"trotsky" wrote in message
nk.net...
Michael Mckelvy wrote:

"trotsky" wrote in message
...


Michael Mckelvy wrote:

"trotsky" wrote in message
...


Michael Mckelvy wrote:


I know lots of people, many of them audiophiles. I would certainly

mention


your website and let them decide for themselves.


You would mention them under what conditions--that I use the
necessary
meters and measurements? That's a flat out lie.


I would mention that I know of a vendor doing business on-line using

drivers

new to the market.


Why would you do that? You've been saying they're crap for days. Are
you a sockpuppet.


It would give me a chance to hear them. It's the only way I would.

He offers a money back guarantee so they would have

nothing to lose but a shipping fee for return. They appear to have

nicely

made cabinets and how they would sound in somebody's room is a matter
of
taste.


Please explain why you've changed your tune, assuming you're not a
sockpuppet.



I haven't. I let people make up their own minds.



You're not being forthcoming, Mickey. Before you claimed my speakers to
be crap because the drivers were "cheap." What changed?

Nothing

Did you see a
few posts on DIY forums that described the Silver Flutes as having
exceptionally flat frequency responses for the money? Just explain what
you're trying to do here.



No. I looke briefly but all I found was one DIY gorup where somebody asked
about using them and the reply was "chortle."
Not a complete search so I will look more.

snip


I'm not trying to trick you, I am curious.

In the case of my own speakers I used LEAP and LMS. The xovers were

3rd

order on the tweeter and 2nd order on the woofer.


My crossovers are second order, designed by LEAP.


If they were designed by LEAP some measurements had to have been done.



Perhaps. I don't believe it's necessary for me to go into the design
steps. To hear Bob Morion tell it, I don't have any anyway.

Surpising, most designers love to brag.

I provided graphs upon request, can you?


I could, but I won't because I don't think they tell you a thing
about
the sound. Lots of speakers have a flat frequency response and
still do
many things wrong.


What sort of things?


What? Read my website: poor choices in cabinet design, drivers that
aren't rigidy mounted to the cabinet, etc.


Having a cabinet not contribute sound of its own is not a poor choice.
IMO
speakers that show flat measurements and sound bad usually do so because
tehy aer measured at 1 watt and won't perform at real world spl's. Your
thoughts?


I've already covered this before, on rao. The problem with the
so-called "inert" cabinets is that they disperse too much energy to in
any way help give the illusion of live sound. In my opinion you *have*
to have cabinets and driver mounting schemes that don't absorb too much
energy, because reproduced music is *always* lacking in dynamic
qualities and liveliness compared to the live reference.

How would one determine in any objective way what the limit is on
absorbsortion of energy?

Almost every
designer on the market gets this wrong, in my opinion, except for Naim,
Audio Note, and a few other British guys.

Now, conventional wisdom says that if a cabinet is contributing sound of
it's own, the sound is "colored". I simply don't find this to be true,
and my speakers are without question one of the most neutral speakers
I've ever heard.

It would be interesting to see ( at least it would be for me) comparisons of
the distortion produced by whatever is a known low distortion speaker,
compared to some of those you like and your Silver Flute designs.

That doesn't mean they're without flaws, but they are
really neutral and really lively. *Some* more expensive drivers are
better at information retrieval than the Silver Flutes, but for the
money they are still astonishingly good.

How would you rate Proa Ac or the VSM's?

What aspects of crossover design do you find most important?


What are the choices?


Whatever YOU chose, on-axis response, horizontal polar response, flat

phase,

the xover frequency and how it relates to the size of the driver(s)

being

used, etc..


Whatever gets the speaker to sound the most natural.


You don't think any of these things are more important than others or
someting not mentioned might be more important?


I would say on-axis response is the most important. Listening in the
sweet spot is the most important factor. Having a sweet spot the size
of your living room is a nice concept, but hardly acheivable. (With two
speakers, anyway.)



What is your approach to good stereo imaging?


Position the speakers correctly in the room. Very few manufacturers
cover this well. I don't know why.


I was referring to how you achieve good imaging through xover design.


Imaging is over rated.

If your playing a recording of a live event, the speakers should produce an
image that matches, no?

There are many aspects of reproduced sound that
suggest the sound of live music, and imaging is pretty near the bottom.

In your opinion.

My speakers produce an excellent stereo image, but that wasn't one of
the things I focused on. This is on the website too.



Do you favor even order or odd order crosovers?


What ever yields the best sounding response is what I favor.


You are free to choose whatever you wish of course, I would suggest
that

you

take a look at Zalytron's site and another ribbon tweeter also made in

China

by Fountek. The model JP-3.0 sells for $81.00 so it would be
something

for

an upgrade in your line. It looks to be a a great choice IMO for it's
smooth response and could be crossed over at a lower freuency. I
think

you

would find this would provide better imaging and dispersion. YMMV.


Which meters and measurements did you use to determing that, a Ouija

board?


I looked at the graph, naturally I would expect you to audition them
your
self.

How did you decide on the the Silver Flutes?



I go into this on my website. I did a lot of window shopping on various
sites that sell raw drivers. I wanted something that was affordable,
uncommon in both name and design principle, and well made. When I got
it in my brain that I wanted a ribbon tweeter, I looked at all brands I
could find: Silver Flute, Hi-Vi, Fostex, Visaton, and
Bohlender-Graebner. The Silver Flutes seemed to have all the qualities
I wanted, and nobody else that I could find was using them. I got a guy
to build the cabinets for me, he did great work, and then I assembled
them. I actually wired the tweeters out of phase at first and thought
I'd shot myself in the wiener, because they just sounded off. I finally
figured out my mistake, and they sounded really good. Then they broke
in fully and sounded even better.

The break in thing has been discussed to death.............

The woofers were stiff as boards at
first, and the tweeter sounded edgy. After playing them for a long time
they finally came around, and although they weren't perfect they did
enough things really, really well that I knew I had something that
people would want to pay money for if they got a chance to hear them.

Sounds very similar to the process I went through.


That last part is the hard part, though, because I'm simply not prepared
at this point to build a large inventory of them and try to build up a
traditional network. The factory direct approach seemed the best way to
go for a number of reasons. Now I face the arduous task of getting
testimonials and reviews to develop word of mouth advertising.

Wait til you check the ad rates for any of the mags.

I also
started advertising on Audiogon, but I think without other factors
developing a buzz about the speakers I can't expect them to sell based
on a picture on a website. Of course, I've only been up and running a
few weeks, so I can't expect miracles.

I can almost guarantee there won't be any of those.