Sorry about that. I was just trying to point out that getting helpfull optinions is a very important part of audio technology development.
I am interested in the benefits of wave guides, and hope to gradually get into them.
I am interested in the benefits of wave guides, and hope to gradually get into them.
gedlee said:
Here's an anecdote which matches your observations.
I have a friend who just signed on for a new job, and more money. He decided to upgrade his home entertainment system. He asked me for my recommendations. I gave him my standard recommendation - spend the lions share of the budget on speakers. More importantly, I recommended speaker models which would work well in his room. I've seen his living room, and I know that due to it's size (very small) there's a unique set of requirements.
A few weeks later he told me about his new system. He'd spent the majority of the budget on a flat screen, then a Mac Mini as a source, and then an amplifier. The speakers were an afterthought; he bought a pair of Polks which were on clearance. Believe it or not, Polk has a few decent speakers. I personally own four Polk monitors which use the renowned Vifa ring radiator. My Polks are built like a tank. Unfortunately, my friend seemed to base his purchase decision on what was the biggest speaker he could get for the least money. So he wound up with these giant speakers in a tiny room. IIRC, they were $100 each.
A few weeks later he asked me about upgrading his amp. I told him that upgrading his amp was pointless; the problem was that his speakers were mediocre, and they were set up wrong. He ignored my advice, and bought an audiophile amplifier.
Right about now he's probably wondering if upgrading his RCA cables will make a difference.
Did I mention his source is a Mac Mini playing MP3s?
I hope this illustrates the sad state of hifi today. I'm even more cynical about it than Geddes. People in general simply couldn't tell the difference between a well-done stereo and a poor one. And if you asked them to pick one, they'd pick the one that was more distorted with too much bass and treble.
soongsc said:
Waveguides are a tough sell. When you first hear a system with one, it sounds "weird." The treble sounds as if it's attenuated. After a few hours your brain adjusts, then suddenly dome tweeters sound weird!
There's an explanation for this; the power response of a dome tweeter is hopelessly screwed up. Our brains have adjusted to accept this as the way that speakers should sound. But it's wrong.
Here's another anecdote. On Sunday, I messed up one of my contact lenses. I can still wear it, but there are fractures in the lens, which clouds my vision. When I first put the lens in, it was intolerable. My sense of depth was gone, and I was almost seasick from the lack of perception. But I had to wear it; I'm all but blind without my contacts.
Four hours later, I could barely notice anything wrong. My brain had compensated for the visual distortion in my contact lens. The queasiness and depth perception problems had gone away.
Our brains play a lot of tricks on us. When evaluating a speaker system, our ears are just one of many tools we can use to evaluate it. And our ears are extremely subjective.
There are a number of sad cases like the above, but I have friends who are not musicians and not audiophiles that picked out excellent sounding gear on their own. They then remembered it was a hobby of mine and asked me what I thought. So not everyone is hopeless and some can hear the difference in quality.
My one friend bought a McIntosh 6300 integrated, Totem speakers and a Bel Canto DAC. Granted he was probably guided by the dealer to buy some of it, but he bought it at various dealers and listen to a bunch of stuff. He heard Arcam and NAD gear as well as much higher priced stuff but said that the McIntosh sounded better than the cheaper stuff and close enough to the expensive stuff. He wasn't guided by name brand as he didn't know any of them.
He is not a lone case. But all of this is anecdotal as was the other example. Most people are a product of their environment and their environment hasn't exactly been inundated with good sound.
My one friend bought a McIntosh 6300 integrated, Totem speakers and a Bel Canto DAC. Granted he was probably guided by the dealer to buy some of it, but he bought it at various dealers and listen to a bunch of stuff. He heard Arcam and NAD gear as well as much higher priced stuff but said that the McIntosh sounded better than the cheaper stuff and close enough to the expensive stuff. He wasn't guided by name brand as he didn't know any of them.
He is not a lone case. But all of this is anecdotal as was the other example. Most people are a product of their environment and their environment hasn't exactly been inundated with good sound.
I can relate to what you are describing. But I think that anything in the path of a traveling wave sort of softens the sound. I won't know unless I've listened. Out of the various speakers I've listend to, there are very few that I enjoyed, even fewer I would pay the price for. Hope to get a chance listen to the Summa's here. Maybe sombody will bring them to the high end show here around July/August?Patrick Bateman said:
"Patricks" point is more than academic and anecdotal, it points to the root of the problem. People adapt themselves to the errors in what they have come to experience and these errors become their "norm". This is the core of the absurdity that "listening" is the only true final judgement since the subjective basis has become biased towards that flawed "norm".
I learned this at the RMAF when people almost universaly found my speakers to be bland and lifeless, while I found virtually everything else at the show to be harsh and unlistenable.
As long as people accept the "listening experience" as inviolate and absolute, improvement towards accuracy or reality cannot happen. Its only when you adapt my approach of measureing and improving the measurements and then adapting yourself to those improvements that you can find truth in reproduction.
It is truely unfortunate that the reality is that, as listeners, humans are hopelessly flawed.
I learned this at the RMAF when people almost universaly found my speakers to be bland and lifeless, while I found virtually everything else at the show to be harsh and unlistenable.
As long as people accept the "listening experience" as inviolate and absolute, improvement towards accuracy or reality cannot happen. Its only when you adapt my approach of measureing and improving the measurements and then adapting yourself to those improvements that you can find truth in reproduction.
It is truely unfortunate that the reality is that, as listeners, humans are hopelessly flawed.
gedlee said:
There's no mistake about it, your mind will play tricks on you. In my opinion, there is also a correlation between the dopamine response in your brain and your opinion of a loudspeaker. In a nutshell, if you have two speakers that are equal, the one which is new and unique will sound better due to the dopamine response in your brain. Even if they are equal, you will perceive one as "better." I believe this explains why "audiophiles" ten to replace their equipment obsessively. The novelty of new gear can't be ignored. This has nothing to do with waveguides, so I started a seperate thread.:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=120101
Dry and lifelessness of playback is generally due to lack of detail or masking of the ambient reflections that should be in the recording. A few years ago, someone commented that he could not here much treble in my speakers even through they measured quit well, and should have a bit too much treble. However, as I gradually tamed the driver, the trebles came out. Not much change in the response, but reduced some peaks above 10KHz, and improved the CSD. This is also when absolute polarity started to become more obvious. But this is just my experience.
How do you define detail?soongsc said:
Lifelessness can certainly be perceived if you've been listening to a speaker that produces high levels of distortion and then listen to a speaker with comparatively low levels of distortion. That is one inarguable cause of "dry sound".
Normally, if a speaker system is clean but produces good detail, from a listeing point of view, I hear a slight echo to the original sound that suggests performance in a room larger than the one I am listening in. The XLO test CD has a passage where keith demonstrates differences based on performer location versus mic location. I also have a CD that contains live unedited recording of a concert that I attended. Cymbals and brush drums are also a good reference if you have experienced live, unamplified performance with these instruments; the type of music like Jazz and the Pawn Shop for example can are good to demonstrate this. I listen to the trailing timbre for a coherent decay which sounds very nice if you have been to a quiet place that plays this kind of music.454Casull said:
We are drifting OT here.
I think a properly designed wave guide will clean up the waves and provide more focus in music reproduction. But this is only one aspect in sound reproduction.
roses
I think people that play and do music recognize better systems when to them known song and recording is being played. they store memory about it like we do with all our records and songs. But we listen with ears full on everything (soundstage, timbre, mometum details and we seek through strings and bodies of instruments like a pai of big lens, hence the enthusiasm when we hear a good horn system, enhancing everything) and remember everything or as much as possible from a recording. Not music izself as a whole, but recording, a record of everything that is a part of the whole but is note the one. Musician hears music and recognized better systems when he is better fooled that these is nearest to the true that he thought he knew from his prevous listenings on other systems. But he hears the whole not parts pu together. Nevermind the soundstage. They are never so much fooled to it as we are.
And second, the truth is usually not something ( in most people´s lives, also a lot of scientists included that I spoke with and read from) that people are oriented to. people like to be carried away with what have been served to them. To see and hear is to explore unconditionally. But then again, you start not to listen to records...
I think people that play and do music recognize better systems when to them known song and recording is being played. they store memory about it like we do with all our records and songs. But we listen with ears full on everything (soundstage, timbre, mometum details and we seek through strings and bodies of instruments like a pai of big lens, hence the enthusiasm when we hear a good horn system, enhancing everything) and remember everything or as much as possible from a recording. Not music izself as a whole, but recording, a record of everything that is a part of the whole but is note the one. Musician hears music and recognized better systems when he is better fooled that these is nearest to the true that he thought he knew from his prevous listenings on other systems. But he hears the whole not parts pu together. Nevermind the soundstage. They are never so much fooled to it as we are.
And second, the truth is usually not something ( in most people´s lives, also a lot of scientists included that I spoke with and read from) that people are oriented to. people like to be carried away with what have been served to them. To see and hear is to explore unconditionally. But then again, you start not to listen to records...
Re: roses
My experince has been the opposite. I know several professional musicians and they are terrible evaluators of audio systems. They only hear the performance not the reproduction. They can't seperate "how the piece is played" from "how it sounds". A very good friend of mine is a concert pianist (Dickran Atamian - look him up - his "Right of Spring" is the best piano piece I have ever heard). After several years of friendship he finally realized that he could not hear the flaws in his recordings that I would point out. He asked me to train him to listen. He did learn very fast when guided to listen past the performance and to realize that a good system won't make a bad performance any better. In fact he realized that it made it worse. He now hears the recording flaws in all of his work - I'm not sure if he is grateful or not!
My brother is a pro bass player. He is incapable of evaluating an audio reproduction system. He is also not interested in learning to and so he hasn't gotten any better at it.
T11 said:
My experince has been the opposite. I know several professional musicians and they are terrible evaluators of audio systems. They only hear the performance not the reproduction. They can't seperate "how the piece is played" from "how it sounds". A very good friend of mine is a concert pianist (Dickran Atamian - look him up - his "Right of Spring" is the best piano piece I have ever heard). After several years of friendship he finally realized that he could not hear the flaws in his recordings that I would point out. He asked me to train him to listen. He did learn very fast when guided to listen past the performance and to realize that a good system won't make a bad performance any better. In fact he realized that it made it worse. He now hears the recording flaws in all of his work - I'm not sure if he is grateful or not!
My brother is a pro bass player. He is incapable of evaluating an audio reproduction system. He is also not interested in learning to and so he hasn't gotten any better at it.
yes
yes. they do not hear parts of reproduction but they would recognize the better then rest. they would certainly point to the one that is closer to the truth then rest of them (comparing systems?, maybe...). Anyway on last blind test on the show I contested severeal years ago, people prefered NAD system upon other high end (including me, ups...) that had more detail and clearer sound to the whole of the NAD presentation. Whole I think is synergy somehow...
good night folks.
yes. they do not hear parts of reproduction but they would recognize the better then rest. they would certainly point to the one that is closer to the truth then rest of them (comparing systems?, maybe...). Anyway on last blind test on the show I contested severeal years ago, people prefered NAD system upon other high end (including me, ups...) that had more detail and clearer sound to the whole of the NAD presentation. Whole I think is synergy somehow...
good night folks.
Man are you in the wrong business. There are a lot of fields you could get your "one true way" on, but telling musicians they don't know how music should sound has got to be the biggest waste of time I've heard of in a long while. I look forward to your next book containing a mathematical proof that Botticelli is the only painter anyone who's not an idiot should enjoy because his perspective grid is more accurate. MISSING THE POINT BY A MILE.
Well, I also know professional musician who is terrible evaluator of audio systems.
Musicians are surely sensitive enough to sounds, they just often ignore and focus on other thing - how the music is performed.
I also agree with gedlee that they tend to be extremely fast learner on audio stuff, because they are already "well equipped".
Of course, this is not to say ALL musicians are ignorant about audio.
Musicians are surely sensitive enough to sounds, they just often ignore and focus on other thing - how the music is performed.
I also agree with gedlee that they tend to be extremely fast learner on audio stuff, because they are already "well equipped".
Of course, this is not to say ALL musicians are ignorant about audio.
Poptart, it seems you're the one missing the point. Artistic quality is not the same as quality of reproduction, and Earl is into reproducing the painter's warped perspective with high fidelity, not into creating it in the first place. I also had experiences with musicians that gave little thought about the quality of the audio system (in part because they never *expected* the thing to sound anywhere close to real BTW, this should also not be forgotten).
But it gets worse. An experienced violin maker friend of mine claims many musicians aren't very good either in judging the quality of a violin (!).
It's the difference between the toolmaker or the instrument maker, and the artist who's using it. The priorities are not always the same.
But it gets worse. An experienced violin maker friend of mine claims many musicians aren't very good either in judging the quality of a violin (!).
It's the difference between the toolmaker or the instrument maker, and the artist who's using it. The priorities are not always the same.
poptart said:
Expecting a musician to know the first thing about sound reproduction is like expecting a chef to know how to build a stove.
My uncle's entire family is in the business of music, and I've always been blown away by the crummy quality of their stereos, not to mention the sound reinforcement gear in the music venue which they own.
Patrick Bateman said:
Patrick - my point was perhaps slightly different. Musicians tend to hear the performance not the reproduction errors. But you make a good point.
Looks to me like your other thread was highjacked by the "why OB is best" group.
Proof by analogy is of course no proof at all, but my point wasn't about reproduction, it's the music. Expecting musicians to know how music should sound is completely reasonable, nothing like expecting them to design a stove or design anything at all. I read Earl's comment to mean he's put musicians in front of some speakers and the foolhardy players couldn't chose the speaker his measurements point to as being superior. To him that shows they're poor judges of how music should sound, but why do you make speakers in the first place? If it's not to give a human being pleasure while listening to music then do the listeners of the world a favor and move on to designing spectrum analyzers. I'm not saying we should throw measurement out the door and make speakers "by ear" but I disagree with the implication that the highest goal is to make the speaker "right" independent of unscientific things like human enjoyment. If people don't pick it in a blind test we can double check the model or measurement, but the real problem is obviously the world and they're going to have to retrain themselves to listen "correctly" to finally recognize the genius they've been missing? the ego...
By Earl's "there's accurate and then there's everything else" logic and his choice of the sound reaching the recording engineer's ears as the unimpeachable moment in time that needs to be reproduced, he should be making copies of the exact studio monitors the recording engineer had on his desk at mix down.