I'd like to explore "primitive" a bit, at the risk of analogies to car engines.
With drivers, for a long time, there has been an unfortunate commitment to mixing-and-matching separate components. There is no good reason why driver input impedances come in just three nominal flavours and almost no others (unlike headphones, eh). The opposite tact would be manufacturers making whole systems that use whatever impedance for their drivers that makes sense. Maybe somebody would figure out how to wind very light wire in a toroidal mystery weave despite the high resistance.
If car engines had to be interchangable, they'd all be in a lock-step likewise and hard to see front wheel drive cars emerging.
Are internal combustion engines - roughly over the same time span - more advanced relative to drivers which are barely evolved for many years?
Dunno.
B.
With drivers, for a long time, there has been an unfortunate commitment to mixing-and-matching separate components. There is no good reason why driver input impedances come in just three nominal flavours and almost no others (unlike headphones, eh). The opposite tact would be manufacturers making whole systems that use whatever impedance for their drivers that makes sense. Maybe somebody would figure out how to wind very light wire in a toroidal mystery weave despite the high resistance.
If car engines had to be interchangable, they'd all be in a lock-step likewise and hard to see front wheel drive cars emerging.
Are internal combustion engines - roughly over the same time span - more advanced relative to drivers which are barely evolved for many years?
Dunno.
B.
It seems the same, only they have better control over what happens, when and how much. They exploit resonance while controlling its bandwidth and damping.
I guess they're just looking for a clean and flat but usable response
Common nominal impedance ranges of 4, 8 and 16 Ohms were choosen for good engineering reasons, so that amplifiers driving them can easily be constructed, running moderate amounts of both voltage and current in the output stage.
While equivalent drivers can be (and actually are) made with any nominal impedance from, say 2 to 30 Ohms and more, there typically is no need to in most applications.
While equivalent drivers can be (and actually are) made with any nominal impedance from, say 2 to 30 Ohms and more, there typically is no need to in most applications.
I disagree. Stating a technical argument is not a one upmanship contest. You STILL have not presented any technical argument or any technical data of any kind.
I've seen a bunch of name dropping (Bell Labs, the guy that developed the electret, Toole's book), some name calling (egotist, one upmanship), a couple of analogies and a whole lot of subjective opinion but not one single technical argument. If we can't talk about the issues in technical terms why are we talking about them at all? Please, let's talk in technical terms. Nothing else is relevant.
Let's start with the definition of "primitive". Google says:
By definition, if the technology hasn't progressed it isn't primitive. From the point of view of the future it might be considered primitive but we are not in the future.
Half of your argument seems to based on the fact that there isn't one single tranducer that covers the entire audible passband (and does everything else perfectly). But that doesn't equate to primitive. Sometimes systems must necessarily be a bit more complex to be able to do what they need to do.
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Yeah I can see that website is something to avoid, thanks.
If the same master is used for both a CD and vinyl pressing then, sorry but no way can vinyl beat CD.
Over the same span of time, draft carbs became constant vacuum and direct fuel injection, drum brakes became ABS and assisted disk brakes, recirculating ball steering became rack and pinion and self-parking, etc.... all "smart" systems.
The comparable change for audio would be if we all had motional feedback, plasma drivers, and speaker wallpaper. All that Sy says is true (as always), but only the Rice-Kellogg "spider" spider has changed to a dust-tight accordion spider in cone drivers and the other changes are incremental (but very nice).
Earlier, I suggested working as separate components (and factories) may account for some slowness of development while cars are delivered as intact systems. But there are real challenges in setting up an R&D lab to manipulate the range of rather diverse technologies needed for cone drivers - although ESL development is simpler (hint, hint).
We may now be on the verge of a DSP advance. But, interestingly, I suspect this can best be commercialized as intact systems (like home theatre with mics for set-up), besides our DIY experiments, of course.
Ben
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Yes. As in the straightforward definition:
I'm sticking closely to the electronics, because that's where I've seen the benefit. The empirical rules, I'm afraid, for me - if the results come in that's what counts ... I started getting good results, by accident, using very ordinary speaker technology, thus I stayed in that realm ...
Brian described the way pros make it happen ...
It works in the subjective sense if you throw enough resources at it ... or, refine the standard setup ...
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LOL. What a way to drop a bomb in the middle of a post. Completely untrue, of course, but a totally different subject.
Yeah I can see that website is something to avoid, thanks.
If the same master is used for both a CD and vinyl pressing then, sorry but no way can vinyl beat CD.
And you know this how ...?
True
Yes. I'm saying that good description in plain language would be easier for everyone to deal with.
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OK. But there are questions of immediate moment:
So what makes a bass guitar sound luscious and drives the music along? peteleoni can probably specify to the last overtone.
What aspect of our speakers and greater system can get in the way of hearing that?
For folk listening to big classical music - opera, symphony, choral music, what reproduced presentation can deliver close to live experience in an ordinary room? What is the nature of the reference experience and what does one have to do to create an illusion giving an experience close to, or equal to the reference?
Why can an acoustic performance sound really loud even though the SPL at the listener position might only be 80 dB?
Why can really clean, reproduced sound not seem loud at 95 - 100, or even greater, dB?
In an ordinary room it's tough. I think you need some space. That said, I did regularly hear it in a friends basement that was not huge. Double stacked Quad ESL 57 panels, electrostatic tweeters, too. Class A amps.
Also heard it once in a (big) hotel room at a show in Vegas. Don't remember the speaker brand, tall thin columns from the Netherlands. They used a stain gauge phono cart for LP playback. Stunning. Really captured the sound of an orchestra. Super enjoyable.
I've used surrounds with HF rolloffs and delays. The results were spotty, but when it was good, it was very good.
My thinking is small rooms need to have their "acoustic expanded" to fit the scale of the music which requires, in some fashion, masking the room's own reflections. Stereo triangle alone in small, mostly untreated spaces normally doesn't make the illusion effective enough.
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The Turing computer test might be useful to think about: if you are having a conversation in writing (or even spoken!), can you be sure it is or isn't a computer?
What is veridical in a picture? That might be looking through a peep-hole and being uncertain if you are looking at Mount Washington or a picture. (Don't forget, there can't be a binocular stereopsis cue that way or at that distance anyway.)
The "down the hall" test is something like that and addresses the ontological issues raised in the previous posts.
Ben
What is veridical in a picture? That might be looking through a peep-hole and being uncertain if you are looking at Mount Washington or a picture. (Don't forget, there can't be a binocular stereopsis cue that way or at that distance anyway.)
The "down the hall" test is something like that and addresses the ontological issues raised in the previous posts.
Ben
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Can you understand that your room and its doorway form a complex acoustical filter? Therefore you can't have an optimal reproduction inside the room and in its doorway at the same time. You might be able to EQ your in-room response in a way that makes it sound (in the doorway) like Mrs. Fleming is in the room. But this EQ will significantly distort the in-room-response. You can't bend the laws of physics.
Rudolf
Toole's Sound Reproduction is on my shelf. I consider it as an introduction to the topic, not a summary.
And what would you suggest?Can you understand that your room and its doorway form a complex acoustical filter? Therefore you can't have an optimal reproduction inside the room and in its doorway at the same time. You might be able to EQ your in-room response in a way that makes it sound (in the doorway) like Mrs. Fleming is in the room. But this EQ will significantly distort the in-room-response. You can't bend the laws of physics.
Without disputing your judgment that reading nothing but this "too stupid to bother with" book disqualifies a person to post here, what program of education would you suggest instead for the people here who haven't read it?Toole's Sound Reproduction is on my shelf. I consider it as an introduction to the topic, not a summary.
Ben
Do you have some Fleming recital recording, where she sings with piano accompaniment only? Can you enjoy listening to it in your room?
What went wrong that you got above impression from my post?
Reading Toole's book of course.
Rudolf
No bother -, my perceptions, conditions, system and goals will never be duplicated. Why would anybody want to be you?
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