Hot Tongue And Cold Shoulder....
Understand, an unhappy wife in the kitchen is cooking poison
....you're better off eating at Maccas.
Out here in the sunroom I run a neat little Panasonic system....most of my listening actually, much of it AM radio.
Sure, it is not award winning, but it is good enough, with sins of omissions rather than glaring irritations.
I paid $15.00 including speakers at the local recycling centre....such a system ought to be good enough for background music/radio news and keep she who must be obeyed distracted from murderous ideations.
I well understand the point of a system bugging you....my A system is awaiting delivery of eBAy bits so I can build a balanced out preamp that I can be happy with.
What's running now is damn good, with clarity and precision l/r and 3d depth imaging to die for, but the Behringer MIC2000 balanced out preamp uses BE037 quad opamps which are rebadged LM358's, which is quad LM741
.
These cause a low level/subtle but long term irritating distortion characteristic....JC has commented on the introduction of 741, measuring quite well but sounding wrong.
On a prosound forum, somebody suggested MC33079 as good sounding upgrade replacement and they are easily available and economical.
Anybody have experience/suggestions ?.
Dan.
Yeah, and you'll cop it whilst there is no sound in da house.
Sure you can, provided the missus is happy enough with it.
Understand, an unhappy wife in the kitchen is cooking poison
....you're better off eating at Maccas. That's the key....just get it to acceptable, it does not have to be SOTA.I'll hear it, and if it isn't good enough then it'll really bug me until I've got it sorted out - lots of time and energy spent fiddling and adjusting, something in short supply at the moment,
Out here in the sunroom I run a neat little Panasonic system....most of my listening actually, much of it AM radio.
Sure, it is not award winning, but it is good enough, with sins of omissions rather than glaring irritations.
I paid $15.00 including speakers at the local recycling centre....such a system ought to be good enough for background music/radio news and keep she who must be obeyed distracted from murderous ideations.
I well understand the point of a system bugging you....my A system is awaiting delivery of eBAy bits so I can build a balanced out preamp that I can be happy with.
What's running now is damn good, with clarity and precision l/r and 3d depth imaging to die for, but the Behringer MIC2000 balanced out preamp uses BE037 quad opamps which are rebadged LM358's, which is quad LM741
.These cause a low level/subtle but long term irritating distortion characteristic....JC has commented on the introduction of 741, measuring quite well but sounding wrong.
On a prosound forum, somebody suggested MC33079 as good sounding upgrade replacement and they are easily available and economical.
Anybody have experience/suggestions ?.
Dan.
Agreed, I feel the need, the need for ... good sound - so, it's looking like I juuuust might get a "posh" system happening, there's plenty of gear in the place to pull into it ... and it might stop some of the mosquito action, on this forum,
.Sins of omission are much, much easier to handle - hence the PC doodah. So, we'll see how it goes, with something of greater dynamic capacity ...
- a good marker is getting realistic piano, at live levels - this nicely fills the whole house, and should keep all happy ... 
"You mean, that's as loud as it will go? I was trying to get more volume and nothing was happening ... "
That's the thing...stereo systems have volume controls so we can listen at less than 'natural' sound levels.Agreed, I feel the need, the need for ... good sound - so, it's looking like I juuuust might get a "posh" system happening, there's plenty of gear in the place to pull into it ... and it might stop some of the mosquito action, on this forum,
Sins of omission are much, much easier to handle - hence the PC doodah. So, we'll see how it goes, with something of greater dynamic capacity ...
Playing a system at real revels is impractical, and actually tiring in a sense.
If my neighbours played a real piano (or other real instrument) constantly, I would be throwing bricks, tiles, rubble, prawn shells, fish heads, dog turds etc over the side/back fence.
Yes, it is fun to crank a system from time to time, but not all the time.
I grabbed one of those cylindrical Bluetooth wireless speaker thingos the other week.
I find it is a very convenient way of connecting my PC playback to my A and B systems, and sounds quite fine.
Dan.
My wife makes it simple - she either likes it or not, period. The only thing she is very partial to is the H/K 680 integrated amp she pinched from me, it was all mine only from the shop to home. She saw it and it was gone. Admittedly, it does do very well attached to a pair of floorstanding JBL Ti600 speakers, a very lively detailed and punchy sound.
"Wife in the kitchen" can be an expensive add-on.
"Wife in the kitchen" can be an expensive add-on.
.
It might pay to install a system, any system in the kitchen...
Dan.
Certainly best thing I have ever done. Denon MD-50, tablet for streaming and my old minimonitors. When you have a family you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. TV in kitchen is bad, music good.
My really cheap tweeters arrived. 30 mins later a result. Simple 1 st order crossover using 2u2 250 V film caps. A super-tweeter mostly. The DT74-8 has exactly the senstivity required. I have to say they only do what salt does to a meal. That's all I wanted. Extended and sound exspensive. Some say they resemble ribbon tweeters. Not really but I can understand why they think that. Playing fast music they seem happy to keep up. I image they would give a KEF T27 a run for their money and go louder.
The recipe. 12 Lta with bass boost on a 2 x 4 foot baffle. Tweeter mounted just on top of the main unit standing 1/2 inch away from the baffle. Nice quality is dispersion. Whilst the Magneplanars easilly beat these OB speakers the dispersion is far better on these. Peggy Lee fever was stunning. If I have a problem it is with the baffle . The low mass one I used a few months back was better.
If I have the courage the 15 inch 30 Hz resonance ( Qts 1.2 ) bass units should be fitted. That means sorting out the bass amp.
The recipe. 12 Lta with bass boost on a 2 x 4 foot baffle. Tweeter mounted just on top of the main unit standing 1/2 inch away from the baffle. Nice quality is dispersion. Whilst the Magneplanars easilly beat these OB speakers the dispersion is far better on these. Peggy Lee fever was stunning. If I have a problem it is with the baffle . The low mass one I used a few months back was better.
If I have the courage the 15 inch 30 Hz resonance ( Qts 1.2 ) bass units should be fitted. That means sorting out the bass amp.
Nigel, I had a listen again yesterday to the member's effort up the road, who does OB with top quality Scan-Speak drivers. Very revealing of what's going on, we tried a comparison with 2 versions of a phono stage driven by Linn, and interestingly the "standard" version did better than the souped up, "audiophile" variant - the latter sounded "nicer", but achieved this by ditching information, there was loss of treble and spatial detail.
Switched to CD, and tried a classical piano recording, the very one I mention in my blog. Initially, disasterous, "weird" sound, it sounded like it had honky tonk tuning - but, simple solution! The CD player has adjustable dither, and it was on a significant setting - totally crippled the sound - switched off any dithering nonsense, and normality was restored. And, I was very impressed - highly competent piano sound, came across very well.
The lesson here, yet again, was that at the higher end of potential performance every little thing counts, and a simple wrong setting can "destroy" the quality of the playback ...
Switched to CD, and tried a classical piano recording, the very one I mention in my blog. Initially, disasterous, "weird" sound, it sounded like it had honky tonk tuning - but, simple solution! The CD player has adjustable dither, and it was on a significant setting - totally crippled the sound - switched off any dithering nonsense, and normality was restored. And, I was very impressed - highly competent piano sound, came across very well.
The lesson here, yet again, was that at the higher end of potential performance every little thing counts, and a simple wrong setting can "destroy" the quality of the playback ...
Dan, when I do any editing of sound files I have zero dithering applied - I have tried your experiment, with very noticeable differences being heard - the remarkable thing is how the subjective experiencing of very low level, digital signals - only a couple of bits effectively being used to encode the sound - is dramatically improved when the right dithering option is selected - no dither, or wrong choice sounds awful, but an apparently random noise makes the sound vastly more listenable ...
Edit : that CD dithering should not have made the difference it did, it was working way down in the noise floor - therefore, there was a fundamental problem in the replay chain; some distortion artifact was being introduced by its operation. This is where the digital world is still a bit of a muddle, equipment is far too easily thrown off balance, creating audible differences.
Edit : that CD dithering should not have made the difference it did, it was working way down in the noise floor - therefore, there was a fundamental problem in the replay chain; some distortion artifact was being introduced by its operation. This is where the digital world is still a bit of a muddle, equipment is far too easily thrown off balance, creating audible differences.
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Frank, just a very personal note on Dynaudio drivers.
I wouldn't be caught dead with any of their woofers. To me, they sound plasticky and unconvincing, despite the fact that they usually have good linearity. Their mid and tweeter unist are usually good to very good, but bass? Thank you, no thank you.
To be fair, I cannot swear to it that it's all in the drivers because I jave heard a few speakers which used their drivers but were someone else's designs, and dodn't notoce anythng odd with them, not until Dynaudio speakers were brought in. In other words, perhaps it's the particular way Dynaudio uses their own drivers.
Also, do bear in mind that I am necessarily comparing them with my own speakers, which used 4" cone mid drivers (I forgot their designation) which at the time were considred to be among the very best mid drivers by anybody, Thus, the gola post is set very high, but then Dynaudio drivers of similar properties were all, to the one, more to a lot mopre expensive than mine.
I wouldn't be caught dead with any of their woofers. To me, they sound plasticky and unconvincing, despite the fact that they usually have good linearity. Their mid and tweeter unist are usually good to very good, but bass? Thank you, no thank you.
To be fair, I cannot swear to it that it's all in the drivers because I jave heard a few speakers which used their drivers but were someone else's designs, and dodn't notoce anythng odd with them, not until Dynaudio speakers were brought in. In other words, perhaps it's the particular way Dynaudio uses their own drivers.
Also, do bear in mind that I am necessarily comparing them with my own speakers, which used 4" cone mid drivers (I forgot their designation) which at the time were considred to be among the very best mid drivers by anybody, Thus, the gola post is set very high, but then Dynaudio drivers of similar properties were all, to the one, more to a lot mopre expensive than mine.
I do wonder sometimes what would happen if one used 4 tweeters, one to the left side, another front, third to the right and fourth upewards, That should give a tremedous dispertion angle and offload individual drivers for some very solid power handling. In a series/parallel configuration to keep the impedance in the 8 Ohms range.
Yet, you may remember from way back loudspeakers from a Swedish company Sonab which did use 4 tweeters on top of the box, at ceratin angles set so as to enlarge the sounds stage.
You many also remember H, H, Scott's largest loudspaekr, which use two high range domes, one forward, and another upward firing.
You many also remember H, H, Scott's largest loudspaekr, which use two high range domes, one forward, and another upward firing.
I have a Sonab system somewhere with the amp and turntable. It has the little Peerless cone tweeters. The speakers sound much better than they should. The amp looks wonderful, but isn't. Could do with a bit more bias I suspect. The turntable is like B&O yet seems slightly Japanese in details.
I will look how to semi enclose the 15 inch base units for the OB speakers. I am convinced it needs that. Aperiodic loading might be the answer. My major concern is that the low mass baffle was better ( impractical, screws fell out ). This is easy to understand. The cone is stiff and this is helpful to control excessive movement. Only problem is that also allows all the stored energy in the baffle to return through the cone. I now see how wonderful the Acoustic Suspension idea is. That is a very flexible surround that needs an air sealed box to stabilise the cone.
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