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A great American speaker company is no more
Snell Acoustics never strayed from its core principles. The
company, founded by Peter Snell in 1976, continued to manufacture
high-end loudspeakers in Massachusetts until this year. I first met
Peter in 1978 while working at a NYC high-end audio dealer, and soon
bought one of his original speakers, a Snell Type A. I had it for eight
years.
Peter was a perfectionist about the sound and the build quality of
his speakers. The cabinets were exquisitely finished, but the amount of
handiwork invested in the parts the customer never saw was even more
impressive.
Though most of the better speaker manufacturers demand a minimum
measurement variation for their suppliers' tweeters and woofers, Snell
went the extra mile and hand-tuned each crossover network to compensate
for the drivers' response irregularities. Then a computer measured the
speaker's response, and a technician noted the difference between the
desired flat curve and the speaker's actual frequency response.
The hand-tweaking process continued until the speaker measured within
Snell's unusually tight tolerances. The painstaking effort ensured all
completed speakers measured within exceedingly tight tolerances (+/-0.5
decibels) of the original design prototype. Every Snell buyer heard
exactly what the designer intended.
All Snells, including the most affordable models, were built this
way, and all cabinets were assembled and finished by hand. Few American
speaker companies continue to maintain that approach; most outsourced
manufacturing long ago.
If a Snell customer ever needed a replacement tweeter, midrange, or
woofer, that part was supplied with its associated crossover parts,
again matched to the original spec; and this was done for speakers 10,
20, and even 30 years after they were sold. That remarkable commitment
to customer service is rare in today's market, but Snell was a very
special company.
Peter dropped by my store on a regular basis, usually to discuss
music or future plans. When I moved to a new apartment with unfriendly
room acoustics, he offered to help. He spent three or four hours
experimenting with different placement scenarios before coming up with a
rather unusual strategy that worked. He really was a great guy, totally
committed to designing speakers that advanced the state of the art.
In 1983 Peter designed two new models to round out the Snell line,
the Type C and the Type K. These would be the last speakers designed by
Peter Snell. On September 20, 1984, Peter died in the factory from a
heart attack. We had talked on the phone a few weeks before that, and
discussed building a new pair of Type As in a custom wood finish for me.
The K model, in its seventh incarnation (K7--$1,500 a pair), continued
until now.
In 1990 the company teamed up with Lucasfilm to design the first line
of THX loudspeakers, the 500 series and first In-Wall THX system. Snell
speakers were used in Lucas Skywalker Ranch's screening rooms.
In 2003, Joe D'Appolito joined Snell as chief engineer. Best known
for the D'Appolito Array, Joe designed commercial loudspeakers for over
20 years, including many designs for some of the industry's best driver
manufacturers.
In 2005, Snell and Boston Acoustics were purchased by D&M Holdings,
which also owns Denon, Marantz, and McIntosh. D&M claims the
advanced loudspeaker technologies developed at Snell will be leveraged
by other D&M brands.
I've heard many Snells over the years, and I'll never forget their sound in a $6,000,000 home theater. My last Snell review was in 2005, for Home Theater magazine.
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