Is it not amassing how big speakers that make a "HiFi" sound at say 100 Hz are.
I am sure this is possible, most of our stanards are just relative after all.
In the following system I did use a modern stylus and pickup:
In my own experience, Garrad 401, SME S2i, a second rate valve amp and the old Quad ESL 57 sounds great compared to most systems in HiFi shows.
The Rogers Cadet 3 amplifier had a very poor preamp, so I had to by pass this to make the sound up to the quality of a 1970's system.
I still think that "primitive technology" such as electrostatic or moving coil speakers are very poor and their deficiencies dominate the poor quality of reproduction. I often listen to HiFi systems and realism is far from life like.
I really like the idea of some material science being applied and replacing such primitive transducers as electrostatic or moving coil speakers as I want some thing better.
I am sure this is possible, most of our stanards are just relative after all.
In the following system I did use a modern stylus and pickup:
In my own experience, Garrad 401, SME S2i, a second rate valve amp and the old Quad ESL 57 sounds great compared to most systems in HiFi shows.
The Rogers Cadet 3 amplifier had a very poor preamp, so I had to by pass this to make the sound up to the quality of a 1970's system.
I still think that "primitive technology" such as electrostatic or moving coil speakers are very poor and their deficiencies dominate the poor quality of reproduction. I often listen to HiFi systems and realism is far from life like.
I really like the idea of some material science being applied and replacing such primitive transducers as electrostatic or moving coil speakers as I want some thing better.
The "realism is far from life like" is a function of system weaknesses, flaws, rather than any particular technology being used, or not being used.
It's comparable to saying that a Ferrari with a single flat tyre is an unpleasant car to drive, performs poorly - and blaming the engineering of the vehicle, as the guilty party ...
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1. "The data" We are now rather amusingly assuming I ignore "the data"
2. I absolutely do not put blind faith in general contractors, lawyers, truck drivers, salesmen, mixing engineers or academics. Not in this day and age. I reserve judgment for individual instances. Our attorneys, for example, are peer reviewed.
3. Toole. I never ignored his data. I most certainly did question it till I was personally certain of its validity.
4. If "the data".. is as conclusive as Tooles, count me in.
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Just like cars I know I would want a different vehicle to go shopping for potatoes for dinner and which I would use to travel from Europe to Australia in 2 days. This suggests that while both technologies are ok for traveling they are not universal, and they both have flaws.
It is my assertion that current speaker technology is good at making sound, but current speakers are very poor at reproducing lifelike sound otherwise we would not have such diverse technology to do the task for different situations.
* Try to find an electrostatic subwoofer that can make a better bass (15-100 Hz) than a good moving coil subwoofer.
* Try to find a single moving coil driver that has the combination of SPL, bandwidth (-10db) and distortion of that a good full range electrostatic speaker can manage.
The first of these listed situations you wont find, the second is a little more subjective, but if your fair you would agree its also impossible, otherwise we would not have multi way speakers.
The basic information from an experiment is the result (say percentage (p) of listeners who say "A" sounds better), not the stat. sign. Sometimes authors make it hard to find that number and just tell you whether a result was "statistically significant" or not. But the result is always your best estimate of the truth, whether "significant" or not.
As owenhamburg says, "5%" probability is just an arbitrary (but common) level chosen to mark that a result wasn't just by chance and maybe deserves to be published. The smart crowd just looks at the results, then the probability, and judge for themselves what the take-away information is.
For the two-choice or percentage experiment, the math is very simple and easy to learn* (although not simple to explain here). Suffice it to say, when a highish percentage of people choose "A" you need only a small sample to achieve "significance."
Ben
*Can you calculate sqrt of the product of n, p, and q?
As owenhamburg says, "5%" probability is just an arbitrary (but common) level chosen to mark that a result wasn't just by chance and maybe deserves to be published. The smart crowd just looks at the results, then the probability, and judge for themselves what the take-away information is.
For the two-choice or percentage experiment, the math is very simple and easy to learn* (although not simple to explain here). Suffice it to say, when a highish percentage of people choose "A" you need only a small sample to achieve "significance."
Ben
*Can you calculate sqrt of the product of n, p, and q?
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Well I think my three thousand pound (primitive) five way horn loudspeaker system is capable of something better (lifelike in spades) than what's available in the hifi market but forget about going out and buying one like it and expecting it to perform or drive your room properly.
Earl is stuck standing behind his papers. You must go through his papers. First read them and then read them some more. Get wrapped around them, after all a lot of hard work went into producing them.
Once fully familiarized with them. Check out the abstracts, check out the propositions. Check out the experimental design. Look at his weighting equation for generating distortion metric. Look at his method for generating experimental source data. Look at the generated data, how the data is analyzed, and how the results are presented.
Then ask pertinent questions.
Entry into a critical discussion requires a certain formality.
This forum is social media. We all come here willingly in an open environment. We each bring to it our sociability and experiences.
Earl comes a sociable guy with a Ph. D. and a body of work. He likes to play, and play hard.
If you banter at him, he'll come at you from in front of his desk.
If you come at him with comprehendable questions with less than obvious answers, or present him with something portending knowledge, he will come at you from behind his desk.
I've read his papers, repeatedly, now and often before. They excite many of my experiences. Self distractions, introspection, synthesis. A swarm of question marks swirling in my mind. I've continued exercising this in building discipline so that pertinent questions may crystallize.
So far my efforts produce abject failure. Nothing succeeds like overcoming the last failure to try again.
After the current cycle with his papers, I feel close to some worthy questions.
Primitive technology rules. Sure is fun to fool around with too.
Mastering references that can reliably do high spl are needed. Lots of questions need to be asked of people like Earl Geddes and Tom Danley. Especially fearless "stupid" questions. Especially if you are polling at a product. I can't miss the product. Gedlee speakers are promoted in his posts. These may very well be just the thing Questions. Good.
The current state of car technology is actually rather a good metaphor about where audio should be, rather than where it's at ...
A 'cheap', basic, say Korean car does a very nice job of transporting oneself in comfort - with a blindfold on, being driven around at normal speeds, on conventional roads you would be hardpressed to pick significant differences in the subjective experience from an extremely expensive, 'status' vehicle. It's only when travelling over very nasty roads, or if you drive in a very aggressive manner, at elevated speeds, that major variations in capabilities show up.
So should it be for audio - substitute recording quality, and SPLs listened at ...
My quibble with this, is that a lousy sounding system can have cheap, cheap speakers ... or the most expensive, high tech. drivers available. And on the other hand lifelike sound can be extracted from the cheap, cheap speakers, whereas the 'perfect' system still just sounds like over-muscled, PA gear at realistic volumes ... I've heard both many times ...
If you want the "extremes" of speaker performance than you will need to juggle driver preferences; however, if you want lifelike sound then a whole different area needs to be looked at - say, reproducing the subjective impact of a live brass band ...
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I'll read anything, thanks. I'm guessing they are waking up to higher average levels. Hip Hop has been the standard, whether or not they get it. Now there is a good op ed piece.
I think your point is superb here. Maybe the question is why is their so much variation in sound in speakers, and does this indicate clearly the "primitive technology" used?
I am convinced the variation not a taste issue. More likely the variation is a function of something that is limiting the lifelike reproduction, so much that people are deciding which imperfections they prefer, and assuming that equals lifelike.
I have been intentionally keeping out of such issues as I fear we move into a purely my system is better than yours. For these reasons I was trying to raise objective issues.
In my opinion with the compromise that is provided by our "primitive loud speaker technology" some aspects of realism have to go.
It does not matter to this discussion but I personally find that the extreme low frequencies response and extreme high frequency response is something I am more willing to compromise upon than issues such as stereo imaging and good reproduction of the human and acoustic instruments. Sadly this does not fit with all my musical taste.
Or you can design your own drivers and your own system.
I did that due to I simply could not find drivers that was good enough, or find any company that could build OEM variants that was good enough.
Yes, I agree almost entirely with that - I personally achieved 'lifelike' reproduction by accident, I managed to fluke it one day ... and have spent ever since trying to understand the criteria which are important, and those which are not.
It doesn't need to be a "mine's bigger than yours!", at all ... IME just about any system can be elevated to a very satisfying level, and then the 'better' element just relates to how loud it can go cleanly, etc.
If you can compromise on bass it makes it easier - high powered low frequencies stress amplifier power supplies, and artifacts resulting from that ripple out into every part of a system; the upper mid and treble is absolutely key, this must be got right, it's the first to sound creaky when decent volume is asked for, and the ear/brain immediately gives the playback a 'fail' ...
Being a car and motorcycle enthusiast, I've been puzzling over the car analogy. With cars you have a variety of personal purposes/goals and some models achieve more of these than others. My old Maserati 425 4-door, for example, had a big trunk and also handled pretty well.
But with home music systems, there are objective goals: reproduction of musical performances. True, you can limit yourself to reproducing string quartets that don't require the highest or lowest Hz. Thus the system is great within the demands made on it.
In principle, we all want to think the performers are in our music room, even if in practice, we can live with some subset of musicians and sounds.
There are now (and long have been) systems that play a subset great*. But I'm not sure there are today systems that reproduce all kinds of music great.
While we cobble together HiFi systems to meet a lot of personal goals that aren't always the same as veridical reproduction, yet there is an objective standard lurking in the background.
(Suggestion: if you think your system is fabulous, why not just post, "My system is fabulous because....." instead of just baldly tooting your horn.)
Ben
*In 1957, my Karlson 15 could sound uncannily like a solo cello playing in a room - better than spiffy Dayton-Wright ESLs, even with high-voltage direct drive amps, can do it today... and maybe even pass the "down the hall test." And taking my own suggestion: because, I'd guess, it was a large resonant woody cabinet with complex dispersion, not unlike a cello. And all-horn systems can sound good as large jazz bands.
But with home music systems, there are objective goals: reproduction of musical performances. True, you can limit yourself to reproducing string quartets that don't require the highest or lowest Hz. Thus the system is great within the demands made on it.
In principle, we all want to think the performers are in our music room, even if in practice, we can live with some subset of musicians and sounds.
There are now (and long have been) systems that play a subset great*. But I'm not sure there are today systems that reproduce all kinds of music great.
While we cobble together HiFi systems to meet a lot of personal goals that aren't always the same as veridical reproduction, yet there is an objective standard lurking in the background.
(Suggestion: if you think your system is fabulous, why not just post, "My system is fabulous because....." instead of just baldly tooting your horn.)
Ben
*In 1957, my Karlson 15 could sound uncannily like a solo cello playing in a room - better than spiffy Dayton-Wright ESLs, even with high-voltage direct drive amps, can do it today... and maybe even pass the "down the hall test." And taking my own suggestion: because, I'd guess, it was a large resonant woody cabinet with complex dispersion, not unlike a cello. And all-horn systems can sound good as large jazz bands.
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