Audio Lessons Learned - post your best advice for the newer members!

I’ll go even further: Even if the box is not rectangular but some incredibly fancy shape, even if it’s huge, even if it costs more than a luxury car, if it’s sealed or vented and the drivers are all in front, it’s a monkey coffin and will sound like a monkey coffin—boxy and, to varying degrees, not quite open and transparent.

I dont want to offend but Aczel never lived in a good acoustical treated and mainly controlled SMALL room ...

My box coffin did not sound like in his description...

2 years ago, yes they sounded like box speakers compared to magnepan....

They sound today more like magnepan than "monkey box".... Get me right they are NOT magnepan by any means, but i will never describe the sound closed and lacking transparency...

These words confirm my suspicion that almost no one in these audio forums had ever experienced the complete transformation of the same system from a small bad room to a small good one....If you are not coming by yourself from a bad one to a good one, how do you know?

Box speakers are KING only in a SMALL acoustically controlled room...Read that slowly.... 


Box speakers are not what he think they are, "monkey coffins".... Why?

I dont understand for sure the reason why this "specialist" never experienced a good small room with box speakers ? His prejudice come from here....

I prefer the sound of my box speakers in my actual small room now to the sound of one of my magnepan’s friends in his bad room....There is a difference: his speakers are more open yet than mine, they had more transparency yes, but my sound is not closed and dont lacked transparency and is more natural and musical.... In my room they are more musical because they are rightfully embedded...In my 2 positions of listening nearfield and more regular position....

Then Aczel is right in principle, magnepan are more open and transparent in a BIG room in particular, but he is wrong when is disqualify box speakers by his misunderstanding of SMALL room acoustic...

He is not the only one, these confusions are the rule throuh most audio forums....

Box speakers are KING only in a SMALL acoustically controlled room...

There they may shine.... the confusion of Aczel comes from his lack in distinguishing approprietely the deep differences, huge one, between controlled and treated room and the room which are not, and especially the great difference between SMALL room and BIG one, uncontrolled or not....

I never trust audio reviewers anymore this is the reason why.... Distinctions like objectivist/subjectivist, scientist/audiophiles, analog/digital, box speakers/ magnepan or any other type, and many more other distinctions, when pushed to their opposite limits in a competition are childish and gross and created misplaced prejudices....

Audio for me is the business of learning how to trust my own ears in listening experiments experience... Nothing else for me...It is not science but more an art....

Listening music must be learned, listening to sounds must be learned also.... The "bat" ears metaphor reflect stupidity more than anything else....My ears are normal old one, but very educated....Not in a "bat" sense, in a personal history that is reflected in my audio system and room and music choices....

Many amps have a HUM issue when "ungrounded" source components, i.e. those with a two pin plug or Wal-Wart power supply, are connected
- my Bryston has this issue, my NAIM had it too

My Bluesound Node 2i, which has a 2 pin plug causes hum if it is the only component connected
- However, my Simmaudio Moon phono stage IS properly grounded
- So when the phono stage is connected in the system - the hum goes away

So WHY does connecting the phono stage eliminate hum?
- because the Node 2i is now being grounded via the neutral side of the system at the amp by the phono stage

So try this ...
- using a piece of wire
- touch one end to the neutral collar of any open RCA socket on a pre-amp or integrated amp
- touch the other end to a mains ground point

The hum should STOP - if it stops
- build a grounding lead by attaching one end to the neutral side of an RCA (or XLR) plug
- attach the other end of the wire to the ground pin ONLY on a mains plug
- plug it into any mains outlet
- plug the RCA into any available RCA socket on the pre-amp or integrated amp

Unfortunately some components that have a two pin plug, sometimes referred to as "fully isolated" can develop a tiny voltage on the neutral side of the circuit, which is often a 50/60 Hz hum.
- Grounding the neutral side ONLY of the entire system will remedy this issue
- If this DOES NOT stop the hum - you have a more serious issue

Regards - Steve

Just because YOU bought it doesn't make it Shangri-La. 
A riff on just because you thought it doesn't mean you should speak it, or post it, or tweet it. 

Short sweet and simple.
Ignore watts.  It is all about instantaneous peak current.

@mahgister,

I think Peter Aczel’s point was that all box speakers always have some tendency to sound like boxes.

Here is his full quote:

"Loudspeakers are a different story. No two of them sound exactly alike, nor will they ever. All, or at least nearly all, of the conflicting claims have some validity.

The trouble is that most designers have an obsessive agenda about one particular design requirement, which they then inflate above all others, marginalizing the latter.

Very few designers focus on the forest rather than the trees. The best designer is inevitably the one who has no agenda, meaning that he does not care which engineering approach works best as long as it really does.

And the design process does not stop with the anechoic optimization of the speaker. Imagine a theoretically perfect loudspeaker that has an anechoic response like a point source, producing exactly the same spherical wave front at equal levels at all frequencies.

If a pair of such speakers were brought into a normally reverberant room with four walls, a floor, and a ceiling, they wouldn’t sound good!

They would only be a good start, requiring further engineering. It’s complicated.

Loudspeakers are the only sector of audio where significant improvements are still possible and can be expected. I suspect that (1) further refinements of radiation pattern will result in the largest sonic benefits and (2) powered loudspeakers with electronic crossovers will end up being preferred to passive-crossover designs.

In any case, one thing I am fairly sure of: No breakthrough in sound quality will be heard from “monkey coffins” (1970s trade lingo), i.e. rectangular boxes with forward-firing drivers.

I’ll go even further: Even if the box is not rectangular but some incredibly fancy shape, even if it’s huge, even if it costs more than a luxury car, if it’s sealed or vented and the drivers are all in front, it’s a monkey coffin and will sound like a monkey coffin—boxy and, to varying degrees, not quite open and transparent."

----

I’d like to think that he did consider the subject of rooms and placement in detail. He just didn’t like what cabinets tend to do to the sound of the drivers.

To my ears ported speakers sound easier on the ear than sealed box ones do. On the other hand many dislike the effect that the port (hole in the cabinet) usually does to the bass timing. As ever with loudspeakers you have to chose the compromises that you are most able to accept.

Peter Aczel with a lifetime of experience behind him finally settled on boxless designs like the Linkwitz Orion and the LX521 both which placed the midrange driver on a backless panel, much like what Stewart Tyler had also done with one of his ProAc designs.

Aczel also liked omnidirectional designs like the Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5.

Here’s his preface to a 2005 review:

"I have a dream. I dream of the Ultimate Loudspeaker. It can only exist in my dream because in the real world no manufacturer would have the overarching vision and multifaceted expertise to incorporate each and every one of its ideal features in a single design. No way; it could never happen.

It would of course have to be a powered loudspeaker because perfect matching of the amplifier channels to the drivers is possible that way and because separate, free-standing power amplifiers are hopelessly twentieth-century.

It would have to be a 4-way loudspeaker because 3-way design always stretches the capabilities of the drivers to the limit.

It would have high-order digital filters in the electronic crossover because they are linear-phase and just plain superior. The four power amplifiers would be extremely powerful yet small enough to be tucked unobtrusively inside the speaker enclosure, thanks to the most sophisticated switch-mode design.

The various functions and protection modes of the speaker would be controlled by a powerful internal computer and DSP processor, which would also permit a single digital S/PDIF connection from a stereo signal source to produce music from the all-in-one amplifier/speaker system.

One of the capabilities of the DSP would be to tune the bass response of the speaker to its specific location in the listening room. (I can dream, can’t I?)

Also, the midrange and treble response of the speaker would be much wider in dispersion than the usual 60° or 90°, extending essentially to 180°, so that the location of the listener would become totally unimportant. (Asking for the moon? What are dreams for?)

Am I still dreaming? What are those two strange-looking monoliths in my listening room? Could they be loudspeakers? Introducing the Bang & Olufsen BeoLab 5, the speaker that makes my dream come true in every detail, bar none. I can hardly believe it. Amazing. Speakers will never be the same again."

-----

If you have been able to overcome the long recognised limitations of cabinet loudspeakers then good for you.

Perhaps you can help the rest of us attain some of your success via embedding, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that loudspeaker cabinets do not present certain sonic issues.

https://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/audio_critic_web3.htm

I’d like to think that he did consider the subject of rooms and placement in detail. He just didn’t like what cabinets tend to do to the sound of the drivers.

First i greatly appreciate your toughtful post....

My point is in spite of their limitations what Aczel forgot, is the room precise tuning by controls, with many acoustic devices,( my grid of 18 Helmholtz pipes and tubes among others) not only passive material treatment...

The sound we listen to dont necessarily come ONLY from boucing on passive walls, the room could be activated and help greatly by improving the box speakers...

In fact my box speakers in MY room sound better than magnepan in a bad room.... This is my point by experience....

Then calling all boxes monkey coffins is only revealing a lack of understanding about acoustic controls and where the sound come from.... In a simplistic conception of acoustic the sound come from reflection, absorbtion, or from diffusive surface from the walls, ceilings etc...

This is ONLY half of the story.... A room is a pressurized potential engine that can be activated by many pressuring engine devices like Helmholtz botlles, tubes and pipes... Then what we listen to is no more ONLY the results of waves boucing back from the walls but also a results of this different adjusted pressure devices created by Helmholtz for particular speakers needs and for the particular ears of the listener ...

Then the alleged " monkey boxes" dont lost their limitation, but dont sound either boomy or lacking trans parency... For sure they are mot magnepan but they can beat it in some acoustically prepared room designed for them, when the magnepan are in a bad room...

My point is Aczel go too swiftly to a condemnation of box speakers...

ALL speakers ask for a particular acoustical settings and have all their limitations.... Box speakers are very useful in a small room when we ask also for some level of bass....

I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that loudspeaker cabinets do not present certain sonic issues.

I NEVER said that box speakers dont have limitations of their own, i only said that calling them monkeys boxes coffin is saying too much negative...

For example the rectangular boxes had an internal resonance problem, and it is possible using dyssimetric compressive force and a load with 2 sets of springs under the speakers, and one set under the load on top of the speaker to control the destructive power of the resonance .... It is a result of my listening experiments...And some transparency come to the ears only from that.... add to it a better controlled noise floor of the electrical grid and more transparency comes... At the end add an helmholtz tubes and pipes grid adjusted for these particular speakers in this specific room, another level of transparency comes with it....

Calling them "monkey coffin" is not a solution, nor dreaming also about a totally other kind of perfectly controlled and powered speakers with filters etc....Horns or magnepans are better without being perfect, but a good controls on their working mechanical, electrical and acoustical dimensions we could make them acceptable .... No more monkey coffin.... Acoustic controls of the room is more powerful anyway than the design of any specific speakers...This is my experience....

My deepest regards....

1) While DIFFERENCES can often be heard quickly, PREFERENCES can take a LOT longer to decide.

2) Don’t pass up an opportunity to hear new equipment. Especially if you can hear it in your own home.

If you get the first 80% right, the last 20% doesn't matter so much.

 

2nd-

as above, this is a Lifetime hobby. Enjoy the journey.

 

Happy Listening!

good thread to revive, for the benefit of newcomers here

i would add my 2 cents for using a-gon for advice or recommendations, especially ones relating to buying new things, spending $$$

never accept any single post (or posts on a given subject) by any member/username here as correct or as ’gospel’... always research the username to a good degree (click it, see the details, see the system posted, see the buy/sell record and feedback, and very importantly, read many of the other posts written by that person over time)

we are anonymous here, so one needs to get a sense of who the person giving advice is... before accepting it on face value - folks here can and do have many hidden (and not so hidden) biases, or worse yet, may have commercial motives -- so by ’helping you’ they are actually helping themselves more...

A few contentious opinions

1. Short cables are better than long cables

2. Solid core OHNO is better than litz

3. First clean up the power

4.Make sure everything has good grounding

5. Then fight RFI/EMI wherever possible

6. Put speakers on springs

7.use good footers/ support on all components

8.fine tune speaker and seat positioning

9. proper room damping on standing waves makes a big difference

10, listen listen listen