Lynn Olson said:
The altecs are 3 bolt. I've been comparing TAD 4001, Altec 290, JBL 2482 and 2440, and Plus One EC320C in several different horns and found the winner is -- the EC320C in a community 90 by 40 CD horn with oil cap compensation ran 500 up - who would have thought? I now use a two way with horn sub and six ten's dipole (almost no wings) with the top two rolled in at 200 cycles. It's spooky and extremely low compromise.
I thought I would comment since Lynn's design is similar to the Bastanis Prometheus speakers I have owned the last couple of years.
I've never heard such great soundstage and dynamics (and can play insanely loud if asked to). Sometimes I wonder if an alnico driver in lieu of the Emminance used in the Bastanis could give me better tone (not that detect a problem with it currently) and body and still retain the dynamics and high SPL capability.
The Bastanis speaker that a few critized lately from the last show was their expensive Apollo ($20k) which does in fact use alnico. I read it was slow. My relatively modest ($2k) Prometheus is anything but slow. Also I think Lynn had an issue with the high cross of the Apollo (I think 200hz to 300). The Prometheus is usually crossed at 80-110 hz.
By the way I know this would be further along with your design but things that have helped.
-remove the cover off the back of the tweeter
-add 50lb weights to stand
-Jupiter Bees wax cap (the only cap in it) lets music pour out
-still to try one sided adhesive felt (like the the under chair kind) on the underside of the baskets
I've never heard such great soundstage and dynamics (and can play insanely loud if asked to). Sometimes I wonder if an alnico driver in lieu of the Emminance used in the Bastanis could give me better tone (not that detect a problem with it currently) and body and still retain the dynamics and high SPL capability.
The Bastanis speaker that a few critized lately from the last show was their expensive Apollo ($20k) which does in fact use alnico. I read it was slow. My relatively modest ($2k) Prometheus is anything but slow. Also I think Lynn had an issue with the high cross of the Apollo (I think 200hz to 300). The Prometheus is usually crossed at 80-110 hz.
By the way I know this would be further along with your design but things that have helped.
-remove the cover off the back of the tweeter
-add 50lb weights to stand
-Jupiter Bees wax cap (the only cap in it) lets music pour out
-still to try one sided adhesive felt (like the the under chair kind) on the underside of the baskets
Re: Which community horn?
I have some PC 294's that I had laying in a corner for a while and decided to try them. They have light open cell foam (not sure if it's factory) and a material like heavey grit sand paper in the throat. Once optimized with proper eq and the EC320C they are very hard to fault in my system.
The Plus One 320C has a different phase plug, magnet and diaphragm than then the previous Emilar 320, I think it is a little more transparent - not sure cause I don't have any of the old one's left to compare.
pk said:
I have some PC 294's that I had laying in a corner for a while and decided to try them. They have light open cell foam (not sure if it's factory) and a material like heavey grit sand paper in the throat. Once optimized with proper eq and the EC320C they are very hard to fault in my system.
The Plus One 320C has a different phase plug, magnet and diaphragm than then the previous Emilar 320, I think it is a little more transparent - not sure cause I don't have any of the old one's left to compare.
pk said:
No problem - these horns are BIG - around 30" wide - I was given them as a throw in with a pair of Emilar EC320's a couple of years ago and wrote them off without even trying them. (LOL)These sound like my 180 hz Sierra Brooks tractrix round horns (presence and dynamics to the max) but don't beam and load a little better in the low mid.
I also have the smaller versions of them buried around here somewhere I want to dig out. They may be better in the upper range but surely won't load the low mids like these.
Vaguely ontopic ?
Did anyone hear / care to comment on the AV123 x-statik OB ? 2 x Peerless India 6.5'' caring for bass duties (box, sealed ?) + WTW in OB setup (same woofer / Peerless India 1'' dome tweeter), XOed at 200 resp 1800 Hz.
Details here
TIA for any comments / experiences.
Florian
P.S. At least the CSD should be worth commenting on
Did anyone hear / care to comment on the AV123 x-statik OB ? 2 x Peerless India 6.5'' caring for bass duties (box, sealed ?) + WTW in OB setup (same woofer / Peerless India 1'' dome tweeter), XOed at 200 resp 1800 Hz.
Details here
TIA for any comments / experiences.
Florian
P.S. At least the CSD should be worth commenting on
Visited the Plus One site and saw the disconcerting notice they are all booked up building sirens (for the military?) and have discontinued production of professional drivers. This "News" notice was a couple of years old - maybe Plus One should get a phone call to verify production status of the EC320?
(Please, no more eBay smoke and mirrors. Thank goodness for Iconic in Seattle and Great Plains Audio in Oklahoma City - I'd much rather support modern manufacturers than the eBay collector culture.)
So I guess Emilar has two successors - Radian and Plus One, both making pure-aluminum diaphragms with Mylar surrounds - which in turn would be the successor to the Altec Symbiotik diaphragm of the late Seventies.
Interesting that the massive EQ boosting required by THX in the early Eighties, combined with kilowatt Crown amplifiers, resulted in the destruction of the long-running Altec 288 in movie theaters and a set of the three different responses: titanium diaphragms with diamond-pattern surrounds from JBL, Pascalite aluminum-alloy (with the traditional tangential surround) and the higher-power Symbiotik Mylar surround from Altec, and traditional pure-aluminum diaphragm and Mylar surround from Emilar.
None of these adaptations were driven by sound quality (gee, I once thought THX was about sound quality), but the pressing need to make compression drivers that would physically survive the massive power assault of the new technology. Titanium has more distortion and HF breakup that starts at 4 kHz, but who cares? The jury still seems to be out on aluminum alloys and plastic surrounds, although newer phase plugs are certainly a good thing, especially if the wavefront going into the horn is more free of diffraction artifacts.
I used to think the wonderful sound of 70mm mag-track movies in the Fifties and Sixties was the result of all-tube, all-analog electronics, but I wasn't aware that the JBL-driven shift to titanium was actually a sonic step downward, driven by the absurd amounts of power being dumped into the compression drivers.
No wonder movies sound so shrill and strident - the compression drivers have 10+ dB of boost EQ so they can make it out to 15 kHz, titanium breaks up nearly an octave lower than aluminum, the constant-directivity horns have a big kink in the middle of the expansion, and the 256 kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack has the same amount of lossy compression as MP3. Not to mention the picture area of spherical Panavision-cropped 35mm projection print is much less than a quarter of full-frame 70mm.
Oh well, considering most big-budget releases are little more than live-action adaptations of teenage-demographic comic books with lots of Xbox-grade CGI, I guess writing, acting, directing, not to mention sound and picture quality, probably wouldn't make a lot of difference. There's more money in the video game sequel, anyway. The smart money these days is in computer speakers, iPod accessories, and downloadable cellphone ringtones.
As for sawdust, I'll be contacting a local builder for the two items I want: a four-driver panel with small triangular side wings for the midbass and bass-fill drivers, and some kind of vertical stand to support the compression driver + horn and the ribbon tweeter above that. Many MLSSA measurements await before any listening and EQ attempts - mostly time-domain optimization.
(Please, no more eBay smoke and mirrors. Thank goodness for Iconic in Seattle and Great Plains Audio in Oklahoma City - I'd much rather support modern manufacturers than the eBay collector culture.)
So I guess Emilar has two successors - Radian and Plus One, both making pure-aluminum diaphragms with Mylar surrounds - which in turn would be the successor to the Altec Symbiotik diaphragm of the late Seventies.
Interesting that the massive EQ boosting required by THX in the early Eighties, combined with kilowatt Crown amplifiers, resulted in the destruction of the long-running Altec 288 in movie theaters and a set of the three different responses: titanium diaphragms with diamond-pattern surrounds from JBL, Pascalite aluminum-alloy (with the traditional tangential surround) and the higher-power Symbiotik Mylar surround from Altec, and traditional pure-aluminum diaphragm and Mylar surround from Emilar.
None of these adaptations were driven by sound quality (gee, I once thought THX was about sound quality), but the pressing need to make compression drivers that would physically survive the massive power assault of the new technology. Titanium has more distortion and HF breakup that starts at 4 kHz, but who cares? The jury still seems to be out on aluminum alloys and plastic surrounds, although newer phase plugs are certainly a good thing, especially if the wavefront going into the horn is more free of diffraction artifacts.
I used to think the wonderful sound of 70mm mag-track movies in the Fifties and Sixties was the result of all-tube, all-analog electronics, but I wasn't aware that the JBL-driven shift to titanium was actually a sonic step downward, driven by the absurd amounts of power being dumped into the compression drivers.
No wonder movies sound so shrill and strident - the compression drivers have 10+ dB of boost EQ so they can make it out to 15 kHz, titanium breaks up nearly an octave lower than aluminum, the constant-directivity horns have a big kink in the middle of the expansion, and the 256 kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack has the same amount of lossy compression as MP3. Not to mention the picture area of spherical Panavision-cropped 35mm projection print is much less than a quarter of full-frame 70mm.
Oh well, considering most big-budget releases are little more than live-action adaptations of teenage-demographic comic books with lots of Xbox-grade CGI, I guess writing, acting, directing, not to mention sound and picture quality, probably wouldn't make a lot of difference. There's more money in the video game sequel, anyway. The smart money these days is in computer speakers, iPod accessories, and downloadable cellphone ringtones.
As for sawdust, I'll be contacting a local builder for the two items I want: a four-driver panel with small triangular side wings for the midbass and bass-fill drivers, and some kind of vertical stand to support the compression driver + horn and the ribbon tweeter above that. Many MLSSA measurements await before any listening and EQ attempts - mostly time-domain optimization.
Sorry about the curmudgeonly tone of the previous post - I just get cranky when I see technology going backward, like jet airplanes slower and much more crowded than the original 707, moon landings now further away than they were in the Fifties, and movie technology far behind the road-show standard of 1961. The technological regression in these fields is disguised by lots of corporate PR and slick advertising, but is real enough for those of us who remember it.
A lot of the real horrors of the Fifties, thank God, are now all but gone - terrorism and murder by the Ku Klux Klan, legally mandated racial segregation in the South, the blacklists drawn up by the House Un-American Activities Committee, medieval "psychotherapy" such as lobotomies and electroshock, open discrimination against many social groups (Jews, Catholics, Asians, blacks, women, gays, etc.), the Khruschev-era Soviet gulag and imprisonment of all of Eastern Europe, the threat of imminent annihilation by multi-megaton nuclear bombs, the list goes on. This is all just stuff for the history books now.
I guess a few grumbles about audio are pretty small change by comparison.
A lot of the real horrors of the Fifties, thank God, are now all but gone - terrorism and murder by the Ku Klux Klan, legally mandated racial segregation in the South, the blacklists drawn up by the House Un-American Activities Committee, medieval "psychotherapy" such as lobotomies and electroshock, open discrimination against many social groups (Jews, Catholics, Asians, blacks, women, gays, etc.), the Khruschev-era Soviet gulag and imprisonment of all of Eastern Europe, the threat of imminent annihilation by multi-megaton nuclear bombs, the list goes on. This is all just stuff for the history books now.
I guess a few grumbles about audio are pretty small change by comparison.
Well, the CD horn is a much better alternative to a multicell, and a bit better then a tractrix of the same dimensions run wide range in my room. I use a 6 db attenuator at 3K to even the response. The EC320C and Community horn can easily be driver by a single 45 although I use PP EL84s, They sound better to me. If you want the compression driver to cover the low mid it must be large, when if it is ran that low properly it has no peers in sheer dynamics and musical resolution. The problem is the horn used will either beam like a SOB (round tractric, Le cleach) or it will be constant directivity - both require eq even with TAD 4001. There are large radial horns out there I've never tried ---
The other alternative is split up the treble and place another compression driver (normally more than more then a wavelength away) - this will cause more problems - regardless of the home hifi room installation.
Surely I am the only one that has this (or will have this system) system in the world (six open baffle tens, ec320c, community horn, horn sub ect.. so it's not really relevant other than I just thought I'd share the evolution of my 'high sensitivity open baffles'
Technology has advanced in almost every way- I was using a 50 thousand dollar HD CRT projector TV for viewing and replaced it with no regrets with a 1200.00 DLP projector. High definition or Blue Ray movies are FAR superior to VHS tapes, and in my opinion my 'video' system' is as good or better than the old theater downtown I visited regularly in the 60s.
The other alternative is split up the treble and place another compression driver (normally more than more then a wavelength away) - this will cause more problems - regardless of the home hifi room installation.
Surely I am the only one that has this (or will have this system) system in the world (six open baffle tens, ec320c, community horn, horn sub ect.. so it's not really relevant other than I just thought I'd share the evolution of my 'high sensitivity open baffles'
Technology has advanced in almost every way- I was using a 50 thousand dollar HD CRT projector TV for viewing and replaced it with no regrets with a 1200.00 DLP projector. High definition or Blue Ray movies are FAR superior to VHS tapes, and in my opinion my 'video' system' is as good or better than the old theater downtown I visited regularly in the 60s.
I'm nobody but I was under the impression that the somebodys had proven humans have a hard time accurately comparing a sound they heard less than a minute ago with one they're hearing now. I believe the emotional experience of being impressed as hell by the sound of something at the time you heard it can be stored, but I don't believe that you can store the waveform in your head for later comparison to something else. That would seem to make any memory based comparison between the sound of the movies last week and the theaters of the fifties a waste of time. I'm not saying THX is great or industry is motivated by anything other than money, but even if a lot of specs can be squared away with your existing beliefs, it doesn't prove anything. Reading and making philosophy about what *should* be good is fine, but blind testing is too.
Just an unsolicited grouch to balance your curmudgeon.
Just an unsolicited grouch to balance your curmudgeon.
Ahh, audio memory. Interesting subject, and not as scientific as it seems at first blush, since it is so intimately connected with consciousness itself, the great Terra Incognita of science. Back when I was working on my Bachelor's in Psychology in 1971, the idiot Behaviourists were in ascendency, and their almighty guru Skinner actually proclaimed consciousness didn't exist!!!
Uh well, then why are we able to make any decisions at all? Or think? Or be held responsible for what we do? Right and wrong? So the entire moral, ethical, and philosophical systems going back to the Greeks are all illusions? Only a pseudo-science like Psychology would have the appalling conceit to even make such a suggestion.
As somebody who grew in up in the Buddhist cultures of Japan and Hong Kong, Skinner's claims were preposterous on their face. The shoe is on the other foot: it is up to science to explore the vast wilderness of consciousness, not give up at the outset and assert it doesn't exist.
A third of a century has passed, and Freud and Skinner are thoroughly discredited, having been shown to be almost totally ineffective in treating a wide range of serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, manic depression, depression, and sociopathic ideation and behaviour. Neurochemistry is making a dent on these, although the mode of action is still largely a mystery. Lysergic acid diethylamide-25 (LSD) and serotonin reuptake inhibitors (the Prozac group) both act on serotonin, but they certainly have dramatically different effects on consciousness - effects that are NOT predicted by standard models of biochemistry.
Models of consciousness are at a very early stage - the collapse of the decades-old AI project and replacement by very narrow sensory-emulation systems is the most direct evidence of the sheer scale of the problem. HAL 9000 is now much further off than it was in 1964, despite the enormous increase in raw computer power and connectivity.
So consciousness remains a profound mystery - the problem is so nebulous, oddly formed, and difficult to grasp it is very difficult to even know how to properly scope the size of the task. It is easy to fall into the trap of simply refusing to acknowledge the problem, and consign it to the domain of metaphysics. That might work except for the inescapable fact that consciousness is the place where we actually live, moment by moment.
It isn't "out there", it's right here, as you read, comprehend, and remember the meaning of the words in front of you right now - and all of this happens silently and automatically without any awareness of how it works. No computer can even begin to do this. Computers have no understanding of "meaning" or context whatever.
Every moment we are aware this vast process goes on, yet have we no actual understanding of it at all. We know less about consciousness than the ancient Greeks knew about the origins of the Universe, or the nature of light and matter.
This is why I take assertions of this or that perception, or the memory of that perception, being "impossible" with a big dose of skepticism. I've seen not one, but several generations of psychology being completely discredited since I left college (Freud, Electroshock, Lobotomy, Behaviourism, etc.).
Extensive research has shown we are not a bundle of conditioned reflexes, and the Freudian superego, ego, and id do not exist except as a historical artifact of the early Twentieth Century. The neurochemical model in vogue today will probably be discredited in a decade or two if history is any guide.
I do use the standard models of perception, but I don't treat them in the same league as physics and acoustics - they could change at any time, since there are many implicit assumptions in the designs of the experiments that could change.
Standard models tell me to pay the most attention to the midrange, following the pattern of the Fletcher-Munson or noise-perception curves. That works for me. Standard models do not seem to account for things like the audibility of capacitor coloration. I hear this repeatably, others don't, but I do, so I take it into account, since I am designing for my perceptions, not the perceptions of a standardized group of grad-school students. Then there's a gray area, where the research is thin on the ground and equivocal - audibility of time distortion, and the importance of direct vs total room-energy spectra. Again, I see this as a subjective call, not a matter of hard science.
Uh well, then why are we able to make any decisions at all? Or think? Or be held responsible for what we do? Right and wrong? So the entire moral, ethical, and philosophical systems going back to the Greeks are all illusions? Only a pseudo-science like Psychology would have the appalling conceit to even make such a suggestion.
As somebody who grew in up in the Buddhist cultures of Japan and Hong Kong, Skinner's claims were preposterous on their face. The shoe is on the other foot: it is up to science to explore the vast wilderness of consciousness, not give up at the outset and assert it doesn't exist.
A third of a century has passed, and Freud and Skinner are thoroughly discredited, having been shown to be almost totally ineffective in treating a wide range of serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, manic depression, depression, and sociopathic ideation and behaviour. Neurochemistry is making a dent on these, although the mode of action is still largely a mystery. Lysergic acid diethylamide-25 (LSD) and serotonin reuptake inhibitors (the Prozac group) both act on serotonin, but they certainly have dramatically different effects on consciousness - effects that are NOT predicted by standard models of biochemistry.
Models of consciousness are at a very early stage - the collapse of the decades-old AI project and replacement by very narrow sensory-emulation systems is the most direct evidence of the sheer scale of the problem. HAL 9000 is now much further off than it was in 1964, despite the enormous increase in raw computer power and connectivity.
So consciousness remains a profound mystery - the problem is so nebulous, oddly formed, and difficult to grasp it is very difficult to even know how to properly scope the size of the task. It is easy to fall into the trap of simply refusing to acknowledge the problem, and consign it to the domain of metaphysics. That might work except for the inescapable fact that consciousness is the place where we actually live, moment by moment.
It isn't "out there", it's right here, as you read, comprehend, and remember the meaning of the words in front of you right now - and all of this happens silently and automatically without any awareness of how it works. No computer can even begin to do this. Computers have no understanding of "meaning" or context whatever.
Every moment we are aware this vast process goes on, yet have we no actual understanding of it at all. We know less about consciousness than the ancient Greeks knew about the origins of the Universe, or the nature of light and matter.
This is why I take assertions of this or that perception, or the memory of that perception, being "impossible" with a big dose of skepticism. I've seen not one, but several generations of psychology being completely discredited since I left college (Freud, Electroshock, Lobotomy, Behaviourism, etc.).
Extensive research has shown we are not a bundle of conditioned reflexes, and the Freudian superego, ego, and id do not exist except as a historical artifact of the early Twentieth Century. The neurochemical model in vogue today will probably be discredited in a decade or two if history is any guide.
I do use the standard models of perception, but I don't treat them in the same league as physics and acoustics - they could change at any time, since there are many implicit assumptions in the designs of the experiments that could change.
Standard models tell me to pay the most attention to the midrange, following the pattern of the Fletcher-Munson or noise-perception curves. That works for me. Standard models do not seem to account for things like the audibility of capacitor coloration. I hear this repeatably, others don't, but I do, so I take it into account, since I am designing for my perceptions, not the perceptions of a standardized group of grad-school students. Then there's a gray area, where the research is thin on the ground and equivocal - audibility of time distortion, and the importance of direct vs total room-energy spectra. Again, I see this as a subjective call, not a matter of hard science.
OK, enough metaphysics for now. Hey, Magnetar, what was your quick impression of each of the compression drivers you tried? You must have listened to each for at least a few minutes, what did you think - or maybe feel - about each one? Not so much a good, better, best thing, but more of an overall impression of the sonic character of each "flavor".
I'm no expert on these things, but I do know they sound different from each other. At the least, a metal diaphragm is certainly going to sound different than phenolic, no matter how they measure. And phase-plug design, since it is essentially a specialized diffraction generator, has to be important as well.
I'm no expert on these things, but I do know they sound different from each other. At the least, a metal diaphragm is certainly going to sound different than phenolic, no matter how they measure. And phase-plug design, since it is essentially a specialized diffraction generator, has to be important as well.
"Standard models do not seem to account for things like the audibility of capacitor coloration. I hear this repeatably, others don't, but I do, so I take it into account, since I am designing for my perceptions,"
Hello Lynn
So what are your favorite capacitors?? Have you tried them Charge Coupled, with a DC bias applied??
Rob
Hello Lynn
So what are your favorite capacitors?? Have you tried them Charge Coupled, with a DC bias applied??
Rob
