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#41
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"Competent design"
Gary Rosen wrote:
"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message ... Benajmin and Gannon's jitter threshold listening tests reported in a 1998 AES preprint indicated that the threshold for audible jitter with actual music (as opposed to sine waves and single instrumental tones) was on the order of 100 ns. Are you saying that CD players five years ago generally had at least this much jitter, or is there some other audible factor that they have improved since then? I did a quick calculation and while 100 *nano* seconds may be a little high (for audibility) it is in the ballpark. But readily available crystal oscillators have jitter well below 100 *pico*seconds - in other words three orders of magnitude better which translates to 60 dB lower noise. In other words, jitter should have no effect unless the design is *really* incompetent. This buttresses the point Dick Pierce has made many times, that the audio industry is decades behind the rest of the electronic industry. These days when I bring up the B&G figures on other audiophile forums, I'm told that Bob Katz, Julian Dunn and others 'have evidence' that jitter is audible down to the 1 nanosecond range....but I'm never, ever directed to audibility test *results* that show this. Audio engineers (as in ,people who make recordings, such as Mr. katz, *not* those who design equipment) are, I'm told, *convinced* that jitter is an omnipresent and routinely audible scourge in the digital realm. The arguemnt here goes basically: they work with sound every day, and if they say it's real, it is. Btw, I would posit that B&G's threshold audibility figures are, if anything, possibly *too low*, because they employed no controls to *verify* audibility. The testees were simply told to indicate when they could and could not hear a difference between the 'unjittered' and 'jittered' stream, knowing at all times which was which (A/B). When a threshold was determined this way, it wasn't subsequently tested by presenting jittered/nonjisttered streams in *ABX* fashion. On his jitter FAQ page of his website , http://www.digido.com/ mastering engineer Bob Katz mentions work done by one David Smith at Sony as regards jitter: " In a low-jitter CD player, we can examine and test for "microcosmic" influences on the stability of the player's crystal clock and see if they are caused by "microcosmic" differences on the CD disc. It took David Smith and Sony Corporation months and months to devise some sophisticated audio tests in order to conclude that the golden ears were right!" Anyone here know what Sony work this refers to, and how it relates to the *audibility* of jitter, and whether it has been published? -- -S. |
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#43
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"Competent design"
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 11 Aug 2003 05:06:00 GMT, Joseph Oberlander wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: So far as I can tell, only from the mid-'90s did we have DAC chips which were better than 18-bit linear, combined with low-jitter clocks and good power supply regulation, One of the first was my Denon - um - circa 1990. 20bit, good power supply, and overall a sweet design at the time. Please note I said 18-bit *linear*, not just on the label............ I think 13 1/2 years is close enough to the claimed 15. Depends on your criteria. I'm certainly not suggesting that there weren't *some* excellent designs around in the early '90s, of which the Meridians and the early 'single-bit' Sonys would be among the best. Sure, but my opriginal point was that back then even, the sound was close to or exceeded what we could discern with our poor hearing. Now, my cat - she would complain loudly at one pair of speakers I had - and the other playing the same music got no yowling. I ran it through a scope and sure enough - the razzy metal tweeter was blaring all over the 25-35Khz range. Put a hard filter on it at 20Khz and happy cat  Funny Siamese I had - lol - she made a good test subject |
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#44
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"Competent design"
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#45
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"Competent design"
(Richard D Pierce) wrote:
In article Ep_Za.87046$Oz4.21697@rwcrnsc54, Wylie Williams wrote: The assumption of several members to the speaker building posts is that home builders are making their own Some home speaker builders are building pre-engineered designs, so the only issue is their workmanship. No, the "assumption" which was pretty well stated at one point in the thread, is that home builders are attempting to duplicate and existing commercial design, not some "pre-engineered" kit. This is true for many of them. But there area fair number of home builders who are making unique designs. BUT, most of them ARE limited to drivers/parts that are commercially avialable to them. For example a woofer manufacturer made a batch of 8 fifteen inch woofers for my personal subwoofer project BUT they were all made from off-the-shelf-parts. At a non-commercial level there simply was no way that anyone would supply developmental resources for this kind of project. Mind you even this is generally several orders of magnitude in engineering/cost resources available to most amateurs in the transducer part of the project. As an example, someone may decide they don't want to spend the money on a finished pair of Aerial 10t's or B&W's, so they attempt to get the same drivers and so on. Well, in most cases, they can't, so they're already starting with a serious handicap. What the serious amateur can supply is what I call "Randy Parkers Table Saw and Router" in deference to a friend of mine who makes one-off good performing speakers that have a shape/style/finish commercially unavailable. But for design purposes Randy looks to professional friends for engineering/measurement help. Are the home designs inherently flawed? Nobody said they were "inherently" flawed. Some are; some aren't, and the same can be said of many name brand factory speakers. Ain't that the Truth. Indeed, and usually for precisely the same reason: lack of experience, lack of expertise, lack of proper design facilities, lack of proper components, and so on. SO what? There is more competence in the world of home speaker builders than is being credited in these posts. Really? I think you need to read the posts and understand what IS being talked about. And as one who has, in fact, measured the results of a couple of hundred such home speaker builders, I think I might have a somewhat different perspective. -- | Dick Pierce | | Professional Audio Development | | 1-781/826-4953 Voice and FAX | | | Dick is right. I've measured dozens of projects for friends and for the most part THE advantage of these projects is cost and appearance. Except for subwoofers few, if any, are better performing than a commercial project at a similar overall cost disregarding projecteer labor which is inherently free. If it weren't then he'd be making money elsewhere to buy the commercial product. BUT it is true that there are some pretty goofy performing commerical products (especially high-end, because many of the high-end designers are essentially amateurs) that can be easily be equalled or beaten by amateurs. BUT, I've never seen an amateur 2 or 3 way project that exceeded the basic performance of similar designs made by competent commercial manufacurers. Better finish, cooler shape, other personal things like "made it myself" .....sure. Better sound at above subwoofer frequencies; never. |
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#46
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"Competent design"
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#47
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"Competent design"
"Wylie Williams" wrote in message
So how much power is needed, anyway? I have a wide variety of expert opinion to choose from, and I have not experimented with super power. But if the exquisiteness of high priced stuff is overkill, high power would be affrdable. I'm all for high powrered amplification but there are a few things one should know: SMWTMS found that to find a reliably audible difference they had to drop to 10 watts comapred to 400 watts. Dick Greiner conducted laboratory/listening experiments and concluded that any amplifier would be audibly transparent if held to clipping less than 1% of the time. Dan Shanefield (anecdote alert) told mew that he often used 5-watt Radio Shack amplifiers to drive his Magnepans, while the big amps still had an rca input that would let the power monitor needles swing with the program, and no one ever seemed to notice a difference (sure; maybe they were just being polite )But, personally, I've often been amazed at how good seemingly 'underpowered' amplifiers seemed to sound. |
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#48
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"Competent design"
Sure and that is what should be hoped to be accomplished, fun.
Certainly not a better than commercial pair of speakers. Now if they compare them to some of the really thin, worthless stuff, then yes about any small amount of quality driver and parts would produce a better product. But when it comes to speaker specialists as those that have been named here and their design efforts as mentioned by Richard and Stewart, they simply have the upper hand. to think otherwise is folly. More than one fellow has dragged a pair of home-brew speakers here expecting to have them blast our products and then be able to strut out and spread the faith. Unfortunately those were never the results and even distributors for makers of otherwise very fine speakers have been very disapointed with our assessment of their products. One companies rep actually left after he was told that there was no way that we could sell his product beside the JM Lab speakers and made the comment, we get a lot of that. His firm will go nameless (as it should!). In all cases only a very small bookshelf speaker was used to compare these other gentlemen's larger products (homebrew or commercial) to and in all cases the choice was clear. I have also heard a load of different speaker designs and built my share for grins and can say that it is not even remotely worth it from an economic standpoint to try and replicate the product of the masters. You can have fun at it, yes. You can even make nice units, but you won't touch the fit, finish, sound and value of the big boys in your garage. Not today and not tomorrow. I gave that up long ago as well. - Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 "FOURCADE Jean" wrote in message news:4fGZa.119164$YN5.83424@sccrnsc01... On 10 Aug 2003 14:38:05 GMT, (Richard D Pierce) wrote: In article , Marinko wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: The most obvious first piece of advice is that you should stop building speakers! Chances are that your electronics are more than adequate, but a relatively recent 'showdown' by Celestion invited amateur speaker builders to come along and demonstrate their best work, so that Celestion could compare them all fairly and also pick up any useful ideas from this wide cross-section. To cut a long story short, evenj the best and most exotic of these home-built speakers was easily outperformed by a £300 pair of Celestions. This is very interesting story, so can you give us some more details or web/magazine links? It's not rare for amateur builders to talk about "bad quality, cheap parts and low value" of commercial speakers. Given the extremely narrow perspective into the realm of speaker design and manufacturing that, to be frank, makes amateurs amateurs, this is not surprising in the least. At least one reason behind this is amateurs are not constrained by nor, generally have ANY idea whatsoever on what it means and the constraints imposed with having to build to a price point as one primary design goal. An amateur worker can sit ther and fiddle with veneering a cabinet, spending hours or days getting it "just right" and end up with a result that, if it had to go to market, would end up selling for an order of magnitude more than what it is commercially worth. An amateur might look at a $2000 speaker, add up what he THINKS is the parts cost, totally underprice the cost of labor (often discounting it to zero) and say, "Why, I can build that same speaker for $400!" then rip into the industry for selling overpriced merchandise. You are completely right, i remember having exactly the same opinion on the price of speakers many years ago (but i got informed) and i'm still tempted to do it again when seeing the price of certain products..... I'd bet that same amateur would be singing QUITE a different tune when he has to build 200 pairs of the same speaker in 3 months time, find a distribution and sales network, pay the people he now has to hire to help him, find dealers, advertise, pay for the warranty repairs because someone ELSE is listening and using and, possibly abusing his creations. That same amateur is going to find out that the $400 that made these speakers seem such a bargain disappeared into a black hole long ago. But the amateur is right at his own level, for the pair he's building. He's using leisure time, so he decides to have fun building a speaker instead of travelling, playing tennis, etc.., economically lost time so he's right to forget it's value, he gets his money from his job. Ironically, he may think he's not paid enough for his working time. Of course, this is not to excuse those commercial manufacturers who DO sell products with "bad quality, cheap parts and low value" of which there are a disturbing number of examples. |
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#49
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"Competent design"
Gentlemen, I am going to concede some ground on the subject of homebrew
speakers. There seems to be a pretty universal disregard for them on RAHE. OK, there are some dreadful home mades, but my point is that there are also some dreadful factory made speakers as well. There are several types of home builders, not all of whom are of the high end persuasion. There are the dumb guys who build something big, loud, and cheap. They would have bought a comparable commercial design that sounded just as bad. They might have bought a white van speaker. There are the guys who like to do woodworking, and speakers give them that outlet. The great part of that is that they always love the sound of whatever they build,. and they rile the stereo store guys by telling them that their speaker is better than the "store boughts". Then there are the inventors/artists. The desire to create is there even if the competence is not. These are not high end guys, though some think they are. There are some very strange designs out there that represent the heart and souls of the designers, and a few are OK or even better. . Of course there are the Klone-audio.com types who copy high end speakers. I've never heard their work, but I invite all to see their project update page to see that they are miles above the dumb guy category. Then there are the many self taught individuals who design their own speakers that vary from good to great. Then there are the kits designed and perfected by professionals that allow a home builder to make his own cabinet and assemble his own speaker. Look at Madisound.com for some examples at low to mid prices, and the Linkwitz site for a high end home built speaker that looks superb. I notice that when comparisons are made the commercial speakers used are carefully selected examples of small speakers that might also embarrass many higher proved factory built high end speakers in the market if demonstrated against them. e.g.- nobody picks Bose for their comparisons, even though Bose is a huge seller and has far more market share than the lesser known and lesser selling British brand mentioned. As far as that goes there are probably more white van speakers sold than, say, Celestion. So why not use them for comparison to home made? Wylie Williams |
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#50
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"Competent design"
On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 18:30:28 GMT, "Wylie Williams"
wrote: I notice that when comparisons are made the commercial speakers used are carefully selected examples of small speakers that might also embarrass many higher proved factory built high end speakers in the market if demonstrated against them. e.g.- nobody picks Bose for their comparisons, even though Bose is a huge seller and has far more market share than the lesser known and lesser selling British brand mentioned. As far as that goes there are probably more white van speakers sold than, say, Celestion. So why not use them for comparison to home made? Why on earth would one deliberately pick a generally acknowledged poor speaker design (such as Bose) to make compartisons against homebrew speakers? No one is denying that there are indeed many *bad* speakers on the market, the whole point of the question is whether for say $1,000, an amateur (even a talented and educated one) can build a speaker which is a match for one of the many *good* speakers on the market at this price point. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#51
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"Competent design"
Because they suck? Most guys that want to come in and brag about their
speakers claim they are better than high-end designs. That has never held water except for the rare cases where the guy actually used high-end drivers with hugely elaborate electronic x-over and tri/quad amped designs to produce dynamics on a breathtakingly real scale. you might guess what a system like that would cost. A summer home in the mountains might be an equivelent idea. What, if someone ever came in and said "I built some myself that sound better than those mass-market cubes." The response would be (to myself "So what?") and more politletly to them perhaps, "Good for you.". I mean that, I don't think any of these guys set-out thinking "I just to build something mediocre for just as much money without the warranty". They are truly delusional about the realistically obtainable sound quality, but if it is fun and fun only that they want, then no one can argue with that. Of course it is "possible" to get lucky and come away with a great speaker, but so unlikely that I have yet to hear it (an appearantly many others here as well). The sheer number of variables in combinations of components alone make the likelyhood rather grim. - Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 "Wylie Williams" wrote in message . net... Gentlemen, I am going to concede some ground on the subject of homebrew speakers. There seems to be a pretty universal disregard for them on RAHE. OK, there are some dreadful home mades, but my point is that there are also some dreadful factory made speakers as well. There are several types of home builders, not all of whom are of the high end persuasion. There are the dumb guys who build something big, loud, and cheap. They would have bought a comparable commercial design that sounded just as bad. They might have bought a white van speaker. There are the guys who like to do woodworking, and speakers give them that outlet. The great part of that is that they always love the sound of whatever they build,. and they rile the stereo store guys by telling them that their speaker is better than the "store boughts". Then there are the inventors/artists. The desire to create is there even if the competence is not. These are not high end guys, though some think they are. There are some very strange designs out there that represent the heart and souls of the designers, and a few are OK or even better. . Of course there are the Klone-audio.com types who copy high end speakers. I've never heard their work, but I invite all to see their project update page to see that they are miles above the dumb guy category. Then there are the many self taught individuals who design their own speakers that vary from good to great. Then there are the kits designed and perfected by professionals that allow a home builder to make his own cabinet and assemble his own speaker. Look at Madisound.com for some examples at low to mid prices, and the Linkwitz site for a high end home built speaker that looks superb. I notice that when comparisons are made the commercial speakers used are carefully selected examples of small speakers that might also embarrass many higher proved factory built high end speakers in the market if demonstrated against them. e.g.- nobody picks Bose for their comparisons, even though Bose is a huge seller and has far more market share than the lesser known and lesser selling British brand mentioned. As far as that goes there are probably more white van speakers sold than, say, Celestion. So why not use them for comparison to home made? Wylie Williams |
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#52
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"Competent design"
Because they suck? Most guys that want to come in and brag about their
speakers claim they are better than high-end designs. That has never held water except for the rare cases where the guy actually used high-end drivers with hugely elaborate electronic x-over and tri/quad amped designs to produce dynamics on a breathtakingly real scale. you might guess what a system like that would cost. A summer home in the mountains might be an equivelent idea. What, if someone ever came in and said "I built some myself that sound better than those mass-market cubes." The response would be (to myself "So what?") and more politletly to them perhaps, "Good for you.". - Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 "Wylie Williams" wrote in message . net... Gentlemen, I am going to concede some ground on the subject of homebrew speakers. There seems to be a pretty universal disregard for them on RAHE. OK, there are some dreadful home mades, but my point is that there are also some dreadful factory made speakers as well. There are several types of home builders, not all of whom are of the high end persuasion. There are the dumb guys who build something big, loud, and cheap. They would have bought a comparable commercial design that sounded just as bad. They might have bought a white van speaker. There are the guys who like to do woodworking, and speakers give them that outlet. The great part of that is that they always love the sound of whatever they build,. and they rile the stereo store guys by telling them that their speaker is better than the "store boughts". Then there are the inventors/artists. The desire to create is there even if the competence is not. These are not high end guys, though some think they are. There are some very strange designs out there that represent the heart and souls of the designers, and a few are OK or even better. . Of course there are the Klone-audio.com types who copy high end speakers. I've never heard their work, but I invite all to see their project update page to see that they are miles above the dumb guy category. Then there are the many self taught individuals who design their own speakers that vary from good to great. Then there are the kits designed and perfected by professionals that allow a home builder to make his own cabinet and assemble his own speaker. Look at Madisound.com for some examples at low to mid prices, and the Linkwitz site for a high end home built speaker that looks superb. I notice that when comparisons are made the commercial speakers used are carefully selected examples of small speakers that might also embarrass many higher proved factory built high end speakers in the market if demonstrated against them. e.g.- nobody picks Bose for their comparisons, even though Bose is a huge seller and has far more market share than the lesser known and lesser selling British brand mentioned. As far as that goes there are probably more white van speakers sold than, say, Celestion. So why not use them for comparison to home made? Wylie Williams |
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#53
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"Competent design"
"Uptown Audio" wrote in message t...
Because they suck? Most guys that want to come in and brag about their speakers claim they are better than high-end designs. That has never held water except for the rare cases where the guy actually used high-end drivers with hugely elaborate electronic x-over and tri/quad amped designs to produce dynamics on a breathtakingly real scale. you might guess what a system like that would cost. A summer home in the mountains might be an equivelent idea. What, if someone ever came in and said "I built some myself that sound better than those mass-market cubes." The response would be (to myself "So what?") and more politletly to them perhaps, "Good for you.". - Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 What follows is a self-indulgent, entirely subjective and unscientific account of my experiences. I hope that it might find some echo but I'm not, repeat not, claiming that I have a recommendation for anyone to follow. As you and others said I do not doubt that the speakers themselves, cones especially, are better left to the manufacturer. But I'm not sure that a skilled amateur can't build a good enclosure following generally accepted principles. And I wonder about electrostats: I know that Roger Sanders for one started as a DIY electrostat amateur/experimenter, then became an authority on the ELS design, then abandoned medicine and is now manufacturing a well-reviewed and respected electrostat under the Inner Sound name. It was his contention that only the transmission line woofers are "fast" enough to match an electrostat that fortified my dissatisfaction with what I had myself and what I heard elsewhere. I loved the ELS midrange but I was always unhappy with the "full range" Quads and Acoustats. I was also unhappy with the M-Lewis and Quad hybrids. Same for my own solution: Xover from the Acoustat X (amps. updated) to a "Magnat" closed box with a custom 12" woofer (Electrovoice/Altec Lansing combination with high power-handling capacity) and a Magnat plasma tweeter. I use also a Velodyne subwoofer from 40Hz down I felt that all the bass I heard through my own and other speakers such as the Watts Puppies, B@ W 801 etc.was the weak link of hi-fi sound. Somewhere in the transition from the lower to the upper bass the sound got "smeared"- cellos for instance losing their string harmonics and acquiring a nasal cold. Looking for a cheap trial of a TL woofer I came across what seemed to me like a crank idea from which I did not expect too much. Two Sonotubes (compressed paper tubes builders use to pour concrete in) of different dimensions inside each other to get a transmission line- woofer sound flowing to the bottom of the inner tube , and coming out through the ports in the outer tube. You'll find details in: Google search under "Transmission line soeakers" ,page 1. Click: RecAudioDo-it-yourself. Click: "Building a transmission line design". My own solution is somewhat different . My inner tube rests on washers resting between nuts installed 3,5" abobe the base level -on 6" carriage bolts- allowing for what I am told is a longer and truer transmission path and allowing for the ports to be on top. The construction is ideal for the most inept (like myself). The main expense is the polyfill stuffing. One needs lots of it. The sound is a revelation. The instruments come from a concert hall stage not from the floor. The bass is the cleanest I ever had and powerful enough to give Peter Hurford's Bach organ a true cathedral majesty. I have no knowledge or interest in theory and will not even read theoretical objections and pretend understanding. I'd love though to hear the feedback from others who tried similar , tubular design. I saw on the web designs for Hsu-like subwoofer out of Sonotube and others like it. The Magnat closed boxes available for carrying away Ludovic Mirabel "Wylie Williams" wrote in message . net... Gentlemen, I am going to concede some ground on the subject of homebrew speakers. There seems to be a pretty universal disregard for them on RAHE. OK, there are some dreadful home mades, but my point is that there are also some dreadful factory made speakers as well. There are several types of home builders, not all of whom are of the high end persuasion. There are the dumb guys who build something big, loud, and cheap. They would have bought a comparable commercial design that sounded just as bad. They might have bought a white van speaker. There are the guys who like to do woodworking, and speakers give them that outlet. The great part of that is that they always love the sound of whatever they build,. and they rile the stereo store guys by telling them that their speaker is better than the "store boughts". Then there are the inventors/artists. The desire to create is there even if the competence is not. These are not high end guys, though some think they are. There are some very strange designs out there that represent the heart and souls of the designers, and a few are OK or even better. . Of course there are the Klone-audio.com types who copy high end speakers. I've never heard their work, but I invite all to see their project update page to see that they are miles above the dumb guy category. Then there are the many self taught individuals who design their own speakers that vary from good to great. Then there are the kits designed and perfected by professionals that allow a home builder to make his own cabinet and assemble his own speaker. Look at Madisound.com for some examples at low to mid prices, and the Linkwitz site for a high end home built speaker that looks superb. I notice that when comparisons are made the commercial speakers used are carefully selected examples of small speakers that might also embarrass many higher proved factory built high end speakers in the market if demonstrated against them. e.g.- nobody picks Bose for their comparisons, even though Bose is a huge seller and has far more market share than the lesser known and lesser selling British brand mentioned. As far as that goes there are probably more white van speakers sold than, say, Celestion. So why not use them for comparison to home made? Wylie Williams |
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#54
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"Competent design"
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#55
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"Competent design"
"Bob-Stanton"
If the amatuer speaker builder could find the plans for a really well designed speaker, there is no reason why he couldn't build one. In an earlier post I mentioned www. madisound.com as a source of plans and parts. Has no one looked? Or does the prospect of amateurs building good speakers run against the grain? Wylie Williams P.S, - I am not connected with Madisound, except that I used to buy parts from them so I saw their catalog and website often. There are others like Speaker City, and probably many more, who offer plans of designs by professionals as part of selling speaker parts. |
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#56
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"Competent design"
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#57
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"Competent design"
In article Mh70b.143217$cF.52539@rwcrnsc53,
Wylie Williams wrote: "Bob-Stanton" If the amatuer speaker builder could find the plans for a really well designed speaker, there is no reason why he couldn't build one. In an earlier post I mentioned www. madisound.com as a source of plans and parts. Has no one looked? Or does the prospect of amateurs building good speakers run against the grain? There is a wide range of activities included in your term "building speakers." They range from little more than the application of solder to wires, screws to holes and oil to veneer all the way to thinking about a design, implementing the design, which includes evaluation, selection and qualification of drivers, breadboarding, testing, redesign, measurement, performance verification, diagnosis of deviations from intended system response, and so on. Which are you talking about? If you are talking about the former, i.e., assembling a kit, you'll find that there is NOT a lot of savings to be had money wise, and, like ALL speaker designs, it presupposes the competence on the part of the designer, something that is, as we agree not even assured for finished commercially available systems. P.S, - I am not connected with Madisound, except that I used to buy parts from them so I saw their catalog and website often. There are others like Speaker City, and probably many more, who offer plans of designs by professionals as part of selling speaker parts. They offer designs, that's for sure. Whether they are competently design by professionals experienced and skilled in the field is another question altogether and something that is not to be taken for granted. Something which you seem not to realize is that given the rather large set of often competing and contradictory requirements in the design of the system, to do it RIGHT requires a fair amount of skill, experience, and the mechanical and financial resources. This includes the availability of the facilities to verify the implementation. Not very many people have such facilities, and even fewer know what to do with the results. And that inlcudes not only rank amateurs building at home, it includes the small number of dealers making kits and selling designs and the commercial finished loudspeaker system manufacturers. Some proportion of each of them ARE capable of doing competent design, and the rest aren't. Just because it's a "finished design," by your own implicit admission (remember, you stated that a lot of commercial designs aren't very good), doesn't mean that it's competently done. And sticking some famous person's name on a design does NOT mean that it's a good design. For example, I and others who provide design consulting work to loudpeaker system manufacturers have had to, on a number of occasions, enjoin a manufacturer from using our names because they have taken a design and morphed it beyond recognition. It is one reason why I, as a very general rule, not only do not engage in brand recognition but, for the most part, will not allow my name to be used with the designs I have assisted in unless I have control over what happens after the design leaves my hands. -- | Dick Pierce | | Professional Audio Development | | 1-781/826-4953 Voice and FAX | | | |
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#58
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"Competent design"
Of course it is possible to build a really good speaker, if you are lucky,
persistent or a genius. It is just that the arguments for doing so, is mostly that it should be done only if you think it is really fun to do so, and you do not have unrealistically high expectations about the result. KE "Wylie Williams" wrote in message ... In previous posts ---- If the amatuer speaker builder could find the plans for a really well designed speaker, there is no reason why he couldn't build one. OTOH, why would anyone who had expended the large R&D effort on the intricacies of cabinet and crossover design required to 'voice' such a high-end speaker, choose to give away this information? Let's try these: 1. A person having the ability and the facilities and desire to create and perfect a spekaer design is a very different thing from his having the ability, faclities, financing, and desire to become a loudspeaker manufacturer. I believe that there are more of the former than the latter. Mr. Linkwitz is the best example I am aware of. 2. Speaker manufacturers develop kits to sell more of their speakers. Mostly it's European makers, like Audax. Dynaudio did kits until they decided to sell finished speakers. 3. Speaker parts sellers do the same, for the same reason. Always assuming of course, that the amateur was able to source the cabinet materials and assembly process equipment. Try building a B&W Nautilus 800 cabinet, and see how far you get! :-) -- True, to perfectly clone a high end speaker can be an impossible undertaking. But I will add that I admire the energy of the www.klone-audio.com participants, though I have no idea how close their clones come to the original. Regarding earlier posts by others on this and other subjects---. There is a tendency on RAHE to be critical, and to take all or none positions. That is very productive of argument, but it can conflict with reality. In this series on DIY speakers there is a tendency to disrespect all DIY speaker builders. My contrary statements have tended to say that some home builds are comparable to high end factory builds. Certainly not all. I do not wish to defend the idiots and braggarts in the DIY clan. In my store days I remember well having a Peerless 12" woofer brought in to me installed in a cabinet made of 1/4" paneling. It actually danced around the floor while playing, which to the constructors was a sign that it was a defective woofer. I wish to state that there is another end of the spectrum of DIYers, so blanket statements are not true, therefore not appropriate. Of course I may misconstrue the purpose of RAHE. Perhaps argument is the point, so the inevitable arguments that proceed from all or none statements are true to the purpose of this newsgroup. Wylie Williams |
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#59
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"Competent design"
In article ,
Wylie Williams wrote: In previous posts ---- If the amatuer speaker builder could find the plans for a really well designed speaker, there is no reason why he couldn't build one. OTOH, why would anyone who had expended the large R&D effort on the intricacies of cabinet and crossover design required to 'voice' such a high-end speaker, choose to give away this information? Let's try these: 1. A person having the ability and the facilities and desire to create and perfect a spekaer design is a very different thing from his having the ability, faclities, financing, and desire to become a loudspeaker manufacturer. I believe that there are more of the former than the latter. Mr. Linkwitz is the best example I am aware of. Okay, let's run with this. You have come up with ONE example fitting your former case. Now, I can come up with 100 fitting the latter case. Just lok at any directory of speaker manufacturers. You believe there are more of the former tha the latter. Please show us that there are more amateurs with, to quote you that there are more than 100 persons: "having the ability and the facilities and desire to create and perfect a spekaer design" Let's look at just two of those qualitifactions: ability This MUST include a solid foundation in electronics, acoustics and mechanical engineering. facilities This MUST include a comprehensive array of the necessary equipment and measurement environments to ensure that measurements are consitent and dependable, and that the measurement equipment must perform at a level such that it can never be indicted as a source of potential error. That, for example, would include at least one laboratory grade microphone of the type exeplified by a Bruel&Kjaer 4134/2619/2804 and appropriate support facilities, a comprehensive analysis system, as well as a room of sufficient size to enable low-frequency measurements. Now, Dr. Linkwitz DOES have access to such facilities, and so do I and many other professionals. However, you CLAIM that there are more of the former that fit in your category, but you have only mentioned one. 2. Speaker manufacturers develop kits to sell more of their speakers. Mostly it's European makers, like Audax. Dynaudio did kits until they decided to sell finished speakers. Directed-marketed kits are a VERY tiny portion of most driver manufacturers total business. For the rest, they sell no kits at all. 3. Speaker parts sellers do the same, for the same reason. With few exceptions, the raw parts sales to amateurs is a SMALL part of a driver manufacturers total business and, it should be noted, a very expensive, high-maintenance, high-annoyance way to sell drivers. More and more large manufacturers are getting out of that business. Always assuming of course, that the amateur was able to source the cabinet materials and assembly process equipment. Try building a B&W Nautilus 800 cabinet, and see how far you get! :-) -- True, to perfectly clone a high end speaker can be an impossible undertaking. But I will add that I admire the energy of the www.klone-audio.com participants, though I have no idea how close their clones come to the original. And, I suspect, neither do most people who engage in this activity. And that is PRECISELY the point. Regarding earlier posts by others on this and other subjects---. There is a tendency on RAHE to be critical, and to take all or none positions. That is very productive of argument, but it can conflict with reality. But, Mr. WIlliams, it is your points above that, in fact DIRECTLY conflict with reality. You make wild claims of how many people have what ability and what faciliites. I have,m in fact measured THOUSANDS of loudspeakers, you, apparently have measured none. I have been in the speaker and driver business for a large number of years, and yet you claim that those that would disagree with you are in conflict with reality? And you attempt to bolster that by quite deliberately skewing comparisons by picking the worst imaginable samples? Really? In this series on DIY speakers there is a tendency to disrespect all DIY speaker builders. No, there has not. There has been repeated attempts to correct you deeply held but rather indefensible opinions that are not well based in fact. My contrary statements have tended to say that some home builds are comparable to high end factory builds. Certainly not all. Certainly VERY few. Of course I may misconstrue the purpose of RAHE. No, perhaps you want to claim that any presentation of fact that is contrary to your views constitutes "contrary argument." You may call it what you wish, but it remains as it is. -- | Dick Pierce | | Professional Audio Development | | 1-781/826-4953 Voice and FAX | | | |
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#60
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"Competent design"
(Stewart Pinkerton) wrote in message
If the amatuer speaker builder could find the plans for a really well designed speaker, there is no reason why he couldn't build one. OTOH, why would anyone who had expended the large R&D effort on the intricacies of cabinet and crossover design required to 'voice' such a high-end speaker, choose to give away this information? There are a few competent people, who have choosen to give away useful knowledge. For example, look at: http://www.silcom.com/~aludwig/ Art Ludwig knows what he is doing, and has made a lot of useful design information available to the amatuer speaker builder. I'm sure there are others like him. Bob Stanton |
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#61
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"Competent design"
In article ,
Bob-Stanton wrote: (Stewart Pinkerton) wrote in message If the amatuer speaker builder could find the plans for a really well designed speaker, there is no reason why he couldn't build one. OTOH, why would anyone who had expended the large R&D effort on the intricacies of cabinet and crossover design required to 'voice' such a high-end speaker, choose to give away this information? There are a few competent people, who have choosen to give away useful knowledge. For example, look at: http://www.silcom.com/~aludwig/ Art Ludwig knows what he is doing, and has made a lot of useful design information available to the amatuer speaker builder. I'm sure there are others like him. That's a very different thing. Ludwig is one example of many, someone who is interested in trying to EDUCATE people, despite the sometimes withering desire of many in the high end to resist any advancement in their knowledge at any cost. That's a WHOLE lot different than a company investing a large some of money in developing a product and then giving the design away. The question still remains: why would anyone who had expended the large R&D effort on the intricacies of cabinet and crossover design required to 'voice' such a high-end speaker, choose to give away this information? But to the original point: many people, simply don't seem or want to understand that a speaker is much more than simply the collection of parts. A $2000 speaker is MUCH more than $400-$500 worth of parts. Indeed, the parts are the easy part. Any idiot can spend $500 on parts. And many do. But, without the expertise, without the engineering and test facilities, without the experience, without already having made the mistakes and learned that someone with no experience, no engineering and test facilities, no experience, shooting randomly in the dark, making changes without having an idea of what the effects of the changes will be, that $500 collection of parts will forever be nothing more than a $500 collection of parts. Again, despite others' attempts to misrepresent what is being said, there is a lot that the home worker can do towards making a credible showing at making a speaker. It requires education, it requires the will to slog through the physical principles involved (it ain't brain surgery and not quite rocket science, but it involves all the same underlying physical principles). Understand what the Thiele-Small model MEANS, be able to measure the parameters of a woofer, measure the impedance curve or the output of a crossover, UNDERSTAND that passive ladder filters CANNOT EVER exist with the kinds of responses that are very useful for crossovers when loaded by non resistive terminations, that L-pads in passive crossovers ALMOST NEVER behave they way you might naively think they do, that some things are VERY important and are oft ignored, and others that the high end worries its little soul into exhaustion about are SO unimportant. Understand all that, and you got a shot at the gold ring. It's a LOT of work, and VERY few people have taken the effort. VERY few. There are NO shortcuts. And "trusting your ears" and using no dependable reference measurements and tweaking and rebuilding and tweaking some more and building again is not only NOT a shortcut, but I know of almost NO credible cases where it has resulted in anything ANYWHERE NEAR as good as a far more expesive speaker made out of similar parts. In fact, they've all been pretty much worse than whole speakers that cost the same as the raw parts cost the poor guy just got done with. Yeah, any idot can make a loudspeaker, and, just on raw statistics alone, there's probably a speaker out there somewhere that really is worse. That ain't saying much, but that's the argument that's been advanced. On the other hand, if you get out of this preposterous myth that all you need is your ears and enough iterations, if you loose the concept of Eddington's monkeys as speaker designer, if you spend the time and effort to LEARN, then you have a MUCH better shot at it. Shakespeare was MUCH more efficient than monkeys at producing sonnets, because he he took the time to learn the technology necessary: English. -- | Dick Pierce | | Professional Audio Development | | 1-781/826-4953 Voice and FAX | | | |
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#62
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"Competent design"
Richard D Pierce wrote:
And that inlcudes not only rank amateurs building at home, it includes the small number of dealers making kits and selling designs and the commercial finished loudspeaker system manufacturers. Some proportion of each of them ARE capable of doing competent design, and the rest aren't. Ellis Audio for instance, sells kits. The cabinet plans are included, but honestly, his woodworking skills are better than mine will ever be. Nice speakers. It can happen. Note, though, that he's been tweaking and working with software and cabinets for many years. I can't imagine how many duds he went through to get to where he is now. |
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#63
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"Competent design"
On 18 Aug 2003 21:11:56 GMT, "Wylie Williams"
wrote: In previous posts ---- If the amatuer speaker builder could find the plans for a really well designed speaker, there is no reason why he couldn't build one. OTOH, why would anyone who had expended the large R&D effort on the intricacies of cabinet and crossover design required to 'voice' such a high-end speaker, choose to give away this information? Let's try these: 1. A person having the ability and the facilities and desire to create and perfect a spekaer design is a very different thing from his having the ability, faclities, financing, and desire to become a loudspeaker manufacturer. Indeed yes, and so far as I know, no one outside the industry (or the NRC in Canada) has such facilities. I believe that there are more of the former than the latter. Mr. Linkwitz is the best example I am aware of. Oh, you have not heard of Acoustic Artistry speakers, the company part-owned by Dr Linkwitz? 2. Speaker manufacturers develop kits to sell more of their speakers. Mostly it's European makers, like Audax. Dynaudio did kits until they decided to sell finished speakers. Audax and Focal still sell drivers, Dynaudio do not. 3. Speaker parts sellers do the same, for the same reason. Indeed yes. Did you have a point? Always assuming of course, that the amateur was able to source the cabinet materials and assembly process equipment. Try building a B&W Nautilus 800 cabinet, and see how far you get! :-) -- True, to perfectly clone a high end speaker can be an impossible undertaking. But I will add that I admire the energy of the www.klone-audio.com participants, though I have no idea how close their clones come to the original. Quite so............... :-) Regarding earlier posts by others on this and other subjects---. There is a tendency on RAHE to be critical, and to take all or none positions. That is very productive of argument, but it can conflict with reality. In this series on DIY speakers there is a tendency to disrespect all DIY speaker builders. Not at all, there is simply the widely held reality that the *performance* of the finished product does not compare well with commercial models. My contrary statements have tended to say that some home builds are comparable to high end factory builds. Certainly not all. How about just one? -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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"Competent design"
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#65
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"Competent design"
Bill,
In comparisons of speakers trying to be sure to compare like to like makes generalizations very difficult. You are essentially correct about the comparative quality of typical DIY vs. factory designs in todays market from your experience as a high end dealer who is willing to select and to carry the great sounding $300 speakers that beat the typical DIY effort. They also beat the majority of speakers that represent the majority of speaker purchases in the USA. (Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears, Sams, et al). A DIY builder going to those stores might fare better in his comparison than he would in your store, as I imagine you have selected $300 speakers that beat the big box store's factory speakers priced at or even well above $300. Wylie Williams "Uptown Audio" wrote in message news:mnt%a.127471$cF.33282@rwcrnsc53... Absolutely. I don't think anyone who has evaluated a lot of speakers and is commenting about commercial designs being superior has said that those that wish to build their own are incompetent or idiotic, etc. They are just saying that there are so many things in favor of a commercial design that it makes the prospect of building your own actually more expensive if you wish to achieve the same sonic standards. In other words, you could build a $500 speaker that sounds better than a $200 speaker with some luck and loads of effort, but other than the bragging rights you have less cash to show for it. I think many people that have built their own speakers have compared them to their own old speakers that they needed to replace and got the desire to replace them after hearing new speakers elsewhere. They then assume that they got that sound for a better price. How many have actually brought those to a showroom and compared to some new commercial speakers? I think that everyone wants to feel that their efforts have been rewarded or perhaps that they are superior in some way such as intellectually or in the ability to design and craft a project on one's on, etc. That would be normal and it would be somewhat damaging to that ego to have the result nullified. Just being more practical and using the research, development and skills of others to your advantage may also be considered wise. Especially when your purchase decision was based upon sound and not name recognition. So brag if you like on either accomplishment, but in the end it is you who have to both pay for and listen to them. - Bill www.uptownaudio.com Roanoke VA (540) 343-1250 "Richard D Pierce" wrote in message ... In article Ep_Za.87046$Oz4.21697@rwcrnsc54, Wylie Williams wrote: The assumption of several members to the speaker building posts is that home builders are making their own Some home speaker builders are building pre-engineered designs, so the only issue is their workmanship. No, the "assumption" which was pretty well stated at one point in the thread, is that home builders are attempting to duplicate and existing commercial design, not some "pre-engineered" kit. As an example, someone may decide they don't want to spend the money on a finished pair of Aerial 10t's or B&W's, so they attempt to get the same drivers and so on. Well, in most cases, they can't, so they're already starting with a serious handicap. Are the home designs inherently flawed? Nobody said they were "inherently" flawed. Some are; some aren't, and the same can be said of many name brand factory speakers. Indeed, and usually for precisely the same reason: lack of experience, lack of expertise, lack of proper design facilities, lack of proper components, and so on. SO what? There is more competence in the world of home speaker builders than is being credited in these posts. Really? I think you need to read the posts and understand what IS being talked about. And as one who has, in fact, measured the results of a couple of hundred such home speaker builders, I think I might have a somewhat different perspective. -- | Dick Pierce | | Professional Audio Development | | 1-781/826-4953 Voice and FAX | | | |
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#66
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"Competent design"
Richard D Pierce wrote:
That's a WHOLE lot different than a company investing a large some of money in developing a product and then giving the design away. The question still remains: why would anyone who had expended the large R&D effort on the intricacies of cabinet and crossover design required to 'voice' such a high-end speaker, choose to give away this information? I could see a manufacturer like Tannoy giving away the information on its older Gold series speakers. They have no use for them and are currently making superior products. Eventually the older designs are no longer produced, so why NOT give away some of the data to DIYers? I just wish it wasn't 30 year old designs we were being given data for. |
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#67
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"Competent design"
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