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#121
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
paul packer wrote:
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:53:58 -0400, Howard Ferstler wrote: Why? Well, see the current issue for a letter to the editor from me that highlights my feelings about several reviews that appeared in an earlier issue. Obviously, if they publish reviews like that my contributions (at least those that involve editorializing about goofy audio) would tend to be unsettling and out of place. Ironically, without such reviews (and this goes for outfits like Stereophile and The Absolute Sound) the magazine would be in trouble. They need tweako subscribers, just like other high-end publications. As I have indicated before, audio has split into two camps. On the one hand we have the lunatic fringe and magazines that cater to them, and on the other hand we have the glitz and gizmo group, catered to by assorted home-theater and audio-decor magazines. Not much room for old-style audio journalism any more. The thing I don't get is, if mags don't talk about subjective differences, what do they talk about? Back in the 70s I read a couple of issues of Stereo Review and was bored to tears. Every product was excellent except one or two that maybe should have placed the balance control to the left rather than right of the volume control. It was all harmonic and intermodulation distortion graphs, and once you've seen one of those you've seen them all. What is the point of a mag that makes no comment on sound quality, or assumes there is none? Yes, this is a problem with the the hobby of audio. Most enthusiasts want some action and observable contrasts with their hobby. If amps and wires and players (costs notwithstanding) all pretty much perform the same, then what fun is it to speculate about which is "best?" And what fun is it to spend big on a super amp and preamp or super player or super wires if some clown can go to Circuit City and get a receiver or player that works as well and go to a hardware store and get lamp cord that also works (subjectively, at least) as well. It is an unfortunate fact of life that a hobby like audio almost demands that speculation and guesswork-grade evaluations be done, and that there is some way to purchase elitist-grade products that allow the owner to gain a feeling of pride. And fit and finish advantages and reliability just do not do it for some people I will say that Stereo Review probably had an editorial position that limited negative reviews. Supposedly, this allowed them to present products that readers might care to buy, rather than present products that put some small manufacturers out of business because of negative reviews. Space was limited and the editors probably felt that people would be more interested in decent components than in reading about junk. I think that some of the product reviews that Audio magazine also did managed to do a good job of straddling the subjective and objective fence. Of course, some of Audio's reviews were as goofy as the most notorious you will find in the subjective magazines. Note that while Stereo Review's amp and player reviewer were rather bland (unless you enjoyed measured data and printed curves, which I will admit that I often do), their speaker reviews at least did allow for a fair amount of speculation. Indeed, Julian Hirsch, although pretty straightforward and analytic when reviewing stuff like amps and players, was definitely a bottom-line subjectivist when he reviewed speakers, even though he also provided rudimentary measurements. I did that sort of thing, myself, by the way. Also, back when he was reviewing cartridges Hirsch did a good straddling of subjective and objective points of view. Okay, admittedly some of the subjective mags hear differences where a dog would have difficulty, but I'm sure most readers compensate for that with a healthy dose of skepticism. I'd like to think so. However, you would not guess that if the only audio opinions you ever read were from some of the crackpots here on RAO. I just don't get the point of mags that deny the reality of subjectivism. It's like a mag about fridges that says, "Hey, they all freeze the bloody ice cream so what are you worried about? Just get the size that suits." Well, The Sensible Sound (where I mostly wrote for the last few years) is often outrageously subjective. Yes, guys like me, David Rich, and David Moran (and Fred Davis, when he helped me with a wire review that I got suckered into by the management) were (and are) pretty brass-tacks oriented. (Rich goes well beyond even that with his amp and player reviews.) However, most of the remaining contributors turn speculation into an art form. And as I noted, Hirsch's reviews of speakers were more subjective than objective. I also wrote for The Audiophile Voice, and I must admit that I avoided reviewing any products for them that had black-box performance. Speakers and subwoofers, only, and even then the editor wanted minimal technical babble. In any case, if the truth hurts (amps are amps and wires are wires) it is something we just have to live with. Remember, sound-alike amps and players, as well as sound-alike wires, are not the only components in audio. We have surround-sound receivers and processors that simply must be partially evaluated based upon subjective impressions, and that makes for often wide-open review situations. Components like that will allow a reviewer to go overboard with speculation at times, and yet the review will still be educational and worthwhile. And of course, we still have the power-output and wild-load issue with amps, even if they sound alike under more sane conditions. And as I have noted, speakers allow for some very interesting speculations. Heck, even subwoofers can be evaluated with a combination of subjective and objective approaches that are interesting. But, yes, if the truth won out in audio I think that the size of the hobby would shrink considerably. It would almost be mandatory that the hobby merge with video, which is of course what is happening, anyway. Howard Ferstler |
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#122
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
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#124
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
"Howard Ferstler" wrote in message news:44b7cd03@kcnews01... wrote: Howard Ferstler wrote: Just kidding. Actually, when I finally left the university library a while back they had a really big party for me: food, presents, friends; the whole nine yards. On the other hand, I think that the publisher of The Sensible Sound was glad to be rid of me when I announced my self-imposed termination. Why? Well, see the current issue for a letter to the editor from me that highlights my feelings about several reviews that appeared in an earlier issue. Obviously, if they publish reviews like that my contributions (at least those that involve editorializing about goofy audio) would tend to be unsettling and out of place. Ironically, without such reviews (and this goes for outfits like Stereophile and The Absolute Sound) the magazine would be in trouble. They need tweako subscribers, just like other high-end publications. As I have indicated before, audio has split into two camps. On the one hand we have the lunatic fringe and magazines that cater to them, and on the other hand we have the glitz and gizmo group, catered to by assorted home-theater and audio-decor magazines. Not much room for old-style audio journalism any more. Well, at least you finally admit that you're worthless, and that no one gives a **** about your audio opinions. I beg to differ. I am sure that some here "give a ****," as you say. Even you do, although you obviously disagree with me. Trust me on this. Still, I can't figure which is smaller...your testicles, or that wrecking ball you used to boast about. Your problem, and this is why you will likely never amount much as a writer, is that you have this sophomoric, childish, and of course profane approach to both debating and the hobby in general. Howard Ferstler You are a clow, Trust me on this. -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
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#125
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Arny Krueger wrote: wrote in message oups.com Howard Ferstler wrote: wrote: Howard Ferstler wrote: Look who's talking. Your claims about tube amps and the LP record are technically preposterous. I don't make technical claims about anything. That's because you are unable to. You cannot come up with one concrete (as opposed to speculative) reason why the LP or audio tube electronics are so damned great. We're holding you up to ridicule. An attempt to obfuscate issues and protect your unsubstantiated and childish beliefs. That's a meaningless, ignorant statement. Only in your mind. Nope, most people around here pretty much agree with me on this subject. So it's your addled mind that's in question. The reason most people around here pretty much agree with you is that most people around here are idiots. Remember what I have said about RAO being a fool's paradise? Well, you are one of the instructors. Actually, much of high-end audio (the tweako segment) is in the same boat. Those who are not deluded are con artists. The funny thing is that some of the con artists are as deluded as their followers. Yep, Howard. Everyone is crazy but you. The shoe fits you especially well, Boon. Oh boy, another IKYABWAI. I can't believe another day is here, and you haven't put a bullet in your brain yet. Boon |
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#126
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
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#127
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
paul packer wrote: On 13 Jul 2006 17:45:20 -0700, wrote: One day, probably on your deathbed, you'll realize, in the words of Captain America, that you blew it. Boon Actually I think we'll all realize that. Not if you contributed something to society that will outlive you. Not if you raised decent children who will go on to be productive. Not if you have a lifetime of wonderful memories of people, places and things. Not if you avoid spending too much time on the Internet, debating with strangers on things that don't really matter. Boon |
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#128
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Howard Ferstler wrote: wrote: Howard Ferstler wrote: No. What "we" need is for you people to learn to intelligently defend your opinions regarding audio Why? Why do you "need" for people to do this? Well, I was too confined in my explanation. What "the industry" and audio enthusiasts throughout the world needs if for people to do this. That way, the overall quality of components will improve, super-expensive components will often be seen to be overkill and a waste of money, and rip-off products will mostly disappear. (Mostly, because I do not expect the really crazy types to give up their obsessions.) The net result will be a better hobby, and therefore (please excuse the hyperbole) a better world. You see, Howard, normal people "need" things like food, water, air, shelter, and love. Your needs seem to stem from the behavior of complete strangers. I need for goofballs to stop wrecking a once productive, intelligent, and interesting hobby. Anyone else with an interest in audio and with an ounce of sense needs the same thing. Well, sharp con artists obviously do not need for things to change. They feed off of the insanity. I have never heard a statement that defines "quixotic" better than this. You are on a fool's errand. Go out to your workshop, Howard, and whittle yourself a new life before you're dead and forgotten. Boon Howard Ferstler |
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#129
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
wrote in message ups.com... Well, I do have an affinity for sending tight-assed, clueless old fogeys like yourself running for the hills. I forgot exactly how many times you have left RAO with your tail between your legs. when does your next hiatus begin? -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
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#130
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
wrote in message ups.com... Well, I do have an affinity for sending tight-assed, clueless old fogeys like yourself running for the hills. Sorry I thought youwere Howie, it is something he would say -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
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#131
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:52:56 -0400, Howard Ferstler
wrote: I have a lot of fun buying and selling cheap used amps on Ebay--Marantz, Nad, Rotel, recently a Technics--and comparing differences--and there are differences. The best cheapie I've come across yet is a Marantz SR50 receiver (around 50 watts) from 1992, and unless very inefficient speakers are being used I believe it provides as good a sound as most people would ever want. No doubt. I found the same thing with a 50 wpc NAD receiver that I reviewed for The Sensible Sound quite some time ago. It did manage to sound the same as several other, more powerful amps and receiver amp sections I had on hand. The trick was to not push it too loud. I've tried most of the old NADS. Pretty good. The Marantz SR50 once figured in a 12 receiver test in Hi-Fi Choice (April, '92) and came out equal first with a NAD 7225pe. So where do I stand in the debate? I'm a subjectivist in that I believe properly operating amps even in the same price range sound different, Try doing your comparisons level matched. Make sure that each channel is level-matched to the corresponding channel in the second amp. Global level matching with the main gain control will not do the trick, because there may still be channel balance differences that impact soundstaging. I have found that while a volt meter is the most precise tool for level matching, you can do the job quite well by ear if you use a pink-noise source. Just set the levels so when you switch from one amp to the other there is no perceptible change. Then go on to do the musical comparing. What I forgot to say is that I don't believe in A/B tests at all. I've tried them, even between components I know to sound vastly different in long-term listening. Only the grossest differences ever show up. I don't know why, but I suspect one day we'll find out. The only way to test amps or CD players is to listen to a whole piece (around 5 minutes is enough) on one and then the other, and keep doing it. The differences are soon apparently, or there really isn't a difference. For the home listener deciding between components, that's all that's needed. |
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#132
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
On 14 Jul 2006 12:49:31 -0700, wrote:
paul packer wrote: On 13 Jul 2006 17:45:20 -0700, wrote: One day, probably on your deathbed, you'll realize, in the words of Captain America, that you blew it. Boon Actually I think we'll all realize that. Not if you contributed something to society that will outlive you. Not if you raised decent children who will go on to be productive. Not if you have a lifetime of wonderful memories of people, places and things. There's more. |
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#133
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:30:04 -0400, Howard Ferstler
wrote: paul packer wrote: On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:53:58 -0400, Howard Ferstler wrote: Yes, this is a problem with the the hobby of audio. Most enthusiasts want some action and observable contrasts with their hobby. If amps and wires and players (costs notwithstanding) all pretty much perform the same, then what fun is it to speculate about which is "best?" And what fun is it to spend big on a super amp and preamp or super player or super wires if some clown can go to Circuit City and get a receiver or player that works as well and go to a hardware store and get lamp cord that also works (subjectively, at least) as well. It is an unfortunate fact of life that a hobby like audio almost demands that speculation and guesswork-grade evaluations be done, and that there is some way to purchase elitist-grade products that allow the owner to gain a feeling of pride. And fit and finish advantages and reliability just do not do it for some people I'm not much interested in whether super expensive stuff sounds better or not. I'm more interested in the differences in equipment in the affordable price ranges. And my listenings shows me clearly that there are differences--no doubts there at all. However, I'm not saying those differences would be detected by every listener, or that if they were. that the listeners would even care. I listen carefully. Sound is important to me. The differences I hear can to me be the difference between continuing pleasure and nagging disappointment---yet still they're quite small, and I daresay would be undetectable or insignificant to most people. So in a sense both the subjectivists and objectivists are right. There are differences, but differences only of importance to the most fastidious listeners. This is where I think the debate should be centered.. You were not able to detect differences between amps and CD players, so you trusted the measurements, as Arnie does, and the measurements appear to tell you that the differences others claim to perceive simply don't exist. I can certainly understand you railing against tweako-freako merchandise, because frankly most of that stuff offends common-sense; and I can understand you bewailing the spending of vast sums on equipment that measures no better, sometimes worse, than cheap stuff. However, let's leave the nutty side of the hobby to the nuts, and the high-end to the rich, and at least admit that there may be perceptable differences between affordable amps and CD players. That way you don't offend common-sense, yet you allow enough to permit the hobby to continue and we subjectivists to have some fun comparing stuff. Is that a fair deal? I will say that Stereo Review probably had an editorial position that limited negative reviews. I heard rumours that that was the case. Supposedly, this allowed them to present products that readers might care to buy, rather than present products that put some small manufacturers out of business because of negative reviews. Or offended big manufacturers who cared nought for sound quality. Space was limited and the editors probably felt that people would be more interested in decent components than in reading about junk. But what about when the junk was labelled a decent component? I think that some of the product reviews that Audio magazine also did managed to do a good job of straddling the subjective and objective fence. Of course, some of Audio's reviews were as goofy as the most notorious you will find in the subjective magazines. Never saw those. Note that while Stereo Review's amp and player reviewer were rather bland (unless you enjoyed measured data and printed curves, which I will admit that I often do), their speaker reviews at least did allow for a fair amount of speculation. Which raises the question, if they only seemed to detect audible differences between speakers, why not just review speakers? Why review amps when it was clear they were not going to comment negatively on sound quality? Indeed, Julian Hirsch, although pretty straightforward and analytic when reviewing stuff like amps and players, was definitely a bottom-line subjectivist when he reviewed speakers, even though he also provided rudimentary measurements. I did that sort of thing, myself, by the way. Also, back when he was reviewing cartridges Hirsch did a good straddling of subjective and objective points of view. Would it be possible not to be a subjectivist when reviewing speakers? Would anyone seriously suggest all speakers sounded alike, or sounded as they measured? Okay, admittedly some of the subjective mags hear differences where a dog would have difficulty, but I'm sure most readers compensate for that with a healthy dose of skepticism. I'd like to think so. However, you would not guess that if the only audio opinions you ever read were from some of the crackpots here on RAO. Actually I rarely read audio opinion on RAO. I thought this was a political group. I just don't get the point of mags that deny the reality of subjectivism. It's like a mag about fridges that says, "Hey, they all freeze the bloody ice cream so what are you worried about? Just get the size that suits." Well, The Sensible Sound (where I mostly wrote for the last few years) is often outrageously subjective. Yes, guys like me, David Rich, and David Moran (and Fred Davis, when he helped me with a wire review that I got suckered into by the management) were (and are) pretty brass-tacks oriented. (Rich goes well beyond even that with his amp and player reviews.) However, most of the remaining contributors turn speculation into an art form. And as I noted, Hirsch's reviews of speakers were more subjective than objective. I also wrote for The Audiophile Voice, and I must admit that I avoided reviewing any products for them that had black-box performance. Black box? Speakers and subwoofers, only, and even then the editor wanted minimal technical babble. Which is reasonable, wouldn't you say? However a speaker measures, whatever the wonders of its conception and design, its subjective performance is all that matters. I should say one on-axis and one off-axis frequency response is about as much as I want to to know about how most speakers measure. In any case, if the truth hurts (amps are amps and wires are wires) it is something we just have to live with. Well now, Howard, some of us don't live with it. Remember, sound-alike amps and players, as well as sound-alike wires, are not the only components in audio. We have surround-sound receivers and processors that simply must be partially evaluated based upon subjective impressions, and that makes for often wide-open review situations. How is this meant? Evaluated using what parameters? Incidentally, I wonder what your opinion is of the performance of typical AV surround-sound amps on stereo music? There is a huge rush to buy used stereo amps and CD players on Ebay due to a general subjective dissatisfaction with surround stuff. Components like that will allow a reviewer to go overboard with speculation at times, and yet the review will still be educational and worthwhile. And of course, we still have the power-output and wild-load issue with amps, even if they sound alike under more sane conditions. Lots of questions there. Cannot a wild load affect an amp's performance even at sane levels, for one? And as I have noted, speakers allow for some very interesting speculations. Heck, even subwoofers can be evaluated with a combination of subjective and objective approaches that are interesting. But, yes, if the truth won out in audio I think that the size of the hobby would shrink considerably. It has, not because the truth won out but because most people aren't very discerning and put price before quality and novelty and gadgets before performance. It would almost be mandatory that the hobby merge with video, which is of course what is happening, anyway. (sob) |
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#134
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
paul packer said: Not if you contributed something to society that will outlive you. Not if you raised decent children who will go on to be productive. Not if you have a lifetime of wonderful memories of people, places and things. There's more. Please can the preaching, paul. -- A day without Krooger is like a day without radiation poisoning. |
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#135
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 08:57:52 -0400, George M. Middius cmndr
[underscore] george [at] comcast [dot] net wrote: paul packer said: Not if you contributed something to society that will outlive you. Not if you raised decent children who will go on to be productive. Not if you have a lifetime of wonderful memories of people, places and things. There's more. Please can the preaching, paul. Sorry to go on and on, George. |
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#136
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
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#137
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Jenn said: However, let's leave the nutty side of the hobby to the nuts, and the high-end to the rich, and at least admit that there may be perceptable differences between affordable amps and CD players. That way you don't offend common-sense, yet you allow enough to permit the hobby to continue and we subjectivists to have some fun comparing stuff. Is that a fair deal? This is one of the most sensible ($ensible?) posts that has appeared here in some time. Sorry, Ferstler does not compromise. -- A day without Krooger is like a day without radiation poisoning. |
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#138
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Ferstler Moves On
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#139
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
paul packer wrote:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:52:56 -0400, Howard Ferstler wrote: Try doing your comparisons level matched. Make sure that each channel is level-matched to the corresponding channel in the second amp. Global level matching with the main gain control will not do the trick, because there may still be channel balance differences that impact soundstaging. I have found that while a volt meter is the most precise tool for level matching, you can do the job quite well by ear if you use a pink-noise source. Just set the levels so when you switch from one amp to the other there is no perceptible change. Then go on to do the musical comparing. What I forgot to say is that I don't believe in A/B tests at all. I've tried them, even between components I know to sound vastly different in long-term listening. Only the grossest differences ever show up. I don't know why, but I suspect one day we'll find out. The only way to test amps or CD players is to listen to a whole piece (around 5 minutes is enough) on one and then the other, and keep doing it. The differences are soon apparently, or there really isn't a difference. For the home listener deciding between components, that's all that's needed. Actually, you can do level-matched (and blind) comparisons in a way that is similar in principle to what you do. You just do the A/B switching over a longer period of time, as you noted. Remember, if you do not do the comparing blind there is no way to know for sure if you are really hearing differences or just letting preconceptions take over the operation. And if you do not compare level matched all bets just absolutely have to be off. While it is still hot here, my workshop and its deck out back are in the shade most of the day, and so, in spite of what I have said before about it being too hot here to do woodworking projects, doing things like that out there is not really all that bad. I have some items I want to build now, and I also am getting back into reading. (Just wrapped up a good book by Daniel Boorstin, and realize that I took way too long to read it, partially because I have been occupied here for an hour or two every day or every other day.) The fact is that duking it out with some of the RAO crowd (not you so much, at least for this series) is, for the most part, both demoralizing and a waste of time. I'll drop back in one of these days to see if the same people are going on and on about the same pointless subjects. Howard Ferstler |
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#141
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Clyde Slick wrote:
wrote in message ups.com... Well, I do have an affinity for sending tight-assed, clueless old fogeys like yourself running for the hills. I forgot exactly how many times you have left RAO with your tail between your legs. when does your next hiatus begin? Immediately, but without my tail between my legs, tweako. While it is still hot here, my workshop and its deck out back are in the shade most of the day, and so, in spite of what I have said before about it being too hot here to do woodworking projects, doing things like that out there is not really all that taxing. I have some items I want to build now, and I also am getting back into reading. The fact is that duking it out with some of you RAO trilobites is, for the most part, both demoralizing and a waste of time. I have managed to post enough for assorted newcomers to get a feel for the stupidity of the tweako point of view. I'll drop back in one of these days to see if the same people are ranting about the same pointless subjects. Howard Ferstler |
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#142
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Howard Ferstler said:
Go out to your workshop, Howard, and whittle yourself a new life before you're dead and forgotten. Actually, yours is a good suggestion, although I prefer to just work on normal projects instead of whittling a new life. While it is still hot here, the workshop and its deck are in the shade most of the day, and so doing projects out there is not really all that bad. I have some items I want to build now, and I also am getting back into reading. Just out of curiosity Howard, did you ever build loudspeakers (or a subwoofer) yourself? -- "All amps sound alike, but some sound more alike than others". |
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#143
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
"Howard Ferstler" wrote in message news:44b94b4a@kcnews01... paul packer wrote: On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:52:56 -0400, Howard Ferstler wrote: Try doing your comparisons level matched. Make sure that each channel is level-matched to the corresponding channel in the second amp. Global level matching with the main gain control will not do the trick, because there may still be channel balance differences that impact soundstaging. I have found that while a volt meter is the most precise tool for level matching, you can do the job quite well by ear if you use a pink-noise source. Just set the levels so when you switch from one amp to the other there is no perceptible change. Then go on to do the musical comparing. What I forgot to say is that I don't believe in A/B tests at all. I've tried them, even between components I know to sound vastly different in long-term listening. Only the grossest differences ever show up. I don't know why, but I suspect one day we'll find out. The only way to test amps or CD players is to listen to a whole piece (around 5 minutes is enough) on one and then the other, and keep doing it. The differences are soon apparently, or there really isn't a difference. For the home listener deciding between components, that's all that's needed. Actually, you can do level-matched (and blind) comparisons in a way that is similar in principle to what you do. You just do the A/B switching over a longer period of time, as you noted. Remember, if you do not do the comparing blind there is no way to know for sure if you are really hearing differences or just letting preconceptions take over the operation. And if you do not compare level matched all bets just absolutely have to be off. While it is still hot here, my workshop and its deck out back are in the shade most of the day, and so, in spite of what I have said before about it being too hot here to do woodworking projects, doing things like that out there is not really all that bad. I have some items I want to build now, and I also am getting back into reading. (Just wrapped up a good book by Daniel Boorstin, and realize that I took way too long to read it, partially because I have been occupied here for an hour or two every day or every other day.) The fact is that duking it out with some of the RAO crowd (not you so much, at least for this series) is, for the most part, both demoralizing and a waste of time. I'll drop back in one of these days to see if the same people are going on and on about the same pointless subjects. Howard Ferstler Gosh - Howard even plagarizes himself!? |
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#144
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Ferstler Moves On
Sander deWaal said: Just out of curiosity Howard, did you ever build loudspeakers (or a subwoofer) yourself? Of course not. As you know very well, Harold has not succeeded in channeling Allison's spirit (probably because Allison is still using it). -- A day without Krooger is like a day without radiation poisoning. |
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#145
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Ferstlerianism's lighter side
Brother Horace the Hideously Masochistic leered: Actually, you can do level-matched (and blind) comparisons in a way that is similar in principle to what you do. While we're on the subject of grotesque wastes of time, here are some suggestions for whiling away the hours of your increasingly bitter retirement: 1. See if you can get into Guinness by amassing the largest collection of dead insects. I believe Florida is simply teeming with easy-to-catch specimens of the various orders of insects. 2. Paint the entire exterior of your house using one of those whisker-thin brushes for doing touch-ups on model airplanes. 3. Undertake a project to sample and document the early-bird specials in every restaurant in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. 4. Actualize your plan to rid the earth of vinyl by hiring legions of students to scour yard sales throughout the country. Offer them a bounty for each record scalp (the label and the vinyl it's glued to) they send you. 5. Volunteer as a library aide in public libraries throughout your area. While you're shuffling around in the stacks of local and regional public libraries, you can black out references to vinyl, turntables, and tubed gear from all the audio books and magazines. Harold, if you were to undertake one or two of these daunting projects, I'm sure your boredom would be dispelled and the cleaning lady would stop haranguing you for hanging around the house all the time. -- A day without Krooger is like a day without radiation poisoning. |
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#146
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
paul packer wrote: On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:30:04 -0400, Howard Ferstler wrote: paul packer wrote: On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:53:58 -0400, Howard Ferstler wrote: Yes, this is a problem with the the hobby of audio. Most enthusiasts want some action and observable contrasts with their hobby. If amps and wires and players (costs notwithstanding) all pretty much perform the same, then what fun is it to speculate about which is "best?" And what fun is it to spend big on a super amp and preamp or super player or super wires if some clown can go to Circuit City and get a receiver or player that works as well and go to a hardware store and get lamp cord that also works (subjectively, at least) as well. It is an unfortunate fact of life that a hobby like audio almost demands that speculation and guesswork-grade evaluations be done, and that there is some way to purchase elitist-grade products that allow the owner to gain a feeling of pride. And fit and finish advantages and reliability just do not do it for some people I'm not much interested in whether super expensive stuff sounds better or not. I'm more interested in the differences in equipment in the affordable price ranges. And my listenings shows me clearly that there are differences--no doubts there at all. However, I'm not saying those differences would be detected by every listener, or that if they were. that the listeners would even care. I listen carefully. Sound is important to me. The differences I hear can to me be the difference between continuing pleasure and nagging disappointment---yet still they're quite small, and I daresay would be undetectable or insignificant to most people. So in a sense both the subjectivists and objectivists are right. There are differences, but differences only of importance to the most fastidious listeners. This is where I think the debate should be centered.. You were not able to detect differences between amps and CD players, so you trusted the measurements, as Arnie does, and the measurements appear to tell you that the differences others claim to perceive simply don't exist. I can certainly understand you railing against tweako-freako merchandise, because frankly most of that stuff offends common-sense; and I can understand you bewailing the spending of vast sums on equipment that measures no better, sometimes worse, than cheap stuff. However, let's leave the nutty side of the hobby to the nuts, and the high-end to the rich, and at least admit that there may be perceptable differences between affordable amps and CD players. That way you don't offend common-sense, yet you allow enough to permit the hobby to continue and we subjectivists to have some fun comparing stuff. Is that a fair deal? I will say that Stereo Review probably had an editorial position that limited negative reviews. I heard rumours that that was the case. Supposedly, this allowed them to present products that readers might care to buy, rather than present products that put some small manufacturers out of business because of negative reviews. Or offended big manufacturers who cared nought for sound quality. Space was limited and the editors probably felt that people would be more interested in decent components than in reading about junk. But what about when the junk was labelled a decent component? I think that some of the product reviews that Audio magazine also did managed to do a good job of straddling the subjective and objective fence. Of course, some of Audio's reviews were as goofy as the most notorious you will find in the subjective magazines. Never saw those. Note that while Stereo Review's amp and player reviewer were rather bland (unless you enjoyed measured data and printed curves, which I will admit that I often do), their speaker reviews at least did allow for a fair amount of speculation. Which raises the question, if they only seemed to detect audible differences between speakers, why not just review speakers? Why review amps when it was clear they were not going to comment negatively on sound quality? Indeed, Julian Hirsch, although pretty straightforward and analytic when reviewing stuff like amps and players, was definitely a bottom-line subjectivist when he reviewed speakers, even though he also provided rudimentary measurements. I did that sort of thing, myself, by the way. Also, back when he was reviewing cartridges Hirsch did a good straddling of subjective and objective points of view. Would it be possible not to be a subjectivist when reviewing speakers? Would anyone seriously suggest all speakers sounded alike, or sounded as they measured? Okay, admittedly some of the subjective mags hear differences where a dog would have difficulty, but I'm sure most readers compensate for that with a healthy dose of skepticism. I'd like to think so. However, you would not guess that if the only audio opinions you ever read were from some of the crackpots here on RAO. Actually I rarely read audio opinion on RAO. I thought this was a political group. I just don't get the point of mags that deny the reality of subjectivism. It's like a mag about fridges that says, "Hey, they all freeze the bloody ice cream so what are you worried about? Just get the size that suits." Well, The Sensible Sound (where I mostly wrote for the last few years) is often outrageously subjective. Yes, guys like me, David Rich, and David Moran (and Fred Davis, when he helped me with a wire review that I got suckered into by the management) were (and are) pretty brass-tacks oriented. (Rich goes well beyond even that with his amp and player reviews.) However, most of the remaining contributors turn speculation into an art form. And as I noted, Hirsch's reviews of speakers were more subjective than objective. I also wrote for The Audiophile Voice, and I must admit that I avoided reviewing any products for them that had black-box performance. Black box? Speakers and subwoofers, only, and even then the editor wanted minimal technical babble. Which is reasonable, wouldn't you say? However a speaker measures, whatever the wonders of its conception and design, its subjective performance is all that matters. I should say one on-axis and one off-axis frequency response is about as much as I want to to know about how most speakers measure. In any case, if the truth hurts (amps are amps and wires are wires) it is something we just have to live with. Well now, Howard, some of us don't live with it. Remember, sound-alike amps and players, as well as sound-alike wires, are not the only components in audio. We have surround-sound receivers and processors that simply must be partially evaluated based upon subjective impressions, and that makes for often wide-open review situations. How is this meant? Evaluated using what parameters? Incidentally, I wonder what your opinion is of the performance of typical AV surround-sound amps on stereo music? There is a huge rush to buy used stereo amps and CD players on Ebay due to a general subjective dissatisfaction with surround stuff. Components like that will allow a reviewer to go overboard with speculation at times, and yet the review will still be educational and worthwhile. And of course, we still have the power-output and wild-load issue with amps, even if they sound alike under more sane conditions. Lots of questions there. Cannot a wild load affect an amp's performance even at sane levels, for one? And as I have noted, speakers allow for some very interesting speculations. Heck, even subwoofers can be evaluated with a combination of subjective and objective approaches that are interesting. But, yes, if the truth won out in audio I think that the size of the hobby would shrink considerably. It has, not because the truth won out but because most people aren't very discerning and put price before quality and novelty and gadgets before performance. It would almost be mandatory that the hobby merge with video, which is of course what is happening, anyway. (sob) ------------------------------ I distinctly recall Hirsch saying something to the effect:" Basically you gets what you pays for." That was the day I stopped looking at his mag. Ludovic Mirabel |
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#147
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstlerianism's lighter side
George M. Middius cmndr [underscore] george [at] comcast [dot] net
said: Brother Horace the Hideously Masochistic leered: Actually, you can do level-matched (and blind) comparisons in a way that is similar in principle to what you do. While we're on the subject of grotesque wastes of time, here are some suggestions for whiling away the hours of your increasingly bitter retirement: 1. See if you can get into Guinness by amassing the largest collection of dead insects. I believe Florida is simply teeming with easy-to-catch specimens of the various orders of insects. 2. Paint the entire exterior of your house using one of those whisker-thin brushes for doing touch-ups on model airplanes. 3. Undertake a project to sample and document the early-bird specials in every restaurant in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. 4. Actualize your plan to rid the earth of vinyl by hiring legions of students to scour yard sales throughout the country. Offer them a bounty for each record scalp (the label and the vinyl it's glued to) they send you. 5. Volunteer as a library aide in public libraries throughout your area. While you're shuffling around in the stacks of local and regional public libraries, you can black out references to vinyl, turntables, and tubed gear from all the audio books and magazines. Harold, if you were to undertake one or two of these daunting projects, I'm sure your boredom would be dispelled and the cleaning lady would stop haranguing you for hanging around the house all the time. You see George, this is why I can't stay mad at you for long. This is hilarious ;-) -- "All amps sound alike, but some sound more alike than others". |
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#148
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
paul packer wrote:
On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:30:04 -0400, Howard Ferstler wrote: Yes, this is a problem with the the hobby of audio. Most enthusiasts want some action and observable contrasts with their hobby. If amps and wires and players (costs notwithstanding) all pretty much perform the same, then what fun is it to speculate about which is "best?" And what fun is it to spend big on a super amp and preamp or super player or super wires if some clown can go to Circuit City and get a receiver or player that works as well and go to a hardware store and get lamp cord that also works (subjectively, at least) as well. It is an unfortunate fact of life that a hobby like audio almost demands that speculation and guesswork-grade evaluations be done, and that there is some way to purchase elitist-grade products that allow the owner to gain a feeling of pride. And fit and finish advantages and reliability just do not do it for some people I'm not much interested in whether super expensive stuff sounds better or not. I'm more interested in the differences in equipment in the affordable price ranges. And my listenings shows me clearly that there are differences--no doubts there at all. However, I'm not saying those differences would be detected by every listener, or that if they were. that the listeners would even care. I listen carefully. Sound is important to me. The differences I hear can to me be the difference between continuing pleasure and nagging disappointment---yet still they're quite small, and I daresay would be undetectable or insignificant to most people. Of course, the only way we could be absolutely sure that they were "undetectable or insignificant" for you would be for you to do the comparing both level matched and blind. Without those two prerequisites there is no way you could be confident that your preconceptions, hopes, or prejudices would not be running the show. So in a sense both the subjectivists and objectivists are right. There are differences, but differences only of importance to the most fastidious listeners. I agree. However, the only way for even the "most fastidious" listener to be really sure would be to do the comparing level matched and blind. Indeed, given that we are talking about people who really, really want to KNOW for sure, going the level-matched and blind route seems like the only sensible option. Certainly, a concerned individual would at least give the level-matched, blind (or DBT) protocol a try, just to get a feel for the procedure. This is where I think the debate should be centered.. You were not able to detect differences between amps and CD players, so you trusted the measurements, as Arnie does, and the measurements appear to tell you that the differences others claim to perceive simply don't exist. Actually, I only rarely reviewed amps or players. I could not hear a difference when comparing level matched, and I did not bother to measure. (I do not own gear precise enough to measure properly, anyway.) I tried to simulate what a typical enthusiast could do, and for them that would mean listening comparisons, only. However, I did want to make the point that such comparisons, be they done quickly or done slowly, should be level matched and blind. Better yet, double blind. I can certainly understand you railing against tweako-freako merchandise, because frankly most of that stuff offends common-sense; and I can understand you bewailing the spending of vast sums on equipment that measures no better, sometimes worse, than cheap stuff. However, let's leave the nutty side of the hobby to the nuts, and the high-end to the rich, and at least admit that there may be perceptable differences between affordable amps and CD players. That way you don't offend common-sense, yet you allow enough to permit the hobby to continue and we subjectivists to have some fun comparing stuff. Is that a fair deal? Well, with the amps that I reviewed, as well as commentary articles that I did that discussed comparing amps, I made it a point to: 1. Not take my word for it. I wanted the more skeptical (of my results) readers to do their own comparing - level matched and blind, at the very least. 2. Point out that other variables (speaker quality, room acoustics, recording quality) would have way more impact even if small amp variations would be audible under very rigid listening/comparing protocols. For most enthusiasts, I should think that the musical content would overwhelm any need for absolutely clean amp sound. Note that I continue to think that decent amps, if not driven past limits and with sane speaker loads, will deliver subjectively absolutely clean sound. I will say that Stereo Review probably had an editorial position that limited negative reviews. I heard rumours that that was the case. I think that their then technical editor, Larry Klein, outlined this in an article somewhere, although I cannot remember the details. It may have been printed in a back issue of the Boston Audio Society magazine "Speaker." By the way, Klein was given a biographical outline by me in The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound. Supposedly, this allowed them to present products that readers might care to buy, rather than present products that put some small manufacturers out of business because of negative reviews. Or offended big manufacturers who cared nought for sound quality. Most of the large manufacturers were not concerned one way or the other. If a product was panned by a magazine review they could simply discontinue it and come out with a replacement, assuming that the review triggered poor sales. (Probably, the replacement would be a cosmetically reconfigured version of the previous product.) It was the smaller companies that would be severely impacted by a bad review, due to their inability to retool so fast. Space was limited and the editors probably felt that people would be more interested in decent components than in reading about junk. But what about when the junk was labelled a decent component? Well, I think that rarely happened, even with Stereo Review or Audio. They might make a mistake, but I do not think they gave any product a "pass" that they did not think deserved it. Note that while Stereo Review's amp and player reviewer were rather bland (unless you enjoyed measured data and printed curves, which I will admit that I often do), their speaker reviews at least did allow for a fair amount of speculation. Which raises the question, if they only seemed to detect audible differences between speakers, why not just review speakers? Why review amps when it was clear they were not going to comment negatively on sound quality? They needed to sell magazines. Note that their amp reviews usually did not come right out and say that a given, somewhat expensive amp, did not sound any better than scads of other units that often cost less. What they did do was evaluate the features and then summarize (this is Hirsch) by saying that the unit sounded transparent, etc. Indeed, Julian Hirsch, although pretty straightforward and analytic when reviewing stuff like amps and players, was definitely a bottom-line subjectivist when he reviewed speakers, even though he also provided rudimentary measurements. I did that sort of thing, myself, by the way. Also, back when he was reviewing cartridges Hirsch did a good straddling of subjective and objective points of view. Would it be possible not to be a subjectivist when reviewing speakers? Would anyone seriously suggest all speakers sounded alike, or sounded as they measured? Actually, I think that Floyd Toole (previously at the Canadian NRC and now at Harman) would say that. He has been working for years to correlate measurements with subjective impressions, and has published articles on the topic. To a small extent I have also been that way. I did very basic RTA measurements of speakers in my main room that measured a combination of the direct and reverberant fields. My technique was a bit different than typical, however. I measured at a 10 foot to 15 foot distance (to each speaker in a playing pair, depending on placement in relation to the front wall) and moved the measurement microphone very slowly over a 1 x 1 x 5 foot box-shaped area at roughly head height at the listening couch. During this time my AudioControl SA-3051 RTA would do a cumulative, 20-second averaging of the signals hitting the microphone. This limited the impact of reflective hot spots and standing waves, while still gaining me a fairly accurate room curve, for that room. With speakers that measured similarly (I noted a similarity between my Dunlavy Cantatas and a Triad sub/package in another thread) I found that the spectral balance that I heard was also similar. Very similar. On the other hand, speakers that measured rather poorly (and I did publish reviews of a few of them, with some being fairly expensive) easily not only sounded different from my three reference systems (the Cantatas, plus a pair of NHT ST4 units in a mid-price category and my Allison IC-20 systems in the wide-dispersion category) but also sounded just plain wrong. Of course, in some cases there were variables that had been dialed in by some of the manufacturers, with most of those involving midrange dips or downward slopes from the midrange to the treble, that made systems that were at least smooth still sound different from the flatter-measuring reference units. When I reviewed such systems I pointed out those artifacts and also noted that in many cases (different rooms, different furnishings, different listening distances, different recordings) such anomalies might not be all that bad. I even did an article that showed how speakers with moderate midrange dips (the result of tweeter/midrange driver size differences) might sound better than flatter-sounding systems under some conditions. As I have noted before, I cut speaker manufacturers a lot of slack in my reviews. However, I did make a point of showing why speakers may have sounded as they did. In my reviews, I never showed the readouts that I made (Hirsch never did this with speakers, either), but some time back I did a pair of comprehensive commentary articles where I illustrated a whole group of curves run on speakers that I had either reviewed previously or had on hand as references. I then discussed the importance of such curves and also made a big point of noting that such curves were not the be all and end all of speaker evaluating. Starting points, but not finishing points. I just don't get the point of mags that deny the reality of subjectivism. It's like a mag about fridges that says, "Hey, they all freeze the bloody ice cream so what are you worried about? Just get the size that suits." Well, The Sensible Sound (where I mostly wrote for the last few years) is often outrageously subjective. Yes, guys like me, David Rich, and David Moran (and Fred Davis, when he helped me with a wire review that I got suckered into by the management) were (and are) pretty brass-tacks oriented. (Rich goes well beyond even that with his amp and player reviews.) However, most of the remaining contributors turn speculation into an art form. And as I noted, Hirsch's reviews of speakers were more subjective than objective. I also wrote for The Audiophile Voice, and I must admit that I avoided reviewing any products for them that had black-box performance. Black box? An analogy. Straight wire with gain for amps. Straightforward performance with players. No colorations at all with wires. I did not care to pontificate for a reading group who already felt as they did about those topics. Gene Pitts (the editor) had already told me that most of his readers thought that measurements "do not mean a thing," and that skeptical outlooks like mine would not go over well. However, with full-range speakers and subwoofers I could be fairly candid and not get into trouble, because speakers are all audibly flawed by definition. Even so, he did not want me dwelling too much on my measured data. Speakers and subwoofers, only, and even then the editor wanted minimal technical babble. Which is reasonable, wouldn't you say? However a speaker measures, whatever the wonders of its conception and design, its subjective performance is all that matters. I should say one on-axis and one off-axis frequency response is about as much as I want to to know about how most speakers measure. I did not go even that far. When I first started measuring I took speakers outdoors on the deck next to my house and tried to get assorted on and off-axis readouts. The problem is that when measuring horizontally at different angles you still have to determine just how high or low you want to locate the microphone. If you get what you believe to be a definitive measurement at, say, 45 degrees off the horizontal axis at one microphone height location, you will discover that if you raise or lower the microphone a bit and measure again the result will be considerably different. To make measurement jobs like that worthwhile you have to to a HUGE number of measurements. (Believe it or not, this is what Consumer Reports does, although they use a computer to pull the data into a single power-response curve.) Consequently, I decided to stick with room curves that mainly delivered the reverberant-field performance in what I considered to be a very good room: the one containing my main system. Doing the moving-microphone technique, as I have noted, managed to minimize reflection artifacts in the midrange and treble and standing-wave artifacts in the bass range. The more measurements I did with more speaker models the better reference that room became. Remember, sound-alike amps and players, as well as sound-alike wires, are not the only components in audio. We have surround-sound receivers and processors that simply must be partially evaluated based upon subjective impressions, and that makes for often wide-open review situations. How is this meant? Evaluated using what parameters? Well, given my feelings about amp sound, with AV receivers that are going to be used for musical playback situations with conventional two-channel source material, the performance of the surround-synthesizing or surround-extracting circuitry would be important. Of course, one of the best designs for that nowadays would be Dolby ProLogic II in its "music" mode, which should perform similarly with each receiver. However, even then we have situations where lower-priced receivers would not have the fine-tuning adjustments available with more upscale models. In this case, spending a bit more would actually pay off. Incidentally, I wonder what your opinion is of the performance of typical AV surround-sound amps on stereo music? There is a huge rush to buy used stereo amps and CD players on Ebay due to a general subjective dissatisfaction with surround stuff. Below is an aside commentary that might answer this question. The units in my three AV systems are all Yamaha models. (I can say this more safely now that I am out of the reviewing business.) The oldest one is a DSP-A3090 integrated amp that is using only five of its seven available channels. The living-room decor arrangement forces this. The one in my middle system is a DSP-A1 integrated amp and in this case all seven of its channels (plus the subwoofer output) are used. I think that having front "effects" channels, in addition to the usual back/side "surround" channels allows this unit to do a magnificent hall-simulation job with two-channel classical source materials. My main system uses a Yamaha RX-Z1 receiver, which is probably no better at synthesizing surround ambiance than the other two. However, it also has a "back" surround channel that I use with certain movies, and it also has more power. Yamaha recommends certain speaker layouts with the units and I do not follow their lead. They want the four surround speakers (front effects and standard surrounds) to be in the four corners of a rectangular room, with the ones up front (effects speakers) mounted facing forward, high up, and flanking the left and right main speakers. I have that rectangular room with both my main and middle systems, but I place the effects speakers on the side walls, about three feet out from the front wall, and have them facing each other across the room. They are, as Yamaha dictates, high up (6 feet), however. The regular surround speakers that Yamaha wants in the back corners are placed on the side walls, too (with both the main and middle systems), slightly back from directly to the sides, and facing each other across the room. With the RX-Z1 in the main system, two "back" surround speakers are mounted seven feet up on the back wall, four feet apart. The four primary surround speakers in the main system are old Allison Model Four systems that have two angled-outward tweeters (each angled 45 degrees to either side) and upward-facing mid/woofer drivers. This lets them perform as superb surround speakers. Model Fours are also used as primary surrounds in the middle system, but the front effects speakers are home-built jobs with Allison tweeters and crossover and (shudder) Radio Shack midranges. The music mode I use is nearly always what Yamaha calls "Classical/Opera." This mode provides basic, synthesized surround to the four main surround speakers (not the back surround speakers with the RX-Z1) and provides a "derived," left-plus-right, steered signal for the center channel speaker. With the center, the steering involved is similar to basic Dolby ProLogic, and to keep the soundstage from pinching inward towards the center area I back off the center gain 3 or 4 dB below the standard Dolby set-up level. This allows the center speaker to stabilize the soundstage (particularly when listening from off axis), while at the same time allowing the left and right speakers to still generate appreciable width. The left and right speakers in my middle system are Dunlavy Cantatas, and the center is a partially home-built job (by me) that incorporates an NHT VS1.2 center unit with a standard MTM array, vertically mounted and installed in a shop-built enclosure that makes use of a downward-firing, Allison 6.5-inch woofer and a 150 Hz Allison crossover (derived from an earlier Allison sub/sat speaker package). This speaker is much shorter than the Cantatas, but the front panel slopes backward a tad to keep the MTM array properly aligned to the ear-height listening position. To deliver the flattest sound possible to the listening position, the three front speakers, plus the Hsu TN1220 subwoofer, are equalized by a Rane THX-44. The left and right speakers in my main system are Allison IC-20 units. The IC-20 has ten Allison drivers, with two tweeters and two midranges mounted on each of the 45-degree, angled outward front panels. The 10-inch, push-pull woofers are mounted on the bottom of each panel, as well. All drivers, and of course the cabinet, are built by Allison and are not OEM units. The center, as with the center in the middle system, is a home-built job that uses Allison tweeter and midrange units installed in a shop-built enclosure that has two 8-inch Allison woofers mounted at the bottoms of each side panel. The MTTM array duplicates the MTTM Allison driver array on one of the IC-20 front panels. As with the other center speaker, this unit has the front panel tilted backward a bit. Four degrees, actually. Each tweeter, midrange, and woofer driver in this custom center unit has its own crossover network (a modified Allison AL-125 unit), and each trio of drivers is powered by one of the 130-watt main-channel amps in the RX-Z1. The main speakers are powered by a Carver M500 amp and are equalized (slightly, since they are inherently very flat) for flat response at the listening couch (using my 20-second cumulative technique) by Rane THX-22. The center speaker is equalized by an AudioControl C-131 equalizer. All equalizers used are 1/3-octave units. The main problem with the center speaker is that the two woofers (on opposite sides, near the bottom) generate a cancellation null (the "Allison Effect") at 355-350 Hz. The equalizer takes care of that. The main system uses two subwoofers. One handles the left and right main channels (in spite of the potency of the IC-20 main speakers) and involves a modified SVS 16-46 unit that is powered by a 250-watt Hsu amp. The other is a Velodyne F1800RII that works with the center and surround channels, plus the LFE channel. Components like that will allow a reviewer to go overboard with speculation at times, and yet the review will still be educational and worthwhile. And of course, we still have the power-output and wild-load issue with amps, even if they sound alike under more sane conditions. Lots of questions there. Cannot a wild load affect an amp's performance even at sane levels, for one? Yep. However, the impact is probably slight in most cases, assuming that this "wild" load merely involves very low impedance. With reactive loads like electrostatics all bets are off. As I have noted elsewhere in this series of posts, while it is still hot here, my workshop and its deck out back are in the shade most of the day, and so, in spite of what I have said before about it being too hot here to do woodworking projects, doing things like that out there is not really all that bad. Consequently, I am going to back off from RAO for a while and do some other interesting things. There is one exception, however, and this involves whether you come up with some interesting comments about this particular post. If not, see you later. Howard Ferstler |
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#149
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstlerianism's lighter side
Sander deWaal said: Harold, if you were to undertake one or two of these daunting projects, I'm sure your boredom would be dispelled and the cleaning lady would stop haranguing you for hanging around the house all the time. You see George, this is why I can't stay mad at you for long. You were mad at me? Not on Scooter's account, I hope. His head is being examined as we speak to see if it qualifies for a Mohs rating. This is hilarious ;-) Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. :-) -- A day without Krooger is like a day without radiation poisoning. |
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#150
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
In article 44b94c68$1@kcnews01,
Howard Ferstler wrote: wrote: Well, I do have an affinity for sending tight-assed, clueless old fogeys like yourself running for the hills. Better an old fogey than a phony, you phony. As I said recently and elsewhere, while it is still hot outside, my workshop and its deck out back are in the shade most of the day, and so, in spite of what I have said before about it being too hot here to do woodworking projects, doing things like that out there is not really all that bad. I have some items I want to build now, and I also am getting back into reading. The fact is that duking it out with people like you is, for the most part, both demoralizing and a waste of time. There is no way to make you and your fellow nitwits see just where you have gone wrong, and it does not take all that many posts by me to clue in assorted newcomers about just how goofy tweako audio happens to be. I'll drop back in one of these days to see if the same people are going on and on about the same pointless subjects: such as tube amps and the LP record. Howard Ferstler Howard, I find your approach to life to be...interesting. You ceremoniously leave the group several months ago (over a year now?), but you pop back in every few months to bring a ray of sunshine by calling everyone in the group (with the exception of two or three) "goofy", "nitwits", etc. Then you take great pains to say that you're leaving again, but you keep posting for over a week, and again today you say "goodbye" using nearly the same words in three consecutive posts. Why would anyone take the time to come to a place that he supposedly despises, displaying all the while that it's difficult for him to leave and stay away, taking pains to be critical of others' opinions in a groups whose name contains the word "opinion", and claiming to be educating others about how "goofy" their hobby is? It seems to me that these are the actions of someone who is terribly full of himself, or terribly lonely and insecure. You're entitled to do what you do, of course, but it does seem odd, to say the least. |
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#151
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Sander deWaal wrote:
Just out of curiosity Howard, did you ever build loudspeakers (or a subwoofer) yourself? See my response to another post you submitted elsewhere, regarding my entire system and home-built units. Yes, I have built one from scratch, namely the floor-standing center unit in my main system (this set up has an 8-foot wide, pull down screen on the wall above and behind that speaker for use with a front projector), and combined an existing, small NHT MTM center unit with a woofer and crossover network into a vertically oriented cabinet for my middle system. I also have modified two subwoofers (one made by Hsu and the other made by SVS) and built two different small satellite speakers for surround use. More details about the center speakers, and my systems in general, are found in that other post. I will again point out that I am pulling back from RAO for a while, after today. I will respond to interesting comments to that other post, however, but only briefly. One can only stand RAO for so long. Howard Ferstler |
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#152
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Jenn wrote:
Why would anyone take the time to come to a place that he supposedly despises, displaying all the while that it's difficult for him to leave and stay away, taking pains to be critical of others' opinions in a groups whose name contains the word "opinion", and claiming to be educating others about how "goofy" their hobby is? I was a philosophy major in grad school. Adios Howard Ferstler |
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#153
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
Howard Ferstler said:
Just out of curiosity Howard, did you ever build loudspeakers (or a subwoofer) yourself? See my response to another post you submitted elsewhere, regarding my entire system and home-built units. Yes, I have built one from scratch, namely the floor-standing center unit in my main system (this set up has an 8-foot wide, pull down screen on the wall above and behind that speaker for use with a front projector), and combined an existing, small NHT MTM center unit with a woofer and crossover network into a vertically oriented cabinet for my middle system. I also have modified two subwoofers (one made by Hsu and the other made by SVS) and built two different small satellite speakers for surround use. More details about the center speakers, and my systems in general, are found in that other post. Ok, thanks, I didn't realize from that post that the center was a DIY project. I certainly would build my own speakers, if I had a fully-equipped woodworking toolshed at my disposal. As it is now, I have neither the space, nor the money to build up an entire woodwork place. I would like to, however. I feel it as a shortcoming in my experience that I have never built any serious speakers myself (only one subwoofer doesn't count IMO). -- "All amps sound alike, but some sound more alike than others". |
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#154
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
"Sander deWaal" wrote in message ... Howard Ferstler said: Go out to your workshop, Howard, and whittle yourself a new life before you're dead and forgotten. Actually, yours is a good suggestion, although I prefer to just work on normal projects instead of whittling a new life. While it is still hot here, the workshop and its deck are in the shade most of the day, and so doing projects out there is not really all that bad. I have some items I want to build now, and I also am getting back into reading. Just out of curiosity Howard, did you ever build loudspeakers (or a subwoofer) yourself? He doesn't build them, he only chops them in half (True story!!!) -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDem |
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#155
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
"Howard Ferstler" wrote in message news:44b96723@kcnews01... Jenn wrote: Why would anyone take the time to come to a place that he supposedly despises, displaying all the while that it's difficult for him to leave and stay away, taking pains to be critical of others' opinions in a groups whose name contains the word "opinion", and claiming to be educating others about how "goofy" their hobby is? I was a philosophy major in grad school. Adios Howard Ferstler he washed out! -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDem |
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#156
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:54:24 -0400, "Clyde Slick"
wrote: "Howard Ferstler" wrote in message news:44b96723@kcnews01... Jenn wrote: Why would anyone take the time to come to a place that he supposedly despises, displaying all the while that it's difficult for him to leave and stay away, taking pains to be critical of others' opinions in a groups whose name contains the word "opinion", and claiming to be educating others about how "goofy" their hobby is? I was a philosophy major in grad school. Adios Howard Ferstler he washed out! Not philisophical enough? |
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#157
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
paul packer said: he washed out! Not philisophical enough? Only a philostine would ask that. -- A day without Krooger is like a day without radiation poisoning. |
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#158
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 17:41:44 -0400, Howard Ferstler
wrote: Consequently, I am going to back off from RAO for a while and do some other interesting things. I'm glad that you find RAO interesting. Since you find reading RAO akin to a root canal (something that you *might* have said), perhaps a visit to your dentist is in order. Nice to see you drop in though, Howard. |
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#159
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 18:06:57 -0400, Howard Ferstler
wrote: Jenn wrote: Why would anyone take the time to come to a place that he supposedly despises, displaying all the while that it's difficult for him to leave and stay away, taking pains to be critical of others' opinions in a groups whose name contains the word "opinion", and claiming to be educating others about how "goofy" their hobby is? I was a philosophy major in grad school. Did you graduate graduate school? (rhetorical question) PS, want to express your opinion of post-graduate types again for us? |
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#160
Posted to rec.audio.opinion
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Ferstler Moves On
"paul packer" wrote in message ... On Sat, 15 Jul 2006 19:54:24 -0400, "Clyde Slick" wrote: "Howard Ferstler" wrote in message news:44b96723@kcnews01... Jenn wrote: Why would anyone take the time to come to a place that he supposedly despises, displaying all the while that it's difficult for him to leave and stay away, taking pains to be critical of others' opinions in a groups whose name contains the word "opinion", and claiming to be educating others about how "goofy" their hobby is? I was a philosophy major in grad school. Adios Howard Ferstler he washed out! Not philisophical enough? They didn't like his thesis on Sex and The Rationalists. -- Posted via NewsDemon.com - Premium Uncensored Newsgroup Service -------http://www.NewsDemon.com------ Unlimited Access, Anonymous Accounts, Uncensored Broadband Access |
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