Some thoughts for Gary... [Archive]

William Sommerwerck

January 23rd 14, 04:14 PM

I hope Gary will give the following serious consideration.

Some people consider me a pompous ass, because I insist that I'm usually right
about things. Which I am. I'm also good at figuring out that I'm ignorant or
wrong.

I recently backed out of a discussion of electrostatic speakers, because --
though I believed everything I was saying was correct -- I realized I couldn't
rationally support my point of view. (There's a difference between knowing and
understanding.) I have since been studying Merhaut's "Theory of
Electroacoustics", and will probably have to dig into other books.

When someone presents a novel or unfamiliar idea, I judge it against what I
already know. Does it fit in with or expand on established principles? Or does
it intelligently refute beliefs that have been taken for granted? I tend to
give credence to those that meet either criterion.

In the time I've been reading about Gary's work, I haven't had a single
reaction of either sort. Nothing he's said has ever "clicked". That doesn't
mean he isn't correct -- but I strongly doubt it. One doesn't have to read
much of Michael Gerzon's work to see that he was definitely barking up the
/right/ tree.

----------------------------------------------------

Lessons from Dr Land

If you don't know how Dr Edwin Land was, shame on you. You are almost
certainly sitting in front of a device that his first "fundamental" invention
makes possible. (At one time, he was second only to Edison in number of
patents issued. He is currently third, I believe.)

My e-mail signature is one of his quotes:

"We already know the answers -- we just haven't asked the right questions."

This is what science is about. Science is not about assuming answers, then
trying to prove them. It's about asking good questions, so we'll know where to
look for the answers, and be able to construct meaningful experiments to make
Nature reveal her secrets.

Gary, have you ever sat down and carefully thought out exactly the questions
you're trying to address? I suspect you think you already know the answers,
without having asked the questions.

Dr Land liked to say that, if you can state a problem, you can solve it. (It
isn't exactly clear what he meant by this, as he also said that judgment (and
even taste) enter into formulating potentially solvable problems.) It seems to
me that stating a problem means stating /a/ problem -- not a mix of
inter-related problems.

For example, "How do you make a camera that processes its own photographs?" is
not /a/ problem. That question comprises multiple problems that do not lend
themselves to direct global analysis. But if you ask "How do I get the
unexposed silver from the negative to a receptor sheet?", then you have /a/
clearly defined problem that is amenable to analysis and solution.

I assume you've read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The
trans-dimensional aliens want an answer to "life, the universe, and
everything". After 5,000,000 years of calculating, the computer comes up with
an answer: "42!". When the aliens protest, the computer points out that they
hadn't really defined the question, had they?

Gary Eickmeier

January 24th 14, 02:25 AM

William -

Thanks for your thoughtful essay. I can fully appreciate your skepticism,
and I have been through it all by now. But naysayers contribute little to a
discussion or a new idea. My recent experience in another newsgroup gives me
heart and renews my faith in the curious mind. I had related my success in
the Linkwitz Challenge and told them that I wish I knew how to engineer a
speaker to do what I want it to do. Some of them said nay, some said nothing
new here, but one of them, who is a superb DIY speaker builder, just said OK
let's go. He is now building the first Image Model Projector, the IMP-1, to
my specifications with high quality drivers and crossovers and two L-pads
for the frontal drivers to experiment with direct to reflected ratio and the
shaped radiation pattern. It is based on my kludged together winning entry
in that project, with some negative directivity index and some
distance/intensity trading to keep central images stable.

The questions I am answering are basically the same ones that Siegfried
Linkwitz asked in The Challenge. He has had some success with imaging in his
highly reflective home listening room, and has said in his many essays that
he strongly believes that the reflections should not be eliminated and that
they help form what he calls the Auditory Scene, or AS. He notes that his
speakers disappear as discrete sources and this huge scene, or soundstage
opens up in front of him.

So he coulsn't help but wonder if this concept could be developed a little
more, and the questions to the AES were what are the speaker positioning
scheme, radiation pattern, and room acoustics that would optimize the
effects he was experiencing in his home and do it on purpose, and not by
accident.

I knew the answers already because I had to answer them for myself when I
discovered that there was a way to optimize the imaging of my Bose 901s and
wrote to the company to question their owners manual. I have writen that
story enough times now that I will not go back into it here.

So basically I had this revelation, by accident, in my highly reflective
British home at the time, and for the rest of my life I have researched
everything about it because it seemed to be so different from normal stereo
practice that I knew no one would believe me. I have answered what are the
correct answers to The Big Three quesitons, read up on what are the
psychoacoustics of stereophony and the history of it, built a dedicated
listening room in my home in Florida, and built three prototype speakers so
far and working on the fourth and final ones. The main questions in building
the actual speakers that will realize my dream are not will it work, but how
do you engineer a radiation pattern to make it happen.

If successful with these new speakers then I may have caught enough
attention to get some real engineering help in developing the concept and
its implementation. I intend for it to be open source, no patents filed, no
company started, just share the principles and see where it goes. All I ask
is that it be recognized that Image Model Theory is my discovery, proven by
my white paper in 1989 and the speakers that they will have by then to
listen to.

William the first, the main question to be asked is how does stereophonic
sound really work. That would be followed by how do you build these sound
fields within your room. Finally, as indicated above, what are the answeres
to The Big Three questions for the frontal soundstage and how can we best
take advantage of psychoacoustic principles to build a reasonable surround
field with as few speakers as necessary.

I believe that the catalog of recorded stereo music is just fine as is and
needs no further research to improve the stereo effect, but for my own
curiosity and to convince myself that there are no more areas to conquer in
recording, I am studying and doing a lot of recording and trying all the
various techniques. I was wrong about three spaced omni, and Scott told me
why. My big lesson was that there are a number of succesful techniques and
no single "correct" one, regardless of what the purists say because the
recording is in itself a new work of art to be perfomed in your listening
room. All is fair in love and recording.

At the moment I am having a great time playing some of my own surround sound
recordings using my four cardioid microphone tree and encoding the rear with
Dolby Pro Logic. Perfectly compatible with 2 channel playback and all
that's holy.

Gary

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...
>I hope Gary will give the following serious consideration.
>
> Some people consider me a pompous ass, because I insist that I'm usually
> right about things. Which I am. I'm also good at figuring out that I'm
> ignorant or wrong.
>
> I recently backed out of a discussion of electrostatic speakers,
> because -- though I believed everything I was saying was correct -- I
> realized I couldn't rationally support my point of view. (There's a
> difference between knowing and understanding.) I have since been studying
> Merhaut's "Theory of Electroacoustics", and will probably have to dig into
> other books.
>
> When someone presents a novel or unfamiliar idea, I judge it against what
> I already know. Does it fit in with or expand on established principles?
> Or does it intelligently refute beliefs that have been taken for granted?
> I tend to give credence to those that meet either criterion.
>
> In the time I've been reading about Gary's work, I haven't had a single
> reaction of either sort. Nothing he's said has ever "clicked". That
> doesn't mean he isn't correct -- but I strongly doubt it. One doesn't have
> to read much of Michael Gerzon's work to see that he was definitely
> barking up the /right/ tree.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> Lessons from Dr Land
>
> If you don't know how Dr Edwin Land was, shame on you. You are almost
> certainly sitting in front of a device that his first "fundamental"
> invention makes possible. (At one time, he was second only to Edison in
> number of patents issued. He is currently third, I believe.)
>
> My e-mail signature is one of his quotes:
>
> "We already know the answers -- we just haven't asked the right
> questions."
>
> This is what science is about. Science is not about assuming answers, then
> trying to prove them. It's about asking good questions, so we'll know
> where to look for the answers, and be able to construct meaningful
> experiments to make Nature reveal her secrets.
>
> Gary, have you ever sat down and carefully thought out exactly the
> questions you're trying to address? I suspect you think you already know
> the answers, without having asked the questions.
>
> Dr Land liked to say that, if you can state a problem, you can solve it.
> (It isn't exactly clear what he meant by this, as he also said that
> judgment (and even taste) enter into formulating potentially solvable
> problems.) It seems to me that stating a problem means stating /a/
> problem -- not a mix of inter-related problems.
>
> For example, "How do you make a camera that processes its own
> photographs?" is not /a/ problem. That question comprises multiple
> problems that do not lend themselves to direct global analysis. But if you
> ask "How do I get the unexposed silver from the negative to a receptor
> sheet?", then you have /a/ clearly defined problem that is amenable to
> analysis and solution.
>
> I assume you've read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The
> trans-dimensional aliens want an answer to "life, the universe, and
> everything". After 5,000,000 years of calculating, the computer comes up
> with an answer: "42!". When the aliens protest, the computer points out
> that they hadn't really defined the question, had they?