Your Side by Side Experience With Best Vintage vs Newer Expensive Hi Tech Speakers

@michaelgreenaudio I too am curious about this tuning method that you reference. I am always open minded to any possibilities, and look forward to reading your posts, once posted. As a guitarist, I disagree somewhat on your comment on tuning being accurate in one room, and moving to another room makes the instrument sound out of tune (if I am understanding you correctly) I agree that an acoustic guitar will "sound" different, room to room, but not out of tune. I'm also curious about your drivers being tuned to the cabinet, AND the room. So, if a potential customer were to purchase your speakers, how do you determine the correct tuning methodology for that individuals room?

As for the original question from the OP, I have a little story about my vintage/modern comparison. Back in the mid seventies, as a budding young (but poor) audio enthusiast my first "decent" pair of speakers where the Altec Lansing Model 3's (don't laugh, I was just a kid). Now at that point in time the shop I was dealing with also had a pair of the Model 15's. For me at the time, they were my unattainable Holy Grail. Time marches on, and now decades later, and many different speakers, I am running a pair of Wilson Maxx 2's, and also have a set of Wilson Watt Puppies in reserve.. Recently I had an opportunity to purchase a pair of decent Altec Model 3's. I did so purely out of a sense of nostalgia. The same weekend I also found a pristine set of the Altec Model 15's. I just HAD to have them. Brought them home and built a pair of custom "pig-tails" for spade connecting, so as not to modify the stock binding posts on the 15's. Well, after listening for a while, my thoughts were; WOW !! These really sound awful !! LOL

Sorry for being so long winded. My Bad!!

Hi Eddy

I don’t think your long winded at all. I don’t know why some of these posts are so short lol.

In my studio, and up in the tunable studio I designed at SUNY, I use to give a demo to my classes that went like this. I would take one of the rooms and tune it up. The musician (we did this with a lot of different instruments) would then go into the room and tune his or her instrument in that room. In another room a few feet away I had it out of tune. I would have the musician then walk into the out of tune room and their instrument would go out of tune. I even did this in the bigger studio/hall. I would go through and tune up one half of the room, leaving the other half out of tune. Then I would have a student tap on his drum (tuned of course) they would walk from one side of the room to the other and you would hear the drum go out of pitch as soon as they got into the out of tune space and then back in tune when they walked and played back into the tuned area. This particular demo was pretty wild cause in this big room it was only a matter of maybe a foot from tuned to out of tune.

Here’s another cool one.

When I was doing some work with Slum Village in the Sound Lounge, folks would come by and we would do some interviews. One day Bubby Webb and a few others did a cool demo, I think it was for VH1. They had Mel (great singer) sing on the regular floor just off the main stage area. While she was singing she stood up on one of my vocal platforms, and you could hear her voice instantly jump into her chest. She would get on and off that platform while singing. Needless to say the TV guy freaked out. He called it a trick, then we had him do the same thing.

What type of guitars do you have?

yep the Tunable Speakers are pretty cool

I did a show in Frankfurt years ago. Dave’s speakers were in the room next to me, it was when I first came out with the Chameleon. About half way through the show I decided to do something interesting. I got the same recording Wilson was playing, and I told a bunch of guys I could tune my speaker to sound like the Wilson’s. Of course that got folks going. So I went over and listened in their room for a while, and then came over to my room and tuned them up as close as I could. I sold 15 pair that day. It was so fun that I did the same thing in Denmark. Only this time had B&W in the room next to me. B&W didn’t like it I don’t think. The Wilson gang is always cool. Dave’s got style.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Very interesting Michael. It would be cool to experience this first hand, and you're absolutely right about Dave (and Daryl, and all the others at Wilson I've had the pleasure of speaking with) They are classy folks, and always "there" for the customer. Just like all the good people at Bryston up here in Canada. As for the guitars, just way too many to list, although my only acoustic is a Martin D-45

Cheers

Vinny sorry if I’m getting off topic a little.

Eddy, you asked

"I’m also curious about your drivers being tuned to the cabinet, AND the room. So, if a potential customer were to purchase your speakers, how do you determine the correct tuning methodology for that individuals room?"

mg

Well, it depends how deep into tuning that guy or gal wants to go. Some folks get some of my stuff and use it to tune with, and some will even go as far as have me build or design a Tunable Room for them. I’m doing two rooms right now. My method comes with all the tools a person needs to make their sound how ever they want (within reason). There are some incredibly different ears out there. I have a forum where I help them get to that place. For some it’s pretty easy and for others it’s tough going, until they get the hang of things. I also do a lot of systems where the listener has their favorite components and I try to help them get the system to work well together. It takes a lot of getting to know the person cause it’s not my sound we’re going after it’s theirs. There are reviews about this when I use to go around and do the reviewers. One cool one you can look up is one I did with Bob Hodas for Widescreen review. That was kind of fun because he was tuning with his computer and I was there with my toys.

If you go to my website you will see a lot more obviously. There are a lot of variables in recording and through the playback stage as you know. What I’ve tried to do is make a tunable product (products) that gives the listener enough flexibility as it takes, if not I will design something custom for them. It’s a cool gig. Deciding what is correct is a big question in this hobby because the typical system setup only plays about 10% of the recorded code. That leaves a lot of recording to open up. One of the first things folks will mention as they start tuning is how big the soundstage gets. I mean we’re talking in some cases of the stage tripling over night. Once I get that stage open I start working with the listener to help them focus things in to a comfortable place for them. Then after they’ve been tuning for a while I show them how to make adjustments from recording to recording. It’s really up to how far they want to go, and how much adjusting they want to do.

I ask about the guitars cause I love to visit with luthiers. I spend a lot of time with instrument builders.

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net

Michael, I think you may have misunderstood my question.

You state: "I tune my drivers to my cabinet, and to whatever room they get used in"

If a customer want's your speakers, how is it possible to "tune" the drivers, as you state, to an unknown room?

Also, I'm not clear about what you are referencing in respect to "coding"

Cheers