It's not so simple with Altec. There was financial trouble, the brand was leveraged, then it was bought by Spark-O-Matic, then sold to someone else. So I wouldn't say that Altec really chose to sell it to its present owner. Whatever happened, it's a sad thing. It would be like Boeing being mis-managed, going out of business and losing its great name to a maker of toy airplanes.
Yes, not my thing to follow the fortunes of companies, and their names - just had a look at the Wikipedia entry for Altec -- a bit of a mess, and still thrashing around ...
Hmmm. In my experience 'ear ringing' is a product of bad sound...ie distortions, or peaks in frequency response, usually both.
IME a dead clean, reasonably flat system can go paint peelingly loud for extended period, and no ear ringing or ear bleeding.
Dan.
Dan, this is ringing in a good sense - if I'm around where there is reasonably continuous high level sound, especially with higher frequency stuff, my ears will send me warning signs, quick smart, to watch it, mate! I have zero desire to do any long term damage, so I back off mighty quickly these days ...
It all depends on the recording: a solo piano can be run at max. with zero issues - but if I tried that with Foo Fighters my ears would tell me game's over by the end of one track. Once too much compression has been applied the average energy hitting the hearing mechanism is more than it can safely tolerate, so it would be stupid to persist ...
Edit: But, of course it's fine to do the high level sound thing if you're moving around the house at the same time; you still get the impact of good sound without subjecting yourself to SPL overload ...
It all depends on the recording: a solo piano can be run at max. with zero issues - but if I tried that with Foo Fighters my ears would tell me game's over by the end of one track. Once too much compression has been applied the average energy hitting the hearing mechanism is more than it can safely tolerate, so it would be stupid to persist ...
Edit: But, of course it's fine to do the high level sound thing if you're moving around the house at the same time; you still get the impact of good sound without subjecting yourself to SPL overload ...
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A friend of mine at Barron Services is a musician, has a nice setup and asked me about this ringing one day. Explained as you have Fas, we talked a bit and he decided to see an ENT. The results was a hole in one eardrum, which resulted in a HD peak in the low HF range. He had mentioned this was something that he had since childhood, 10ish. I asked if he ever had his ears boxed. Yes 🙁
When he moved back to Huntsville, said they may be able to repair the fissure with teflon or something. Time for me to call him anyway 🙂
It's a well headed warning sign that is the limit, don't exceed it if you can.
If you can is like one day climbing out of the cockpit of a B-52H during a generation when they decided to do an engine test run. Crew chief pointed for me to stand directly under engine 3/4 left wing pod 2. With an absolutely obsurd look on my face questioning WTH, did as was told. 🙄
Was wearing viscoelastic foam ear plugs and a hard shell headsets, pressing as tightly to my skull as possible was so bloody LOUD that you could not hear yourself think! Bone conduction from hell, something like 135dB's of preposterous insanity. That's when you want to climb back up in the cockpit and crankup all 10 155's and irradiate that uncooth freak. Of course I didn't, just say'n 😀
When he moved back to Huntsville, said they may be able to repair the fissure with teflon or something. Time for me to call him anyway 🙂
It's a well headed warning sign that is the limit, don't exceed it if you can.
If you can is like one day climbing out of the cockpit of a B-52H during a generation when they decided to do an engine test run. Crew chief pointed for me to stand directly under engine 3/4 left wing pod 2. With an absolutely obsurd look on my face questioning WTH, did as was told. 🙄
Was wearing viscoelastic foam ear plugs and a hard shell headsets, pressing as tightly to my skull as possible was so bloody LOUD that you could not hear yourself think! Bone conduction from hell, something like 135dB's of preposterous insanity. That's when you want to climb back up in the cockpit and crankup all 10 155's and irradiate that uncooth freak. Of course I didn't, just say'n 😀
Yes, loud is loud. Last major excursion into that territory was standing about 20 feet away from a Chinese firework, a huge hanging tree of crackers. Was lit, and went on for about 5 minutes I reckon. Afterwards, enter the silent zone, it was like having a 2 foot thick stone wall between me and everything that made a sound. Took about an hour to recover, not something to do every day ...
A lot of systems that nominally go loud cleanly in fact attenuate or compress the higher frequencies the louder the volume, most PA systems do this to a huge degree. In fact they have to, intentionally or otherwise, or the people listening would go mad from the overload - and the proprietors would be hit with lawsuits left, right and centre from people suffering close to instantaneous hearing damage. That's why these systems always sound totally wrong from a distance, the spectral balance is completely out of whack ...
But if an audio system does work correctly those high frequencies are not diminished, the sound at decent volumes is very intense, and one's ears will start ringing quite rapidly ...
A lot of systems that nominally go loud cleanly in fact attenuate or compress the higher frequencies the louder the volume, most PA systems do this to a huge degree. In fact they have to, intentionally or otherwise, or the people listening would go mad from the overload - and the proprietors would be hit with lawsuits left, right and centre from people suffering close to instantaneous hearing damage. That's why these systems always sound totally wrong from a distance, the spectral balance is completely out of whack ...
But if an audio system does work correctly those high frequencies are not diminished, the sound at decent volumes is very intense, and one's ears will start ringing quite rapidly ...
I share that experience.
Never got ear ringing from a high-quality PA run within its abilities or my own stereo regardless of actual SPL reached but I get it almost immediately from lesser systems played loud.
Could be white noise since modern over-compressed recordings (those which hit 0dBFS regularly) can also induce ringing and clipping SS amps and 0dBFS do result in it being put out at high levels.
You seem to be changing your claim. Little trash pc speakers can't fill a house with clean sound, period, and giving up everything below100 is anything but high fidelity.
I don't think so... back in the '80's built 2 way mtm speakers that would fill a house quite nicely, later I added a sub to complete. Yes it sounded well rounded after adding but none the less also very high end without.
Now if there was a hole in the middle or grossly lacking at the top, poor phase alignment, drivers offset the wrong way, badly crossed etc then I would agree.
Yes, they can. When I complained about the Alt.., whoops, sorry, the AeLy thing, it's because the package as is, is not up to scratch. Those monitors rely on wall wart power supplies or similar - which unless the whole package is extremely well engineered will never do do it, and for 10's of dollars how much can you get?
Sorry, below 100Hz is not necessary ... I've been playing a bit with a Zildjian clip sourced from YouTube - excellent quality, full range of frequencies going full strength to 20k - from the 1989 Buddy Rich Memorial event - a triple set of drumkits, having some fun ...
Had a look at the waveform, yes, there is material below 100Hz, but the majority lies in the 75-100Hz range - the guts of the bass is in the 100-200Hz area. Once fully warmed up the tiny h/k monitors do a nice job with these, in spite of the microscopic power supply - can run this at maximum volume, but like most systems they start to lose the high frequencies when pushed past a certain point ...
What I might do is a simple recording of these in full flight, from the far end of the house, to up close, and post it ...
Sorry, below 100Hz is not necessary ... I've been playing a bit with a Zildjian clip sourced from YouTube - excellent quality, full range of frequencies going full strength to 20k - from the 1989 Buddy Rich Memorial event - a triple set of drumkits, having some fun ...
Had a look at the waveform, yes, there is material below 100Hz, but the majority lies in the 75-100Hz range - the guts of the bass is in the 100-200Hz area. Once fully warmed up the tiny h/k monitors do a nice job with these, in spite of the microscopic power supply - can run this at maximum volume, but like most systems they start to lose the high frequencies when pushed past a certain point ...
What I might do is a simple recording of these in full flight, from the far end of the house, to up close, and post it ...
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Just goes to show the vast difference between people's expectations of a 'good enough' sounding hi-fi system!
I can't even enjoy my music system when I have my subwoofer turned off! (bass horn starts rolling off around 60-70hz).
I can't even enjoy my music system when I have my subwoofer turned off! (bass horn starts rolling off around 60-70hz).
I'm with you on this. It seems to me that it doesn't matter that the majority of programme material is in "the 100Hz to 200Hz area" because all that matters is that on some bass drum strike, all the audible cues are that you should have heard and felt a whopping great thump at 35Hz and you subconsciously feel short-changed that you didn't get it, prompting you to turn up the volume.
My system has huge, sealed 12" woofers and I am sure that these days I don't turn the overall volume up as high as I used to with slim floorstanders. The sound is so full-bodied and satisfying that it seems to me that any listening fatigue I used to get was partly from over-compensating for the lack of really gutsy bass.
Unless you've heard a hi fi system produce the really deep bass, cleanly, balanced and without any bleeding over into the rest of the spectrum, you can't actually understand what people are going on about. It isn't the same as turning up the bass control on an amp. On some recordings, it isn't even, necessarily, a "warm" sound, and "rumble" doesn't describe it. It's about a sense of deep, subterranean movement that smaller speakers don't give any hint of at all.
My system has huge, sealed 12" woofers and I am sure that these days I don't turn the overall volume up as high as I used to with slim floorstanders. The sound is so full-bodied and satisfying that it seems to me that any listening fatigue I used to get was partly from over-compensating for the lack of really gutsy bass.
Unless you've heard a hi fi system produce the really deep bass, cleanly, balanced and without any bleeding over into the rest of the spectrum, you can't actually understand what people are going on about. It isn't the same as turning up the bass control on an amp. On some recordings, it isn't even, necessarily, a "warm" sound, and "rumble" doesn't describe it. It's about a sense of deep, subterranean movement that smaller speakers don't give any hint of at all.
May be a live (amplified) music is a good reference.
But the above 2 posts made me want to make a new thread regarding how many of you are still having a faith in 2-way bookshelves...
I'm one who cannot part with my bookshelf. I have always thought that the main reason people want a bigger speaker is because the small one is not properly designed!!
For everyday listening, I want a relaxing sound, no stress, no strain, no big effort for the speaker to produce any instrument sound.
I prefer a system that doesn't make mistake, even if it doesn't do everything best (but I think it should do everything best except the low frequency which is unnatural and limited).
A big speaker can do many things better, but it makes "mistakes". Take for example where you want a good sleep and suddenly the system play a disturbing bass from a certain recording...
But it doesn't matter with the size as I believe a proper speaker MUST(!) fulfill one criteria, which applies to me at least. The speaker must be able to make me want to listen more and more and don't want to part with the sound.
Some of you might have this "noble" experience in the past but ignored it for some reasons.
I have a few such experience in the past. All with class-A amplifiers, either tube or mosfet. But mostly with fullrange speakers. There was no crossover-related fatigue as no crossovers have been used. But there WAS driver-related fatigue due to cone breakup, which is the price to pay.
With crossover-based speakers, we can tame any driver-related breakups, but the crossover-related issue is even worse than driver-related. But if we can make the multi-driver system to behave like a single driver in some senses, then we should be able to restore or achieve the previous noble experience of enjoying the music with SET+fullrange.
And making a big 3-way to behave like a single driver is just almost impossible...
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Isn't it amazing how peoples preferences vary?
I have that 'noble experience' every time I turn on my stereo which uses 4way active speakers driven by bipolar class AB amps but I had similar experiences with active ATCs and similar.
Every single driver speaker I have heard so far makes me want to switch the stereo off and the TV on. If the single driver uses a whizzer cone I'd pay cash to get out of the room quickly. The type of amp matters very little in those cases.
No amp I've ever heard was as fatiguing and annoying as single-driver, whizzer-coned speakers like Lowthers. Not even an ancient class B amp I've got for historical reasons.
Lowther is pretty good when they are on baffle, but on box definitely NO for me. I know some people do like the coloured sound from the folded horn. I had PM6As on acousta 115 for a year and finally sold them.
It's the treble from those whizzer cones that annoys me the most.
Lowthers might make decent mids once the whizzer is removed but they are way too expensive to bother trying.
Lowthers might make decent mids once the whizzer is removed but they are way too expensive to bother trying.
When you have others that must be considered in the house, deep bass during late night is a huge no no. You learn to sacrifice what is necessary to keep the peace.
My current project (work in progress) does exactly as you have mentioned, a deep full sounding bass without need for EQ. No boominess, simply clear and clean.
Now with this I also must keep the peace as we live in an apt. Neighbours whom love to blast you out at 6:30am. Another whom installs car stereos with that ungodlike pathetic BOOM BOOM bass which can be heard half mile away, and his crap HT system blowing you out with latenight hour explosions and their Oompa Loompa music leaves alot to be desired. I complain, and they get their a*se handed back to them by the office, if not by me personally (very few intimidate me, including the office, sheriffs dept etc 😉
With that said I will crank it up, minding when they are home so as to minimize conflict. Even the wife understands I will do this and fears that we will be the next complaint. It's happened before, shaking a three story condo complex to the foundation, albiet in the afternoon ie my happy hour 😀