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In Reply to: Re: Burhoe Acoustics update posted by Crazy Dave on March 7, 2007 at 13:38:13:
Once again you are just making stuff up. The original poster did not just say they sounded better than they did with blown surrounds. He said:
"Anyway, they sound great -- more bass than before, but not boomy or flabby at all. Running in tandem with my Goodmans Magnum XLRs and powered by a Kyocera A-710 integrated amp, they are phenomenal."And Brian never pointed out that they were an all out effort by Burhoe. If you would take the time to go to Human Speakers' site you'd see that Burhoe does not in any way descibe the Light Blue as TOTL. It's more of a modern derivation of the EPI 100 with a port. Not that there is anything wrong with that because Burhoe thought there was a market for a better than average 2 way for people on a budget.
For whatever reason you seem to think that it's impossible to improve on the past but history constantly proves people like yourself wrong. Burhoe himself thinks he improved on his past work but the market seems to have disagreed. Likewise the original poster seems to think he's come up with something special and I believe him. Why is that so hard to understand?
John...
Follow Ups:
The line you quoted says, "more bass than before". They did not have blown surrounds before? How wound he have any other standard to compare them too?I did go to the human speakers sight and you have a valid point that Light Blue was not top of the line, but the description is hardly lackluster (note that I am not saying that you have expressed the opinion that they are lackluster). It states, "The Light Blue Burhoe, with its tall, flat silhouette, offers the kind of accuracy and lack of distortion that, until now, has been available only from loudspeakers in the luxury class." This does not negate my argument.
"For whatever reason you seem to think that it's impossible to improve on the past."
Funny that you would make this statement, given you first claim that I am "making stuff up". It takes a leap of Kirkagardian proportions got form my assertion that "Brian makes a very valid point that it is unwise to haphazardly change a well thought out and executed design." to its "impossible to improve on the past". I certainly agree that is very possible to improve upon the past and I hope we keep doing it.
If you would like to civilly discuss my assertion that it "is unwise to haphazardly change a well thought out and executed design", and "The poster himself said that he basically just bolted a driver that he had lying around, in a box. I suppose it is possible that he might get a good result but the odds against it are astronomical!” maybe we can achieve something positive. I would be happy to continue our discussion. You seem to be taking this as more than a discussion.
Dave
I have no idea what your argument even is so how do we even have anything to discuss. My point all along, so I'll stick with it, is that the original poster seems to have hit upon something whether any of you thinks it's possible or not. His haphazard mod appears to have worked wonders because he claims the results to be phenomenal and it doesn't matter to me that you and Jerry think Burhoe is some sort of genius so you find it unlikely. It's irrelevant in this case because I have no reason not to believe the first poster. He seems rational and he has nice equipment and I'll assume he has no reason to lie.So, your assertion that "it is unwise to haphazardly change a well thought out and executed design" is clearly proven false in this case so there's really no point in arguing it. The poster did exactly that and the result were phenomenal and it's not like they were ever irreversible even if the result were poor.
I don't have a dog in this fight and, all along, I've merely pointed out that I have no reason to doubt the original poster and that I've never found Burhoe to be that much a genius which I find to be an extremely overused word on this forum.
He certainly could have gotten lucky and may well have gotten phenomenal results. Lightning does strike twice in the same place and people do win the lotteries. That does not change the odds of winning the lottery of having lightning strike twice in the same place. Luck is not a methodology. Even if this was an instance where the person got lucky, one instance is not sufficient to statically prove false my assertion.The point I want to make is that he should try new surrounds on the original driver before he makes his final judgment, given the care that went into the original design. I would agree with you that genius is an overused term here. I reserve that term more for people like Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci, but I do thing that Burhoe used sound engineering principles in his designs.
Burhoe's designs became less successful as time went on so whatever genius he possessed didn't manifest itself in the marketplace. The guy at Human speakers seems to blame marketeers but Burhoe's final designs appear to be exact copies of the stuff Epicure couldn't give away so I might have called him more of a savant but I didn't because I was trying to be nice. What bugged me was Jerry's comment about Burhoe's following because the line appeared to be lifted directly from Human's site and if you take the time to Google him you get nothing. How much of a genius can the guy be if no one chronicles his success'. By the way, have you ever built a set of speakers? A lot of time a haphazard approach works wonders because unlike a cautious approach you don't know what you are going to get which can be a very good thing. It has nothing to do with being struck by lightning and more to do with a willingness to take chances which all really great designers have. Incremental improvement can always come later. As to your desire for the guy to try surrounds I would first ask if the original poster even knows he has the original drivers and if he really wants to rebuild a speaker that had zero commercial success when he has already got phenomenal results without spending a dime. I love how guys like you and Jerry are never unwilling to tell some one else to spend their money based on absurd recollections and assumptions. So, it's just my opinion but your assertion was false even before this example popped up.
John..
Look at the beginning of the post. Tapehead@Cincy will be refoaming.
I tend to agree that the term genius is bit strong in the case, but I have never met Burhoe. One of the most intelligent people I have me painted cars for a living.With regard to speaker design, I have not come up with a finished product, but I am in the process of designing a high efficiency ported speaker. I recommend that you read Vance Dickerson's "Loudspeaker Design Cookbook". It explains very clearly, the relationship between driver’s parameters and cabinet design. When you read it, you will see that there are far too many significant variables for the random approach to have any chance of succeeding. You would have to keep cuuting and trying for a thousand years to have a chance of lucking out! I have read and reread it many times and have read many articles on speakers design (AudoXpress, jblpro.com, pispeakers.com). There is also quite a lot of good information in the High Efficiency Asylum. No one with any experience in the subject has suggested trial and error as a viable methodology.
I did do the bolt a driver in a box thing with my father, in the 60's quite a few times, without good results. I have been involved in audio since them, I also sold audio equipment in the 80's and heard many successful and unsuccessful designs. I have yet to see anyone get a good result with bolting drivers in a box, but I have had to suffer through a few auditions of such attempts. In each case, the builder thought it sounded wonderful, yet there were glaring error in the designs.
Designers could get good results before the Theil/Small parameters were published, but it involved quite a bit of trial and error. Designers would go through many steps of build, measure, and tune and would have built many prototypes before settling on a design.
Can you name any respected speaker design that was the result of haphazard design? What are your speaker building credentials?
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