|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
64.105.104.201
I recently had a debate with a Stereophile reading, S.S. direct radiator listening friend, and he posed the following question: "Are you a vintage audio enthusiast, or are you an advocate of accurate audio reproduction?". I pleaded guilty to being a vintage audio enthusiast as evidenced by the general superior quality of vintage equipment, and I furthermore presented the case that vintage audio enthusiasts themselves are superior to less experienced ones. To support this I offered as evidence J.Gordon Holt's article "Space, the Final Frontier" from the March 1994 issue of Stereophile. In this article JGH observed that speakers with a tilt towards the bass (for "warmth") and peak in the treble (for "detail") were tending to get rave reviews compared to comparable speakers with more flat response which were tending to get luke warm reviews. As current evidence of this trend I reached for the latest issue of Stereophile I had on hand (Aug. 2015), and looked for a speaker review confident that I would see at least half of the signature Holt had described. Lo and behold the review was of the Falcon Acoustics iteration of the LS3/5a by Herb Reichert. Here's the first sentence of the second paragraph of the review: "After you've spent a bunch of time with horns, electro-stats, or ribbons, box speakers won't sound "boxy", as many reviewers claim; they'll just sound squawky and...peculiar". I had to look at the cover of the rag to make sure I was'nt actually reading an issue of Sound Practices from the 90's! This said, Herb gives the Falcons an enthusiastic rave review and describes them as "accurate". The Holt signature is definitely there (and then some) in editor John Atkinson's measurements with a bass tilt below 500 Hz, a peak at 7K Hz, including a peak at 1K Hz and another above 10K Hz. The Falcons utilize reproductions of the original drivers and the freq. response is compared with the later Rogers versions of the LS3/5a, and it could be argued that the Rogers is more accurate in that it's less peaky, but Herb prefers the Falcons. I probably would agree with Herb on this, but it seems that actual accuracy is not taken very seriously at Stereophile. This said, Herb's presence marks quite a change at Stereophile. Back in the 90's the first SET amp tested (a Cary 805 as I recall) was declared a "tone control" by John Atkinson, though all of the specialty cables and tweaks advertised in the magazine get a free pass in this regard. JA has also stated that he is "...suspicious of horn loaded designs" which makes Herb's above quote all the more surprising.
Now just when I'm having some warm feelings for Holt and his audio purism, kind of like one would admire an aesthetic monk whose life one would'nt want to actually imitate, in the latest issue of Stereoohile JA reprints some past letters illustrating some people bemoaning the decline of audio through the years, and Holt replies to one of them with a ridiculous anti-horn rant. He would be spinng like a turbine in his grave if he could see Herb's quote.
Paul
Follow Ups:
There is so much cultural baggage attached to this notion of "the absolute sound" that it is useless as a touchstone for audio evaluation but instructive about how people think about the problem.
Observe, for example, that the TAS popularizers of this idealistic notion proceeded to evaluate gear by reference to this ideal using various metaphorical systems based on photography and vision. I felt while living thorough this era that 3-D artifacts of the recording process were foregrounded in part because they could talk about it using visual and geometric, whereas language to discuss sound is relatively thin.
Visual perception is in no way a valid modeling system for musical sound. Why should it be? How similar are photography and sound recording? Nobody seemed to have asked.
Much focus was given to the phenomenology of sound in performance spaces and how well 0.5cu.ft mini monitors reproduced this effect in a Manhattan apartment. Isn't it obvious that this is never going to happen?
From the start, then, there was a bait and switch underlying the quest for
absolute sound. The promise was to achieve the soul core of music but the programming language was about technological reproduction and took the form of empirical phenomenology and mixed metaphorical systems.
It was a good name for a magazine though...The Absolute Sound...
I submit that the following domains of experience should be kept separate, especially in lieu of serious examination of the problems of mindlessly combining them.
--Lab measurements of electronic performance
--Aesthetics of live music appreciation
--Aesthetics of reproduced music reproduction in the home
There is an impulse to unify these domains arising from strains of what I would call "naive objectivism" prevalent in our audio culture, which is entrenched and codified through audio forums among
Let us not confuse our models for reality or presume that somehow reality must conform to a good, seemingly self-consistent logical story!
And never forget that a metaphor is just that. Metaphors do not seamlessly map two domains of reality, although they may highlight interesting correspondences.
The reality is that these phenomena take place in very different interpretive contexts, which have distinct goals and meaning structures, and possible divergent evaluative criteria. The view (again a visual metaphor) is very different from each of these seats.
The stance I am taking here is likely to be dismissed as wild-eyed subjectivism by forum dwellers but it is actually the main story line of 20th c. intellectual history. Meaningful experience must always be viewed as occurring in and shaped by context. There is no outside view. There is always bias. This is how people apprehend their environment.
Residues of the discredited vision of a "unity of the sciences" which would create human sciences based on experimental empirical science only live on in a few relict enterprises, mainly market research and audio testing, both rooted in old behavioralist clinical psychology...bad science and horrible anti-humanistic human science. Remember Ivan Pavlov and BF Skinner? This junk science has no place near musical aesthetics!
Electronics is a science. Listening and evaluation is not and never can be.
So, if you like the notion of the "absolute sound," admittedly an appealing concept to many contemporary actors for various reasons, I encourage reflection on its inherent assumptions and implications. I hit major conceptual roadblocks when I try to bridge lab/concert hall/home hifi, but maybe you will find a valid path through the maze for yourself.
Although far less accessible to systematic discussion on forums, I personally find some notion of truth to the emotional aesthetic soul of music much more grounded, albeit in private experience, than any attempts to formalize an objective review-speak.
I am really glad to read Herb's contributions to Stereophile. The reason I love Herb's stuff is that his mind is wired differently from the pack. He is unlikely to parrot stale forum and magazine commonplaces because he probably never read magazines recently and doesn't show up on audio forums. How many would-be reviewers can claim that high qualification? It might be offbeat sometimes, but at least it is fresh!
Agree or disagree with Herb's articles, at least they usually give you something to chew on. Taking Herb aboard is one of the ways JA is doing a very reasonable job of making a hifi magazine interesting, a nearly impossible task!
------------------------------
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
Electronics can certainly be a science-- as long as numbers are the
main consideration.
If sounding real, present, and live and still being super-reliable are the criteria, then science must be used in the ways that it can produce all of the needed results-- reproduction of live music, not merely the pleasing of certain personal listening tastes.
Certainly, most audiophiles that are using electronics to reproduce vinyl records with their rather severe RIAA imposed limitations, may not expect their electronics to accurately reproduce a run-away crash scene in a James Bond movie, or the dynamics in a great Blu-Ray High-Def. musical that combines a large orchestra with very powerful acoustical instruments, and close, double-miked human voices as well.
Science can, however, be used to arrive at equipment that can do any or all of these things perfectly-- and all of them simultaneously if need be-without audible distortion or impact or practical audio bandwidth limiting...
Such an approach often violates so-called accepted "science", but it's proper use and adaptations can negate the need for narrow-minded discussions involving only small parts of the world's total musical
abilities that are being enjoyed today. One CAN, indeed, now "have it all".
--Dennis--
What an old Hatfield and McCoys feud, science versus the non-science guys.The totally non-science guys can always have the last word because nobody can prove that their systems are wrong. Everyone has an opinion, and in high end audio an opinion is taken by many as a mathematical proof.
I like the solution of listening to music every day, recording music in the same space that the system plays, then playing the recording back immediately. Voice, instruments, including percussion: these tests are closer to the point where the rubber meets the road. But this is only part A.
Part B is then taking every measurement you can think of with state of the art equipment and observing what different distortions sound like. A tremendous amount of analysis can be done with $60k of test equipment, which is less than some pay for a full cable set for their systems, and a lot can be learned from even $5k of equipment bought judiciously on the used market. As for recording equipment that is very neutral, $2k goes a long way.
Obviously, I'm an advocate of honing the skills of listening, measuring, tying measurements to sound, and engineering. I can't see how anyone could argue with that philosophy.
It seems few advocate a blend of skills in order to try to ascertain the performance of a system, with the goal being to sound more like real instruments and voices This perplexes me. But few also seem to dwell on real music as much as the equipment. Yet,so many seem to claim to put the music first, while the talk seems to indicate otherwise. And fewer yet (none?) talk about making music in the audio room and comparing to the system. This all leads me to believe that in the majority of cases the equipment is the holy grail, not the music. Maybe, for many, the arguing also comes before the music........
.
Edits: 03/21/16 03/21/16
Joe
Your learned essay is further evidence that vintage audiophiles themselves are superior to more inexperienced ones who hear and see every thing through the aesthetic established in Stereophile and TAS. I'm not so much concerned with the philosophical foundations of the pre-eminince of the "sound stage" and "accuracy", but rather with a lack of serious effort to actually adhere to these concepts by the people promoting them. I'm tired of hearing that horns are "colored", when most of the direct radiator speakers tested in Stereophile getting rave reviews show at least half of the Holt signature, which are clearly colorations. If the reviewers seriously want to have colorations minimized, then the Weslake monitors (which Holt used in the "Space..." article as examples of speakers tending toward a flat response) should have gotten a rave review. Using the photographic analogy, someone could show me a wallet size picture of the Mona Lisa and tell me it's an accurate reproduction, but I've seen the real thing and it's not that small.
BTW anything to the rumor that Sound Practices magazine will be returning?
Paul
I wouldn't say that the vintage audiophiles themselves are superior but perhaps the aesthetic is a bit more open in some ways. There is a lot of received wisdom in that field that is also beyond questionable.
One issue is that there are loaded terms with positive and negative cultural connotations. It sounds silly to say "I prefer a somewhat colored, less accurate speaker with less detail and more poorly-defined imaging" but some might prefer just that.
Audio language takes on a life of its own, often independent of experience. and steers the discourse in various ways. I think a lot of bad audio gear results from designers chasing review-speak word images rather than musical "truth"... whatever that may be for individual listeners.
Funny how "transparent" has become a watchword of what I'm calling "naive objectivists," used to indicate some idealized sonic correlate of low distortion and low noise--something like that. As I recall from the 80s, that was a term employed by TAS metaphorologists discussing sound relative to different photography filters and lenses. Over time, the metaphorical aspect was lost and was taken literally, even though it really has no meaning in sound perception? Ever hear a sound block a sound behind it?
If many of the people who employ the term transparency as a banner for objectivism understood it's roots, they would die. Also, it strikes me as an ill-defined subjectivist notion masquerading as objective evaluation. The objectivists are falling into the trap of liking the positive connotation of the word, even as an objective definition of the term is elusive.
I use the term "objectivity" advisedly, since there is no such thing. Objectivity is itself a cultural, hence subjective and contingent, construction.
I think that the 80s writers at TAS were trying to be objective in a way, or at least craft a language to discuss sound that would offer some intersubjective commonality. Just as scientists would translate phenomena into mathematics, which they could then use to describe and calculate, early TAS translated sound perceptions into visual metaphor, which offers a much richer palette of descriptive language. Unfortunately, the calculation part doesn't work so well in metaphorical systems.
30 years down the road of high end audio, I think it would be useful to ban all of these stale metaphors and frozen review-speak terms that constrain and prevent rather than facilitate discussion, evaluation, and comparison. I doubt that this will happen however.
As an anthropologist focused on such matters, I can find problems and inconsistencies in any discourse/knowledge system, but this is simply a universal condition of human existence. All systems leak, as they say. Life goes on in spite of such trifles.
What no one can argue with is taste. And the ossified language of audio evaluation often pits itself against the freedom of choice and variability that underlies taste.
More personality, individuality, and less rote repetition of audio-speak is what I'd like to see in audio discourse.
That is what I like in Herb Reichert's contributions. I find it exciting to read one of his essays because I never know where he is going to take me. He was always that way. An interesting and thoughful guy and a good writer.
------------------------------
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
You're a brave man sir, using logic and linguistics to address the many problems in audio discourse today! I feel more comfortable with just criticizing Stereophile and TAS over ongoing hypocrisy concerning colorations and accuracy. I have to say though that Herb and Art Dudley have made the current Stereophile actually readable for me.
Paul
It is a curse, I tell you.
I was out walking my dog the other day thinking about how blind testing is actually "objective" only for the people running the test and not for the listening subjects. And then I dissected the various analytical gestures employed in constructing the objective overlay, the translation between the complex listening experience and the simplistic coding system of the researchers....
What in there moves staunch objectivists from totally distrusting human perception to accepting the results as a universal "finding," even if they don't know who the listeners were or the exact protocols of the test in question? I seriously question if they themselves know why they believe.
It is the same flaky listener in both cases.
H'mmm.
And then we got home and I gave Feather some Trader Joe's chicken sticks and things returned to normalcy, for a while.
The question of "what constitutes knowing?" is sort of an intellectual bottomless pit but I can't help going down there.
I think the hypocrisy of reviewing (pro and forum/amateur) has much to do with being steered in unintentional directions by language that we use for evaluation. This problem is foregrounded when one tries to write about sound. Words are necessary to do this and it is very difficult to reach beyond and around the usual conventions of audio discussion to do this.
I wonder how serious audio nerds talked about sound pre-TAS? Since the mid 80s, all of my adult life basically, visual metaphor has been the dominant idiom for discussing audio evaluation. It may feel natural for many of us but it is actually quite arcane.
Take "veiled" and "transparent." I think I know what these mean but actually I have no precise definition for these terms. I doubt the next guy has a solid definition either. So when used in conversation, what exactly are we talking about?
I think I occasionally hear presentations that I would characterize as "too transparent"...is this even possible within the audio logic of that term?
A bottomless pit...
------------------------------
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
Things are'nt as bad as you say, they're actually much worse. And just one curse would be fairly strait forward to deal with.
Objectivism/Subjectivism:
Both sides are playing with fixed dice, marked cards, and are using junk science and magical thinking. Take the sound of wires (or lack thereof). One side says there can be no audible effects at audio frequencies, so they won't spend the 10 minutes it would take to try it, but they don't mind spending countless hours over several years on one of these forums insisting different wires can't be audible! In many cases I can't blame them because if they actually try it and find no difference, then they're open for claims that their equipment is not up to the task.
Sidebar: The only way to test for audible differences in any audio equipment is to use the same piece of music played at exactly the same levels.EXACTLY THE SAME LEVELS!
And the other side claims drastic differences between wires, but when you reduce it to a double blind test where unfamiliar equipment is used, and unfamiliar music is randomly switched between other unfamiliar music, the results would be the same as if the person is guessing. However the person has to guess! The choices are typically A. or B and there's never a C choice which would mean: I dunno, I can't tell on this one!
If there are audio differences, then just what is the threshold level? Neither side seems to really want to look into this very deeply. You can learn more about how your rig sounds by playing some music for average people who are music lovers, but are luckily ignorant of the jargon surrounding Stereophile and TAS. You won't hear about the "soundstage" or PRAT, but you may hear things like "good stereo effect", and "good bass". The average reader of these magazines typically already knows how it's supposed to sound if you have horns and tubes, however if they're listening to expensive recommended component list stuff, they can listen to very narrow things, and also listen around other stuff which would seem like glaring faults, like a narrow one-seat-sweet spot where half of the music disappears if you move just one seat one way or the other! Show me a symphony orchestra where that happens!
I already know how audio nerds talked about sound pre-TAS. My dad had a hi-fi club in the early/mid 60's when it was just High Fidelity and Stereo Review, and Audio was rather obscure. There were spirited discussions then, to say the least, but back then horns, direct radiator boxes, and electrostats all were reccognized for their relative strengths and weaknesses, as also were tubes and solid state amps too. Most of the anti-horn prejudice seemed to appear about the time solid state amps began to dominate the market, and the Watt/horsepower wars took off with transistors the winner with tricked up lower THD. Would anybody still be listening to say a Crown DC300 through K-horns? Relatively cheap transistor Watts and high temperature voice coils should have made horns obsolete decades ago, but here we are talking about horns still.
The opposite of "veiled" could mean "revealing" I guess, which usually means that the speakers are revealing a peak in the treble for "detail" ala Holt's observations. The speaker could become so transparent that the sound could disappear completely, and you'd have only the memory of the performance I suppose. I've heard that some people prefer just looking at the sheet music, and if you could read it in braille, then that would be the ultimate I guess. One of the "golden ears" in my dad's hi-fi club was a blind piano tuner who read braille, but I don't recall if he could read music. He had Quad electrostats.
Paul
> Neither side seems to really want to look into this very deeply.
I'd agree with that. It is a minefield where only fools such as myself care to tread.
It is difficult to open up a dialogue when everybody thinks they are 100% correct and nobody really wants to address the deeper implications of their naively-held positions.
Not just difficult...hopeless...painful, even.
In my understanding of the game of audio evaluation, received knowledge in the human sciences greatly favors the naive subjectivist over the naive objectivist.
The main reason is that subjectivists are "testing" as part of real life, in natural use contexts, whereas objectivists reject the real world and set up artificial controlled situations that they think helps them rise above the messy contingencies of day to day living.
Only these test situations are, in fact, not adequately controlled and there is no rising above the realm of culturally-conditioned, contingent interpretation and human variability. These are the elemental conditions of human life. And that holds for the testers as well as the listening subjects. Curtains and AB boxes can't change that.
Electronics is a science, music listening is not.
So how can we KNOW what sounds different, what sounds better?
If the goal is to arrive at some form of indisputable knowledge that will convince all skeptics and hold for all listeners in all situations, then we will never fully know.
If we are trying to understand what works for us as individuals with tastes, biases, musical preferences, different kinds of systems, variable physiological and psychological makeups, and so on, we can get there by using the tools in our typical audio lives and decide over time. Don't expect to convince anybody else.
Hence, I think that theory favors the naive subjectivist, not that I agree with them half of the time. But that is precisely the point...why should we all agree? How could we all agree?
Theory in no way supports the crude scientistic assumptions and methods of the so-called objectivists, although they believe they have a massive corpus of scientific theory behind them. In practice, however, it is typically junk science with lab coats and hand waving and it is borderline-evil, dehumanizing, human science.
I can empathize a little bit with the objectivists. They believe they are on the righteous path, but very few seem to have any actual training in the subtleties of human research and they probably learned everything they know about audio evaluation from magazines and forums, which creates a self-perpetuating bubble.
Beyond that, I think that the cultural power of the "unity of the sciences" program which sought to bring all human experience under the canopy of positive science remains strong among those who haven't the educational background to see this wildly misguided and discredited paradigm for what it is/was. After all, many of us "old guys" learned this way of thinking in school because it took a long time to shake out of the system, and seems to still persist in a few remote niche subfields such as Acoustics.
But who among us is going to run out and take high level courses on philosophy of science and social science and seminars on social aesthetics and anthropological linguistics to figure out how we might truly _know_ if a piece of wire sounds different?
Yes, it is as though nobody really wants to dig deeper, and it can get very deep indeed.
The preponderance of the dialogue on this topic follows the same old well worn paths, with participants talking past each other and spouting the same old rote jive.
That said, I applaud any contributions that derail the commuter train and get us thinking in new and deeper ways about our relationship with musical sound and the toys that make it happen. Universal agreement should not be the goal, but a more reflective and nuanced relationship with our important life-enhancing pursuit of musical sound can't hurt.
A good audio writer to me is somebody who encourages an original thought or two once in a while while laying his/her heart bare. Herb can do that. I like Michael Lavorgna's contributions because I can sometimes see my struggles with computer audio reflected in his reports. Smart, perceptive guy. And Art Dudley dragging in various vintage gear is always a hoot. All of these writers are very sincere and open with their thoughts, and share their own versions of "I'm just visiting this planet and trying to make sense of it." That's what I'm trying to do myself, for myself. Learn.
Proper audio evaluation requires us to dig deeply, most of all into ourselves, but also continually examine and hone our evaluation systems.
When the language, assumptions, methods, questions and answers become frozen and over-formalized, so do we.
------------------------------
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
I really don't see any rigorous social science methodology making any inroads over at TAS. Herb and Art's presence at Stereophile seems to be making progress though. The late 60's and early 70's were a time when alternate ways of thinking about things proliferated, for better or worse. Stereophile and TAS were a different way of thinking about audio to counter balance what was going on at Stereo Review (which absorbed High Fidelity) where how stuff sounded was'nt mentioned much. Marshall McLuhan (remember him?) referenced a physics book from the 50's which was prefaced with a chinese parable where a man was trying to give some practical advice to a peasant on an easier way for drawing water from his well with a lever system. The peasant replied that he was not unaware of such devices, but that he would be ashamed to use them because people who use machines to do their work become machine like in their thinking. McLuhan was interested in why a physicist would be interested in a parable like this. Moving to the present time, physicist Lawrence Krauss participated in a debate on the english Institute for Art and Ideas site where he presented his conclusion that science had no need for philosophy and could proceed without it. He was roasted pretty good by the brit philosophers who countered that it was certainly important how one thinks about problems. If one is attracted to absolute concepts, it's easy to see how an absolute sound would develop from this.
Holt's 1994 "Space..." article saw the looming threat of home theater where obsessing about the soundstage would become irrelevant with multi channel sound. Also that Holt seemed shocked that hedonism was going on in his establishment. The whole thing was largely ignored in '94, but the sharper speaker manufacturers have seemed to notice what it takes to get a rave review in Stereophile.
Paul
When I say TAS, I am talking about the 1980s when they came up with many of the terms and perspectives that were later fossilized into the review speak we know today. The writers were outdoing each other fleshing out the metaphors. It was really wild stuff. I felt left out of some of the esoteric film and lens references some of these reviewers used because I didn't even have a camera. It was very 80s upwardly mobile, yuppie scum stuff, to use a then-current jibe. The scent of Mateus, damp Italian sculpted sweaters, and cocaine hung heavily in the air...
By the late 80s, I was out of grad school and virtually unemployable with a couple anthro degrees, so I got a job in a high end store. There I got to play with much of the gear under review and I could judge the reviewing on that basis, in addition to critiquing their evaluation systems on intellectual grounds.
My general impression was that these guys were nuts. They were totally lost in their own language and losing track of the scheme. The cleverness of the review seemed to overtake the job of evaluating the gear. Tediously described micro analyses of a single violin note on some dreadful Editor's Choice Shaded Dog stretched on for paragraphs of wine and Leica references. In the end, one had little idea of what the device under test actually sounded like and I found it very difficult to recognize the review in the actual equipment.
To read the magazines, one would think this marvelous high-end gear was one jaw-droppingly fantastic engineering and aesthetic accomplishment after another. In reality it was somewhat less, much less. I built my first DIY amp at the counter in the store in the store during slow periods, which were frequent. It was a 6L6 PP amp from the old Acrosound catalog built with surplus parts from the hamfest. Turned out sounding better than anything in the store....and I wasn't the only one to think so. And I was just a ham radio lovin' anthropologist, not a high-end auteur/designer.
History demonstrates where I went with that realization.
Although many of these 80s writers were intelligent and capable folks, some went down the rabbit hole of language and metaphor and got lost in the tunnels.
I have done some reviewing and I think it is a difficult enterprise, especially if avoiding intensive navel-gazing and creating a useful, meaningful piece with general readability, entertainment value, and larger relevance are the goals. Many of the "top" reviewers have been formulaic as hell, almost to the point where one could cut and paste in new equipment names and fax it in the to the editor for the next issue. Reviewing machines.
I am not arguing that reviewers need advanced training in philosophy of science and social sciences. The ones who need that are staunch naive objectivist firebrands harshing the mellow for the chill subjectivists on the forums, cause they are way off base in both theory and practice.
What reviewing needs are inquisitive and curious people who are able to bracket out any assumed expertise they might have and share the saga of discovery and making sense of the market and the technology, while describing gear in ways that will attract those listeners who would be drawn to the unit question for sonic or other reasons.
I feel that a good review/er literary persona is humble, sincere, and simple-minded in a good way, like a kid in a toy store.
I have known Art and Herb for decades and when I read their columns, I often get the impulse that they are playing humble and innocent in some ways for the sake of the article, but the reality is that that is how they are. They really are amazed by the gear. These guys are still learning, even though they have many many years of experience and they approach writing with a natural sincerity that does not hide this childlike affect.
My experience in academics has taught me that the really smart profs are the ones who will listen to anybody and anything because they might learn something new, while the ones who are staunch dogmatic know-it-alls are often insecure poseur frauds.
For me, the aesthetics of musical sound is a deep and mysterious thing. It sure keeps me humble, more the older I get and the more I hear.
What occasionally gets me out of my shell to rage like a lunatic on forums is people trying to steal that mystery with bonehead junk science, because mystery and magic totally belong in there.
------------------------------
Free your mind and your ass will follow -- Parliament/Funkadelic
Joe, I really enjoy reading your posts. It is too bad that Sound Practices is no more - it was your publication that turned me on to audio, then to horns, and then lead me to a meeting with Dr. Bruce Edgar. And now I actually roll my own, he-he... BTW, your magazine proved a good investment, too, because I eventually sold the entire subscription for more than I paid for.
Stereophile actually began in 1962 by JGH, and The Absolute Sound began in 1973 by Harry Pearson, but I have to admit that I was only dimly aware of them until the late 80's when a friend (who posed the question that inspired this post) decided he needed to upgrade his Advent/Sherwood rig (when his toddler daughter poked holes in the surrounds), and he started lending me the rags. I had a gift subscription to Stereophile from my daughter in the late 80's, which she neglected to pay for, but I stuck it out, but I never felt comfortable there. I let the sub lapse, but the turning point came for me with a later loaned issue where there was a heated discussion of the merits of the Tice Clock. I wanted to keep my place by tearing out the pages I had already read! But the rag was a loaner which I felt compelled to return. I had a subscription to Stereo Review from the late 70's into early 90's, and several times I was going to switch to Audio, but they would have a good issue once and a while and I kept on. During that time there was one mention in an edditorial about the efficiency of the Klipsch Horn, but except for a review of the EV Sentry and another JBL direct radiator horn hybrid, you'd have hardly known that horn speakers (or tube amps) for the home existed. This is except for an ad in the back of the mag where a collector was seeking tube amps and theater horn speakers. This was apparently Walt Bender of Audiomart who actually was making a living buying this stuff and sending it to Japan at the time. There were occasional humorous mentions of how the crazy Japanese were spending crazy money for 1930's Western Electric tube amps with a mere 8 Watts! You once said that you started Sound Practices in the early 90's "...to shake up the high end".., and this did so as a case of dynamite would shake up an out house over due for a move.
Now back in the early 60's a neighbor of ours on the west side of Chicago put together a very spectacular EV based horn system in his basement. This was a rig that could actually image in the early 60's! You could actually localize accurately the various instruments of the orchestra at a time when most people had mono "boom" consoles. At one point a subwoofer with an EV 30W showed up, and it could go down to the 16 Hz C1 of a pipe organ! This was a rig that was easily one of the best rigs I've ever heard, and it was in the early 60's!
Jumping forward to the late 70's, my dad had built a few back loaded bass horns in the 60's which he sold to a few guys in his club, and we had one at home then too, but one of them had never been assembled and existed as a bunch of plywood pieces in the garage, which my brother and I were warned never to touch. My dad offered to give me this pair, a BLH for a 12" driver, and I accepted with the intention of putting together a portable sound system for a band I was kind of in at the time. We put them together, but I promptly lost interest in being a sound man. Ry Cooder once said that bands were like mental institutions. I mean, if there's a room full of people and one of them is a neurotic musician, then I want to be that neurotic musician! Anyway my dad had to move at one point in '79 -80 and announced that he was going to drop the horns off at my place. During a point of inactivity during that cold winter I decided to put one of the horns together to hear what it sounded like: we modified the BLH for an EV 15B; I had EV 1823/8HD's mids; and a couple of Motorola pieizo tweeters. I hooked one of them up to my HK 330 on the left side with one of my Alted Model 9's on the right (a 12" 3 way) and I could barely hear the Altec! I checked the wiring and amp and found nothing wrong, and it took awhile for it to sink in what was happening. I had thought the horn would be louder, but only because they could handle a lot more power. I could'nt believe that one of them could actually drown out one of the Altecs which I though were quite loud and sounded pretty good too! Very soon the other horn was completed, and they became the main listening system when they crowded the Altecs out, and the Altecs became the monitors in the 4 track recording studio in the adjoining dining room. The horns just had that big sound that I remembered from my dad's hi-fi club from the 60's.
Moving forward again to the late 90's early 00's, I attended a meeting of the Chicago Horn Club and heard Tom Brennan's Altec Voice of the Theater A5 rig. It sounded a bit rough at the time, a good rock'n roll rig, but my rig sounded better with well recorded stuff. However it kept evolving, and with some tube amps on the Altec mids it became one of the best rigs I've ever heard. The imaging was adequate, but everything you put on it sounded good! My rig only sounded good with well recorded stuff at the time, and this just had to go, and I had to do a re-thnk of the whole thing. I wanna hear what I wanna hear now! I don't care if it's well recorded or not! Herb had mentioned this in SP as a warning sign, that if you're tending to listen only to well recorded stuff, then you're on the wrong track (with a likely tilt towards the treble ala Holt). The most astounding thing was that Tom's rig had the sound at the movies in someones' house! It finally dawned on me what I had been looking for all along was the sound of those Altecs VOT's I had grown up listening to, but never saw, behind the movie screens all those years. Sorry to go back to a visual analogy again, but back in the 70's I was working on a scientific discipline which would combine cosmology and metaphysics. I called it cosmetics, and I got no respect at all.
Well at this point there's no going back. Contra to John Atkinson, I'm suspicious of any speaker having claims of very high performance which is not horn loaded.
Paul
With audio your trying to replicate the sonic art of others this opens a huge can of worms since so many variables and biases exist. What works for one might not work for others we all have different needs desires biases education income tastes. While most can agree on what makes a proper picture since the eye is so easily tricked the ear is not as easily fooled. To me this is why audio can be so subjective. We deal with imperfect devises trying to replicate artistic intent. So as a audiophile we select the positive but also the imperfections we can deal with. I tend to fall into the horn camp I select for dynamics lifelike image greatly reduced thermal compression but at the same time I also select for increased coloration higher noise floor massive size etc. Nothing is perfect. And that is a good thing.
You better be careful, Kloss. If you're not careful folks will begin accusing you of being wise and eloquent.
I can't resist. I was once at a dinner with Percy Wilson hosted by Bud Fried where I also met Gordon Holt. But what I recall from Percy who was an expert on horn design were his telling me there were two things you shouldn't do to make a bass horn. You shouldn't make it out of wood and you shouldn't fold it.This sounds like almost every prctical bass horn out there.
H
Lucky is the man who does'nt have to be "practical". English audio writer John Crabbe once built a folded horn out of concrete blocks in the corner of his dining room while his wife was pregnant! Some deep magic must have been at work there, which the rest of us can only dimly understand.
Paul
7 cubic foot box of folded sin
Karlson Evangelist
Freddy
That's pretty good for a 3 cu. ft. box, and it goes up to nearly 500 Hz, and you can lop off the rough stuff above that with the crossover. Folds can work!
Paul
Folded horns can work quite well. I have a pair of Bill Fitzmaurice designed HT Tuba folded corner horn subs that provide very clean tight tuneful bass to accompany a great variety of music. They blend beautifully with my horn wide ranges and bullet tweeters.
There are no absolutes. Just because it's vintage does not mean it's superior. Having stated that, there is something to be said for enjoying nostalgia. A proper horn rig simply has no peer, but how often have I seen
a "proper horn rig" (?)
Hint to the answer: (it's a number less than 1)
Please understand, that does not mean they don't exist; it's just that I have not seen any.
Also, I have noted that those who are stuck in vintage, are very closed minded. I have also finally come to realize (after 43 years worth) there is almost no sense in auditioning other persons' systems, or them auditioning mine. WHY(?)Because, the preconceived notions as to what is "correct" already exists in the mind's ear.
Peace, love, harmony, and happy listening to all :)
Scott
So you've heard proper horn rigs numbering less than one, so I have to assume that you've heard half of a proper stereo horn rig, which would mean a proper mono horn rig? That's okay as I've heard a really good mono horn rig done by former regular here John Sheerin some years ago. Several people commented that they had difficulty forgetting that this was a mono rig. Vinnie Gallo promoted a back to mono movement in Sound Practices magazine back in the 90's. By the term "vintage audiophiles" I mean old guys who've been there and wrecked that, and heard it all. These people typically have been brainwashed by the Altec V.O.T. speakers they heard (but likely never saw) behind the movie theater screens while growing up in the 40's, 50's, 60's and well into the 70's. Many people have heard proper horn rigs, but just did'nt know it.
As to not auditioning other peoples systems, I have to disagree. Every horn person should cultivate a S.S. direct radiator listening friend, as this person's rig will become you're reference for what the average guy would be able to assemble from the typical list of Stereophile/TAS recommended components. If you've done your work well, it should become obvious that it takes a horn to catch a horn, and alway has.
Paul
Hello Paul,
I have had a horn based system running for about 3 years. I just recently changed it out. I loved it, but sure it could have been better. Before that, I had a different horn system, in some ways even better. I found that to truly sound cohesive, a mid range horn should be supported by a mid bass horn on the bottom, and a tweeter horn on top. To do this as close to "proper" as possible, I would need a much larger room. I am side stepping
the horn thing for a while to fully develop the best direct radiator system that I can. I even wanted to use all solid state, but alas, I simply can't because a tube sounds too sweet on my ribbon/horn/loaded tweeters.
Since, I have (temporarily?) abandoned horns, I'll probably be cast out of the "cool kids" club. DOH :)
Wow Scott!
I couldn't disagree with you more vehemently. As you can see from the photo up above this post, my system is based on 1930's audio technologies, i.e., the Sachikos can be seen to have their roots in Harry Olson's 1937 patent application #: US2224919 and my SET amp is also based on 1930's technology. Granted they use today's best components, but they're still 1930's based technologies. So I'm not sure what that makes me!?!?!? Am I vintage audio enthusiast or a vintage audio technology enthusiast? Hmmmm... that's an interesting question, but that's not why I vehemently disagree with you. It's your statement of: " I have also finally come to realize (after 43 years worth) there is almost no sense in auditioning other persons' systems, or them auditioning mine. WHY(?)Because, the preconceived notions as to what is "correct" already exists in the mind's ear. "
Scott I have 49 years in this hobby ---{ and that my friend doesn't mean diddly-squat! It's not how many years anyone has invested, it's how much they've learned in the time they invested that counts! }--- My venture into all this started with music when I was 13 years old. My dad just came home from work one night and after he finished eating dinner, he informed us all that he was leaving that night and he wouldn't live with us any longer! My mom began dealing with her heartbreak the very next morning by playing repeatedly from approx. 7am till 7pm Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Connie Francis & especially Engelbert Humperdinck singing " Please Release Me ". While I didn't like a lot of the music per se, the sound of the instruments enthralled me. I absolutely loved the sound of the different instruments. I couldn't wait for when two instruments would play the same music together. I would listen so intently trying to figure out whey they sounded different and yet sort of the similar at the same time. I really liked Frank, some of Dean and Sammy Davis Jr., but for the most part Connie and Engelbert were lost on me.
Eventually I started taking my bicycle out on the days when people could throw away anything that could fit in the back of a garbage truck. We lived near the corner of East Hartford CT. and Glastonbury CT. That was a lucky break for me because Glastonbury was a wealthy area and the items these people would simply discard as trash many people would purchase. So when I'd go out on this bonanza days, for myself I'd gut audio consoles and get tube monoblocks, tube preamps, tube tuners, turntables etc. for myself, but I'd also grab other things I thought were nice and I thought people might buy. So on some weekends I'd have small tag sales to sell them, ha ha ha. I was even luckier because back in 1960's they were actually delivering cases full of bottled soda to your doorsteps. I remember soda, milk and bread being hand-delivered to our side door every week! I took one of those empty wooden cases of soda and for the turntable I flipped the case over and cut a hole in the bottom. Then I flipped it over again and mounted the TT in the hole I just cut. Within a few months I had a better audio system than many of those wealthy people who were throwing their " broken " consoles out, but I digress!
Scott after those 43 years you spoke about being involved in this hobby, if you haven't yet learned what a clarinet, trombone, saxophone, piano and a myriad of other acoustic instruments and singers truly sound like in different ---{ not every, but many }--- venues. Then my friend you have not invested your time wisely. There is such a thing as THE ABSOLUTE SOUND. Take a Upright piano or a Baby Grand and place it in a nice Jazz bar like the Jazz Standard which is located at 116 East 27th Street in NY. Go on a Monday night and you might catch the Mingus Big Band on " Mingus Mondays " Now I'd wager that sometime during their show their piano player would play either the Upright piano or the Baby Grand and even though they would sound different from each other, they would also have their own unique or "voice" when played at the Jazz Standard and that sound Scott is an Absolute Sound. It's the way either that Upright piano or the Baby Grand will sound when played at the Jazz Standard, If you went and listened purposefully a few times you'd come to know and recognize each piano's Absolute Sound very well and it wouldn't matter whether Orrin Evans, Helen Sung, or Jim Ridl ---{ some of different piano players in the Mingus Big Band }--- was playing that piano either.
Singers and instruments produce not only the Fundamental note played but a whole series of tones in a relationship to that fundamental note called Overtones and it's the relative loudness or amplitude of each of these overtones vs the fundamental note that differentiates a piano from a guitar or Halie Loren from Kate Reid. Another area we need to consider is the Envelope or the change in amplitude over time of the sound! For example: a piano has a very sharp beginning or " attack " whereas a violin has a relatively slow attack. It's all these things together that makes a person or instrument have it's own unique absolute sound or Timbre and that's what makes each instrument sound different from one another. Look at it like this. When you first meet someone you don't recognize their voice all the time, do you? But in time you learn to recognize their voice anywhere! It can be on the phone, in a very reverberant men's room, an extremely large auditorium, an office as small as a closet or outside in a large field. You've learned to recognize that person's unique voice, or their unique Absolute sound. If you can learn to recognize a person's voice in virtually any location why can't you do the same thing with a piano's voice or clarinet's voice or any other instrument and/or singer's voice? The correct answer is YOU CAN! Just like you've some to recognize your different friend's voices in the various types of locations I gave example of previously in this post.
And finally I get to where I vehemently disagree with you. Scott once you've come to realize you have already learned to recognize what the unique or absolute sound of different singers are ---{ I'll wager you know what Bobby McFerrin's or Elvis Presley's "Absolute Sound" is }--- you'll start to realize you can also learn what the absolute sound of any other instrument is as well! And once you've done that Scott you'll be able to easily go into anyone's home and determine whether or not their audio system is more faithful at reproducing the absolute sound or the unique voice of the different instruments being played. Now you'll no longer have any preconceived notions as to what "correct" is! Instead you'll know what the absolute sound of the clarinet, sax, trumpet etc. is and whether or not the audio system your listening to is faithfully reproducing that sound, or not! I love auditioning new audio systems. In fact, I'm having someone over my home Friday night 1/8/16 that wants to audition my system! Let me end my long-winded post by stating this was my attempt at explaining how I viewed what you said and why I disagreed with it. I meant no disrespect and I sincerely only wished to share what I've learned with you. You can do whatever you wish with this knowledge. Hopefully we'll see each other in the forum again...
I'm listening to: A Paul Simon Songbook by Bill Cunliffe
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
Edits: 01/08/16
Just as any lawyer will tell you the real legal education begins when you get a job - same with an audio system. When you get the stuff home and set it up - that is when the real work begins.
Sorry but another analogy - the one about if you are not able to become your own doctor early enough in life your life will not likely be a very long one.
A good sounding audio system is a matter of working with what you have in your room and figuring out how to get it to work.
All of the expensive ugly/pretty boxes in the world is not a guarantee of good sound.
Here it comes again - just as we are told one has to work at being happy - a good sounding audio system does not happen naturally or by accident.
That was one of the great posts, sir. Enjoyed it immensely.
Thanks for your kind words Rick. I was sincerely attempting to pass along some knowledge I learned down the long audio path I've traveled. It just bothers me when I hear " There are no absolutes in audio. " While I have no issues with anyone saying: " Just assemble an audio system that sounds good to you! " I believe some people can and perhaps even should do that provided:
1) the sound makes them happy
2) they don't also attempt to call it a system that faithfully reproduces an instrument or singers " absolute sound. "
In the long run we all should thoroughly enjoy our audio systems. Personally I always thought an audio system that most closely replicates the " absolute sound of instruments and singers would provide the most enjoyment for their owners, but after auditioning many audio systems through the years I've come to realize that's just not true. However as I said before, " if " assembling an audio system that sounds the way the owner wants it to sound is what makes them happy, then so-be-it! In the end I'll go home to my system which replicates the " absolute sound ' of instruments & singers as closely as I can make it do so and that's the sound that makes me happy...
I'm listening to: The Men In My Life by Jackie Allen
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
The lead POST suggested that "vintage" was THEEEE only way, to which I replied:
"There are no absolutes" meaning that there is more than one path to audio nirvana.
Not only are the vintage guys kinda closed minced, they can also be kinda snooty. By that, I mean, to look down their noise at somebody using solid state devices and monkey coffin speakers.
And, to be sure, there is an "absolute sound". It's called live acoustic music.
Scott
I have to appologize for coming off as snooty (and closed minced?), this is just an affectation I assume to counterbalance the snooty elitism that's been running rampant at Stereophile and TAS for some decades. This stuff was amusing back when we had a real market in audio publishing at the magazine stand, with Stereo Review, Audio, Sound Practices (the best of them all) and the Brit glossies too (which had first class writing, but have lately become just clones of Stereophile and TAS). Now we have a duopoly.
I still have a problem with there actually being an Absolute Sound. If you were talking of test signals and scope traces there might be something to this, however most of us listen to music, and there's certainly no absolute music. Even the example of live un-amplified performances could mean drastically different things, all the way from a solo clavichord to a full symphony orchestra. BTW the audiophile friend who inspired this thread with the vintage/accuracy question, my favorite quote from him is "There is no Absolute Sound". We have both agreed that the sound of an orchestral performance can vary widely if you just change your seat in the hall, and I have done so with free comp tickets I got from him for a rehearsal at the CSO. He was at work at the time in the symphony chorus.
Paul
...from what's apparently now become by-default the golden age of audio journalism: the 90's. One can't ignore The Audio Amateur magazine, which later spun off Speaker Builder and Glass Audio too, but has now become conglomerated into AudioXpress. These DIY magazines were'nt immune to some of the neurotic silly influence then being promoted at Stereophile and TAS though. One of the most astounding things I ever read was a statement in A/A where the author mentioned some favorite speaker wires of his, and his intention to someday build a whole system around them! Gah! This is like building a hot rod around your favorite ignition wires!
Paul
Paul,
I'd have to agree with you 100% re: the golden age of audio journalism. I also, right here, offer you a great big thanks because I went back and starting reading, "Space, the Final Frontier" I have not read it all because my attention span at reading a monitor screen is very limited.
BUT......
I think (?) part of the jest is you can't have imaging on a high-efficiency system that can equal what a highly touted snobby slick mag system can do ? HOGWASH I say !! It's all in the setup. To wit, most of these hi-eff systems are kerplunked down in whatever space it will barely fit. Most of these hi-eff systems barely address the mid-bass, and even if they do that, the all-important deep bass is totally forgotten.
Oh, it's always the same moaning and groaning: "There's really nothing down there" "Oh that's where the MUD lives" (not Harry Mudd) and so on and so on. What I see more often is this great big huge mid range horn often times loaded with a 112db/watt compression driver which runs the mid range par secter about 10 db's hotter than the rest and with rampant exclamations on mid range DETAIL MAN, listen to that detail !!
I have a really good friend with a totally decked out/modded Klipsch LaScala system. It sounds pretty darn good. It's showcased in a marvelously decorated room worthy of high-praise from Martha Stewart.
This is as opposed to my place which would earn high-praise from Oscar Madison,
but, "The [devoted]audio room is set-up PROPER-LIKE". We listen to music at his place and it sounds just fine; mellow,yet full bodied, very polite. Then, days later he comes to my place and listens to the very same (for example,
wake up your ears, "do the waap because you haven't dome nuthin !!" )
...and his jaw drops when the tenor sax jumps out 6 feet to the left of her singing with such intensity while the acoustic bass rocks the room with such definition and authority....he is almost speechless. Upon recovery, he remarks about such "incredible imaging" to which I reply,
"It's all in the set-up" (meaning total system execution). And you know what really gets their goat ? I am not a doctor, Lawyer, or engineer, such that there is NO-WAY I am able to do exactly what I am doing.
there is an "absolute sound". It's called live acoustic music... that was perfectly stated Scott! In that we are incomplete agreement! Now let's see if we also are in agreement when you say; "There are no absolutes" meaning that there is more than one path to audio nirvana. To me, there is an absolute in music reproduction. We should all strive to have our audio system's replicate the sound of live, unamplified, acoustic music as closely as possible to the original acoustic event. It sounded one way and the way it originally sounded was it's absolute sound. However there are different ways to assemble an audio system that can replicate that sound. Hopefully that's what you were referring to when you said, "There are no absolutes" meaning that there is more than one path to audio nirvana.
I'm listening to: Afterdark by Halie Loren
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
Hello Tom,
The enthusiasm about your system and how much you enjoy it,has been very well established !
But, what if you could instantly transport 700 miles and hear mine?
It would sound so different that you would be quite uncomfortable with it, and would deem yours to be "correct".
I don't see where you have disagreed with me at all !!
p.s. I am exposed to live music at least one day a week, often times more than that.
Scott,I wished I could instantly transport 700 miles and hear your system. In the end it would either replicate the " absolute sound " of the instruments and singers on the recordings we played more closely than mine does or not. Until I heard it I'd have no idea which system I'd prefer. Scott unless you assembled an audio system that was just plain terrible sounding with bright highs that screeched so loudly they'd make your ears bleed, a midrange that was dull and muted and bass that boomed like a boom-box that many young people used to carry around on their shoulders, I would not be uncomfortable with your audio system at all!
A few months ago Arthur Salvatore invited my friend and I over to audition his audio system. Believe it or not, within the first 30 seconds of listening to his system, I knew I preferred it's sound even more than my own! Why? For one simple reason i.e., it replicated the " absolute sound " of the instruments and singers on the recordings we played more closely than my system does. That's the same and only test I have when I listen to anyone's audio system, period. I don't care what it looks like, I don't care how much it costs and I don't care what topology the components used employs. I only care how closely it replicates the " absolute sound " of the instruments and singers we play, period!
The system's I listen to and audition either replicate the " absolute sound " of instruments and singers on the recordings we play more closely than mine does or they don't. If they do replicate the " absolute sound " of the instruments and singers closer than my system, I prefer that system more than mine and if the don't replicate the " absolute sound " of instruments and singers more closely than my mine does, then I prefer my system more and that's it in a nutshell!
I'm listening to: The Men In My Life by Jackie Allen
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
Edits: 01/08/16
Tom,
It's very refreshing to read about your positive attitude towards
auditioning others' systems. It is very uncommon indeed !
Scott I may be mistaken, but I believe when others cannot positively audition another audio system that replicates the sound of singers and instruments closer to their "absolute sound" than their own audio system does! It's because that person loves their equipment more than the music. If these people truly loved the music more than the audio equipment they couldn't help but be moved by hearing it more faithfully or correctly replicated.
I'm listening to: Afterdark by Halie Loren
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
Tom,
A most excellent point !
I remember during my early years when blessed with the chance to listen to
a "higher class" audio system, was a real treat !
Also, let me state right here, when I say "the vintage guys are closed minded", I certainly don't mean ALL of them, just SOME of them.
I have to admit that in the past I've avoided using the phrase "absolute sound" as it caused me to picture someone listening to some shoebox sized monkey coffins, driven by an S.S. amp with enough negative feedback to choke a horse, while thinking " I'm listening to the Absolute Sound of a symphony orchestra!" because of what they read in Stereophile/TAS, but I have to admit that after reading your heartfelt essay that I may have to re-think this prejudice of mine. I'm still having problems though with the misuse of the word "accurate" and it's frequent mal-appropriation by what's left of the audiophile press though. Ditto for the also frequently misapplied "neutral".
Geez, what a story you've told!
Paul
BTW With a magnetic monster like the Lowther driver, there's basically no choice but to horn load it, be it front, back or double loaded, and all iterations are fair game.
Plato had a lot to say about this.
...and very accurate and neutral shadows they are, with Pace, Rhythm And Timing too.
Paul
Huge convoluted design boxes to enable inadequate to purpose, sized drivers pretend they aren't... ie 'work' below 200hz
Buy Hey! there's a Product for every taste.. it's a complex world.
You are aware that Lowthers were intended for front loaded horns ?
Clearly you like your setup.. great! So what ?
Edits: 01/07/16
B
In a back loaded horn design it's necessary to make the throat of the back horn smaller than what would be used in a front loaded horn where maximum efficiency would be a goal. This is because the output from the horn would tend to over power the output from the direct radiating front of the driver in a BLH if this imbalance was'nt addressed. While this limits the efficiency of a BLH compared to a front loaded horn design, the upside is that the bass output below the horn cut off becomes more of a useful player in the bass response with a BLH due to the fact that the horn is less efficient.
Paul
Huge convoluted design boxes to enable inadequate to purpose, sized drivers pretend they aren't... ie 'work' below 200hz
There's a product for every taste.
You clearly like them.. great! So what ?
Edits: 01/07/16
Speakers, IMO, are the most colored component set in a music reproduction kit. That is bad news. But that is also good news. No other component lets you tailor your system's sound to what YOU like. The only ears I have to impress are mine. I, too, believe that acoustic music is the benchmark for the 'absolute sound'. I get a chuckle out of statements like " I have noted that those who are stuck in vintage, are very closed minded" In my case nothing could be further from the truth.Since the mid 60's a music system has been central to my entertainment. I have run the full gamut of PP tubes to SS, SS Class A, back to tubes SEP, to high powered tubes PP & Triode and finally for the past few years DHSET's. Am I stuck "stuck in vintage"?...hardly, but the 45's in one set of amps do have a sticker that states the tubes should be changed mid 1937. My current "vintage" amps are BottleHead SET's. Yes, vintage designed power tubes. But a design brought to the market in the last 20 years by a designer I have learned to trust. Am I closed minded?...again, hardly. I did set a goal to build as much of my equipment as possible. (I originally started this long journey, like many others building a DynaKit ST70.) Is vintage really better? Depends on your ears. The technological advances in audio manufacturing have generally been more focused on reducing costs and automating production then actual sound reproduction improvement. Marketing has taken on the task to convince the marketplace of sonic improvements, even when it wasn't in the EE's scope of work.
So back to the "absolute sound". I played french horn. Timbre is my first criteria. If a system cannot reproduce the subtle cues that allow one to tell one instrument from the other, it doesn't work for me. But that also gives a pretty clear definition of my preferred musical genres. I had the pin point imaging, with the original Gallo Nucleus Solo speakers. They remained in the main system for years. I have never heard speakers that imaged better AND accurately captured the proper timbre. But, IMO, pin point imaging does not exist in live music, it is an artifact of the recording process. I do not hear pin point imaging at Davies Symphony Hall, Great American Music Hall, SF Jazz Center, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, The Filmore, Slim's, Yoshi's or any other of a multitude of venues for live music I have attended.
I am admittedly biased in Paul E's, the OP, favor. He was instrument in getting my 60's EV horn system sorted. And I agree with his comments in the opening post. The only ears you have to please are your own!
Edits: 01/09/16
Thanks !
That was a very well thought out post. In particular, I like this:
"Is vintage really better? Depends on your ears"
Geary,
Since you are right there at their head quarters, would you consider evaluating a Parasound Halo pre-amp in your main system ?
"Geary,
Since you are right there at their head quarters, would you consider evaluating a Parasound Halo pre-amp in your main system ?"
Possibly. Would need more information. I am, somewhat, a Parasound fan. I use their multi channel amp in the home theater set up and 2 channel amp for the subs in the audio kit, (When they were in use. not currently).
Let me know your thoughts on this.
Cheers,
Geary
"Geary,
Since you are right there at their head quarters, would you consider evaluating a Parasound Halo pre-amp in your main system ?"
Possibly. Would need more information. I am, somewhat, a Parasound fan. I use their multi channel amp in the home theater set up and 2 channel amp for the subs in the audio kit, (When they were in use. not currently).
Let me know your thoughts on this.
Cheers,
Geary
Perhaps the Parasound Halo JC 2, or, to be even more impressed for
the asking price: the Halo P5
By the way, Grainger49 says hello. He came by to check the relative phase
of each section of my 4 way, to each other, respectively.
GREEN GREEN RED All good :)
Wow, as usual, a small world! Please extend a cheery hello to Grainger!! He is a good man!
As to the Parasound preamp, if someone locally had one to audition I would be willing do so. I have long lost my contacts/relationships with the ever dwindling number of local high end audio dealers. That is a "downside" to being in the DIY world for a rather extended period of time. I still do turntable set up for a couple of dealers, but haven't had a request in about 6 months. Neither is a Parasound dealer. Most of the remaining dealers survive on HT rather than 2 channel audio.
Cheers,
Geary
Geary
That's another grievance I have against the Knights of the Soundstage: that a live symphony orchestra does'nt actually image all that well by the benchmarks they have established. If you close your eyes and try to visualize that you can accurately point to various instruments during a performance, you'll find that this just does'nt work much of the time. The string section, which is comprised of the first and second violins etc. is spread across the left and right. A solo violin can be localized of course. While a solo trumpet can be localized if your seat is near the axis of the horn, the rest of the brass section will not have the bells of their instruments pointed directly at you, so that most of their sound will be reflected. If the recording microphones are placed way up high, this will tend to flatten out the sound stage, but tighten up the localization of various instruments. As you point out this is an artifact which is probably not an accurate reproduction of the performance as someone would hear it in the actual human seats.
Paul
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: