From an objective standpoint, that is correct. However, there are still some users who prefer the sonic character of the Orion system.
The drivers for the Orion system still being available, (albeit pretty darn expensive) both systems are still viable builds. And outperform any box speaker.......IMHO.
Dave.
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I'm glad that you said IMHO, because I would take strong exception to the statement.
Certainly you would. It doesn't mean you're correct though.
I rarely comment on the subjective aspects of the Linkwitz (or any) speakers but I 'always' couch my comments with some sort of 'my opinion' qualifier.
SL believed the radiation characteristic of box speakers was inherently flawed. He was consistent with this view ever since I first started talking to him back in the early 90's.
Dave.
To me, the main difference between SL and myself was in the music that we listen to and what we were looking for. SL was a classical original venue guy. He viewed everything through the lens of "I am there." I'm on the other end where imaging and "they are here" is the goal (studio work.)
After many years, I have concluded that the two things are mostly incompatible. What enhances one degrades the other. One has to decide on what they want from their system.
After many years, I have concluded that the two things are mostly incompatible. What enhances one degrades the other. One has to decide on what they want from their system.
I agree with Earl, and Siegfried too! I have been enjoying 4-way dipole sound for 9 years now in my living room. HT and bedroom have conventional speakers. Some hifi friends love and have huge horns and synergys, and those sound too much like wearing headphones to me.
There is no universal loudspeaker solution for every listener and room. As experience and understanding of acoustics grows, one starts to accept this. Still too many people at hifi forums sound like teenagers with too much testosterone...
There is no universal loudspeaker solution for every listener and room. As experience and understanding of acoustics grows, one starts to accept this. Still too many people at hifi forums sound like teenagers with too much testosterone...
This is the opposite to what I would have thought.
I would expect that a "they are here" sound would require:
- Close-mic'd recordings, more typical of a studio session.
- Speakers with wide directivity, that throw a lot of sound at the listening room's walls, to bring the musicians into your acoustics.
For "you are there", I'd expect:
- Distant mics, as is more typical of classical recordings, with strong capture of the performance venue
- Speakers with narrow directivity, which avoid activating the listening room much/at-all, so that the "venue" part of the original recording may come through.
Hence, I'd expect OBs/omnis to be good at "they are here", and horns to be good at "you are there". Intuitively, what I've written makes sense, and seems to reflect my experiences with different speakers. However, you seem to be saying the opposite is true. Is there any chance you could expand on your reasoning?
It also explains why the HiFi market seems to revolve around 6" 2-way boxes, which will have a middle-ground directivity pattern, making them a compromise between the two extremes. Sort-of-okay-ish for most music, but not really good at any of it.
After all this, I think the only sensible conclusion is to buy a pair of Beolab 90 and call it good.
Chris
I would agree completely with the first two bullet points of each example above. But, I disagree with both of the second bullets.
The dominate characteristics of "the are here" (TAH) and "I am there" (IAT) are imaging and spaciousness respectively. To get TAH one needs great imaging as the recorded images are precise with little of the recording studios acoustics entering into it. To achieve this one needs a playback system that has very little very early reflections (VER), otherwise, the image is smeared. With IAT there is a great deal of original acoustics in the recording, but these are not natural because they only come from distinct directions - the speakers. Natural spaciousness requires multiple reflections from multiple angles.
Now, a highly directive source will have very low VER owing to its directivity which will enhance imaging, while simultaneously degrading the impression of spaciousness (but the room, speaker placement and near field diffractive objects are also contributors,). A wide directivity source will enhance spaciousness, but degrade image because of the high VER. The intent of adding spaciousness to a IAT recording to to add to and partially mask the spaciousness intended in the recording (but one in which the recording technique does not allow for a natural spaciousness.) Thus the wide directivity adds a spaciousness that is not found in the recording, but which is subjectively expected from the playback. IAT practitioners enjoy this tradeoff, but TAH abhor it because of the poor imaging. TAH practitioners like high DI sources because of the enhanced imaging and are quite satisfied by the playback rooms natural spaciousness, which is absent from the recording.
At least that is how I see things.
Thanks for asking.
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I substantively disagree with this.
With reproduction it's not about higher freq. reflections (with modest placement stricture in-room), instead it's almost exclusively about only the radiation "profile" of the speaker (including its diffraction).
The reason I "know" this is that as you increase directivity (which also includes the what's happening at the rear of the loudspeaker) that spaciousness lowers OUTSIDE with no near-boundries but a grass floor.
"know" as in I'm pretty certain, though I'll always leave room for error.
So it's a direct-sound thing with spaciousness (relative to the recording's spaciousness).
Also if you've ever heard an extremely narrow directivity transducer - you'll know that aiming it the listener's head makes the sound appear to come from the listener's head (NOT "inside" the listener's head a'la headphones) but rather sounding as if it's produced right off of your face. If you move it to one ear then it sounds as if it's playing right at that ear. This sort of transducer is an ultrasonic phased array with processing and spaciousness is absent.
Of course room effects at higher freq.s are also "included" in-room, but for most I think their contribution is primarily about spl with some confusion relating to inter-channel ( between the loudspeakers) reflections inducing some negative combing effects which relate to image placement and structure and not spaciousness.
I get the impression from Toole's writings that your "either/or" tradeoff is only for 2-channel playback, caused by its inherent weaknesses.
For MCH playback one can have it all. And dipoles just get in the way.
If you see the off-axis response as well as the directivity, that doesn't surprise me at all.
I have been saying the same thing as well for years.
You can either have plenty for spatial information but less detail, or more detail but less spatial information.
But to be perfectly honest, 99.8% of all recordings is totally artificial to begin with.
I have been playing music all my life, have been to many many concerts, small, acoustic, live, big and active.
Also have been involved in some technical stuff around acoustics for such theaters and building.
The amount of detail one gets from an average recording is outrageous.
As for classical music, I have only heard something similar in some extremely well done theaters, which are mostly the exception. For pop/rock/acoustic music with small groups, the amount of detail is totally nuts.
Certain instruments having a dynamic range or spaciousness that is totally unrealistic.
There are practically very little rooms were an entire band would sound so well as what we find on recordings.
If you have been playing in a band yourself, it's even WAY worse!
Not to talk about music that is and will ever be played or recorded the way it is/was presented.
Think about billions of layers of small little details and instruments for example.
I am not saying that all of this is bad or sounds bad.
It's just not a resemblance of reality (at all).
So I sometimes even don't really know what exactly we are aiming for?
The way I look at a system, is actually the other way around.
So not "what is best" but (try to) leave everything out that could potentially make the sound worse or "bad".
In the end my conclusion is that the only hifi that exists, is myfi.
Subjective taste exactly the way you just described.
The only thing we can do is trying to leave the most harmful aspects out.
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Multi-channel is, obviously, a different paradigm.
Two-channel audio is what it is. The vast majority of program material people own, or they have access to via streaming is two-channel. So, the question is how best to realistically reproduce that material.
Comparisons to multi-channel playback formats or even to live listening experiences are beside the point.
Dave.
Also, not all multi-channel audio is recorded well enough with having good sound-reproduction in mind.
Often it's more like an after thought, or nothing more than a gimmick.
I have heard recordings that were just meh at best because of that.
So that makes the niche even a smaller niches.
The ones that are done well is nothing like stereo, so much better.
Kind of headphones but without all the downsides from headphones.
Especially the immersion is great.
Makes you wonder if an hybrid system is not something worth looking into?
I started reading Stereophile when I was a teenager, and by the time I was in my mid 30s I'd finally reached a point where I could afford expensive loudspeakers. One of the big conundrums I crashed into, was the realization that a lot of my favorite recordings are absolute garbage, and are quite close to monophonic.
I have a friend (Jon Whitledge) who has one of the most ridiculous car stereos in the world. Something he's caught a lot of flak about, is that when he demos his stereo he will often dictate what the recordings are. This annoys people, but I can see why he does it. "Garbage in / garbage out", and a lot of recordings are garbage.
This is true. True MCH will have all the information that is required for improved playback.
But that's not the world we live in. True MCH is exceedingly rare and nothing that I listen to is in MCH. So, that kind of makes it a moot point.
Simulated MCH is probably an improvement for "classical" works, but certainly not for studio work.