On 17 Feb 2004 06:20:25 GMT, "Wessel Dirksen"
wrote:

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.

It's a given that a Le Mans winning car of the '60s would be thrashed
by a modern production car such as the Porsche 966 Turbo. To return to
loudspeakers in particular, the final production version from an
engineering-led company such as B&W will have been carefully 'voiced'
for the exact components used. Put a 500 BHP engine in a car designed
to handle 200 BHP, and the result will not be pretty...............

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.

As noted above, unauthorised tweaking by the substitution of nominally
'superior' crossover components and wiring, may well destroy the
voicing of the speaker, which has been *designed* to use the standard
components. Of course, some people may prefer the result (especially
if they've paid lots of money for it!), but it's *very* unlikely to be
an improvement in absolute terms - indeed, you'd almost certainly be
better off buying the next standard model up the range, rather than
paying for 'custom' tweaks!

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.

Can't argue with that - always a good philosophy.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering