I have head many funny claims in various threads. Some claim they work some not, the most interesting part is if you find out why it works and stick to them in your design, it is greatly rewarding. For example, the "ground side electrons" was very inspiring. The idea that somthing attached to the ground can have some effect was surprising. It inspired me to really think about ground design and other interface problems revealing the fact that certain aspects of board layout were totally ignored due to the convenience of automatic routing. Some people are going to think that kind of pigtail device is BS, some people like it, some people are going to commercialize it. It is interesting to see the diversified reaction. I personally had learned from a product like that even though I had not built one, and the knowledge helped solve many mysteries.
Some people like to establish (by demonstration, by which I mean measuring) that the mystery exists before mentioning it, let alone trying to affect (and effect) it and explain it. Some people aren't interested in taking that step.
Many of you posting right now would probably describe yourself as being in the demonstration-first camp, right? If so, please don't waste space arguing about undemonstrated anecdotes. Who cares? Not you, in theory.
Many of you posting right now would probably describe yourself as being in the demonstration-first camp, right? If so, please don't waste space arguing about undemonstrated anecdotes. Who cares? Not you, in theory.
Something got lost in translation.
Dear Moderators: is it possible to move the entire "cord length" debate out of this thread (which is only 1087 pages long) and into a thread of it's own?
It is unfortunate but the non engineers do not always use exact terminology to describe things.
This can be confusing to engineers who want things with exactness.
for instance, there is no ground with speakers.
It is actually a signal return path.
Looked at in that way, it is obvious that there will be equal signals in both wires.
We need to be more patient and less critical of that which makes no sense to us.
This can be confusing to engineers who want things with exactness.
for instance, there is no ground with speakers.
It is actually a signal return path.
Looked at in that way, it is obvious that there will be equal signals in both wires.
We need to be more patient and less critical of that which makes no sense to us.
I have found that so true in every technical discussion forum.
Similar issue I had on RCGroups forum some years ago discussing the motors/speed controls. The motors were delta three phase, yet the majority could not grasp this fact. DC is DC even when it is pulsed! (laughable) If you remove or like with this type of setup there is simply is no ground reference. Seeing that there is no ground ref the signal is AC.
Only way to prove my point regardless of all the electrical references made was to post links to a wide variety of manufactures of these motors and they all refered to them as AC synchronous motors.
Having industrial experience working on such in the range of 1000hp with a 250vdc to power the electromagnet and three phase 17,500vac to run it. Braking system for such, there is a massive amount of power to be dissipated. Plasma arc in open air would reach out >4 feet out of the cabinet (outer panel/ insulators partly removed). This sounded like several sticks of dynamite going off in the plant... and if this did not function properly (I did the safety testing) the machines will eat you and squish you out the otherside ~1/8" thick typically. A few senior managers still worked there despite they had lost an arm or two. At least they survived to live another day. While I was there we were incident free. The senior plant electrician (stupidvisor) couldn't even do the basic math and had extreme prejudice for the "school taught", thinking they had no real world experience
Similar issue I had on RCGroups forum some years ago discussing the motors/speed controls. The motors were delta three phase, yet the majority could not grasp this fact. DC is DC even when it is pulsed! (laughable) If you remove or like with this type of setup there is simply is no ground reference. Seeing that there is no ground ref the signal is AC.
Only way to prove my point regardless of all the electrical references made was to post links to a wide variety of manufactures of these motors and they all refered to them as AC synchronous motors.
Having industrial experience working on such in the range of 1000hp with a 250vdc to power the electromagnet and three phase 17,500vac to run it. Braking system for such, there is a massive amount of power to be dissipated. Plasma arc in open air would reach out >4 feet out of the cabinet (outer panel/ insulators partly removed). This sounded like several sticks of dynamite going off in the plant... and if this did not function properly (I did the safety testing) the machines will eat you and squish you out the otherside ~1/8" thick typically. A few senior managers still worked there despite they had lost an arm or two. At least they survived to live another day. While I was there we were incident free. The senior plant electrician (stupidvisor) couldn't even do the basic math and had extreme prejudice for the "school taught", thinking they had no real world experience
I've built dozens of speaker systems over the last 4+ decades, including many very experimental designs, and at this point I feel that how a speaker interacts with listening room acoustics is arguably the weakest link, and opportunity for the most improvement. Especially in smaller listening rooms. And as far as the above mentioned "emotionally heated " arguments, I love those. Where are they? ;o)
I think you are so lucky, or otherwise so wrong. It is lucky when you consider every other chain (but room) have been done sufficiently well.
For me, I have seen many things wrong, and they are more critical and harder to solve than just room issue. Most room is associated with 100hz, below which there is little music. Speaker placement also easy to predict. Technically, at high end level, it is the room that the designer don't have control, but I believe that given an exact room they will still make the usual mistakes.
It is important to listen in different room setups to help detect problems. Generally you should hear some common sonic signatures in different room indicating the issue with a common device. The magnitude of these sonic signatures may be different which could indicate an interface issue between devices.
My philosophy is that the room is totally irrelevant - the speakers, as part of a complete system, should take over, dominate the space in which they're placed. Imagine bringing a real string quartet into your lounge, and apologising profusely to the listeners as to how terrible they sound, because the room acoustics are not perfectly organised, to allow them to make reasonably musical sounds ...
Actually, how performers are seated and where in the room significantly influences how they play. Generally they listen to each other, and if the room acoustics is bad or if they are not organized the way they are used to being located, then they play differently, and the total music is different.
I have discovered many serious design flaws because of listening in other rooms and in connection with other systems.
Different listening levels also seems to influence perception. In some rooms I can play louder without feeling uncomfortable, and some rooms not so loud. Of glass room was worst.
I have discovered many serious design flaws because of listening in other rooms and in connection with other systems.
Different listening levels also seems to influence perception. In some rooms I can play louder without feeling uncomfortable, and some rooms not so loud. Of glass room was worst.
Last edited:
Good point about performers ...
Both listening areas in the last two houses I've been in have glass almost continuously down one side, and bookshelfy type structures on the other side - hasn't been a problem, for me. The basis on which I work is that if the sound at the time it emerges from the drivers is totally clean, in an audible sense, then my ears can make sense of all the echoing, it always integrates, at an unconscious level, with the direct sound. And so I never feel uncomfortable, no matter how loud the sound is ...
Both listening areas in the last two houses I've been in have glass almost continuously down one side, and bookshelfy type structures on the other side - hasn't been a problem, for me. The basis on which I work is that if the sound at the time it emerges from the drivers is totally clean, in an audible sense, then my ears can make sense of all the echoing, it always integrates, at an unconscious level, with the direct sound. And so I never feel uncomfortable, no matter how loud the sound is ...
One problem with that analogy is that unlike a live quartet, a recording already includes spatial cues of the venue in which the music was originally performed. If the room in which the recording is played back has unfavourable acoustics (e.g. with loud untreated early reflections, flutter echo, etc.), the low-level information contained in the recording is totally mangled by the room's uncontrolled reverberation.
Marco
That may be the theory, but I haven't experienced issues in the real world. The key is that the low level information is reproduced with sufficiently low distortion at the driver diaphragms, which can only occur if all elements of the system are adequately optimised - I have gone from "totally mangled" low-level information to a completely resolved sound picture, with all elements distinguishable, in the same room with the same recording and same system. What changed from one situation to the other? Eliminating the last major weakness in the playback chain, which was damaging the reproduction of that low level information, just enough, to make it impossible for my hearing system to unravel what was going on. IME, once the ear/brain can lock onto and decode what the fine detail in the musical message is conveying, then separation of the recording acoustic, and the listening room acoustic is done without conscious effort - the better the quality of the replay, the more the recording acoustic completely supplants the listening space anomalies.
You've listened again and again and again and... With a good system you get "it" the first time listening, with a bad system you get "it" only after repeated listening.
Very true. For years I wondered why many recordings just didn't sound "live enough." Slowly came to the conclusion that they sound "off" because the musicians aren't listening to the room they are playing in - my room.
Oddly, it was video sound that cemented that notion for me. I do video playback as my job, and often in bad acoustics, or at least large acoustics. Someone speaking on a microphone in the same room will hear the room and adjust the pace, rhythm and tone of how they speak. Most people do it without thinking. But someone who was recorded speaking to the camera? They don't have a clue what playback will sound like, and can't make the adjustment. If the recording of the voice is very dry, it works OK, but if there is a lot of reverb and noise, it can be very hard understand. They usually speak too quickly for all the local noise + the playback room acoustics.
I just did a Christmas gig were we played video clips of the same show from years past, before this year's show started. Interestingly, it sounded very real, like people and musicians on stage. No surprise that some of the clips were from the very same ballroom, and some from another ballroom just like it. I had to look more than twice 'cause I thought the show had started!
The acoustics make a huge difference.