I fear that anthropology, like its cousin sociology, is a pseudo-science-not predictable or replicable-the two pillars of real science. Regards
This is very true. For the same reason, I think that the best designers may be those who have a background and education as musicians while adhering to the scientific method (of "meter-reading") at the same time, to find out why they prefer something on an emotional/perceptual basis and what it is, not the other way round.
Living with a flat-mate who is writing his doctoral thesis in sociology, I tend to disagree wholeheartedly.
Or drink the beer right out of the bottle. The glass of wine image is more faux sophisticated so I put it in there.
I think speakers designers do as they do because:
1- Software makes everybody an expert. Half of the speaker designers would be making cables if you actually had to know what you are doing.
2-Speakers are evaluated by the press and "the market" by measurements and quality of technobabble, so speaker designers give them what they want. I'm not saying they do this cynically, but rather that there is a common belief that this is a scientifically traceable and verifiable enterprise and that there are certain ways to do it right.
People design, evaluate, and buy cars, cameras, etc. the same way.
Measurements make an instant "independent expert" critic in the same way software simulation and measurement tools make an instant expert designer.
Modern high end speaker = expensive drivers + software optimized xover + CNC MDF box with fancy veneer. The most expensive drivers in any given yer are overrepresented because it looks good, even though they might not really be that great sounding. More $$$ drivers in some wacko array even better. The driver cost might be 5% of the list price. Veneer usually costs more than the tweeter.
People design these complicated things because they think they can. The fancy driver catalogs and computer programs lead them where wise men fear to tread.
I can't think of many speakers where the designer foregrounded the experience and threw science to the wind. Maybe those Redehko fullrangers some time back? Well. the magazines sure didn't know what to do with those.
There is overlap and common ground between scientific design principles and listening experiences, but it seems very difficult to nail this relationship down.
The chances of getting lucky at finding a musically fulfilling balance with cookbook/software design seem quite slim indeed...and my experience with modern high-end speakers is that most sound like designers are totally believing the software.
It has to be possible to do better for the resources that go into these failed science fair projects.
But maybe that is why we are on the DIY forum?
Are those on here that are lamenting building a speaker by testing each driver instead of relying upon manufacturers plain vanilla spec sheets, using a computer to design the crossover and verifying that the end result meets simulations, pining for the "good old days" of tossing in whatever drivers and an off the shelf crossover and sitting back and saying "Wow! Look what I built just using my ears!" ? PLEASE, if you want it to sound different then use the bass and treble tone controls and have a chill pill or just buy 60's and 70's speakers and enjoy your colored sound.
Life is not predictable or repeatable, so that rules out nomothetic science as a proper mode to approach social inquiry. That is my point exactly.
There are many paths to knowledge beyond the sort of neaderthal positivism you espouse, John. Even professional positivists rejected predictability in favor of falsifiability as a fundamental criterion for scientific inquiry in the 1950s. Quantum physics makes probability king over predictability. You are stuck in the relic philosophy of the 1930s, the era of WE full range horns.
I agree that a lot of social science is stupid, but anthropologists have very sophisticated ways to discuss meaningful goal-directed behavior in unique historical situations. This study can be empirical in terms of observing behavior and there are formal logical ways to pick at meaning, but the basic stance is to understand real life in the contexts where it takes place. Too messy for formulas.
Somebody doing this sort of analysis is most successful when the limits of knowledge conditions are recognized and respected. This is precisely what I am accusing "forum scientists" of not taking into account. They don't get the part that the experiment instantly kills the subject.
Science produces and analyzes fake contexts, hence it is off-track for understanding meaningful human action that takes place in unstaged, non "clinical contexts. Music listening is meaningful human action. Test listening is meaningful human action. But they are different forms of meaningful human action with very divergent goals.
The deep theory is a bit OT for DIY audio even if highly relevant to this discussion. Make no mistake thinking that anything but primitive positivist science is "shooting from the hip," when in fact that simplistic model has been superseded and invalidated even in hard sciences.
Exactly. Bravo! What you're talking about is a holistic transcendental experience--the holy grail of the subjectivist. And you're right: The more you overthink the mechanics of what is going on, the less fun the experience tends to be.
What has all the pale, fuddy-duddy objectivists around here all riled up is purely semantics. When they spot a (trollish?) thread title like "How far have we come in 100 years?" their hackles rise up, and they arm for battle with bullet points A through Z about how current tech trounces classic in a measurable, acoustic sense.
What they fail to realize is that you're not actually talking about those things, but about a much greater human experience that extends far beyond what enters your ear holes.
Am I sorta beginning to get it?
Bill
/repentent objectivist on a pilgrimage to recapture my humanity
I would say yes Bill, in a way. All you have to do is sit down in front of one of these systems and you forget all about measurements.
Now me? I love to measure stuff and would like to become better at it. But the "Subjective Measurement" of "OMG, that sounds like no other system I've heard - it sounds like real, large scale, music" is a shock you won't soon forget. I was never inclined to break out the measurement gear in that case.
When you meet the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life, you aren't likely to break out the tape to get her measurements. Well, I'm not likely too, anyway. 🙂
Now me? I love to measure stuff and would like to become better at it. But the "Subjective Measurement" of "OMG, that sounds like no other system I've heard - it sounds like real, large scale, music" is a shock you won't soon forget. I was never inclined to break out the measurement gear in that case.
When you meet the most beautiful woman you've ever seen in your life, you aren't likely to break out the tape to get her measurements. Well, I'm not likely too, anyway. 🙂
I tend to disagree here. Speaker designers have to deliver their voicings within days, not weeks or months as it used to be in the good old days. Without tools (they are still tools only, not expert systems with a lot of AI behind them where press three buttons and that's it) like the splendid LSPCad you'd be completely lost because it allows you to find a starting point for voicing within an hour or so, with an experienced designer like the guy I have the pleasure to work with next door -- I do the electronics for the active speakers we produce, same story there, without any simulations before you actually heat up the soldering iron you'd be completely lost and would get laid off quickly, too. And again same story for the enclosure designer, you have one try only for the test build before mass prodcution, if your are lucky you may have two trials.
In fact, your wording is not too far off reality, because software tools (spohisticated CAD/CAE) actually help very much to understand what's going on inside without wasting many physical resources and a lot of time on it, IF you have some basic understanding and competence to begin with, and that's where the true enginieering part of the task comes into play. Experience should not be valued more only because it was much harder work to gather it in times prior to CAD/CAE
well boys , Joe stood up behind WE ; that's physical fact , not pure babble on another internet gathering place.
save the words , there is just one way to understood what he is saying - you need to hear them , then make your own conclusion .
save the words , there is just one way to understood what he is saying - you need to hear them , then make your own conclusion .
Without wanting to go into the Zen Master route at all, there is something else going on.
Measurements as well as the listening experience are based upon what is there not what is not present.
Stop and think about this for a moment.
Take another moment or two...
Deep breath.
Ok, two ideas come together here. First is that one "hears" the reproduction of sound through a hi-fi system as being understandable and recognizable because in enough ways it is similar to and familiar as a real life experience. Otherwise it has no meaning. This means that one hears what is there and forms that into a framework that makes sense. One hears what is present and uses that. One does not hear what is not there at all.
You might think this is self-evident. It is. But it is rarely factored into the way systems are spoken of. How do you talk about what is not there? Invisible?
The second part is that measurements too only measure what is there, and something about how things are going with what is there.
The idea, if there is one to be had, is that errors of omission are virtually impossible to spot or identify unless and until there is something to compare it to where the "missing" aspect(s) are present!
Perhaps then, what we are talking about and people are saying about this large format WE system is that it produces something that is otherwise missing or lacking in most other systems?
Now, I must return to my rock in the desert to meditate. I am waiting for my guru, Mr. Natural to show up... So much to learn.
_-_-
Measurements as well as the listening experience are based upon what is there not what is not present.
Stop and think about this for a moment.
Take another moment or two...
Deep breath.
Ok, two ideas come together here. First is that one "hears" the reproduction of sound through a hi-fi system as being understandable and recognizable because in enough ways it is similar to and familiar as a real life experience. Otherwise it has no meaning. This means that one hears what is there and forms that into a framework that makes sense. One hears what is present and uses that. One does not hear what is not there at all.
You might think this is self-evident. It is. But it is rarely factored into the way systems are spoken of. How do you talk about what is not there? Invisible?
The second part is that measurements too only measure what is there, and something about how things are going with what is there.
The idea, if there is one to be had, is that errors of omission are virtually impossible to spot or identify unless and until there is something to compare it to where the "missing" aspect(s) are present!
Perhaps then, what we are talking about and people are saying about this large format WE system is that it produces something that is otherwise missing or lacking in most other systems?
Now, I must return to my rock in the desert to meditate. I am waiting for my guru, Mr. Natural to show up... So much to learn.
_-_-
Attachments
Last edited:
Maybe. But it's pretty easy to hear when a system lacks, say, developed harmonics. The amount of a harmonics produced from even a single piano note is immense. If a system can't reproduce those it's fairly obvious from the get go.
Dynamics are the same. Macro-dynamics are the easier of the two to hear, but midi- and micro-dynamics make themselves obvious by their lack within the first 20-seconds or so.
But that would only be the case, like you say, if you had an understanding of the role harmonics and dynamics play.
I guess it depends on what you're listening for. Too many "music lovers" I know are actually closeted objectivists analyzing - mostly - how a system responds in terms of frequency extension, imaging and the like without ever listening for meaningful musical ones.
It's pretty simple for me. If I can't hear Elvin Jones modulating his ride cymbal through touch to produce certain tones, harmonics and spread then a system is doing something wrong. Listening for where the ride is in the sound stage is honestly the last thing I want to be doing.
I wanted to add (though I can't because I'm being moderated) that if you're simply comparing a system to another system, then things like, say, harmonics are going to be really difficult to identify.
Without wanting to side with those advocates and devotees of The Absolute Sound (with whom I'm mostly in disagreement with), I think the learning and mastering of an instrument is kinda crucial to begin to understand harmonics and dynamics.
If you've ever played acoustic guitar, it's incredible how varying the pressure of your fingers of your right hand can produce an unbelievable amount of harmonics from a single string. How subtle variances in how you play dynamically massively influences what is produced sonically and therefore, what becomes meaningful musically.
The Elvin Jones analogy above is apt because I believe he really understood how the weight, transient response and touch of his hand holding a stick could breathe life into a hammered disc of bronze and make it sound like an orchestra. Paul Motian was similar in this regard. Tony Williams is a whole 'nother story altogether...
Of course, if you don't care for those sorts of things, or they're too problematic because they can't be measured - they're too wishy-washy and experientially subjectivized - then you're probably not going to be listening for them, and you certainly won't be designing for them.
Without wanting to side with those advocates and devotees of The Absolute Sound (with whom I'm mostly in disagreement with), I think the learning and mastering of an instrument is kinda crucial to begin to understand harmonics and dynamics.
If you've ever played acoustic guitar, it's incredible how varying the pressure of your fingers of your right hand can produce an unbelievable amount of harmonics from a single string. How subtle variances in how you play dynamically massively influences what is produced sonically and therefore, what becomes meaningful musically.
The Elvin Jones analogy above is apt because I believe he really understood how the weight, transient response and touch of his hand holding a stick could breathe life into a hammered disc of bronze and make it sound like an orchestra. Paul Motian was similar in this regard. Tony Williams is a whole 'nother story altogether...
Of course, if you don't care for those sorts of things, or they're too problematic because they can't be measured - they're too wishy-washy and experientially subjectivized - then you're probably not going to be listening for them, and you certainly won't be designing for them.
Last edited:
As one of the professional speaker designers here, I feel I should stand up for my kind.
Of course it is impossible to generalize since designers cover such a wide range of proficiency and style. I am seldom impressed with the best known names in high end product designer. So much of that end of the business is about flamboyance and the exploiting the cult of personality rather than any scientific pursuit of higher fidelity.
At the other end of the market, much of product design today is farmed out foreign suppliers where draftsmen and junior designers create variations on a theme based on previous products.
Still, in my career I am proud to say that I have rubbed elbows with a significant number of brilliant and dedicated engineers. Most came into the business due to a love of music and an interest in the way things work. I think they would have risen to the top of their field in any engineering specialty. Most of them are names you wouldn't know, especially if they ended up in the larger home audio or the pro audio companies.
Regarding the relative ease of designing with computer software, I don't think any would believe that a bit of proficiency with a software package in itself makes anyone an accomplished speaker designer. They are great tools and allow us to tackle much more sophisticated designs than we might without them. While a designer, either pro or amateur who is proficient with a crossover computer modeling package has a skill that no professional had before 1980 (and some pros still don't have today), I know of very few that let their software make choices for them, or who design without listening.
I'm really curious what you think the W.E. design environment and process was like? I think you picture long listening sessions with dozens of prototypes and wise old men picking the one design that "had the magic" that you highly value today. I'd bet a lot of money that it wasn't at all like that. All the horns appear to be pure exponential expansions, with most of the ingenuity applied to coiling them to fit the minimum space. Likely much of the design was done at the drafting table with slide rule or log tables helping to plot out the area vs. length. With the complexity of making prototypes I would be surprised if more than a half dozen would be developed before production needed to comense. I am sure that listening tests would have been central to evaluation, especially since automatic curve plotting was rare and manual curve measuring in a live room is time consuming and difficult to interpret. But remember that listening evaluations would be with pretty meager source material, likely from AM radio, 78's and optical sound tracks. The intended market was movie theaters, so vocal intelligibility would be the primary criterion.
I'm sure the engineers involved were also very proficiant and proud of their work, but I can't get past the feeling that they would be scratching their heads over the current fuss being made over their work.
David S.
Hello Joe
Have you ever used any design software?? The software makes it easier and faster it doesn't however tolerate fools very well. Garbage in equals garbage out. Do you know how difficult it can be to get a set of clean measurements so your actual speaker really equals the predicted response in the software??
So all the guys here who use measurements and design software consider themselves expert designers?? Rather broad brush strokes don't you think??
Interesting as we use the same tools. If the "Experts" can't get it right what kind of science projects do you think we have going on here??
Read Tooles book and Sean Olives Blog. Both are a good read.
Audio Musings by Sean Olive: Welcome to My Blog on The Science of Sound Recording and Reproduction
Amazon.com: Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms (9780240520094): Floyd Toole: Books
Rob🙂
Have you ever used any design software?? The software makes it easier and faster it doesn't however tolerate fools very well. Garbage in equals garbage out. Do you know how difficult it can be to get a set of clean measurements so your actual speaker really equals the predicted response in the software??
So all the guys here who use measurements and design software consider themselves expert designers?? Rather broad brush strokes don't you think??
Interesting as we use the same tools. If the "Experts" can't get it right what kind of science projects do you think we have going on here??
Read Tooles book and Sean Olives Blog. Both are a good read.
Audio Musings by Sean Olive: Welcome to My Blog on The Science of Sound Recording and Reproduction
Amazon.com: Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms (9780240520094): Floyd Toole: Books
Rob🙂
If somebody is trying to sell me a speaker for $10,000-200,000, I'd like to think they spent at least a week on it.
CAD, CLIO, ARTA, etc...all excellent tools but no substitute for practical knowledge, good taste and inspiration.
The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. - Robert Pirsig
se