Posted by Adam on October 28, 2003 at 21:30:55

In Reply to: Are Pi's suitable for Hi-fi? posted by garman on October 28, 2003 at 14:34:42:

I'd have to concur for the most part with what Matt and Bill said here. While I think Bill underestimates the potential of audiophyle drivers (they are far more than "advertising" power), I woudl really have to agree.

I've never built a true Pi Speaker in my life. What I've done could be best described as Quasi Pi's. However, several of my systems using Eminence drivers are remarkable close to Wayne's designs in crossover design, so much so that the two could be directly compared.

While I don't think that my designs that are similar to Wayne's designs, or even true Pi Speakers themselves, are a fair match for the very highest end audiophyle speakers in terms of straight sound quality, that doesn't mean they don't sound absolutely excellent. I have built several pairs very similar to Wayne's 4 pi's using the Omega 15" drivers (except mine use the Kappas), and all of my customers have been *extremely* happy with sound quality, not to mention myself falling very much in love with them, and missing them over a very high quality pair of 3-ways I built to replace my set.

Your kit will just about smoke anything on the consumer market for sound quality and output. Will it compete with the very best audiophyle speakers? Probably not. However considering the price point, Pi Speakers are incredibly hard to beat.

Of course the other nice thing about all of this sound quality, is you can also toss them out on the deck or in the living room for a pounding house party, and not worry about blowing woofers left and right. My design (again, virtually identical to Wayne's in all but the tiniest respects) is running in high powered P.A. applications with minimal tweaking over the home version, and very sucessfully.

One thing to keep in mind... P.A. is as much or more about install and setup as it is about the equipment itself.