[Audio Empire]

On Fri, 31 Aug 2012 03:51:52 -0700, Gary Eickmeier wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message
...

Well, while those Wilson Audio speakers were definitely the "best of show"
Their longsuit seemed to be that they excelled at getting the dynamics of
live music correct. In an unfamiliar venue such as half of a hotel
ballroom,
any observations that I might make about imaging and soundstage (they
seemed
to do that very realistically) would be tempered by my unfamiliarity with
the
room and the equipment. So I make no claims there. The sound was big and
real-sounding from a standpoint of my familiarity with the source material
and nothing else. The speakers are huge. The Alexandrias, each had two
woofers, one a 13" and the other a 15". The "Thor's Hammer" subwoofers had
two woofers as well, both 15". The three speaker systems moved a LOT of
air
and the bottom descended to 10 Hz!

I'm beginning to agree with your idea about the dynamics of the high freqs.
I read Dick Pierce's explanation, which was great, but again maybe neither
of you is taking power response into the equation. Maybe the speakers were
voiced with a microphone at 1 meter on axis etc etc, and so in a large room
the high freqs lose oomph and power compared to the more omnidirectional
lower freqs. Just a guess. Thinking about a typical ribbon tweeter a'la
Magnepan, how does that delicate little fellow have the kind of dynamics
required for live sound?

According to Pierce's explanation (which seemed to make sense physics and
maths-wise) it doesn't need to. But obviously, something's missing. speakers
simply cannot reproduce that sense of "aliveness" that is imparted on the
listener by live instruments. If one can walk down a street, pass a venue
where real music is being played, and be able to TELL INSTANTLY as one
passes, from a momentarily open door, that a real band is playing unamplified
music inside, then it's obvious that speakers are missing something in their
attempt to reproduce a musical waveform.

But what I really have to contribute to the discussion is the headphone
solution. How about finding a pair of the best electrostatic headphones (or
other highly respected transducers) and listening to the horns and
everything else through those, and seeing if something gets lost, frequency
wise or dynamics wise, by listening to speakers? No, it won't tell you
anything about stereo imaging, or bigness of the soundstage and similar, but
just to see if the horn problem resides in the tweeters or in the recording.

Interesting thought. I see where you're coming from, but I've tried that too.
Headphones, even the most expensive Stax, while they sound very good, don't
produce any more of a realistic rendering of instruments like brass and
drum-kits than do speakers. So, that doesn't seem to work either.

Jenn's remark about not being impressed with anything at the show may be due
to not having your recording at hand, which is more food for thought.

Well, I can't say that. There were rooms playing some fairly impressive stuff
(with or without my jazz recording playing). I was impressed by the new
Magico S5, the MBL-101s (again, as usual), the big YG acoustics speakers, the
biggest Focal speakers (don't recall the model numbers) and the KEF "Blades".
And of course, the most jaw dropping of all, the aforementioned Wilson
Alexandria XLFs. All showed me that at least at the "cost-is-no-object" end
of the spectrum, speakers are improving. I heard cone speakers (virtually all
of the speakers mentioned were cone designs) especially, are now doing things
that 20 years ago, I would have bet money that come speakers could NEVER do.
Maybe Jenn's jaded. It does happen.

Gary Eickmeier