Jump to content

AR LST speakers


Guest cbumdumb

Recommended Posts

Guest cbumdumb

I am new here so please excuse this post if topic was covered before but I just bought two AR LST speakers from a flea market seem intact one woofer needs new foam but or complete the pots are frozen but other than that seem in good condition . I was thinking about refoaming them or trying to find proper replacement parts I am new to this and am looking for any suggestions on what I should do . My plans when i first got them was to modernize them but after reading up on them I think they should be kept original cabinents or in very good shape and speaker grilles in great shape except one frame is cracked but cloth undamaged , any suggestions would we of great help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 94
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Hi cdumbumb

You should definitely refoam your woofers, you will have a hard time to find a replacement speaker of the same quality and fit for any of the drivers in an AR-LST. The "potmeter" is a 6 position switch, so it might not be stuck at all, nmaybe you just have to try to turn a little harder. Properly restored, it is a speaker like almost no other speaker in this world, but they need to be positioned close up against a wall with some distance to the floor, in order to give a proper respons in the low register.

Good luck with the restoration, it is worth every minute it lasts.

Klaus

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1-17-07

Here’s my 4 cents, I own AR-3as’, AR-2ax’s and AR-LST’s.

The 3a’s are wonderful and still my most comfortable speaker to my ears, I find the 2ax’s are a little mid- top-end shy, while at the same time they can be slightly ‘boomy’ if the amp bass controls are not used judiciously.

The AR-LST strongly carries the AR signature sound over-all, but offers at times, an over abundance of mid-range information, which is great for female voices, bass being the same as the 3a’s- the best in the world.

There I did it, I said it, I spoke of the main AR speaker line in five sentences or less.

Frank Marsi, your friend.

P.S. Keep your AR-LST’s as original as possible. I realize the high end driver is the most difficult to maintain, but there are alternatives out there. These speakers are only worth their salt in their original state and quickly lose value when altered. Besides why would anyone want to change this veritable classic of all times? I’m extremely grateful that I even have mine!

Frank Marsi, my friend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>1-17-07

>

>P.S. Keep your AR-LST’s as original as possible.

>Frank Marsi, my friend.

>

Hi, Frank!

I well understand your desire to stay with the original design. Nevertheless, just wanted to mention that for the past 6 months I have been passively bi-amping my AR-3a's and they sound just terrific! Better, in my opinion, than they did 35 years ago.

I further believe that most of the improvement is due to the amps just having a much simpler/easier task to do ... and consequently, do it better!

If the AR-3a woofer "load's" an amp, just imagine how all the drivers in your LST's load your amps. I would seriously recommend a bi-amp "experiment" on the LST's.

I believe the benefits would be:

1. Even better/tighter base

2. Far, far more resolution and control over the mids/highs

Bi-amping the LST's is more difficult than bi-amping the AR-3's, because the LST's lack that 3rd terminal (one labeled "T"). This means a lot more work, but I believe the benefits would be even greater on the LST's.

In short, the additional effort would be well rewarded.

Regards,

Jerry

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm am going to come close to breaking my New Year's Resolution not to offer my personal opinions about loudspeakers on line....

I lived with the LST's as my primary speakers for several years. (Actually, it was the repeated trips to AR's Service Counter for replacement tweeters and fuses, borrowing my roomate's car, that got my my first factory tour.)

The LST's are basically the evil-twin of one of my other all-time fav's: the Quad ESL. The LST's sacrificed everything in favor of Flat Power Response. The Quads sacrificed everything in favor of Flat First-Arrival Response. Each was uncompromising in its approach, for both better and worse.

Now I am going to get myself into real trouble...

It's always been hard for me to ignore the influence of the Bose 901 on AR's decision to make the LST. The 901, and its striking appearance, was having a big impact on the company's dealer and customer base at the time of the LST's introduction. This is not meant to discount the LST's quality or innovation, as it contained more than its fair share of both.

-k

http://kkantor.spaces.live.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>I'm am going to come close to breaking my New Year's>The LST's are basically the evil-twin of one of my other

>all-time fav's: the Quad ESL. The LST's sacrificed

>everything in favor of Flat Power Response. The Quads

>sacrificed everything in favor of Flat First-Arrival Response.

> Each was uncompromising in its approach, for both better and

>worse.

Flat first arrival response is very important. The principal limitation of most loudspeakers in meeting this criteria is....high frequency radiation.

Flat total spectral transfer at the listener's location which was Peter Snell's observation and IMO his most important contribution, and not flat power radiated is also of critical importance. The difference is that flat spectral transfer must take into account the acoustic energy reflection/absorption as a function of frequency of the room boundaries and the radiating properties of the speakers themselves and must compensate for them. The principal limitation of most loudspeakers in meeting this criteria is....also high frequency radiation.

I have been modifying my speakers with the goal of achieving both simultaneously. And as a result, they sound remarkably alike even though they didn't start out that way. They also sound a lot like live music. I am most fortunate to have real musical instruments to compare them to directly.

>Now I am going to get myself into real trouble...

>

>It's always been hard for me to ignore the influence of the

>Bose 901 on AR's decision to make the LST. The 901, and its

>striking appearance, was having a big impact on the company's

>dealer and customer base at the time of the LST's

>introduction. This is not meant to discount the LST's quality

>or innovation, as it contained more than its fair share of

>both.

The resemblance visually is superficial. Acoustically, each had its strengths and shortcomings which were different from each other. 901 has NO appreciable response above around 10 to 12 khz. Front high frequency radiation with the first arrival is what you would expect from a 4" driver, what little of it is there is stricty on axis. A 4" dynamic driver as a tweeter is worthless. This cannot be corrected with further equalization because the cone's inertial mass is too great and the dispersion is a function of its size. Reflected high frequency radiation from the rear cannot compensate for it either. Interestingly, if you try to provide enhanced hf output from the rear only, you get a very strange acoustic phemonenon which is clearly audible on sibilant parts of speech and with some music. It sounds like an effect you get from a phaser/flanger used for sound effects with electronic musical instruments. 901 also has an objectionable upper bass/lower midrange peak in many installation situations. Today, this is easily correctable but in 1967 it wasn't. On the other hand, 901 has no crossover problems because it doesn't have a crossover network. Both are capable of excellent very low frequency, low distortion bass when sufficient power is available and both can benefit significantly from further LF equalization but 901s power requirements to achieve its full potential is monumental, practically without equal in any other speaker I know of. It would take around 2 to 4 pairs and about 500 to 1000 wpc to achieve bass response a pair of AR9 can deliver with a 60 wpc amplifier. 901 also does not radiate as a virtual point source. 901 doesn't sound like music coming out of a box. This may explain why 901 like panel speakers, especially bi-polar panels are so popular. The desire for speakers which produce sound coming from a source beyond its own limited physical size is apparantly very important to many listeners. This was one reason Bose 901 was so popular and why so many audiophiles and manufacturers today prize what they call "imaging" even to the point of sacrificing timbral accuracy. I suppose that doesn't matter if you don't know or care what acoustical instruments really sound like. BTW, my comments about 901 refer to the original and series 2 which used the CTS acoustic suspension drivers only. As I see it, that was their one true serious effort at a high fidelity loudspeaker, warts and all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>Flat first arrival response is very important. The principal

>limitation of most loudspeakers in meeting this criteria

>is....high frequency radiation.

I don't agree. In my research and experience, high frequencies are the easiet to get right, on first arrival. Can you suggest some references for me to read? This has been a primary topic of my professional life for 25+ years. I'm REALLY intested to learn any errors in my thinking. (Not asking for you explaination, or a debate. Just some reference I can digest.)

>Flat total spectral transfer at the listener's location which

>was Peter Snell's observation and IMO his most important

>contribution, and not flat power radiated is also of critical

>importance. The difference is that flat spectral transfer

>must take into account the acoustic energy

>reflection/absorption as a function of frequency of the room

>boundaries and the radiating properties of the speakers

>themselves and must compensate for them. The principal

>limitation of most loudspeakers in meeting this criteria

>is....also high frequency radiation.

Why do you attribute this contribution to Snell? Snell wasn't even founded till 1976, or so.

>

>I have been modifying my speakers with the goal of achieving

>both simultaneously. And as a result, they sound remarkably

>alike even though they didn't start out that way. They also

>sound a lot like live music. I am most fortunate to have real

>musical instruments to compare them to directly.

That goal is EXACTLY what the AR MGC-1 attempted to achieve. Here's what the NY Times published in (oy) 1985:

http://kkantor.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!75...7C11!1572.entry.

and here's an article I wrote on the topic. You might be interested in the references:

http://www.aural.org/audio/articles/magic_...gic_speaker.pdf.

I'll see if I can get the AES's permission to post a paper Alex deKoster and I did on the subject:

> Volume 34 Number 12 pp. 990-996; December 1986

>

> The psychoacoustic issues relevant to loudspeaker design are

> reviewed. These issues are discussed as they relate to the

> perceived spectral balance, transient response, localization, and

> spatial characteristics of consumer loudspeakers. A loudspeaker

> design deriving from acoustic and psychoacoustic considerations is

> presented. The design achieves spatial and temporal control of

> the sound radiation and incorporates signal processing

> electronics. The design is shown to be justified using both

> subjective and objective testing.

>

> Authors: Kantor, Kenneth L.; de Koster, Alexander P.

>

> E-lib Location: (CD aes4) /jrnl7888/1986/8146.pdf

>The resemblance visually is superficial. Acoustically, each

>had its strengths and shortcomings which were different from

>each other. 901 has NO appreciable response above around 10

>to 12 khz. Front high frequency radiation with the first

>arrival is what you would expect from a 4" driver, what

>little of it is there is stricty on axis. A 4" dynamic

>driver as a tweeter is worthless. This cannot be corrected

>with further equalization because the cone's inertial mass is

>too great and the dispersion is a function of its size.

>Reflected high frequency radiation from the rear cannot

>compensate for it either. Interestingly, if you try to

>provide enhanced hf output from the rear only, you get a very

>strange acoustic phemonenon which is clearly audible on

>sibilant parts of speech and with some music. It sounds like

>an effect you get from a phaser/flanger used for sound effects

>with electronic musical instruments. 901 also has an

>objectionable upper bass/lower midrange peak in many

>installation situations. Today, this is easily correctable

>but in 1967 it wasn't. On the other hand, 901 has no

>crossover problems because it doesn't have a crossover

>network. Both are capable of excellent very low frequency, low

>distortion bass when sufficient power is available and both

>can benefit significantly from further LF equalization but

>901s power requirements to achieve its full potential is

>monumental, practically without equal in any other speaker I

>know of. It would take around 2 to 4 pairs and about 500 to

>1000 wpc to achieve bass response a pair of AR9 can deliver

>with a 60 wpc amplifier. 901 also does not radiate as a

>virtual point source. 901 doesn't sound like music coming out

>of a box. This may explain why 901 like panel speakers,

>especially bi-polar panels are so popular. The desire for

>speakers which produce sound coming from a source beyond its

>own limited physical size is apparantly very important to many

>listeners. This was one reason Bose 901 was so popular and

>why so many audiophiles and manufacturers today prize what

>they call "imaging" even to the point of sacrificing

>timbral accuracy. I suppose that doesn't matter if you don't

>know or care what acoustical instruments really sound like.

>BTW, my comments about 901 refer to the original and series 2

>which used the CTS acoustic suspension drivers only. As I see

>it, that was their one true serious effort at a high fidelity

>loudspeaker, warts and all.

Having been there, (both Bose and AR), shortly after the LST's release I'm explaining a situation whereby the LST was very probably influenced by the 901. I'm not interested in debating you, but will be happy to discuss this topic if you would like to learn more.

Incidentally, I studied with Bose, as well as doing various design projects for his company. He is an extremely competent acoustician and loudspeaker designer. Sure, I had disagreements with him, but to dismiss his understanding of loudspeakers is simply foolish.

-k

http://kkantor.spaces.live.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Mr Kantor always good to have you on here.

I for one would like to see a sonic signature. Like Bose dose with there refletion graphics showing where the sound goes, with the LST and the Mgc-1. Except were Bose can't show seperate paterens for Highs, mids and lower ranges these two can. I have listened to the Bose and LST, but have not been lucky enough to listen to Mgc-1.

One Question. What problem was the Mgc-1 trying to solve that the LST and AR9 did not address?

Thank you

Jim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>I don't agree. In my research and experience, high frequencies

>are the easiet to get right, on first arrival. Can you

>suggest some references for me to read? This has been a

>primary topic of my professional life for 25+ years. I'm

>REALLY intested to learn any errors in my thinking. (Not

>asking for you explaination, or a debate. Just some reference

>I can digest.)

There are no published references I'm aware of. My knoweldge comes predominantly from my own experiments and analysis of the problem. Up to this point, I have not found it to be of any advantage to me to publish them as this is merely a hobby. I have in the past held membership in both AES and ASA but I have let them lapse. I'm also not particularly interested in discussing our disagreement in this regard at any length, I merely wanted to express that a different point of view exists.

>Why do you attribute this contribution to Snell? Snell wasn't

>even founded till 1976, or so.

I met Peter Snell shortly before he died. This was his point of view which made a lot of sense to me and began my thinking along entirely different lines than I had previouly been taught. He may not have been the first to look at the problem this way, just the first for me.

>That goal is EXACTLY what the AR MGC-1 attempted to achieve.

Judging from what I could tell from the design of the speaker never having actually heard it myself, it appears an improvement over the prior art but I'd expect it falls short of achieving the goal. Is there any adjustable provision for compensating for the frequency selective nature of the room boundary absorption or built in spectral compensation of the indirect drivers for the frequency selective characteristics of the total power radiated by the direct drivers?

>Here's what the NY Times published in (oy) 1985:

>

>http://kkantor.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!75...7C11!1572.entry.

>

>and here's an article I wrote on the topic. You might be

>interested in the references:

>

>http://www.aural.org/audio/articles/magic_...gic_speaker.pdf.

>

>I'll see if I can get the AES's permission to post a paper

>Alex deKoster and I did on the subject:

>

>> Volume 34 Number 12 pp. 990-996; December 1986

>>

>> The psychoacoustic issues relevant to loudspeaker design

>are

>> reviewed. These issues are discussed as they relate to

>the

>> perceived spectral balance, transient response,

>localization, and

>> spatial characteristics of consumer loudspeakers. A

>loudspeaker

>> design deriving from acoustic and psychoacoustic

>considerations is

>> presented. The design achieves spatial and temporal

>control of

>> the sound radiation and incorporates signal processing

>> electronics. The design is shown to be justified using

>both

>> subjective and objective testing.

>>

>> Authors: Kantor, Kenneth L.; de Koster, Alexander P.

>>

>> E-lib Location: (CD aes4) /jrnl7888/1986/8146.pdf

Again the eternal bugaboo about "imagaing" and source localization. The issues which keep cropping up in this regard to loudspeaker designs are not only of secondary importance to what should IMO be of primary concern, accurate subjective timbral reproduction of musical instruments, they are multiplied thousands of fold by the same variables in live musical performances. IMO, the issues of greatest concern to modern speaker designers miss the mark while those I consider critical are given a little lip service and no real importance as evidenced by their designs. What is the value of a loudspeaker being able to localize the source of a sound if the tones it creates bear only passing resemblance to those of the musical instruments it is supposed to reproduce. The designers seem completely enthralled with the means, not the ends. They don't see the forest for the trees.

>Having been there, (both Bose and AR), shortly after the LST's

>release I'm explaining a situation whereby the LST was very

>probably influenced by the 901. I'm not interested in

>debating you, but will be happy to discuss this topic if you

>would like to learn more.

I find it hard to belive that LST was more than superficially influenced by 901. Even their physical appearance is comparable in only the most oblique ways. Perhaps 901 got AR engineers thinking about geometrical radiating patterns of loudspeakers but that's about where the similarity ends as far as I can see. The design approaches seem radically different. LST's consideration of how it interacts with room acoustics is entirely haphazard, left purely to chance. 901 has given far greater thought to it but among its shortcomings is its lack of provision to adjust the direct/reflected radiating ratio to compensate for different degrees of nearby boundary absorption. Moving the speaker closer or further from the reflecting wall is insufficient means as that affects other important parameters at the same time.

>

>Incidentally, I studied with Bose, as well as doing various

>design projects for his company. He is an extremely competent

>acoustician and loudspeaker designer. Sure, I had

>disagreements with him, but to dismiss his understanding of

>loudspeakers is simply foolish.

I have read Dr. Bose's white paper more than once. It has much useful information and many interesting ideas including some which are highly innovative. It also has some which are ludicrous. The one which stands out most is the measurement of 89% reflected sound 19 feet from the performing stage of Boston Symphony Hall as justification for a loudspeaker designs which radiates 89% of its energy indirectly because its resulting reverberant sound field as it relates to its direct field has nothing in common with the corresponding relationships at a live performance. If you speak with your former collegues at Bose, perhaps you will ask them why Dr. Bose chose to build his most serious effort at a high fidelity loudspeaker without the capability to reproduce most of the highest audible octave of sound. It took me 2 1/2 years to figure out how to satisfactorily correct the problem, it's not quite as straighforward as it might first appear.

If the shortcomings of much modern loudspeaker and sound system design which includes their lack of provision to mitigate differences in the acoustics of the rooms they are placed in and their lack of provision to mitigate differences in the way recordings are made resulting in unsatisfactory subjective timbral accuracy, their inability to reproduce the effects of concert hall acoustics is orders of magnitude worse. The importance of this is demonstrated by the willingness of both municipalities and private groups to expend many tens of millions of dollars building concert halls, the expenditure of many millions more to "tweak" them, and unfortunately the often less than satisfactory results all this money, time, and effort achieves. Dr. Bose's major contribution to my understanding is that those acoustical effects represent almost the entirety of what is heard in live music. The present state of the art for those who design sound systems to record and reproduce live music leaves them far short of the knowledge and techniques for recording it or reproducing it. This was brought home in a rare frank admission last summer by the editors and reviewerers of TAD audio hobbyist magazine who were in agreement that the best audio reproduction equipment they had access to was rarely if ever convincing. This hardly comes as a surprise to concergoers who also enjoy recordings at home. It won't IMO get any better until the problem is completly rethought from the ground up, the present paradyme having been exploited to its fullest potential a long time ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>Hello Mr Kantor always good to have you on here.

>

>I for one would like to see a sonic signature. Like Bose dose

>with there refletion graphics showing where the sound goes,

>with the LST and the Mgc-1. Except were Bose can't show

>seperate paterens for Highs, mids and lower ranges these two

>can. I have listened to the Bose and LST, but have not been

>lucky enough to listen to Mgc-1.

>One Question. What problem was the Mgc-1 trying to solve that

>the LST and AR9 did not address?

>Thank you

>Jim

Sorry I just found the one on the Mgc-1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>There are no published references I'm aware of. My knoweldge

>comes predominantly from my own experiments and analysis of

>the problem. Up to this point, I have not found it to be of

>any advantage to me to publish them as this is merely a hobby.

> I have in the past held membership in both AES and ASA but I

>have let them lapse. I'm also not particularly interested in

>discussing our disagreement in this regard at any length, I

>merely wanted to express that a different point of view

>exists.

>

Understood. But, without any cogent supporting argument, experimental data or cited references, it is just another one of the 10^25 audio opinions on the internet. One might just as well say,

"Over the years, it has become clear to me that it is possible to power a loudspeaker directly off a phono cartridge. There are no published references I'm aware of. My knoweldge comes predominantly from my own experiments and analysis of the problem. Up to this point, I have not found it to be of any advantage to me to publish them as this is merely a hobby."

>I met Peter Snell shortly before he died. This was his point

>of view which made a lot of sense to me and began my thinking

>along entirely different lines than I had previouly been

>taught. He may not have been the first to look at the problem

>this way, just the first for me.

One of the big problems with the internet is that people who are researching a topic for the first time have no good way to distinguish expert opinion from lay opinion, or even crank opinion. Thus, you and I both have a responsibility to be very careful and clear in what we say, since we are the Custodians of History. If you go back and read your own post about Snell, it read very much as if you were stating a historical fact. Thus, I simply asked you to clarify the basis for your statement as it was entered into the record. Thanks for doing this.

>Judging from what I could tell from the design of the speaker

>never having actually heard it myself, it appears an

>improvement over the prior art but I'd expect it falls short

>of achieving the goal. Is there any adjustable provision for

>compensating for the frequency selective nature of the room

>boundary absorption or built in spectral compensation of the

>indirect drivers for the frequency selective characteristics

>of the total power radiated by the direct drivers?

Alas, the design did fall short of its idealized goals. Such is the nature of all things. There were provisions for equalizing the reverberant spectrum both independently and arbitrarily. That's one of the main goals of the design. In fact, you can insert any kind of signal processing you want to the reverberant field, via a processor loop provided.

>What is the value of a

>loudspeaker being able to localize the source of a sound if

>the tones it creates bear only passing resemblance to those of

>the musical instruments it is supposed to reproduce. The

>designers seem completely enthralled with the means, not the

>ends. They don't see the forest for the trees.

>

Huh? One might just as well say, "What good is the value of a speaker that has accurate tonality, if it can't create a proper soundstage?" Value is a completely subjective matter. Ultimately, if designers made speakers whose value was as out of wack with listener's hearing as you suggest, they would not thrive. Localization is a very, very important part of the listening experience. Trading tonality against localization is a false dichotomy, anyway. For example, an early reflection will impair tonality as sure as it will impair localization. The falacy that tonality is completely determined by power response has been disproven by every study I am aware of, including AR's own. (eg- Kates, et al.)

>I find it hard to belive that LST was more than superficially

>influenced by 901.

OK. And I find it hard to believe that you find it hard to believe. On the other hand, my cousin Ida finds it hard to believe that I find it hard to believe that you find it hard to believe.

> The design approaches seem radically different.

They were. That's not my point.

> LST's consideration of how it interacts with room acoustics

>is entirely haphazard, left purely to chance.

Not true. Otherwise, the autotransformer would have been left out.

>I have read Dr. Bose's white paper more than once.

I trust by now, you don't move your lips...

>It also has some which are

>ludicrous. The one which stands out most is the measurement

>of 89% reflected sound 19 feet from the performing stage of

>Boston Symphony Hall as justification for a loudspeaker

>designs which radiates 89% of its energy indirectly because

>its resulting reverberant sound field as it relates to its

>direct field has nothing in common with the corresponding

>relationships at a live performance.

I fail to see why it is any less, (or more) justifiable than the radiation pattern of any other speaker. Advertising not withstanding, it is a design decision that will work well with some recordings/rooms/listener preferences, and poorly with others. Same thing with a dome tweeter, a horn, a dipole, etc.

>If you speak with your

>former collegues at Bose, perhaps you will ask them why Dr.

>Bose chose to build his most serious effort at a high fidelity

>loudspeaker without the capability to reproduce most of the

>highest audible octave of sound. It took me 2 1/2 years to

>figure out how to satisfactorily correct the problem, it's not

>quite as straighforward as it might first appear.

>

Too bad Bose didn't purchase your "satisfactory correction," or they might not have the burden of being the worlds' largest speaker company now! Sheesh, how could all those PhD's at Bose have missed it????

Three other things you overlook:

1- There is nothing sacred about 20KHz, any more than there is anything sacred about 20 Hz. Bandlimiting a speaker is unavoidable. Where one chooses to do it is purely a matter of listener preference.

2- There are plenty of 4.5" drivers with output above 15 KHz.

3- Can you hear above 8 KHz?

>If the shortcomings of much modern loudspeaker and sound

>system design which includes their lack of provision to

>mitigate differences in the acoustics of the rooms they are

>placed in and their lack of provision to mitigate differences

>in the way recordings are made resulting in unsatisfactory

>subjective timbral accuracy, their inability to reproduce the

>effects of concert hall acoustics is orders of magnitude

>worse. The importance of this is demonstrated by the

>willingness of both municipalities and private groups to

>expend many tens of millions of dollars building concert

>halls, the expenditure of many millions more to

>"tweak" them, and unfortunately the often less than

>satisfactory results all this money, time, and effort

>achieves. Dr. Bose's major contribution to my understanding

>is that those acoustical effects represent almost the entirety

>of what is heard in live music. The present state of the art

>for those who design sound systems to record and reproduce

>live music leaves them far short of the knowledge and

>techniques for recording it or reproducing it. This was

>brought home in a rare frank admission last summer by the

>editors and reviewerers of TAD audio hobbyist magazine who

>were in agreement that the best audio reproduction equipment

>they had access to was rarely if ever convincing. This hardly

>comes as a surprise to concergoers who also enjoy recordings

>at home. It won't IMO get any better until the problem is

>completly rethought from the ground up, the present paradyme

>having been exploited to its fullest potential a long time

>ago.

What I can understand of this paragraph, I agree with. I will say, however, that reproducing concert halls and acoustic instruments has become substantially irrelevant to the audio industry. The epoch of "classical music" is over. Personally, only about 3% of my media is music from before 1900, and suspect that is more than average.

-k

kkantor.spaces.live.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>>There are no published references I'm aware of. My

>knoweldge

>>comes predominantly from my own experiments and analysis

>of

>>the problem. Up to this point, I have not found it to be

>of

>>any advantage to me to publish them as this is merely a

>hobby.

>> I have in the past held membership in both AES and ASA

>but I

>>have let them lapse. I'm also not particularly interested

>in

>>discussing our disagreement in this regard at any length,

>I

>>merely wanted to express that a different point of view

>>exists.

>>

>

>Understood. But, without any cogent supporting argument,

>experimental data or cited references, it is just another one

>of the 10^25 audio opinions on the internet. One might just

>as well say,

>

>"Over the years, it has become clear to me that it is

>possible to power a loudspeaker directly off a phono

>cartridge. There are no published references I'm aware of.

>My knoweldge comes predominantly from my own experiments and

>analysis of the problem. Up to this point, I have not found

>it to be of any advantage to me to publish them as this is

>merely a hobby."

I'm not interested in trading library references here. If I were giving a dissertation that might be important. This is an informal internet discussion. It doesn't matter to me where knowledge comes from, it's the knowledge itself that counts. I am offering you an idea which may be new and different to consider and explore. Whether or not you do is up to you, I am not trying to prove any point. The people who publish these papers, and I've read enough of them to know, often do in a laboratory similar things to what I do at home although they usually have far better controlled conditions and better measuring equipment. OTOH, I have equal motivation and better trained hearing, a decided advantage. The other evening I honed it by speding several hours evaluating several violins of no particular distinction which a student was considering for purchase. We all heard the same sounds and had radically different opinions of what we heard and what it meant. Where does that leave measurements? There are a lot of well documented technical papers whose basic premises are wrong, whose mesurement techniques are questionable, whose logic and conclusions are badly flawed, and they are accepted as gospel for years, even decades going unchallenged. Read an 80 page Master's degree thesis by someone named Cheevers proporting a method of evaluating harmonic distortion in audio amplifiers to categorze and characterize them leading to the conclusion that tube amplifiers are better than transistor amplifiers. How many blunders can you find in its logic? Hint, the first one is nearly at the very beginning.

>>I met Peter Snell shortly before he died. This was his

>point

>>of view which made a lot of sense to me and began my

>thinking

>>along entirely different lines than I had previouly been

>>taught. He may not have been the first to look at the

>problem

>>this way, just the first for me.

>

>One of the big problems with the internet is that people who

>are researching a topic for the first time have no good way to

>distinguish expert opinion from lay opinion, or even crank

>opinion. Thus, you and I both have a responsibility to be

>very careful and clear in what we say, since we are the

>Custodians of History. If you go back and read your own post

>about Snell, it read very much as if you were stating a

>historical fact. Thus, I simply asked you to clarify the

>basis for your statement as it was entered into the record.

>Thanks for doing this.

I cited Peter Snell as a well respected physicist who made an interestingt statement which provoked me to think along certain lines I hadn't considered before, that's all. I'm not interested in who gets credit for being first to say it. This is an internet discussion among hobbyists, not a place for formal dissertations to be presented and defended. Pedantism carries no weight with me.

>>Judging from what I could tell from the design of the

>speaker

>>never having actually heard it myself, it appears an

>>improvement over the prior art but I'd expect it falls

>short

>>of achieving the goal. Is there any adjustable provision

>for

>>compensating for the frequency selective nature of the

>room

>>boundary absorption or built in spectral compensation of

>the

>>indirect drivers for the frequency selective

>characteristics

>>of the total power radiated by the direct drivers?

>

>Alas, the design did fall short of its idealized goals. Such

>is the nature of all things. There were provisions for

>equalizing the reverberant spectrum both independently and

>arbitrarily. That's one of the main goals of the design. In

>fact, you can insert any kind of signal processing you want to

>the reverberant field, via a processor loop provided.

I'm not sure I understand why your Magic 1 speaker is any different than just having two speaker systems per channel, one facing forward and another angled backwards with the option of a short time delay and some out of phase signals to the backwards one. It seems to me the basic goal of your speaker is what you call imaging or soundstaging. Little or no consideration seems to have been given to using the indirect speaker for adjusting its timbre. As with much about loudspeakers, that problem is left to the end user who typically has neither the understanding to appreciate the problem or the knowledge to solve it.

>

>>What is the value of a

>>loudspeaker being able to localize the source of a sound

>if

>>the tones it creates bear only passing resemblance to

>those of

>>the musical instruments it is supposed to reproduce. The

>>designers seem completely enthralled with the means, not

>the

>>ends. They don't see the forest for the trees.

>>

>

>Huh? One might just as well say, "What good is the value

>of a speaker that has accurate tonality, if it can't create a

>proper soundstage?" Value is a completely subjective

>matter. Ultimately, if designers made speakers whose value

>was as out of wack with listener's hearing as you suggest,

>they would not thrive. Localization is a very, very important

>part of the listening experience. Trading tonality against

>localization is a false dichotomy, anyway. For example, an

>early reflection will impair tonality as sure as it will

>impair localization. The falacy that tonality is completely

>determined by power response has been disproven by every study

>I am aware of, including AR's own. (eg- Kates, et al.)

>

Here I will have to strongly disagree with you. Tonality is one of the four basic elements of music along with melody, harmony, and rhythm. Soundstaging is not. In fact, it is relatively unimportant. The system of arranging musicians in a symphony orchestra called "The American Seating Plan" is a relatively recent invention and is not necessarily universally adopted or even applicable to other ensembles. The ability to exactly localize the source of individual musical instruments is often difficult when many of them play together, or when you are not in the front row seats. The better seats in a concert hall are often further back. The reverberation of the acoustics which adds so much to musical enjoyment blurs localization.

>

>>I find it hard to belive that LST was more than

>superficially

>>influenced by 901.

>

>OK. And I find it hard to believe that you find it hard to

>believe. On the other hand, my cousin Ida finds it hard to

>believe that I find it hard to believe that you find it hard

>to believe.

Very funny. :-)

>> The design approaches seem radically different.

>

>They were. That's not my point.

You said that LST was influenced by 901. Neither were rectangular prisms, both had angled panels. Both produced bass by an acoustic suspension design. IMO that's about all they had in common, an entirely superficial resemblance.

>> LST's consideration of how it interacts with room

>acoustics

>>is entirely haphazard, left purely to chance.

>

>Not true. Otherwise, the autotransformer would have been left

>out.

The transformer controlled the hf balance of direct firing tweeters only and that is all or am I mistaken. AR LST made no provisions for independent control of reflected sound and its interaction with the listening room. Because of its unusually wide horizontal dispersion of mid and high frequencies, it has greater interaction with room acoustics than speakers with narrow dispersion. This made the optimal listening area greater but it made no provision for adjusting for differences in absorption/reflectivity of reverberant sound indepdently of keeping the direct field flat. Therefore, the setting was at best a compromise, a tradeoff between flat direct field and flat total energy transfer. Having both simultaneously was an impossibility

>

>

>>I have read Dr. Bose's white paper more than once.

>

>I trust by now, you don't move your lips...

I don't have to look up any of the words in the dictionary anymore either.

>

>>It also has some which are

>>ludicrous. The one which stands out most is the

>measurement

>>of 89% reflected sound 19 feet from the performing stage

>of

>>Boston Symphony Hall as justification for a loudspeaker

>>designs which radiates 89% of its energy indirectly

>because

>>its resulting reverberant sound field as it relates to

>its

>>direct field has nothing in common with the corresponding

>>relationships at a live performance.

>

>I fail to see why it is any less, (or more) justifiable than

>the radiation pattern of any other speaker. Advertising not

>withstanding, it is a design decision that will work well with

>some recordings/rooms/listener preferences, and poorly with

>others. Same thing with a dome tweeter, a horn, a dipole,

>etc.

The reasons it is not justifiable AS PRESENTED are many. Here are a few. The implication is that by duplicating the direct/reverberant ratio, you will duplicate the acoustical effects of the concert hall. Carnegie Hall has 225 times the volume of my listening room. The relationships of arrival of reverberanat energy in time, space, and spectral change in a concert hall have nothing in common with what the speaker produces in a home environment. Furthermore, the generation of 89% indirect energy doesn't in any way suggest that the field at the listener will be 89% reflected energy, that depends on many other variables, especially the room acoustics. And there isn't even a way to adjust that ratio. This does not negate the value or clear advantages of the direct/reflecting principle but the justification for it based on the rationalization in the white paper is inane IMO.

>

>>If you speak with your

>>former collegues at Bose, perhaps you will ask them why

>Dr.

>>Bose chose to build his most serious effort at a high

>fidelity

>>loudspeaker without the capability to reproduce most of

>the

>>highest audible octave of sound. It took me 2 1/2 years

>to

>>figure out how to satisfactorily correct the problem, it's

>not

>>quite as straighforward as it might first appear.

>>

>

>

>Too bad Bose didn't purchase your "satisfactory

>correction," or they might not have the burden of being

>the worlds' largest speaker company now! Sheesh, how could

>all those PhD's at Bose have missed it????

Simple, they must be deaf. They are more interested in listening to equipment than to music. While the general public may have accepted 901 for its special properties of creating music not sounding like it came out of a box, audiophiles soon tired of its inability to make recordings of musical instruments sound like the instruments themselves and it became the joke of the high end audio industry. The saying was "no highs, no lows, it must be Bose" was not an accident. Original Bose 901 can produce extraordinarily deep bass given enough amplifier power, but it cannot reproduce most of the top octave of sound. And even if it could, as I said, in its direct field radiation whose precidence establishes the stereophonic effect, its high frequencies would be strictly on axis due to the large diameter of the 4" cone. What I have concluded which I find interesting is that while the human ear is less sensitive to high frequencies than to midrange tones, the use the brain makes of it in judging sound both by its presence or absence and by its quality such as its directions of arrival is very important, far out of proportion to its quantity.

>

>Three other things you overlook:

>

>1- There is nothing sacred about 20KHz, any more than there is

>anything sacred about 20 Hz. Bandlimiting a speaker is

>unavoidable. Where one chooses to do it is purely a matter of

>listener preference.

No it's a matter of musical accuracy within the ability of the listener's hearing. By making it impossible to reproduce the extremes of frequency, a sound system precludes the possibility of reproducing convincingly the subjective tonality of musical instruments. Eliminate the treble and no violin will sound accurate. Too bad, this can be one of the most beautiful sounding istruments ever made. The best of them such as Strads and Guanari are the most expensive instruments which exist, some being called "priceless." When available at auction, they often sell in the millions of dollars. I know someone who refused 2 million dollars for a Guanari del Gesu, not to sell it but to bequeath it. Even most pianos won't sound right and not just in their upper registers. Eliminate the bass and orchestras don't sound right losing much of their power. Basses and Cellos don't sound right. Tuba's don't sound right. Bass drums lose their impact. Pipe organs don't sound right. Pedal notes become completely inaudible. In short, music sounds thin, loses its richness.

>2- There are plenty of 4.5" drivers with output above 15

>KHz.

Not off axis. And how many of them can also play flat down to 30 hz? At the current state of the art of material science, the physical strength of he cone to produce bass increases inertial mass to the point where it is too great to produce extreme treble unless maximum output is very limited as in a headphone driver. And no matter what, dispersion is a function of physical size and is awful even if output is possible.

>3- Can you hear above 8 KHz?

Easily :-) I have carefully potected my hearing by avoiding exposure to very loud sounds. I have never gone to a live rock concert or to a disco. I find sound at those levels painful. When I first started work at a steel mill with a group of trainees, others laughed at me for demanding ear protection. Now I can still hear, they probably cannot hear well if they can still hear at all.

>>If the shortcomings of much modern loudspeaker and sound

>>system design which includes their lack of provision to

>>mitigate differences in the acoustics of the rooms they

>are

>>placed in and their lack of provision to mitigate

>differences

>>in the way recordings are made resulting in

>unsatisfactory

>>subjective timbral accuracy, their inability to reproduce

>the

>>effects of concert hall acoustics is orders of magnitude

>>worse. The importance of this is demonstrated by the

>>willingness of both municipalities and private groups to

>>expend many tens of millions of dollars building concert

>>halls, the expenditure of many millions more to

>>"tweak" them, and unfortunately the often less

>than

>>satisfactory results all this money, time, and effort

>>achieves. Dr. Bose's major contribution to my

>understanding

>>is that those acoustical effects represent almost the

>entirety

>>of what is heard in live music. The present state of the

>art

>>for those who design sound systems to record and

>reproduce

>>live music leaves them far short of the knowledge and

>>techniques for recording it or reproducing it. This was

>>brought home in a rare frank admission last summer by the

>>editors and reviewerers of TAD audio hobbyist magazine

>who

>>were in agreement that the best audio reproduction

>equipment

>>they had access to was rarely if ever convincing. This

>hardly

>>comes as a surprise to concergoers who also enjoy

>recordings

>>at home. It won't IMO get any better until the problem

>is

>>completly rethought from the ground up, the present

>paradyme

>>having been exploited to its fullest potential a long

>time

>>ago.

>

>

>What I can understand of this paragraph, I agree with. I will

>say, however, that reproducing concert halls and acoustic

>instruments has become substantially irrelevant to the audio

>industry. The epoch of "classical music" is over.

>Personally, only about 3% of my media is music from before

>1900, and suspect that is more than average.

>

>-k

>

>kkantor.spaces.live.com

Sadly, you are probably right about classical music. There are many possible contributing reasons but one of them which should not be overlooked is industry's complete failure to develop the technology to reproduce the beauty of its sound. The best equipment even today renders a pale immitation of what real classical music sounds like. Every serious concertgoer in the world knows it and accepts it. It's basically the result of an engineering failure. With the perfection of solid state electronics and the digital compact discs, engineers solved the problem of storing, retrieving, and amplifiying electrical signals analogous to music. But they completely failed to solve the problem of music reproduction. Their approach was dead wrong. That approach legitimately starts with study and understanding of how musical instruments generate and propagate sound, how the sound interacts with large and small rooms, and how the sound fields which reach the listeners are characterized. Speaker engineers and sound system engineers have done none of that as is obvious from their designs. Woofers and tweeters are the last part of looking for the solution to the problem, not the first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm adding an addendum to my previous posting. There are many distortions to music which engineers have utterly failed to consider let alone deal with in their schemes to record and reproduce music. Here are a few of them and why they are so important. (Don't bother looking any of this up either, you won't find it in any book or reference. This is the result of 33 years of thinking about and studying this problem.)

A critical one is reproducing musical instruments at the correct loudness and the relationship between the objective property of loudness and the subjective quality of perceived acoustical power. The objective property of loudness depends on the acoustical output energy of the instrument and the distance between the instrument and the listener. Human hearing is surprisingly good at judging distances to sources. It also picks up cues from the environment, the acoustics of venue for judging the distance to the source and the size and nature of the space it is in. The brain can make a judgement about how powerful the source it. A pipe organ even playing at a distance softly, filling up a cathedral with sound incuding its reverberant echoes which arrive over a period of 4 or 5 seconds is perceived as a powerful source of sound. So is a boat whistle in a port with its sound echoing off buildings, even mountains for several seconds. So is a distant train whistle. So is a full symphony orchestra some dozens of feet away filling a 900,000 cubic foot concert hall with sound echoing for up to 3 or more seconds. A stereo system which reproduces a symphony orchestra which appears to be only 5 or 10 feet away playing even at deafening levels is judged as a feeble source of sound power. If a symphony orchestra or a pipe organ could be physically reduced in size to fit into your listening room but retain its acoustic power, the first note it played fff would be the last sound you ever heard. While the dynamic range of loudness a modern sound system can achieve exceeds the maximum RANGE of objective loudnesses of music (about 85 to 90 db), the ability to reproduce the range of subjective power experienced at live concerts doesn't even come close due to the failure to reproduce the acoustical effects of the hall. This is subjectively dynamic compression any way you look at it. If you want to hear how feeble a symphony orchestra can sound, go to an outdoor summer concert, especially if you can find one which doesn't play in a band shell. It's awful.

In live music played at concert halls, late arriving echoes of one note are heard simultaneously with early arriving echoes and direct sounds of subsequent notes. This creates harmonies and dissonances which are not captured in recordings.

When musicians play a rest at a live performance (stop playing for a moment or two) the echoes from the note just prior to the rest build tension for what will come next. Musicians, especially symphony orchestras must adjust their tempo to the acoustics of venue to allow those echoes to die out to just the right degree before playing the next note to get the full dramatic impact the composer intended. In recordings, the absence of those echoes becomes a discontinuity, ruining the effect entirely. This often comes at the dramatic climax of a major symphonic work, the point the composer has built the entire composition towards.

When a musician plays a note in a live performance, the higher harmonics of that note die out in about a third to a half the time it takes for the fundimental and lower harmonics to die out. This alters the subjective perception of the tone making it mellower, richer without affecting the clarity which the initial transient attack imparts. Clear and mellower, a seeming contradiction to sound engineers.

These are how just some of the distortions even the best electronic sound reproduction systems we have today destroy great music. Small wonder it is dying out. Were it not for that music, personally I wouldn't even see the point at all in owning a high fidelity sound system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>I'm not interested in trading library references here. If I

>were giving a dissertation that might be important. This is

>an informal internet discussion. It doesn't matter to me

>where knowledge comes from, it's the knowledge itself that

>counts. I am offering you an idea which may be new and

>different to consider and explore. Whether or not you do is

>up to you, I am not trying to prove any point. The people who

>publish these papers, and I've read enough of them to know,

>often do in a laboratory similar things to what I do at home

>although they usually have far better controlled conditions

>and better measuring equipment. OTOH, I have equal motivation

>and better trained hearing, a decided advantage. The other

>evening I honed it by speding several hours evaluating several

>violins of no particular distinction which a student was

>considering for purchase. We all heard the same sounds and

>had radically different opinions of what we heard and what it

>meant. Where does that leave measurements? There are a lot

>of well documented technical papers whose basic premises are

>wrong, whose mesurement techniques are questionable, whose

>logic and conclusions are badly flawed, and they are accepted

>as gospel for years, even decades going unchallenged. Read an

>80 page Master's degree thesis by someone named Cheevers

>proporting a method of evaluating harmonic distortion in audio

>amplifiers to categorze and characterize them leading to the

>conclusion that tube amplifiers are better than transistor

>amplifiers. How many blunders can you find in its logic?

>Hint, the first one is nearly at the very beginning.

Methinks he doth protest too much! Soundminded, you're a smart guy. You don't need to embarass yourself with verbose spin. This is a simple matter: Don't post your opinions as if they were facts. That's all. Very reasonable request.

>I cited Peter Snell as a well respected physicist who made an

>interestingt statement which provoked me to think along

>certain lines I hadn't considered before, that's all. I'm not

>interested in who gets credit for being first to say it. This

>is an internet discussion among hobbyists, not a place for

>formal dissertations to be presented and defended. Pedantism

>carries no weight with me.

I urge you to read your original post on this matter. Again, you presented your assertion as if it were historical fact. Plain and simple.

>Here I will have to strongly disagree with you. Tonality is

>one of the four basic elements of music along with melody,

>harmony, and rhythm. Soundstaging is not. In fact, it is

>relatively unimportant. The system of arranging musicians in

>a symphony orchestra called "The American Seating

>Plan" is a relatively recent invention and is not

>necessarily universally adopted or even applicable to other

>ensembles. The ability to exactly localize the source of

>individual musical instruments is often difficult when many of

>them play together, or when you are not in the front row

>seats. The better seats in a concert hall are often further

>back. The reverberation of the acoustics which adds so much

>to musical enjoyment blurs localization.

>

Oh, localization is more fundamental than any of your four "basic elements of music" abstractions. Pitch and direction are what the human hearing system is hard-wired for. Things like tonality and beat are much further down the cognitive processing chain. In fact, they are widely considered subjective quantities, while P and D are objective ones.

>The transformer controlled the hf balance of direct firing

>tweeters only and that is all or am I mistaken. AR LST made

>no provisions for independent control of reflected sound and

>its interaction with the listening room. Because of its

>unusually wide horizontal dispersion of mid and high

>frequencies, it has greater interaction with room acoustics

>than speakers with narrow dispersion. This made the optimal

>listening area greater but it made no provision for adjusting

>for differences in absorption/reflectivity of reverberant

>sound indepdently of keeping the direct field flat.

>Therefore, the setting was at best a compromise, a tradeoff

>between flat direct field and flat total energy transfer.

>Having both simultaneously was an impossibility

No, the LST transformer was introduced to allow adjustment of the woofer, independent of the mids and tweets.

>What I have concluded which I find interesting

>is that while the human ear is less sensitive to high

>frequencies than to midrange tones, the use the brain makes of

>it in judging sound both by its presence or absence and by its

>quality such as its directions of arrival is very important,

>far out of proportion to its quantity.

This is not in accordance with the understanding of many loudspeaker engineers and psychophysicists I know.

>No it's a matter of musical accuracy within the ability of the

>listener's hearing. By making it impossible to reproduce the

>extremes of frequency, a sound system precludes the

>possibility of reproducing convincingly the subjective

>tonality of musical instruments. Eliminate the treble and no

>violin will sound accurate. Too bad, this can be one of the

>most beautiful sounding istruments ever made. The best of

>them such as Strads and Guanari are the most expensive

>instruments which exist, some being called

>"priceless." When available at auction, they often

>sell in the millions of dollars. I know someone who refused 2

>million dollars for a Guanari del Gesu, not to sell it but to

>bequeath it. Even most pianos won't sound right and not just

>in their upper registers. Eliminate the bass and orchestras

>don't sound right losing much of their power. Basses and

>Cellos don't sound right. Tuba's don't sound right. Bass

>drums lose their impact. Pipe organs don't sound right.

>Pedal notes become completely inaudible. In short, music

>sounds thin, loses its richness.

I'm in the wrong universe to understand the above paragraph. I'll try reading it again if I ever decide to take psychedelic drugs.

>Not off axis.

Now you are just being plain difficult. The Bose design in question is not sensitive to the polars of the individual drivers, and you know that.

>Sadly, you are probably right about classical music. There

>are many possible contributing reasons but one of them which

>should not be overlooked is industry's complete failure to

>develop the technology to reproduce the beauty of its sound.

Give it up. Classical music is an anachronism. It's a dead art form, which speaks to fewer and fewer living people. Some of it may be beautiful, as some Baroque painting is. But, Art is all about change, not stasis. People want to hear music from their time, music that speaks to them about their life experiences, how ever abstractly. The audio manufacturers who maintained a reactionary allegience to old music were the first ones to go. Ones which embraced healthy creative evolution in the field of music, thrive.

I couldn't imagine being on the proverbial desert island with more than 2 or 3 classic music recordings, out of the dozens of works I want to bring. And live concerts? Yawn. Can humans get more pompous and stuffy? Classical audiences seem to forget that, oh, Beethoven was much like your typical rock and roller.

-k

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry, there are so many bizarre notions in your last post that I wouldn't know where to start. Audio equipment stopped being made for classical music after classical music lost its audience, not the other way around. Radio stations changed format. Record stores changed merchandising. Gradually, speaker companies got the message.

As for the conspiracy of clueless speaker designers, to be rescued by... YOU ...I am speechless. (Giggling a little, but speechless.) I thought about asking what the hell you are talking about with the harmonic thing, but can predict your response about useless publications, you hearing, the establishment, private experiments, blah blah blah. The only one of the regular symptoms of audio crankism you haven't yet exhibited is the Secrecy and Intellectual Property gambit, wherein one can't tell anyone else what they are doing or it would be stolen by nefarious forces.

-k

kkantor.spaces.live.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>Sorry, there are so many bizarre notions in your last post

>that I wouldn't know where to start. Audio equipment stopped

>being made for classical music after classical music lost its

>audience, not the other way around. Radio stations changed

>format. Record stores changed merchandising. Gradually,

>speaker companies got the message.

It's nice to know that all of the advertising rhetoric aside, in their heart of hearts, audio engineers have abandoned their clumsy efforts to duplicate the sound of live classical music. So they have finally resigned themselves to the fact that the problem has beaten them. Good, this has opened up a whole new door to marketing products costing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars which have no objective goal, no standard of performance to be judged by. This makes the potential for new models and financial profits open ended. And this is hardly surprising to me since carefully reading the philosophy of the current gurus of this industry like Dr. Floyd Toole as expressed in their technical papers, you find that their objective is to discover what the market likes most, not what sounds most like real music. Oh by the way, here is an even more bizarre notion, a recording is NOT MUSIC, it is a facsimile, just as a movie travelogue and a post card is not a vacation to Europe. And considering that over a hundred years of the most remarkable technological progress in history has occurred during the development of sound technology, in regard to reproducing serious music, at its best it's a rather disappointing facsimile at that.

>As for the conspiracy of clueless speaker designers, to be

>rescued by... YOU ...I am speechless. (Giggling a little, but

>speechless.) I thought about asking what the hell you are

>talking about with the harmonic thing, but can predict your

>response about useless publications, you hearing, the

>establishment, private experiments, blah blah blah. The only

>one of the regular symptoms of audio crankism you haven't yet

>exhibited is the Secrecy and Intellectual Property gambit,

>wherein one can't tell anyone else what they are doing or it

>would be stolen by nefarious forces.

Speaker designers clueless? Anyone who would entertain the notion that sound coming out of a pair of two or three cubic foot wooden shoeboxes could fool anyone with normal hearing and a normal brain for even one second into thinking that they were listening to the sound of a hundred piece symphony orchestra at Carnegie Hall or a three hundred voice choir and a pipe organ playing at the Mormon Tabernacle would have to be clueless, even if those shoeboxes said AR LST, NHT, or Tymphony on them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

> Classical music is an anachronism. It's a dead art form, which speaks to fewer and fewer living people.

What! -- The following link may serve to illustrate a contradictory view:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/t...dio/4100276.stm

> Art is all about change

Really? Perhaps you are referring to 'postmodern right wing progressivism' in art, but not 'Art', as a whole.

Calm down girls!

;^)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was wondering reading all this if you have ever listened to new recordings done with dvd audio 5.1?

On a good surround sound system. It seams to me it might not be the boxes but the recording methed. Remember guadraphonic and the 8 stacked LST there was a add that stated some were that it sounded like the piano was right next to the guy. Sound comes from all around us. we may only have two ears but with them can tell were every thing around us is and how far away it is . come over and talk to some of the guys in the quad forum http://www.quadraphonicquad.com

I like and enjoy (also learn a lot by) reading this. Just a freindly invitation I would like to see how some of the guys respond to this topic.

keep going this is a learning thing for all of us please don't think its a waste of any ones time. we look at it like your Mentores.:) from two different points

Jim

sorry for jumping in

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>I was wondering reading all this if you have ever listened to

>new recordings done with dvd audio 5.1?

>On a good surround sound system. It seams to me it might not

>be the boxes but the recording methed. Remember guadraphonic

>and the 8 stacked LST there was a add that stated some were

>that it sounded like the piano was right next to the guy.

>Sound comes from all around us. we may only have two ears but

>with them can tell were every thing around us is and how far

>away it is . come over and talk to some of the guys in the

>quad forum http://www.quadraphonicquad.com

>I like and enjoy (also learn a lot by) reading this. Just a

>freindly invitation I would like to see how some of the guys

>respond to this topic.

>keep going this is a learning thing for all of us please don't

>think its a waste of any ones time. we look at it like your

>Mentores.:) from two different points

>Jim

>sorry for jumping in

Sorry for jumping in? On the contrary, thanks for expressing another point of view. Quadraphonic sound was my jumping off point. Experimenting with it and understanding why I didn't think it was satisfactory was the beginning for me to what I feel is a much greater understanding of the problem. There's a lot more to be said but frankly, I assumed nobody else was interested.

Everyone claims accurate sound reproduction. What is accurate sound reproduction anyway? There are actually two distinct very different problems. 1. "They are here." This is what you would hear if the musicians are in the same room with you. Fine for a small ensemble but as the number of musicians and the power of their instruments gets greater, less and less desirable. 2. "You are there." This is the sound you hear when you go to a live performance in a large venue. Of the two problems IMO this is by far the more difficult to solve. You must not only duplicate the sound of the instruments themselves but the effect of the acoustics as well. If there was only one thing Dr. Bose ever said that he should be remembered for, it's that the sound he measured only 19 feet from the performing stage at Boston Symphony Hall (possibly the best room in America for listening to music in) was 89% due to reflections, the acoustics of the room. And as you go back further, the percentage gets greater and greater. Therefore the sound you hear in the audience is almost entirely due to acoustics. But this sound only comprises a small percentage of what gets on recordings and even that is not reproduced in the same way you hear it live. So if you want to hear anything like what you'd hear at a live performance, you must understand and somehow recreate that aspect of it. Does that sound like a bizarre notion to you? My experiments and thinking about it led to a US patent. And that patent was in part infringed upon (I contend) by Yamaha in possible use of the user mode in their model DSP1. When I saw it, I recognized it and bought one immediately. Two Patent attorneys advised me not to sue as my prospects of winning were not good and the cost would have been very high. So I didn't. As it turned out, few people took that unit seriously, probably nobody but me ever put it to what I see as its potential use. There may have been others, it hardly matters. The patent is now expired anyway.

One of the problems you have to think about when you consider concert hall acoustics is the fact that in a good concert hall, you can't tell where the reverberation comes from. I did a lot of thinking and experimenting with directional effects and how to design them out of a sound system. The key frankly is to have a large number of small speakers, each contributing only a very small amount to the overall sound. The sound from any one direction being an insignificant percentage of the totality. There are other techniques too. This is how the acoustic architect does it as well. He uses many convex refletive shapes and never concave ones to avoid focusing sound from any one direction. (under the Capitol dome, there are two spots where people can hear each other at a whisper even with a lot of noise around them because of focusing of reflections.) Among the patents I had to analyze was Berkovitz of AR which the Patent office used to challenge my application. Interesting what notions people come up with. Berkovitz said every echo after 100 milliseconds was indistinguishable from random noise. Not my analysis at all. I've been experimenting on and off with what you would call surround sound for about 33 years. I just put one together in my bedroom using a 5.1 receiver and a DVD player. Not much to talk about though, good for movies. I will tell you this much, entirely different kinds of sound systems are possible whose sound bears little resemblance to anything anyone is likely to have ever heard coming out of a machine, but if Ken Kantor is right, and he probably is, few people would actually be interested in them, not enough to make them commercially viable.

I'll be glad to visit your other site. It's possible I may already be registered there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am sorry to have to say I agree with Ken Kantor in this regard Robert. It's sad but true. As a percentage of the total market, classical music has dwindled. There are lots of reasons. One may be an end to music appreciation classes in public schools. Hard to believe but I suspect many children grow up without ever having heard a single piece of classical music in their lives. Still there are some of us who hold tight to things we feel are of transcendant value. I just hope it doesn't die out altogether. I notice there are parents seeking instruction for musical instruments for their children. Where I live, those instructors especially for string instruments are few and far between.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

>>I was wondering reading all this if you have ever

>listened to

>>new recordings done with dvd audio 5.1?

>>On a good surround sound system. It seams to me it might

>not

>>be the boxes but the recording methed. Remember

>guadraphonic

>>and the 8 stacked LST there was a add that stated some

>were

>>that it sounded like the piano was right next to the guy.

>>Sound comes from all around us. we may only have two ears

>but

>>with them can tell were every thing around us is and how

>far

>>away it is . come over and talk to some of the guys in

>the

>>quad forum http://www.quadraphonicquad.com

>>I like and enjoy (also learn a lot by) reading this. Just

>a

>>freindly invitation I would like to see how some of the

>guys

>>respond to this topic.

>>keep going this is a learning thing for all of us please

>don't

>>think its a waste of any ones time. we look at it like

>your

>>Mentores.:) from two different points

>>Jim

>>sorry for jumping in

>

>Sorry for jumping in? On the contrary, thanks for expressing

>another point of view. Quadraphonic sound was my jumping off

>point. Experimenting with it and understanding why I didn't

>think it was satisfactory was the beginning for me to what I

>feel is a much greater understanding of the problem. There's

>a lot more to be said but frankly, I assumed nobody else was

>interested.

>

>Everyone claims accurate sound reproduction. What is accurate

>sound reproduction anyway? There are actually two distinct

>very different problems. 1. "They are here." This

>is what you would hear if the musicians are in the same room

>with you. Fine for a small ensemble but as the number of

>musicians and the power of their instruments gets greater,

>less and less desirable. 2. "You are there." This

>is the sound you hear when you go to a live performance in a

>large venue. Of the two problems IMO this is by far the more

>difficult to solve. You must not only duplicate the sound of

>the instruments themselves but the effect of the acoustics as

>well. If there was only one thing Dr. Bose ever said that he

>should be remembered for, it's that the sound he measured only

>19 feet from the performing stage at Boston Symphony Hall

>(possibly the best room in America for listening to music in)

>was 89% due to reflections, the acoustics of the room. And as

>you go back further, the percentage gets greater and greater.

>Therefore the sound you hear in the audience is almost

>entirely due to acoustics. But this sound only comprises a

>small percentage of what gets on recordings and even that is

>not reproduced in the same way you hear it live. So if you

>want to hear anything like what you'd hear at a live

>performance, you must understand and somehow recreate that

>aspect of it. Does that sound like a bizarre notion to you?

>My experiments and thinking about it led to a US patent. And

>that patent was in part infringed upon (I contend) by Yamaha

>in possible use of the user mode in their model DSP1. When I

>saw it, I recognized it and bought one immediately. Two

>Patent attorneys advised me not to sue as my prospects of

>winning were not good and the cost would have been very high.

>So I didn't. As it turned out, few people took that unit

>seriously, probably nobody but me ever put it to what I see as

>its potential use. There may have been others, it hardly

>matters. The patent is now expired anyway.

>

>One of the problems you have to think about when you consider

>concert hall acoustics is the fact that in a good concert

>hall, you can't tell where the reverberation comes from. I

>did a lot of thinking and experimenting with directional

>effects and how to design them out of a sound system. The key

>frankly is to have a large number of small speakers, each

>contributing only a very small amount to the overall sound.

>The sound from any one direction being an insignificant

>percentage of the totality. There are other techniques too.

>This is how the acoustic architect does it as well. He uses

>many convex refletive shapes and never concave ones to avoid

>focusing sound from any one direction. (under the Capitol

>dome, there are two spots where people can hear each other at

>a whisper even with a lot of noise around them because of

>focusing of reflections.) Among the patents I had to analyze

>was Berkovitz of AR which the Patent office used to challenge

>my application. Interesting what notions people come up with.

> Berkovitz said every echo after 100 milliseconds was

>indistinguishable from random noise. Not my analysis at all.

>I've been experimenting on and off with what you would call

>surround sound for about 33 years. I just put one together in

>my bedroom using a 5.1 receiver and a DVD player. Not much to

>talk about though, good for movies. I will tell you this

>much, entirely different kinds of sound systems are possible

>whose sound bears little resemblance to anything anyone is

>likely to have ever heard coming out of a machine, but if Ken

>Kantor is right, and he probably is, few people would actually

>be interested in them, not enough to make them commercially

>viable.

>

>I'll be glad to visit your other site. It's possible I may

>already be registered there.

>

I have had quad stuff from the begining and also brought back from Japan one of the first DSP1 unis all the instruction were in Japanese.Still have it and all My quad stuff. One of the quad Members Just wrote this about live verses recorded

(Quote (I have the hybrid SACD of Nektar - Live in New York which is essentially a quad mix with an ambient center channel. It replicates the sense of being at a concert in an auditorium better than any other music disc I have heard. Of course the CD-4 lp of the Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East is pretty awesome as well.

Back in the 70s I knew an audiophile with a monster quad setup, huge speakers and powerful amps/preamps. I had come back from a live concert in New York (Nektar as it turns out) and he put on one of their quad albums. The music sounded better on his system, louder and clearer, than the live show. And the show was one of the best sounding concerts I had seen.)

So with this aspect Ken is right and you are using Kens Ideas about speakers and putting them into a quad form your music comes from the correct timing of reflections as for some of the others like timber I don't know enough about that to say.

Please continue so we all can have a better understanding.

JIM

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll agree with you on one thing Ken, we do not live in the same universe...of ideas.

I regard this site as a hobbyist forum for an exchange of ideas and experiences and that is all. If mine don't interest you, that's all you have to say about it, no long exchanges necessary. I will not take it as an insult.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I may not be able to spell it correct but my 8 year old son wants a chello and my 10 year old plays drums they both listen to every kind of music I have and know a quality speaker when the heir it. I have four AR 9s in my system. driven by four pioneer spc 4 amps and a fully restord Sansui qrx 9001 quad unit probly the only house were the kids say Papa turn the music down we are trying to do are home work.

I got interested in this thred becouse i'm working on four LST's to put in place of the AR 9s to see how full the room gets:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...