the "NUANCE EXPERIENCE" (1 Viewer)

[JohnnyG]

At discounted prices they'll match up with the panasonic/yamaha/infintiti etc speaker offerings favourably.

Infinity?! Come listen to a pair of Alpha 40s!

 

[Khoa Tran]

Does anybody have pictures of these speakers? since they don't have em on their site....

 

[Travis*N]

Does anybody have pictures of these speakers? since they don't have em on their site....

just imagine a pair of gigantic black monoliths about
6 feet high, with grills you can't remove ( on the biggest model) they are just very plain looking.

 

[Khoa Tran]

unpossible...no man make monolith speaker, man crazy to make unremovable grill, i must cut cut cut cut....

 

[Myo K]

lol @ khoa

 

[Scottie Mow]

bang on Andrew. Only went in there because they had a good deal on ExpressVu i was going to check out. Last time i ever do that!

 

[Randall Duncan]

Hmmm.... No specs?? ...Sounds like Bose!!

...there's my inane input...

 

[Mike Veroukis]

Scottie nice to see more manitoban's on the site! I refuse to walk in the door at Krazy Krazy They're even worse then Visions

Yup, always good to see fellow Winnipegers online!

Yeah, Krazy Krazy! I hate to say this but a buddy of mine bought a full set of Nuance speakers and I don't have the heart to fill him in on the realities of Nuance. He bought them years ago so it's too late now, but he seems happy with them (and his Kenwood receiver) so why burst his bubble?

Perhaps I should walk into Krazy Krazy and have some fun with the salesman. The one time I went in there the place was a complete mess, it looked like it was run by a bunch of high-school students. However at the time I was looking for car audio and so I missed out on my Nuance salesman experience - but at least now I know enough that I don't need to bring along my Roger Waters CD, they already have it!

- Mike

 

[Christopher~O]

I've got a pair I had "discounted" from 2000 to 800.

No offence, but I imagine that means the store paid $400 and they cost $150 to make...

 

[Steve Winkler]

Kwang Suh, nope it wasn't me at Sunridge. The I.S. I was in was at Chinook Center.


If you're ever in Calgary JohnnyG, that's the spot.

Aside from the Nuance product they do carry some decent stuff, HK receivers, Toshiba and Sony TV. Good enough place for price matching elsewhere like Christopher O did.

Cheers,

Steve

 

[Jamie Doucette]

The Nuance Web page does not show pictures, send out brochures with pictures because of one simple reason: they make the speaker with what ever material they have. No two batches of the speakers are the same, I am dead serious.

True Story: Back in early 2001, the electronic store I worked at bought/traded a set of Nuance speakers off a costumer because our main rivals were a Krazy Krazy whose bread and butter were Nuance sales. We placed them in our show room right next to the Energy exl Line and the Polk RTi series. Every time a costumer came in saying that they just got offered the best deal ever (usually to the extent of what has been mentioned above), we gave them a demo.

Now, one Sunday afternoon, on a very slow day, the boss and I got bored and decided to take these babies apart to see what made them tick.

-The wood cabinet wasn't even MDF but plywood.
-The 6"= woofers were the exact same paper woofers you can order thru Radio shack at ~30$Can a piece. They were suppose to be shielded speakers, but they were not.
-The insulation was just in there, I mean it was if some one threw it in.
-The cross over, it was hot-gun glued onto a 3x3in piece of plastic.
-they internal wires were either 22 or 24 gage wire. Small wire, I mean small.
-The best part, they were bi-wireable... except for the fact that if you removed the bridges on the back/terminals, it would not matter. They were hard bridged on the inside. Great binding posts, eh?

The gentleman we bought them off paid $2500 for the two mains alone from Krazy Krazy.

The only thing that they had going for them was that they were loud, distorted yes, but LOUD!

Nuance took a page right out of the Bose book: demo, demo, demo. I recommend going for a Nuance demo, some of those guys a geniuses at giving a demo. Some of them could market and sell a shit sandwich if they had to. The thing to look/listen for at a demo is they always TELL you what YOU here. They never ASK you what you here.

 

[Terry St]

I often go to Chinook mall to catch flicks at the cineplex. It's the only theatre in town where you can watch people collapsing from heat stroke whenever that sphinx/flame-thrower goes off. The spectacle of people having epileptic seizures from the flashing neon lights in the hallways is nice too.

Anyways, the International Stereo store is right next to the cinema and we pass by it often. There are two HT nuts in our group, and while we do mock I.S. a bit, we typically have more fun mocking the staff of the "War Hammer" store next door. (How does that place stay in business?) Still, one day I would like to go into I.S. just to see what happens.

I was thinking I might go in and play dumb. First, I'd dress up like one of the cast from Fubar. (For those not in the know, think white trash headbanger.) My opening line would be something similar to: "Hey, like, I just won two thousand bucks on a scratch N' win card, and I was, like, hoping to hook myself up with some righteous tunes man! My buddy John said his friend got a sweeeet deal on some speakers here. Do you know him? Not the sales-rep ya knob! John's friend! He's like, this tall, has dreads, and he walks sorta funny." Hopefully that'll hook them. If I have to talk more to get into the nuance section I'll repeatedly state that my priorities are "They have to be, like, *big* man!", "Takes a lickin', and keeps on tickin'", and "Keeps givin'er even when, like, people barf on them, eh."

When they finally demo the speakers for me, I'll pretend that I'm completely buying their spiel at first. Then I'll start messing with them. First I'll say, "Hey, that sounds awesome! Do you have any GWAR? If they can make me feel like I'm at GWAR concert I'm so there. Do they squirt blood? I anticipate a negative response to that one. Then I'll ask him about what I'll need to run them. When he says their speakers will make any amp sound great, I'll say. "Awesome! So, what kind of cable would I need to hook these bad boys up to my walkman!" When he tries to explain the concept of a receiver to me, I will pretend not to understand at all. Then I'll poke around behind the demo speakers and say, "Hey, like, these aren't plugged into the wall man! Do they, like run on the Earth's magnetic field or something? WOW!!!"

By this point, assuming my pathetic acting skills haven't completely given me away, any salesman should suspect something it amiss. I'll probably settle down and understand the necessity of a receiver at this point, and just generally set them at ease so they don't kick me out. Hopefully at some point they'll do the "Chuck-Proof" demo for me. Then I'll say, "Hey man, can I try?" If they say no, I'll act like they've just informed my by firstborn has been fed to a rabid pitbull. If they say yes, I'll pull out the monkey wrench I had hidden in my jacket and chuckle evilly in a dramatic pose just long enough for them to have an apoplectic fit. Then I'll say, "Haha. I'm just messin' with ya eh! I enforce a strict "no blunt objects" policy at all my parties." Then I'll gently test the durability of the finish on one of the speakers... with my teeth. "Hey man, like, you'd be amazed at what people will chew on!

If they still haven't kicked me out, I'll ask them to play some more music and crank it so I can take some SPL readings. Then I'll whip out a legacy gameboy and inform the sales person that it can be used as an SPL meter if you have the SPL cartridge for it. (The cartridge will have a piece of masking tape with "Gameboy SPL-Meter addon - $11" written on it. The interface will probably look suspiciously similar to Tetris.) Then I'll start playing Tetris, and whenever the salesperson tries to talk to me I'll say, "SHHHH!!! Aw man, look what you made me do! You gotta get to level 16 and do three four line combo's in a row before it'll take a reading!"

At this point, if they still haven't thrown me out, I'll come clean, and congratulate the sales-rep on his persistence, tell him he handled everything perfectly, and give him a sheet of paper rolled up with a ribbon that says "Nuance sales-rep of the month." "Good show sir. Your bonus is in the mail!"

Now... If I can just figure out a way to have a friend come along with a camcorder without immediately tipping them off... Maybe he could be my buddy who split the scratch N' sniff card with me, and he just spent his half on a camcorder that that he's testing out now... That's a stretch, and I'm still not sure if they'd let us film the demo. I suspect Nuance and S.I. would not be pleased if their sales tactics were filmed.

 

[PaulDF]

Wow, talk about an imaginary burst of literary humour! I needed a good laugh today! Thanks.

Somehow I don't think all would go quite as planned, but it would be VERY interesting to try. I was waiting for the part where you do a quick 180 degree switch to electrical engineer/audio fanatic.

(But who am I to laugh, that was similar to myself a few years back! :b )