salas said:
Probably. The grilles were on, so the drivers weren't visible. They were bi-amplified with Quad 303's mounted inside the speaker, with the Quad faceplate visible on the rear panel - I remember asking about the speakers and seeing the amplifiers.
terry j said:
A very timely article has just appeared in the IEEE Spectrum, describing the progressive degradation of music over the last decade thanks to gross abuse of dynamic-range compression and the additional curse of digital bitrate compression - as in Dolby Digital/AC3, MP3, AAC, and other fiendish inventions of the AES mainstream engineers. Back when I was an AES member in the mid-Seventies, the focus of AES research efforts were directed to improving audio, not degrading it. When most of the papers in the AES Journal were about "new" and "improved" methods of digital compression, I resigned - the lights are on, but nobody's home.
I think one of the turning points came in 1979 when Philips and Sony told the AES to take a long walk off a short pier when the AES objected to the non-standard and low-fi sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, when the existing (Soundstream) standard was already 50 kHz. Philips and Sony wanted 60+ minutes in a medium that would fit in standard car dashboard (thus the 5.25" size), and that was that.
Strangely enough, the already existing 8" single-sided Laserdisk format would have easily accomodated a higher sample rate and greater bit depth (resolution), but no, P&S basically wanted to sell an upgrade to Compact Cassette, at a retail price double that of LP's and cassettes. In the USA, LP's were forced off the shelves of record stores in less than a year - hard to resist that 2X price, doncha know.
This was a quite a different process than in 1958, when all of the major recording companies agreed on the superior 45/45 Westrex stereo-disc format, setting aside the unworkable Minter disc with its supersonic FM carrier for the L-R difference signal, or the asymmetric vertical-lateral format. There were 3 proposals, serious engineers (with musical taste) looked at the alternatives, and selected the best option.
Quite different than Philips and Sony unilaterally dictating to the whole world how they were going to listen to music in the future, take it or leave it, my way or the highway.
I don't think it was an accident that when the Philips and Sony Compact Disc patents finally ran out, wonder of wonders, 44.1/16 PCM suddenly isn't "Perfect Sound Forever" after all, but guess what, higher-resolution formats such as DSD and 192/24 now sound like - wait for it - analog mastertapes!!! So much for "digital perfection", eh?
Don't see any apologies from the "Perfect Sound Forever" flacks, though - they already have their retirement homes in Santa Fe.
I began to understand this when I worked in a recording studio in the early 80's, as a lot of what paid was recording ads. Later I had fights with management when I worked in TV and radio about squashing the sound and how irritating it became to listen to, something that became very clear when I had to listen to it for as much as 15 hours straight. Fingernails down a chalkboard.Lynn Olson said:
Currently I share digs with a guitarist in a signed band, which recently recorded a disc in a well equipped small studio. The 'roughs' I heard were quite good and produced no fatigue. I listened to the cuts many times straight as we critiqued it. When he got the pressings it was flattened. Not unexpected, but everyone who heard it thought it sounded better. The war is lost.
I've personally resisted an Ipod, and the stereo in my car was stolen ages ago. I have a new one, but enjoy the (relative) silence so I haven't installed it. People think I'm mad, but the constant bombardment of 'background' music, often at elevated volumes makes me feel like I'm living in an elevator. Music used to be a pleasure, now it's just a commodity.
Hi Lynn
So many things I agree with, where to start putting a sharper point on it?
I think that what has happened in the recording industry is the same thing that has happened in many other area’s, the broad application of ethically indifferent business science.
An example close to my wallet;
After graduating High school in 1970, most of my jobs had to do with live music, I mixed shows, repaired electronics but mainly built speakers. A link to some olden days photos.
http://www.livesoundint.com/archives/2003/jan/roadcases.php
http://www.prosoundweb.com/lsi/hist/water.php
Also, for the last 20 odd years my work has been fully or partly designing speakers for commercial sound, concert system and installed sound and working for a NASA contractor.
My point is that I have seen the sound business close up for a good while now.
What I have seen is a dramatic reduction in the number of concerts per year and on the inside, record people say the problem isn’t piracy but the fact that everyone has bought there old favorites on CD by now and there is too little new music people want to buy.
So why is that?
Well if one wanted to get all political, one could point at Reagan and his giant budget cuts which among other things, slashed school funding for Shop classes, fine arts, phys ed (America’s health, education and food issues are possibly related subjects).
So here we are years later and most of what is pop music is made by people who can’t play an instrument, often its rhythmic bitching or the ever popular profanity with a drum machine.
This might be the ranting of a old hippy type or one might notice that while generational gaps in “taste” have always existed, this (the lack of musicianship) has not happened before.
Back then in the Ronny days, it was said that if they cut 6 feet (of equivalent cost) from only one of the Nuc subs they were building, they wouldn’t have had to slash the education stuff like Gym, Music and shop.
I don’t know if that is or was true, I do know that the government spends so much money now that they can’t trust the public with real numbers even though “we” supply all the coins.
I do know that we are not given the “whole truth” in the news a fact clear if you travel overseas. I had a chance to talk to a bunch of Egyptians once, that was interesting, it confirmed what I suspected. It was an interesting measuring job too.
http://www.livesoundint.com/archives/2000/julyaug/pyramid/pyramid.php
Anyway, Regan’s “trickle down” did at least so far as the number of young people that ever get to pick up and instrument, read sheet music, take shop or run around in Gym class.
I don’t believe any of this was a good move in the long run although by having a bigger bladder, we did with the cold war ******* contest, the Russians ran out of money to **** away and went bankrupt leaving our guys to find / create new enemies to justify war time spending. I digress.
Add to Reagan’s effect, the scientific greed machine approach as applied to the record industry.
What I mean is that in the old days, there were hundreds of record labels, each label has a number of bands that they found and signed. The record label sets up “tours” to promote the band, to drive sales and increase popularity.
This meant each label has scouts out looking for bands that might succeed.
So picture a company that has grown so large that the “guy with the dream” that started the business, the guy who’s personality and vision made it what is was, has been bought or pushed out. Usually shortly after the old timer staff is made gone too and a professional business drones are installed, now the company is owned by stockholders who demand a return, they are who governs the rewards to the company executrons..
So you look out from record central and what do you see?
When there were so many companies involved, this meant there was inefficiency; too much money was made by too many people other than your stockholders who govern your reward and future based on that return on investment.
It is easier to buy out competitors than generate a new market segment or find the next new number one band.
As in Milton Friedman’s sum zero concept, the total stays the same but it is divided among fewer and fewer companies and increasingly directed to people who are totally uninvolved. Each time a label was bought out, that meant people were let go, that there were fewer scouts out looking, that fewer bands were being put on tours.
Finally with just a very few giants, maybe dinosaurs would be better, there are far fewer shows per year, far fewer bands playing, far fewer songs people would buy.
Part two of the process is the loss of the meanings of words at the hands of marketing.
In the old days is was considered “bad form” to outright lie, when the scientific greed machine approach is applied, one finds that lying works as well as truth and so you have commercials for “That superior MP3 sound” and “gas line magnetizers” other such nonsense.
Even in hifi (not that this is exempt) there is so much bogus tweak stuff and silly priced stuff out there now.
But they all have a standard to set and plenty of examples to look up to.
Think about who is the BIGGEST seller in hifi, they are so based on a reputation of engineering and sound superiority that justifies the higher than average price, yet, when the equipment is examined, it is lacking on all counts except its reputation.
Sadly, it appears to me that this same problem is rampant everywhere around us, like the Mallwart-ization of the family drug store, family farm, family hardware store, family restaurant and on and on.
As long as local city counsels of the towns they preside over think and act as if they had a business of maximizing the tax returns, they will continue to forget the intent of what most of there governing zoning charters say.
As long as a dollar spent marketing an impression of engineering produces more return than a dollar spent in engineering, there is no business reason to change, it is greed science after all.
The up side, time is coming where the pendulum will swing back, that is unless the clock is broken haha.
Best,
Tom Danley
So many things I agree with, where to start putting a sharper point on it?
I think that what has happened in the recording industry is the same thing that has happened in many other area’s, the broad application of ethically indifferent business science.
An example close to my wallet;
After graduating High school in 1970, most of my jobs had to do with live music, I mixed shows, repaired electronics but mainly built speakers. A link to some olden days photos.
http://www.livesoundint.com/archives/2003/jan/roadcases.php
http://www.prosoundweb.com/lsi/hist/water.php
Also, for the last 20 odd years my work has been fully or partly designing speakers for commercial sound, concert system and installed sound and working for a NASA contractor.
My point is that I have seen the sound business close up for a good while now.
What I have seen is a dramatic reduction in the number of concerts per year and on the inside, record people say the problem isn’t piracy but the fact that everyone has bought there old favorites on CD by now and there is too little new music people want to buy.
So why is that?
Well if one wanted to get all political, one could point at Reagan and his giant budget cuts which among other things, slashed school funding for Shop classes, fine arts, phys ed (America’s health, education and food issues are possibly related subjects).
So here we are years later and most of what is pop music is made by people who can’t play an instrument, often its rhythmic bitching or the ever popular profanity with a drum machine.
This might be the ranting of a old hippy type or one might notice that while generational gaps in “taste” have always existed, this (the lack of musicianship) has not happened before.
Back then in the Ronny days, it was said that if they cut 6 feet (of equivalent cost) from only one of the Nuc subs they were building, they wouldn’t have had to slash the education stuff like Gym, Music and shop.
I don’t know if that is or was true, I do know that the government spends so much money now that they can’t trust the public with real numbers even though “we” supply all the coins.
I do know that we are not given the “whole truth” in the news a fact clear if you travel overseas. I had a chance to talk to a bunch of Egyptians once, that was interesting, it confirmed what I suspected. It was an interesting measuring job too.
http://www.livesoundint.com/archives/2000/julyaug/pyramid/pyramid.php
Anyway, Regan’s “trickle down” did at least so far as the number of young people that ever get to pick up and instrument, read sheet music, take shop or run around in Gym class.
I don’t believe any of this was a good move in the long run although by having a bigger bladder, we did with the cold war ******* contest, the Russians ran out of money to **** away and went bankrupt leaving our guys to find / create new enemies to justify war time spending. I digress.
Add to Reagan’s effect, the scientific greed machine approach as applied to the record industry.
What I mean is that in the old days, there were hundreds of record labels, each label has a number of bands that they found and signed. The record label sets up “tours” to promote the band, to drive sales and increase popularity.
This meant each label has scouts out looking for bands that might succeed.
So picture a company that has grown so large that the “guy with the dream” that started the business, the guy who’s personality and vision made it what is was, has been bought or pushed out. Usually shortly after the old timer staff is made gone too and a professional business drones are installed, now the company is owned by stockholders who demand a return, they are who governs the rewards to the company executrons..
So you look out from record central and what do you see?
When there were so many companies involved, this meant there was inefficiency; too much money was made by too many people other than your stockholders who govern your reward and future based on that return on investment.
It is easier to buy out competitors than generate a new market segment or find the next new number one band.
As in Milton Friedman’s sum zero concept, the total stays the same but it is divided among fewer and fewer companies and increasingly directed to people who are totally uninvolved. Each time a label was bought out, that meant people were let go, that there were fewer scouts out looking, that fewer bands were being put on tours.
Finally with just a very few giants, maybe dinosaurs would be better, there are far fewer shows per year, far fewer bands playing, far fewer songs people would buy.
Part two of the process is the loss of the meanings of words at the hands of marketing.
In the old days is was considered “bad form” to outright lie, when the scientific greed machine approach is applied, one finds that lying works as well as truth and so you have commercials for “That superior MP3 sound” and “gas line magnetizers” other such nonsense.
Even in hifi (not that this is exempt) there is so much bogus tweak stuff and silly priced stuff out there now.
But they all have a standard to set and plenty of examples to look up to.
Think about who is the BIGGEST seller in hifi, they are so based on a reputation of engineering and sound superiority that justifies the higher than average price, yet, when the equipment is examined, it is lacking on all counts except its reputation.
Sadly, it appears to me that this same problem is rampant everywhere around us, like the Mallwart-ization of the family drug store, family farm, family hardware store, family restaurant and on and on.
As long as local city counsels of the towns they preside over think and act as if they had a business of maximizing the tax returns, they will continue to forget the intent of what most of there governing zoning charters say.
As long as a dollar spent marketing an impression of engineering produces more return than a dollar spent in engineering, there is no business reason to change, it is greed science after all.
The up side, time is coming where the pendulum will swing back, that is unless the clock is broken haha.
Best,
Tom Danley
Hi Lynn, while I enjoy and agree with your points about the state of modern mass produced recordings and "IPOD/MP3" sound, I think it's worth pointing out that every format since the LP has been about taking that music with you, not ultimate sound quality and I don't think it should be judged for what it was never designed to be. The marketing departments on the other hand should be horse whipped because they did hype the CD as the be all end all instead of the "less hissy cassette that doesn't need fast forwarding". For the most part MP3 and it's relatives are about one thing, shutting up those bagmen on the radio and putting you back in control of what you hear when you're away from the living room. The radio here is "unlistenable". It's a never ending commercial with screaming maniacs in between britney spears songs. MP3 (and downloading) created something for musicians and music fans in the last 10 years that's light years ahead of what I had as teenager in the mtv generation. The sound might be s#*t but the at least the song is good, much better than listening to a hi-fi master tape of avril lavigne screaming about skateboarding. MP3 basically exists to replace radio and make internet downloads happen at a reasonable speed. It's early days yet for the internet, hopefully speeds will improve and mp3 will be left behind, but in the meantime I've discovered just about every artist I currently listen to through mp3s, bought their LPs and watched out for them to come to town for a live show. And LPs have been gaining in popularity among young kids with ipods, there's hope.
for example: http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2127350,00.html
It's not perfect, but it's something. Music kids are pretty interested in tubes too, they never heard them before and the story of how they were pushed aside jives with the lessons they've learned growing up as a marketing target. It helps that they've never gone away in guitar amps and they all trust them for that application.
for example: http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2127350,00.html
It's not perfect, but it's something. Music kids are pretty interested in tubes too, they never heard them before and the story of how they were pushed aside jives with the lessons they've learned growing up as a marketing target. It helps that they've never gone away in guitar amps and they all trust them for that application.
Lynn Olson said:
Bingo!
Wish I had the opportunity to have heard that as well!
We agree completely on the absolute need for reproducing the voice properly first. How to do it? Ah, that's the rub!
My own experiences with horns mirror yours. It is only recently that I personally came to the conclusion that the driver, perhaps more than the horn itself (although the horn does have a contribution) is to blame for the "horn"/"shouty" sound.
Dr. Geddes investigations, especially those regarding the HOM issue are intriguing, and raise a number of questions and at the same time serve to resolve some as well. Fertile ground, imho.
Of course, imho to do horns "properly" you end up with a large "midrange" horn, which has poor WAF and does not fit into your typical "small" size listening room well...
One of my amp/speaker killer tracks is from the Dorian Sampler II, last track and contains a massive choral piece that is heralded in with an intense baroque(?) style bugle/trumpet intro. On most systems the whole thing comes off brittle, the sound field collapses on creshendo and the texture of individual voices melds into a blur. This track truly is a torture test.
Good fortune puts me in the backyard of Dorian and the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (turn of the century old style European design, fyi), which in turn got me the opportunity to hear the room, and to meet the people at Dorian. So I got to know exactly how they "did it". Which was excellent gear, excellent mics, well placed and a minimalist concept.
While I'm not a big Classical music fan, I am a fan of exceptionally well recorded stuff. Some of the Dorian catalog is exceptional.
Two other thoughts...
I always wished that once digital audio became available that someone would have had the guts to come forth with user definable multichannel sources (like a CD with 4 or 8 tracks). Or at least a 4-ch commercial release...
...got a long phone call, forgot the second thought... later...
_-_-bear
Tom Danley said:
I'd be quick to agree, but history would not bear it out. Tastes change and the dislike of the new stuff is usually blamed on the new musicians and composers. A lot of Beethoven's was not well received, nor was Stravinksy. And go back and read old newspapers. There is a reason they always used quotation marks for Jazz "Music". What did Louis Armstrong think of Be-Bop? "Chinese Music", he hated it. And don't you remember how much the W.W.II generation hated Rock & Roll?
But, yeah. I don't like a lot of new stuff, too.
poptart said:
Could not agree more with Mr. Poptart. Maui has 1.5 good radio stations, that's it. I don't listen anymore, I can't take all the shouting. So for me it's internet radio at home and at work. Sure, the SQ isn't the best, but it's getting better all the time because the listeners demand it. As PT says, this is all very young, as Internet bandwidth grows, so will bitrates. And if we quickly get to FM quality, why not? I've spent many, many a happy hour listening to great FM. It looks like it could be better than that relatively soon. And the choice of great music is vast. I've found so many artists I never knew, and bought the CDs or SACDs. Isn't that a good thing?
Even back in the golden age of audio, whenever that was, most folks listened on junk record players and did not care. I had a buddy who listened to his Gershwin LPs on his plastic Fisher Price record player with a speaker in the lid -- and enjoyed the hell out of it. I think the iPod and its ilk are a lot better than that.
Lynn Olson said:
Ahhh.. Quad 303s. That brings back memories - but not great ones.
Used to drive Quad ESLs with those, then SUN static tweeters. They sure were better than the 405, tho.
I've never been happy about the idea that music making facilities being available to all is a bad thing. Of course there is a lot of poor or mediocre product around, but how many more musicians get a chance to create good stuff now than, say, a hundred years ago? You no longer need to be rich, or patronised by someone rich to get your music out in the world. How many great composers and wonderful music did we lose simply by them having to work down a coal mine or on a farm?
Hi panomainiac
Originally posted by Tom Danley
.This might be the ranting of a old hippy type or one might notice that while generational gaps in “taste” have always existed, this (the lack of musicianship) has not happened before.
Panomaniac wrote;
I'd be quick to agree, but history would not bear it out. Tastes change and the dislike of the new stuff is usually blamed on the new musicians and composers. A lot of Beethoven's was not well received, nor was Stravinksy. And go back and read old newspapers. There is a reason they always used quotation marks for Jazz "Music". What did Louis Armstrong think of Be-Bop? "Chinese Music", he hated it. And don't you remember how much the W.W.II generation hated Rock & Roll?
But, yeah. I don't like a lot of new stuff, too.
The “yes but” part.
My point was that even accounting for a generational gap in tastes, one is faced with the powerful fact that because of Regan’s budget cuts, vastly fewer kids ever got the chance to pick up a musical instrument or ever learn how to play anything.
Sadly, that is also true for wood shop, metal shop, electronics shop and so on, all of which were at the local high Schools when I went, none of which are available there now.
As one educator described back then “the system is tuned to produce lawyers, doctors and fast food workers”.
Actually I do like some of my kids music, some of it is very good and fun to play (bass) along with, the problem my friends in the recording business complain about is that there are far fewer good musicians / bands out there and producers often push to have the “loudest” CD which means max compression and effects.
Keep in mind, that is was the force from the same marketing arm which started chipping away at “quality”, by doing such things as using crippled monitor speakers that emulated home hifi rather than faithfulness, aiming at the most common denominator instead of perfection.
Same for extreme compression so popular now, that is to make a typical garbage music system sound as good and loud as it can, not to sound as good as it can on good speakers.
Think about concert sound too where line sources have been marketed to be the “only way to go”. They hang quickly and sound better than many old type PA’s did its true.
In reality, when you are in the region where a line source has reduced SPL fall off compared to a point source, it is doing so via self cancellation.
These systems also have a frequency response, which changes with distance, where a high-resolution measurement is too shocking to show. By virtue of its very operation (an extended self canceling source), they stretch out transient events in time while the “up side” (for a mfr) is that for a given SPL in the audience, it takes many more drivers and amplifier channels than a point source system producing the same SPL.
I still record some and am still keenly interested in making the most real stereo image possible.
The extreme irony I see is that the technology has grown to be so powerful that a decent sound card in a computer can do a far better job than an open real Tape deck that cost a right arm in the old days. I keep looking at my trusty old tape decks sitting there and think about how a “toy” recorder like my daughters Korg 1200 sounds in a side by side comparison and I know they will only play old tapes from now on.
I hear people reminisce about open real tape and wonder how many have ever tried a good digital system side by side, recording at 24/96, there is simply no going back to analogue tape, there are too many audible problems by comparison.
In the old days, speakers were large, had directivity and it was the case where if you wanted good sound in a living room, one had to accept the speakers that did it.
Nowadays, marketing has convinced people that small speakers are the thing and while this does open the acceptance window to some who wouldn’t have bought previously, it also has had a chilling effect on acceptance of larger speakers.
Sadly, as in live music the laws of acoustics based on acoustic size, which govern how things work, have not been changed by marketing.
Best,
Tom Danley
Originally posted by Tom Danley
.This might be the ranting of a old hippy type or one might notice that while generational gaps in “taste” have always existed, this (the lack of musicianship) has not happened before.
Panomaniac wrote;
I'd be quick to agree, but history would not bear it out. Tastes change and the dislike of the new stuff is usually blamed on the new musicians and composers. A lot of Beethoven's was not well received, nor was Stravinksy. And go back and read old newspapers. There is a reason they always used quotation marks for Jazz "Music". What did Louis Armstrong think of Be-Bop? "Chinese Music", he hated it. And don't you remember how much the W.W.II generation hated Rock & Roll?
But, yeah. I don't like a lot of new stuff, too.
The “yes but” part.
My point was that even accounting for a generational gap in tastes, one is faced with the powerful fact that because of Regan’s budget cuts, vastly fewer kids ever got the chance to pick up a musical instrument or ever learn how to play anything.
Sadly, that is also true for wood shop, metal shop, electronics shop and so on, all of which were at the local high Schools when I went, none of which are available there now.
As one educator described back then “the system is tuned to produce lawyers, doctors and fast food workers”.
Actually I do like some of my kids music, some of it is very good and fun to play (bass) along with, the problem my friends in the recording business complain about is that there are far fewer good musicians / bands out there and producers often push to have the “loudest” CD which means max compression and effects.
Keep in mind, that is was the force from the same marketing arm which started chipping away at “quality”, by doing such things as using crippled monitor speakers that emulated home hifi rather than faithfulness, aiming at the most common denominator instead of perfection.
Same for extreme compression so popular now, that is to make a typical garbage music system sound as good and loud as it can, not to sound as good as it can on good speakers.
Think about concert sound too where line sources have been marketed to be the “only way to go”. They hang quickly and sound better than many old type PA’s did its true.
In reality, when you are in the region where a line source has reduced SPL fall off compared to a point source, it is doing so via self cancellation.
These systems also have a frequency response, which changes with distance, where a high-resolution measurement is too shocking to show. By virtue of its very operation (an extended self canceling source), they stretch out transient events in time while the “up side” (for a mfr) is that for a given SPL in the audience, it takes many more drivers and amplifier channels than a point source system producing the same SPL.
I still record some and am still keenly interested in making the most real stereo image possible.
The extreme irony I see is that the technology has grown to be so powerful that a decent sound card in a computer can do a far better job than an open real Tape deck that cost a right arm in the old days. I keep looking at my trusty old tape decks sitting there and think about how a “toy” recorder like my daughters Korg 1200 sounds in a side by side comparison and I know they will only play old tapes from now on.
I hear people reminisce about open real tape and wonder how many have ever tried a good digital system side by side, recording at 24/96, there is simply no going back to analogue tape, there are too many audible problems by comparison.
In the old days, speakers were large, had directivity and it was the case where if you wanted good sound in a living room, one had to accept the speakers that did it.
Nowadays, marketing has convinced people that small speakers are the thing and while this does open the acceptance window to some who wouldn’t have bought previously, it also has had a chilling effect on acceptance of larger speakers.
Sadly, as in live music the laws of acoustics based on acoustic size, which govern how things work, have not been changed by marketing.
Best,
Tom Danley
I was born in '87, very much a child of the digital age. I grew up listening to mainly classical music on a Pioneer rack system. Dad bought this as a sort of homeopathic cure for audiophilia. The attic is full of 80's high-end gear. He's been clean now for a number of years.
Its gladdening to know that there are those who take the reproduction of the voice very seriously and know its not trivial.If you don,t get this right, then all you would have made is a piece of technological junk.
Skepticism creeps in tho' when the "voice range" becomes fragmented into various frequency bands.Earl Geddes believes the 200hz - 1khz range to be the most forgiving range. My ear tells me otherwise.Bear takes the 300hz - 3000khz as the most crucial ......and so on. Each of these examples are well reasoned out from a technological point of view by their respective advocates. Trouble is, the voice is whole, it refuses fragmentation. It dies when fractured.
What are we creating - techno facts or cultural artifacts ? Recently I've been listening to Asa Irons and Swaan Miller LP. It was recorded from start to finish in one and a half hours in a disused bathroom. Is it a sonic masterpiece? No. Its a work of Art.
Cilla
Its gladdening to know that there are those who take the reproduction of the voice very seriously and know its not trivial.If you don,t get this right, then all you would have made is a piece of technological junk.
Skepticism creeps in tho' when the "voice range" becomes fragmented into various frequency bands.Earl Geddes believes the 200hz - 1khz range to be the most forgiving range. My ear tells me otherwise.Bear takes the 300hz - 3000khz as the most crucial ......and so on. Each of these examples are well reasoned out from a technological point of view by their respective advocates. Trouble is, the voice is whole, it refuses fragmentation. It dies when fractured.
What are we creating - techno facts or cultural artifacts ? Recently I've been listening to Asa Irons and Swaan Miller LP. It was recorded from start to finish in one and a half hours in a disused bathroom. Is it a sonic masterpiece? No. Its a work of Art.
Cilla
Tom Danley said:
Tom,
Sorry, I must have misunderstood something here?
Point source? What PA/SR system is a point source? (or performs like one?)
Also, I am unsure as to what you refer to when you say "self cancellation"? Or self cancelling source?
And then too, I am unaware of any system whose highs do not fall of with distance faster than the lows?
If I'm unclear on these things, probably there are others reading as well...
_-_-bear
PS. Pdan - I say 300-3000 as a minimum, not as a target. My own horns do <299Hz. to >10kHz. The ESLs are full range. Etc.
Hi Bear
Well several companies make loudspeakers where the attempt is to be a point source.
It is not easy especially when it also should as much as possible have constant directivity while also having “enough” frequency divisions to allow the desired acoustic power.
I found a way to do it with the unity horn and its “son”, the synergy horn.
Scroll down about half way here;
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/danley_tapped.pdf
Its not quite as good in time as the Manger I had / measured but its orders of magnitude lower in distortion, goes orders of magnitude louder, has directivity and with a passive crossover, still reproduces a square wave over a decade, spanning all three sets of drivers.
For the sh-50, several can be placed side by side without audible interference; the SH-25 can be stacked in both planes w/o interference.
So far as the line source, they work by having self cancellation, when you are in the region where the sound fall off is less than the inverse square law, you are also in the region where you are receiving sound from different distances on the line.
Measure the energy vs time with a TEF or other and what you see is the energy is speed out arriving from the closest point first and the farthest point last, not one narrow impulse, they are time dispersive via its source dimensions.
On pro-sound web right now there is a discussion about “where’s the bass” relative to concert line source arrays. An earlier thread from England was about noise pollution and one concert where the mids were audible 5 miles away.
Here is a thought experiment, keep in mind the reverberant sound level / spectrum in a room or nuisance sound outdoors is roughly proportional to the acoustic power of the source and indoors this is also “bad” sound so far as hearing the music.
Far enough away, at acoustic infinity (not actual infinity) the line source stops acting like a line source and reverts to the inverse square or point source style operation.
At that distance, you measure the sound level at all angles and derive a radiation balloon for that source and acoustic power.
So, now, consider a point source system with the same radiation pattern and acoustic power. At acoustic infinity, they are equally loud, but now as you walk closer, the point source is going to get louder / faster than the line source right?
So, a flip side to the line source is that for a given level in the audience, one produces a great deal more acoustic power (needed by the self cancellation in the nearfield), one has many more sources needed to reach the physicality involved with a line array.
Even at that, concert line arrays are a different acoustic length at every frequency and so while one can balance the system at some distance, the balance changes if you move closer or further, far away the bass (being a point source) is gone. To hide the shocking frequency response most systems have an array design program that makes nice reassuring colors. On the other hand, if you had a real point source with the same directivity at all frequencies, with the exception of hf absorption over distance, they have a constant spectrum / unchanging frequency response vs distance.
Best,
Tom Danley
Well several companies make loudspeakers where the attempt is to be a point source.
It is not easy especially when it also should as much as possible have constant directivity while also having “enough” frequency divisions to allow the desired acoustic power.
I found a way to do it with the unity horn and its “son”, the synergy horn.
Scroll down about half way here;
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/danley_tapped.pdf
Its not quite as good in time as the Manger I had / measured but its orders of magnitude lower in distortion, goes orders of magnitude louder, has directivity and with a passive crossover, still reproduces a square wave over a decade, spanning all three sets of drivers.
For the sh-50, several can be placed side by side without audible interference; the SH-25 can be stacked in both planes w/o interference.
So far as the line source, they work by having self cancellation, when you are in the region where the sound fall off is less than the inverse square law, you are also in the region where you are receiving sound from different distances on the line.
Measure the energy vs time with a TEF or other and what you see is the energy is speed out arriving from the closest point first and the farthest point last, not one narrow impulse, they are time dispersive via its source dimensions.
On pro-sound web right now there is a discussion about “where’s the bass” relative to concert line source arrays. An earlier thread from England was about noise pollution and one concert where the mids were audible 5 miles away.
Here is a thought experiment, keep in mind the reverberant sound level / spectrum in a room or nuisance sound outdoors is roughly proportional to the acoustic power of the source and indoors this is also “bad” sound so far as hearing the music.
Far enough away, at acoustic infinity (not actual infinity) the line source stops acting like a line source and reverts to the inverse square or point source style operation.
At that distance, you measure the sound level at all angles and derive a radiation balloon for that source and acoustic power.
So, now, consider a point source system with the same radiation pattern and acoustic power. At acoustic infinity, they are equally loud, but now as you walk closer, the point source is going to get louder / faster than the line source right?
So, a flip side to the line source is that for a given level in the audience, one produces a great deal more acoustic power (needed by the self cancellation in the nearfield), one has many more sources needed to reach the physicality involved with a line array.
Even at that, concert line arrays are a different acoustic length at every frequency and so while one can balance the system at some distance, the balance changes if you move closer or further, far away the bass (being a point source) is gone. To hide the shocking frequency response most systems have an array design program that makes nice reassuring colors. On the other hand, if you had a real point source with the same directivity at all frequencies, with the exception of hf absorption over distance, they have a constant spectrum / unchanging frequency response vs distance.
Best,
Tom Danley
Tom Danley said:
Could be, I wouldn't know. I went into self imposed exile when Regan was elected.
But point taken on the lack of skills, musical and otherwise. I blame better tools, and maybe the CD itself. It's soooo easy to publish your own CD now, and that seems to be the way everyone wants to get into the music biz. In the old days you had to play a lot of live gigs before you ever got recorded. And that's a good thing. A lot of my old Blue Grass records are like that. The guys walk into the studio, do in 1 or 2 takes and walk out again. Why would they need more? Years of playing together live have made them so tight they can "just do it."
Now it's easy to just rely on the technology. My son can pick up a great digicam for a few $100 and make cool little films. No need to learn the craft, the camera does it all for you and tape is cheap. Not so when I was doing it. The limits of the technology forced us to learn the craft, otherwise you had junk. Film was expensive and so was were the cameras, not to mention getting copies made. All that has changed.
The better the tools, the less you have to learn the craft. That does not mean that some people don't learn it, but not everyone is forced to. Know what I mean?
bear said:
Hmm, I poked around the rather chaotic Dorian site, and couldn't find the disc. Any pointers to which record it might be? Much appreciated - I'd like to buy it, and keep it around for a reference. I have other Dorian recordings and like them very much.
I actually own an iPod, bought at Karna's urging - yes, it is a convenient little gizmo, but so far I've been using uncompressed AIFF on the spacious 60 GB hard disk. Nowhere close to filling it.
Sound quality from the "Line" output is about what you'd expect - basically, a mid-fi CD player in the $300 range. Somewhat metallic sounding, and I'm suspicious that full-level output clips the analog electronics in the iPod - at least that's what I hear when the thing is playing through the Denon 2905 HT receiver. Reducing the playback level by -6 dB seems to elimate the clipping without affecting dynamic range too much.
panomaniac said:
-The golden mean between the excess of plenty and lack of means is called 'ethos'.
-As for concert line arrays discussed above, I have to say (as I have been involved into developing one) that in the end of the day we have to see them as infinite Bessel arrays in order to get a meaningful theoretical approach of their behavior.