2. speakers
  3. 185860-20253

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.

erik_squires
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 

@kota1 

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 

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,204 posts
 

You are wrong again... Sorry...

Immersiveness is an acoustic concept which is in the reach of two speakers system not only theater system and defined by the ratio between listener envelopment ASW/LV and the sound sources holographic volume ratio ...

Acoustic is key in audio not the gear....With the Dr. Choueri BACCH filter it could be very easy to attain complete immersiveness by the way with headphone or any stereo speakers...

 

My headphone are in their own specfically headphone way "immersive" as was my two speakers/room...( not my actual cheap speakers/basement corner , here i enjoy imaging but not immersiveness for sure, i could not tune resonators there to modify the pressure zone distribution this is why immersiveness is not possible in my basement only a good imaging )

This means that i as a listener i feel as if i was among the musicians on the musical scene with the musicians around me , it is recording dependent for sure... With organ Bach music and Marie Claire Alain recording for example i am as a listener in a church, no more in my room , and the headphone soundfield is "out of my head" ... In my acoustic room it was like that but not as much precise because of my speakers specs limitations which were less performative than my hybrid top headphone now...

By the way it was very hard to find a set of headphone able to do that and optimize it, it takes me 6 months... With the headphone it was necessary to use electronical equalization too by the way to go nearer the Harman curve , the mechanical equalization was done already internally by the designer with a grid of 5 Helmholtz resonators 😊 the AKG K340 is vastly misunderstood, their internal shell is a masterpiece of acoustic and their genius designer was a physicist founder of AKG ...

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

erik_squires OP
16,407 posts
 

It seems that lately no matter what topic I try to discuss it gets turned into a discussion about multi-channel audio.

I for  one would appreciate it if those discussions found a home in their own threads.

kota1
2,706 posts
 

@mijostyn

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."

Agreed.

That third dimension is the most fragile of all audio characteristics.

I can’t argue that if you only experienced it 4 times its rare and desirable. You know there is a system that is literally named after 3 dimensions, I am not claiming it will reproduce what you heard, only that we are both in agreement in our quest to achieve a 3D soundstage.

AURO-3D ® is a three-dimensional audio technology that immerses the home theater listener in a hemisphere of sound.

 

kota1
2,706 posts
 

@ghdprentice

It seems that lately no matter what topic I try to discuss it gets turned into a discussion about multi-channel audio.

I for one would appreciate it if those discussions found a home in their own threads.

I can take a hint. 🤝

Thread started, @mijostyn ​​@fleschler @mahgister we can continue our discussion here:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/immersive-audio-and-how-to-achieve-it

More to discover