94 replies to this topic

[draftingmonkey]

>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.


Seems as if the original post has been forgotten. Read thru all 82 (before mine) posts and can only find 2 that address the question that I can remember by the time I got to the end. So in reply to the ORIGINAL post, if possible I try to keep my vintage speakers as close to original as possible. That is MY personal preference. Refoam where needed, mend the broken grill frame if possible, recap if necessary, clean the pots if you can (plenty of info in the forum about pot cleaning), if not replace and then sit back and enjoy the music.

[soundminded]

It was rather startling to see a posting of something with my name on it that I hadn't posted. It took a few minutes for me to catch the slight difference. You can see how clever he was. Although he has a _ after my moniker in the software formatted ID, it doesn't appear where he signed my moniker at the end of his message. He's probably the kind of person who might commit identity theft or hack people's computers. I've aleady reported it to the moderator. He probably didn't use his real name when he registered either. It doesn't matter, he could be traced through his ISP if anyone had a desire to.

[dynaco_dan]

Hi soundminded;

Thank you for pointing that out, I just went back to see.

I would never have noticed that very slight difference in your name.

Obviously everyone has to be real careful now if a name can be mis-read by such an extremely small detail.

Maybe that newer, "soundminded_", might start praising you or Ken. lol

[Pete B]

As long as he enjoys it that's fine, I do get some serious laughs
out of it, better than Seinfeld! ...
Pass the popcorn please!

One minute it's please design us a new tweeter, the next ...

[soundminded]

Troll Alert

Username soundminded_
Name Johannes Desilentio

[Pete B]

Hi Vern,

I don't want anyone to leave, and really I like the other place for amplifier discussions since the speaker section is not so well focused. But it is an alternative, better than loosing people completely.

Nice to hear from you Vern!

[soundminded]

Well now this is interesting, someone else is able to post under my moniker. Looks like this site has a hacker. And you can see something is very wrong because the hacker has 1 posting and has become a member...just five minutes ago...

[soundminded]

Doctor Phil, in #55 you said he was dead. Do you talk to the dead too or were reports of his death greatly exaggerated?

[soundminded]

I recall you sang a very different tune a few years ago when you wanted to discuss reverse engineering AR9 with modern components and a professional named Tom Tyson told you that there was no justification for duplicating someone else's efforts, that the only justification for a design was to solve a new problem. As I recall you were quite adamant and had a rather heated exchange with him about it. And to think I defended you. That's gratitude for you.

[dynaco_dan]

Hi Pete;

A well chosen and truthful write-up, thank you.

I for one do not want anyone to leave this site but to continue to contribute.

[Pete B]

I see it over and over, a pro being told by lay people "How It Is". It is like the twilight zone. Do you think pro's are going to come back to boards like this?
It is said people do not value what they do not pay for, and it is so very true here. Do you really think that professionals are going to continue to visit? A few here spoil it for the entire board.

Ken, I find this board to be moderated so that this sort of thing is not allowed, it is a pleasant place:
http://www.diyaudio.....php?forumid=22

I think this sort of interaction is an interesting reflection on the sad state of our culture.

[Pete B]

Not my best work, and something got lost in the translation to a legal document, for what it's worth ...

http://patft.uspto.g...er AND IN/basel

[soundminded]

Thanks for the reference and thanks for he advice. Byron Janis' comments are common to all serious performing artists, they all struggle with it. As for you suggestion, I'm afraid that just wouldn't be enough but thanks anyway. BTW, IMO, Byron Janis was a superb pianist. If you can get your hands on a recording called "The Reiner Sound" reissued as an RCA CD 09026-61250-2, listen to his performance of Liszt's Totentanz (dance of death.) Spectacular playing, a very exciting piece of music, and it will give your sound system quite a workout. I know it gives my AR9s a workout.

[Carlspeak]

>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.
>

Soundminded.
I've found an article today that I believe will make you both happy and sad. It's in this weekend's issue of the WSJ. It was written by world renoun classical pianist Byron Janis. Now we have the professional musician's perspective.

He details his struggles with acoustics both in the concert hall and recording studio. It's quite pertinent to some opinions you've shared and, for me, quite enlightening. He write about another dozen or so variables in the acoustics of recorded music equation I wrote about in an earlier post. I suspect now we are up to some astronomical number of permutations and combinations of ambience, tone, etc. etc. etc that, in themselves negate any attempt to design the perfect loudspeaker for; not matter how far the paradigm gets shifted.

After reading the article, I've come to the conclusion that your quest for concert hall and instrument realism is fruitless, simply because there are WAY too many variables to control. Give it up.

My suggestion is that you consider purchasing (if you haven't already) a good RTA and TEF analyzer and a 60 band graphic equalizer so you can analyze and adjust for each recording until it matches YOUR perception of what the recording SHOULD or, should I write, MUST sound like. You may also want to supplement this gear with an echo chamber and/or a reverb chamber to optimize those early, not so early,late and really late reflections your speaker and listening room cannot accomodate.
Or, better yet - just enjoy the music rather than focusing so much on the sound of the music.

It's all about the music

Carl
Carl's Custom Loudspeakers

[soundminded]

Ken, when do we get the link to the article in the AMA Journal which proves that listening to the NHT 3.3 cures cancer?