Homeless man designs amazing speakers
You can use two, but each speaker can produce stereo sound!
(Credit: Zealth Audio)Kevin Nelson may be homeless, but his story isn't so different from countless other speaker designers I've met. Aspiring speaker designers never had it easy, but nowadays it's a lot tougher to break into the business.
Nelson says he first started building speakers when he was a kid in high school, tinkering with drivers and building cabinets. With a few investors lined up, and prospects looking good, he was planning on exhibiting his inventiveness at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last year.
The U.S. Navy veteran's personal life, however, took a turn for the worse. He is currently living in a shelter in California.
Nelson never wanted to build just another speaker. No, his Zealth speaker produces stereo sound from a single box. Nelson devised special "Crossfire Imaging" crossover networks to produce stereo sound from a single speaker (the crossover is the part of the speaker that routes treble frequencies to the tweeter, bass to the woofer, etc.).
In other words, there's a right and left channel in each Zealth Audio speaker cabinet. He started working on the stereo from one speaker concept in 1989, then spent years of hard work refining the design.
Kevin Nelson, speaker designer
(Credit: Zealth Audio)Nelson isn't opposed to using two speakers, and he feels the sound is even better with two. He says, "When the speakers are set up just right, and you're sitting in the zone, the two speakers disappear."
I was impressed with his drive to succeed. Before he was homeless, Nelson sold 35 pairs of speakers through word of mouth and on eBay. When compared to those of Polk, KEF, Klipsch, and others, the Zealth speakers, which sell for less than $1,000 per pair, have come out on top.
Nelson, whose company is called Zealth Audio Loudspeakers, is currently looking for investors so he can start full-scale production.
Interested parties can contact Kevin Nelson via e-mail at zealthaudio@email.com.
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
Best of luck to him!
Best
Kevin Nelson
Zealth Audio
But giving that I've already taken a beating in the market to the tune of about 30% loss, all I can do is wish him well. If he ever get's up and running I would be interested in purchasing a pair of those speakers.
Adding a center channel would be awkward. It'll draw emphasis away from the stereo aspect and move more into home theater territory, where a center channel is more efficiently utilized. By doing so, you're missing rear speakers (though you can arguably use one of these for the rear) and add an unnecessary channel for main stream 2-channel media.
..I think. Bit busy now to go more in-depth. lol.
In my city of a million people, there's a store that sells B&W, Klipsch & Definitive. And there are lots of Best Buys. Other than that, not much to choose from. So I can only read about all the fantastic speakers out there knowing there's nowhere to go listen to them.
Pretty neat nonetheless.
Maybe you can send us all a picture of yourself so we can make ignorant, rude, and insulting comments about your appearance. Better yet... for all of our sake, just stay away from this audiophile blog...
Before I get ready to offer this guy my sympathy, I want to know what his turn of life was. He's milking his homelessness, so I get to ask.
maybe you're milking your insensitivity, but in a good way.
Making regular speakers aren't that dificult, really, and you can make a simple set with little more than a woofer, midrange, crossover network and an L-pad in each one, with some insulation tacked up on all the insides but the top and front panel. In fact, I've made my own decades ago, using 'replacement' woofers from a certain electronics store, along with the L-pads and crossover networks from them and midrange speakers that I cannibalized from an old speaker system. Only complicated part was measuring the vas of the woofer to see how much space the interior of the speaker should be.
Here's a picture of the first set I did: cyberwolfman.com/speakers.jpg (Not a real commercial site, no ads, and nothing for sale on it.)
Kevin Nelson's Zealth speakers would be interesting to listen too, from the description given about them in this story, but, I'd be nice to know the frequency range. As for the price . . . Too expensive for me, a guy that's pretty far below the poverty level who can barely afford to pay the bills, but, they certainly look nice, and I'm sure they have better bass than the little speakers and slender speaker towers I've seen in some electronic appliance stores.
Best of luck to you, Kevin Nelson! Even if you fail as a business, the 'big boy' companies may finally start making better products to help them survive, and the consumers will benefit from that.
- Cyberwolfman
I wish you all the best Kevin and hope I get the chance to hear your speakers some day.
- by zealthaudio February 11, 2009 2:32 PM PST
- GREETINGS: I just wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for all the supportive e-mails and comments.
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Kevin Nelson
Zealth Audio