"Truth and Consequences" or "We got Jacked!"
We are saddened to announce that for the foreseeable future we will no longer be authorized dealers of Acapella Audio Arts speakers. We were the largest Acapella dealer on the American continent and by far the most visible experts on and advocates of Acapella in the world.
Since our first year of business, 4 years ago now, the person who is now the distributor has chafed against our approach to serving our customers and the audiophile community, as exemplified by the candor of the content on our website. After many years of his intimidations and ultimatums we are no longer Acapella dealers.
As our customers and a hundred thousand virtual guests know, we do not shy away from telling it like we hear it.
And we never will.
We just might have to regroup periodically.
Acapella makes some of the best speakers in the world and we will continue to think so and recommend their products, just like we sometimes recommend other excellent products we do not carry when we think they are the best fit for a particular person’s situation.
To our Acapella customers: we still stand by you and your excellent speakers 100% and will not hesitate to support you, with the same dedication as always, in the unlikely event you should ever require it.
The manufacturers of Acapella are some of the very nicest people we have met, are some of the biggest fans of our show reports and website, and are unabashed audiophiles at heart. Their English is not perfect and they are shy around people who do not speak German, and so they have few industry friends here in America who could have provided them some perspective on what is going on. If you see Hermann Winters and his wife Inge at a show, step up and say hello, welcome them to America, and don’t let their shyness discourage you. Through the shared passion for music and music reproduction, you will understand each other just fine, in English or German.
As for us, we are of course investigating a number of alternative speakers.
We are spoiled. Our next speakers have to excel at being impressive, emotional, jaw-droppingly real, and extremely powerful at communicating what the musicians are saying about what it means to be human. And what it means to be Alive.
For us, this is what music is all about.
Should we use this opportunity to continue to push ever farther against the state-of-the-art here at Audio Federation? Hee hee hee! OK, try not to give away the surprise, Neli…. Neli!!! Shhhhhhhhh…….
Actually I do not know way you should be “saddened to announce”. I dot know or care how good Acapellas were as “dealers product” but as the loudspeakers the produce Sound instead of accounts receivable Acapellas never were interesting. Furthermore, there were few moments in the Acapella’s design that, from my radical perspective, were fundamentally faulty. I understand that you are disappointed that you, for whatever reasons, lost the Acapella line but from a larger viewpoint it was positive thing. Acapella, by the virtue of thier design, this Sound and this performance limitations sent wrong message to audio people about the REAL constancy of horn loading topology. So, as far as I concern: less poorly performing horns out there create generally better atmosphere.
Rgs,
Romy the Cat
Hey Mike & Neli,
that stinks. however, i’m sure that what ever is next for you will be fun for you and the rest of us who live vicariously through the audio federation…
i suppose you’ll share your choice of speaker in due time. let us know asap! any idea of what brands are on Romy’s ‘A’ list?
Thanks Romy and Ben. It is indeed probably a good thing to ‘stir up the product line pot a little’ like this once in a while.
I try to ignore the design tradeoffs that I see each manufacturer make and just listen to what the end result sounds like. I can see how this ‘ignoring the possible design improvements’ might be difficult for someone who understands a lot more details of the design than I do -and this sometimes makes me leary of learning more about the technical details of things – in all aspects of life.
For example: eye surgeons – can they look into the beautiful eyes of a person of their favorite sex and not think about slicing and dicing them?
OK, moving on. 🙂
There are only two or three brands of horn speakers that I heard that do not have faults serious enough that they make the speakers seriously unenjoyable for me. Acapella is one of the two or three.
If you are ever out this way Romy, you are invited to stop by and hear how our rotten vegetables: the Meitner, Peter Qvortrup ‘s Kegons, and Acapella make a wonderful tasting soup. 🙂 And if your ears find a lot of dead flys and upside down beetles in the bowl – well that is OK too – we will look the other way as you stuff them underneath your napkin.
And Ben, you and Anna have an open invitation, anytime, as you know….
I think the only commercially available speaker Romy thinks is better than sticking an ice pick in one’s ear and moving it all around a few dozen times is the Kharma 3.2 – but that it is discustingly over priced. Or rather that is my digest version of a Weird Tales interpretation of his various posts on this subject over the years.
Thanks again guys, from both of us.
I guess I should post that I am going to be watching fewer violent movies from now on.
Or at least until my posts show an improvement in imagery
I blame it all on the fingers. I know not what they type until they type it and have no idea what they might decide to type… or do… next.
Yep. Fewer weird movies it is.
*** I try to ignore the design tradeoffs that I see each manufacturer make and just listen to what the end result sounds like. I can see how this ‘ignoring the possible design improvements’ might be difficult for someone who understands a lot more details of the design than I do -and this sometimes makes me leary of learning more about the technical details of things – in all aspects of life.
Actually there is more to it. The “design tradeoffs” might be understood from tow prospective. As far as manufacturing concern the “design tradeoffs” are just the self-serving compilations of concepts that have hardly relation to Sound. There is “another” understanding of “tradeoffs”…
*** I think the only commercially available speaker Romy thinks is better than sticking an ice pick in one’s ear and moving it all around a few dozen times is the Kharma 3.2 – but that it is discustingly over priced. Or rather that is my digest version of a Weird Tales interpretation of his various posts on this subject over the years.
Not really. I never consider the Kharma 3.2 as something worth attention. I called them “accurate” but only in a specific context and only with the scope of the “certain people”. I generally do not consider Kharma, whatever they do worth ANY attention. Still the Kharma 3.2 model is a wonderful speaker if you care to listen only a flute accompanied by a large chorus of rabbits.
Rgs,
The Cat
Dear Neli and Mike,
sorry to hear that you are no longer authorized A Capella dealers. I have never met more enthousiastic representants of these speakers than the both of you!! Always honest in your comments and with humor. Hope you will stay fans of these speakers because they are playing in the upper league, at least as long as music is what you want and not HiFi.
regards, Hans
Hi Neli and Mike,
sad to read that you no longer carry the A Capella line!! IMHO, the both of you were very enthousiastic as well as the dealers of these products and also as music fans!!
Good luck in finding an equivalent speaker line – will be very hard, though!!
Regards, Hans
Hi Hans,
Thanks, we appreciate your support. A lot.
We are definitely still fans of the Acapella. I guess this gives us the opportunity to focus more on putting smaller Acapella-class speakers, as we are able to find such gems, into the hands of people who just do not have room for speakers quite so large as the Acapellas horns.
Neli says ‘hi!’.
All the best,
Mike.
I am disappointed to hear that you are no longer official representatives of the Acapella line.
The fact that you are continuing to proclaim the excellence of their products – officially or not – speaks for your philosophy.
This is clearly Acapella’s loss, not yours.
Regards,
Florian
Thanks, Florian.
And as far as your other email goes… either you are a good guesser or we are not very good at keeping a secret 🙂
We are both looking forward to you being able to visit again…
Take care,
Mike.