|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
76.5.85.248
In Reply to: RE: b&W cm1 notes - midrange and bass posted by hahax@verizon.net on May 09, 2017 at 20:58:44
I was a fan of the late Geoffrey Horne, the Gramophone reviewer who was always dissing b&W for having joined the movement to ported designs. He made it sound like they had sold out. And in truth, the last BWs I owned before now, the CDM1s, did display a very un-British sloppiness at the bottom of the spectrum, unlike my sealed JR149s which had all the British virtues (still have 'em and if they didn't look so depressing I might still be using them. The tear in one woofer is inaudible as long as you stay away from organ music!) Horne looks like Nathan Hale at this point:
"I only regret that I have but one career to lose defending sealed-box bass!" I suspect his insolence was a factor in the disappearance of Gramophone's great reviewing team in favor of some woo-woos from What HiFi? when Gram changed hands. But Horne claimed the move to ported bass and polypropylene drivers was motivated by SPL per dollar rather than subtlety of sound and was inappropriate at the "high end." Tend to agree. Audio is a Baby Boom hobby and until we boomers hit our dotage we were into LOUD and while imaging is always exciting there's no imaging in the bass. In fairness, I have heard some ported speakers not from B&W that sounded pretty tight in the bass. My DCM Macrophones for example, did not have a lot of bass but for their size they did pretty well. The new Elacs have pretty good bass.
It's never too late to turn back the clock.
Follow Ups:
The way a ported speaker transitions from flat to the final 4th order roll off is critical to the degree of overhang. Some ported boxes are quite good if not as good as closed boxes which have second order roll off which all things being equal is superior to 4th order inherent in ported designs.
As I mentioned the one case of a ported speaker which seems different are Rockport designs. The designer claims ported 2nd order roll off and I checked a Stereophile test where one of his designs did roll off at a 2nd order rate from about 40 Hz to 20 Hz. But I suspect and the curve didn't extend far enough that below 20 Hz the roll off goes to 4th order. I don't know and I also don't know what that means to the performance. My guess is the best bass control possible from a ported design. And the few times I've heard a Rockport that seemed to be confirmed.
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: