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Talk but not walk?

Hi Guys

This isn't meant to start a fight, but it is important to on lookers. As a qualifier, I have my own audio forum where we report on audio issues as we empirically test them. It helps us short cut on theories and developing methods of listening. We have a wide range of systems and they are all over the world adding their experiences to the mix. Some are engineers, some are artist and others are audiophiles both new and old. One question I am almost always asked while I am visiting other forums, from some of my members and also members of the forum I am visiting is, why do so many HEA hobbyist talk theory without any, or very limited, empirical testing or experience?

I have been around empirical testing labs since I was a kid, and one thing that is certain is, you can always tell if someone is talking without walking. Right now on this forum there are easily 20 threads going on where folks are talking theory and there is absolutely no doubt to any of us who have actually done the testing needed, that the guy talking has never done the actual empirical testing themselves. I've seen this happen with HEA reviewers and designers and a ton of hobbyist. My question is this, why?

You would think that this hobby would be about listening and experience, so why are there so many myths created and why, in this hobby in particular, do people claim they know something without ever experimenting or being part of a team of empirical science folks. It's not that hard to setup a real empirical testing ground, so why don't we see this happen?

I'm not asking for peoples credentials, and I'm not asking to be trolled, I'm simply asking why talk and not walk? In many ways HEA is on pause while the rest of audio innovation is moving forward. I'm also not asking you guys to defend HEA, we've all heard it been there done it. What I'm asking is a very simple question in a hobby that is suppose to be based on "doing", why fake it?

thanks, be polite

Michael Green

www.michaelgreenaudio.net


128x128michaelgreenaudio
glupson
7,842 posts
 
bdp24,

I got it. For some reason, I missed it before despite carefully looking for it twice. Well, what can I say in my defense? Nothing.

I agree with your general idea, but it is from the viewpoint of "music is the reason" while I have a feeling that many people are really in it to play with their toys. The music becomes an excuse. I see it as LEGO for adults, in some way. It just happens to be with equipment that reproduces sounds, but it could be anything else. The goal is to play with it and not necessarily to play it. I think those are two different groups of owners of a little bit pricier/more sophisticated equipment. One that buys it because it simply sounds better while they play music and the other one that is in it for building, rebuilding, outsmarting other hobbyists (just look at this thread), etc. I feel that many people from the second group convinced themselves that they are in it for music, while they really enjoy the "construction" part of their activity.

Look at this thread, or many others for that matter, and you will see how much time and effort people put in chasing something by trying new things. For example, I was really curious what "tuning" would encompass. I came out with a conclusion that it is a fluid process that, if you believed in it, you would have to do, more or less, every day. That would require focus on what has been achieved with certain move and then waiting for it to "settle"/"burn in"/whatever else. From what I gathered, the time would be dedicated to changing/improving sound which just seems too much work and too little play to me. I tend to turn the equipment on and leave it playing until I go to sleep. Building was just to get to the point when sound is satisfactory enough not to ask for more tinkering. It could be better, but what the heck. I have no time for listening carefully for a week to figure out if some compound placed on top of my amplifier would change the sound for better. In fact, now when I think about it, it would probably obstruct the airflow and first page of instructions says not to do so.

You seem to fall into the first of my two groups. People who have a system to listen to music on. It is not a hobby, I agree. Other group is not less valid and, I think, they are just as happy with their game. It is a hobby and it happens to use same tools as yours and mine.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
kosst_amojan
This last page of snake oilers vociferously debating the merits of their oils has felt to me like watching transvestites bicker about which one has the better fake tits.

>>>>>There goes costco_emoji looking in the mirror again. Tsk, tsk 

Get a load of the vocabulary on that transvestite! 💃

michaelgreenaudio's avatar
michaelgreenaudio OP
1,019 posts
 

Hi Glupson

Thanks for your recent questions.

"I get the temperature part, but am surprised by humidity statement. How can brass be more affected by humidity than wood?"

I think that the audio industry (hobbyist included) would do themselves a favor taking a course that explains and has lab work on the Fundamental Forces. It’s a lot easier to learn the long versions of this stuff rather than discussing the short versions on audio forums when so many are trying to one up each other. I also think I shouldn’t have pushed the wrong button when I went to post my longer answer a few moments ago LOL

Oh well, my post was about the history of my discoveries of when I started to hear problems with the Audiopoint and what my process was in my own evolution of designing the cone and other important tools. I can get back to that version anytime but here’s a shorter one, sorry.

About a year into my distributing of the Audiopoint is when I first started to be bugged by certain problems. Once I started hearing it I began to think Yikes, this isn’t good but no one was complaining so the panic didn’t set in (yet). I’m like that with my audio. Once I hear it, and hear it repeated, it becomes that thorn in my listening side. This is what brought me to ditching HEA chassis designs and a host of audio product designs.

HEA products for the most part are way over built and very cramped. Setting a big transformer down inside of a metal box is crazy, yet a whole segment of this industry did it. When you set that big field creator down inside of a box of chargeable parts your making a landmine of problems.

While dealing with what I was hearing with the Audiopoint I found a few interesting facts. One the cone is directional, two the cone is a conduit for fields and three the cone was very reactive to environment conditions. Later my friends from Conn and King instruments were like Duh where have you been lol.

"I can imagine some oxidation taking place and changing properties, although I would expect that to be a relatively slow process."

Glupson take your thought there a step further. Materials are what? Programable. Metals do what? Attract fields, reject fields, reflect fields, pass fields’ info and be charged by fields. Listen to your system when it is very dry, then, compare it to the sound when it’s raining outside. It’s not just the humidity but the....charge in the environment that changes.

"Wood, on the other hand, swells and what not, when exposed to the water/humidity and effects I have seen so far can appear overnight, if not sooner."

Same with metal.

"Is there a secret in wood processing. painting, or something else, that makes wood less susceptible to humidity exposure than brass?"

I don’t think it’s a matter of less or more but a matter of what happens to your sound.

If you take the time and carefully listen to your system you will hear it go through four main listening cycles every day. You as an object go through these same cycles. You as an object with a brain and live body....you get what I mean. listening is a moving target not a fixed snapshot. the guys who come up and say their system always sound the same, need to take up golf or something else other than audiophile listening cause there’s not a truthful guy on the planet who has not been a part of system change, and the continuum of sound. It’s not a fixed quantity from us as humans or our systems sitting on a revolving planet in a moving system. It’s just kind of goofy trying to sort through half baked theories. Fun as it might be for some, stretching their egos to the max trying to gain a following, there’s talk and then there’s walk. And walk is motion.

Michael Green

Post removed 
glupson
7,842 posts
 
Michael Green,

Now I am closer to some attempt at acceptance of brass being more responsive to humidity than wood, but not by much.

I can imagine metal being charged and that having some impact. Not that I completely understand, but that may be due to my limitations and I can see that someone could make a case for it.

However, metal (in our case brass) swelling and changing more than wood due to humidity is a little bit harder to grasp after a few decades of non-scientific experience with both. I mean, I have not done any experiment, controlled or not controlled, to measure outcomes of humidity exposure. Still, I do have anecdotal evidence to the contrary. I have had old wood windows swell after an evening shower enough to be much harder to open. I have never experienced anything similar with my cars, bicycles (that sucked every time, but because of a wet seat and slippery roads), or anything else made of metal I left in the rain or outside on a humid day. Cars always seemed to retain their size. Of course, I did not measure them so I cannot claim I am 100% sure, but still. I will leave it at that.

Even I agree that my system sounds different throughout the day. I do not give it much thought of why it is so, but it is so to my ears and I live with it. I, kind of, assign it to reaching the optimal temperature for whatever it is doing. It sounds better after a while, but I can tolerate it from the beginning.

I doubt many people would contest the claim that transformers placed in the box with other electronic parts can have some (presumably negative) effect on the function of those parts and, consequently, the final sound. The real reason they are placed in there is a very simple compromise. Sellers would lose 80% (I am making that number up, but I think it may be close to correct) of customers if they did not offer a cosmetically acceptable solution. Most of the people, even those who are willing to shell out many thousands of dollars for an amplifier, do not prefer to have too many wires and boxes laying around. For some, it is plain impossible due to children, pets, husbands, wives, design of the room, whatever. Why that simple fact always gets ignored, not only by you, is beyond me. From what I understand, manufacturers try to compromise by isolating transformers as much as they can. It may not be perfect, though. I am sure you know much more about that than I ever will.
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