Which companies have the deepest roots in science of audio?

[Gregadd]

if you can't prove God to me, then God doesn't exist" type of debate.
Good point Gary. I call that the "tales I win heads you lose approach" Or a statisticaly insignificant result result proves neither the negative or the positive.

 

[microstrip]

Yes, but when passing AC that same dielectric absorption can add distortion.
Where did I say the distortion added could be audible? Now, audible distortion is possible if a wholly inappropriate capacitor type is used in the signal path. But I don't accept that the distortion added by an appropriate cap will be audible. It can be measured, but it's way down in the noise and also reduced further by masking.
I'd need a DBT as proof that anyone can hear things that cannot be measured.
--Ethan

You are just playing with the convenient words "appropriate" and "inappropriate". Can you give some practical cases in which "a wholly inappropriate capacitor type is used in the signal path" to make it clear?

BTW, if it not because it is audible, why do you use ceramics for power supply decoupling?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I'd rather do a blind shootout. I don't want to get drawn into an "if you can't prove God to me, then God doesn't exist" type of debate. There will be no winners, and there will be a lot of hard feelings all round.

The problem is finding two pairs of speakers at around the same price. The Mackie HR624's are less than $500 and that's for an active loudspeaker. I don't know what audiophile loudspeaker would be considered a contender at that price? And then add the price of an amplifier and we have no contest. Unless Ethan thinks that the Mackie HR624 are the best loudspeakers available at ANY price, then I'll put forth my cheapest full-range design.

In the Pacific Northwest Audio Society, we have a DIY loudspeaker contest that is held every 2 years. This is always held blind - a curtain is drawn across the room between the judges and the loudspeakers. The judges get to choose their own music and make their own evaluation. The speakers are level-matched to some pre-set level and the shoot-out begins. We could use the rules that have been established and used for the past 10 years.

i've been one of the three judges in each of these DYI speaker building contests. most years the judges have been Bruce Brown, Winston Ma and myself. each of the judges has a scorecard for each speaker with various aspects of subjective speaker performance on a 1 to 10 scale. there is also space for subjective comments, although the scoring is only based on the numerical score. we listen to each speaker for about 10-12 minutes thru a curtain in a judgeing room, rotating into the sweet spot with our own music. one year the club speakers at the time, Aerial 7b's, were thrown in as a ringer and one of the judges ID'd it 'blind'.

it takes 3 to 5 hours to complete the judging and it does become tedious work to listen that way for an extended time. there have been speakers that have been re-run without modifications to check on the consistency of the judging and 'i'm told' that the scoring is pretty consistent.

is this science? i don't know. unlikely it could be considered scientific method. every contest i figure i'll be 'fired' as a judge but they keep asking me to be a judge again. likely because no one else will do it.

we have a separate room set up for measurments of the speakers after the judging. i have no idea of the relationship between our judging and the measurements.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'd rather do a blind shootout. I don't want to get drawn into an "if you can't prove God to me, then God doesn't exist" type of debate. There will be no winners, and there will be a lot of hard feelings all round.

The problem is finding two pairs of speakers at around the same price. The Mackie HR624's are less than $500 and that's for an active loudspeaker. I don't know what audiophile loudspeaker would be considered a contender at that price? And then add the price of an amplifier and we have no contest. Unless Ethan thinks that the Mackie HR624 are the best loudspeakers available at ANY price, then I'll put forth my cheapest full-range design.

In the Pacific Northwest Audio Society, we have a DIY loudspeaker contest that is held every 2 years. This is always held blind - a curtain is drawn across the room between the judges and the loudspeakers. The judges get to choose their own music and make their own evaluation. The speakers are level-matched to some pre-set level and the shoot-out begins. We could use the rules that have been established and used for the past 10 years.

I don't see much point in the debate myself. As I see it, it is founded on a false premise, that pro and audiophile speakers have different goals. They do not. Both have the goal of reproducing the recording. A blind shoot out would be much more useful, but let's make it relevant. Some of your speakers are about the size and range of a good monitor. Your 7.1c is what? About $6,000 a pair? Recommend a preamp and amplifier you think would show them at their best, add up the cost and we'll start looking for some of active midfield monitors in the same range. Could make for a very interesting comparison.

Tim

 

[Ron Party]

No doubt all of the various proposals for blind testing of specific speakers, whether Mackies, Genesis Tech. or any number of others, is an interesting topic, but it is not the topic of this thread.

 

[RBFC]

Agreed with Ron. Please remain on the topic or we will have to close the thread. The debate can live on in the appropriate forum, in the appropriate thread.

Lee

 

[Gregadd]

I think such a specific challenge needs to be initiated in the invited debates thread by the admins.

 

[microstrip]

I don't see much point in the debate myself. As I see it, it is founded on a false premise, that pro and audiophile speakers have different goals. They do not. Both have the goal of reproducing the recording. ...

Tim

An acquaintance of mine is an audio designer and has built several well known rooms, both for audiophiles and studios. He openly admitted that he has different acoustic criteria for those types of listeners.

Pros need a pinpoint image, plenty of detail and capability to play loud without stress - they use speakers as tools to show what is in the recording. Frequency response linearity is a must as they need a reference for work.

Audiophiles consider that this excessive pinpoint is not natural, want to listen to record ambiance and are sometimes very sensitive to listening fatigue. They have no experience of studio sound and want to listen as close as possible to live, not to microphone placement. Soundstage depth is usually more a priority to audiophiles than for pros, as well as a solid image, completely separated from the speakers.

Science is of little help to separate them ...

 

[amirm]

What I'd like to see is an honest to goodness shootout. High Noon stuff between two closely priced, similarly configured loudspeakers. Heck, blind if need be.

The gauntlet has been thrown and talk is cheap. Hehehe.

We have something close to this soon. Our showroom has to complete parallel systems, one built on JBL Syntesis which is essentially pro gear and another using Wisdom Audio. The latter is about 10 to 20% more expensive I think but should be close enough.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

An acquaintance of mine is an audio designer and has built several well known rooms, both for audiophiles and studios. He openly admitted that he has different acoustic criteria for those types of listeners.

Pros need a pinpoint image, plenty of detail and capability to play loud without stress - they use speakers as tools to show what is in the recording. Frequency response linearity is a must as they need a reference for work.

Audiophiles consider that this excessive pinpoint is not natural, want to listen to record ambiance and are sometimes very sensitive to listening fatigue. They have no experience of studio sound and want to listen as close as possible to live, not to microphone placement. Soundstage depth is usually more a priority to audiophiles than for pros, as well as a solid image, completely separated from the speakers.

Science is of little help to separate them ...

I'll give your acquaintance one point: Nearfield monitors are more about pinpoint imaging than "sound stage." Midfields and mains? Not so much. And are audiophiles really not interested in imaging, detail and the ability to play loud without stress? Really? And maybe on this last point we're lost in semantics, but if you have pinpoint imaging, how can you not have "a solid image, completely separated from the speakers?"

Tim

PS: The closer you get to the recording, the closer you get to the live event. The microphones were there. Your reproduction system was not. And with that, I think we should let this go elsewhere. They don't seem to care for thread drift around here and we're pretty far afield.

 

[Ethan Winer]

Unless Ethan thinks that the Mackie HR624 are the best loudspeakers available at ANY price, then I'll put forth my cheapest full-range design.

I don't know if I consider Mackie HR624s to be the very best speakers in the world at any price, but I think they're awfully good. Assuming clarity and accuracy are the goal, which it may not be for some people. The main limitation of the 624s is their low end response, which extends down to only 49 Hz. If I didn't have a killer subwoofer I'd have bought HR824s instead with their -3 dB point at 37 Hz.

--Ethan

 

[Ethan Winer]

You are just playing with the convenient words "appropriate" and "inappropriate". Can you give some practical cases in which "a wholly inappropriate capacitor type is used in the signal path" to make it clear? BTW, if it not because it is audible, why do you use ceramics for power supply decoupling?

I'm not "playing with" anything, and I go out of my way to be perfectly clear in my posts knowing that some people will try to poke holes in everything I say.

An inappropriate capacitor type for audio signals would be a disk ceramic. But disk ceramics are much better for power supply bypassing because they have very low series inductance compared to Mylar or styrene "audio" type caps. Audio caps are typically long sections of foil and insulation, rolled up to a reasonable size and shape. The long length and rolling is what adds inductance. Disk caps are made of multiple sections wired in parallel. The lower series inductance of disk caps is not meant to make the audio sound better. Rather, it's to prevent a high-gain circuit from oscillating or ringing at ultrasonic frequencies.

I don't understand how someone asking such basic questions about capacitor selection can be so argumentative and have such strong opinions.

--Ethan

 

[microstrip]

I don't understand how someone asking such basic questions about capacitor selection can be so argumentative and have such strong opinions.

--Ethan

You are just answering to your question - even bypassing in audio is not a basic question. As far as I know many audio designers will not accept using ceramic capacitors for bypassing as they introduce sharp resonances due to their extreme low series inductance. Capacitor selection for audio paths is also a delicate subject, not a "basic one".

Unhappily, we can not make everything as simple as you sometimes pretend - high end audio electronic designers spend their life measuring, listening, learning, doing experiments, testing circuits and components. May be they know a bit more about it than us or "audio engineering 101"

Simplification is a great tool for problem solving, but must be used with discernment.

 

[JackD201]

You can add the stock and bond markets to that list Tom

 

[Ron Party]

Recent very interesting, but off topic, posting about how the ear works has been moved to this thread.

 

[caesar]

I would like to see science work for me.

I dont care if your product is full of cheap integrated circuits/components and the other guys is full of "more expensive discrete circuits and components", what I want is the one that gives me the best audio experience, the most realistic and best sounding to me.

In fact, if your cheap integrated circuit product can present a more involving illusion then that is the "science" I want.

Tom

Put a few mice in a mouse wheel, and if it makes good sound I am happy.

 

[Robh3606]

Hello Amirm

one built on JBL Syntesis which is essentially pro gear

What system do you have set-up?? I have Array 1400 Clones and the only driver that has it's root's in JBL Pro is the 2435/2431 in the Vertec AKA 435Al/Be. Even then the aquaplas damped diaphrams offer a significant upgrade over the standard drivers. The rest are all JBL Consumer exclusives. Looking at the Everest and K2 series there are no Pro Equivalent drivers except for a sub using the 2242.

Rob

 

[amirm]

Hello Amirm

Howdy!

What system do you have set-up??

It is a complete JBL Synthesis from start to finish:

The three front speakers are a combo of these:

Then we have four of these for surrounds:

There are four of these stereo amps:

And two of these 5-channel amps:

One 15 inch sub:

And six, dual-10 inch subs:

For processing, we have are using the SDEC 4500 12-channel processor plus extender:

There is also the Lexicon JBL branded processor (I know, it is an old box but will get replaced with the new one come this year):

So all in all, 18 channels being driven simultaneously.

Looking at the Everest and K2 series there are no Pro Equivalent drivers except for a sub using the 2242.

Rob

The Everest must be the most beautiful horns every designed! It takes the "pro/ugly" terms out of horn speakers .

 

[Robh3606]

Hello amirm

Oh so you have the SamHF set-up. I have the same horns but I am using the Be drivers 2435'435Be and 045Be. I also have the Array Le-14H-3 woofers and not the dual 8"s in the SAM LF modules. I would love to get my hands on a pair of them but they slammed the door on us. I am building a center chanel using a pair of alnico 8" JBL 2108 woofers with another Array Horn using a 435Be. Next best 8" drivers arround.

Rob

 

[JackD201]

Amir,

That set-up is better or as good as any commercial theater system. It must be a whole lot of fun. Gaming would be a total blast as well.

Jack