Our home system: How good it is?
I suggest you read the link included by Shadorne which shows you the behaviour of low frequency sound. http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html#rfz Then you might like to complete a course in Acoustics, Building Science and Construction Techniques. I don't try to teach children. |
For sure there is some leakage and more so in the bass (which penetrates wood walls but less so with brick), however, bass frequencies (with long wavelengths) are the most susceptible to modal effects, which makes the problem quite acute in the bass (as much as 20 db peaks and troughs in some rooms). The bass issues are often accentuated or worst in the dead center of a room or close to a wall. Hopefully others will chime in - but, like Bob, I feel this to be common knowledge. |
Dear Halcro: +++++ " The Absolute Sound?.........it can be over-rated. " +++++ I don't think so. Like in a home system a live event quality performance ( acoustic/amplified ) is dependent on many things, the place: concert hall/club/stadium, the place " sound treatment ", the performers, the performers quality, the performers's quality instruments, the stage equipment quality on amplified events, your seat position on that event, etc, etc,. Maybe it is a lot more complex that in our homes. I think that here we are talking about on the same subject: +++++ " The SOH is so vast that even a compliment of 100 orchestra members is 'lost'! " +++++ but that fact IMHO can't tell us in no way that the live music: " it can be over-rated. " +++++. Like many things, it can be great and not so great even bad live music events but not for the music it self. I understand exactly what Elinor means and agree with him. I attend regulary ( each week ) to live music events and on the best ones when I play my system I feeel " lost " and makes me put my foots on the floor: nothing compare to a good live music event! Of course that sometimes the music live event was so bad that when we play our system we are on " heaven " and this is true but over my years of experiences about that it is not the " rule ". I play my system when I come home after a music live event more than all to undertand in a better way what is happening in a music live event and what is hapenning in my system and the whys. I don't have any doubt that you have a very high quality music sound reproduction system and maybe you speak in that way because your music live event experiences were not good and I can understand that. IMHO and as I already posted there are some " things " that we can hear in better way in our systems than in a music live event but IMHO this fact can't tell us either that the music live event performances are over rated. Regards and enjoy the music. Raul. |
Dear Goldeneraguy: +++++ " I guess I'm a slow learner because there are so many things I have yet to learn... " +++++ how quick or slow we are or grow up on the learning-curve depends on many subjects: what we are looking for, our attitude about, open mind vs close mind, money, patience/time, self experiences, how much we want to learn, how restless/worry we are overall, have we an adventure spirit?, etc, etc I think I already told the next but I think that our audio learning-curve is almost endless. +++++ " What hasn't changed is the arrogance and know it all attitude of some people we deal with.To them I say its never to late to begin Life's Learning Curve. " +++++ we are surrounded on audio " arrogance ", not only on some audio dealers and professional reviewers but on some audio friends too like that 140K audio system TX guy owner that because of that audio " arrogance " attitude his system is almost " lost ". Like you say and I totally agree: " never is to late to begin Life's Learning Curve! Regards and enjoy the music. Raul. |
Dear Raul, Your journey sounds thrilling and I wish I had the opportunity to listen to many of those great systems that you heard. With my increasing years and work demands I simply don't get the time to socialise with audiophiles over here but have spent a great deal of my past journeying around homes and listening studios in England. In fact, a good deal of my learning curve goes back to exposure to such retailers and audiophiles and to their real generosity in sharing their knowledge and equipment. Going back to the seventies these would include so many, but people such as Dak Boonsong (a Thai audiophile living in London) Les Wong at Walrus Hifi (a retailer and expert who I knew and was guided by a long time before he set up Walrus), David Wood (a very generous retailer at Brighton Hifi Exchange) and a whole host of others have really helped my formative hifi learning. However, throughout this the key feature has always been my real love of music and never more so than when I could hear this live. My parents always played gospel music, jazz and so-called easy listening. We also attended religious events where I acquired a love of the live human voice and supporting acoustic guitars and keboards (organs and piano). My tastes therefore grew from a young age and has influenced my efforts to listen to as much live music as I can. I suppose this is what has really driven this obsession that I have with music and hifi, albeit that these tastes have been extended over the years. Anyway when, in the mid seventies, I bought my first Philips music center I started collecting my own records and playing them on audio cassette and vinyl. In fact, my music centre's saving grace was an ability to play (not very well) tapes on an endless loop, which made me very proud at the time. This was a far step from the earliest audiophile gear that I managed to own. Amomerable early system was my Leak ST60; Croft preamp that showed the genius of simple design; leak troughline tuner and Xerxes turntable. This was changed over the years for various systems before my next major step which consisted of acquiring an ARC VT100 with Proac Response 2.5 speakers and all Siltech silver cables in the early nineties. The sound of this system still holds a romantic spot in my heart. I sometimes wonder how much the large and acoustically favourable listening room that I then occupied influenced the excellent sound that I got but it was definitely no small part. I then moved on to try all sorts of valve amplification, turntables, cartridges, cables and accessories. This led me to think that I knew everything that you could get with a good set up. That my learning curve was about to take a major shift is largely due to the events that followed my exposure to Audiogon. And that's a whole new story |
