|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
63.254.144.247
In Reply to: Thanks posted by chacodude on February 4, 2007 at 18:46:15:
Those of us who have been here for more than a few days would realize what Tom has listened to over the years.
Follow Ups:
Apologies, didn't get that F.A.Q/Forum Sylabus. I'm glad however that Tom enjoys his Altecs. Would be interested in learning more about speakers that are enjoyed here. I'm not getting very far with this
kind of "help"...
over 200 posts
Andrew,Man you really seem to have run into some obnoxiously arrogant responses from some responders who were fortunately afforded better treatment and understanding when they were new and naturally ignorant.
Ok, I was using a specially made pair of Medallion III back horn cabinets stuffed with a current pair of Lowther DX-4's. The Medallions' internal turns are all curved, made from sandwiching many layers of special bending birch plywood (a very slow and arduous process). I have recently been STUNNED by the sounds emminating from a very simple pair of JE Labs (home made) Open Baffles stuffed with a pair of Lowther PM2MKII's. These are nothing more than PM4 sized Lowther magnets with a softer and not as potebtially magnetic top plate and pole piece. I am in the process of constructing some more substantial gaffles to raise the hight of the Lowther's in the baffles. Nothing more than a bit scaled down idea derived from my friend, Martin King.
Andrew, no one here is an absolute authority about speakers, not even those with PHD's in this field. I have been involved in this stuff professionally and as a hobbyist since the mid 1970's. I used to design and sell pro audio speakers for stage and sound field reinforcement. I was fortunate to be a part of the audio industry during the hay days of some of the best drivers and complete speakers (just my opinion) in history. I still have some of those Alnico JBL and Altec drivers hanging around here. I owned Altec model 15's, 19's and several variations of Altecs. I owned multiple compression driver based JBL's; L300's were my favorite reasonably sized home speakers. I sold these manufacturers' products as well as Tannoy's, Quads, (before and during the release of the 63), and many others. I must admit to preferring many of these respected oldies to most of what followed during the past thirty years.
They, including the Altec 19's presented that "you are there'ness" even from a different room in my home or audio salon. You WILL know it when you hear it. Do your ZU's easily cause a suspesion of disbelief. Does music sound real from the room they are in or the next room over without effort on your part? That rarely happens for me regardless of price and or reputation of speakers. It almost always requires lots of brain squinting on my part to make most speaker systems sound like something is ACTUALLY going on in the next room.
I have lived with and enjoyed many many speakers over the years that sounded very very good, like my Chartwell LS3\5a's, Quad 57's, Martin Logan CLS 1's etc., but none of these seemed to excite the air molecules in a way to truly fool me. It seems that this is an attribute that seems to derive specifically from very high efficiency and or compression driver based speakers. And, maybe Open baffles with very high efficiency drivers.Bottom Line, If you like em, then F&*K the rest of us. But, it won't hurt to continue to learn from the many very knwoledgable and experienced Asylum Forum members' who choose to offer advice with kindness and patience. They did that for me a number of years ago.
nt
hey chaco-well.. opinions are like the proverbial bunghole..
what electronics would you be pairing the speaks you want to, what music do you listen to, and what're your sonic goals? it's tough to give recommendations for the same reason-- everybody has a different idea of 'what's great'!
personally, i use all tubes, prefer softer sounding speaks with oil caps, a small altec bass bin and a 1 3/4" comp driver, mostly vinyl. i don't value 'detail' for the sake of detail-- but prefer better texture and lack of hardness ('musicality'), and am glad to sacrifice 'detail' for an easier presentation-- which hopefully other decisions in the chain help compensate for. i use a trioded el34 amp from the mid 50's. i really like altecs for all of the aforementioned reasons-- and like to compare it all to a better version of the magnavox el84 console or KLH's i grew up with, for better or worse!
so that's what informs MY ears, more or less-- any impressions of where you'd like to go would help folks give you options forward-- cause without that, they're just.. well.. like the many other stinky opinions out there.. i think most are glad to help best they can!
:).
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: