Loudspeakers have we really made that much progress since the 1930s?
Since I have a slight grasp on the history or loudspeaker design. And what is possible with modern. I do wonder if we have really made that much progress. I have access to some of the most modern transducers and design equipment. I also have large collection of vintage. I tend to spend the most time listening to my 1930 Shearer horns. For they do most things a good bit better than even the most advanced loudspeakers available. And I am not the only one to think so I have had a good num of designers retailers etc give them a listen. Sure weak points of the past are audible. These designs were meant to cover frequency ranges at the time. So adding a tweeter moves them up to modern performance. To me the tweeter has shown the most advancement in transducers but not so much the rest. Sure things are smaller but they really do not sound close to the Shearer. http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/lmco/shearer.htm
I think if we go from one type of technology to another, it's impossible to say things got better or worse. If you want to talk giant auditorium speakers as the "standard of 1930's" then we have to compare them to the current giant theater speakers as well.
I think for movies, encoding, amplification and speakers are much better
than it used to be. Encoding alone is about 8 generations ahead of what
it was then. Single track optical, double track optical, Dolby
Surround, multi-track magnetic, Dolby Digital and SMTE locked DTS.
Standards for measurements, calibration and room
acoustics have also improved greatly.
Mind you, the movies haven't really gotten better though. :)
So apples to apples, yes, things have gotten much better, from stereo to television sound, living room sound, and car audio.
As I've said before though, some critical parts of speaker technology Have improved, but not every manufacturer cares to pay attention. Distortion, compression, thermal compression, and stored energy. Not everyone cares so not everyone bothers. I do. :)
Another new thing - laser trimmed resistors. Can be made accurate to a few ppm. The new (dare I say it?) Vishay VAR series is in a sonic class by itself.
Whart, you raise interesting points. As for the Quads, I have the new ones, highly modified.
Your experience mirrors mine in that the Quad 57’s sounded very good. What prevents the successors from sounding as musical is, in no particular order: - step up transformers - overpower protection circuits - high dielectric constant ceramic caps in the delay line
But they have wonderful bones - the basics are there!!!
So, what I did was: - change step ups to a Vanderveen toroidal design - built power amps which had V+ / V- rails which could not drive the new step up transformers into the protection range, and so could safely by-pass the protection circuits - daisy-chained aftermarket styrene caps to replace some ceramic caps, and built teflon caps to replace the others - bought multiple pairs of speakers.
The result is that each speaker: - has clean electronics - is minimally driven - and sounds glorious, from ppp to FFF.
I have played the system loud enough for the hearing challenged, on a few occasions. Volume is not realistically limited above 40Hz. So, for all practical purposes, volume is not an issue. Multiple speakers solves that.
Getting back to the OP:
Note that teflon caps were not available in 1930. The compound was not discovered until 1938. Applications took longer.
Transistors (hence low voltage circuits) were not available until the 50’s, and no-one knew how to use full complementary push-pull until at least a generation later. Not that many appear to know today, for that matter.
The plasma driver can be traced to 1900 and William Duddles singing arc The point I tried and failed to make is were is the modern equivalent in invention of something new not just refinement of very old tech to a the ribbon, dynamic, planar, electrostatic, plasma etc. Sure we have the 1950s bending wave transducer like Manger but I feel as far as design advancement we have greatly stagnated since the early spurt in designing for audio use. Pro or in home.
@mapman Really great memories of Ohm Fs. They were my first real audiophile speakers. I was just out of high school and $900 was a fortune then, but I had to have them. And I knew they were the best speakers in the world because Julian Hirsch told me so ;) The good old days.
Even though what you post is correct. The arguments that you make are really out of context compared to the title of the thread that you have created... Yes, there has been huge advancements. Yes the dome was invented around 1925, most of the technologies that we use were created between 1925 and 1930.
The Rice and Kellogg patents for the dome that your reference do not show a rim-driven, direct-radiator device designed for high frequencies, it wasn't until the late 1950's that the dome anywhere near how we know it started being used.... Rice and Kellogg experimented widely with all types of transducers.
There are too many to name above, but some excellent points made about advancements. Maybe I mis took the original point.
One of the best speakers that I had ever heard ... at least in high frequencies was the Hill Plasmatronic. Not sure is Hill designed the plasma driver or if it was from the early days, but there is a technology that I personally haven't seen before or since.
Johnk, by that standard there has been no improvement in wireless communication since Marconi in 1895? Just because something was invented doesn't mean it
Electrostatics and planars are all 1930s inventions. And for others small to me that sounds worse than many 1930s designs isn't a advancement in sound quality but a advancement in convenience and cost cutting etc. Think a few have missed my point and keep pointing to what they think is a modern idea but was created in the 1920-30s
There's no doubt that large theatre horn systems from the '30s are impractical for most homes. And many of the improvements cited have to do with smaller size to accommodate a home environment. (I remember early implementations of Villichur's acoustic suspension design, and they always sounded "wooly" and thick to my ears, even with powerful amplifiers). But, there is something magical about the combination of high quality horns and SET- an immediacy and "in the room" quality that is not squawky or ear-bleeding. Horns, at least in the States, were given short shrift by the hi-fi commentariat, and except for modern implementations (Avantgarde, Cessaro, Acapella) are still largely ignored as "fringe." (I think Art Dudley explores older horn gear, but I'm no longer a regular reader of hi-fi magazines). The biggest drawback I have found--using a modern implementation (Avantgarde) is the discontinuity between the horn midrange and dynamic woofers. The thing I like about them is the absence of any crossover on the midhorn. This helps, I think, give that speaker a quality that sounds less "reproduced." Interestingly, within the "fringe," field coils have made a comeback. No doubt these speakers and their more modern reinterpretations have their shortcomings. But, when I hear a big state of the art dynamic speaker system with multiple ranges of drivers, driven by large power amps, I also hear shortcomings- a loss of immediacy and inability to render musical "detail" at low output levels. I'm not advocating one school or another as "better"-anybody who has spent time around this stuff knows that there are firmly entrenched views based on listener experience and preference that I won't question. And, it's all trade-offs, isn't it? One strength gained in exchange for another weakness. I was an electrostat (Quad) listener for many decades, and lived with the shortcomings of the original Quad (a/k/a the '57) because of the purity of the midrange despite the speaker's enormous limitations. That was a tradeoff I was willing to make for a long time. Interesting comment from Terry9 that electrostats have improved too- but in sound quality or practical useability? I still have an old pair of Crosby-modded '63's and while they were a "better" speaker overall in terms of range, dynamic ability and size of image, I didn't think they had the magic of the original Quad in the midrange. Trying to get the '57 to work with ribbon tweeters and subwoofers at the time was a mess of incoherency-a glorious mess, but not something I could live with- I chose to listen to the Quads straight up, without supplementation of the bass or high frequencies. Sometimes, I think of the analogies to the automobile (i know it is a cliche in hi-fi to make this comparison but...). A modern car is better in every way than a pre-war car. Size, acceleration, stopping, handling, practicality, reliability and ready availability of parts. But, there's something profound about the experience of driving one of the old sports cars that connects you with the road like nothing else. I find the immediacy and visceral quality of horns to be very compelling and despite their size, they seem to get out of the way of the music. I'm no doubt within that segment of listeners that appreciates these things for their positives and is willing to ignore their limitations.
Well, efficiency without resorting to an electromagnet based speaker is one big issue compared to that design! :) Unplug them from the wall outlet and they are mute.
Horns themselves have improved quite a bit in terms of distortion, extension and coverage. I don't care how good those sounded, I have no place for them in my house.
But, are we talking home speakers or professional speakers? It's unfair to compare one to the other.
In particular, one big benefit a lot of well made auditorium size speakers still have is lack of compression, and especially thermally related compression, than their consumer counterparts.
BUT!! Here's another way to look at it. Find me a speaker from the 1930's that occupied no more than 2 square feet of floor space that sounds anywhere near as good as a current pair of Monitor Audio Silver floor standers.
ESL's. Walker's originals were very musical, but today's ESL's are cleaner, more dynamic, with an extra octave top and bottom. Magnepans are another innovation. Especially with cost-no-object aftermarket parts.
More sound out of smaller boxes. But only with more power. Also many new transducer technologies and innovations since then. Probably also way more really good ones to choose from with unique strengths and weaknesses.
Are they better? Not sure there is a ton of difference between the best then or now. Lots of advance in the source devices and amplifiers feeding them though.
Thanks johnk for the link in your OP. It led me to information I didn't know about the Hartsfield, probably the third super speaker system I encountered as a kid after the Electro Voice Patrician and Bozak Concert Grand in the early 50's. Can anyone imagine using a Paragon as a center speaker flanked by a pair of Hartsfields as was the original intention? There were a number of new "HiFi" shops in the area that a Venice canal rat like me could haunt -- in retrospect, I don't understand why they were always so accommodating. My 90's-era KEF Reference 107/2s continue to amaze me.
In terms of performance vintage speakers have stood the test of time far more so than motorcycles. That analogy doesn't work for me. Much larger gap between old vs modern motorcycles. 😊 Charles,
It seems that the primary objective during the area of classic vintage speakers was efficiency, faithful reproduction of human voice and acoustic instruments. Current emphasis seems to be accommodating high power amplifiers and ultra level detail and resolution. The resultant sound character reflects the different philosophical approaches. Charles,
Of course there's been progress, to deny it is foolish. The manufacturing process allows larger quantities to be made at a lower cost than was possible 75 years ago. That said, the best designs from that period are marvels of design/technology and sound amazing. But to use a motorcycle analogy, nobody uses a Vincent Black Shadow as their everyday ride.
Hello and thxs for replying. The dome was used in FC compression drivers in the 1920s Walter H. Schottky developed the very first ribbon loudspeaker that used diodes about 1925. Wool tar lead cork rubber high mass all were used back in the 1930s and are still considered advanced today and you will find those materials in some of the most costly designs today. As far as rare earths while very high gauss for size they mostly are aranged in arrays and have little mass, since most transducers today that use such are designed for high power this reduced mass over alnico or ferrites can cause thermal compression. This causes listening fatigue why many systems sound great for 30-40 mins then you had enough.
Hi John, I assume that you started this thread for the sake of discussion, you know the drill as much as anyone.... So, I'm not going deeply to leave room for discussion out there.... As you know math is math. That and how a loudspeaker works hasn't changed. What has changed is manufacturing technics, manufacturing tolerances, materials Used (Neo magnets, cast basket materials, cone materials, crossover parts etc.) Designs have improved some, (underhung magnets Domes, Ribbons and plenty of other things) .... So, plenty of improvements, but that doesn't mean that there weren't some very good things produced through the years. Every old speaker out there that I have worked on, I have been able to improve upon in some way with modern crossover parts or dampening material or coating a driver etc.
Fabulous. Unfortunately, many of the vintage horn systems are expensive, but compared to the cost of some uber gear today, may not be so crazy. I went to a modern horn/SET implementation a decade ago. I'm intrigued by the vintage stuff.
1930s the largest corps in the world spent significant resources on loudspeaker development. Today very small corps invest small sums reinventing much of what was designed then.
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