Modern speakers vs Vintage speakers

[MarcelNL]

Ok, for clarity (as I think you need some), for the example of rust preventer in your radiator and your car suddenly seeming to have more power, say your friend who confirms it is blind. Say you put three friends, all blind, in the car and they agree that it is running better. How does that confirm that the rust preventer is responsible?

You are not happy with rust preventer? OK, say you put new mag wheels on your car, same width and circumference, same tires, and it seems to run better to you and your blind friends. Does that establish cause and effect?

I see you have expensive cables, power cords, furotech connecters , power conditioners etc., just wondering, did you purchase those or were they gifts?

I'm not sure but I suspect we're not understanding each other. Cause and affect does not mean that you can explain the effect. There can be effects without attributed cause(s), te fact that a cause has not been attributed does not mean the effect is not a reality.

I have no blind friends and do not drive around in a car that needs rust preventer. I was trying to explain we did blind testing of the effect of a tweeter (and supertweeter) on bass, if that is unclear please do not hesitate to ask clarifying questions or look up blind testing.

I do not have expensive cables as I DIY the VAST majority of what I'm using but for lack of the ability to produce copper wire and produce transformers etc I do also buy stuff. All what I do or use is blind tested by me and a few friends who are neither blind nor deaf.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

Three Blind Mice are riding in the back seat of a car, with Takeshi Fujii and Caelin Gabriel driving on a road in Copenhagen. The rear seat also contains a sealed box with a cat, a carving knife and a Shunyata Omega power cable inside. Audiophiles were uncertain whether it was an Omega XC or QR power cable.

Out of the blue, a meteorite hits the road, and Takeshi swerves to avoid a crash. Later that month, Shunyata raises prices on all Omega products. Is the cat dead or alive?

 

[MarcelNL]

Marcel, do you know what electronics are being used with those Bionors? Why do you think they sound better than most of the new speaker designs? What do you like about them that you do not hear from modern speakers?

Nice room. Where is this pair located?

Nothing real super special when we listened to them, but the owner has quite a bit super special vintage gear, more than I can list (and more than I recognized)

What I do not like about most modern speakers is the lack of 'natural' sound, highs always seem too bright and one dimensional, dynamics are just a spike with no leading edge and no trailing edge and lack of overtones, phase coherence is usually non existent.

Perhaps a good analogy is to compare truffle oil to the real thing...when you've never had real truffle the petrochemical truffle oil may seem a great thing...once you've had the real thing that changes.

I'm frequenting what are pretty much top class classical live music concerts every few weeks for years now, so I think I know what it ought to sound and seldomly hear the aspects that make live music a great experience in modern speakers. Bionor, like the WE15 (totally different presentation and character) does produce music that is credible when compared to the real deal, flaws of reproduction are real but IMHO less important than with most modern speakers.

At Munich High End last year I heard some great speakers, one was a take on some Western Electric horns. Almost all other speakers sounded like they were playing 'high end', not music.

 

[Lagonda]

Three Blind Mice are riding in the back seat of a car, with Takeshi Fujii and Caelin Gabriel driving on a road in Copenhagen. The rear seat also contains a sealed box with a cat, a carving knife and a Shunyata Omega power cable inside. Audiophiles were uncertain whether it was an Omega XC or QR power cable.

Out of the blue, a meteorite hits the road, and Takeshi swerves to avoid a crash. Later that month, Shunyata raises prices on all Omega products. Is the cat dead or alive?

Depends, is it Schrödingers cat ?

 

[bonzo75]

Marcel, do you know what electronics are being used with those Bionors? Why do you think they sound better than most of the new speaker designs? What do you like about them that you do not hear from modern speakers?

Nice room. Where is this pair located?

these vintage drivers are unbeatable. Western electric, klangfilm, Goto, Altec, TAD, Ale, Vitavox

 

[MarcelNL]

Depends, is it Schrödingers cat ?

my two cats are accounted for, which leaves a few million unaccounted for ;-)

 

[morricab]

I'm not sure but I suspect we're not understanding each other. Cause and affect does not mean that you can explain the effect. There can be effects without attributed cause(s), te fact that a cause has not been attributed does not mean the effect is not a reality.

I have no blind friends and do not drive around in a car that needs rust preventer. I was trying to explain we did blind testing of the effect of a tweeter (and supertweeter) on bass, if that is unclear please do not hesitate to ask clarifying questions or look up blind testing.

I do not have expensive cables as I DIY the VAST majority of what I'm using but for lack of the ability to produce copper wire and produce transformers etc I do also buy stuff. All what I do or use is blind tested by me and a few friends who are neither blind nor deaf.

That there is a cause (assuming it is not a purely psychological cause) but it might not be obvious from just looking at raw data. Hypothesizing a model and then applying math to the data might give much more interesting results. The super tweeters bass impact is probably phase related and overtones that relate perception throughout the whole frequency range. Upper harmonics of bass go quite high and cue up sounds in the brain that are not necessarily really there.

 

[MarcelNL]

I tend to think that the brain knows those high frequencies associated with bass SHOULD be there and therefore we assess the effect from adding them in the form of a (super) tweeter that is aligned in time as improvement. Not that we think we hear things in the lower regions that are not there.

 

[PeterA]

these vintage drivers are unbeatable. Western electric, klangfilm, Goto, Altec, TAD, Ale, Vitavox

The cabinet is also critical. Some think the cabinet is half the sound. The materials, the glues, the finish, they all matter. Reproductions and restorations don’t sound the same as originals.

 

[PeterA]

Nothing real super special when we listened to them, but the owner has quite a bit super special vintage gear, more than I can list (and more than I recognized)

What I do not like about most modern speakers is the lack of 'natural' sound, highs always seem too bright and one dimensional, dynamics are just a spike with no leading edge and no trailing edge and lack of overtones, phase coherence is usually non existent.

Perhaps a good analogy is to compare truffle oil to the real thing...when you've never had real truffle the petrochemical truffle oil may seem a great thing...once you've had the real thing that changes.

I'm frequenting what are pretty much top class classical live music concerts every few weeks for years now, so I think I know what it ought to sound and seldomly hear the aspects that make live music a great experience in modern speakers. Bionor, like the WE15 (totally different presentation and character) does produce music that is credible when compared to the real deal, flaws of reproduction are real but IMHO less important than with most modern speakers.

At Munich High End last year I heard some great speakers, one was a take on some Western Electric horns. Almost all other speakers sounded like they were playing 'high end', not music.

This is an excellent summary Marcel. I agree completely. You describe well the essence in the polemic set up in the thread’s title.

 

[MarcelNL]

The cabinet is also critical. Some think the cabinet is half the sound. The materials, the glues, the finish, they all matter. Reproductions and restorations don’t sound the same as originals.

it sure is, is a Stradivarius one without the special lacquer?
I've heard a few types of coating on baffles, and was baffled (pun intended) how much of a difference they made.

With a limited amount of originals (which number is going down with time also) making availability low and prices high the best bet for the vast majority of folks is to learn what made these systems tick and take it from there.
It's not as if we are not able of creating great systems anymore, IMHO its a matter of references making goals different leading to results that are very different from vintage stuff.

 

[bonzo75]

The cabinet is also critical. Some think the cabinet is half the sound. The materials, the glues, the finish, they all matter. Reproductions and restorations don’t sound the same as originals.

so, I think the Bionor’s biggest weakpoint is the cabinet. They did not try to make it any special…sure, they chose wood and a size that would match certain frequencies, but the huge baffle means it is going to interfere with the rear wave and be very room dependent. How far it is from the front wall etc. of course when they made bionor this wasn’t a concern as they were to be housed in cinemas, not audiophile rooms.

with Altec etc the crossover isn’t the best, and people who voice it well by changing crossover and know their vintage move away from the metal horns to either wood horns. Vitavox and Phillips made better metal horns then Altec.

 

[PeterA]

so, I think the Bionor’s biggest weakpoint is the cabinet. They did not try to make it any special…sure, they chose wood and a size that would match certain frequencies, but the huge baffle means it is going to interfere with the rear wave and be very room dependent. How far it is from the front wall etc. of course when they made bionor this wasn’t a concern as they were to be housed in cinemas, not audiophile rooms.

with Altec etc the crossover isn’t the best, and people who voice it well by changing crossover and know their vintage move away from the metal horns to either wood horns. Vitavox and Phillips made better metal horns then Altec.

The Bionor's original cabinet is what it is. Yes, they were designed for cinemas, not audiophile rooms, or even large non audiophile rooms. That is beside the point. The point is that cabinets matter. Change anything about the Bionor cabinet, and it will likely sound worse. If interested, you should discuss this fascinating topic with DDK. He tried to copy the cabinet and it sounded worse. I think he even tried to improve on it, and he could not.

If you want something to sound different, sure, experiment with these few top vintage designs. It you want what they have to offer, it is best not to touch them and find one in original good condition. Even the wiring and screw tension.

 

[PeterA]

it sure is, is a Stradivarius one without the special lacquer?
I've heard a few types of coating on baffles, and was baffled (pun intended) how much of a difference they made.

With a limited amount of originals (which number is going down with time also) making availability low and prices high the best bet for the vast majority of folks is to learn what made these systems tick and take it from there.
It's not as if we are not able of creating great systems anymore, IMHO its a matter of references making goals different leading to results that are very different from vintage stuff.

The lacquer on the van den Hul wood bodies really improved the sound of those too.

I agree that the values are different now and that leads to different results. The music is different too. The real challenge now is to learn from these old speakers without the designers being around to explain things. The later Vitavox CN191s do not sound the same as the original ones. The cabinets changed, different people assessed their quality and assembled them. The new reproductions sound different too. Materials changed.

I do not think it is just the new designers. It is the customers too, and the sellers, and marketers. They all matter in how the final product sounds, looks and costs. And now even music is recorded differently and stored on different media. It is no surprise the sound is different. It will be interesting to see where this all goes.

 

[MarcelNL]

I do not think that rooms were an issue for the Bionor design team, they had the audience on a Cinema in mind.
Just look at how the horn is made so it can be adjusted to the cinema room, and the 'spread' of sound the
Breitstrahlgruppe' intends to create. A Cinema room is vastly different from most listening setups in a home situation.


Yet, the essence of what makes a Bionor tick, and what the WE15 tick, or whatever great vintage other speaker is something we can investigate and learn from, and try take that into our age and create something capable of re creating music/emotion, not just individual sounds that together form a frequency sweep that is straight from 20 to 20.000Hz.

 

[bonzo75]

I do not think that rooms were an issue for the Bionor design team, they had the audience on a Cinema in mind.
Just look at how the horn is made so it can be adjusted to the cinema room, and the 'spread' of sound the
Breitstrahlgruppe' intends to create. A Cinema room is vastly different from most listening setups in a home situation.

that’s exactly what I meant

 

[bonzo75]

If interested, you should discuss this fascinating topic with DDK. He tried to copy the cabinet and it sounded worse. I think he even tried to improve on it, and he could not.

Yes but David does not have DIY experience. He never used to mod his speakers, cabinet or crossover. His first attempt was when he made it for Tang. From my recollection the baffle for tang’s Eurodyn was made smaller to fit his room.

the cabinet copy might have sounded worse if he did not know the wood specs. Peter and Frank in Germany know those, Frank runs a whole klangfilm museum with documentation

 

[PeterA]

Yes but David does not have DIY experience. He never used to mod his speakers, cabinet or crossover. His first attempt was when he made it for Tang. From my recollection the baffle for tang’s Eurodyn was made smaller to fit his room.

If you are interested, you should have a discussion with him. His experience is different from what you describe here. Neither of us knows exactly what it is

The formula for Stradivarius lacquer has been lost. The formula for Roman concrete was lost. The essence of what went into some of these rare coveted vintage speakers, the magic people here, it’s very hard to re-create without talking to the original creators who are no longer with us.

Knowing the wood type is not enough. Ask David to find out why.

 

[bonzo75]

If you are interested, you should have a discussion with him. His experience is different from what you describe here. Neither of us knows exactly what it is

David is on record he doesn’t modify speakers and he was also against doing any changes to vintage speakers. Tang’s Eurodyn was the first one and I also mentioned to him in one of the threads now he accepts a change is required to vintage speakers.

 

[Rensselaer]

I'm not sure but I suspect we're not understanding each other. Cause and affect does not mean that you can explain the effect. There can be effects without attributed cause(s), te fact that a cause has not been attributed does not mean the effect is not a reality.

I have no blind friends and do not drive around in a car that needs rust preventer. I was trying to explain we did blind testing of the effect of a tweeter (and supertweeter) on bass, if that is unclear please do not hesitate to ask clarifying questions or look up blind testing.

I do not have expensive cables as I DIY the VAST majority of what I'm using but for lack of the ability to produce copper wire and produce transformers etc I do also buy stuff. All what I do or use is blind tested by me and a few friends who are neither blind nor deaf.

This sidetrack started when I was asked if I preferred the sound from my speakers (Altec A7’s) with super tweeters engaged or without. I replied I don’t know why, but stated my preference for with.

I explained that I have (measured) high frequency hearing loss in both ears and am unable to hear anything coming from the super tweeters. I added that since I am unable to hear higher frequencies, my preference for the sound with super tweeters must be due to a psychoacoustic effect.

you (and others) chimed in saying that in your blind tests you could hear better bass definition when super tweeters were included. Well bully for you. Would it matter to you if I said I hear no difference in bass quality when comparing with or without super tweeters?

Would it assure you of a further deficit in my hearing if I said the best sounding system I ever heard has cheap lamp cord, or what came in the box, interconnects and power cords, or that my switching to very expensive power cables with gold-plated solid copper sockets connected to a clean dedicated power supply made absolutely no difference in the sound of my system?

Far too many on this forum make claims that have not yet been verified by science. Some of it is peer pressure, a lot of it inspired by a drive for financial gain. Your blind listening tests convinced you of something I haven’t experienced. Maybe my hearing is just too messed up, maybe it’s your fear of saying the emperor’s not wearing any clothes but whatever it is remember, 3,000 Lemmings couldn’t possibly be wrong.