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From: ccrse@ucdavis.UUCP (Steve Ehrhardt)
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Inexpensive Speakers (Hafler 355's)
Message-ID: <157@ucdavis.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Oct-85 16:15:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucdavis.157
Posted: Wed Oct 16 16:15:30 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Oct-85 00:18:45 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California, Davis
Lines: 28


	It seems that one of the more frequent questions that gets asked
on this newsgroup is, 'What's a good speaker in this (usually fairly low)
price class?'.  This said, I have a related question that has been bugging
me some time, and I'm wondering if anyone out there may have a good answer
for it.
	About four years ago, Hafler came out with some rather odd-looking
speakers in a cylindrical cabinet called the 355.  It used two polypropylene-
cone woofers in a hybred design (both carried low frequencies, but one rolled
off, leaving the other to act as the midrange), and a 1" soft-dome tweater
in a ported enclosure.
	Without going into any more technical details, suffice it to say that
these speakers sounded *very* good, at least to my ear.  To date, I have found
no one who has listened to them who had significant complaints about their
sound, especially for their price, which started at $250/ea.
	I found that only one of the several Hafler dealers in this area
carried these speakers, all of those not carrying it bad-mouthing it consider-
ably.  The one who did carry them sold them virtually as fast as he could get
them in, but Hafler finally discontinued them, apparently for lack of sales.
	My question is this:  Can anyone explain to me why none of other 
dealers would carry them?  Has anyone else on the net listened to these
speakers and/or purchased them and can explain what characteristics of them
caused them to be so dispised?  I'll admit that they are not without fault,
but they did seem quite competitive within their price class.
	Two other items which should be noted:  The only shop that *did* carry
the 355's was decidedly 'high end' (they were probably the cheapest thing
there), and I did happen to buy two pairs of them (close out at $250/pr).
	Anyone out there have a solution to this mystery?