D&M's Snell Acoustics and Escient brands kaput

[richidoo]

http://www.audioxpress.com/audiobytz/down_memory_lane.htm

http://www.snellacoustics.com/
http://www.escient.com/



I guess the new D'Appolito designed speakers didn't take off. Speaker biz is tough.

[bpape]

That's really sad about Snell.  I had a pair of Type A's for years and loved them.

Bryan

[richidoo]

Hantra always ranked Snells high among his favs.  I think he got to hear one of the new post Voecks batch, said it was awesome.

[bmr3hc]

Kinda makes me wonder if a speaker  as good as Snell, with very reasonable prices, can't make it, who is next?

Henry

[Black Sand Cable]

Snell was a very nice speaker indeed.

Escient on the other hand was doomed to fail as the stuff was way overpriced.

[mfsoa]

My brother is, errrr, was, an Escient dealer and I used to tell him the same thing.

When you can buy a TB of storage for $80 and a Touch and PC for another $600, the writing's on the wall...

-Mike

[bpape]

The problem is/was that there are other things to consider besides the hardware with Escient.

1.  They have to pay royalties to Hollywood for the potential number of movies stored.

2.  There is development and support of the user interface for those who are PC illiterate

3.  Warranty, customer support, dealer margins, etc.

Bryan

[rollo]

  A pity to see go. When Peter Snell was alive that is when a Snell was a Snell. We do not see many if any for sale. Still one of my favorites. Rockport has a very similar character but minimum entry is $10,000. If you can find Snell B or or B minors BUY them.


charles

[allenzachary]

I sold Snell during the Voecks era and was very impressed with the sound quality, fit and finish, and tremendously high quality of their customer service.  Blow a tweet?  They kept records of the response curve of every driver in every pair of speakers.  They would replace your tweet with one that was a match to within half a db of the original's curve. Perhaps more importantly, it was a match to the other speaker's tweet as they only sold in matched pairs...sonically and cosmetically. 

Great products, great company.

*sigh*

[richidoo]

If you can find Snell B or or B minors BUY them.

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrfull&1276183231&/Snell-Type-B---rare-

[rollo]

Singapore eh. The shipping alone kills it for me. To bad.


charles

[Carlman]

Allen recommended the Snells to me in my 'early years' of audiophilia.  I lament not buying one of the many pairs that were available 10 years ago.  Has it really been 10 years?  Actually, it's been more.. that was late 90's.. man.. time flies.

Anyway, the new Snell's I heard in the stores were similar to Boston Acoustics for some reason..   But the larger and older (i.e. 'real') Snell's I could never get an ear on.. just the babies.. like the E series and such.  They had a good sound, though.  Lively but not harsh.

They died when BA bought them.

-C

[Deton Nation]

My first speaker was the Snell E IV. Great speaker. Sad.

[allenzachary]

The E was one sweet speaker.  A lot of music for around a grand.