Low end sound reinforcement mentality



I think Mr Slone is basically an electronics nerd who hates High End
audio because it costs money and involves people who are trendy and
fashionable and often buy it for pristege.

At hamfests and swap meets, you meet these guys all the time.I have
been building High End audio equipment and restoring vintage pieces
for thirty years. I still go to these affairs, but the good stuff is
almost all gone, except for test equipment, and even that's getting
lean.

He's completely wrong about just about everything when it comes to the
serious home reproduction of quality music-music with real dynamic
range and bandwidth. They are also twenty or so years out of phase
with serious studio listening-mixdown and mastering in the best
studios and mastering facilities. They do, however, make sense in the
world of sound reinforcement in clubs, houses of worship (HOW, in
audio-contractor-speak) and for musical instruments except electric
guitar. These are high duty cycle applications where considerations
important in high end domestic service don't matter.

He talks smack about many things that have unquestionably proven good
in high end audio-autoformer-coupled outputs, linear regulated rails,
and Class AB operation-and makes snotty and spiteful comments about
tube equipment rather than looking at the real issue-how is it that
equipment that measures so bad _in some cases_ can give such good
sonic results? And in fact, some of the tube equipment out there
measures very, very well.

The designs in this book probably will work fine if you really want to
build one, although I'm sure they are not his original work except in
detail. So I can't condemn the book completely. But they are not
terribly good for home listening unless you have really inefficient,
but benignly load-presenting speakers and play music with limited
dynamic range or at high SPL all the time. If that's what you like,
fine, but you are wasting your money on high end equipment anyway:
inexpensive PA gear will do as well.