That's the point, when people trying to equalize the system equalize wrong things caused by placement of the measurement microphone in the room. What has to be equalized only, bumps of speakers that will exist no matter how good they are made mechanically. Low Q resonances are more audible as coloration, but they are less audible when equalized. The higher is Q of mechanical resonances, the worse are results of equaization, though without equalization they are heard less than low Q resonances.
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Before he played at Wildwood his guitar case's hasp had cut his left index finger with a big painful gash (and he's right handed). He never mentioned it to the house and nobody but he and I knew that the little jar he periodically dipped his finger into was some kind of painkiller/ blood clotter. He also played at least 45 minutes before going to a bottleneck.
Thanks,
Chris
I got the year pretty wrong; I'm sorry. Wikipedia has a very interesting entry about the Wall of Sound, and a certain person "of Alembic" is mentioned...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_of_Sound_%28Grateful_Dead%29
and http://www.dozin.com/wallofsound/index.html
Thanks,
Chris
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Best I heard was at Symphony Hall in Boston in 1975, I remember it as using little or no sound system. He broke a string and had to leave the stage to recompose himself. I don't like his usual venue here at Harvard that much even though I can walk there.
I have not seen yet sound systems' installations that are good for natural voices and acoustic instruments. That's why I work in this niche. He is going to be here in San Francisco in February, may be I will have some prototype then to try...
We used LaScala's (donated by PWK himself!) for FOH, but the room hardly needed SR anyway. Seats 630, thrust stage, no proscenium, designed for opera. Not really hi-fi, but not loud and often not noticable. I'm still proud of that.
Thanks,
Chris
Also, John Curl told me once, that after they replaced tube amps by transistor ones result was worse. Why, if according to Stereophile tests solid state amps should sound more naturally with real speakers, since they have lower output resistance?
A few points: First, the Mac 3500 power amp had a reasonable damping factor, AND the solid state replacements had a similar damping factor, so the damping factor argument is not real. Second, the 3500 amps have 350W of continuous power, a far cry from many typical tube amps. For the Wall of Sound, we used them for the tweeter arrays mostly, above 4KHz. Even the roadies could hear the difference. This was the weak point for the solid state amps at the time. Like DUH! '-) We tried to buy more 3500's but they stopped production.
John Meyer and I had a similar problem with solid state and we needed a superior amp for the T350 tweeter that we used in our all horn loaded PA speaker, so I built the prototype for the JC-3 to fill that niche. Later I gave it to Mark Levinson to produce.
John Meyer and I had a similar problem with solid state and we needed a superior amp for the T350 tweeter that we used in our all horn loaded PA speaker, so I built the prototype for the JC-3 to fill that niche. Later I gave it to Mark Levinson to produce.
Any good midrange-tweeter amps out there, these days? All my commercial amps are too powerful for this service.
It is difficult to market, at least through Parasound or Constellation, a very high quality low power, power amp, you know, maybe 50W. I guess I will give it over to Nelson Pass, who seems to be able to market what he wants.
It is difficult to market, at least through Parasound or Constellation, a very high quality low power, power amp, you know, maybe 50W. I guess I will give it over to Nelson Pass, who seems to be able to market what he wants.
John;
if they needed amps for tweeters only I believe Alembic could do custom amps better than Macs, because output transformers would be needed smaller and easier to make of higher quality for upper frequencies than for full audio band that Mac needed to do.
I can build you a tube prototype now, if you really want it. I have unfinished project for 200WPC amp that works from 80 Hz and up to the sky. Quite good damping factor and linear output resistance, due to nested feedbacks.
if they needed amps for tweeters only I believe Alembic could do custom amps better than Macs, because output transformers would be needed smaller and easier to make of higher quality for upper frequencies than for full audio band that Mac needed to do.
I can build you a tube prototype now, if you really want it. I have unfinished project for 200WPC amp that works from 80 Hz and up to the sky. Quite good damping factor and linear output resistance, due to nested feedbacks.
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In case of solid state I don't see the need for such a target, like higher frequency only. Except may be one highest quality film capacitor in feedback that can have less capacitance than for the amp for the full audio band, that's it. The rest is the same: fast transistors, wide OL bandwidth.
Hint: add a switch for feedback cap in the amp you already like.
You remind me myself in the late 70'th, when I believed in "SS cleanness" and "Tube Colorizers"
No matter what I did, how fast, complementary, symmetric, powerful were SS amps, but Tesla Mono-130 that measured much worse kept me feeling kind of surrealistic uneasiness.
You know, if was not the best pro amp, but still...
Edit: like this one http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/tesla_mono_130_azk160azk_16.html
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IIRC they went to MAC 2300's transistor amps with output transformers.
As good a live sound system as I have heard regardless of the venue. In a 'small' venue like the Winterland like a home system with unlimited headroom, no 'ear ringing' even leaning on the stage.
For comparable drivers' sensitivity how many peak dB down from midrange would you consider the music you'll typically listen to? I wouldn't figure you for a headbanger, so there'll be "some". 3dB? 6dB?
Thanks,
Chris
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