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I'm not sure I know what you are talking about. My interest is in classical music, opera, choral and pipe organ music, and the like. I enjoy many other kinds of music and have lots of non classical recordings too but my main interest is in duplicating the most beautiful sounds I've had the rare privelege to hear at some classical concerts. For me, this is the justificaton for the expense, effort, and interest in high fidelity sound reproduction. I make no judgements about other kinds of music other people enjoy most except to say they are not my primary interest and some are of no interest to me at all.

When I understood the importance of the role acoustics of concert halls play in creating those sounds from what Dr. Bose wrote, I tried to understand how concert halls work to do what they do and how to duplicate that effect. One conclusion I've reached is that it probably isn't possible to record it directly. The closest approach in many respects is a process called binaural recording which can only be properly reproduced through headphones. I also tried to understand how acoustics affect the substance of music itself so that I could know if these effects create sound which is actually better or just different. I've been at it for about 33 years.

Then I tried to understand how musical instruments propagate sound and how the rooms in my own house affect them. Also how loudspeakers propagate sound differently from musical instruments and what could be done to make them more alike. I am fortunate to have some musical instruments in my house to compare recorded music to. I've been at that for about 18 years.

I am not surprised that to those who think about audio equipment design along more "traditional" lines, the ideas I express sound like jibberish in a foreign language or from another universe. The only disappointment on my part is that while I've spent 33 years considering what's wrong with the conventional way of looking at it, some people won't give it even 33 seconds of serious consideraton. But I'm not surprised. I've dealt with people who design, sell, and buy this kind of stuff all of my life. I'm used to it.

BTW, I've been registered at your referenced quadraphonic site for a long time now but haven't visited it much.

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Please disregard my previous post, Ken...I've just made it through your little treatise on Dead Art, and it's pretty clear that your understanding and application of aesthetic principles is of no value.

You are way, way out of your league, and not unsurprisingly arrogant, to boot.

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Just because he obviously knows nothing about musical compositions or the nature of music, nothing about musical instruments and the way they produce sound, nothing about the acoustics of the rooms music is performed and heard in, and nothing about how that alters music and how it's perceived by an audience, what makes you think he isn't qualified as an authority on equipment designed to accurately reproduce it artificially?

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Hi there;

I would like to put my 2 1/2 cents worth into this poorly directed topic.

My suggestion is this should be the end of this topic.

Please take this out of hand and tasteless discussion into the email realm please.

The last two write-ups were beyond me.

I and others come here to enjoy reading and writing about our enjoyable hobby.

It is obvious that we have a difference of opinions and views being expressed here, but it has entered into the arena, boxing arena.

We have at least one person who obviously has a musical instrument background, possibly much more.

In the other corner we have another man who historically has a lot to do with some our past speaker designs, not just with AR.

The flavour of this site is changing, not for the better, unfortunately.

We may lose one or both of you or more members if this continues.

My health does not allow mw to get distressed anymore.

This site and all the enjoyment I find here, is is my only therapy at this time.

I don't feel that I want to stay here and read or write anymore.

Please either get married to each other or stop squabbling.

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Interesting dialogue gentlemen. After reading most of it, I felt compelled to add my POV.

It’s evident Soundminded has a great deal of interest in optimizing the reproduction of concert hall acoustics and the sonic nuances of individual instruments he’s heard at those concerts. It’s a lofty goal indeed – perhaps too lofty. I would hope all would agree there is currently no perfect means (e.g. technology) of replicating exactly what’s heard during a live concert. At the same time I wonder what proportion of recorded music is from ‘live’ recordings in their natural venues. I’m researching the answer. But, I suspect it’s well in the minority of recordings sold. All this brought me to contemplate the following hypothetical scenario:

Suppose the technology did exist for exactly reproducing the ambience of a concert hall and all the tonal nuance of the instruments played there. First of all, every concert hall is a little different in its sonic signature. Perhaps with this level of recording and reproduction excellence one could tell the difference between Boston Symphony Hall and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam – two of the finest classical venues in the world. Suppose further, we could tell the sonic difference between a Steinway and a Yamaha piano and better yet, a Strad and a Guanari. I suspect for a VERY few, this is important. For folks like me with humble mid-fi systems who simply love the music, if it sounds like a piano or a cello, I’m satisfied. My point here is if this hypothetical scenario came to pass, what point would there be in going to see a live concert ever again? We could just sit home and experience utopian, sonic nirvana; oh, and also the music.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of live classical concert recordings, even though I’m a big fan of classical music. There is usually a smattering of coughing that spoils the beauty of the music as much as a poor recording does IMO. Given this and the hypothetical scenario above and the likelyhood live recordings are not in the majority, perhaps we should concentrate more on accurate reproduction of instruments played in a recording studio and thus reap the benefits of the larger proportion of recorded music. How do we do this? There are two* critical weak points in the audio reproduction chain. Each is tied to a transducer. The rest is primarily wire, electronics and good circuit design associated with the transmittal of electrons along the signal path. Much dialogue is given here at the CSP regarding the back end transducer (i.e,. the loudspeaker). However, assume we have the perfect home audio reproduction system that’s been somehow tuned to each of our room’s acoustics (DSP and perfectly designed loudspeakers perhaps?). Just feed it the ‘right’ stuff and it shines. That takes care of the back end.

Well, what is the ‘right’ stuff?

At the front end is/are the microphones (the other transducer) - another crucial variable in this complex equation called music reproduction. If you get a chance or haven’t already, take a listen to track 5 of Stereophile’s first test CD. It’s called “Why Hi-Fi experts disagree”. In it J. Gordon Hold reads some text as 14 different microphones are used sequentially to record his voice. Almost every one sounds a little bit different. Ah, 14 more variables. Which is the most accurate? Who knows? More importantly, who cares? In all of them we recognize Mr. Holt’s voice and that is all that we really care about.

IMO, engineers have done a pretty good job of reproducing a musical experience – be it live at a concert hall or in a studio. Otherwise why would billions of dollars be expended each year by millions of people on audio gear and audio software? My conclusion excludes those who buy and listen to highly compressed recordings. Oops, there’s another variable again in that darn complex equation!

Long live the music! Classical, rock or otherwise.

* there used to be three until the advent of digital recording technology. The third being the turntable cartridge. Now, vinyl records are greatly in the minority and I’ll ignore them for this discussion.

It's all about the music

Carl

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>Interesting dialogue gentlemen. After reading most of it, I

>felt compelled to add my POV.

>

>It’s evident Soundminded has a great deal of interest in

>optimizing the reproduction of concert hall acoustics and the

>sonic nuances of individual instruments he’s heard at those

>concerts. It’s a lofty goal indeed – perhaps too lofty. I

>would hope all would agree there is currently no perfect means

>(e.g. technology) of replicating exactly what’s heard during a

>live concert.

Maybe there could be, maybe not but I assure you, much better than we now have is possible. Based on my own experience there isn't the slightest doubt of it. Whether we will see it or hear it in our lifetimes is another matter.

>At the same time I wonder what proportion of

>recorded music is from ‘live’ recordings in their natural

>venues. I’m researching the answer. But, I suspect it’s well

>in the minority of recordings sold.

I'd agree, I'd say practically none of it. Even where it is, very little of the acoustics of the venue is captured. Were a recording made where the acoustical effect was recorded in proper proportion to the direct sound as it is heard live played through a conventional sound system, the music would sound like it was emerging from the Holland Tunnel.

>All this brought me to

>contemplate the following hypothetical scenario:

>Suppose the technology did exist for exactly reproducing the

>ambience of a concert hall and all the tonal nuance of the

>instruments played there. First of all, every concert hall is

>a little different in its sonic signature.

More than a little different, very different. And different from one seat to another, different from one day to another depending on how many people are in the audience and what type of clothing they are wearing, and a lot of other variables too.

>Perhaps with this

>level of recording and reproduction excellence one could tell

>the difference between Boston Symphony Hall and the

>Concertgebouw in Amsterdam – two of the finest classical

>venues in the world.

Acoustic architects like Leo Beranek and Cyril Harris can. I think most people with normal hearing could learn. Conductors not only can, they must. They have to adjust their performances to the acoustics of the hall they are performing in. If they don't, their performances can turn into disasters and they know it. That is why most symphony orchestras sound best in their own home town in the hall whose acoustics they are most accostomed to. This is very well known and accepted among musicians. By the way, most halls are tweakable and are adjusted for different kinds of performances by adjusting sound absorbing/reflecting baffles among other things. I've got an excellent link to a lecture by Leo Beranek about acoustics of concert halls, how the science evolved, what makes one hall better than another, and some of the plusses and minuses of various concert halls around the world that he is familiar with. There are many excellent books on the subject.

>Suppose further, we could tell the sonic

>difference between a Steinway and a Yamaha piano and better

>yet, a Strad and a Guanari. I suspect for a VERY few, this is

>important.

I can, so can lots of other people. They can identify individual instruments by sound alone the way some people can identify individual wines by aroma, flavor, and texture alone. Not only that but many artists will only perform on their own favorite piano which they have carefully selected for the type of sound they want to produce. I own a Steinway and two Baldwin pianos (but no great violins.) They sound remarkably different. For some reason, many jazz pianists prefer Yamahas. It's a rare Yamaha whose sound I like. Most concert pianists perform on Steinways, some on Baldwins, very few on others. I've known someone who had a Guanari and an Amati, amazing sounding instruments. They don't command fortunes at auction just because they are museum pieces. What makes them priceless is their sound.

>For folks like me with humble mid-fi systems who

>simply love the music, if it sounds like a piano or a cello,

>I’m satisfied.

My problem is that often it doesn't sound anything like the real thing. The sound from the speakers often bears only a superficial resemblance to the real instruments, beyond even the widest variation in their sound. One defect which I find very common among recordings is how much more bass you hear at many live performances than on recordings. It's not just enough for the equipment to be capable of it, it has to be in proper balance. It rarely is.

>My point here is if this hypothetical scenario

>came to pass, what point would there be in going to see a live

>concert ever again? We could just sit home and experience

>utopian, sonic nirvana; oh, and also the music.

So what?

>

>Personally, I’m not a big fan of live classical concert

>recordings, even though I’m a big fan of classical music.

Could the audible shortcomings of the recording reproduction process be part of the reason.

>There is usually a smattering of coughing that spoils the

>beauty of the music as much as a poor recording does IMO.

Sad but true. Don't you just want to kill those people (except when you're the one with the cough of course.)

>Given this and the hypothetical scenario above and the

>likelihood live recordings are not in the majority, perhaps we

>should concentrate more on accurate reproduction of

>instruments played in a recording studio and thus reap the

>benefits of the larger proportion of recorded music.

I had the benefit of listening to college orchestras rehearse. One night in the practice room in the basement, the next night in the empty hall, and the following night in a packed house at a performance. My preference, the empty hall because there was the most and best reverberation, I love that sound when the acoustics are good. This is why so many municipalities and private organizations spend many tens of millions of dollars to build concert halls. It's not about packing a lot of people into a room, it's about what that room can do to the sound.

>How do we

>do this? There are two* critical weak points in the audio

>reproduction chain. Each is tied to a transducer. The rest is

>primarily wire, electronics and good circuit design associated

>with the transmittal of electrons along the signal path. Much

>dialogue is given here at the CSP regarding the back end

>transducer (i.e,. the loudspeaker). However, assume we have

>the perfect home audio reproduction system that’s been somehow

>tuned to each of our room’s acoustics (DSP and perfectly

>designed loudspeakers perhaps?). Just feed it the ‘right’

>stuff and it shines. That takes care of the back end.

>Well, what is the ‘right’ stuff?

>At the front end is/are the microphones (the other transducer)

>- another crucial variable in this complex equation called

>music reproduction. If you get a chance or haven’t already,

>take a listen to track 5 of Stereophile’s first test CD. It’s

>called “Why Hi-Fi experts disagree”. In it J. Gordon Hold

>reads some text as 14 different microphones are used

>sequentially to record his voice. Almost every one sounds a

>little bit different. Ah, 14 more variables. Which is the most

>accurate? Who knows? More importantly, who cares? In all of

>them we recognize Mr. Holt’s voice and that is all that we

>really care about.

Please read what I wrote about the suitability of the size and acoustics of a performing venue for the type of music being performed and the consequences of performing in venues that are too dry or too reverberant. It just ruins the sound and the music itself. But your point about differences in the way recordings are made is well taken. That is why for any serious sound system, some means for compensating for the most common variables such as the spectral balance inherent in the recording must be available for the user to adjust. For today's so called state of the art sound systems, even a bass and treble control have been taken away. Even if a sound system sounded accurate with some recordings, it would be way off the mark with others. Unacceptable to me, especially when the means are available cheaply.

>IMO, engineers have done a pretty good job of reproducing a

>musical experience – be it live at a concert hall or in a

>studio. Otherwise why would billions of dollars be expended

>each year by millions of people on audio gear and audio

>software?

I can't agree. If it were true, why would people keep swapping looking for something better and never finding it. Why would tens of thousands of different speaker models be available, all sounding different from each other. Remember what I said about the frank admission of the editors and reviewers at TAD magazine last summer? The best equipment they've heard just didn't sound to them like real music. I feel the same way.

My conclusion excludes those who buy and listen to

>highly compressed recordings. Oops, there’s another variable

>again in that darn complex equation!

>

>Long live the music! Classical, rock or otherwise.

>

>* there used to be three until the advent of digital recording

>technology. The third being the turntable cartridge. Now,

>vinyl records are greatly in the minority and I’ll ignore them

>for this discussion.

>

>

>

>It's all about the music

>

>Carl

>

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>Please disregard my previous post, Ken...I've just made it

>through your little treatise on Dead Art, and it's pretty

>clear that your understanding and application of aesthetic

>principles is of no value.

>

>You are way, way out of your league, and not unsurprisingly

>arrogant, to boot.

Well, you'll just have to tolerate the arrogance, since I am right. In fact, if you go back and read my posts over the years, you will find that I am always right. You look stupid even just arguing with me. If you weren't such a defensive egotist, you would be begging me to teach you things. Oh wait, I think I mean that other guy.

Anyway, fortunately, some scholars saw enough value in my opinions on the aesthetics of music to give me a post-grad Fellowship working with musicians ranging from John Oliver to John Cage, at the BSO, the SFS, Harvard's Carpenter Center, the BBC Orchestra, etc. You can find more in my entry in the Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, which I am sure you can find at your local library. Also, there are several reviews of my recorded works on my various websites. So which league am I out of? The Audiophile Little League? Damn, that stings!

Classical music accounts for roughly 3% of the music business. What's so hard to understand about that figure? Even that 3% is mostly movie scores. It's dead. Kaput. Mort. This is not a value judgement or a philosophical argument. It's just the facts.

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Vern -

The key is to skip the topic if you want to avoid the unpleasantness.

I think there are several really interesting things going-on here and I don't think anyone is going to come to blows over it. I would like to see the participants find a common goal, if not a shared taste.

I only wish I had the time to comment as I'd like. I have a whole "which came first, the chicken or the egg" thing I'd propose.

But don't you find it interesting that a gifted designer and one of two or three people still alive who give a crap about psychoacoustics is having unpleasant words with a man who has spent countless hours trying to get the psychoacoustics of his speakers right? Yet, they are so incredibly far apart on what they think-of as goals that the one guy in the entire profession who has tried to fix the other guy's problem is being put-down?

Do you see the great irony?

And then the other side is also true - the man who would be a great customer of a rift-healing technology is being told that what he wants and values is so-much crap?

I wonder if this is the way revolutions start.

But Vern, don't sweat it. I doubt anyone's losing sleep but me.

Bret

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>Just because he obviously knows nothing about musical

>compositions or the nature of music, nothing about musical

>instruments and the way they produce sound, nothing about the

>acoustics of the rooms music is performed and heard in, and

>nothing about how that alters music and how it's perceived by

>an audience, what makes you think he isn't qualified as an

>authority on equipment designed to accurately reproduce it

>artificially?

Exactly.

BTW, Have you actually ever owned AR-LST's?

-k

kkantor.spaces.live.com

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>The Audiophile Little League? Damn, that stings!<

Keeeeennnnn. . . I think you may be very close to biting the hand that feeds, or at least fed, you. What would you call the audiophile "Big League?" Would building 500,000 drivers for Whirlpool to put in their refrigerator-door TVs be Audiophile Big-League?

I'll bet less than 3% of all audio products are bought by people who work for audio companies. Why build for them to keep their jobs?

>Classical music accounts for roughly 3% of the music business. What's so hard to understand about that figure? Even that 3% is mostly movie scores. It's dead. Kaput. Mort. This is not a value judgement or a philosophical argument. It's just the facts.<

Who killed it?

I mean, it wasn't alive when the composers were alive. . . I'll bet not 3% of the population ever heard their music until "talkies" the Victrola, and then Bugs Bunny came along.

You can't enjoy classical music on an MP3.1415 player and $10 earbuds. Well, unless there's something wrong with you - the top-level only melodies aren't generally that interesting. "Pretentious? Moi?" So we have this whole question of which died first; classical music, or audio companies' soul?

It's just when it comes to judging things by their popularity I have to recall that Hitler wrote a widely-bought book, but I'm not sure that qualifies him as a great author. We might want to try and value content more than novelty.

How much money is spent on human reproductive activities compared to. . . say, bathroom activities? Does that mean we value the toilet more than. . . the activity I'm not naming but has something to do with the other thing?

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow and cannot comment again until Monday, but if you guys will keep it up a while, when I get back I think I see a couple of "odd" things here that could use your and soundminded's straightening-up.

Obviously art is not about stasis. I don't know much about art, but I know what I hate. Most of what's around now needs not stasis, but go-sis.

Bret

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I've only heard AR LST on a few occasions, but I think I have a good idea of the principles behind it and its advantages over more conventional speaker designs like AR3a. It's a speaker I would probably like very much but still find inadequate. I've defined the problem of accurate sound reproduction as I see it in two different ways in another posting on this thread. By its design, it will almost certainly fall short of the mark to my satisfaction in the first instance on most recordings. In the second, don't even waste time discussing it, it hasn't got a prayer, nothing in the current art does. I think I understand LST's strengths and its shortcomings in light of my own efforts grappling with the problem myself. It's disappointing to see that its advances weren't incorporated in later designs like AR9. Usually when someting works well, you keep it unless something even better comes along. Accurate sound reproduction is the reason most of us even have an interest in this site, there are tens of thousands of variants of other ideas which cater to marketing preferences so let's not waste time discussing what the market likes where accuracy has no meaning or relevance, that is the provence of the Dr. Floyd Toole's, the John Curls, and the Cheevers of the world. None of them are putting their equipment up in recorded vs live challenge to prove a point, they wouldn't even know where to start and they'd only look foolish if they tried.

I am not impressed by credentials, affiliations, or citing of technical papers. They don't relate to the merits of ideas, they are a specious argument trotted out when those more germane to an issue fail. I'm not impressed. As I said elsewhere, I've presented you with new ideas which you are free to consider, reject, or ignore. So far you haven't argued even one of them. I accept that having attended MIT your education may have been limited. I'm tempted to call my old friend and classmate Dr. Warde who is a professor of electrical engineering there to find out if you were his student and what went wrong if you were in his failure to teach you openmindness to new ideas. When we send these people out into the provences to teach, we expect them to offer the same fine level of education we received ourselves. BTW, the reason I did not choose a career path in this field myself which would have afforded me the opportunity to accumulate impressive affiliatiations or occupy my time pouring over relevant technical papers is that I found it too trivial and insufficiently challenging to spend the major efforts of my life on. For me it was far more suitable as a hobby. It's neither rocket science nor nuclear physics.

soundminded

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Wow, I think we've digressed just a 'tad' from the original LST vs Bose discussion. Perhaps this discussion should be moved as someone posted here earlier to another catagory within CSP such as 'other' or better yet, let's convince Mark to create a new one called 'phychoacoustics of New England produced loudspeakers'.

I'm convinced we should agree to disagree and continue to follow Mark's 'acceptable use policy'. As I've written here before 'audio nirvana is in the ear of the beholder'. The processing of audio sugnals in our hearing and brain systems isn't all that much different than our visual appreciation of art. Both are tied to our own life experiences which, of course, are all different indeed.

It's all about the music

Carl

Carl's Custom Loudspeakers

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We’ve been speaking in different languages so I will try one last time in a language you may be more familiar with. This is not rocket science, there are no tricks, this is straightforward out of the back of the chapter problem solving. Why it isn’t obvious is beyond me. The total acoustic energy transfer function between a source of acoustic energy and a point of listening, a directed or mapping function is defined for a source coordinate X,Y,Z, and a receiving coordinate x,y,z , is dependent on boundary values, the shape and absorption/reflection properties of the surface of the enclosure, conditions of state, temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure, and the normalized solid geometrical spectral radiating function of the source whether that source is a musical instrument or a loudspeaker system. The answer is a triple integral over an enclosed surface centered at the reception (listeners) coordinate, over all audible frequencies, and over time from zero to infinity. The collection of all such relationships within the enclosed surface is by definition the acoustics of the contained space. It can best be visualized as a series of graphs, each one for an arriving vector component passing through an infinitesimal surface area dS where each graph has three axes, time, frequency, and amplitude. The graph consist of a series of curves, each curve being an arriving echo and the shape and amplitude of the curve being the relative spectral transfer and relative amplitude to the normalized transfer of the direct field.

For a sound reproducer to be accurate for reproducing the source in the sense that I have defined as [1] in my other posting on this thread, both the direct and reflected transfer functions from the direction of the loudspeaker must be spectrally flat. This means that if the combination of the loudspeaker and the room acoustics result in reflections which are not flat, supplemental energy of the correct frequency and amplitude must be radiated which will make them flat. This almost invariably means additional indirect high frequency energy because of the usual inherent limitations of the power radiating characteristics of the speaker and the frequency selective absorption properties of the listening room boundaries.

For a sound system to be accurate in the sense I have defined as [2], it must reproduce the time delays which arrive at the listener from the same relative directions, with the same delay times, relative amplitudes and each one having the same relative spectral change G(jw) with respect to the direct field as is experienced by the listener in a concert hall. Furthermore, for either scheme, if the spectral transfer from the microphone to the signal to the loudspeaker is not flat due to variables of recording technique, it must be made flat through equalization. No sound reproducing systems in the world I am aware of comes close to meeting the performance criteria for either definition of the problem.

Give this more than 33 seconds of your consideration. It lies at the crux of what high fidelity sound reproduction is about. If you still dismiss it, then I give up, communication between us is hopeless.

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"Classical music accounts for roughly 3% of the music business"

A firm grasp of the obvious, does not connote insight, Ken.

In art, (as in life) *popularity* is not necessarily an attribute of *quality*, and in fact, is neither required nor compulsory. If only Count Kaiserling (and his harpsichordist, Goldberg) had ever heard Bach's Variations, they would be no less magnificent.

"People want to hear music from their time, music that speaks to them about their life experiences, how ever abstractly."

Absurd on its face.

Being "of a time" has merit, but having the quality of *transcendence* of time & place is an earmark of true aesthetic value.

Surely, anyone who's "worked for the BSO, the SFS, Harvard's Carpenter Center, and the BBC Orchestra" must realize this. There's an important distinction between "venerable" and "archaic" - didn't the scholars who valued your opinions on aesthetics go over this?

The fact is that "most people" have very little concept of the universe of music (recorded, or written-down), simply through ignorance - that is, lack of exposure. This goes for the works of Johannes Brahms, as it does for John Cage, John Coltrane, or John Zorn.

My question to you, Ken, is why do you expect everyone to aim so low?

And what in the world did you do for John Cage? Were you his sound man on "4'33" ? :-)

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The quality of the solution to a problem often depends on the way the problem is posed. It's called a paradyme. The way a question is stated often defines the kind of answers that are possible by limiting the context. When a paradyme is inadequate to address the true nature of the problem because the context is too limited, multiple anwers often emerge which are superficially different from each other and all usually indadequate. Dr. Bose broke the prevailing paradyme. As a result, he came up with a solution which remains unique. He solved some aspects of the problem which had never been solved before but he left others unaddressed. Still others like his direct/reflecting principle gave the right answer for the wrong reasons. As a result, even though its full potential was never thoroughly exploited, he became very prosperous, he was also a good businessman.

We have the same problem here. Often when a paradyme is shown to be inadequate, people who have made a career working with it, have established a reputation on it, will tenaciously cling to it and defend it because to give it up is to admit that they didn't see the full true nature of the problem in the first place. It also puts them back at square one with everyone else, in fact there may be others already ahead of them having started to explore the possibilities of a new paradyme for some time already.

This is an industry in a state of mental paralysis. There are no new innovations, haven't been for decades. Ever minor variant of the same old ideas are heralded as breakthroughs The only way to dismiss it is to see through its intellectual corruption and bankrupcy. Never have so many paid so much and gotten so little in return.

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Guest Doctor Philharmonic

Soundminded,

I regret to inform you that Mr. Ken Kantor has committed suicide as the result of the caustic insults directed towards him here on The Classic Speaker Pages. Learning that his life's work was trivial really put him over the edge. However, as his Psychoanalyst of many years, and an avid audiophile myself, I feel very comfortable speaking on behalf of Ken's philosophies.

It is reassuring to hear that you are not one to be impressed by credentials or publications. There are so many these days who wear the mask of vanity and self-assurance, but who are nothing more than insecure failures who post about vague accomplishments and important acquaintances using fake screen names that are the antithesis of their real characters. Alas, it is perhaps to that fate that Mr. Kantor befell. Your unmasking of him is truely a public service that the audio community can thank you for, after many years of his deception.

Now, onto happier issues. I suggest that the following system for you as a cost-effective way to meet your stated fidelity requirements to an exacting standard:

- Wear a set of Stax Lambda Pro headphones.

- Supplement these with a Velodyne 18" subwoofer.

It might sound strange to the neighbors, but it is sure to give you the kind of sonic results you are after. Alternatively, you could get 10 or 20 pair of used Advent loudspeakers and arrange them in outward-facing circular arrays around your listening position. Each array could have a Snell-approved equalizer associated with it, to assure that your exact listening position was cleansed of all that nasty degradation picked up by the sound as it (yuk!) touched things on the way to your ear.

Happy Listening!

Dr. Philharmonic

"Don't Enjoy The non-Classical Music!"

http://tinyurl.com/36c7jy

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Hmmmm. I wonder what cbumdumb thinks of all this 44 posts later? At least the first 3 responses did offer some suggestions. Well, the 4th from Ken K. really did get him into trouble.

It's all about the music

Carl

Carl's Custom Loudspeakers

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Guest Doctor Philharmonic

Hello. I am Mr. Kantor's Psychoanalyst, and am authorized to speak on his behalf during the period of his involuntary confinement. I am hoping that Ken's powers of insight improve through the forced withdrawal of external stimuli such as Soundminded and yourself. There is a good chance that this course of therapy, combined with aggressive pharmaceutical intervention, will be able to restore Ken's functioning to a significant percentage of its previous level.

Ken publically performed Cage's "26 1.1499'" for a string player with Charlotte Morman on a few occasions when Nam June Paik was unavailable for the part. This was in the late 70's and early 80's.

>Being "of a time" has merit, but having the quality

>of *transcendence* of time & place is an earmark of true

>aesthetic value.

Perhaps you are confusing aesthetics with popularity. A speaker company attempting to design commercially viable products needs to be much more concerned with popularity than with aesthetics. A skillful designer will, of course, imprint their notions of aesthetics, technical accuracy and so-forth, on their creations. But, still, it is critical to remember that the vast majority of the customer base, even so-called audiophiles, want to listen to music of their time, and pay as little as possible to do it.

In other words, there are small companies that can exploit a 3% niche successfully. But, it is a fairly irrelevant market for larger companies to consider in their product roadmap. Mr. Kantor did not assert this as a value judgement, but merely as a reality. (However, he personally tended to prefer new music to old. Clearly this is part of his psychiatric syndrome.)

>My question to you, Ken, is why do you expect everyone to aim

>so low?

Alas, Ken always wanted people to aim high. He tried to bring up the level of mid-priced audio in his own small way, as well as promoting new and independent music. But, he sought a middle ground between audio idealism and irrelevance, on the one hand, and pure capitalism on the other. He took risks, surely; perhaps one too many. Please keep his recovery in your thoughts.

Dr. Philharmonic

http://tinyurl.com/36c7jy

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