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In Reply to: RE: Danley installation at the new Mercedes Benz stadium in Atlanta posted by BofService on April 03, 2017 at 11:41:06
B
It's good to hear that Tom is still in business and doing well, especially after a suggestion made on this forum that he contact a rival who sells arrays and "...learn from him". This was like telling someone who has designed an innovative high performance sports car that they should go down to the local minivan dealer and learn something. Years ago I got into the habit of making paper copies of good reference material from this forum, as I didn't always have access to the family computer. Now we have several computers but the paper material is still here and it's arranged into folders and binders. Bruce Edgar has a big one. Even bigger is one for W.H. "Bill" Geiger, the Sherlock Holmes of horn theory. But the biggest folder of all says Danley on it.
Disclaimer: I don't own or sell any Danley products. The closest Tom has come to making any money from me would be from the ticket prices I have paid for the Omnimax movie theater here in Chicago which uses Danley designed subwoofers. It currently has the best movie sound I've heard.
Paul
Follow Ups:
Hi Paul,
I actually have those same 4 Omnimax subwoofers in my home. Count me as a Danley Sound labs fan as well. and I do own a boatload of products that Tom designed..........as much as I can afford, anyhow.
On that note, I now have a modified Pass designed Aleph J All FET class A, single ended amplifier with double the output devices, which puts me in sonic nirvana in the micro detail department. Tom Danley's Unity Summation Aperture and Synergy Horns, along with tapped horn subs are the best I've ever owned.
Clean, clear, DYNAMICS to "stupid loud" levels if need be, while delivering the detail of Electro Static speakers.
They BELONG on this forum since the readers seek 100 db/watt efficiency here by way of the "high efficiency" sub division.
Those who have not heard this are really missing out on great stuff.
C
It's good to hear from someone else who has actually heard Tom's designs and who can testify that that horns can perform well in the home.
Paul.
It started with Klipschorns when I was 14. Took a while to be able to afford a pair, but I've been a horn guy for over 40 years. Even spent a day with Paul Klipsch back in '85 when I was still a "kid." He made my wife and I feel like we were his long lost grand kids that day. He was the same age as my grandmother who out lived him by 7 years.
The bigger the horn, the better the horn.
C
PWK was a character indeed, and everyone who ever met him had a story to tell. I met him back in the 90's and I still have an autographed pic of him he gave me hung near my speakers. His magnum opus Modulation Distortion In Loudspeakers clearly proved the advantage horns have over direct radiators in that horns are capable of producing much lower amplitude modulation and frequency modulation distortion. Anti-horn attitudes in the hi-end magazines started appearing about the same time as high Watt/low THD transistor amps appeared with lots of negative feedback used to get the better numbers. What a coincidence!
Paul
When I went to his house, he was running a BGW 100 watt amp and half of a crown D60 on his center channel.
He only played his own recordings, all from only 2 spaced omni mikes. Heard several and they sounded great.
His own Klipshorns were just regular ones from the factory floor, but he used 4x4x4 ft. false corners behind them.
He referred to commercial recordings as "dilute stereo."
I could go on.
Apparently you met him after he sold the company to Fred Klipsch, who built up the company to about 8x the size it was in 1989.
C.
Someone asked him what he thought about tubes and he just said "You have to change the tubes too much". I wonder if the output transistors for those BGW and Crown amps are still available, many from that era are not. Another question was 'What do you think about wires?". He answered "I use 16 gauge lamp cord", but the questioner persisted with "Have you tried different wires?", but the answer was again "I use 16 gauge lamp cord". I think any question involving wires would have gotten this answer. He was not involved in all the details of the company at that point, and someone asked him whether one of the new Klipsch box speaker models on display was sealed or vented. He said "That's a good question" and he got up and walked over to one of the big boxes and hefted it up to see, to the amusement of all. He was a brilliant engineer who could also be a standup comic at the same time.
Paul
My day with him was early August, 1985. He was not very involved with the daily running of the company then. Jim Hunter didn't have gray hair yet, and Roy Delgado (future Chief Engineer) had not been hired out of college yet, to become their most prolific speaker designer, including the legendary/Amazing Jubilee bass and the K402 mid horns.I met Gary Gillum that day, who was chief engineer and co-designer of the MWM bass bin (which I had in my house for a while.
My switching from Klipschorns, to Klipsch Pro (big stack), now down to mostly Danley stuff is because of how SMALL Danley's multi driver horns are for their amazing bandwidth. Unmatched by anything these discerning ears have heard.
The best impressive sound heard at Axpona in Chicago a few years were Sadurni Horns, but the dollar and space cost, I leave to others, with a fatter wallet than mine.
Best bang for buck had to be the Spatial OB speakers at less than $2,000 for a new pair. Otherwise EVERYTHING there is overpriced and underperforming.
Edits: 04/14/17
That's very cool that you were at Paul Klipsch's home, and must be a very memorable experience.
It's also something of a verification that "time alignment" isn't as critical as some people would like us to believe.
The most aurally excellent recordings I have are ones which were made with just two microphones, whether widely-spaced omni's (A-B), ORTF, or X-Y, with high quality equipment. The biggest problem with achieving excellent results when doing this is THE ROOM, followed by dealing with whatever sound reinforcement system might also be in the equation. Most public venues and performances aren't well-suited to "minimalist" miking, and so, there are flaws, and people making noises (especially with A-B!). But when you have a good room, and have control over the mic placement and extraneous sounds, it can be awesome.
:)
"go down to the local minivan dealer and learn something"Whoa, dude! Talk about an insult!
I haven't talked with John in probably 20 years, although I'd like to. It'd be nice to catch up - maybe we will someday. He doesn't have the time, since he's busy running a worldwide company with multiple projects going on at any given time, and our time together as teacher and student was a long time ago. We talked briefly in about '79 or '81, shortly after he started Meyer Sound and I made a feeble attempt to promote his products. We met again in about '87 or '90 or so, at InfoComm in Dallas.
Anyway, your comment was pretty harsh.
I don't have a beef with Tom Danley. He seems to be a very smart guy. We just don't always agree - for example, on the usefulness of line arrays. I quite like his approach with regard to the so-called "point source" integrated horn design, but they're not appropriate for all situations, either. Probably the biggest thing which bothers me is when he continually comes on here touting his "generational loss" "test" and his products. Outside of Audio Asylum, I've never heard of the Jericho, the SH-50, the "tapped horn", etc. It's all only because of his promotion of his stuff here. That just rubs me the wrong way.
Oh, hey, you gotta look up the "Matterhorn" low frequency high output loudspeaker. THAT was very cool!
:)
Edits: 04/05/17 04/05/17 04/05/17
Inmate51
The "mini van" comment was an attempt to make a humorous parody (in automotive terms) of your dismissive suggestion that Tom Danley contact a competitor to learn something. As to whether your suggestion or my parody is the harsher of the two, I'll leave it to the comments from the other posters from that now found original post.
I have nothing against arrays, Don Keele's CBT36 array is one of the most amazing speakers I've ever heard. With all the reverence you read in Stereophile and TAS for the "soundstage", the CBT36's really delivered, they have a stable center phantom image even if you walk towards them until you are between them! They are low efficiency though. I had Don play my fave test track: Stravinsky's Fireworks on Mercury CD, and I had him adjust the volume where I would have it at home to show off my EV horn rig. The 700 Watt amp hard clipped at one of the orchestral peaks, but it never clips on my horns with 15 Watts per channel (though I haven't watched it on a scope). This is the problem with arrays in pro-sound: whether you can accept the low efficiency in order to get the space they save over a big horn rig. I also heard the CBT36's at an AES demo with 2000 Watts and there was no clipping even at quite loud levels. Arrays have always seemed to me to take second banana to big horn rigs in pro-sound, and that's just been my experience. As far as I know I've never heard any of John Meyer's products, and I would not have any reason to make any comments either way about them. If you think the Meyer arrays sound better than Tom's Unity designs, then you should explain why, and I think you would actually need to hear Tom's Unitys to make a credible comparison, and you have not said if you have heard them.
You claim that you don't have a beef with Tom Danley other than what you see as self promotion. In the past Tom has had a stalker on this forum, and your dismissive comments and anonymous moniker have a similar style to some of the multiple personalities that person was known to use. Just a coincidence? I still dunno.
Tom has a history on this forum of offering frequent helpful discussion of what can be complex engineering concepts. Most people here would accept some self promotion, especially if it's used to explain complex acoustic subjects. Bruce Edgar once stated that much of his efforts went into educating people about common misperceptions about horns. Sound Practices editor Joe Roberts has noted the extreme resistance he encountered when he promoted horns as the ultimate speakers for the then new to the US SET's. Your main contribution here seems to be to tell people not to bother with horns. You made a comment in the post down page from this thread that the "they are here" nature of a recording is largely due to the recording itself. If this were true we could all save a lot of money and just worry about having good recordings. J.C. Morrison basically told Herb Reichert this back in the day, until Herb corrupted him by introducing him to SET's.
Paul
Paul,I don't know what your problem is regarding me, but you seem to have a bug up your butt for some reason.
In any case, you wrote:
"In the past Tom has had a stalker on this forum, and your dismissive comments and anonymous moniker have a similar style to some of the multiple personalities that person was known to use. Just a coincidence?"
You really need to back off on this, unless you're fine with being a stalker yourself.
I think Tom is a fine and knowledgeable person. We just disagree now and then. No big deal.
Did I mention the Matterhorn LOUDspeaker? Oh, yes, I DID. Did I mention that I quite like his tapped horn "point source" approach? Oh, yes, I DID.
"As far as I know I've never heard any of John Meyer's products, and I would not have any reason to make any comments either way about them."
That's all fine and good. But you've probably heard or seen them, and just don't know it. Maybe you were at AES in 2014 in L.A. His speakers were everywhere. The roster of clients is a "who's who" of musicians and concert events and venues. Anyway, it doesn't matter - as I wrote, we haven't talked in 20 years. I'm not a fanboy... he knows his stuff, and that's all. Next time I'm in Berkeley, I'll see if we can get together. Please, give it a rest.
:)
Edits: 04/05/17
Inmate51
Many of your posts are like quantum super positions in that they can be in different places at the same time. Your suggestion that Tom contact Meyer sound and learn something could be taken for instance as an insult, and Tom took the high road in his reply. Or it could be taken as hilarious with Tom taking the part of the straight man. Your posts are funnier than my one dimensional posts, and I'm just plain jealous I have to admit.
In the horn thread down page you objected to the term "beaming" being used in relation to Quads, and you suggested that the poster read Olson's Music, Physics and Engineering. I got out my Dover reprint from the 70's but there is no listing of "beaming" in the index. I decided to take a chance and used the book as a planchette on a ouija board. I waited several minutes but the book never moved, though I mentally prepared myself for a message such as "Renounce horns!" which never came. Then it dawned on me that you can't experience beaming if there is no music playing on the speakers, and like a dope I forgot to put anything on. Very clever sir! I never would have tried this if it wasn't for you.
If you really want to distance yourself from the ghosts of sock puppets past you could try to be less argumentative and more helpful, but maybe I'm missing something there too. I suspect that you actually like horns but are making pejorative comments about them in an effort to get the prices down on vintage compression drivers. If so I salute your efforts. Of course I have to keep opening my big yap praising horns which is contra to this end. So I'll be looking for secret meaning in your posts in the future.
Paul
Paul,This is the second time, that I know of, in recent days where you've made reference to a comment I may have made some time ago. To have any credibility regarding this, you really should reference the post and the topic of discussion. I politely asked you earlier to do this, but you haven't. Especially now that you've mentioned it twice, it would be nice if you would.
Thanks.
:)
Edits: 04/04/17
This is the post in question.
I remember thinking that referencing Meyer Sound was a joke. I just checked their site and it seems they updated their inventory. Ten years ago when I was really researching horns I stumbled on that sight and thought it was very 1974. Diffraction horns and all.
I also disagree with your post in that I don't think Mr. Danley has ever shamelessly promoted his products at all. He does believe they are an advancement in horn theory and implementation, and he may well be right.
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Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Mr. Steady
Thanks for your diligent detective work! I just didn't look back far enough as it stuck in my mind like a diamond drill, so I began to suspect that I was looking for a deleted post. Well there's always hard drinking and therapy when the things you can't remember don't balance out the things you can't forget.
Paul
It's getting scary how time flies.
And I didn't want you to think you were crazy. :)
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Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Actually I thought I was being "gaslighted" by a former sock puppeteer who used to post here. He was quite logical in his normal persona, but his alter egos were very argumentative and prone to unsubstantiated statements. He left and formed his own high efficiency forum (gone now), and he was known to sock puppet there too, sometimes answering his own questions. He did admit once that he had behaved badly here.
Paul
I guess you aren't referring to Romy since his forum is still around. I don't mind opinionated people as long as they are knowledgeable in the field, even if they are abrasive. Rigidly dogmatic can get old after a while.
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Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Ha! That's great sleuth work, Mr. Steady!Ya know, John Meyer taught me a LOT about horns and loudspeakers. That guy knows his stuff. www.meyersound.com. He was designing speaker systems WAY back in the late '60s for A&M Records and McCune Sound. Heck, when I was at McCune last year - get this - they have a truckload of new Meyer speakers, AND, still have some of the old big boxes (sitting on shelves) from back in the day!
Thanks!
:)
Edits: 04/04/17
It only took a minute.
I'm not knocking John Meyer. Sound reinforcement and high fidelity home audio are two different things. I'm glad he is a mentor. I would like to have a conversation about horns with him myself. I am quite sure that like all people who are interested in horns Mr. Meyer is intrigued by Danley's designs.
I'm not trying to make excuses for you, but I do seem to remember you had just gotten out of surgery a couple days before this post, and I know for a fact that people who come out of anesthesia are out of sorts for a while.
Then again you have been known to troll! :) :) :) (It's a punchline)
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Big speakers and little amps blew my mind!
Inmate 51
You seem to remember it better than I do now!
There once was a time when sock puppets roamed the Hi-E forum. This actually predated the time when corporations became people and we began to wait for Texas to put one to death. The moderators have put some sock puppets to death here however. Have we met? Is your name Wayne? I would be happy to appologize for besmirching the name of a real person with a single personality, and give thanks for the correction too. But as to apologizing to a sock puppet, well it ain't gonna happen.
Paul
No, my name is not Wayne, although a nice acquaintance is Wayne, nicknamed "Waynard". You can learn all about him at waynebergeron.com. We both play trumpet, but he's a little better. ;)
:)
Inmate51
Through the years several good people on this forum have left, or greatly curtailed their participation due to the tediousness of arguing with anonymous posters who have nothing to lose than their clever monikers. Forget giving people vague advice to read up on horn theory, just do a forum search with WHG. There's enough of a body of work here from Bill Geiger to assemble into a good book. The fact that you are on a high efficiency forum and you are telling people that horns don't work well in the home makes it difficult to take you seriously. Now you present the name of a friend as a reference that you are a real person, but you still need to be anonymous?
Halloween is long over
Paul
Inmate51
The post in question has apparently been deleted by the original poster, and I assumed that the right thing had therefore been done, and I said so. If someone else has spoofed your moniker with a look-alike (and this has happened in the past here) or hacked your password, then this is something that everyone and the moderators should be aware of. I can't tell if you are denying that you told Tom Danley to go to a competitor and "learn from him", or that you are saying that you don't remember if you said this. At the very least it would be a good idea for you to change your password here.
Paul
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