Sean, thank you for the kind words, but I think you are more than capable of taking care of things here. You prove yourself here on Audiogon on a day in - day out basis. You demonstrate knowledge, experience, curiosity, truth, and passion when it comes to audio. And, you probably know that that statement right there is the highest praise I can ever bestow on anyone here on Audiogon.
Incidentally, my initial impressions of the TL speakers I have right now are incredibly favorable. While "only" sporting an 8" woofer, the size of the cabinet is pretty large, and I am quite impressed with the bass response. In my room, it is probably as good as things can get. I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that a room will support a certain level of low frequency response, and again, I believe these speakers are putting out as much as the room will allow.
The AtmaSpheres are having no trouble at all with these speakers. Despite the "conventional wisdom" that TL drops efficiency by about 3 db, these relatively unmuscular amps are driving them to very high sound pressure levels, with explosive dynamics, without any strain whatsoever. I now subscribe to the other theory, that a TL actully presents a kind load to an amplifier. OTL amps do not normally take a hold of a woofer's voice coil, but in this circumstance, I have no complaints. In fact, the sensitivity is quite close to my Coincidents, which are incredibly easy to drive. My Line Tunnel Fried A/6 are not as efficient as these.
I will nevertheless try other amplifiers just to see what more they coax out of these speakers.
Overall, I am now more convinced that TL bass is the best one can get. There is a unique rightness to it, in addition to the weight and thunder. However, I will say that the Coincident Troubass subs(with a larger woofer, in a good sized cabinet) that I have do not take a backseat to these speaker's low frequencies, and I wonder if the added complexity of a TL is required. Perhaps in a different room the superiority of this design would be allowed to come forward, if it is there.
So, in the end, I think that while the TL reigns supreme, one should see if the design merits a purchase for them. |
Sean, I DID read Dickason a decade ago, and contributed to the design of a couple of vented 2 ways with two pro designers. We ended up with a VERY fast and tight 2 way with a 35Hz vent. Was supposed to be an OE for Roland Digital Pianos, but never got past the first 40 pair or so.
The bottom end alignment was done by an old student of Peter Walker, using a dandy Peerless $40 woofer. I don't remember the electrical particulars, but it was a very quick, non-bloated design that was VERY dynamic, and impressed the handful of dealers I demo'd it to on the East Coast. It was a bit lean in free-space, so had to revoice it (damp the tweeter), but with a bit of normal boundary support (atop a piano or nearer a front wall) it sounded great for a modest 2-way with $300/pr total manufacturing cost....
Duke, you're absolutely correct...building a fast, damped, efficient vented design isn't that hard, although you're correct, Sean, it isn't done often due to market motivations. And what's wrong with poor performance below 30-32 Hz? These, and other well-designed modest vented two and three-ways are for MUSIC, not helicopters and earthquakes! Your posts are voluminous and helpful in reciting the liturgy, but in so doing sometimes mask objectivity. We know what we hear...and how it measured.
Cheers. |
Ernie said: "Your posts are voluminous and helpful in reciting the liturgy, but in so doing sometimes mask objectivity. We know what we hear...and how it measured."
I guess that this is why "audio" will remain subjective forever. I know what i hear and know what i like. I'm sure that everyone else does too. The fact that what constitutes "poor sound" to me typically measures as such while others enjoy that sound makes the purchase of gear a personal decision, regardless of the facts involved. Knowing this, that's why i've stated many times over "buy what you like as you are the only one listening to it".
As a side note, there is gear that i like / is enjoyable to listen to even though it is highly "flavoured". Then again, i also realize this and would never consider such a presentation to be "accurate". Such a system would probably be owned and operated by a "music lover" more-so than an "audiophile". I don't think that either "label" is derogatory, they just signify different goals and listening preferences.
My comments were aimed at those that are interested in the "high end" reproduction of musical recordings i.e. those that seek both accuracy with musicality. Musicality by itself has many enjoyable flavours, but is only half the picture. If that is what someone prefers, so be it. I'm not here to tell them that they are wrong, i'm simply posting observations, comparing data and sharing a point of view. The fact that various points of view end up in debate is nothing new and is part of human nature.
I think that many folks have found themselves in one camp or the other, not by their own doing or ears, but by misguided suggestions from the press and marketing hype. Introducing facts into the equation may initially confuse and upset them, but in the long run, i was trying to help them become more informed and capable of making better long term decisions. After all, the more that you know about a subject, the more likely you are to be happy with the choices you make. Sean
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Sean, I have to agree with you. You are rowing against the current though, since audio is now firmly in the "subjectivist" camp where belief replaces facts. I keep reading more and more that flat frequency response in-room is not where it's at. I remember Thiel being slammed for that "flat in-room" thing. Dr. Toole has been slammed on numerous occasions for applying science to speaker design and his work, following that of Roy Allison, in taking the room into account in the design of speakers, has been ignored. The prices are insane, but most everyone thinks that more money means better sound. Who is the writer in Stereophile, not long ago, who opined that since microphones used in recording are not linear, why should the rest of the chain be. So what hobbyists actually want nowadays is to mix and match a bunch of equipment that colours the sound this way or that way and when they are either too poor to continue, fed up with incessant "upgrades" or have gained the peer group acceptance they crave, they declare their system "done" and move on to another hobby. It simply is boring to think in factual terms and have a decent speaker system that costs too little. Strangely enough, the myriad of speaker manufacturers (more rightly called assemblers IMHO) is based on the fact that speaker design is now pretty well formulaic and that building boxes to put drivers and x-overs in is not that hard a business to get into, so that what you have are coffin makers building speakers and going for high margins. Aerial seems to go one better: an outside company builds their cabinets to order. So now what you have are true assemblers who buy drivers from one company, cabinets from another, electronic components from another, put it all together and go to market asking 30K for a pair. |
Sean, you're right, but there's that hint of condescension in your post that just doesn't feel right to me, as I've always been an advocate of FFR, for example, and AM a musician, for example. But I won't belabor this....
Pbb, I agree too, but must remind us that the holy grail here is often a PERSONAL spectral tilt! Since many types of listeners have different preferences here, it's reasonable to expect that assembling components (especially transducers) into a room is not necessarily simply a matter of buying a bunch of flat-response nice products. A study done a while back (was it noted in Dickason? I forget) noted that the general public preferred a 2db/octave downward spectral tilt (THAT'S warm!), musicians preferred a 1db/octave roll, whereas audiophiles preferred a 0 to 0.5dB/octave roll. How these populations were matched for sex and age would be interesting to note, as the aging male audiophile loses sensitivity up top...so is there a compensaory preference here, or is it just that cleaner, high res equipment is more easily "acceptible" if the top octaves aren't rolled.
It's pretty clear that once speaker/room setup is completed, and electronic components are set up, we chase minor spectral flavorings in cables to attain our personal "tilt". Hence the common tendency to chase rolled-top cables that are not-so-mysteriously labelled as "smooth" or "fat-bottomed", or more musical (warmer tilt?).
That speaker manufacturers all have their "house" reference tilts that they prefer is no mystery. As long as the resultant sound of these boxes IN YOUR ROOM agrees with the manufacturer's voicers then success can be had without much secondary tweaking.
Being a Bostonian, I've followed Aeriel's history, and having briefly used the same cabinet maker as Kelly, and can attest to the difficulties he had with QA of the 10T bass cabinets. I remember seeing 10T cabs lined up, seeing the minor variations in each. Must've driven a technical design engineer like Michael nuts. I jokingly offered to consult with him on QA, but had enough of a hard time getting just 20 pair of my cabinets made consistently from Pine & Baker. That Aeriel was able to get a scandinavian high precision cabinet maker with state of the science CCM to manufacture nice complex cabinet clones for him is only a credit to their manufacturing excellence. I can't comment on Aeriel's price points...nor Michael Kelly's preferred spectral tilt, but I would expect that his design work is top notch, and perhaps Aeriel's speaker components are pretty tightly controlled, yielding reasonably matched pairs that are close to design reference. Such manufacturing precision is not just the realm of the high end, bien sure, as Boston, Snell, Revel et al have sucessfully controlled manufacturing processes tightly. Although I don't generally like the voicing of most Boston speakers (except the VR-MX surround), they DO take care to make quite nice, cloned tweeters that are much better than expected. Too bad they don't know how to implement them to my liking....
Sorry for this messy post...got interrupted by Ellen's matzoh pancakes! |
