Another load of crap.
Anything that resonates (vibrating coins) will add sound and be heard. I thought the idea was to get rid of speaker resonance not add them. Why not try tin cups, wine glasses, a bowl of spoons, or rest your head on the speaker. The review is ridiculous; the freq response is terrible, the square wave (the reviewer said looks good) looks like noise, and I guess you can tell distortion levels by looking at a trace of a modulated sine wave.
And as for not believing without trying; If I told you gluing those beaks onto the hood of your car would add 50 hp to your motor, and make your car handle better would you have to try it to know its **.
Anything that resonates (vibrating coins) will add sound and be heard. I thought the idea was to get rid of speaker resonance not add them. Why not try tin cups, wine glasses, a bowl of spoons, or rest your head on the speaker. The review is ridiculous; the freq response is terrible, the square wave (the reviewer said looks good) looks like noise, and I guess you can tell distortion levels by looking at a trace of a modulated sine wave.
And as for not believing without trying; If I told you gluing those beaks onto the hood of your car would add 50 hp to your motor, and make your car handle better would you have to try it to know its **.
All that is proposed is that you empty your pocket of a little spare change, spin a few tunes. Something you do every day of your life. This is so hard?
A wild and tweaky theory without foundation. Who said anything about cabinet vibration?
a. base jumping tombstoning - see the King in Blue Hawaii.
b. You'll have a bit of a problem with that in some religious circles.
c. Anaesthesia?
d. dental fillings
How do you get on with recipes? In the end you have to either accept the author's assertion that the food is delicious, or sample the food in complete ignorance of the method of preparation.
I'm just saying it's possible to measure the wrong things, and come to some false conclusions. Maybe the standard measurements are not the only ones that need to be made. Ref. the phlogiston theory.
I wasn't having a crack at anybody in particular. I see the fascination and challenge of what we are trying to do is that collision between the objective and subjective. In the end both approaches are asking the same question - is this more like music? At that point primitive emotions are engaged. One of my favourite wild assertions, that nobody has shot down for me yet, is that humans sang before they spoke.
Let's all keep on listening to music and having fun. We all need each other
I am not sure what you mean, but the idea that moving cones around the top of a speaker cabinet seems like a good definition of a wild and tweaky theory without foundation.
Like I said. It is silly. If it really works someone else can prove it and present a rational theory to support it. Maybe James Randi might be interested in donating a prize for anyone to prove it.
Loren42 it was you who mentioned the inertness or otherwise of the speaker cab.
What I meant was that you jumped to a conclusion without evidence of the problem by assuming there was a cabinet resonance problem.
I still don't see where the waste of time comes in. You do sit down and listen to music?
If we look at that review, it does state that the 8kHz treble peak was reduced by 1.5dB with the beaks fitted. This would seem to be an objective measurement, or the writer is mistaken or lying. Whether the square waves or sine waves are good or horrible is a subjective opinion.
What I meant was that you jumped to a conclusion without evidence of the problem by assuming there was a cabinet resonance problem.
I still don't see where the waste of time comes in. You do sit down and listen to music?
If we look at that review, it does state that the 8kHz treble peak was reduced by 1.5dB with the beaks fitted. This would seem to be an objective measurement, or the writer is mistaken or lying. Whether the square waves or sine waves are good or horrible is a subjective opinion.
Agreed, and good question. The ones I've heard either sound like bad car stereos (big midbass, big treble, recessed mids) or just awful in the midband generally. I've not seen any measurements of them, but I highly suspect that they do nothing in the crossover to even attempt to bandaid the directivity change in the crossover region.
There's also the opportunity cost of wasting one's time when one could be doing something non-stupid...
I agree, that was a leap without grounds to substantiate it. It is either the cabinet, secondary diffraction, or magic.
As far as your simple test goes, it isn't simple. If you plan a listening test, then you really need to do a double blind test. Discriminating 1.5 dB change is at the edge of human perception. Typically, you can determine 1 dB of loudness change, but it becomes even harder when you have other frequencies playing at the same time, such as music.
That type of discrimination requires unbiased testing and multiple tests with many listeners to rule out statistical errors. That is not a simple thing to do.
As far as taking a quick listen, come on. You need a second person to do multiple tests at different positions of the beaks and the number of permeations is virtually endless. Even at that, the results are highly subjective (at best).
If the effect was a 20 dB difference, then a listening test is probably a good tool to determine if the theory is worthy of further study. However, this claim is not.
The best solution is to quantifiably measure the effect. Again, this is exhausting to test a significant amount of samples with enough permeations to draw a conclusion.
The company that made the claim is the company that should be providing that quantitative data in the first place and they have not. Why should I go through those hoops? It's their claim and its their responsibility to prove that claim, not anyone else.
After they provide that proof, then peer review is in order to confirm their findings. I'll bet that data will never be forthcoming.
And... if anyone else tries to independently confirm this and fails, Totem will scream bias and that they didn't do it right, etc., etc. Remember Pons and Fleischmann?
This claim is just an example of pathological science and a good one at that.
If you are truly convinced otherwise, you run some quantitative tests and publish those results.
I wrote totem about 12 years ago asking for a layman's explanation of how they worked - got no response. They tell you what they supposedly do in their ads, but not how.
The beaks (or coins - similar concept) are placed on the edge of the cabinet where it is stiffest and the least amount of any type of cabinet absorption can occur. These devices likely work by power of suggestion...
I saw those little French "cups" at a club meeting - the asking price was ridiculous - the precious "metal" looked like cheap porous casting and was very poorly finished - I said to the demonstrator that a high school kid could make better looking work. The blocks of wood the cups were attached to were very poorly finished and branded with a "made in france" label.
During the meeting the guy was asked by some joker in the crowd if they compared well with "Bright Pebbles" and he said there was no comparison. He claimed to be a mechanical engineer before being an audio salesman and seemingly used that to imply that if he believed it, we should.... IIRC he described them as "sucking harmonics out of the room" - a very educated way of putting it 😉
The beaks (or coins - similar concept) are placed on the edge of the cabinet where it is stiffest and the least amount of any type of cabinet absorption can occur. These devices likely work by power of suggestion...
I saw those little French "cups" at a club meeting - the asking price was ridiculous - the precious "metal" looked like cheap porous casting and was very poorly finished - I said to the demonstrator that a high school kid could make better looking work. The blocks of wood the cups were attached to were very poorly finished and branded with a "made in france" label.
During the meeting the guy was asked by some joker in the crowd if they compared well with "Bright Pebbles" and he said there was no comparison. He claimed to be a mechanical engineer before being an audio salesman and seemingly used that to imply that if he believed it, we should.... IIRC he described them as "sucking harmonics out of the room" - a very educated way of putting it 😉
I take this to be a measurement? I understand your position that you want to see a full scientific paper. I think we're still at the point of stroking our chins and saying "I wonder, I dunno. While we're having a think I'll put on Junior Parker singing Tomorrow Never Knows."
To reiterate, the fascination of this game is that the music goes into humans' subjective ears, but comes out of objective machines. Go too far either way, and you start to lose the plot, and the fun.
What? A hand drawn chart? Is that one chart before or after?
Seriously, do you believe that constitutes data? It's one data point with the rest of the continuum missing.
Cutting to the chase, if you believe that the effect is real and want to convince me (or anyone else) post the proof.
If you think someone else should disprove it, then that would be a fallacy of argument. Totem should prove their claim. If it's true they haven't done so in the last 12 years I would not hold my breath that we will ever see that data, would you?
Actually, I have pretty well dismissed it as hogwash then and now, but I would change my mind if incontrovertible proof was presented.
Not that i know of. I did that experiment. Dubloons (Twoonies) work almost as well. Functioning beaks are, IMHO, a symptom of a cabinet that resonates.
dave
Pallas - listening to music is a stupid waste of time?
Loren - the 1.5dB claim is in the text of the review, not a graph or read out. It is unambiguous, I think. OK, it's a datum. It is still a measured difference. I resist interpretation, like you, nonetheless, I am happy to take it as an objective fact. Hence the chin stroking.
When I can work out the coin equivalent in UK money, I will give the experiment a lash when I have cleared the rest of the crap off the top of my box speakers. I do this despite the suspicion that I would be better to put the money to a better bottle of wine, which I know will make my stereo sound better. Strictly subjectively of course.
Listening is not a waste of time, but I can't listen to music and work on the sound system at the same time. I can listen to music or evaluate the system, but not both.
Yeah, I took the hard number as a claim of the reviewing authors. I have no idea on the reliability of the authors or their skill in evaluation. Agreed that the graph is meaningless and looks hand drawn, which does not do much for its stock.
While you are stroking your chin I am rolling my eyes. 😀
That is too funny!!! 😀😀😀
Loren - I tend to take the state of relaxation as a good evaluation of the stereo. If I'm unrelaxed it's a sign that something is wrong. Last time this happened I ended up overhauling my quad ELS57s. I replaced both eht boards and a dust cover and gave them a good clean. I found coal soot inside, which will give you an idea of their antiquity. Now they're sweet, and I'm chilled. I must say those Totems don't seem to be my ideal speaker - reading between the lines I extract trebly and hard, beaks or no beaks. The great thing about the Quads is that they sound like music, not speakers, if you see what I mean.
When I listen to music I am listening to what the artist is doing more than the what the system is doing.
While I want faithful reproduction and get satisfaction from creating a system that does that, listening (for me) is relating to the artist's work.
I see the the system is the canvas and paint. The artistic expression through music is the picture.
So, when I listen to a system to evaluate its faithfulness I am listening for different things that I would be when listening to the emotional message that is being delivered. Does that make sense?
stevieg , that coal soot sounds suspiciously like the carbon dust used to insulate the driven panel from the high voltage stators. You might not want to drive them loud until someone has had a look into this aspect.
Don't intend to frighten you here, just a caution.
Bud
Don't intend to frighten you here, just a caution.
Bud
Where's the "listening to music" in trying to hear a difference in the sound of a system? by putting money atop the speakers?
Hehe. Do you mean in mass, dimensions...or equivalent worth?
If you base it on this, and then the exchange rates change, will the 'performance difference' vary proportionally up and down?
Thanks for your concern, BudP. The soot was outside the intact dust covers, and the amount I removed, if it had a function as an insulator (carbon?) I'd have had a fine firework display by now, a few months later.
Pallas
I don't know how else to do this. Are you referring to "critical listening" using "reference recordings"? There are two difficulties with this approach. Firstly, why should I want to turn my senses into an objective measuring tool? We have machines for that. Our hearing has evolved to protect us in a hazardous world so let it be, it will tell us if a metaphorical sabre tooth is running through the savannah.
Secondly, the use of reference recordings must surely mean that you end up tuning your system to those recordings only, so your system only sounds good on recordings that resemble these references. I would recommend buying some new tunes which are unfamiliar to you, sit down, relax and listen. If you enjoy the music, the system is working fine. I strongly recommend Konono No1's Assume Crash Position. You will then not only own a slab of prime Congolese folk electro, but also a record on which a wall collapses. As a piece of music to "test the system" this record, with its distorted electric thumb pianos, buzzing and rumbling, is almost completely useless - as a piece of human musical creativity it is fabulous. If your system can communicate that to you, then it's working fine.
Pallas
I don't know how else to do this. Are you referring to "critical listening" using "reference recordings"? There are two difficulties with this approach. Firstly, why should I want to turn my senses into an objective measuring tool? We have machines for that. Our hearing has evolved to protect us in a hazardous world so let it be, it will tell us if a metaphorical sabre tooth is running through the savannah.
Secondly, the use of reference recordings must surely mean that you end up tuning your system to those recordings only, so your system only sounds good on recordings that resemble these references. I would recommend buying some new tunes which are unfamiliar to you, sit down, relax and listen. If you enjoy the music, the system is working fine. I strongly recommend Konono No1's Assume Crash Position. You will then not only own a slab of prime Congolese folk electro, but also a record on which a wall collapses. As a piece of music to "test the system" this record, with its distorted electric thumb pianos, buzzing and rumbling, is almost completely useless - as a piece of human musical creativity it is fabulous. If your system can communicate that to you, then it's working fine.
"As a piece of music to "test the system" this record, with its distorted electric thumb pianos, buzzing and rumbling, is almost completely useless - as a piece of human musical creativity it is fabulous. If your system can communicate that to you, then it's working fine."
I have the first Konono No1 album and also a dvd on which they appear.
Every system I played it them on communicate the 'musical creativity' to a large degree, be it my stereo, mine or someone elses in-built TV speakers or computer speakers (in-built laptop and external). Do they all all do that accurately?
Of course not, with the exception of my stereo. As such I find that criterion pretty useless.
A bit like Linns 'toe-tapping' ruse, which was nothing but a cunning (and largely dishonest) marketing tool.
I have the first Konono No1 album and also a dvd on which they appear.
Every system I played it them on communicate the 'musical creativity' to a large degree, be it my stereo, mine or someone elses in-built TV speakers or computer speakers (in-built laptop and external). Do they all all do that accurately?
Of course not, with the exception of my stereo. As such I find that criterion pretty useless.
A bit like Linns 'toe-tapping' ruse, which was nothing but a cunning (and largely dishonest) marketing tool.
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