How do we really hear stereo?

[Rebel1]

I understand the classical explanation of how we perceive a sound to be
coming from left, right, or in front. (Different arrival times and
intensities at each ear, etc.) But if I lay on my side on a couch, with
one ear against the cushion and the other pointing at the ceiling, I can
still clearly discern signals from the left or right speakers. Why?

I don't have a fancy multispeaker system. Just left and right front
speakers.

[Scott Dorsey]

Rebel1 > wrote:
>I understand the classical explanation of how we perceive a sound to be
>coming from left, right, or in front. (Different arrival times and
>intensities at each ear, etc.) But if I lay on my side on a couch, with
>one ear against the cushion and the other pointing at the ceiling, I can
>still clearly discern signals from the left or right speakers. Why?

1. The frequency response of your ear varies with direction. That's what
the earlobe does. If you remove your earlobes, you can't tell the
difference between a sound coming from up high or down low.

So there is more that goes on than just time of arrival and differential
intensity.

2. The room response varies for sources in different places, so one part
of the room may sound different than another. If you have a person
speaking in one part of the room and they move to another part of the
room, you can often tell the difference even when listening through a
single omni microphone. The two speakers are in different parts of
the room and your brain is able to turn the differences in ambience
into differences in position.

There's lots of really interesting stuff that goes on here.

>I don't have a fancy multispeaker system. Just left and right front
>speakers.

The stuff that is going on is happening in the room and in your brain.
The whole point of all of these fancy speaker systems is to fool the
brain into interpreting a recorded signal as a complete and accurate
soundstage. It's a tough job, because the brain is very good.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Rebel1]

Thanks for the insight.

[BobG]

Is there a way of spoofing the earlobes by listening thru a paper
towel tube and a toilet paper tube? (Everything should sound like its
coming from the short side due to Haas effect?)

[geoff]

BobG wrote:
> Is there a way of spoofing the earlobes by listening thru a paper
> towel tube and a toilet paper tube? (Everything should sound like its
> coming from the short side due to Haas effect?)

Yep. Sounds like **** though ....

geoff

[Bill Graham]

geoff wrote:
> BobG wrote:
>> Is there a way of spoofing the earlobes by listening thru a paper
>> towel tube and a toilet paper tube? (Everything should sound like its
>> coming from the short side due to Haas effect?)
>
> Yep. Sounds like **** though ....
>
> geoff

Doesn't a set of headphones do exactly that? "Spoof the earlobes"?

[Trevor]

"flatfish+++" > wrote in message
.. .
> If I move my earlobes or any other part of my outer ear around, even
> just a little, the sound I hear from my monitors changes drastically.
>
> So, lets say I was born with slight bigger, or more "meaty" out ear
> parts, would nature have compensated somehow in my brain, ear drum etc
> to account for that or would I be hearing the sound as I do when I
> artificially extend my outer ear.

Your brain would simply tell you *whatever* your hear is "normal" to you, no
matter what your ear shape, or cochlear performance is like. Even if they
change in some way, your brain soon adapts. The auditory system is pretty
good at picking short term changes, but not so long term. (This is the real
reason for the speaker "burn in" myth of course)

Trevor.

[William Sommerwerck]

> Your brain would simply tell you *whatever* your hear is
> "normal" to you, no matter what your ear shape, or cochlear
> performance is like. Even if they change in some way, your
> brain soon adapts. The auditory system is pretty good at
> picking short term changes, but not so long term. (This is
> the real reason for the speaker "burn in" myth, of course.)

Well, no, not "of course". Some speakers -- mostly planar speakers -- take
time to "burn in". But this is measured in tens of hours, not the hundreds
of hours some reviewers claim.

The same is true of headphones, again mostly orthodynamic and electrostatic.
When I reviewed headphones, I burned all of them in overnight by playing
noise at a very high level.

I've noticed that listening to headphones for extended periods can cause
your hearing system to take on a bias that causes speakers to sound colored
opposite to the headphones. (I've never been aware of the opposite effect.)
Fortunately, is wears off fairly quickly when you stop listening to the
headphones.

[PStamler]

On Apr 12, 5:05*am, "Trevor" > wrote:
(This is the real
> reason for the speaker "burn in" myth of course)

Nope. Take a woofer fresh out of the box. Palpate it and feel how
difficult it is to move the voice coil. Measure its parameters. Then
run signal that contains a bunch of bass through it for about 48
hours. Palpate again. Measure the parameters again. You'll feel a
difference (much easier to move the voice coil) and measure a bigger
difference (changes in resonance frequency and Vas, maybe also Q).

Not a myth; verifiable by experiment. The effect is more evident in
speakers with rubber or foam surrounds than with accordion-pleated-
paper surrounds, by the way.

Peace,
Paul

[Bill Graham]

flatfish+++ wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:14:34 -0700, Bill Graham wrote:
>
>> geoff wrote:
>>> BobG wrote:
>>>> Is there a way of spoofing the earlobes by listening thru a paper
>>>> towel tube and a toilet paper tube? (Everything should sound like
>>>> its coming from the short side due to Haas effect?)
>>>
>>> Yep. Sounds like **** though ....
>>>
>>> geoff
>>
>> Doesn't a set of headphones do exactly that? "Spoof the earlobes"?
>
> If I move my earlobes or any other part of my outer ear around, even
> just a little, the sound I hear from my monitors changes drastically.
>
> So, lets say I was born with slight bigger, or more "meaty" out ear
> parts, would nature have compensated somehow in my brain, ear drum etc
> to account for that or would I be hearing the sound as I do when I
> artificially extend my outer ear.
>
> Puzzling :)

There is no way to tell just what the "brain" hears. someone posed the
question once: Suppose all women saw everything upside down from the way all
men see it. How would you know? and, of course, the answer is: You couldn't
know. Also, it wouldn't make any difference, since everyone, from birth,
learns to get along with whatever senses he/she has.

There was a guy who put on a pair of glasses that turned everything upside
down and backwards, (or reverse image). After wearing them for about a week,
he was able to do everything he could do before he built them. He could
read, write and drive. When he first put them on, he couldn't even walk.
then he put a small pair on a chicken. The chicken couldn't learn to do
anything. Had he not taken the glasses off the chicken it would have starved
to death standing on a pile of corn. So, it is possible that we all hear
things completely different from each other, but since our brains
compensate, we will never know.

[Trevor]

"PStamler" > wrote in message
...
On Apr 12, 5:05 am, "Trevor" > wrote:
>> (This is the real reason for the speaker "burn in" myth of course)

>Nope. Take a woofer fresh out of the box. Palpate it and feel how
difficult it is to move the voice coil. Measure its parameters. Then
run signal that contains a bunch of bass through it for about 48
hours. Palpate again. Measure the parameters again. You'll feel a
difference (much easier to move the voice coil) and measure a bigger
>difference (changes in resonance frequency and Vas, maybe also Q).

Right, and will return to it's original parameters in a fairly short time.
Don't believe me of course, read what Dick Pierce has to say on the issue
and argue with him :-) :-)
I sure as well would believe him long before any other self declared
experts!



>Not a myth; verifiable by experiment. The effect is more evident in
speakers with rubber or foam surrounds than with accordion-pleated-
>paper surrounds, by the way.

Well that's true, foam surrounds especially will deterioate over the years
and that WILL change the speaker parameters of course!
That has nothing to do with the myth I was talking about of course.

Trevor.

[PStamler]

On Apr 12, 10:04*pm, "Trevor" > wrote:
> "PStamler" > wrote in message
>
> ...
> On Apr 12, 5:05 am, "Trevor" > wrote:
>
> >> (This is the real reason for the speaker "burn in" myth of course)
> >Nope. Take a woofer fresh out of the box. Palpate it and feel how
>
> difficult it is to move the voice coil. Measure its parameters. Then
> run signal that contains a bunch of bass through it for about 48
> hours. Palpate again. Measure the parameters again. You'll feel a
> difference (much easier to move the voice coil) and measure a bigger
>
> >difference (changes in resonance frequency and Vas, maybe also Q).
>
> Right, and will return to it's original parameters in a fairly short time..

Define "fairly short". When I used to do a lot of speaker stuff I'd
measure a driver out of the box, then again after break-in, then
(sometimes) a month or two later when I actually got around to using
it. It'd be the same after that month or two as after break-in.
Something seems to be stretching from that break-in process --
surround? spider? -- and it stays stretched.

> >Not a myth; verifiable by experiment. The effect is more evident in
> speakers with rubber or foam surrounds than with accordion-pleated-
> >paper surrounds, by the way.
>
> Well that's true, foam surrounds especially will deterioate over the years
> and that WILL change the speaker parameters of course!

Which has nothing to do with what I'm talking about, of course. This
is about new drivers.

Peace,
Paul

[Trevor]

"PStamler" > wrote in message
...
>> Right, and will return to it's original parameters in a fairly short
>> time.

>Define "fairly short". When I used to do a lot of speaker stuff I'd
measure a driver out of the box, then again after break-in, then
(sometimes) a month or two later when I actually got around to using
it. It'd be the same after that month or two as after break-in.
Something seems to be stretching from that break-in process --
>surround? spider? -- and it stays stretched.

Your experience seems to differ from Dick's then. I tend to believe Dick
because he's measured thousands more speakers than most, and has far better
test equipment to do it. In any case you need to realise that not all "break
in" changes in driver parameters that can actually be measured, necessarily
result in sonic changes to the completed speaker system that can actually be
heard. Most such changes are less than the production differences between
drivers from the same production run in any case, and a change in one
parameter is often inherently offset by another parameter. The result being
that the speaker SYSTEM very rarely changes as much during "break in", as
many reviewers would have their readers believe (if at all!).

Trevor.

[William Sommerwerck]

> The result being that the speaker SYSTEM very rarely
> changes as much during "break in", as many reviewers
> would have their readers believe (if at all!).

It depends on the speaker. Of course, you don't listen to planar speakers,
because they don't bang out the gut-busting bass and ear-splitting treble so
essential to the kind of music you like. But such drivers often do "break
in" during the first hours of use. I worked in a store that sold Magnepans,
and you could easily hear the shift over the first 20 or so hours of
operation. Ditto for headphones using electrostatic or orthodynamic drivers.

These changes are not anywhere nearly as great with conventional drivers. I
remember one reviewer saying that a speaker system took more than 100 hours
to finally sound "right". If that was true -- how did the designers ever get
it right in the first place?

Unfortunately, when you audition equipment, you are not only listening to
the equipment -- you are also listening to yourself.

[Arny Krueger]

"PStamler" > wrote in message

> On Apr 12, 5:05 am, "Trevor" > wrote:
> (This is the real
>> reason for the speaker "burn in" myth of course)

> Nope. Take a woofer fresh out of the box. Palpate it and
> feel how difficult it is to move the voice coil. Measure
> its parameters. Then run signal that contains a bunch of
> bass through it for about 48 hours. Palpate again.
> Measure the parameters again. You'll feel a difference
> (much easier to move the voice coil) and measure a bigger
> difference (changes in resonance frequency and Vas, maybe
> also Q).

> Not a myth; verifiable by experiment. The effect is more
> evident in speakers with rubber or foam surrounds than
> with accordion-pleated- paper surrounds, by the way.

The above experiment is incomplete, and all relevant facts have not been
stated.

(1) It doesn't take 48 hours to get the woofer parameters to shift
appreciably for a woofer that is fresh out of the box. After a few minutes
things start settling out.

(2) The rate of change of the parameters is very run time dependent with
large changes early on and only very small changes per time period, after a
few minutes.

(3) Stick the driver back into its shipping box after your evaluation and
let it sit there for a month. It largely reverts to how it was before you
started.

(4) The parameter shifts often tend to compensate for each other, so that
the in system response of the woofer hasn't shifted nearly as much as the
parameters shifted.

(5) The measureable response shifts are at low frequencies where the ear is
naturally very insensitive.

Just another little study in the potential traps of intuitive approaches to
technology.

A key concept - anything that has to break in is probably going to lack long
term reliability. What a lot of people don't realize that automobile engine
break in, which used to be a big thing sort of went on hiatus when engine
materials and design were improved to create engines that run 100,000 miles
with near-zero maintenance.

Us old timers remember when it was considered normal to do a total overhaul
of car engines after 40,000 miles. I mean removal, disassembly, remachining,
repolishing with valve grinding and lapping compound, many new parts, etc.
The same engines needed to be babied for the first seveal thousand miles. It
all had the same cause and the same cure.

[Arny Krueger]

"Trevor" > wrote in message

> "PStamler" > wrote in message
> ...
> On Apr 12, 5:05 am, "Trevor" > wrote:
>>> (This is the real reason for the speaker "burn in" myth
>>> of course)
>
>> Nope. Take a woofer fresh out of the box. Palpate it and
>> feel how
> difficult it is to move the voice coil. Measure its
> parameters. Then run signal that contains a bunch of bass through it for
> about 48 hours. Palpate again. Measure the parameters again.
> You'll feel a difference (much easier to move the voice
> coil) and measure a bigger
>> difference (changes in resonance frequency and Vas,
>> maybe also Q).
>
> Right, and will return to it's original parameters in a
> fairly short time. Don't believe me of course, read what
> Dick Pierce has to say on the issue and argue with him
> :-) :-)

Or Earl Geddes or Dave Clark, or....

> I sure as well would believe him long before any other
> self declared experts!

Dick Pierce seems as sharp as ever and he is miles ahead of 99.99% of the
people who pontificate on this area.

[Arny Krueger]

"Trevor" > wrote in message
u
> "PStamler" > wrote in message
> ...
>>> Right, and will return to it's original parameters in a
>>> fairly short time.
>
>> Define "fairly short". When I used to do a lot of
>> speaker stuff I'd
> measure a driver out of the box, then again after
> break-in, then (sometimes) a month or two later when I
> actually got around to using it. It'd be the same after that month or two
> as after
> break-in.

Maybe, maybe not.

> Something seems to be stretching from that break-in
> process -- > surround? spider? -- and it stays stretched.


> Your experience seems to differ from Dick's then.

It all depends. Also the criteria being used (hand palpatation and sighted
listening evaluation) are very crude compared to what the people I've been
citing use.


> I tend
> to believe Dick because he's measured thousands more
> speakers than most, and has far better test equipment to
> do it.

That's got to be true. EG and DLC as well as DP have designed systems that
have run 100,000 units or more, and retained involvement and responsibility
for their stability for years.

Furthermore, I don't think that DP communicates much with EG or DLC, but
they all tell the same story. When relatively independent sources who are
intimately involved with the business tell the same story for decades, it
might even be true! ;-)

> In any case you need to realise that not all
> "break in" changes in driver parameters that can actually
> be measured, necessarily result in sonic changes to the
> completed speaker system that can actually be heard. Most
> such changes are less than the production differences
> between drivers from the same production run in any case,
> and a change in one parameter is often inherently offset
> by another parameter. The result being that the speaker
> SYSTEM very rarely changes as much during "break in", as
> many reviewers would have their readers believe (if at
> all!).

A lot of what we're hearing seems like it is from the days before Dumax and
Klippel.

[Arny Krueger]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in
message

>> The result being that the speaker SYSTEM very rarely
>> changes as much during "break in", as many reviewers
>> would have their readers believe (if at all!).

> It depends on the speaker. Of course, you don't listen to
> planar speakers, because they don't bang out the
> gut-busting bass and ear-splitting treble so essential to
> the kind of music you like.

The above statement demonstated enough builti-in bias to disqualify it on
its face.

> But such drivers often do
> "break in" during the first hours of use. I worked in a
> store that sold Magnepans, and you could easily hear the
> shift over the first 20 or so hours of operation. Ditto
> for headphones using electrostatic or orthodynamic
> drivers.

Hmm, on the one hand we have a high end audio store sales hack, and on the
other we have modern giants of speaker technology. Who to believe?

[William Sommerwerck]

>>> The result being that the speaker SYSTEM very rarely
>>> changes as much during "break in", as many reviewers
>>> would have their readers believe (if at all!).

>> It depends on the speaker. Of course, you don't listen to
>> planar speakers, because they don't bang out the
>> gut-busting bass and ear-splitting treble so essential to
>> the kind of music you like.

> The above statement demonstated enough builti-in bias to
> disqualify it on its face.

With regard to what? My musical taste? I miss no opportunity to criticize
music that has little "merit" other than being continuously loud.


>> But such drivers often do "break in" during the first hours
>> of use. I worked in a store that sold Magnepans, and you
>> could easily hear the shift over the first 20 or so hours of
>> operation. Ditto for headphones using electrostatic or
>> orthodynamic drivers.

> Hmm, on the one hand we have a high-end audio store sales hack...

I'd like to say something nasty, really nasty, but will refain. There is
little point in criticizing people who are largely devoid of any sense of
self-criticism or intellectual honesty.

I was occasionally complimented by customers who said they appreciated my
expressing my opinions as opinions, and not as fact. I know of no such
encomia for Mr Krueger.


> ...and on the other we have modern giants of speaker technology.
> Who to believe?

Me.

You don't seem to be aware that some drivers -- notably Magnepan and
orthodynamic -- have relatively stiff suspensions. Their sound changes with
time, but it's measured in hours, not days, weeks, or months.

Because you believe in specs, rather than actually listening to equipment,
you've never heard this.

[Trevor]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...
> It depends on the speaker. Of course, you don't listen to planar speakers,
> because they don't bang out the gut-busting bass and ear-splitting treble
> so
> essential to the kind of music you like.

Wow I'm amazed how you think you know what type of music I like!
(proves more about your assumptions than it does about me, unfortunately for
you)
But like most people I don't listen to planar speakers normally, so at least
that's not such a wild ass guess anyway.

>But such drivers often do "break
> in" during the first hours of use. I worked in a store that sold
> Magnepans,
> and you could easily hear the shift over the first 20 or so hours of
> operation. Ditto for headphones using electrostatic or orthodynamic
> drivers.

Maybe so, but you couldn't tell by listening alone, you'd have to make
measurements that don't rely on your brain making compensations!

> Unfortunately, when you audition equipment, you are not only listening to
> the equipment -- you are also listening to yourself.

Rather twisted english, but I guess you don't totally diagree with what I
said at least.

Trevor.

[hank alrich]

William Sommerwerck > wrote:

> >>> The result being that the speaker SYSTEM very rarely
> >>> changes as much during "break in", as many reviewers
> >>> would have their readers believe (if at all!).
>
> >> It depends on the speaker. Of course, you don't listen to
> >> planar speakers, because they don't bang out the
> >> gut-busting bass and ear-splitting treble so essential to
> >> the kind of music you like.
>
> > The above statement demonstated enough builti-in bias to
> > disqualify it on its face.
>
> With regard to what? My musical taste? I miss no opportunity to criticize
> music that has little "merit" other than being continuously loud.

Humans, of which I am one, tend to equate what they like with what is
good, and what they dislike with what is bad. Perception of music is
subjective. One person's groovy is another person's garbage.

> >> But such drivers often do "break in" during the first hours
> >> of use. I worked in a store that sold Magnepans, and you
> >> could easily hear the shift over the first 20 or so hours of
> >> operation. Ditto for headphones using electrostatic or
> >> orthodynamic drivers.
>
> > Hmm, on the one hand we have a high-end audio store sales hack...
>
> I'd like to say something nasty, really nasty, but will refain. There is
> little point in criticizing people who are largely devoid of any sense of
> self-criticism or intellectual honesty.
>
> I was occasionally complimented by customers who said they appreciated my
> expressing my opinions as opinions, and not as fact. I know of no such
> encomia for Mr Krueger.
>
>
> > ...and on the other we have modern giants of speaker technology.
> > Who to believe?
>
> Me.
>
> You don't seem to be aware that some drivers -- notably Magnepan and
> orthodynamic -- have relatively stiff suspensions. Their sound changes with
> time, but it's measured in hours, not days, weeks, or months.
>
> Because you believe in specs, rather than actually listening to equipment,
> you've never heard this.


--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://armadillomusicproductions.com/who'slistening.html
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidriAlrichwithDougHarman

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >,
PStamler > wrote:
>On Apr 12, 10:04=A0pm, "Trevor" > wrote:
>> "PStamler" > wrote in message
>>
>> ...
>> On Apr 12, 5:05 am, "Trevor" > wrote:
>>
>> >> (This is the real reason for the speaker "burn in" myth of course)
>> >Nope. Take a woofer fresh out of the box. Palpate it and feel how
>>
>> difficult it is to move the voice coil. Measure its parameters. Then
>> run signal that contains a bunch of bass through it for about 48
>> hours. Palpate again. Measure the parameters again. You'll feel a
>> difference (much easier to move the voice coil) and measure a bigger
>>
>> >difference (changes in resonance frequency and Vas, maybe also Q).
>>
>> Right, and will return to it's original parameters in a fairly short time=
>.
>
>Define "fairly short". When I used to do a lot of speaker stuff I'd
>measure a driver out of the box, then again after break-in, then
>(sometimes) a month or two later when I actually got around to using
>it. It'd be the same after that month or two as after break-in.
>Something seems to be stretching from that break-in process --
>surround? spider? -- and it stays stretched.

Vanderkooy did a paper on this which is worth looking up. Indeed, in the
first bit of operation there are physical changes to the spider and surround
and the ones on the spider make more of a difference. Those changes are
permanent.

This could probably be avoided by pre-conditioning the material before cutting
the spiders, but it's probably not worth the trouble.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[William Sommerwerck]

> > But such drivers often do "break
> > in" during the first hours of use. I worked in a store that sold
> > Magnepans,
> > and you could easily hear the shift over the first 20 or so hours of
> > operation. Ditto for headphones using electrostatic or orthodynamic
> > drivers.

> Maybe so, but you couldn't tell by listening alone, you'd have to make
> measurements that don't rely on your brain making compensations!

Point taken -- but I've never heard much, if any, change in the sound of
systems using conventional drivers. This is strong evidence that the changes
heard with planar drivers are real.


>> Unfortunately, when you audition equipment, you are not only
>> listening to the equipment -- you are also listening to yourself.

> Rather twisted English, but I guess you don't totally diagree
> with what I said at least.

No, I don't wholly disagree.

[William Sommerwerck]

> Vanderkooy did a paper on this which is worth looking up.
> Indeed, in the first bit of operation there are physical changes
> to the spider and surround and the ones on the spider make
> more of a difference. Those changes are permanent.

> This could probably be avoided by pre-conditioning the material
> before cutting the spiders, but it's probably not worth the trouble.

The important thing is whether the designer is aware of this, and uses
"broken-in" drivers during development.

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>> Vanderkooy did a paper on this which is worth looking up.
>> Indeed, in the first bit of operation there are physical changes
>> to the spider and surround and the ones on the spider make
>> more of a difference. Those changes are permanent.
>
>> This could probably be avoided by pre-conditioning the material
>> before cutting the spiders, but it's probably not worth the trouble.
>
>The important thing is whether the designer is aware of this, and uses
>"broken-in" drivers during development.

Since it's usually a matter of minutes, it's hard not to. However, this IS
a problem for assembly line testing of drivers.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Arny Krueger]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in
message
>>>> The result being that the speaker SYSTEM very rarely
>>>> changes as much during "break in", as many reviewers
>>>> would have their readers believe (if at all!).
>
>>> It depends on the speaker. Of course, you don't listen
>>> to planar speakers, because they don't bang out the
>>> gut-busting bass and ear-splitting treble so essential
>>> to the kind of music you like.
>
>> The above statement demonstated enough builti-in bias to
>> disqualify it on its face.

> With regard to what? My musical taste? I miss no
> opportunity to criticize music that has little "merit"
> other than being continuously loud.

Looks like an lame attempt to impugn someone's musical tastes to justify
dismissing their opinons.

>>> But such drivers often do "break in" during the first
>>> hours of use. I worked in a store that sold Magnepans,
>>> and you could easily hear the shift over the first 20
>>> or so hours of operation. Ditto for headphones using
>>> electrostatic or orthodynamic drivers.

>> Hmm, on the one hand we have a high-end audio store
>> sales hack...

> I'd like to say something nasty, really nasty, but will
> refain. There is little point in criticizing people who
> are largely devoid of any sense of self-criticism or
> intellectual honesty.

As if just the above few paragraphs from you show signficant amounts of
intellectional honesty or a sense of self criticism.

> I was occasionally complimented by customers who said
> they appreciated my expressing my opinions as opinions,
> and not as fact. I know of no such encomia for Mr Krueger.

I like to leave opinions to the editorial page, while spending a lot of time
trying to ascertain reliable facts in general.

>> ...and on the other we have modern giants of speaker
>> technology. Who to believe?
>
> Me.

Of course.

> You don't seem to be aware that some drivers -- notably
> Magnepan and orthodynamic -- have relatively stiff
> suspensions.

Ah, the incredible mind-reading act.

> Their sound changes with time, but it's
> measured in hours, not days, weeks, or months.

Which makes them unlikes others how?

> Because you believe in specs, rather than actually
> listening to equipment, you've never heard this.

Speaking of dismissive attitudes. Do you think that statements like the
above represent intellectual honesty?

[Arny Krueger]

"hank alrich" > wrote in message

> William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>
>>>>> The result being that the speaker SYSTEM very rarely
>>>>> changes as much during "break in", as many reviewers
>>>>> would have their readers believe (if at all!).
>>
>>>> It depends on the speaker. Of course, you don't listen
>>>> to planar speakers, because they don't bang out the
>>>> gut-busting bass and ear-splitting treble so essential
>>>> to the kind of music you like.
>>
>>> The above statement demonstated enough builti-in bias to
>>> disqualify it on its face.
>>
>> With regard to what? My musical taste? I miss no
>> opportunity to criticize music that has little "merit"
>> other than being continuously loud.
>
> Humans, of which I am one, tend to equate what they like
> with what is good, and what they dislike with what is
> bad. Perception of music is subjective. One person's
> groovy is another person's garbage.

Totally agreed.

[William Sommerwerck]

>> With regard to what? My musical taste? I miss no
>> opportunity to criticize music that has little "merit"
>> other than being continuously loud.

> Looks like an lame attempt to impugn someone's musical
> tastes to justify dismissing their opinons.

Why should I be interested in the opinions of someone who doesn't listen to
acoustic music?


>>>> But such drivers often do "break in" during the first
>>>> hours of use. I worked in a store that sold Magnepans,
>>>> and you could easily hear the shift over the first 20
>>>> or so hours of operation. Ditto for headphones using
>>>> electrostatic or orthodynamic drivers.

>>> Hmm, on the one hand we have a high-end audio store
>>> sales hack...

>> I'd like to say something nasty, really nasty, but will
>> refain. There is little point in criticizing people who
>> are largely devoid of any sense of self-criticism or
>> intellectual honesty.

> As if just the above few paragraphs from you show signficant
> amounts of intellectional honesty or a sense of self criticism.

As long as I've known you, Arny, you have refused to directly answer
specific, valid questions about your research. Any time someone backs you
into a corner, you run and hide, or emit a pathetic "Been there, done that".
You an intellectually phony blow-hard.


>> You don't seem to be aware that some drivers -- notably
>> Magnepan and orthodynamic -- have relatively stiff
>> suspensions.

> Ah, the incredible mind-reading act.

>> Their sound changes with time, but it's
>> measured in hours, not days, weeks, or months.

> Which makes them unlike others how?

When was the last time you heard a "conventional" cone-type speaker system
noticeably change its sound during its initial operation?

[Arny Krueger]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in
message
>>> With regard to what? My musical taste? I miss no
>>> opportunity to criticize music that has little "merit"
>>> other than being continuously loud.

>> Looks like an lame attempt to impugn someone's musical
>> tastes to justify dismissing their opinons.

> Why should I be interested in the opinions of someone who
> doesn't listen to acoustic music?

I see no proof of that.

Even in the modern world, it is very hard to avoid listening to at least
some acoustic music.

Doing a lot of recording and/or live sound of course means that one listens
to a lot of live music, but it need not be all acoustic.

I would not go so far as to say that the sonic opinoins of people who listen
to a mixture of acoustic vocal with electronic instruments is necessarily
invalid. Would you?

[William Sommerwerck]

>> Why should I be interested in the opinions of someone who
>> doesn't listen to acoustic music?

> I see no proof of that.

> Even in the modern world, it is very hard to avoid listening to
> at least some acoustic music.

> Doing a lot of recording and/or live sound of course means that
> one listens to a lot of live music, but it need not be all acoustic.

> I would not go so far as to say that the sonic opinoins of people
> who listen to a mixture of acoustic vocal with electronic instruments
> is necessarily invalid. Would you?


I don't know. I say, perfectly seriously, that I have doubts about my own
opinions. Some months back I sat down with a stack of high-quality
phonograph records, and tried to decide whether what people like about good
LPs is accuracy or euphony. (I leaned in the direction of euphony.)

I do know a couple of things. First, many listeners will choose "good"
equipment over "not-so-good" equipment for reasons that aren't clear to me.
Count Floyd has shown that 15-year-old girls who know nothing whatever about
sound reproduction will make "quality" decisions similar to those of
experienced listeners.

You might look up JGH's review of the Audio Research D100 amplifier, which
provoked the reaction from him (and others) that he couldn't find anything
to criticize about its sound -- but he didn't really like it. He had the
honesty to admit that what he and others considered accurate reproduction
might just be pleasing colorations.

I also know that the recording industry, in general, is primarily interested
in "selling product", not in sound quality. So I'm surprised I've lived long
enough to be able to buy recordings that sound a lot like you're "really"
sitting in the concert hall.


I'm becoming increasingly nasty, because I see incompetent people (I'm /not/
referring to you as a sound-system installer and recordist) who are
employed, and I'm not. Several weeks ago I complained about a technical book
to its chief editor. He was a gracious person, but admitted to having little
technical background. So why does he have the job? Why did he take a job he
knew he was unqualified for? I could make a real contribution in that
position, while he makes none. *

I don't anticipate apologizing for such an attitude. On the contrary, I
expect to continue to rant and rave about people being rewarded for
incompetence. I honestly believe some people are hired because they're
incapable of doing what the job "really" requires.

I realize all this sounds somewhat incoherent, and not a completely direct
response. I assume you all know how to read between the lines.

* The answer, of course, is that a technically competent editor would demand
twice the salary of an incompetent one.

[Neil Gould]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
>
> I don't know. I say, perfectly seriously, that I have doubts about my
> own opinions. Some months back I sat down with a stack of high-quality
> phonograph records, and tried to decide whether what people like
> about good LPs is accuracy or euphony. (I leaned in the direction of
> euphony.)
>
I really appreciated your introspective reply, William. I believe that
anyone who is genuinely interested in objectivity will question their
conclusions, and that the result of this will lead to a clearer
understanding of the issues that lead to those conclusions.

[...]
>
> I also know that the recording industry, in general, is primarily
> interested in "selling product", not in sound quality. So I'm
> surprised I've lived long enough to be able to buy recordings that
> sound a lot like you're "really" sitting in the concert hall.
>
I guess I have to live a bit longer for this experience. ;-)

> I'm becoming increasingly nasty, because I see incompetent people
> (I'm /not/ referring to you as a sound-system installer and
> recordist) who are employed, and I'm not. Several weeks ago I
> complained about a technical book to its chief editor. He was a
> gracious person, but admitted to having little technical background.
> So why does he have the job? Why did he take a job he knew he was
> unqualified for? I could make a real contribution in that position,
> while he makes none. *
>
[...]
>
> * The answer, of course, is that a technically competent editor would
> demand twice the salary of an incompetent one.
>
What I experience is that those doing the hiring don't understand what is
actually required to do technical work properly. So, application
requirements for engineers often require knowledge of a specific application
(often not the best-suited for their task) rather than an understanding of
the work to be done, and at other times their decision is often made based
on the wishes of those doing the paying. Even when they're one and the same
person, they can allow their lack of understanding of the complexity of a
task to lead them to the "cheaper" alternative and hope for the best. As a
result, and in keeping with some othe recent threads in this ng, spec sheets
and technical manuals aren't what they used to be a couple of decades ago.

--
best regards,

Neil

[hank alrich]

Neil Gould > wrote:

> William Sommerwerck wrote:
> >
> > I don't know. I say, perfectly seriously, that I have doubts about my
> > own opinions. Some months back I sat down with a stack of high-quality
> > phonograph records, and tried to decide whether what people like
> > about good LPs is accuracy or euphony. (I leaned in the direction of
> > euphony.)
> >
> I really appreciated your introspective reply, William. I believe that
> anyone who is genuinely interested in objectivity will question their
> conclusions, and that the result of this will lead to a clearer
> understanding of the issues that lead to those conclusions.
>
> [...]
> >
> > I also know that the recording industry, in general, is primarily
> > interested in "selling product", not in sound quality. So I'm
> > surprised I've lived long enough to be able to buy recordings that
> > sound a lot like you're "really" sitting in the concert hall.
> >
> I guess I have to live a bit longer for this experience. ;-)
>
> > I'm becoming increasingly nasty, because I see incompetent people
> > (I'm /not/ referring to you as a sound-system installer and
> > recordist) who are employed, and I'm not. Several weeks ago I
> > complained about a technical book to its chief editor. He was a
> > gracious person, but admitted to having little technical background.
> > So why does he have the job? Why did he take a job he knew he was
> > unqualified for? I could make a real contribution in that position,
> > while he makes none. *
> >
> [...]
> >
> > * The answer, of course, is that a technically competent editor would
> > demand twice the salary of an incompetent one.
> >
> What I experience is that those doing the hiring don't understand what is
> actually required to do technical work properly. So, application
> requirements for engineers often require knowledge of a specific application
> (often not the best-suited for their task) rather than an understanding of
> the work to be done, and at other times their decision is often made based
> on the wishes of those doing the paying. Even when they're one and the same
> person, they can allow their lack of understanding of the complexity of a
> task to lead them to the "cheaper" alternative and hope for the best. As a
> result, and in keeping with some othe recent threads in this ng, spec sheets
> and technical manuals aren't what they used to be a couple of decades ago.

Which leads us back around to another thread, and why Schoeps specs
reflect the performance of the mics to those who understand the specs.
The company people know what they're doing, why they're doing it, for
whom they're doing it, understanding that "marketing specs" don't apply
to items that are too costly for the masses, but which are important
tools for professionals who may well choose a version of a type of tool
by specifications, as a starting point.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://armadillomusicproductions.com/who'slistening.html
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidriAlrichwithDougHarman

[Arny Krueger]

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in
message
>>> Why should I be interested in the opinions of someone
>>> who doesn't listen to acoustic music?
>
>> I see no proof of that.
>
>> Even in the modern world, it is very hard to avoid
>> listening to
>> at least some acoustic music.
>
>> Doing a lot of recording and/or live sound of course
>> means that
>> one listens to a lot of live music, but it need not be
>> all acoustic.
>
>> I would not go so far as to say that the sonic opinoins
>> of people who listen to a mixture of acoustic vocal with
>> electronic instruments is necessarily invalid. Would you?
>
>
> I don't know. I say, perfectly seriously, that I have
> doubts about my own opinions. Some months back I sat down
> with a stack of high-quality phonograph records, and
> tried to decide whether what people like about good LPs
> is accuracy or euphony. (I leaned in the direction of
> euphony.)
>
> I do know a couple of things. First, many listeners will
> choose "good" equipment over "not-so-good" equipment for
> reasons that aren't clear to me. Count Floyd has shown
> that 15-year-old girls who know nothing whatever about
> sound reproduction will make "quality" decisions similar
> to those of experienced listeners.
>
> You might look up JGH's review of the Audio Research D100
> amplifier, which provoked the reaction from him (and
> others) that he couldn't find anything to criticize about
> its sound -- but he didn't really like it. He had the
> honesty to admit that what he and others considered
> accurate reproduction might just be pleasing colorations.

No SP AR D100 reviews online, sorry.

However there is an AR D120 review that I was involved with and I thought it
sucked:

Carlstrom, David, Greenhill, Laurence, Krueger, Arnold, "Some Amplifiers Do
Sound Different", The Audio Amateur, 3/82, p. 30, 31, also reprinted in
Hi-Fi News & Record Review, Link House Magazines, United Kingdom, Dec 1982,
p. 37.

Yup, a D120 flunked an ABX test. Badly. Maybe the predecessor D100 had some
of the same problems. If so, ABX would have replaced JGH's "really didn't
like it" with "didn't like and here is the reason why".

> I'm becoming increasingly nasty, because I see
> incompetent people (I'm /not/ referring to you as a
> sound-system installer and recordist) who are employed,
> and I'm not. Several weeks ago I complained about a
> technical book to its chief editor. He was a gracious
> person, but admitted to having little technical
> background. So why does he have the job?

Connections.

Iniitative.

Luck

> Why did he take a job he knew he was unqualified for?

Opportunity to learn something and maybe make a few bucks.