyone is building the sub box, then the Integral system can easily be beat for the budget. In fact for only a couple hundred more than the Integral you can, and since they do not specify what drivers they use I'm going to say their drivers are not better than a Focal Polyglass three way system and a Morel Ultimo SC sub being slightly overpowered by separate ARC Audio amps, include a full DSP unit. This gives you a parametric equalizer and time delay correction. No matter what they do with their drivers to physically tune them they cannot be tuned better than a set of quality drivers put through a parametric equalizer. I wouldn't have responded to this thread except the "more than a new JCW" comment was way out of line. For about $500 less a similar system can be built. For about $200-$300 more a much better system can be built and for about $1000 more a system that theirs, or most other systems for that matter, cannot hold a candle to can be built, none of those approach the price of a JCW.