John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

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#44,561
gpapag said:
Are we on a high end thread?
They are all a bargain.
How many do I need for my Bentley?

George
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You might want to consider an entirely lacquer themed interior.

We gave up finding off the shelf capacitors, and Mr Teramoto came up with his magic. Urushi finished capacitors. He needs to treat them one by one with his hands. Urushi material acts like poison ivy juice. If you touch them before it cured, you will remember it for life!
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#44,562
It is, in my opinion, for many of you to obsess on high end products, their cost and the nature of their construction, that I can honestly tell you that many high end products are expensive to produce, usually work better than much cheaper stuff, and are targeted, like a Bentley, to a group of people who are picky about visual aspects as much as performance aspects.
I am NOT one of these people, but I do design products for these types of people, and there is relatively little profit in it. It is mostly a labor of love of audio, and a way to support ourselves. To concern yourselves with this sort of thing, when you can just ignore it, is disconcerting.
 
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#44,563
john curl said:
It is, in my opinion, for many of you to obsess on high end products, their cost and the nature of their construction, that I can honestly tell you that many high end products are expensive to produce, usually work better than much cheaper stuff, and are targeted, like a Bentley, to a group of people who are picky about visual aspects as much as performance aspects.
I am NOT one of these people, but I do design products for these types of people, and there is relatively little profit in it. It is mostly a labor of love of audio, and a way to support ourselves. To concern yourselves with this sort of thing, when you can just ignore it, is disconcerting.
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🙂 😎
 
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#44,565
john curl said:
It is, in my opinion, for many of you to obsess on high end products, their cost and the nature of their construction, that I can honestly tell you that many high end products are expensive to produce, usually work better than much cheaper stuff, and are targeted, like a Bentley, to a group of people who are picky about visual aspects as much as performance aspects.
I am NOT one of these people, but I do design products for these types of people, and there is relatively little profit in it. It is mostly a labor of love of audio, and a way to support ourselves. To concern yourselves with this sort of thing, when you can just ignore it, is disconcerting.
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Bybee being the exception?
 
#44,567
john curl said:
It is, in my opinion, for many of you to obsess on high end products
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Chris Hornbeck said:
It's toys for boys. If money is spent on a camera, or a firearm, or an airplane, nobody bats an eye. Why all the commotion over home sound equipment? Sour grapes?

Thanks,
Chris
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Diy territory: The love for audio for me and the pickiness for performance aspects when it comes to speaker drivers is to read and understand as much as feasible of the physical aspects and then exercise modifying affordable units, documenting process steps and results as well as listening -ear to the unit- for progress in sound clarity. Experience and understanding is thus gained. (*)

There are many ways cones can be modified for achieving better mid and hf reproduction. The price of reduced efficiency is acceptable for home use.

There are many participants at the speakers section of our site who have immense knowledge and experience on cones and motors. It happens that they all are willing to explain on physical and technical grounds the reason they prefer a unit or the reason they modify a unit.

I know what it takes to better a speaker and I do not underestimate the effort put on it.
When I mention a product with a ridiculous high price, it is that this and the way it is marketed adds nothing to the technical knowledge of a diyer. One more item made by a guru with a secret recipe (or so the marketing people promote). Shame!

George

(*) When I can accept Callas voice through a 50Euro 12” woofer or Handel’s Messsiah choir through a 10” unit, I know it’s time to stop modifying.🙂
 
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#44,568
I would be very curious to hear one of the Feastirx drivers, just to hear how they compare to other high efficiency full range units.

An AER driver I heard did sound more refined than the Lowthers I have heard and personally I do not think the Feastrix drivers will be just hyp but I cannot imagine that I would like the sound of whizzers however good they are.

But still . . . would love to hear a $20,000 driver 🙂
 
#44,572
Look everyone, I too like good explanations for improvements in audio products and accessories. However, I trust what I hear, rather than have to be 'sold' by some technical paper.
I, too, have designed loudspeakers, as well as a whole range of analog electronics. Still, I cannot necessarily design a 'successful' loudspeaker, better than the competition, yet I have gone through whole textbooks on loudspeaker design, and built a number of prototypes, myself.
Many here, like some of the responses on electronic xovers, are just as 'brainwashed' by your colleagues, as anyone else. This 24dB/octave xover has a LOUSY transient response, but it may have other good qualities. So what? Maybe this xover might not be the best in a specific setup. You have to keep open to alternate approaches, and not be pressured by your peers to one solution.
 
#44,574
john curl said:
It is, in my opinion, for many of you to obsess on high end products, their cost and the nature of their construction, that I can honestly tell you that many high end products are expensive to produce, usually work better than much cheaper stuff, and are targeted, like a Bentley, to a group of people who are picky about visual aspects as much as performance aspects.
I am NOT one of these people, but I do design products for these types of people, and there is relatively little profit in it. It is mostly a labor of love of audio, and a way to support ourselves. To concern yourselves with this sort of thing, when you can just ignore it, is disconcerting.
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:up: :up: ...
 
#44,575
mikelm said:
I would be very curious to hear one of the Feastirx drivers, just to hear how they compare to other high efficiency full range units.

An AER driver I heard did sound more refined than the Lowthers I have heard and personally I do not think the Feastrix drivers will be just hyp but I cannot imagine that I would like the sound of whizzers however good they are.

But still . . . would love to hear a $20,000 driver 🙂
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I liked one of the simple single driver setups at BA 2011 (some Fostex) but I was not over excited by the Lowthers at BA 2013. Still looking for horns that don't drive me out of the room.

I agree that it's hard to imagine the Feastrix being totally bogus.
 
#44,577
Number of Feastrix clips on YouTube, enough to demonstrate that the speakers are highly capable - which means that all the usual 'hifi' artifacts of the driving electronics are very clear and obvious ...

Edit: what a lot of the clips demonstrate, is that many people believe that audio should sound like 'hifi', that it should hit you over the head with the fact that it's there, bellowing at you. Whereas, it should almost be anonymous - it becomes part of the furniture, and you get a shock when you realise how loud it's been running at ...
 
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#44,579
a.wayne said:
You can tell from Uboob it's good .......... 🙄

Tip: ....:lock:

Limited bandwidth audio sounds good over limited bandwidth Boob ......... 🙂
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Foolishness comes in many forms, 😉 ... people are a little thick about YouTube -- I would be willing to put good money on being able to put up an audio track on YouTube, taken from a high quality digital master; then extract the audio from the downloaded YouTube clip and recreate the format from that, to match the original - then run a full DBT comparison between the original, and the 'mutilated', 🙂, YouTube regenerated version, with the people here, and have a 100% null result ...
 
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