just need a bigger house is all

[rickcr42]

www.clarisonus.com/Archives/Speakers/Best_Spkr.pdf

[xerxes]

I like it, batteries for a clean power supply and a 14 foot horn speaker for trouser flapping bass. If I can persuade the neighbours to let me use their living room for the back half of the horn, I'm sorted.

[mac2006]

Bah...only 14ft? Check out this guy:

www.6moons.com/audioreviews/westernelectric/300b.html

"The +/- 110dB horn system starts at the bottom with 30-foot long straight bass horns. Those vent into the room behind the equipment rack as two square man holes in the middle of the front wall. .."

quite insane.
Mac

[xerxes]

ROFL, I wonder if he meant them to look like two big surprised faces:



I couldn't have them looking at me while I was listening to music, it would put me off.

I've never actually heard a set of horn loaded speakers, but I thought that the ideal for stereo reproduction was 2 point sources. Wouldn't the array of additional drivers and tweeters have a detrimental effect on this? Also, with the horn loaded speakers, the actual driver must be several feet "behind" the "unloaded" drivers, wouldn't this cause some rather strange timing issues.

[rickcr42]

I've never actually heard a set of horn loaded speakers, but I thought that the ideal for stereo reproduction was 2 point sources. Wouldn't the array of additional drivers and tweeters have a detrimental effect on this? Also, with the horn loaded speakers, the actual driver must be several feet "behind" the "unloaded" drivers, wouldn't this cause some rather strange timing issues.

Another area that has lovers or haters of the "sound" with me firmly in the "I like it" camp.

Point sorces may be an ideal or at least someones ideal but taking the theory to the room you get from what should be good to what is so while yes a single driver covering most of the range you need help at the ends for full range music so what happens ?

a subwoofer is added then a super tweeter to extend the range or you need a flat panel speaker like the QUAD or Magnepans which have their own quirks,and also usually need a sub bringing us back to multi-driver/mutidi-persion patterns

As for timing,I have actually owned several so called "perfect timing" loudspeakers and while they sounded nice enough were not earth shattering,just good speakers.

I started out like most others in my era with first the ARs or advents,KEFs and JBLs then mostly from being "drawn in/conned" by ad copy and reviews (sound familiar ? The more things change the more they don't ) though my system lacking so set out to find the ultimate loudspeaker,within my price range of course.
Being a working teenager making $3/hr was not exactly the best path to audio nirvana so I needed to shoot for the middle ground between "high priced super system" and "bottom feeder crap" so I set on on my journey through hell with my first stop TIME PERFECT which all the magazines told me was the only true way so dammit I'm for it !

HUP !

The first was the Dahlquist DQ-10 "multi-driver phased array" which used staggered mounting plates for the drivers so the voice coils were all time aligned.The problem was,it had fairly shitty bass and was the most inefficient loudspeaker ever widely used in the home (something like 76dB/1W/SPL ) so you either powered it with 200WPC+ Behemoth power amps,rare in the day except at a serious cost,or you had zero bass and zero dynamics.
The strengths were a seriously nice midrange (even though occupied but two dissimiliar midrange drivers side by side) and a very "open" sound reminiscent of the QUAD ESL

sold them and purchased my next "time perfect" speaker-the DCM Time Windows.Here was another multidriver system (two mids/two tweets i think) that this time used crossover delays to align the drivers so because of this,the sophisticated xo,again we had a low efficiency speaker.Not as bad as the Dahlquist but still needing lots of power to get the cones grovin' to the music.AR powering area

Sold those and purchased a pair of Fourier I's which used a simple two way in a big box and a simple xo to be "time aligned".Nice enough,nothing special though the $1,500 I paid at the time translates to around $5K today ! (the DQ-10's $1k/pr,the Time Windows around $700-all in 1980s dollars,should have bought the QUADs at $3K and called it a day)

I was trying for that elusive sound that all the audio review magazines of the time were tellng me could ONLY be achieved with time and phase perfect loudspeakers yet once in the home this ideal was never met.

Through it all here were the tiny bottom of the page adverts for Klipsch loudspeakers.One I remember especially was a simple "BULLSHIT !" then "KLIPSCH LOUDSPEAKER COMPANY" and then the company address.All others once I began to notice were just a pic of the speaker,be it a Klipsch horn,a Belle,a Heresy,wahtever,was just a picture and the name and that was it !

No hype,no ad copy telling you why you NEED this speaker,why these systems were BETTER than the competition,no pretty graphs,no reasons to buy yet over and over the ads which meant someone was buying to pay for the ad blitz.
I also noticed no one ever reviewed these systems and that as a loudspeaker system to be considered as a top quality choice they did look a bit,um-RAW ,nothing special ,so not having access to a local listen and having no reveiwer telling me they sounded so good he wanted to have sex with them later took a pass and continued the years long hunt.

what broke me of the "you MUST have PERFECT TIMING or your WILL DIE" was hearing the Shahinian Obelisk in my local audio salon.I was there shopping for an amp and the guy was trying to sell me a bloated price piece of current limited pro amp shit and I was arguing I wanted the fkn Rotel which he was crapping on, trying to get me to buy the other at which time in total nutboy fashion,my patience shot all to hell, said "Do I have asshole written on my forehead dude ? Sell me the fkn amp I want or I take my business somewhere else.I am not here to REVIEW an amp or have milk and cookies with you but came here because you have the amp I WANT locally ! "

JEEEZ !!!!!!!

Anyway.I'm ready to check out and I hear this sound eminating from the speaker room that drew me even through closed doors and I just HAD TO find out what was making such good noise so I drifted in leaving my amp on the counter (told jerky if it disappeared he would be talking to me about life and how good health was very important and how we should do all we could to not get hurt ).

So I'm in the room trying to orient to exactly what system was playing and I am drawn to these squat "pyramids on tubes" is the only way I can describe my first thought and I AM IMPRESSED !

These speakers are sounding glorious,very "there" and very dynamic,the image losing NOTHING even though spaced far too wide apart and worst of all they are breaking every damn rule,shattering every single pre-conception I had pounded into my skull from reading all the audio rags and I sat there just listening to music for like an hour or two not wanting to leave because what I was hearing was KILLING my home experience and I knew even with the new amp I would not be satisfied with my own gear now....such is audio when you get an ear opener,kinda like penis envy but different

so the woofer is down towards the bottom of the cabinet,too close to the floor and too far from the midrange and tweeter according to ALL the experts,the bass cabinet itself is shaped WRONG becase we all know bass should sound hollow and tubby in a column shaped cabinet (we ALL knw better now maybe but not then.The experts told us so dammit !Now they say the exact opposite but who is listening anyway right ? ) so right off the bass section was all wrong.

then I look at the "pyramid" section and it uses a single forward firing midrange and multiple tweeters !

WTF ?

How can this have perfect timing and phase shooting the treble all over the frikkin' room ? It is WRONG so why does it sound RIGHT ?

I left there with all my supposed knowledge dashed to the shit pile.I had followed the advice of the experts,was still trying to get that elusive perfect sound they keep telling me is right around the next bend if only I purchase XXXX yet here was a totally unknown speaker kicking the hell out of everything I had heard to that point in my life and it was designed WRONG which was a life changing experience for me.

For the first ime in my life I had to accept the fact that magazines need articles -needed to have content to fill the pages-so you would buy the mnagazine so they could sell advertising space and so need more content so they could........


Becauase of this "need for content" in combination with the need to NOT piss of advertsisers they had to fill the pages with mostly glowing reviews then try to explain why Joe Blow's whacky ideas on "the path" to ultra fi was the right path which thinking back was soooo f**kING RETARDED because one month they would tell you one thing then the next do a total 180 and tell you something else and it all depended on who was being featured in the review section that month what was the new FLAVOR OF THE MONTH TECHNOLOGY.

If every time they preached why a certain way was the only way then why in the hell would they say later something entirely different was the only way ? And why did I/we beleive it when these dick heads were always spouting out of another side of their mouth ? Sometimes even both sides in the very samn article ?

I'll tell you why.Because they consider us idiots is why and you know what ? We are mostly until we have one of those "slap back to reality" moments like I had with the then unknown,unreviewed and wrongly designed Shahinain Obelisk loudspeakers that knocked me out and made me want to take a sledge hammer to my own speakers I was so pissed (almost wrecked on the way home i was gripping the sterring wheel so hard,eyes glazed in deep thought re-evaluating life.........

So I went from trusting to total skeptic weighing PWK's "BULLSHIT !" with ad copy and reviews meant to sell goods with my own by now fairly extensive experiences.Put together I could smell a con coming way before the "hook" and still to this day have to laugh out loud at some of the industry crap I see where hype over engineering and looks over sonic quality seem to be the most important features.

To see full grown adults who should know better fall for the same tired crap over and over that I learned to avoid before I was out of my teens yet if you try to warn them,try to say "THINK ! It's a con !Use Your Head Man !" they take it as a personal insult because they have already decided to pull the triiger and when after the initial glow of "something new" has died and they realise that yes,not exactly what they expected,too damn proud to admit they were wrong not only stick with the bad decision but then CON others into the same bad decsion just so they are not the only suckers.misery truly does love company

High end audio is fiull of bear traps and most of that because we are A-gullable and B-have too damn much pride so over and over the same bad choices mostly becuase we all read and write and we all know what a "proper" design is from those readings.The ad copy told us so,the reviewers reinforced it,get with the fkn program

Well folks,toss all that out the window.No matter what "new thing" or "flavor of the month" comes and goes there is one constant in audio and that is the HORN.


The VERY FIRST "speakers" were horns and were focused at the small end right at the "needle" of the first disc playback machines.No amplifier,just a mechanical-acoustic horn to focus and "amplify" the sound so humans couls hear it beyond two inches from the cylinder.
The first PA system was the megaphone,again electronically unassisted (unamped) and in fact even early man knew the horn because when he wanted to be heard at a distance he did what ?

Cupped his hands over his mouth creating a "horn" to focus his words so the guy on the next hilltop knew it was time to swoop down off the rock and kick some tribal ass

Horns have been the ONLY constant that is with us from the first moments of reproduced audio and if they were not more right than wrong would have dissapeared under the decades long assault from all the other "this is the only way" modern technologies competing for their share of the market.

I'll personally take a horn with ten to twenty watts over any "super system" powered by a megawatt amp because they get the first watt right and that is where the emotion of the live event lives for me


.

[PinkFloyd]

Jesus christ that's cool! (the first article)

[PinkFloyd]

I couldn't have them looking at me while I was listening to music, it would put me off.

You mean you don't listen to your music blindfolded, chained to a chair with a gag in your mouth?? You weirdo!

[rickcr42]

you guys ever see Josh's other work ? Just as insane ! the man has a serious work ethic/artistic streak

www.electronluv.com/html/hifi/hifi.php

I tried to make a line stage look like this and failed big time

[xerxes]

I tried to make a line stage look like this and failed big time

It would take a lot of time, effort and metalworking skills to create something finished to that standard. I took a look at the web site and he certainly produces some wonderfully whacky designs. The 1950's science fiction B movie aesthetic is not really to my taste, but it cirtainly makes a statement. However, I doubt it makes the components sound any better than a standard rectangular box and I bet you pay a lot more for it.

Is this the Obelisk speaker you were refering to?:

[rickcr42]

However, I doubt it makes the components sound any better than a standard rectangular box and I bet you pay a lot more for it.

the good news is his circuitry matches the metal work !

801/10Y DHT line stages,2A3 amps,Mercury rectifiers,LOTS and LOTS of iron in the circuits......sweet

Is this the Obelisk speaker you were refering to?:

Yup.

Kicked the hell out of anything I had heard up until that moment even though about as unlikely a design as there was,one that broke the rules and we all know that is not smart in a "me too" world

[rickcr42]

Hi rickc42, have you ever listened to the DCM Time Windows 1A?

If that was the model number of ther very first DCM Time Windows then not only hear a pair but owned a pair.driven at the time by a 100WPC power amp,the APT Model One,I seem to remember a smoooooth sound combined with a spacious soundfield.

A pleasant tone but one both very dynamic so not up to power rock duty at high levels (something I NEEDED when I was young-music to match my personal energy levels ) and the reason I moved on to to Fourier 1 at the time,a desicion I tried to like but never did due to a discontinuity somewhere in the upper mids/lower trable that was ittiating when the speakers were pushed (some Ted Nugent "Free For All",any cuts from The Power Station or Mountain's Mississippi Queeen for instance, a real hard cut to play loud without it sounding shouty )

Now older and less GIMME MY SPL FIX NOW DAMMIT ! I could live with such as my system 2 speakers (currently a restored pair of vintage 8" woofer/semi-horn tweeter Jensen Duettes driven by SE EL34 Pentode Power ) but I think still a bit too polite for my taste as a main speaker.A taste that tends to dynamic contrast over tone so that even low level music sounds lively without any artificial flavoring such as a Loudness Contour.A thing no doubt invented solely to compensate for low efficiency loudspeakers at low power levels no matter WHAT the Fletcher-Munson data says about human hearing.

I can say every modern system I have had any real time with is a pale imitation of music in any head to head competition with even the modest classic loudspeaker systems of past years,including the DCMs which I would take over the new hands down.

BTW-may sound weird but i have a leaning to the theory that even if something is "called" accurate that certain technologies are more suited to particular music types than are others.

For example :

I have and use mainly two pairs of headphones that are so far apart in techology that they can not even be considered cousins.Those two are the Grado SR-1 and a pair of Radio Shack "rebranded" STAX SR-3's.The Grados are driven by single ended triode power,the 'stats PP Pentodesa and truth be told sound nothing alike yet each has a place and that place for certain music "types".

For anything that uses electrified instruments,that is instruments that need to be amped or miked,the Grados rule yet for the purely acoustic instruments and especially small scale acoustic instruments the electrostats whip ass.Playing the electrified music through the stats sounds wanting,as if there is not enough energy to give life to the music,a kind of compresssion.the cone headphones while dynamic as you will ever get in a headphone tend to make the small scale acoustic instruments "larger than life",also not quite what I want or need so rather than try and make a pig into a peacock I accept the fact that i personally need a dual system headphone setup thus use each to its strengths.

Moving this to loudspeakers I see a future with a pair of Quad ESLs in my future for the very same reasons.Any music not requiring size and scale would be moved over to the stats.that would mean any "unassisted" instruments (including the solo human voice unaccompanied by electrified instruments),music that in reality COULD fit into the listening room if a live performance and not be out of place would be moved over to this Small room,small Scale targeted music system-B keeping the Klipsches for the BIG EVENT type performances.

Where this plan deviates is piano.Piano music may very well fit into the average home but small scale it is not ! The dynamic contrasts DEMAND a loudspeaker or headphone that can go from nothing to max without strain and back again while still holding the decay of the strck note and that means you must have both high sensitivity,lightening fast response and a seriously high headroom on both amp and transdicers or there WILL be clipped or compressed notes.

If there is an area or two where both horn loudspeakers and/or Grado cans can not be touched it is making both piano or percussion sound LIVE RIGHT BETEEEN YOUR EYES rather than recorded for background music during light conversation.Only with the above are you drawn into the performance rather than feeling like an outsider listening from the next room which leads my to label both instrument types as LARGE SCALE instruments even though unassisted and acoustic in nature while amped acoustic guitar or amped harmonica labelled small scale even though having electronic assistance and work well on the "small scale" electrostat rig.

What does this all mean ?

simply that even though a person can have a system considered "accurate" there are still tecnologies better suited to a type than others no matter what they tell you.that there IS NO one thing for all music and to aim for it is to accept the inherent limitations in one ot the other so untl they come out with high efficiency 'stats that are blowout proof and that have real bass having high impactl I have to accept the reality of there being a need for targeted use and two systems though I may be the only one on the planet that feels this way ;D