I think your right, many points have remained unmentioned and we probably disagree on some issues. For example I find many German Speakers are too bright and would say the same for many UK speakers.
I think your right, especially in the early days of transistors. I also agree that exceptions exist in both camps.
I totally agree on the above points.
I agree again, and to help illustrate the point have never heard of "Monsieur George Cabasse".
In my opinion most speakers and most HiFI systems do sound so bad in the sound above 10KHz that its better to have the speakers not produce sound in the top octave. I also believe producing terrible treble is hard, and most HiFi in my opinion fails very badly in reproducing the top octave (of which 17KHz is my hearing limit).
But here we have to credit Braun in the 1950's to the early 1960's for making the coolest looking equipment. Rather than get distracted by details lets get back to my main point.
When Speakers in general sound so much like speakers playing recorded music, rather than people in your room. I think its amazing that HiFI can produce illusions of rooms larger than they play in, with a sound stage of musicians so effectively.
This is clearly a case of us wanting to believe in an illusion, and the question remaining is what breaks this illusion?
Thank you for saying the kind words about the BBC etc . I just got some Russian GU 50 valves in the post . These are clones of Telefunken LS 50 circa 1942 . Some say they are not sexy enough . To me they look like they came from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet . I also have some GEC KT 88 in my collection . Funny how the LS 50 was overlooked for so long . A Siemens cinema amp I had briefly used EL 34 , I suspect LS 50 a far better choice .
@owenhamburg
I think you underestimate Braun. Not only did they realise very early on that audio equipment must look cool, they actually built it to a sound, not a price. Remeber, in those days, Braun was anything but cheap, and obviously, they didn't give a damn. It had to SOUND right and look good, but as far as I know, they never switched places of those two requirements. Always sound first.
Which is why I lament their present day absence from the audio area.
The total tragedy is that almost all other German companies, which had exactly the same reasoning at the time, are also gone.
Do you remember the old Kirskaetter receivers and speakers? In the early 70ies, they were practically all alone up there, NOBODY could touch them for any sane price, and above them were only the American exotic models. Before somebody "invented" monster receivers, they were making and selling them. Look at their tuner specs - they would do honor to any tuner even today, analog as they were. The Japanese managed such specs 7 or 8 years later. ( http://hifiarchiv.dasfree.com/Kirksaeter/ )
Obviously, I am a German audio industry nostalgic sentimentalist, and I admit it freely. I feel audio has lost much for lack of its pure reasoning and sane engineering. And, as everybody knows, first love is never forgotten.
Not that the German industry didn't have its quirks, as any industry does; for example, ever wondered how come a nominally 12.5 WPC/4 Ohms Grundig receiver from 1968 somehow manages to sound better than anything coming from Japan at the time? I did, so I reserached and found the answer - they simply had a loudness function built in with often no possibility of switching it off. So, at normal room levels, they sounded somehow more forceful, more powerful than most of their Japanese counterparts. And they were generous with the boost, especially in the bass. Too generous, I think.
Regrding tone controls and loudness compensation, I feel all should be adjustable and of course switchable. Your choice. So far, the overall best solution I've come across is that of Yamaha, they use a pot for loudness, with an off click at zero. So do my vintage Marantz 3250B preamp, and my vintage Marantz 1180 integrated amp. Hence, I speak from personal experience.
I think you underestimate Braun. Not only did they realise very early on that audio equipment must look cool, they actually built it to a sound, not a price. Remeber, in those days, Braun was anything but cheap, and obviously, they didn't give a damn. It had to SOUND right and look good, but as far as I know, they never switched places of those two requirements. Always sound first.
Which is why I lament their present day absence from the audio area.
The total tragedy is that almost all other German companies, which had exactly the same reasoning at the time, are also gone.
Do you remember the old Kirskaetter receivers and speakers? In the early 70ies, they were practically all alone up there, NOBODY could touch them for any sane price, and above them were only the American exotic models. Before somebody "invented" monster receivers, they were making and selling them. Look at their tuner specs - they would do honor to any tuner even today, analog as they were. The Japanese managed such specs 7 or 8 years later. ( http://hifiarchiv.dasfree.com/Kirksaeter/ )
Obviously, I am a German audio industry nostalgic sentimentalist, and I admit it freely. I feel audio has lost much for lack of its pure reasoning and sane engineering. And, as everybody knows, first love is never forgotten.
Not that the German industry didn't have its quirks, as any industry does; for example, ever wondered how come a nominally 12.5 WPC/4 Ohms Grundig receiver from 1968 somehow manages to sound better than anything coming from Japan at the time? I did, so I reserached and found the answer - they simply had a loudness function built in with often no possibility of switching it off. So, at normal room levels, they sounded somehow more forceful, more powerful than most of their Japanese counterparts. And they were generous with the boost, especially in the bass. Too generous, I think.
Regrding tone controls and loudness compensation, I feel all should be adjustable and of course switchable. Your choice. So far, the overall best solution I've come across is that of Yamaha, they use a pot for loudness, with an off click at zero. So do my vintage Marantz 3250B preamp, and my vintage Marantz 1180 integrated amp. Hence, I speak from personal experience.
Democracy ..
Nigel would disagree abit on that ...'Who the Hell You Think You Are?' Nigel Farage throws egg in Eurocrat faces - YouTube
They failed because the sound was bland and unnatural sounding , the british made much better speakers , the germans better electronics, but they were never price competitive on this side vs Japan and none held a candle to american electronics, especially amplifiers ..
Big Power is King ....
Big speakers is King ^2...
Gladly they all have figured this out and now we are here ...
wow, you are capable of mind reading LOL.
I was thinking just that while writing the quoted post. when was the moment when a guy got struck by lighting and then after having awakened from the coma said "guys, I have the greatest idea, let's just ditch the tone and loudness controls altogether"?
great that you mentioned Fletcher-Munson. I never ceases to amaze me how the golden eared ones just label one "scope reader" at the mere mention of such phenomena. hellooo, it's been proven many years ago and it really does apply to everyone, training one's vision does not make one able to see squares instead of circles you know, just as every audiophile hears tonality as per F/M. now wait a minute, the circles and squares analogy does apply to some audiophiles. well, I'll try to find a better one next time LOL
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...
They failed because the sound was bland and unnatural sounding , the british made much better speakers , the germans better electronics, but they were never price competitive on this side vs Japan and none held a candle to american electronics, especially amplifiers ..
Big Power is King ....
Big speakers is King ^2...
Gladly they all have figured this out and now we are here ...
(Underlined by DVV)
I couldn't disagree more, both on German and British speakers. I suppose much depends on what one has heard and which circustances, but I could name off hand several German made speakers which I'd love to have even now, after so many years.
Of the British speakers, personally I wouldn't want most of them, although some I did like, and some I loved, such as, for example, Spendor BC3, or Celestion Ditton 66. Haven't heard a KEF or a B&W which I loved yet, which is not to say they are poor speakers, just not my cup of tea. I do like some Tannoys, though.
I agree that if you want big sound, you have to have big speakers - I have never yet heard a small speaker, by anybody at any price, which could fool me into believeing that it was bigger than it actually was. Some were good speakers, no doubt, but small.
I can believe that German electronics were not competitive on that side of the Atlantic, but I would add that some of German electronics were too sophisticated for the US market. Just as much of US electronics, good as they may have been, have always been too big, brawny and garage designed for European tastes. Remember the old Krell KSA series? Definitely agricultural styling, even if they did sound really good.
I don't pay much attention to design, I don't really care so long as the music coming from it pleases me, but many think otherwise. This is true of big brawny US creations, as well of the obligatory death black from Germany.
As I said, the Germans failed beacuse they never got the idea that power sells in the USA, compared to nominal power outputs of the Japanese, the Germans were positively pedestrian. On the other hand, Germans designed their gear for 4 Ohm loads, as defined by DIN 45500 standards, so their actual drive capability was a dream for the Japanese. Remember, German gear had to be able to handle two pairs of speaker in parallel, meaning effectively 2 Ohm loads. That was in 1975, and the Japanese are still struggling.
It's also true that in Germany, as on any market, there were low, mid and high end manufacturers. Obviously, when I speak of high quality, I refer to the mid and high ends of the market.
Many, if not most, "golden eared" persons are self proclaimed as such.
The very idea of "golden ears" is stupid in my view, because if one man can hear much more than I, no matter what I buy my hearing will still be inferior. If anything, this begs the question: why invest tons of money into gear which he says is better, but I do not hear it as such?
And I do not get en erection when I proclaim that my amp at home delivers gazzillion of Watts into a pair of shoe strngs. Many people are turned on.
All my life, I have and do believe in balance. Balance between quality and price, but I am willing to pay more if I get more. Balance between an engineering approach and a music lover's approach to designing, in my small way - it's not all about numbers and measurements, but then, it's also not all in the hearing.
I like to use the word "reasonable".
you have no idea how funny this is to me, as I have have too fallen into the trap of thinking how come all my speakers sounded rather thin at low volumes. *although* all the necessary info was there in my head (F/M). it took very long and the luck of me running into a discussion about recommended mixing/mastering levels. oh and maybe the help of reading/hearing too much mumbo-jumbo about speakers that miraculously solve this.
now that I think about it, that may be partially true as I think there are some bass drivers that are deliberately non-linear to somehow compensate for this but OTOH not sure it's the way to go (the hell with reducing distortion, let's embrace it). now where did I read about those drivers?
now that I think about it, that may be partially true as I think there are some bass drivers that are deliberately non-linear to somehow compensate for this but OTOH not sure it's the way to go (the hell with reducing distortion, let's embrace it). now where did I read about those drivers?
Tone controls aside ( I'm not against) a properly built speaker does not sound thin at low levels , this is a fallacy. the speaker tonal balance should not change from low to high, if it does, it's not balanced .....
@ DVV,
I prefer the sound of past British speakers to German speakers, I have had Revox and tanberg electronics in the past and they were not competitive sonically to their competition, B&O was the worst, i guess German Bose..
I really dont get the finish issue, i cannot think of an US made amp that had poor cosmetics. My 1970 mcIntosh was well beautiful to me, as AR. I had the obligatory DC300/IC150/tuner package , cosmetically good in my eyes , Sonics, better than B&O ..
Frankly, there was no competition for US gear until late 90's IMO, of course there were the odd euro choices that did lift the standard , but not as an industry on the whole ( sonus faber / speaker cosmetics for eg.)
Of course MHO, mileage may vary ....
What I'm saying ,
If your speaker system sounds thin at low levels it will sound thin at high levels. The F/M curves or loudness contour represent what we hear as steady test tones not taking into account pressure waves created above and below, the set frequencies, which is how we hear and sense real world sound ...
Well that's my understanding of it.
Now picture a speaker with an FR like the F/M curve, good , bad, or just right, I'm listening to one now ......
If your speaker system sounds thin at low levels it will sound thin at high levels. The F/M curves or loudness contour represent what we hear as steady test tones not taking into account pressure waves created above and below, the set frequencies, which is how we hear and sense real world sound ...
Well that's my understanding of it.
Now picture a speaker with an FR like the F/M curve, good , bad, or just right, I'm listening to one now ......
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Of course we all adapt to the level-dependence versus frequency effects, to some extent.
The perception of bass is complicated, since most bass instruments have complex timbres, and the ear/brain tends to extract information about the fundamental even when it is nearly missing, provided there's energy at 2f, 3f, and even above. This is exploited in small low-cost speakers, and is the basis for certain synthetic bass enhancement schemes.
When Wolfgang Klippel was doing some of his early work on backing out nonlinear distortions in loudspeakers, he demonstrated some practical realizations for Harman Multimedia people. It was indeed impressive that so much distortion could be reduced markedly. But the overall sense was of less bass than before, so it attracted little interest for applications to little powered speakers.
The perception of bass is complicated, since most bass instruments have complex timbres, and the ear/brain tends to extract information about the fundamental even when it is nearly missing, provided there's energy at 2f, 3f, and even above. This is exploited in small low-cost speakers, and is the basis for certain synthetic bass enhancement schemes.
When Wolfgang Klippel was doing some of his early work on backing out nonlinear distortions in loudspeakers, he demonstrated some practical realizations for Harman Multimedia people. It was indeed impressive that so much distortion could be reduced markedly. But the overall sense was of less bass than before, so it attracted little interest for applications to little powered speakers.
a.wayne,
I see what you're getting at.
about ISO 226:2003 vs F/M... how about the 120ps (quoting from memory) jitter audibility limit established by BBC in the 70's against currently accepted standards? although ISO... vs F/M is not that different.
concerning dynamic levels, I have considered it too. what's certain is that as long as your speakers are good enough and you listen at a level close to the one used in the mixing/mastering process, you don't need tone controls. when you're listening at a different level, well, IDK. we could even go on and ask how about fundamental vs harmonics as they have different levels? you'd obviously have to compensate differently.
I frankly haven't investigated so far in order to understand what's different in perception with music compared with pure tones but it's a good moment to do so. you obviously have a point there.
I see what you're getting at.
about ISO 226:2003 vs F/M... how about the 120ps (quoting from memory) jitter audibility limit established by BBC in the 70's against currently accepted standards? although ISO... vs F/M is not that different.
concerning dynamic levels, I have considered it too. what's certain is that as long as your speakers are good enough and you listen at a level close to the one used in the mixing/mastering process, you don't need tone controls. when you're listening at a different level, well, IDK. we could even go on and ask how about fundamental vs harmonics as they have different levels? you'd obviously have to compensate differently.
I frankly haven't investigated so far in order to understand what's different in perception with music compared with pure tones but it's a good moment to do so. you obviously have a point there.
back when I first discovered computer audio, I used to play with Winamp EQ settings and tried to find the most weird sounding EQ curve. funny how my brain adapted even to those and how what initially barely sounded like music began to sound listenable, given enough time. of course, to an extent.
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When I got a laptop last year, after a main machine crash that took me off the air as it were, I listened to the built-in system, branded both SRS and Altec Lansing. Horrible, totally unlistenable. So I plugged in some small speakers that I knew were reasonably flat. Still sounded terrible, but I listened for a while and began to get somewhat accustomed, besides the timbral distortions as well to the curious spatial effects.
Finally I waded in to the settings and figured out how to defeat SRS. It was a vast improvement. However, my adaptation was already such as to make high frequencies seem somewhat recessed for a while.
... @ DVV,
I prefer the sound of past British speakers to German speakers, I have had Revox and tanberg electronics in the past and they were not competitive sonically to their competition, B&O was the worst, i guess German Bose..
I really dont get the finish issue, i cannot think of an US made amp that had poor cosmetics. My 1970 mcIntosh was well beautiful to me, as AR. I had the obligatory DC300/IC150/tuner package , cosmetically good in my eyes , Sonics, better than B&O ..
Frankly, there was no competition for US gear until late 90's IMO, of course there were the odd euro choices that did lift the standard , but not as an industry on the whole ( sonus faber / speaker cosmetics for eg.)
Of course MHO, mileage may vary ....
So, we agree that we disagree. Fine with me.
Now, here we seem to be close together, like brothers.
Headphones are a different set of compromises. Like every other compromise, they give and take. They take the entire physical contact of the body with bass lines, as below 500 Hz, our entire body progressively start to be a frequency receiver (lokee momma, no hands!).
But they give clarity such as very few speakers ever made can, assuming quality headphones, not necessairily wildly expensive, and assuming quality headphone drive electronics (now, THAT is rare!). Even if open backed, they still provide some level of isolation/attenuation of ambient noise.
Much as I love them dearly, I would never give up my speakers though, they have their virtues not easily forgotten.
So, my personal preference is not either, but both.
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