I agree Tim, it does usually take years to get to a point that you can put together a satisfying system ( usually for a lot less money than spent getting to that point). Why is that?
Perhaps you should, then you can spend the money on the more expensive products that seem to offer the sound you are wanting.
Hmm.. I can think of two fundamental advances since the WE era, addressing the problem of low distortion: Peter Walker’s Quad 57 and 63s, Paul Klipsch’s folded horn. The 63 was phase linear but not capable of high volumes, although perfectly fine in small to medium sized rooms. The Klipschorn is not phase linear and its response is a bit ragged by modern standards, but it offered very low distortion and high decibels from tiny tube amplifiers. 99.99% of modern audiophile speakers are just cones in a fancy box. Unfortunately the high end audio world has lost its original geniuses like Walker and Klipsch, and now we have largely marketing types but no genuine new science. So, we continue to get boxes with cones. Nothing new here.
The proven method to avoid negative feedback is a single-ended circuit -- which you mentioned above. These are low-powered and expensive to manufacture (mostly hand-made) so, unfortunately, hardly mainstream products anymore.
Design ideas: could you toy with the idea of a solid-state no negative feedback circuit, maybe transformer supported? Or, place feedback very high, well beyond the audible range?
Design ideas: could you toy with the idea of a solid-state no negative feedback circuit, maybe transformer supported? Or, place feedback very high, well beyond the audible range?
Or, am I dreaming
The amp I use has no feedback mechanism - not really tube or solid-state (though a resistor is) - works great with vintage loudspeakers as well - no need for SETsDesign ideas: could you toy with the idea of a solid-state no negative feedback circuit, maybe transformer supported? Or, place feedback very high, well beyond the audible range?
Or, am I dreaming
ecdesigns.nl
I was about to start a new thread on a very similar subject, but DasguteOhr’s post seemed totally in line with my recent thinking and I felt compelled to respond here with the question, “have we really advanced the hi-fi art that far over the past 60 years?”. I draw your attention to the live vs recorded events that Acoustic Research conducted back then. By all accounts it was very successful, causing many people to remark how fooled they were believing that the Fine Arts string quartet (recorded anechoically) was still playing when the live music transitioned to AR-3 loudspeakers driven by Dynaco electronics and Ampex tape machine. Granted, this kind of demo could never be pulled off successfully with a larger ensemble, but the fact remains that the reproduction equipment of the day was accurate enough to successfully execute the deception. Geez, I wondered what gauge lamp cord they used to connect the amps to the speakers.
The interesting thing is that I experienced something similar a few years ago. The Detmold University of Music in Germany had an "open day".
I agree, when I reentered the audio world in 2016, I was surprised how little things had changed except the prices.
Lynn Olson wrote about it in a Tiny History of High Fidelity. I was lucky enough to hear some of these systems in the eighties.
Sorry, I had SOTA AR-LSTs from 1981 to 1988. AR made some great stuff, but nobody would ever confuse it with live.
Interesting demonstration, but not very practical for home use! Similar systems have been constructed by many folks. I recall an article in The NY Times several decades ago when a retired architect built a custom house in Connecticut using a similar wave field concept, where music would emerge from many small loudspeakers embedded in the ceiling arranged in a particular way that simulated an actual concert hall. I think the issue with a lot of these simulations is that you are superimposing two acoustics: the original venue ambience and that imposed by your listening room at home. It's the same issue with omnidirectional systems that have been developed by many manufacturers over the years (Bose 901, MBL, et al.). The basic principle is that you avoid beaming the sound from a point source at the listener in the standard two-channel mode, and instead beam it over a wide area that contains a large percentage of reverberant sound. Amar Gopal Bose was an MIT professor who got interested in the science of hifi in the early 1960s, and was shocked to see that normal loudspeakers sounded nothing like what he heard in the concert hall where the Boston Symphony performed. He did some measurements and found that at the listener, a large proportion of the sound was reverberant from the countless number of reflections that happen in the hall. So, the Bose 901 tried to mimic that by arranging to have most of the drivers point at the back wall, and bounce the sound off, and only one driver point at the listener in the front. It's sort of works, except when you measure it by conventional means, the frequency response is pretty awful. Of course, the inserted equalizer is even worse made of cheap parts.The interesting thing is that I experienced something similar a few years ago. The Detmold University of Music in Germany had an "open day".
You could listen to a performance by a small symphony orchestra in the concert hall; it was being recorded.
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Then came the extraordinary thing: you could listen to the recording in the control room. The control room uses a wave field synthesis loudspeaker system with over 100 loudspeakers that also generate virtual sound sources.
I sat on the chair this loudspeaker system created a perfect 1:1 illusion, just like in the concert hall, even though there were several hundred meters of digital and LAN cables in between. I have never heard such good music from a recording in my life.
I can recommend that everyone listen to it; it's an experience. That's what I call progress. Oh, I forgot, a similar loudspeaker system is also installed in the large concert hall.
With a program they can change the reverberation times in the concert hall. For example, simulate a large church or other concert halls.
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Sound and its effect on people are researched there. Musicians and sound engineers (recording) are trained. It is very interesting for anyone who likes to listen to music, I promise.
Erich-Thienhaus-Institut
Tonmeisterausbildung an der Hochschule für Musik Detmoldwww.eti.hfm-detmold.de
