Beyond the Ariel

[AJinFLA]

Earl,

IIRC, you were taking a tour of P-audio facilities a while back. Is this new venture tied to their drivers?

cheers,

AJ

[johninCR]

Originally posted by gedlee
....I was once accused of "lecturing" on one of these sites - as if that was a bad thing!! I had always thought that the honor of attending the lecture of an expert was a good thing....

Dr. Geddes,

Speaking for the silent majority, and hopefully for those who may respectfully disagree, please lecture away. I tried to copy a portion of your design and apply an OB flair of my own and find myself unable to advance until I apply more science to my approach. In the meantime, I'm thoroughly enjoying my Summa wannabee OB's.

[gedlee]

We are not involved with P-audio, except that our GM came from there. P-audio does not make the level of driver that I am interested in, ours are mostly B&C which I find to be a really good driver at a resonable price. Our products will not be the price leader, but I believe that they will be the value leader - best perfomance for the price - in the industry. As an engineer, I have come to respect value as it is the hardest thing to do.

[AJinFLA]

Are you aiming at the pro, home or both markets?

[Zene Gillette]

I just read an interesting (non published) account of the true Wright brothers saga. They really accomplished nothing.
Both went to the library and found all the books on aeronautical and mechanical engineering written by the best educated and trained engineers. These books contained only the true and validated facts as the scientific community dictated.
There was no cutting and trying hundreds of times and guesswork used in building the airplane. They simply applied the accepted physics and off it went.

For validating my designs:
I expect 10 of my friends to give up working for a week so we can scientifically test and make sure the results are acceptable before I release any data on my designs.
Sadly, I have but two or three cheap pieces of gear to test my theories, but I do have my on board computer that fortunately runs in nanoseconds.

So, no more putting stuff together and listen. If it isn't already designed and tested by the more knowledgeable professionals it should no longer be tolerated.
Zene

[gedlee]

My partner is a major designer and installer of audio systems in Asia so his focus is on pro. But I do see the home theater market as a major opportunity (but not in Asia) since our products offer high output (required for HT), reasonable prices (good when you are buying five speakers) and excellent sound quality (always a plus).

I am not sure how much "lecturing" that I will have the time for, but I'll try and come back with some comments. I am moving to Thailand at the end of the week for three months - family in tow. So I am quite busy this week.

[gedlee]

Not everyone can afford to do ellaborate subjective tests, and not every advance has to be so proven. But, one must always be careful not to claim unproven opinions as facts. WHEN scientific data is available use it, when you only have your own personal observations, use them too, but ALWAY be sceptical of their validity because the human psychy is not to be trusted (read Dr. Taleb if you want to see a proof of this).

My complaint is throwing out scientific facts when they exist because they do not agree with your personal opinion.

[johninCR]

Originally posted by Zene Gillette
...So, no more putting stuff together and listen. If it isn't already designed and tested by the more knowledgeable professionals it should no longer be tolerated.
Zene

Zene,

This may very well be true for boxes, but when it comes to open alignments there aren't enough pros who qualify. Of course that's not stopping box pros from coming out with flawed OB designs. Other than SL and JK, the real OB expertise still lies primarily with a relatively small but growing group of DIYers.

[Sheldon]

Originally posted by Zene Gillette
I just read an interesting (non published) account of the true Wright brothers saga. They really accomplished nothing.
Both went to the library and found all the books on aeronautical and mechanical engineering written by the best educated and trained engineers. These books contained only the true and validated facts as the scientific community dictated.
There was no cutting and trying hundreds of times and guesswork used in building the airplane. They simply applied the accepted physics and off it went.

So one can build crude working devices by cutting and trying? Who can argue with that?

I'll go one further: Sometimes you can go outside conventional design by applying educated guesswork and come up with something that has unique properties, and works better for whatever attribute is desired.

But, if you want to understand why it works better and generalize those findings, then some real scientific rigor is required.

Sheldon

[SY]

Martin, Earl, you may notice that this is a rather tightly moderated forum where personal attacks and consistent rudeness are swiftly dealt with.

If you feel that this thread is too woo-woo for the approach you want to take (and I am more than a little sympathetic to that view), then let's start a new thread devoted to the engineering approach to the Ultimate. I, for one, am extremely curious about OB, since I have loved the various dipole speakers I've had over the years, but I'm somewhat of a fogey in wanting to see real theory before tackling the intangible stuff.

The Ultimate OB is an interesting project, too interesting for you guys to bow out.