Bill Vermillion

[Scott Dorsey]

I'm sad to report that he died a few years ago too.
http://cflradio.net/Bill_Vermillion.htm
--scott

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

[Gary Eickmeier]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> I'm sad to report that he died a few years ago too.
> http://cflradio.net/Bill_Vermillion.htm
> --scott

I keep wondering what has happened to Dick Pierce (?)

Gary Eickmeier

[Mike Rivers]

On Thursday, August 8, 2013 8:32:07 PM UTC-4, Gary Eickmeier wrote:
> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>
> > I'm sad to report that he died a few years ago too.
>
> > http://cflradio.net/Bill_Vermillion.htm
>
> > --scott
>
>
>
> I keep wondering what has happened to Dick Pierce (?)
>
>
>
> Gary Eickmeier

Dick is still around. He pops up on the Pro Audio mailing list now and then. I think he still has the web site cartchunk.com

[Scott Dorsey]

In article >,
Gary Eickmeier > wrote:
>Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> I'm sad to report that he died a few years ago too.
>> http://cflradio.net/Bill_Vermillion.htm
>
>I keep wondering what has happened to Dick Pierce (?)

He's still around. You may just have been killfiled.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Gary Eickmeier]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In article >,
> Gary Eickmeier > wrote:
>> Scott Dorsey wrote:
>>> I'm sad to report that he died a few years ago too.
>>> http://cflradio.net/Bill_Vermillion.htm
>>
>> I keep wondering what has happened to Dick Pierce (?)
>
> He's still around. You may just have been killfiled.
> --scott

That would be fine with me, but that would kill his seeing my posts, not the
other way around. Anyway, I could take the heat. I hope he can too.

Just got The New Stereo Soundbook. I will, of course, be studying it for
areas that I disagree with, but he already started out on the wrong foot
with a "Forward" instead of a "Foreword." Does he have no proofreaders or
editors? For all of the people who have read the first two editions, that is
a major embarrassment.

Gary Eickmeier

[William Sommerwerck]

"Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message ...

> Just got "The New Stereo Soundbook". I will, of course, be studying
> it for areas that I disagree with, but he already started out on the
> wrong foot with a "Forward" instead of a "Foreword." Does he have
> no proofreaders or editors? For all of the people who have read the
> first two editions, that is a major embarrassment.

Welcome to the club -- why has it taken so long for you to arrive?

It's no embarrassment for them -- technical publishers (even the major ones)
don't give a DAMN about the quality of their books. They don't care if they're
badly written or poorly edited. And they certainly don't care about technical
accuracy. All they care about is having "product" to sell.

To all of you out there... If you read a book that's clearly written,
well-organized, and technically accurate -- 99% of that is due to the writer's
conscious effort, and nothing else. You might drop the writer a note, and let
him know how grateful you are for his work.

[Adrian Tuddenham[_2_]]

William Sommerwerck > wrote:

> "Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message ...
>
> > Just got "The New Stereo Soundbook". I will, of course, be studying
> > it for areas that I disagree with, but he already started out on the
> > wrong foot with a "Forward" instead of a "Foreword." Does he have
> > no proofreaders or editors? For all of the people who have read the
> > first two editions, that is a major embarrassment.
>
> Welcome to the club -- why has it taken so long for you to arrive?
>
> It's no embarrassment for them -- technical publishers (even the major ones)
> don't give a DAMN about the quality of their books. They don't care if they're
> badly written or poorly edited. And they certainly don't care about technical
> accuracy. All they care about is having "product" to sell.

[...]

I was recently amazed to find that even well-respected publishers like
Focal Press, who used to print some of the most authoritative
professional training manuals, have allowed their good name to be used
on absolute rubbish.

The book in question is "The Life & Works of Alan Dower Blumlein" by
Robert Charles Alexander; I have never read such a load of tosh in my
entire life. Not only does it appear to have escaped even the most
meagre attempt at proof reading, but it is packed from cover to cover
with pseudo-technical nonsense of the most outrageous kind.

The author apparently has no technical background whatsoever and has not
taken the trouble to consult anyone who has, so he just makes up wildly
fantastic 'laymans' explanations for the technical source information
which he, himself, has failed to understand.

What a wonderful book this could have been if only the material which
Alexander has gathered could have been given to someone who understood
the subject or at least had some basic knowledge of engineering. It
would even have been a big improvement on the existing book if Alexander
had just presented the source material without any attempt at
explanation.

This is the only case I know of an author adding negative value to his
source material.


--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

[Don Pearce[_3_]]

On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 17:18:38 +0100,
(Adrian Tuddenham) wrote:

>William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>
>> "Gary Eickmeier" wrote in message ...
>>
>> > Just got "The New Stereo Soundbook". I will, of course, be studying
>> > it for areas that I disagree with, but he already started out on the
>> > wrong foot with a "Forward" instead of a "Foreword." Does he have
>> > no proofreaders or editors? For all of the people who have read the
>> > first two editions, that is a major embarrassment.
>>
>> Welcome to the club -- why has it taken so long for you to arrive?
>>
>> It's no embarrassment for them -- technical publishers (even the major ones)
>> don't give a DAMN about the quality of their books. They don't care if they're
>> badly written or poorly edited. And they certainly don't care about technical
>> accuracy. All they care about is having "product" to sell.
>
>[...]
>
>I was recently amazed to find that even well-respected publishers like
>Focal Press, who used to print some of the most authoritative
>professional training manuals, have allowed their good name to be used
>on absolute rubbish.
>
>The book in question is "The Life & Works of Alan Dower Blumlein" by
>Robert Charles Alexander; I have never read such a load of tosh in my
>entire life. Not only does it appear to have escaped even the most
>meagre attempt at proof reading, but it is packed from cover to cover
>with pseudo-technical nonsense of the most outrageous kind.
>
>The author apparently has no technical background whatsoever and has not
>taken the trouble to consult anyone who has, so he just makes up wildly
>fantastic 'laymans' explanations for the technical source information
>which he, himself, has failed to understand.
>
>What a wonderful book this could have been if only the material which
>Alexander has gathered could have been given to someone who understood
>the subject or at least had some basic knowledge of engineering. It
>would even have been a big improvement on the existing book if Alexander
>had just presented the source material without any attempt at
>explanation.
>
>This is the only case I know of an author adding negative value to his
>source material.

I threw that book out half read. It wasn't only the technical
gibberish that got to me. There would be an entire paragraph building
a scenario of potential anti-semitism, only to reveal that no such
thing actually happened. That occurred several times. I found the book
an insult to a great man.

d

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 8/10/2013 12:18 PM, Adrian Tuddenham wrote:

> I was recently amazed to find that even well-respected publishers like
> Focal Press, who used to print some of the most authoritative
> professional training manuals, have allowed their good name to be used
> on absolute rubbish.
>
> The book in question is "The Life& Works of Alan Dower Blumlein" by
> Robert Charles Alexander;

I have that one and couldn't get more than about a quarter of the way
through it. It wasn't the proof-reading that bothered me, it was the
content. Blumlein sounded from the web and forum anecdotes like a really
interesting guy but you'd never know it from that book. It's a really
big book, too. I wonder if they pay by the page.

> The author apparently has no technical background whatsoever and has not
> taken the trouble to consult anyone who has, so he just makes up wildly
> fantastic 'laymans' explanations for the technical source information
> which he, himself, has failed to understand.

I'm plodding my way through one now that I had hoped would be the book
that I always wanted to write so I wouldn't have to write it, but no . .
.. There's a lot more theory than necessary for the intent of the book,
and most of it is written kind of the way you describe - paraphrasing
explanations taken off the Internet without relating them to the real
subject at hand. I did learn something useless that I never knew before,
or at least never thought of in this context: Acoustic feedback between
a microphone and loudspeaker is called the Larsen effect. The
explanation in the book is just about what's on the Wikipedia page I
found when I Googled "Larsen effect." Geez, it's a book about live sound
basics. Why not just call it "feedback" and leave it at that - or write
a section called "Feedback" and add the interesting factoid "This is
called the Larsen Effect."

I know that Focal Press at least sometimes brings in technical editors.
I was asked to do that job (at Ethan Winer's request) for Ethan's book
The Audio Expert. Ethan's a really smart guy and is good at explaining
things, but sometimes he just got wrapped around the wrong axle and a
simpler or more straightforward explanation was more appropriate. It was
a lot of work, and Ethan and I went back and forth about some things
quite a bit. Sometimes my editing approach was wrong because he was
trying to make one point and I was trying to see a different point -
which resulted in my suggestion to change the introductory part rather
than the technical explanation to make things fit together better. But
not any editor could do that job.

Read any good technical books lately? The shorter the better, I'm
beginning to think.

--
For a good time, call http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[Gary Eickmeier]

My main complaint was that when I tried to get a copy, I got this nonsense
from Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_gnr_fkmr0?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Anew+stere o+soundbook&keywords=new+stereo+soundbook&ie=UTF8&qid=1376154868

So then Scott Dorsey told me how to go straight to the publisher and order
it for $68 plus shipping. I have complained to Amazon, so will see what
happens.

Anyway, thanks to Scott and I will take notes on the book as I go and
perhaps it would be worth another thread to discuss parts of it. Have you
all read this book? Do you agree with all of it? I know there were areas in
Floyd Toole's book that some disagreed with. Sometimes I wonder if there are
any areas of audio that everyone agrees with. Strange subject. If the
science isn't settled yet, it becomes a big wine tasting argument.

Gary Eickmeier

[William Sommerwerck]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message ...
On 8/10/2013 12:18 PM, Adrian Tuddenham wrote:

> The book in question is "The Life& Works of Alan Dower Blumlein"
> by Robert Charles Alexander.

I read it when it came out -- Blumlein is something of a hero to me -- and was
bitterly disappointed. The writing was not up to professional standards.


>> I know that Focal Press at least sometimes brings in technical editors.

Their book on lighting techniques (I forget the title) was a classic. The one
of low-light photography is an example of how not to organize material.

Publishers Simply Don't Care. It's a particular crime when you consider how
expensive technical books have gotten.

[Tom McCreadie]

(Adrian Tuddenham wrote:

>I was recently amazed to find that even well-respected publishers like
>Focal Press, who used to print some of the most authoritative
>professional training manuals, have allowed their good name to be used
>on absolute rubbish.
>
>The book in question is "The Life & Works of Alan Dower Blumlein" by
>Robert Charles Alexander; I have never read such a load of tosh in my
>entire life.
<benign snip>

Back in the late '80's, the journalist "Barry Fox" (pseudonym, I believe) of the
UK "Hi Fi News" had several articles on a whole sorry Blumlein biography saga.

As I vaguely recall, Fox admired Blumlein greatly and wished to see his life and
works given the prominence they deserved, possibly by undertaking that task
himself. He discovered, however, that someone had already secured from the
Blumlein family the exclusive rights to access the personal archives and publish
the biography. When several frustrating years went by with no publication
materializing, and no evidence of progress thereon, he considered appealing to
various UK scientific organizations to have them pressure that would-be
biographer to either "lay an egg" or relinquish his hold on the materials and
permit others to participate.

I'm unsure how it all panned out: was that biographer perhaps our much-maligned
"Robert Charles Alexander"?
Time to dust off my basement shoe box magazine archives :-)

[Gray_Wolf]

On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 12:50:56 -0400, Mike Rivers >
wrote:

>Read any good technical books lately? The shorter the better, I'm
>beginning to think.

I thought this interesting. Probably not everyone's cup of coffee but
I've always been into power amp design.

Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook 5th ed - D. Self (Focal, 2009)
WW
http://www.douglas-self.com/ampins/books/book.htm

[William Sommerwerck]

"Gray_Wolf" wrote in message
...

> I thought this interesting. Probably not everyone's cup of coffee
> but I've always been into power amp design.

> Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook 5th ed - D. Self (Focal, 2009)
> http://www.douglas-self.com/ampins/books/book.htm

It's disappointing, because I expected Self to have The Final Answer.
Nevertheless, it's worth a reading (or a heavy browsing).

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck > wrote:
>"Gray_Wolf" wrote in message
...
>
>> I thought this interesting. Probably not everyone's cup of coffee
>> but I've always been into power amp design.
>
>> Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbook 5th ed - D. Self (Focal, 2009)
>> http://www.douglas-self.com/ampins/books/book.htm
>
>It's disappointing, because I expected Self to have The Final Answer.
>Nevertheless, it's worth a reading (or a heavy browsing).

I don't think there is a final answer, but Self points out a whole lot
of distortion sources that are frequently neglected, and he offers
solutions to a bunch of important ones (some of which, like electrolytic
coupling capacitor nonlinearity, are frequently dealt with in more complex
and ultimately sloppier ways). That's not a final answer but it's a big
big step in the right direction.

I'll point out also that an awful lot of the stuff in that book is
applicable to line level circuit design as well. Self's book on small
signal circuit design is good, but I think I learned more about small
signal design from his power amp book than from his small signal design
book.

I think Self does have a lot of peculiar biases, but he's open and
forthright about having them, and that's more than most folks can say.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[James Perrett]

On Thu, 08 Aug 2013 21:03:24 +0100, Scott Dorsey > wrote:

> I'm sad to report that he died a few years ago too.
> http://cflradio.net/Bill_Vermillion.htm
> --scott
>

That's sad news - when I first found rec.audio.pro he was one of the
posters that I looked forward to reading. I've kept some of his postings
from that time - especially his alignment instructions.

James.

--
http://www.jrpmusic.net