Panoramic
I agree totally it is not dying we are more likely on the cusp of something really good, computer based audio that really is top notch, in fact most of it is already here, it is just that the consumer has yet to realise the potential.
DIY audio...long live DIY audio. Looking at forums rather than dying out the movement is just becoming more sophisticated and probably better informed.
The great thing with DIY is we can probably get far better results and a level of satisfaction without breaking the bank, if we are careful and sensible of course.
I don't really see a problem at all, rather just lots of great opportunities. But I would dearly love to see some hi end download services with a better range of musical tastes catered too, but I am sure it will happen.
I agree totally it is not dying we are more likely on the cusp of something really good, computer based audio that really is top notch, in fact most of it is already here, it is just that the consumer has yet to realise the potential.
DIY audio...long live DIY audio. Looking at forums rather than dying out the movement is just becoming more sophisticated and probably better informed.
The great thing with DIY is we can probably get far better results and a level of satisfaction without breaking the bank, if we are careful and sensible of course.
I don't really see a problem at all, rather just lots of great opportunities. But I would dearly love to see some hi end download services with a better range of musical tastes catered too, but I am sure it will happen.
I'm sorry, but you guys are just not talking reality here. If you are not aware that commercially Hi-Fi is dead, then where have you been? I'm in this biz and I hear it every day, and every day its worse. The market is going, going ... gone!
How long can we hide with our heads in the sand?
How long can we hide with our heads in the sand?
Gedlee
I am sorry to hear that the market is going going gone.
I suppose though that the focus of the market is changing,I just can't help but feel that once all those young things raised on MP3 start looking for something better they will be more than happy to pay for it.
It is I imagine true they will not be looking at traditional hifi as we have know it but rather PC based stuff.....but they will still need amps. DACs, speakers etc.
Why only last night my 23 yr daughter asked me how could she get really good sound from her PC and what did she need to buy.
I feel that when people really do hear something that sounds great they are then far more likely to want it, trouble is most young-uns haven't been exposed to the stuff other than some car hifi stuff...but most of that is boom boom stuff.
Maybe manufacturers need to change their marketing and products and then actively seek out the new younger audience, the rest of us are getting older. Most young people don't baulk at spending up on iPods etc, surely he who creates the ultimate iPod equavalent will find a market amoungst the well healed young wishing to impress their friends.
I am sorry to hear that the market is going going gone.
I suppose though that the focus of the market is changing,I just can't help but feel that once all those young things raised on MP3 start looking for something better they will be more than happy to pay for it.
It is I imagine true they will not be looking at traditional hifi as we have know it but rather PC based stuff.....but they will still need amps. DACs, speakers etc.
Why only last night my 23 yr daughter asked me how could she get really good sound from her PC and what did she need to buy.
I feel that when people really do hear something that sounds great they are then far more likely to want it, trouble is most young-uns haven't been exposed to the stuff other than some car hifi stuff...but most of that is boom boom stuff.
Maybe manufacturers need to change their marketing and products and then actively seek out the new younger audience, the rest of us are getting older. Most young people don't baulk at spending up on iPods etc, surely he who creates the ultimate iPod equavalent will find a market amoungst the well healed young wishing to impress their friends.
"How long can we hide with our heads in the sand?"
Hello Earl
I can understand what you are saying. The brick and motor places are closing and HT in a box and IPods are the big sellers but there is still hope. CD's getting compressed to death. My 2 kids care about quality sound and they are not the only ones out there.
From Wikipedia
Lp's could and did the capability to have usable frequency range higher than a CD. This is encoded material I doubt there was any real musical content above CD range.
"In the CD-4 system, the Quadraphonic audio was divided into Left and Right channels with the Left recorded on one groove wall and the Right on the other. The audio frequencies (20Hz to 15KHz), often referred to as the sum channel, would contain the addition of the Left Front plus Left Back signals in the Left channel and the addition of the Right Front plus the Right Back signals in the Right channel. Along with this audio, a separate 30KHz sub-carrier was recorded on each groove wall. The sub-carrier on each side carries the difference signal for that side. For the Left sub-carrier it would be Left Front minus Left Back and for the Right sub-carrier it would be the Right Front minus the Right Back. These audio signals were modulated onto the carriers using a special FM-PM-SSBFM (Frequency Modulation-Phase Modulation-Single Sideband Frequency Modulation) technique. This created an extended sub-carrier frequency range from 18KHz to 45KHz for the left and right channels. The algebraic addition and subtraction of the sum and difference signals would then yield compatible and discrete Quadraphonic playback. CD-4 was responsible for major improvements in phonograph technology including better compliance, lower distortion levels, pickup cartridges with a significantly higher frequency range, and new record compounds such as Q-540 which were highly anti-static. Also a direct byproduct of CD-4 technology was the Shibata line contact stylus. Invented by Dr. Norio Shibata, the Shibata stylus greatly reduced the contact mass of the stylus to the record groove which reduced wear over time and maintained the original LP's fidelity and frequency range for much longer than any standard contact stylus available at the time could."
Rob🙂
Hello Earl
I can understand what you are saying. The brick and motor places are closing and HT in a box and IPods are the big sellers but there is still hope. CD's getting compressed to death. My 2 kids care about quality sound and they are not the only ones out there.
From Wikipedia
Lp's could and did the capability to have usable frequency range higher than a CD. This is encoded material I doubt there was any real musical content above CD range.
"In the CD-4 system, the Quadraphonic audio was divided into Left and Right channels with the Left recorded on one groove wall and the Right on the other. The audio frequencies (20Hz to 15KHz), often referred to as the sum channel, would contain the addition of the Left Front plus Left Back signals in the Left channel and the addition of the Right Front plus the Right Back signals in the Right channel. Along with this audio, a separate 30KHz sub-carrier was recorded on each groove wall. The sub-carrier on each side carries the difference signal for that side. For the Left sub-carrier it would be Left Front minus Left Back and for the Right sub-carrier it would be the Right Front minus the Right Back. These audio signals were modulated onto the carriers using a special FM-PM-SSBFM (Frequency Modulation-Phase Modulation-Single Sideband Frequency Modulation) technique. This created an extended sub-carrier frequency range from 18KHz to 45KHz for the left and right channels. The algebraic addition and subtraction of the sum and difference signals would then yield compatible and discrete Quadraphonic playback. CD-4 was responsible for major improvements in phonograph technology including better compliance, lower distortion levels, pickup cartridges with a significantly higher frequency range, and new record compounds such as Q-540 which were highly anti-static. Also a direct byproduct of CD-4 technology was the Shibata line contact stylus. Invented by Dr. Norio Shibata, the Shibata stylus greatly reduced the contact mass of the stylus to the record groove which reduced wear over time and maintained the original LP's fidelity and frequency range for much longer than any standard contact stylus available at the time could."
Rob🙂
gedlee said:
HD TV and surround sound has stolen 2-channel sereo's thunder. This is a cyclical phenomenon. HiFi will come back in a big way once the novelty of wide panel HD TVs and HT in a box runs its course. Two channel stereo seems rather old school in comparison to HD TV and surround sound. Consider that you can buy a 1080P 42" TV for $1K. How can a a $1K pair of high quality 2-way speakers compete with that?
After HD TV becomes ho-hum, and it will at some point, then HiFi will make its move. It may take a couple of years for that to happen though. In the mean time the high end stereo business is tough!
Most TVs don't show the desired detail. They must be doing the same with those measurements that most do with audio.😀JimOfOakCreek said:
JimOfOakCreek said:
My take is quite different. Having experienced a home theater and multi-channel sound, two channel really is kind of bland and audio without video is not as exciting.
Two channel will become the medium of convenience, its already heading that way, and completion will only be a few years out. Two channel will tend towards popular music with mass market convenience appeal with virtually nothing left of the audiophile market. That market will move to multi-channel video just as I have already done.
As a niche, hi-end two channel will only become more and more expensive as fewer and fewer do it and the demand falls. There is no "in the mean time" - two channel will not "come back". Everyone in this business has come to that conclusion.
The problem with hi-fidelity is people expect their equipment to reproduce a live event.
If people accepted that their equipment only needs to be enjoyable to listen to and not "ultra real" then people would be a lot happier!
If people accepted that their equipment only needs to be enjoyable to listen to and not "ultra real" then people would be a lot happier!
bigwill said:
I have often made this same point, even in this thread I believe. Recreating the live event, both acoustically and emotionally is an unrealistic expectation. And I think that people dramtically discount the emotional side of the social experience of going to a concert.
But it is possible to "create" a moving listening experience if one is not fixated on "recreating" a particular live experience. For instance I have several concerts on DVD that I did not attend and yet I find that "attending" them in my home "created" an experince that was quite moving. In fact in many cases they have exceeded actual experinces at outside-of-my-home "live" events (those events being seriously degraded by extremely poor sound systems).
Almost without exception, the disappointed listener is one who wants the "auditorium" experience of classical music and nothing else will do. For those, I am afraid, the experince will always be a disappointment. One which will be blaimed on a whole array of hypothesized reasons.
gedlee said:
Which they will convince themselves and others can fixed by using all sorts of nonsense esoterica.
Re: Re: Problem - extinction ?
Hi-Fi has lived its boom and now its classic. Classic is never the talk of the day, but its always there, sometimes overlooked, sometimes revived when all new rages prove phony. Lets live the fringe!
panomaniac said:
gedlee said:
fizzard said:
Hi-Fi has lived its boom and now its classic. Classic is never the talk of the day, but its always there, sometimes overlooked, sometimes revived when all new rages prove phony. Lets live the fringe!
I couldn't agree more. Those of us raised on 2ch audio will always have a fondness for it, but I work with a lot of younger people and they consider sitting and listening to a 2ch system bizarre. As their standard is likely to become either convenience mode 2ch, ie iPods etc, or HT of whatever quality, except for a very rare few, 2ch will never be of interest to them. There will be no resurgence in it.gedlee said:
gedlee said:
To me HT is good for movies, when I want to listen to music, nothing beat stereo on a good stereo system (at this stage anyhow).
I rarely use my HT system nowadays and if I have to buy now, I would rather spend the same money that a good HT system cost, on a better stereo system, that in my opinion will outperform HT when listening to music (CD, LP and music DVD) and can do a very nice job with movies also.
I don't think it is unrealistic to try and recreate the live event, the closer I get to that the more I enjoy my listening. As you say, sometimes the sound at a live event can also be poor.
André
I don't want to prolong the "dipole vs. the rest" argument, but Earl is plain wrong when he wrote in post http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1466337#post1466337 that
Linkwitz' commerical designs (like the Beethovens) play extremely well at high SPLs. Likewise, the Orion will play very low bass into the 90db realm unassisted, and are specifically power limited to 60w per driver to keep the woofers from bottoming out. But the Orion drivers can handle significantly more power than the design is advertised for. They're packaged with 60wpc to keep enthusiastic amateurs who don't quite "get it" from blowing costly woofers.
If the Orion's dipole woofers are crossed over to subs at 50Hz and each driver is given upwards of 150w, the system will play undistorted past 110dbC where the distortion of our hearing mechanism starts to dominate. I can only hope that the "Summas" can play that loud and sound as good.
I know this to be true because my Orions can do this. On two occasions, I've played them at these levels after coming home from concerts at which I've measured 105-110db SPLs. The Orions were hands down *cleaner* than live in one case and as good in another (but for the kick of the kick drum, something I'm working on.) Obviously, the Orions have an easier job of it since my listening space is a little bit smaller than a 25,000 seat amphitheater or a 500 seat hall.
- Eric
Linkwitz' commerical designs (like the Beethovens) play extremely well at high SPLs. Likewise, the Orion will play very low bass into the 90db realm unassisted, and are specifically power limited to 60w per driver to keep the woofers from bottoming out. But the Orion drivers can handle significantly more power than the design is advertised for. They're packaged with 60wpc to keep enthusiastic amateurs who don't quite "get it" from blowing costly woofers.
If the Orion's dipole woofers are crossed over to subs at 50Hz and each driver is given upwards of 150w, the system will play undistorted past 110dbC where the distortion of our hearing mechanism starts to dominate. I can only hope that the "Summas" can play that loud and sound as good.
I know this to be true because my Orions can do this. On two occasions, I've played them at these levels after coming home from concerts at which I've measured 105-110db SPLs. The Orions were hands down *cleaner* than live in one case and as good in another (but for the kick of the kick drum, something I'm working on.) Obviously, the Orions have an easier job of it since my listening space is a little bit smaller than a 25,000 seat amphitheater or a 500 seat hall.
Obviously, you haven't been to his place when he's having fun with high SPLs!
- Eric
I think the nugget of truth in Lynn's comments early in this thread about adjusting to live music and then being let down by electronic reproduction lies in the differences heard, not that live music must be your reference. If you could listen to nothing but undistorted studio-crafted music and then turn on your radio or stereo, the learning experience would be the same.
What is heard, what this difference is, is simply distortion. There have been several posts about different distortion mechanisms and their relative importance in this thread. The audiophile can do well to identify each type of distortion, conjecture about the cause, and then experiment until locating and fixing the source of the distortion. Do this continually and you'll attain good sound. Pretty simple, but it requires some auditory education. Still, this is easier and less expensive than getting an EE degree and then spending a career working in audio engineering.
- Eric
What is heard, what this difference is, is simply distortion. There have been several posts about different distortion mechanisms and their relative importance in this thread. The audiophile can do well to identify each type of distortion, conjecture about the cause, and then experiment until locating and fixing the source of the distortion. Do this continually and you'll attain good sound. Pretty simple, but it requires some auditory education. Still, this is easier and less expensive than getting an EE degree and then spending a career working in audio engineering.
- Eric
Eric Weitzman said:
I was at his AES talk when he described the design criteria and he said his target was in the 90's dBs. I asked him about this being such a low target and he replied that he was not into high SPLs.
I will stand by my claims.
I've heard him demo VHSPL bass and he tells you he's not into it, while his Orion++ does VHSPL bass quite well. I wonder why the discrepancy.
Although you didn't state which "design criteria" you were discussing with him, Earl, nor at which talk, they were probably for the Orion, which include being small and spouse-acceptable in domestic living rooms and not being technically demanding on the owner. Most folks don't go after club-level bass. But your generalization doesn't apply to everything he has done and continues to do with his dipole designs, including the Orion++. As I wrote earlier (and reiterate) the Orion with 60w amps is only intended to go into the low 90s at low frequencies, but can play much louder cleanly when monopole below 50Hz, and in fact is cleaner at home than pro sound is live. Any further "proof" to convince you otherwise would trespass on personal conversations so I won't go there.
If you look at the specs for the drivers in the Orion and compare them to the 60w (recommended max) they're driven with, you might conclude they can play louder (with low distortion) than as promoted
- Eric
Although you didn't state which "design criteria" you were discussing with him, Earl, nor at which talk, they were probably for the Orion, which include being small and spouse-acceptable in domestic living rooms and not being technically demanding on the owner. Most folks don't go after club-level bass. But your generalization doesn't apply to everything he has done and continues to do with his dipole designs, including the Orion++. As I wrote earlier (and reiterate) the Orion with 60w amps is only intended to go into the low 90s at low frequencies, but can play much louder cleanly when monopole below 50Hz, and in fact is cleaner at home than pro sound is live. Any further "proof" to convince you otherwise would trespass on personal conversations so I won't go there.
If you look at the specs for the drivers in the Orion and compare them to the 60w (recommended max) they're driven with, you might conclude they can play louder (with low distortion) than as promoted
- Eric
I'm sorry, but your claim that any piston driven tweeter can equal a compression driver for max SPL is simply not credible and as such I have to discount the entire discussion.
gedlee said:
I wonder where you'd find that I made that particular claim? And what has it to do with the topic anyways? Perhaps you can get higher (than necessary) SPL out of a given compression driver, but with more distortion. Wait, I'm letting you sucker me into a dead end distraction with your rhetorical twist...
Earl, Earl, Earl, if you can't handle being corrected about your misrepresentation of Linkwitz' designs and their capabilities, just make your point and let it go. You're not at all convincing that the Orion++ will be blown away by anything at high SPLs, including your marvels, because I've compared them to the real thing at very high realistic SPL and know the truth.
- Eric
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