Re: Re: Re: Hi Nelson -Do you think we've reached a plateau?
I really do believe that any system can only be as good as the weakest link - Do we agree on that?? So source is critical and each link of the chain can only pass down to the next step that which has been fed to it - so in a sense Planet 10 is correct - the speakers imperfections are exaggerated or changed less by another part down the chain. Actually, I differ when you bring the room in as a part of the system.
A big part of this speaker system weakness is driver interaction with the amp through passive crossovers -
Which can be solved in a big way by active crossovers and one amp per driver.
Not an easy or cheap solution - but far more to be gained than in other areas. And in terms of moving to another level of sound quality what other areas would give so much bang for the buck??
Leaving formats out of the discussion for practicality and the fact that they are out of our control anyhow -
What areas will further progress come from? let us saysource is most important - but has plateaud
If signal processing (preamp and amp) has reached a point of diminishing returns -
And if driver development has reached a similar point of diminishing returns-
All debatable surely, but if so or close - do we then not turn to where the most improvement stands to be made?? Say it is least important - but still the most bang for the buck? we're left with the speaker system/interface and how we approach that as being the area of greatest reward.
Too long - but complex subjects are not easily covered in low content posts
Ken L
As always, I sincerely wish to thank Nelson Pass for supporting and contributing to this forum
I really do believe that any system can only be as good as the weakest link - Do we agree on that?? So source is critical and each link of the chain can only pass down to the next step that which has been fed to it - so in a sense Planet 10 is correct - the speakers imperfections are exaggerated or changed less by another part down the chain. Actually, I differ when you bring the room in as a part of the system.
A big part of this speaker system weakness is driver interaction with the amp through passive crossovers -
Which can be solved in a big way by active crossovers and one amp per driver.
Not an easy or cheap solution - but far more to be gained than in other areas. And in terms of moving to another level of sound quality what other areas would give so much bang for the buck??
Leaving formats out of the discussion for practicality and the fact that they are out of our control anyhow -
What areas will further progress come from? let us saysource is most important - but has plateaud
If signal processing (preamp and amp) has reached a point of diminishing returns -
And if driver development has reached a similar point of diminishing returns-
All debatable surely, but if so or close - do we then not turn to where the most improvement stands to be made?? Say it is least important - but still the most bang for the buck? we're left with the speaker system/interface and how we approach that as being the area of greatest reward.
Too long - but complex subjects are not easily covered in low content posts
Ken L
As always, I sincerely wish to thank Nelson Pass for supporting and contributing to this forum
Nelson Pass said:
Nothing wrong with the meter as long as one doesn't become a slave to it. If I'm going to be a slave to anything it'll be my own hedonism.
Yes, the flyspeck syndrome.
Nope. But there's always new music to experience. More than any one person could possibly listen to in a lifetime.
I'm about to take something of a paradigm shift in my audio system and once that's done, I think I'm just going to shed my audiophile robes for a while and soak up some notes.
se
Peter Daniel said:
You are not talking here about switching to batteries power exclusively.
With solar/wind recharging even.
That's simply one element though. Not quite a paradigm shift. The rest includes low-power, single-ended amplification (with passive voltage gain) and high-efficiency, single-driver, full-range loudspeakers.
There. That about covers it.
se
Taste Test
"correct is correct" - no arguments.
That means a dead clean non reactive system that just repeats what it is fed with no embellishments.
"Personal satisfaction should only come into play when something is not correct."
I have no problem with using Tone Controls or/and Graphic EQ to get a particular sound that I might like according to the circumstance, audience, room and program content, and no problem with using TC or/and GEQ to correct for warts in the original recording or distribution dub and the replay system.
The objective side in me gets the system to the clean point where it is nicely amenable to the right tonal enhancements according to my subjective taste at the time.
Eric.
"correct is correct" - no arguments.
That means a dead clean non reactive system that just repeats what it is fed with no embellishments.
"Personal satisfaction should only come into play when something is not correct."
I have no problem with using Tone Controls or/and Graphic EQ to get a particular sound that I might like according to the circumstance, audience, room and program content, and no problem with using TC or/and GEQ to correct for warts in the original recording or distribution dub and the replay system.
The objective side in me gets the system to the clean point where it is nicely amenable to the right tonal enhancements according to my subjective taste at the time.
Eric.
Ken L:
>I really do believe that any system can only be as good as the weakest link - Do we agree on that?<
Oh dear. Most audiophiles repeat this frequently and actually seem to believe it. But as frequently is the case, it appears that too many people are taking something for granted instead of trying to think for themselves.
Don't get me wrong. When I was much younger, I believed this, too. But I gradually realized that certain first-hand experiences didn't fit the "weakest link" theory too well. For example, I've heard differences between solder with the DUT played through a POS boom box, and I sincerely doubt if this would be possible if the "weakest link" theory were actually true.
To use a visual metaphor, I now consider each component in an audio system as being rather like a pane of glass, with a distinctive color, characteristic dirt patterns, size, varying degrees of transparancy/opacity and so on.
If we were to look at a real scene through a stack of these glass panes, would what we see be limited by the dirtiest, most colored pane? No. The ultimate limit would be the net sum of all of the colorations, dirt patterns, opacities etc.
What this suggests is that cleaning up any single pane would give us a better idea of what we were actually looking at. Likely, it would also make it easier for us to see the colorations, dirt, and fogginess of the remaining panes of glass.
But it won't be until all of the panes are completely colorless, clean, and transparent that we will have a perfect view of what we are looking at.
regards, jonathan carr
>I really do believe that any system can only be as good as the weakest link - Do we agree on that?<
Oh dear. Most audiophiles repeat this frequently and actually seem to believe it. But as frequently is the case, it appears that too many people are taking something for granted instead of trying to think for themselves.
Don't get me wrong. When I was much younger, I believed this, too. But I gradually realized that certain first-hand experiences didn't fit the "weakest link" theory too well. For example, I've heard differences between solder with the DUT played through a POS boom box, and I sincerely doubt if this would be possible if the "weakest link" theory were actually true.
To use a visual metaphor, I now consider each component in an audio system as being rather like a pane of glass, with a distinctive color, characteristic dirt patterns, size, varying degrees of transparancy/opacity and so on.
If we were to look at a real scene through a stack of these glass panes, would what we see be limited by the dirtiest, most colored pane? No. The ultimate limit would be the net sum of all of the colorations, dirt patterns, opacities etc.
What this suggests is that cleaning up any single pane would give us a better idea of what we were actually looking at. Likely, it would also make it easier for us to see the colorations, dirt, and fogginess of the remaining panes of glass.
But it won't be until all of the panes are completely colorless, clean, and transparent that we will have a perfect view of what we are looking at.
regards, jonathan carr
Beware The Mastering Engineer
I have found in the past that a (my) really really good, really tonally correct, really dynamically,phase and impulse correct (flat or at least smooth) system is really non adversely critical of program content nor room and just sounds live to the extent of the recording and/or musicians - IOW it can rock and overload nicely and never get nasty, and below max levels repeats nicely wht it is fed.
Do not expect what comes out of the record company mastering room to sound right on your/our systems, so therefore IMO tone controls if clean and nice are perfectly valid and indeed can be preferable.
Eric.
Peter Daniel said:Would you rather listen to "correct" sound and torture yourself while doing that, or spice it your taste and enjoy?
"Correct" is only to the recording engineer's ears and it doesn't mean that he has the same ears as you (or should I say brain?)
I have found in the past that a (my) really really good, really tonally correct, really dynamically,phase and impulse correct (flat or at least smooth) system is really non adversely critical of program content nor room and just sounds live to the extent of the recording and/or musicians - IOW it can rock and overload nicely and never get nasty, and below max levels repeats nicely wht it is fed.
Do not expect what comes out of the record company mastering room to sound right on your/our systems, so therefore IMO tone controls if clean and nice are perfectly valid and indeed can be preferable.
Eric.
Bill Fitzpatrick said:
What on earth are you talking about? When did I say anything about correct? All I said was that the proof was in the listening. The proof being that I like them.
In other words, it was simply a way of saying that I'll never know if I like them until I listen to them.
I'm beginning to think you're just trolling here.
se
Keep it coming guys. The level of discussion far surpasses anything i have experienced when i have made that statement. This forum is brilliant (and the forum is only the sum of its peopel).
Of the comments i'd like to make, but haven't ime right now, i'd like to comment on Fitzpatrick's correct is correct statement.
This is probably true, but doesn't tell the whole story. With, IME, today's best HiFis maybe reaching 10% of "correct" (and most people cannot afford this kind of committment) and with many approaches towards "correct" how are we to judge which portion/direction of correct makes the most sense? To me the only measure that makes sense is to go back to the hifi's purpose -- to play music -- and say that the only important measure of how good a hifi is for YOU is to ask whether you are enjoying the music.
I also believe that subjective criteria can help us make the layers of glass cleaner* but only our musical enjoyment can measure the complex "sum" of all the sheets when they are all so dirty.
*(a wonderful analogy Jonathan, a much more visual - and therefore more powerful - restatement of the analogy (Julian Vereker passed to me one summer night in Chicago over a beer) i have used to centre my approach on)
dave
Of the comments i'd like to make, but haven't ime right now, i'd like to comment on Fitzpatrick's correct is correct statement.
This is probably true, but doesn't tell the whole story. With, IME, today's best HiFis maybe reaching 10% of "correct" (and most people cannot afford this kind of committment) and with many approaches towards "correct" how are we to judge which portion/direction of correct makes the most sense? To me the only measure that makes sense is to go back to the hifi's purpose -- to play music -- and say that the only important measure of how good a hifi is for YOU is to ask whether you are enjoying the music.
I also believe that subjective criteria can help us make the layers of glass cleaner* but only our musical enjoyment can measure the complex "sum" of all the sheets when they are all so dirty.
*(a wonderful analogy Jonathan, a much more visual - and therefore more powerful - restatement of the analogy (Julian Vereker passed to me one summer night in Chicago over a beer) i have used to centre my approach on)
dave
Do you think we've reached a plateau?
From my post just before this is should be clear i don't think this is the case.
New tools and technologies are coming on stream at a blinding rate and at the same time we are reaching back and reexamining technologies & techniques from the past that were shunted aside as new, cheaper, technology pushed them out of the way (SE tube amps and FR speakers are the 2 most visible).
dave
I am attaching for your consideration a post by Thomas Dunker on the JoeList (in response to some discussion on 4 x 15" fieldcoils another member has):
---------------------------------------------------------
Fri, 20 Sep 2002
Subject: [JN] Field-Coils and missing considerations
My assorted ramblings follow:
If you had read up on the issue of flux modulation and resulting harmonic and IM distortion in electrodynamic speaker units, perhaps you'd realize that the only magnet structures likely to rival field coils in that regard would be neodymium ones. Next would be alnico, and finally, the most inferior of the lot, ferrite types. It's all in the BH curves.
The extreme opposite of an old, high efficiency field coil driver, would be a modern, low efficiency ferrite PM driver. It has been assumed that one could make up for a lousy magnet system by calling for greater flux variations from the voice coil, which only increases flux modulation. If you have "something" with a so-so linearity to begin with, and feedback is impractical, the only way to keep distortion down is to make the signal component use as small as possible a fraction of that nonlinear characteristic.
This applies everywhere in an analog audio reproduction chain, speakers being but one example.
Modern speakers have evolved AWAY from literally ALL the wise and scientifically sound rules of thumb that the speaker pioneers of the 1920s-1930s adhered to.
Why does one often find that one is wasting one's time trying to explain that certain "obsolete" technologies may in fact have technological advantages over the contemporary "state of the art"? The main reason that field coils went out of fashion was that permanent magnets eventually became ECONOMICALLY more viable than field coils and because they're not as LABOR-INTENSIVE as coils, and finally that PMs are more CONVENIENT in that they don't require a steady supply of DC. Concerns such as these, having less to do with objective performance, and more to do with profit margins, also pushed horn speakers, triodes, (and eventually pentodes), hardwired circuitry, vinyl, analog tape and various other advanced technologies off the consumer audio scene.
Since the ridiculously shallow "tube vs transistor" discussion sort of came up again ("hey, I once/never heard a good transistor amp"), I can't help but comment on that as well.
If one puts ANY amplifier inside a feedback loop designed to make the amp a "perfect" voltage amplifier - one ALWAYS measures voltage distortion - you have made an amplifier ideally suited to drive a theoretical speaker that basically does not exist - a speaker which has all the same electrical properties as a noninductive power resistor. If we could enjoy music directly from resistive dummy loads, these amps would be all we could ever ask for. Or if we could make a truly voltage controlled SPEAKER with no complex impedance components...
The minimum distortion possible from ANY electrodynamic speaker is a matter of how much distortion there is on the CURRENT driving it, not the voltage, as the industry appears to believe. Rather, if you have the feedback trying to - and more or less succeeding at - maintaining undistorted output voltage while driving a speaker that is very far from a purely resistive load, the feedback not only FAILS TO REDUCE current distortion (it was never asked to) but in fact INCREASES it.
This, however, is no point to make to discredit the IDEA of feedback. Instead we need to look at why, where and how it's being used. For a number of reasons, any form of feedback works better with predictable, stable loads. Should we still want to use feedback in power amps driving speakers, it would seem a lot more sensible to use it to maintain a linear relationship between the INPUT VOLTAGE SIGNAL and the OUTPUT CURRENT SIGNAL.
But since modern speakers are every bit as stupid as modern amps, we'd have to redesign both. Modern speakers depend on low output impedance from the amp for bass damping, and the drivers and crossovers are optimised to work "optimally" in the "undistorted voltage" situation. Here the logic is getting so absurdly twisted that it's "understandable" how the industry pretends nothing is wrong.
I haven't looked into digital amps a great deal. Maybe they avoid some of the problems with conventional amps, but they're still asked to produce "undistorted voltage amplification" - to suit conventional speakers with inadequate self-damping. And speakers still aren't resistive loads, so there can be no proportionality between voltage and current, hence the digital amps don't solve the main problem: There is NO WILL within the industry to radically redesign the whole amp-speaker system , as the known problems seem either unknown or ignored, so we'll be stuck with all the same old market-optimized set of compromises.
The point to make is: An amp that is driving a speaker is part of a system made up of the amp and the speaker, with all sorts of interdependencies, interactions and general MESS. If the speaker is left out of the discussion or analysis of amplifier technology, we can't expect to learn anything useful about the amps. Audiophiles have been puzzled at the uselessness of commonly made measurements on amps and the way some amps are more sensitive to the choice of speakers than others etc. etc.
Seeing no obvious explanations for these discrepancies (which are easily explained), the reaction was to dismiss all attempts at objectively assessing the quality of audio reproduction. It quickly became very unhip to get too scientific about audio. The mantra was "trust only your ears".
Triodes, pentodes, BJTs, FETs etc. are ALL devices which allow us to control a current, and should all be interesting for amplification once we decide to focus on the distortion of a power amp's output CURRENT rather than the voltage.
An SE triode is an obvious example of a sensible amplifier to use with the speakers they made in the 1930s. A stage or two of pure voltage amplification, to the grid of the output triode, producing a corresponding current swing in the transformer primary, and producing a proportional output current on the secondary. If the tubes are all really linear and the speaker can get away with a few hundred milliwatts of power, this is as simple and direct as amplification gets. Given that they didn't rely as heavily on feedback back then, they developed the most linear amplification devices they could manage. Some of the most linear triodes, like 211, RE604 and AD1 are still some of the most linear amplifiying devices EVER made. This was before the idea caught hold that everything can be corrected after the fact, which we're still stuck with.
If speakers hadn't "evolved" the way they did, amplifier technology wouldn't have "evolved" the way it has either.
If an amp today has to have 48 transistors, several feedback loops, a kilowatt's worth of power supply and 50 pounds of heat sinks just to produce the 300 watts required to drive the 0.1% efficient speaker to decent SPLs but still no convincing dynamics, and it still doesn't deal with any of the major known distortion problems, how can anyone talk about progress?
One of my sources for inspiration in audio has been Ragnar Lian, co-founder of Scan-Speak back in the 70s and a living loudspeaker legend here in Scandinavia. He wrote dozens of articles with an inclination similar to mine, explaining known problems and suggesting solutions, and pointing to the decline of audio technology during the second half of the 20th century.
I'm under the impression that he eventually felt that the only people who listened to him were people OUTSIDE the industry, and that within the confines of commercial audio (yes, even "high-end") there is only so much you CAN do because the LAST thing any conservative institution will do is to admit to its past mistakes. Ragnar's vision was to start over from scratch and build integrated amp/speaker SYSTEMS addressing all the problems that the industry has failed to solve since the fateful split between amp manufacturers and speaker manufacturers.
He grew tired of the stubbornness and conservativity of the Scandinavian speaker industry, I guess. If he hasn't retired yet, he's still working as a magnetics engineer on heavy industrial magnetic systems.
Most ironic of all is that now, two decades after CD came out on the market, and with emerging new media that are theoretically capable of insane dynamic range far beyond that of CD, we're STILL struggling to build systems that can competently deal with the best dynamic range available from the old analog media.
Aw, time to step down from the soap box.
Thomas
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From my post just before this is should be clear i don't think this is the case.
New tools and technologies are coming on stream at a blinding rate and at the same time we are reaching back and reexamining technologies & techniques from the past that were shunted aside as new, cheaper, technology pushed them out of the way (SE tube amps and FR speakers are the 2 most visible).
dave
I am attaching for your consideration a post by Thomas Dunker on the JoeList (in response to some discussion on 4 x 15" fieldcoils another member has):
---------------------------------------------------------
Fri, 20 Sep 2002
Subject: [JN] Field-Coils and missing considerations
My assorted ramblings follow:
If you had read up on the issue of flux modulation and resulting harmonic and IM distortion in electrodynamic speaker units, perhaps you'd realize that the only magnet structures likely to rival field coils in that regard would be neodymium ones. Next would be alnico, and finally, the most inferior of the lot, ferrite types. It's all in the BH curves.
The extreme opposite of an old, high efficiency field coil driver, would be a modern, low efficiency ferrite PM driver. It has been assumed that one could make up for a lousy magnet system by calling for greater flux variations from the voice coil, which only increases flux modulation. If you have "something" with a so-so linearity to begin with, and feedback is impractical, the only way to keep distortion down is to make the signal component use as small as possible a fraction of that nonlinear characteristic.
This applies everywhere in an analog audio reproduction chain, speakers being but one example.
Modern speakers have evolved AWAY from literally ALL the wise and scientifically sound rules of thumb that the speaker pioneers of the 1920s-1930s adhered to.
Why does one often find that one is wasting one's time trying to explain that certain "obsolete" technologies may in fact have technological advantages over the contemporary "state of the art"? The main reason that field coils went out of fashion was that permanent magnets eventually became ECONOMICALLY more viable than field coils and because they're not as LABOR-INTENSIVE as coils, and finally that PMs are more CONVENIENT in that they don't require a steady supply of DC. Concerns such as these, having less to do with objective performance, and more to do with profit margins, also pushed horn speakers, triodes, (and eventually pentodes), hardwired circuitry, vinyl, analog tape and various other advanced technologies off the consumer audio scene.
Since the ridiculously shallow "tube vs transistor" discussion sort of came up again ("hey, I once/never heard a good transistor amp"), I can't help but comment on that as well.
If one puts ANY amplifier inside a feedback loop designed to make the amp a "perfect" voltage amplifier - one ALWAYS measures voltage distortion - you have made an amplifier ideally suited to drive a theoretical speaker that basically does not exist - a speaker which has all the same electrical properties as a noninductive power resistor. If we could enjoy music directly from resistive dummy loads, these amps would be all we could ever ask for. Or if we could make a truly voltage controlled SPEAKER with no complex impedance components...
The minimum distortion possible from ANY electrodynamic speaker is a matter of how much distortion there is on the CURRENT driving it, not the voltage, as the industry appears to believe. Rather, if you have the feedback trying to - and more or less succeeding at - maintaining undistorted output voltage while driving a speaker that is very far from a purely resistive load, the feedback not only FAILS TO REDUCE current distortion (it was never asked to) but in fact INCREASES it.
This, however, is no point to make to discredit the IDEA of feedback. Instead we need to look at why, where and how it's being used. For a number of reasons, any form of feedback works better with predictable, stable loads. Should we still want to use feedback in power amps driving speakers, it would seem a lot more sensible to use it to maintain a linear relationship between the INPUT VOLTAGE SIGNAL and the OUTPUT CURRENT SIGNAL.
But since modern speakers are every bit as stupid as modern amps, we'd have to redesign both. Modern speakers depend on low output impedance from the amp for bass damping, and the drivers and crossovers are optimised to work "optimally" in the "undistorted voltage" situation. Here the logic is getting so absurdly twisted that it's "understandable" how the industry pretends nothing is wrong.
I haven't looked into digital amps a great deal. Maybe they avoid some of the problems with conventional amps, but they're still asked to produce "undistorted voltage amplification" - to suit conventional speakers with inadequate self-damping. And speakers still aren't resistive loads, so there can be no proportionality between voltage and current, hence the digital amps don't solve the main problem: There is NO WILL within the industry to radically redesign the whole amp-speaker system , as the known problems seem either unknown or ignored, so we'll be stuck with all the same old market-optimized set of compromises.
The point to make is: An amp that is driving a speaker is part of a system made up of the amp and the speaker, with all sorts of interdependencies, interactions and general MESS. If the speaker is left out of the discussion or analysis of amplifier technology, we can't expect to learn anything useful about the amps. Audiophiles have been puzzled at the uselessness of commonly made measurements on amps and the way some amps are more sensitive to the choice of speakers than others etc. etc.
Seeing no obvious explanations for these discrepancies (which are easily explained), the reaction was to dismiss all attempts at objectively assessing the quality of audio reproduction. It quickly became very unhip to get too scientific about audio. The mantra was "trust only your ears".
Triodes, pentodes, BJTs, FETs etc. are ALL devices which allow us to control a current, and should all be interesting for amplification once we decide to focus on the distortion of a power amp's output CURRENT rather than the voltage.
An SE triode is an obvious example of a sensible amplifier to use with the speakers they made in the 1930s. A stage or two of pure voltage amplification, to the grid of the output triode, producing a corresponding current swing in the transformer primary, and producing a proportional output current on the secondary. If the tubes are all really linear and the speaker can get away with a few hundred milliwatts of power, this is as simple and direct as amplification gets. Given that they didn't rely as heavily on feedback back then, they developed the most linear amplification devices they could manage. Some of the most linear triodes, like 211, RE604 and AD1 are still some of the most linear amplifiying devices EVER made. This was before the idea caught hold that everything can be corrected after the fact, which we're still stuck with.
If speakers hadn't "evolved" the way they did, amplifier technology wouldn't have "evolved" the way it has either.
If an amp today has to have 48 transistors, several feedback loops, a kilowatt's worth of power supply and 50 pounds of heat sinks just to produce the 300 watts required to drive the 0.1% efficient speaker to decent SPLs but still no convincing dynamics, and it still doesn't deal with any of the major known distortion problems, how can anyone talk about progress?
One of my sources for inspiration in audio has been Ragnar Lian, co-founder of Scan-Speak back in the 70s and a living loudspeaker legend here in Scandinavia. He wrote dozens of articles with an inclination similar to mine, explaining known problems and suggesting solutions, and pointing to the decline of audio technology during the second half of the 20th century.
I'm under the impression that he eventually felt that the only people who listened to him were people OUTSIDE the industry, and that within the confines of commercial audio (yes, even "high-end") there is only so much you CAN do because the LAST thing any conservative institution will do is to admit to its past mistakes. Ragnar's vision was to start over from scratch and build integrated amp/speaker SYSTEMS addressing all the problems that the industry has failed to solve since the fateful split between amp manufacturers and speaker manufacturers.
He grew tired of the stubbornness and conservativity of the Scandinavian speaker industry, I guess. If he hasn't retired yet, he's still working as a magnetics engineer on heavy industrial magnetic systems.
Most ironic of all is that now, two decades after CD came out on the market, and with emerging new media that are theoretically capable of insane dynamic range far beyond that of CD, we're STILL struggling to build systems that can competently deal with the best dynamic range available from the old analog media.
Aw, time to step down from the soap box.
Thomas
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