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In Reply to: Where do they get their confidence (from Science) posted by tomservo on December 9, 2006 at 14:11:07:
> I don’t recall ever seeing a bad review in a magazine where the mfr
> has advertised...
It happens more often than you appear to believe. Search the Asylum
archives, for example, for Stereophile's Richard Gray's Power Company
review.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
Follow Ups:
Hi JohnWell it is good to see that it can happen or at least did once haha.
Understand, I am not saying all the problems have been solved by Science or omniscience either, not at all, rather, that much too often, in fact so often high end hifi is snickered at, that bogus products are sold with exotic explanations, which are largely / totally hog wash.Meanwhile, the now dreaded (in hifi land) measurement technology has continued to march on to the extent that when you look at a real loudspeaker (and heaven forbid you do this at the listening position) your wondering what in the world are you seeing /hearing. Loudspeaker in particular are often so far short of “ideal” that it is hard to find which measured problem is associated with what sound character.
In fact, to the lay person the whole problem with measurements in general is one usually assumes they relate to what you hear when some times they do and sometimes they don’t.
Unless you are familiar with the measurement, you don’t know that.
Measurements are a design aid, provide an answer to the question it asks.
THD is for example is just that the total harmonic power BUT there is no attempt to correlate the frequency, harmonic order and level relative to the fundamental yet that is what / how we hear, NOT THD. Back when Tube amps all had a similar distortion spectra and one was dealing with 20% vs 10% it was more useful as a yard stick.
With SS amplifier nonlinearity centered around zero crossing and with large –fb which pushes the spectra higher up, where it is also potentially more audible, THD is nearly useless as a yard stick.
I have not looked at your publication in a while but as I recall there was a tinge of “anti measurement” there?
What happens when you see something, say a speaker that sounds very good and measures very well?
Scroll half way down on this page.http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/danley_tapped.pdf
A speaker with a 100dB 1W/1M sensitivity, that preserves time (and reproduces the input waveshape) nearly as well as a Manger, but has about 1 /100 the distortion at 90dB, radiates as if it were one driver, has constant directivity to a low frequency and can go very loud.
Granted it is not for a living room but hifi for larger numbers of people.
Best,Tom Danley
> Well it is good to see that it can happen or at least did once haha.
Glad you think it amusing, Mr. Danley.
> Understand, I am not saying all the problems have been solved by
> Science or omniscience either...
My "omniscience" usage did not concern high-end audio but the
fact that despite your unfamiiarity with what has been published
by audio magazines, you drew a broad generalization from that
limited experience.
> I have not looked at your publication in a while...
Exactly my point. That unless you actually _read_ the
magazines, you are on shakey logical ground expressing
any generalized opinion on what they do or don't do. For,
example, the issues you raised with respect to measurements
have been examined at length in Stereophile.
> as I recall there was a tinge of "anti measurement" there?
I politely suggest you read Stereophile, Mr. Danley, before
you describe what you think we do.
> Scroll half way down on this page.
> http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/danley_tapped.pdf
> A speaker with a 100dB 1W/1M sensitivity, that preserves time
> (and reproduces the input waveshape) nearly as well as a
> Manger, but has about 1 /100 the distortion at 90dB,
> radiates as if it were one driver, has constant directivity
> to a low frequency and can go very loud.
These are ambitous claims, in my opinion, but not having heard
or measured this loudspeaker, I shall refrain from expressing
any further opinion, Mr. Danley.
John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile
I politely suggest you read Stereophile, Mr. Danley, before
you describe what you think we do....
These are ambitous claims, in my opinion, but not having heard
or measured this loudspeaker, I shall refrain from expressing
any further opinion, Mr. Danley.
Hey, here's an idea.
How 'bout you send Tom a set of all the 2006 issues of Stereophile, and Tom send you a pair of SH-50s for a full review in Stereophile?
While some might be a little put off by the "commercial" matte black painted finish, I think many more wouldn't care and would love to see such a review.
Just my two cents.
se
Hi JohnI have to grant you that I am not “current” on what goes on in the hifi trade mags, it has been some years since I paid any attention.
On the other hand, I probably have more familiarity with the process than you might imagine. I have been interested in sound and hifi since I was 9 so this has been the major direction in my life for the 45 years following.
I have had around 100 product articles or reviews on products I developed, contributed technical input in several Audio magazine articles, I have written about a dozen technical articles published in trade mags over the last 20 years and had a friend (Dan Sweeny) who I met when he wanted to review the Servodrive Contrabass for “Perfect Vision”.To be honest, I may be totally wrong about the current “state of the art” in hifi magazines, things may be different now and I will look to see “what you do”.
As for “ambitious claims”, they are not claims when they were measured by an independent acoustic testing lab. In fact, they were measured in near excruciating detail from every angle. These measurements are needed to produce a 3d model of the speakers radiation pattern, needed in high end room design.
Down load the free CLF (common loudspeaker format) viewer and then load the data files for the sh-50 0r sh-100. The viewer has many views of the speaker available if you play with it. For example, one can find the response at any angle, view the radiation as a spherical projection that can be viewed at any angle and so on.
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/knowledge baSE.htm
A better explanation in a trade mag review.
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/Danley SH-50 - Pat Brown - Live Sound May-2006.pdf
As for reproducing a square wave (or another complex signal like music), that is not a test per say but can be replicated with an oscillator and measurement microphone.
Essentially anywhere over the coverage angle, it will reproduce a square wave input, anywhere from near perfect to fair from about 220Hz to about 2.6KHz,.Being a stereo guy, you might enjoy a recording I made with a microphone invention I am working on. On the first link, at the bottom is a sound file, try this on some good headphones or a wide dynamic range system (read warning first, start at low volume).
Best,
Tom Danley
http://systemscontractor.com/articles/publish/article_977.shtml
Hello, Tom.Other than the SH-50's trapezoidal cabinet shape so they can be easily arrayed, is there any reason a second pair of 12" drivers couldn't be added?
Thanks.
se
Hi Steve.Hey your spot on, the reason for only 2 lf drivers is because of the need to make the speaker array able.
One could have 4 lf drivers, like there are 4 mid drivers if the box (outer shape) were different.
A thought is to see how far down the response could be tuned “if” one had the luxury of all the extra air space internally, if the box were square (or a tower).I would be curious too to see what a hifi reviewer thought of the 50, although I would suggest they take the grills off.
Robert Scoville has taught a couple mixing engineer courses using our stuff and he likes them.The problem I have been having is getting a suitable subwoofer to put under the 50.
I have a pair of Tapped horn prototypes now that have (each) a half space sensitivity of 97 dB at 23Hz but they are too big (45 tall, 34 wide, 25 deep) for home use.
Best Regards,tom
Why not domesticate the SH-100? Give it a nice, pretty wood finish and maybe advertise that it has Cardas or some other "approved" brand of internal wire :-).
I wouldn't (and I suspect many others) consider 116-119db peak SPL at the listening position to be chopped liver.
Is there any reason why the SH-100 would not be able to reproduce a square wave like the SH-50?cheers,
AJ
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
Well, I haven't actually tried the square wave test with the sh-100 but I would guess it would, but that isn't the same as having done it.
I'll try it after the holidays, thanks for the thought.
Best,Tom
I will check back with you in spring. I didn't see a technical reason why a coincident driver could not perform (limited bandwidth square wave reproduction) similarly to the unity.
The SH-100 with integrated TH (sub)woofers might be visually more acceptable in the average audiophile listening room while maintaining ample playback SPL.
Look forward to your results.cheers,
AJ
The threshold for disproving something is higher than the threshold for saying it, which is a recipe for the accumulation of bullshit - Softky
Hey your spot on, the reason for only 2 lf drivers is because of the need to make the speaker array able.
One could have 4 lf drivers, like there are 4 mid drivers if the box (outer shape) were different.
Gotcha. Thanks.
A thought is to see how far down the response could be tuned “if” one had the luxury of all the extra air space internally, if the box were square (or a tower).
Since you say "extra air space," I assume you're speaking here of just using two low frequency drivers instead of four?
I would be curious too to see what a hifi reviewer thought of the 50, although I would suggest they take the grills off.
Robert Scoville has taught a couple mixing engineer courses using our stuff and he likes them.
Yes, I'd like to see a home audio reviewer give the SH-50s a go as well. C'mon, John! If you're not interested in reviewing them, perhaps Art would be.
The problem I have been having is getting a suitable subwoofer to put under the 50.
I have a pair of Tapped horn prototypes now that have (each) a half space sensitivity of 97 dB at 23Hz but they are too big (45 tall, 34 wide, 25 deep) for home use.
Bah! That's only too big if you're one of them "Yes, dear," Melvyn Milquetoast types with a bitchy wife.
se
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