The mistake armchair speaker snobs make too often
Recently read the comments, briefly, on the Stereophile review of a very interesting speaker. I say it’s interesting because the designers put together two brands I really like together: Mundorf and Scanspeak. I use the same brands in my living room and love the results.
Unfortunately, using off-the-shelf drivers, no matter how well performing, immediately gets arm chair speaker critics, who can’t actually build speakers themselves, and wouldn’t like it if they could, trying to evaluate the speaker based on parts.
First, these critics are 100% never actually going to make a pair of speakers. They only buy name brands. Next, they don’t get how expensive it is to run a retail business.
A speaker maker has to sell a pair of speakers for at least 10x what the drivers cost. I’m sorry but the math of getting a speaker out the door, and getting a retailer to make space for it, plus service overhead, yada yada, means you simply cannot sell a speaker for parts cost. Same for everything on earth.
The last mistake, and this is a doozy, is that the same critics who insist on only custom, in-house drivers, are paying for even cheaper drivers!
I hope you are all sitting down, but big speaker brand names who make their drivers 100% in house sell the speakers for 20x or more of the actual driver cost.
Why do these same speaker snobs keep their mouth shut about name brands but try to take apart small time, efficient builders? Because they can. The biggest advantage that in-house drivers gives you is that the riff raft ( this is a joke on an old A'gon post which misspelled riff raff) stays silent. If you are sitting there pricing speakers out on parts cost, shut up and build something, then go sell it.
I am suprized that nobody mention Dr. Choueri BACCH filters... Nobody needs multi channels system... With the BACCH filter with no lost in TIMBRE , we can have complete holographic virtual room system representation for our SPECIFIC ears with a stereo system , speakers or/and headphones with no difference between speakers and headphone listening in perception... Think about it and inform yourself...😊
|
Quadraphonic died rapidly because the technology at the time could not do it without marked compromise in 2 channel performance. Today you can get a Jim Fosgate designed 4 channel upmixing matrix in a tube preamp (Black Ice F360) that markedly improves 2 channel performance, see this video: Even now that the technology exists to do "surround sound" well, people interested in the highest levels of performance regard it strictly as a theater stunt. "Surround sound" is so last decade, today surround sound has been superseded by immersive audio. News about this in the pro community can be seen here: https://www.mixonline.com/tag/atmos If you have decent ears I can prove to you in a very short period of time that a center channel detracts from 2 channel image formation at its highest level. I just had my hearing tested and its perfect so I’m "all ears". I own a fantastic two channel preamp ( the Sony TAZH1-ES) and if you look at the two channel measurements of my room (posted) it reproduces the two channel response curve I prefer in an exemplary fashion (maybe better than yours? Please post your in room FR to compare if you dare). Let me know your experiment and I’ll do it, then I’ll post an experiment for you as a follow up, fair? you still have to spend quite a bit more than most people are willing to spend. This is a deal breaker that actually proves my point, trying to create the illusion of a live music performance with just two speakers is a fools errand. See how the goal posts have moved and artists are now using the same tech I use in my media room to deliver immersive sound to every seat in 5000 seat venues (hint, it needs more than 2 speakers LOL). You can build a system to reproduce immersive audio in someones home for less than $10K. You can blow it out as a SOA system for far less than it takes to build a stereo SOA system (I think the OP has invested over 6 figures if I’m not mistaken and I can’t imagine the time it takes to DIY it): https://www.mixonline.com/live-sound/venues/on-the-cover-las-vegas-takes-immersive-live-part-1
|
Activated charcoal bass filtering? Exactly how are you implementing this? @kota1 , I think my definition of imaging is different than Mr Clearmountain's. With what he is trying to achieve he is correct. A center channel will improve the results. It will provide the best two dimensional image for the largest number of people (locations), a wide "sweet Spot." I am looking (listening) for something different. A center channel interferes with the formation of the third dimension. People talk about the third dimension even though systems that will produce it are rare, very rare. In my own experience since the early 60's only four systems have achieved this level of performance. The first one was the system of a high school music teacher in an apartment in Coral Gables just South of Miami, FL in 1978. It was based on Sequerra Metronome 2+2W loudspeakers and Threshold electronics in an irregularly shaped room with blankets and bean bag chairs tossed haphazardly throughout. To say I was in awe is an understatement. The second was an HQD system at Sound Components in Miami shortly thereafter. Peter McGrath ended the listening session by frying a Quad with an organ piece trying to impress a customer with the bass performance. Not me! I was not qualified for such a system. I was in awe nonetheless. It took me another 15 years to get my own system to perform at that level and another 10 years to fully understand what I was doing. #4 is the system of a friend that is relatively modest it relies 75% on DSP to achieve these results. I am working with another friend on a 5th system based on Magico S7 loudspeakers. I have said this in other posts, experience is king. You have to hear this to understand it. It is one thing to get a system to sound good. It is another issue to get it to image properly. You can get a fine two dimensional image out of a poor sounding system but you can not get a good three dimensional image out of a poor sounding system. You can get a wide sweet spot with a two dimensional system, but there is only one sweet spot for the third dimension and you can hear this by simply shifting your head side to side. Certain issues like a bad crossover design will permanently preclude a system from getting that third dimension. Variances in frequency response between the two channels is another common factor that prevents a system from achieving that third dimension. This is why measuring a systems amplitude response is so important, but you also have to have the ability to alter amplitude response without adding distortion, DSP again. Group delay is another issue. Then there is room acoustics. That third dimension is the most fragile of all audio characteristics. All this is a great argument for active loudspeakers and we have had the capability to make any loudspeaker "active" since around 1995 with the foundation of TacT Audio. TacT is now Lyngdorf and other companies have entered the market such as Trinnov, Anthem, Legacy and my personal favorite, DEQX. |
i am with you for your saying about center channel...😊
But you are wrong here because you focus too much on gear and electronic equalization... Not enough on room acoustic ...
An IDEAL timbre experience need a minimally sophisticated set of components...Not only acoustic passive and active mechanical control, even electronical equalization is not enough here ...here we are dependent of the gear quality first ... But to create a good imaging with holographic effect is possible with 100 bucks speakers... Using acoustic and some tweaks to optimize the speakers response : damping and isolation... I just made yesterday my M-audio self powered cheap box speakers imaging with depth /front/back and beside the speakers if the recording is well chosen ... the soundfield is not coming from the speakers or the imaging is not in the plane between the speakers but develop his own holographic 3-d volume... I cannot improve timbre passed some treshold of quality dictated by the specs limitations of these low cost speakers for sure ... But imaging i can ... 😊 Acoustic cannot change the gear specs but can create imaging easily and way more easily than improving the timbre perception which need some higher gear quality level ... I did not even use resonators here as in my past acoustic room... I am in a basement corner😁 ... Just the right balance between reflection/absorption/diffusion... My main system is now by fate : top headphone... But i used my low cost speakers with success... Imaging matter for me... Then... I listen Albinoni oboe concertos right now.... It is a minimalistic audiophile experience with cheap good speakers... I even have minimal bass.... It is true that these cheap speakers were minimally "good" , i bought them after reading reviews 12 years ago... They never sound as good as right now because i never bother to organize acoustic for them before...
|
I guess you are very much like me. We never sleep:-) First of all we need better definitions. I am referring to 2 channel systems. I have a 2 channel system , but it is comprised of 6 individual loudspeakers forming a full bandwidth line array. When I refer to "good hearing" it is not just the measured performance of the ears themselves, but also the training and interpretive powers of the lump connected to them. Not a problem. Once exposed to such a system you will never forget it. I still have vivid recollections of the High school teacher's apartment and system. I must be a fool then. With your eyes closed playing a 24/192 version of a great live recording like Arctic Monkeys Royal Albert Hall or the perennial Waiting for Columbus, the only audio clues that you are not at the real performance is the crowd noise coming only from in front of you and an image that is much too good for a concert of this nature. Playing music this way is for demonstration purposes only. Running at such a volume on a continual basis is not good for your ears or your marriage. My house is an open design with very few doors. The media room essentially exits into a large cavity. There are enough late reflections to convince the brain that you are in a larger venue or not necessarily in a small one. Playing classical music or acoustic jazz is probably a better, safer indicator and will produce the same results. Immersive sound? Do you sit in the center of a band or orchestra? Immersive sound is for theater use. My system does double for theater use but I am not willing to compromise it's 2 channel performance |
