This was originally a two-part review, with Lynn Olson commenting on Geddes’ book and on horns in general. Lynn has requested that I remove his part of the review and the associated comments. Here is my take on the book:
I recently finished reading Earl Geddes’ Audio Transducers, and thought I would add my two cents. I agree with Lynn on the fact that horn loudspeaker design is sadly lacking in the theoretical rigor that is applied to conventional direct driver speakers. Earl Geddes has brought modern techniques to the subject, both better analytical work and the use of “T-matrices”. I couldn’t verify every equation, but based on my engineering background, his work seems sound.
Geddes is an iconoclast, and introduces some interesting new ideas (at least to me) as well as puts down some “conventional wisdom”. Examples of the former are: the appropriate choice of coordinate system to get separable coordinates, his “Acoustic Lever”, the effect of the horn mouth on reflections, and his analysis of room reflections. Examples of the latter include: the neglect of horn system efficiency (”Loading essentially became a non-issue with the almost unlimited power capability available today.”), and the non-use of time-domain testing (e.g. waterfall plots, etc.). Because of this, Geddes’ book does not replace existing textbooks and theory of speaker design, but serves as a powerful stimulant for others in the field to re-think their analyses, especially regarding horn theory.
In physics, people generally fall into either the “experimental” category or the “theoretical” category. Albert Einstein and Richard Feymann are examples of theoreticians and Michael Faraday and Ernest Lawrence were experimentalists. I fall into the experimentalist category, so was especially looking forward to Geddes’ chapter on measurements. He presents a concept of taking frequency response measurements at various locations and by mathematical manipulation, generating the terms for his T-Matrix models. A similar plan is laid out for determining the coefficients for the nonlinear model. However, I would like to have seen actual tests and results, so that the loop between modeling and reality is closed. Although a good concept, I get the feeling that the software for doing this data reduction has never been done, leaving this as essentially a hand-waving exercise.
So, with the few reservations noted above, I recommend any speaker designer read Earl’s book, especially horn designers!
- John Atwood
Updated May 22, 2007
Many people confuse bad manners with great insight, among other confusions. Earl is an idiot savant. He knows not what he does
But, he does it very well …
My thanks to Lynne and John for their kind (I think!?) comments. I don’t agree with them all, of course, but I would like to update a few things.
At the time of writing the book I did not give strong consideration to “time” measurements, however, things have changed. Several subjective tests that Lidia and I have done recently (AES Jan 2006) and a paper for AES 06 in SF have changed this opinion.
We have discovered a strong relationship between subjective perception and group delay, as others have also (Brian Moore, Floyd Toole), but we have discovered one other link and that is playback level. It turns out the these linear phenomina have a strong nonlinear perception.
So while I now agree that we do hear time domain effects, I still do not see these effects in the current genre of time domain measurements. New measurements are required to pull out these effects as group delay, not simply waterfalls which do not show group delay.
As too my beliefs on electronics, I have never contended that they do not matter, only that they are a small factor when compared to loudspeakers and rooms. The electroncs that I used at RMAF were adequite to make this point and many people noted it. Mr. Olsen came into my room with a preconception that what I was demonstrating would sound poor and he has not deviated on that position. I wonder if I had actually hide the electronics if his perception would have been any different!? I would challenge anyone to present a better sounding system than what I showed for the same amount of money - that was my point and my only point. I too favor better quality amps and electronic crosovers, but only if one has money left over after doing the loudspeakers and room correctly.
John is correct that I did not show any real measurements using my theories and that is because I have such a limited measurement capability. I work out of my home and don’t have access to anechoic chambers and the like in orerto prove out these theories. However, I do think they are more well founded than a “hand-waiving exercise”. Especially for a theorist like myself. The theory is sound even if the practical application is missing.
Lynn - I do agree with your assesment about who believes what about electronics and I appologize if you were insulted by my response as that was not my intention. I do believe however that the massive data that has been compiled showing that in blind tests the “sound quality” of electronics seems to disappear simply has to be considered. I surely hope that you are not saying that blind testing is flawed as that is the classic cop-out to this most serious issue. This, I believe, is the crux of the difference in views of the two groups. The AES members believe in and accept blind testing as the only relavent data while the other group rejects it and never uses it arriving at conclusions which have a significant degree of uncertainty. Until a satisfactory answer can be given as to why the results of listening tests track blind versus visible, you simply cannot say that the visual que of what you are listening to does not have an dominant effect on your subjective opinion. You must consider the possibility that your opinion was swayed by things which you deny occur.
Putting a cheap DVD player and HT rcvr on display is not Blind testing. It is blind egotism. Each of us is sure we are on the right path. Each of of us may chose to criticize others or simply follow our instincts. Whatever folly we follow simply adds spice to the mix. I will try stuffing my ehorns
I will not try stuffing my warped sense of reality anywhere else. I am overstuffed with it, as it is. Sigh. Earl has built a good speaker. Hooray! I am still a jerk. Sigh.
Earl and Lynn: It looks like you have converged on one of the most contentious issues in audio: objective vs subjective, or in a more extreme form: the meter-readers vs the golden ears. I personally think that being exclusively one or the other is bad - the meter-readers ignore real effects that don’t have measurements techniques yet and the golden ears end up with designs that cater to their subjective whims which are often developed in isolation. You really need to have your feet in both worlds. This requires a mind-set that is not black and white or absolutist, but can balance conflicting claims while still searching for the sonic truth.
Double-blind or ABX testing presents some interesting difficulties. It does tend to erase subtle differences (that’s what I have noticed), but often the sum of these subtle differences can result in a system that, as a whole, will beat another system in a double-blind test. In other words, it seems to have a lower limit of resolution that can inhibit detecting changes for the good (or bad). It also is impractical to do long-term double-blind tests, i.e. listening to each system for a month at a time, which can sometimes expose subtle effects. I don’t know the reasons for this, but it probably has to do with psychoacoustics and psychology.
The objective vs subjective debate is important, but is hard to debate without getting into “religious” arguments and flame wars. It would really help the state of audio if both sides could converge, or at least recognize and consider the arguments of the other. Healthy debate on the subject is welcome here, but flame wars are not.
- John Atwood
I too have a pro-audio background - both as an equipment designer and as a studio and recording engineer and recording studio designer. And I have participated in ABX testing and designed tests and analysed tests and the one thing I have concluded is that in evaluating music reproduction they are useless…
Of course my collegues, in the main, do not accept this and are, in the main, not willing to explore this… so I don’tbother to try to change there minds - life is too short. (What was it George Bernard Shaw said about ‘the unreasonable man? - maybe I’m just too reasonable now-a-days)
There is a difference between sound reproduction and music reproduction that is not accepted by most engineers in pro-audio today and it goes to the core of why a lot of musicians and producers pay little or no attention to pro-audio engineers when it comes to ‘evaluating their sound’. Music reproduction is about communicating the sense of performance to the listener and this has its own technical parameter set that goes beyond that required for sound reproduction but it is one that ties in to the pychoacoustic experience. Sound reproduction restricts itself to… well I’m not quite sure what it is other than a set of technical parameters that is straightforward to measure and measures well!
One thig I have found is that a system optimesed for music reproduction is one that classical musicians love to listen too whilst a sound reproduction system leaves then cold, bored and disinterested… a wonder why that is?
It is very easy at any stage of a music system to loose the plot and produce a sound system,care and attention to the electronics is just as important to the music and the source and the loudspeakers. And best of all - room treatments are an order of magnitude less important than source, amplifiers or loudspeakers…
Heresy? in its true meaning - definitly, this runs counter to doctrine… but those of us who listen with our ears, minds and hearts open know the difference…
So in the spirit of heathy debate - I am at a loss. I do not know how to get my collegues to participate in the debate as those whose minds are made up will love the flame wars and those who are not interested enough to join the debate/flame wars are not interested enough to see and recognise the problem…
I have spent a lot of time with young people demostrating the difference between what they listen to and what I listen to and they hear and acknowledge the difference but most don’t care - probably less than 3 in a hundred follow up with me on how to get my sound in their homes yet everyone claims to hear the difference. SO how much harder is it to get engineers who know their collegues will ridicule them for it to start talking about this as a serious issue? I can and have done it with the collegues I work closely with and they now use and engineer their systems the same way I do but they won’t go out and talk to other sound engineers about it unless I am with them… The group-embraced deliberate ignorance of most pro-audio folk is frightening and cannot be changed by short listening sessions (in my experience) but needs regular exposure over a period of time (like a week or so) before they slowly realise that when they listen to other systems they are missing things that they hear on my monitoring systems…
This is the main reason double blind tests are an invalid way of testing - you have to allow the brain to relearn what it is hearing from what it is used to hearing… hearing as a pyschoacoustic phenomenon involves a huge amount of time domain signal processing over a surprising number of timescales some of which run out to weeks at the long end. If you don’t take this into account then you will not get valid results…
The Subjective/Objective debate is, as much as anything, about understanding how we hear and adapting our objective criteria to match that. This is a much better way of characterising the debate and one that places it back in the domain of rationalist and scientific principles that produces an understanding that is testable and repeatable… Unfortunately it requires most engineers to go back to school and study hard and they are not going to do that without seeing a definable professional gain that is immediate or close to immediate…
It is interesting to speculate on how the use of lossy compression systems affects the way hearing adapts to music… The mechanisim that drives masking is the same one that invalidates double blind testing. Have a close look at Bob Carvers way of testing - he is a master at exploiting this.
Sorry I’ve rambled on a bit.
James
I fear that this argument has gone as most- people try and win through shear length of discussion.
To Mr. Atwoods point, I do both objective and subject evaluation, the subjective both blind and un-blind. For the most part I have found that these all agree, as they should, but I have also found that we were often not measuring what we were hearing subjectively. I have spent a great deal of time in this area (see my research work). What most annoys me are people who completely write-off one approach or the other, because, as you say, they all have their place. In the long run if we cannot measure what we hear then our cumulative efforts should be on correcting this situation not arguing about it.
I still find Lynne Olson’s comments lack some objectivity. For instance he writes off the Pioneer receiver with no specific knowledge about its performance because “a guy that designs electronics, not surprisingly, is going to be pretty critical about the sound of bottom-dollar Asian electronics”. This is not objective. No one could not tell the sound of my speakers from some others and yet Lynne argues about things that “the sound of these colorations can be almost impossible to detect”. I have never denyed that effects at this level do indeed exist in electronics. I am simply saying that they pail by comparison to the defects found in rooms and speakers. This point seems to be getting lost. Finally, I challenge Lynne to show that “some people can repeatably hear differences between electronics on blind test, and others can’t” given the same level of expertise of the listeners. I believe that this would be wholly untrue.
Let’s all keep a sense of what this discussion is about. From my perspective it is not about hearing the nth degree of sound effect in an amplifier, it is about not spending more for a preamp than my entire system costs because it lacks “colorations (that) can be almost impossible to detect”. These arguments always get lost in the details when one does not look at the broad picture of the discussion.
John - I appreciate your comments about “flaming” as my position always brings out the worst in people. I know that it would be much easier to just give in, but what would be gained by that.
I am enjoying listening to my audio toyboxes. They play many hours of the day. I have been in bed, mostly, for about a decade. It’s not that I have no other interests, just no other like valued opportunities.
I have pretty much written off audio as a possible sane source of income. There are too many players fighting deadly battles for too few dollars. Good sound has little to do with good ROI
We each hear things we would rather avoid. We may think a second violin’s pacing problem and an unsuccessful capacitor transplant are totally unrelated, but, both give some listeners a bad trip. The reason Audio gets so much trash talk on the Web is simple: nobody out there gives a flip what any of us are complaining or bragging about. They hear things differently. So do I. So do you.
It is perhaps only just that we take such offence at others being even less tuned in than us. We teach ourselves rough lessons for being smart guys.
Enjoy what you can in this crazy world … none of us will ever hear anything the same way twice, not even the first time
And, of course, there are those out there who hear everything exactly the same, every time, aren’t there?
I have been reading about this subjective versus objective fight for a few years now. But I have almost never found anything useful to learn from those flame wars on other forums. This set of comments here was, however, extremely informative. Thanks, all of you.
I am an inexperienced speaker designer and dabbler in DIY audio. I have tried listening to sounds, taking to heart the advice of Seigfried Linkwitz and a few of my friends. I have discovered very strange things which many of you probably knew all along. For instance, birdcall is rarely like the sweet cooings in movie soundtracks… it’s more often the sharp screeches of sparrows outside the bathroom window. There are so many sounds which in reality are dramatically different from the impressions we carry in our heads when we describe them in oft-used phrases. I have discovered quite often that when I really _listen_, the real sounds are not nice or pretty. And I hadn’t even noticed this till now. This has been a humbling experience; a forty-year-old engineer with engineering degrees from one of the top institutes in country suddenly wakes up and realises that he did not even know how to listen.
This has sharply cut down my self-confidence in all things audio, and has made me quite tentative when engaging with others in forums like this.
So, having begun this exploration into the world of just listening, I have discovered one or two things about listening to audio systems which seem to be different from what my veteran DIY audio friends told me. One of them is about short-term and long-term memory for sounds. Some of my knowledgeable friends have taught me to compare two components by switching between them rapidly; they say that if I hear one system today and another system tomorrow, I will never remember enough of the first one’s sound to compare sensibly. This is often true.
But I have also discovered that there are some characteristics of the sound of a system which I don’t even notice if I listen for just, say, an hour. I have to listen to at least 20 different CDs, over a couple of weeks, and then I begin to notice how I _feel_ about the music through this system. Here, the impressions I carry are not about the _sound_, but about the _feelings_ associated with the music. And these _feelings_ are not short-term memory — I seem to be able to carry my impressions home with me, and use them for effective comparisons even a week later.
Someone had written (was it one of Lynn’s pages on nutshellhifi?) that there’s a difference between listening for sounds and listening to music. Is that sort of the kind of thing I’m referring to?
Does typical double-blind testing allow for week-long listening to System A, then week-long listening to System B, before we reach System X? If not, then I’m sure a beginner like me will miss out a lot of subtle differences in double-blind tests.
I am beginning to feel that listening is a very special skill; it’s much more than just a bodily function. And it requires the same sort of calmness and single-pointedness of mind that you hear about from Zen students. I am pretty sure of this by now. Therefore, I feel we must accept that 99% of people will never really learn to listen — they will never care enough to get that involved. It takes an Indian classical singer a decade or more sometimes to learn to tune his tanpura correctly and rapidly. This activity requires nothing but the ability to listen. Is there any difference between this listening ability of the singer and a veteran speaker designer’s ability to hear the effect of a change in xo components?
Some of my experienced friends have told me that I should listen to pink noise; listening to music alone is not adequate. They say you can detect “bugs in speaker design” instantly using pink noise which may be missed even after a month of music listening. I’ve not yet begun this. I should.
Do any of my comments make sense?
“Does typical double-blind testing allow for week-long listening to System A, then week-long listening to System B, before we reach System X?”
Many tests do, many don’t; it really depends on what the test is designed to measure. In general, long-term tests seem to decrease sensitivity to THD, frequency response, and level errors, but may be more useful for other attributes.
So, this site is into censorship? With an article like this there is clearly an attempt to further some agenda: too much hyperbole.
This was originally posted 8/17/06 and was deleted 8/23/06:
“Wow, what a thoroughly biased read. No doubt horns can have colorations to varying degrees, as do every other form of transducer whether garden variety direct radiator, ribbon, electrostatic or a tin can on a string. So I guess what the author is saying is that he prefers the colorations of a direct radiator over those of horns he’s heard: not atypical really, considering that form of speaker has been so familiar to most throughout their lifetimes.
This was a particularly interesting mis-statement:
“Maybe I don’t get out enough - there are several contributors in the High Efficiency forum who claim to have 1-kilowatt PA amplifiers driving 104 to 108dB/metre horn systems… ”
I’ve been a contributor over there for 5 or years and have never heard of such a thing from the general population of inmates.
I do have a 4-way horn system that is 108db 1W/1M, but the amplifiers are 300B monos for the mains (8 watts) with 40 watt PP amps driving the 30Hz bass horns. While it is capable of very high levels, most listening is done in the mid 80db range. With all of that headroom transients and large-scale orchestral works are no problem.
So, I’m sorry you haven’t heard horns that you like. But just because you haven’t does not mean that the speakers you’re listening to do not have colorations of their own. You just find the coloration of your own system to be euphonic: that is not science but taste, for which there is no accounting.
I find it sad that someone with considerable knowledge would present their opinions as science.”
Is this offensive? Are there points that should be debated? WRT to speakers and their colorations, does not the Ariel speaker with multiple lengthy tuned pipes for low frequency enforcement absolutly rely on coloration, resonance and distortion for it’s bottom octave? Aren’t all bass reflex designs using colorations to reinforce their low-end?
So why was this post deleted, is it erroneous? or does it not fit into the agenda that is being pushed here? If it is erroneous please show me where. If it is about agendas, stand up and debate the validity of the agenda rather that deleteing the opposing view in abject cowardice.
On a closing note, while I have frequently disagreed with Dr. Geddes I find his point here to have been fairly well stated while his statements have been taken out of context and twisted. This may well be the first time I have been in agreement with Earl on anything
eso
eso - The policy on the site is that authors are allowed to moderate their own threads. This ranges from deleting outright spam (play poker, etc.) to comments that violate the spirit of the site: “Inappropriate, rude, or defamatory postings or any spam may be removed by the administrator at his discretion.” (from the legal page). This particular thread is a bit unusual since Lynn was unable to post at the time, so as a favor, I posted it under my name. However, I consider it his thread, except for my comments near the end of the posting.
Your posting from last week was border-line regarding rude and defamatory postings, but I decided to let it stay. Upon further review, Lynn decided to take the comment down. This is purely his decision and he is free to do that.
Lynn definitely has his opinions as we all do. I don’t necessarily believe in all his opinions, but in my role as editor of the site, I make sure the science is good and that discussion is free and productive. It would have been better if Lynn had left a comment explaining the reason for his deletion, but since this is a moderated blog, deletions can happen.
Regarding your concern about supporting an agenda, the site, as a whole, doesn’t have an agenda other than the support of good sound. Each author has their own opinions and biases - these should be well-known by now to most readers. I actually encourage authors who have strong opinions to contribute. All I require is that any science be sound (no pun intended), nobody is libeled, and that any discussion take place without illogic or personal attacks.
You have brought up many good points regarding horns in your comments. I am actually a horn fan, but not enough of a speaker person to make a relevant post. How would you like to contribute a posting to ClariSonus on horns? You can start by letting me post your first article, like we did with Morgan Jones and Mark Kelly. If you have more good stuff, you could become an official author, the way Lynn is. I am serious about this proposal. If you want to contact me outside of comments, the best way is to email me at atwood (at-sign) one-electron.com.
John,
Thank you for the clarification.
“Your posting from last week was border-line regarding rude and defamatory postings, but I decided to let it stay.”
I do not feel that there was anything defamitory in the post. I merely pointed out some errata and tried to clarify personal opinions being expressed as facts which should be welcomed in the name of sound science. Lynn is one of the good guys out there, but everyone makes mistakes from time to time.
I do take exception to the ennuendo of this paragraph,
“Maybe I don’t get out enough - there are contributors in the High Efficiency forum who have multi-hundred-watt transistor amplifiers driving 104 to 108 dB/metre horn systems. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals a system like that could accurately reproduce peaks of 130 dB to 140 dB at the listening position, enough to cause serious, and permanent, hearing damage. (130 to 140 dB is the sound pressure 1 metre away from the exhaust of a 747 engine at takeoff.) Horn enthusiasts are just a bit different than the rest of the audio world. Some are more different than others!”
as the author is blatantly implying that because a person may have 1KW powering a vary effincient system he MUST be listening at hazardous levels. That is tantamount to saying that because someone owns a Ferarri they MUST always drive 150+MPH or because someone owns a gun they MUST be shooting constantly. I think these examples are fair analogies for how ludicrous such writing is and that such writing does not represent sound science of even fair logic. Additionally, the last sentences are boardering on defamitory statements and as such in violation of site policy.
I will state that even if I take exception to statements I feel are erroneous I do not favor censorship in any capacity.
I would welcome commentary on how a t-line speaker produces sound that is less colored than a well designed horn. I would submit that the colorations of either type may be considerably different but remain present none-the-less. Beyond that taste becomes the arbiter of what sounds “Better” and the judgement is purely subjective.
Thanks for the response.
eso
Dear Lynn
I read the write up on Clarisonus and have a few details I wanted to toss in the soup..
I would say horns ARE vastly more complicated than an acoustically simple source like small direct radiators.
They do have finite limitations and more issues in integration, partly from the greater source to source distance at crossover.
Horns CAN have better time response if they are “right”.
Horns CAN have nice flat response if they are “right”.
Horn CAN be very well behaved in both time and radiation pattern.
In addition to the “old fashioned” approaches to horn design you mention as “how its done”, one CAN use a detailed acoustic model of the actual device and driver and get a VERY good prediction about what it will do “if” you decide to build and test.
In fact, I would like to think there actually have been some “improvements” in horn design.
Take a look at the white paper for the Tapped horn (a low frequency horn approach) and SH-50 and look at the measurements for the SH-50.
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/pdf/danley_tapped.pdf
Down load the CLF file and viewer and look at the radiation pattern in 3 dimensions.
Do you see the problems you speak of here?
How does the impulse response look compared to what your used to?
Granted, this is not your “old fashioned” kind of horn but it is a horn design.
Also, while it is not specifically a hifi speaker (made for larger area’s) it has very low distortion at “home” sound levels, much lower than direct radiators at the same SPL.
It is as close as I could get (with a passive crossover and physical alignment) to the time response of a Manger, but with constant directivity, low distortion and 20 - 30 dB more output. A manger can reproduce a square wave from about 300Hz up to 4 or 5KHz (depending how strict you are about shape), the SH-50 can do a good to fair job with a square wave from about 220Hz to about 2500Hz.
You mention high sensitivity speakers with high powered amplifiers, as if the only useful thing were producing high average sound pressures (I pictured deafening heavy metal screaming music, you know, it sounds like cutting aluminum on a table saw.).
Yet, if one takes an instantaneous peak hold sound level meter (like the B&K 2204 I use) you will see that high peak sound levels are pretty common all around in everyday life.
Very short duration impulses or tone bursts do not sound “loud” yet, if one chooses to reproduce all that is present, then even these short impulses should be produced intact.
The math simply dictates what is possible (best case) given the sensitivity, power and distance.
I would disagree on you back of the envelop calculation too.
If one sat 4 meters from a speaker, the listening position SPL would be down about 12 dB from 1 meter. A peak SPL of 140 dB at the chair then requires 152 at 1 meter, a level that is not even achievable by any concert speaker. With a speaker that was 100% efficient or 10% efficient with a DI of 10, giving 112 dB on axis per Watt, it still takes +40 dB or 10,000Watts to reach the 140 at the chair (on a speaker with NO power compression or dynamic non linearity).
“IF” one limited the range to just where the r and l speakers were less than 1 /4 wl apart, they would need 6 dB less. “IF” you said it was a mono system but had two far apart speakers, then its 3 dB less.
FWIW I have my hearing tested every year (at trade shows like NSCA the hearing institute usually has a testing truck and does free testing). My hearing is normal for a 25-30 year old, I am 54. I do not listen to “chain saw music” etc.
I made recording in my back yard of our towns fireworks with a microphone invention I am working on, this kind of dynamic range make for a tough test signal.
Down load it, unzip and burn it to a CD (do not make an MP3, even at full tilt it totally kills it).
Try it on good head phones first if you can so you can hear what is there before listening to your speakers. Warning, this is tough to reproduce properly at any sound level.
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/knowledge%20baSE.htm
Lastly, I would point out a very important feature that acoustically small speakers can never have which is broad band directivty.
Many hifi types are hung up on how a speaker measures at one meter, yet, many people I know actually listen considerably further away than that.
Here if one measures the response it is greatly transmogrified by room effects.
Yet, a large format horn can have enough directivty so that it measures (and sounds) very nice at the listening position.
For example, using a pair of small 3 way speakers that measure well at 1 meter, measured about + - 25 dB at the couch. Measuring the SH-50 at the same position / distance, its variance was about + - 4 dB at the couch.
Subjectively, and so far as intelligibility, all things being equal, the lower the level of reflected sound compared to the direct sound, the more information from the recording arrives uncontested at your ears.
I do agree Earl’s book is very detailed and interesting for those interested in horns.
I have not heard his speakers but I would expect they can sound very good.
Best Regards,
Tom Danley
Tom - the reason your posting didn’t show up right away is that the presence of imbedded URLs caused the comments to go to moderation. Now that all commenters must be registered, we don’t need this spam-reducing restriction, so I will turn off this mode. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Hi, all.
This is my first post here.
I am looking into Earl’s Summas as possible candidates for my mastering work.
I have just bought a pair of SP Technology Timepieces and am getting the feeling that more headroom is needed, and investigating the Summas led me here.
My comment relates to the notion of the Karlsonesque slots envisaged at the mouth of horns. I mused on this 30 years ago and at the time wondered if the men who designed the funnels on the old paddlewheel river boats hadn’t discovered that splitting the ends smeared the tuning and reduced the apparent loudness as a result.
I think this relates to diffraction around tweeters and is distantly related to the reason fur is used around parka hoods, is found around the edges of animals’ ears and works so well on the windjammers over Rycote windshields.
Hi Earistas!
OK, some folks like to preach more than listen. Even me, if I were healthy enough to do my Sam Kennison imitation, but, I ain’t, and some young drunk in Parker, AZ snuffed Sam on his way back to work after his honeymoon, so, I will attempt to share some ear treasures without the verbal pyrotechnics … just remember that getting a hundred dollars a barrel for crude oil does not improve the agricultural output of hot, dry sand …
In my little Audio Dungeon, I play recordings made of a relatively small sample of the air motion in a much larger venue. Multiple samples do not change the ratio of sampled to ignored air movement, much. They just add some confusion, which may or may not improve my appreciation of the little bit I hear reproduced, if I notice.
I am enjoying a new high plateau of Audio Bliss. It will pass, my brain is convinced the real work of life is detecting little foibles which add up to the Big Bummer. Extended analysis is the ultimate Cosmic Joy Filter. We can make any experience miserable, eventually. I have had many doubts and misgivings over the decades about my first sexual penetration, which, quite frankly, seemed absolutely perfect, at the time
It is not just that we can tell recorded Music from live Music. We can analyze and eventually destroy recorded Music. Live Music fades before we can come up with a good reason never to enjoy even one tiny bit of it.
Some folks see this as justification for forbidding live Music. I think we would probably gain more from forbidding critical analysis, but, I am an old sick guy. Nobody asks me if there is anything that can be done to improve Life on Earth
Even when I have enabling insights, my Central Scrutinizer keeps shovelling blue sky rainbows on them until they are lost …
My messy little room is very pleasant to lay in and listen to tunes. Why does that piss so many people off? Jealousy?
Happy Ears!
Al
PS Listening to people singing in an unknown language does not prevent me from smiling. Perhaps I smile the wrong smile at the wrong time, but, so what?
Hi Lynn,
Speaking of horns, what was your impression of this JMLC type mid-high horn that was demoed in ETF2004, if you got the chance to listen? Thanks:
http://ndaviden.club.fr/pavillon/exemples/photos320.html
http://www.melaudia.net/etf04frenchSystem.php
sorry, website and some downloads are in French:
http://ndaviden.club.fr/pavillon/lecleah.htm
http://www.triodefestival.net/members/cleach/crossover_simul_.zip
http://www.melaudia.net/zdoc/jml_crossovers_etf04.pdf
http://www.melaudia.net/rueil0503confJM.php
I saved some ’supplemental’ English technical text of Jean-Michel Le Cléac’h on his Crossover spreadhsheet. I can email it to you if you want.