Drubin: Why do you think that i've said that it is difficult to reference "box stock" speakers? The pickings are phenomenally slim. Even those that do some things "right" are "hurting" in other areas.
Bombaywalla: I don't doubt that Roy is capable of building a good speaker, i'm just not real familiar with anything that he makes. His input here has always come across as being both honest and intelligent. These are odd yet admirable traits for a product manufacturer on an audio forum. I guess that in itself speaks volumes about the way that he does things : )
Bigtee: I had subscribed to Hardesty's Audio Perfectionist for a time, but let my subcription run out. Quite honestly, I ran into problems downloading / printing it out. Richard was VERY good to work with though, making this less than trivial. I probably should renew my subscription as he at least has the "balls" to say what he thinks. I have to respect someone like that, even if i don't agree with them all the time.
If someone isn't familiar with Hardesty's work, i would suggest taking a look at the
"Watchdog" series of articles. Some of them are less relevent than others, but you'll at least get a feel for what he's capable of writing.
Duke: When i first heard some
CAR's, i thought that they sounded pretty good. They were somewhat "thrown" in a room with less than ideal placement and still managed to receive a standing ovation at an audio show. Given the less than stellar acoustics and lack of "hi-fi" installation, that says a LOT about a product to me.
With that in mind, i thought that the bass was slightly tubby sounding and that there was s slight dip in extreme upper mids / lower treble region. As mentioned though, the bass problem may have had to do with less than optimum placement and show conditions, etc... Given that i wasn't familiar with ANY of the gear being used at the time, i don't want to throw stones at John's work. From what i could tell, it was quite good.
Other than that, a shallow slope is great. Not only does this mean greater extension, it also equates to reduced phase shifts. My main concerns here would be the amplitude of the peak at resonance and the impedance at and near resonance. As you know, the bigger the peak that you have, the greater the oscillation. The greater the oscillation, the less control you have and the more ringing ringing. None of these are desirable traits. As far as impedance goes, the greater the peak, the less power transfer. The less power transfer, the less control. The less control, the poorer the sound. Both of these "problems" are common sore-spots with the mass majority of vented designs.
For others that are just joining us or would like to re-visit some very "informative" threads that discuss low frequency characteristics of various designs, try these links over at AA. The first one here involves Dan Wiggins of Adire Audio along with Bobby Palkovic of Merlin. Needless to say, i made a LOT of "new friends" on this one : )
sealed vs ventedHere's a post that i made almost five years ago about this same subject over at AA. It really doesn't cover any new ground, but simply shows that i've been relatively consistent in my stance for many years prior to the current uproar : )
deep and accurate bass means...There are several other threads that specifically deal with vents & Legacy's that also contain technical info. I didn't post links to those as there is one that demonstrates that Bose are superior products to Legacy's. I didn't want any of the Bose fans here to think that i was "on their side" though : ) Sean
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