So what got YOU interested?

[crappyjones123]

I was kidding.

[Dusty Chalk]

Minimize the variables you can if you are a scientist. If you are an "artist", turn that variable into a marketing ploy.

Anechoic chambers suck for a different reason, a bit of a straw-man there.

All box resonances add is distortion, pure and simple. The influence the drivers in some form or fashion which is not encoded in the audio signal. Distortion in a _reproduction chain_ is the enemy of the good

Agreed on the straw-man, I didn't spend a whole lot of thought on it.  Perhaps a better example is the enclosure of headphones.  It leads to distortion, sure, but you can't ignore it.  You have to work with it.  Someone like who you're describing would never work with anything other than an entirely open headphone, and there are certainly plenty of those, but not everyone who tries to accomplish anything with closed headphones is doing so for marketing purposes, they're doing so because it's a challenge, and neither engineers nor artists can resist a challenge.

 

I think there are four categories, not two: if you're a physicist, you'll minimize the variables and then ignore them (I think these people wouldn't last long in the speaker designing industry); if you're an engineer, you'll minimize the variables and then account for them in the final design (most everyone else, to varying degrees of success); if you're an artist, you'll just tune them by ear; and if you're a salesperson, you'll make whatever you can get people to make, and then spin-doctor the snot out of it (RSA comes to mind -- I don't consider him an artist, that's an insult to artists).  I think all companies do varying amounts of each at a corporate level.

[luvdunhill]

Sounds reasonable to me

Thanks Dusty!

[dsavitsk]

Distortion in a _reproduction chain_ is the enemy of the good

 

That's way too simple. Different types of distortion are perceived differently due to both physiological and psychological factors. If one speaker sounds better, and another measures better according to some chosen scale, the scale is wrong.

[luvdunhill]

Clearly they are hearing it wrong then, right? I refer to this as the "tin ears" postulate in my manifesto.

[dsavitsk]

Wrong I can send you recordings taken from the brain stem showing how dissonant distortion is amplified and consonant distortion is minimized.

[luvdunhill]

Wrong I can send you recordings taken from the brain stem showing how dissonant distortion is amplified and consonant distortion is minimized.

Can I also get pictures of the brain stem when different mega-buck power cables are used? Perhaps finally there is a way to accurately measure Bybees as well!

Ari: thanks for the thread, I agree why not IKEA? My reference was pretty oblique and vague, I will try harder in the future

[swt61]

The difference is one is required to produce music and the other is usually considered counterproductive in reproducing music.

The box doesn't produce sound in a speaker, the drivers do. An instrument body is crucial in creating sound.

And, I have to admit I never noticed that spelling mistake! Oops!

 

I disagree. Your folded corner horn speakers wouldn't sound very good without the box being part of speaker system. 

[luvdunhill]

Retreat!

That is a bit different. Folded horns and Thiele-Small and lions and tigers all play nice in my world. It's more about the decision to use that insanely heavy 13-ply 3/4" Baltic birch plywood, instead of using styrofoam and then adding Shakti stones to make it sound better.

I like intert, heavy, well-sealed cabinets with holes in all the right places (well slots in my case).

Edited February 24, 2015 by luvdunhill

[luvdunhill]

Oh and back on topic. It was never about the music for me.

Not really true, but someone was about to say it

[swt61]

Wait, you're not dissin' Shatki stones, are you?

[dsavitsk]

Can I also get pictures of the brain stem when different mega-buck power cables are used? Perhaps finally there is a way to accurately measure Bybees as well!

 

You are creating a false equivalence, and trying to make me look dumb in the process.

 

Different power cables are thought by some to sound different likely because of a confirmation bias. There is no measurable difference, and in a double blind test, there would likely be no perceived difference.

 

Different speakers (or different circuits) with clearly different measurements may actually sound different in a double blind test. In that case, the one with "better" measurements according to some scale may not be perceived as sounding better. The argument is that if this is the case, the scale is not well correlated with perceived quality. I'll take the one I prefer in a DBT over the one that your scope prefers according to some arbitrarily chose scale.

[luvdunhill]

No, I was inferring that if we move the discussion to impact on the brain, then perhaps other things can be explained. Maybe not in that particular region, but other regions, and by other causes, whether they be related to electrical measurements or not.

Not really a false equivalence but accepting your measurement technique is valid and could explain more things than electrical or acoustical analysis.

[dsavitsk]

No, I was inferring that if we move the discussion to impact on the brain, then perhaps other things can be explained. Maybe not in that particular region, but other regions, and by other causes, whether they be related to electrical measurements or not.

 

That's fair in that expectation bias can certainly have real effects. But I think that is a red herring here. I am talking about comparing actual systemic and repeatable differences where there is no expectation -- i.e., in a DBT.

 

Specifically, just because there is a measurement technique, even one that has been around for a long time, does not mean it is useful or that it correlates to what people think it does. Unless one establishes a reason to think that some measurement is meaningful, relying on it is just as subjective as relying on anything else.

 

As for speaker preferences, we can agree to disagree, though wouldn't an equivalent thickness of MDF be more damped than birch?

[luvdunhill]

So you are saying that measurements themselves can be expectation biases

I am all for someone spending whatever money they want on whatever they want. I would be curious if not expectation bias, but actual brain activity was different knowing that one just purchased a kilobuck cable. I think this would actually be groundbreaking research, as many think it's all made up and doesn't actually impact the listener in an "chemical" (for lack of a better term) way. Definitely not DBT so we are talking past each other.

The design needed angles precision on the edges of .1 degree and thought the BB would glue up better...

.. And ply has benefit of constrained damping as a built in benefit.

.. And MDF was too damn heavy.

Edited February 24, 2015 by luvdunhill

[luvdunhill]

Quote from DIYA, and similar to what I have found:

"15mm BB is on the same order of stiffness as 1" MDF, and much less massive. So to bring the resonant structure of the MDF in line with the BB you'd have to add on the order of 2x as much bracing to the MDF. The MDF would still have much greater energy storage & retransmission."

In summary, BB sounds better.

Edited February 24, 2015 by luvdunhill

[dsavitsk]

 I would be curious if not expectation bias, but actual brain activity was different knowing that one just purchased a kilobuck cable. I think this would actually be groundbreaking research, as many think it's all made up and doesn't actually impact the listener in an "chemical" (for lack of a better term) way.

 

Not with cables necessarily, but there is gobs of research (including fMRI) showing how very subtle suggestions can influence how people think. Maybe we can write a grant to get time on the new fMRI in Erika's building to do this

[aardvark baguette]

i remember reading in car audio forums back in the day, people putting the gas station vacuum to the side of their (empty) MDF sub boxes and having a piece of paper follow it on the other side.

 

this is kinda sorta that

[deepak]

One of my friends from high school bought an HD580 and either Mete42 or Pimeta. When he told me how much the amp/hp cost I thought he was genuinely crazy. But he also had a Saab 93 Viggen as a senior so I chalked it up to him being nuts/rich.

 

Driving his car was a hell of a lot better than what that setup sounded like with my teenage angst music.

 

RIP Saab

 

To expand one of his friends told me to get Grados. There was a hifi store in the Manchester mall (maybe Nate/Todd knew it? Cambridge Soundworks possibly? I think this was before the mall had a Best Buy) that let me demo them. I didn't think they sounded amazing either, but for $60 or something I bought them and eventually really liked them.

 

Sort of interesting that he pretty much got me into enjoying driving and hifi. Two damn expensive hobbies.

 

Latest purchase was the most expensive one I've made yet; TD4001 drivers....

Edited February 24, 2015 by deepak

[The Monkey]

This thread is superb.

[luvdunhill]

This thread is superb.

So you got my TICE jokes and references to -=her=-?