Danny Tackles Andrews Jones: The Source Point 8! Spoiler Alert (It's Really Good)

[n.lyndley.]

This isn’t some YouTube audio reviewer’s opinion… you simply can’t argue with cold, hard empirical facts.
Outstanding work. 👏

[jimdavis]

Regarding steel parts in the signal path I recently inspected several power amplifiers with a magnet to see what components used steel. I found all the capacitors, resistors and transistors had tinned steel leads. The TO3 power output transistors not only had steel leads but also steel cases. I also inspected a valve power amplifier and found similar results. All the valve pins were steel and the output went through a transformer with a laminated iron core. Are you confused? I certainly am.

[stephenyoud]

Excellent work by Andrew Jones again and a great improvement by Danny. Is that 3 videos this wee? What a great week it's been.

[Bradimus]

Erin's audio corner has spin-o-rama data for the 8 and the 10 and he subjectively preferred the 8. Less high frequency lift, though a bit less low end extension. The latter addressed by the towers coming out. I haven't heard but would likely leave be this line of speakers.

[tristin]

Certainly the room has far more impact than binding posts!

[gdwlaw]

Wouldn’t it wonderful to both of them In the same room!

[spacejaime]

Amazing transformation on an already good design. Danny to the rescue!

[davep]

A long time ago when this channel starting getting traction Danny was routinely beating on Klipsch products for the poor crossover parts used. His audience loved to bash Klipsch along with him even though they had obviously never looked at the crossovers in their own speakers. At that time I told people they needed to quit pretending the parts in their favorite speakers were any better even if they paid double or triple the price. Over the years this has been shown to be true over and over not only on this channel but several others. Top quality parts cost money and people already complain about a speaker that costs even $1000 much less 3 to 5 thousand bucks. Getting the crossover design right is far more important than the parts themselves. Combine that with good drivers and solid cabinet construction and you've got a speaker the majority are happy with. At that point crossover parts quality would be little more than the cherry on top of a great speaker. The problem is by the time you get to the point that upgrading crossover parts starts to make the difference you've already got a pricey speaker on your hands. And unless you're a company like Wilson or Focal who can find buyers for their insanely priced speakers then getting enough people to pay for that last fraction of quality they likely don't know or care about is not a viable business option. You give folks as good as you can give them for a profitable but attainable price point and sell in volume. But as I've said to many an arrogant audionerd, if you think you can do better than these manufacturers you love to hate then, by all means, show us what you got. Give us the cabinets, drivers, crossovers and wiring you think should be used for the price points you always pretend manufacturers should be selling their products for. I would say I'll wait but I know they can't do it because I know what the cost of doing business actually happens to be.

[phantomplastics]

I used his Dynaudio Special 40 kits and wow, what a revelation. Bough the Magnepan 1.7 kit too but unable to install it so far.

[BostonMike]

It must sound so much better with the upgrade parts on the crossover, it's to bad people have to pay so much money and still get a sub par product. I watched an interview with Andrew Jones and he said he had to limit the x max on the woofer because it was messing with the tweeter response to much. So he couldn't get as much bass and that's why he originally went to the 10" woofer. But I wouldn't expect it to give you the same bass as a regular quality woofer with more x- max . There's always a compromise. But I like the baffle, I am already planning a baffle shape like that on my next speaker cabinet.

[brandondempsey]

I bought these Source Point 8s and my Polk Audio lsim 703 still sound much better to me. So I sent the source points back, now just waiting on TeeJay to finish the Polk xover upgrade. If he recommends it I will 100 percent buy the upgrade. I just know TeeJay will help me with the process. I just haven't done much dyi upgrades. Love what you do Danny Richie

[nathanevans]

Another great upgrade video from Danny.
It looks like Andrew Jones did a great job as usual. If he had built the crossover to the standard of the GR Research upgrade it would have doubled the price of the speaker. This makes Danny's upgrade a steal.

If I owned these I would definitely plug the ports and stick a suitably valued capacitor between the pre and power amps to roll off the bottom end. I'd then hand bass duties over to a pair of decent subs.
Ports are always a trade off between bass extensions and bass articulation. Plugging the ports would clean up the mid-bass no end. Let the subs do the heavy lifting.

[philipeli]

This speaker is not needing any more money thrown at it for the very small difference.I have had many Pioneer floorstanding towers from Andrews designs.Weirdly the sf 52 measure 11.0 ohms across its terminals. It had 3 5.25s one a mid the other two 250hz and down, they sold millions of these.Great job here Danny.

[BarryBianculli]

I had the opportunity to take a brief look inside the Source Point 10. The crossover looked very similar to the 8’s parts-wise.

[matthewhilty]

I thought the point of the speaker was that it sounded fun and not really accurate. I did notice when demoing these that they did not have much "sparkle". I am glad there is a fix for this and improving the impedance curve making it synergise with more amps.

[Munakas-wqgp]

A coax will affect the response also by doppler distortion unless it's a 3-way so that the cone movement is minimal (such as Kali audio IN series) And btw phase response hasn't been empirically proven to affect the sound quality. Humans just can't hear the difference even though measuring gear will catch it.

[chrisdraper]

Great video as always. Got to get my butt in gear and send my Monitor Audio Bronze 100 and see what they need

[mikevalentinas]

People whining about the price 1) don’t need to buy them and 2) don’t realize that you aren’t paying for a pile of parts. You are paying for the engineering, design and experience of the designer. Mofi also needs to make a profit and factor in returns, unsold stock, etc. Their manufacturer likely has a (large) minumum order. It is a business, not a charity. Overall it seems to be a well-designed speaker with a somewhat novel baffled design that sounds good. The upgraded parts will be of interest to some but others will be happy with the way they sound. Even at this price point it will
be difficult to find a commercially available loudspeaker with absolutely no compromises. But people like to whine, especially arm chair audiphiles who have never even heard the speakers in person.

[paulgyro]

I have to say anyone can pay a bunch of money for expensive components. The true talent comes from the design making the most of the components they do have.

[benjamink.]

Again a nice one - thanks Danny!
Maybe you could take a look at the new Epos models eg. the EPOS ES 14n which is designed by Karl Heinz Fink (a well known and deemed developer - at least in Europe).
All tests praise the speakers to the skies. Another interesting speaker would be from the italian mafunfacturer "Rosso Fiorentino" - like the "ELBA 2" often described as a real secret.