"Keith Hughes" wrote in message
news:3fUWb.301294$na.452469@attbi_s04...
Wessel Dirksen wrote:

In this whole B&W 804 string, there seems to be a collective scientific
"we
know about it and have a formula for it or it doesn't exist" mentality
going
on.

You seem to be espousing the "we don't know everything, so
absolutely everything has to be equally possible/plausible"
mentality. Your statements such as "I see that this is a highly
debatable subject and that we all seem to agree on the basic
principles but have very different opinions on the 'unknown'
factor." exemplifies this, IMO. It presupposes that:

a) The parameter(s)/characteristic(s) *you* purport to exist are,
in fact real (defining them as "unknown" is somewhat telling IMO),
and;

b) What is 'unknown' to you, is universally unknown (there are a
number of folks around here - myself excluded - who have rather
extensive speaker knowledge that may well exceed yours).

Saying, in effect, 'there are things I know about, that no one,
including you, understand' is likely to cause the more
knowledgeable folks to take umbrage. On RAHE or elsewhere.

If you want to build a better mousetrap, take apart all the mousetraps
you come accross and do your best to understand how they work. In doing
this
you will discover many unknowns about mousetraps.

Well, let's recap. This thread started with a post stating:

"I'm planning to change all inner wirings of 804, as they are
quite poor compared to general quality of finishing and sound."

This seems, clearly, to imply a desire to replace parts with
"better" parts, irrespective of original design criteria. This in
no way equates to "take apart all the mousetraps you come accross
and do your best to understand how they work", which would be an
engineering/redesign exercise, and seemingly outside the scope of
the original posters' desires.

Most responders seem to be of the opinion, logical IMO, that
random changing of components/wires, without analysis of the
effect on original design parameters, is highly unlikely to
improve anything. You seem to be a minority dissenter in that view.

Personally, I don't claim any expertise in speaker construction or
crossover design, but what strikes me about the whole concept
(relative to this specific thread) is *how* can the wiring be
"quite poor" when compared to the quality of the sound? IOW, there
appears to be no problem with the 'sound quality', and if that's
the case, there *is* no problem with the wiring quality (unless
one is concerned about stability and longevity criteria, but
having owned B&W's for 20 years, that doesn't seem an issue to me).

Keith Hughes


As a newbie to forum discussion but not to loudspeaker design or
manufacturing processes, I've seemed to annoy people during this string and
infer to others that I'm ignorant in these matters both of which don't
normally apply to me. A matter for some self reflection for sure. The fact
is that I have been designing, improving, and repairing loudspeakers for
quite awhile now for a living and I have never advertised, the projects just
keep coming on their own. I've had the priveledge to work on quite a few
B&W's through the years and I've always been impressed at their ability to
in general wonderfully engineer their products doing the budget limbo like
everyone must do. This what hallmarks a good loudspeaker in the real world.
I don't believe I have used the word "poor" at all in this discussion. But
like most all regular guy's budget, real world, mass produced loudspeakers,
with individual TLC you can often improve things. I find it amazing that
this concept is so difficult to believe. It's not about good or bad; its
about performance. Terms like "high end" and "audiophile" usually imply a
search for high performance in sonic reproduction. The analogy to
loudspeaker manufacturing does not differ much in this regard to cars, both
in terms of technology advances in time and economic restraints. You could
want a "good" high performing modified race car so to speak and not a "good"
off the showroom sportscar. In which case some people come to me.

The departure from the original post started as a general indication as to
what the owner could expect to gain from making modifications to his
speakers. I thought I could help. Others seem to be offended to even think
improvement is possible.

Lastly, yeah I like thinking about kooky and philosophical beyond the
envelope stuff because I have dedicated much of my lifetime to mastering the
technical knowledge to be able to do the regular technical loudspeaker stuff
half of my work week. In this endevour, I have discovered that the tools of
the trade are not comprehensive and the picture is far from complete. It
seems to me that if loudspeakers are by far the worst link in the audio
chain that thinking beyond the current paradigm, even philosphically, should
be paramount.

That's it for this thread for me.

Wessel