LOL Khrs.... very droll - and surprisingly did not go over my head. ;-)
You should see the pastel I did of ruler totting Sister Mary peering over her shoulder at me. There is a wad of paper beside the ink well of my desk, and a fully rigged clipper crashing through the wall of windows.
Drawing it was truly a Cathartic experience. |
LOL Khrs.... very droll, and surpisingly did not go over my head. ;-) |
Careful Muralman. Depends on her Habit, don't you think? |
Frogman, speaking of human shape, the Cabasse Kara should do the kazoo trick, with the authenticity of a cloistered nun. |
Agreed! Exclude the Avantgardes. My choice would be the Gallos. To properly reproduce the unique timbral textures of the Kazoo/human head interface; the speaker should approximate the shape of the human head. |
And now here's the rub: What's the best speaker for Kazoo? (excluding of course the Avantgardes since they were obviously voiced with 18th century mirlitons). |
Riiiiiiiiight.................. |
Ritteri, now you go maligning a fine instrument with a rich history. Don't you know that this instrument is based on the African "mirliton"? A sacred instrument used to disguise one's voice.
Eric Clapton, Simon&Garfunkel, Peter, Paul and Mary, are just some of the artists who have used this wonderful instrument in their recordings. Oh, and let's not forget the all-girl Kazoo bands. |
OK all you Kazoo builders! Your turn in the barrel. |
Nothing to do with the "last word", it has to do whats real fact. Its like saying a kazoo is as easy to build as a tenor saxaphone. Same basic principal. |
Congratulations Ritteri, you get the last word. I stand by my comments.
Happy listening and all the best. |
Actually frogman: There are sounds that are easy to reproduce and ones that arent. Complex full spectral sounds are more difficult to reproduce than sounds with a narrow bandwidth any sound engineer will tell you that.
Here is a good starting link: http://www.linkwitzlab.com |
Ritteri, I am glad that your experiences have been educational (education is a beautiful thing); and that you have had the opportunity to take part in these "controlled tests". However, the best education is attained by accepting the fact that there is always more to learn. Just because you don't hear the obvious differences between real and recorded, does not mean that the differences don't exist, and that they are not obvious to others. To make comments like "violins are not difficult to record/reproduce because their audible spectrum lies in the midrange and above", simply weakens your case. I guess this means that female vocals, trumpet, clarinet, flute are also easy to record. These have a range even narrower that the violins , but still in the "midrange and above". When digital recordings first came on the scene, and even today, guess what it was that most listeners objected to about their sound? The sound of strings. Anyway, the idea that one instrument is easier to record than another is, overall, simply absurd. It's a bit like saying: the trumpet is easier to play than the oboe. Not true, they are all difficult to play and to record well; overall, to the same degree. We all focus on different aspects of sound, and deem easier those that we are more confortable with.
Happy listening. |
Tubegroover: You need to take a magical walk into a controlled studio environment in Norfolk Ct. for some comparisons that may startle you(as they did me 8 years ago). That week I learned more about what the human ear/brain can and cannot detect in that week than most people learn in their entire lifespan. |
Elhartford you may have misread my skeptic remark. I hold skeptics in very high regard. It is healthy to be skeptical. The point I was making is that if you could come to such a conclusion I would imagine (and you have confirmed) you have some basis for it before you would post something so seemingly off the wall leaving yourself open to scrutiny.
Back to skeptics, I am VERY skeptical of Riteri's general remarks concerning reproduction of instruments by audio system regardless of the design. A reasonable reproduction is not the same as being able to discern between reproduced and real. And now the violin. No Riteri, I don't play violin but have played in an orchestra in my younger days and still attend concerts regularly and know for a fact that I haven't heard a system reproduce the tones of real instruments accurately, as real. I do have a piano in the house and on a direct AB comparison with all things being equal I'll bet a 10 year old could hear the difference, same with the violin. Next you're going to tell us that there are audio systems that can produce massed strings realistically? Have you actually done direct tests or is this just a hunch based on what you hear? LOL
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Yes I am a "cones in box" guy, but I also own a pair of ML Prodigy speakers too.
Maybe you need to read my comments again?
Ill repeat what I stated up top again:Pretty much any speaker can sound good reproducing a solo Violin since its not a difficult sound to reproduce and the majority of its audible spectrum lies in the midrange and above. So why you are surprised beats me. The DM 550 as I also stated(even though its not cutting edge transducer technology)above is a good solid sounding speaker. WHy the surprise?
As for me disparaging Maggies(Or Apogees or ML or whatever), I did no such thing. Planar/ribbons have their place and their positive traits no doubt. If they didnt I wouldnt own a pair myself. |
Ritteri..Why don't you read other people's comments before sounding off? Perhaps you did, and just cannot understand them. For example: the B&W 550 are not claimed to be great speakers, just damn good at violins. The reason I mention this is because it is so very surprising.
Since you are a cones-in-boxes guy you evidently feel it necessary to disparage the MG1.6. I think that Maggies, at every price point, can speak for themselves. |
Mixing driver materials doesnt mean that they cant convey an excellent near perfect sonic reproduction. Knowing material resonations and resonation points along with crossover designs help to isolate anomalies. Again part of a competent speaker design. B&W uses alot of different composite materials(as do alot of mfgs), and they are integrated very well in their design specifications.
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I hope Ritteri isn't thinking that he is the only string or piano player.
Every driver material imparts something of itself to the sound. Minimizing that noise pollution is one aim of speaker builders.
When driver materials are mixed, like in a B&W, then you get more than one sound tincture. This can't be the best way to convey the subtleties of a Guarneri vs. a Stradivarius. |
Another theory of why your speakers reproduce "solo violin" better than most megabuck systems? MG 1.6's arent world beater speakers(or considered "megabuck speakers") to begin with so thats kind of a poor comparison. And a different kind of speaker altogether.
Care to define "most megabuck" systems?
Care to define "sound better"?
Thats a pretty bold statement to make. Especially of DM550's which arent known to be top tier speakers(or even top tier B&W products)so this is a bit opinionated. As I could easily state that Sonus Faber Concertos are best sounding for solo violins.Violins arent even considered hard sounds to reproduce as they have minimal harmonics and overtones. But I have heard many times people state that bright sounding speakers(or speakers that arent full range) accentuate violins since most of the tones are in the midrange and extend upward. But some of the older Strats and other vintage model violins need a full range speaker to reproduce rich harmonics that have deep full bodied sound since the violins own "personality" is developed slowly over time. Alot of violins that are made by hand sound very sterile for the first 5-10 years and mature as they age. To me a sterile sounding violin is not something I want to hear. BTW Im not dissing your speakers above. Ive heard em, they are nice sounding units when set up correctly as most B&W products are.
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Ritteri...Ok, if you don't like my theory about the titanium tweeter in the little B&W 550 speakers, give me another theory of why these little boxes reproduce solo violin better than most megabuck systems, and (by the way) my own MG1.6. (And don't forget, you are not the only one who plays a violin). |
Muralman: Dipoles dont "color" the sound as much? You got some scientific evidence to back this up? Ive never heard this claim before. Dipoles have alot of drawbacks that easyily "color" the sound in their own way. Absolutely rediculous this claim.
Violins and pianos and all other instruments are designed to use the physical body to "color" and "tone" the sound yes. But speaker boxes are disgned in just the OPPOSITE way to be inert and to NOT RESONATE. Put your hand on a violin when it plays and you can feel the vibrations very distinctly,just like with a piano, it was designed that way. Put your hand on a competently designed speaker(Like my set of Revels)and you dont feel any resonation. Exactly the opposite in nature. |
Ritteri, the strings do make the sound. The vented hollow cavity magnifies the sound of the string, adding it's own colorations. That is why violas have heavier strings than do violins.
Likewise, the box of a dynamic speaker introduces it's own colorations to the playback. The dipoles don't nearly as much. That is why we dipole lovers say our speakers offer more information on the real event. |
The logic is that you state the strings make the sound for a Violin and state that a metal dome tweeter most resembles a "string". But the strings dont make the sound on a Violin, the wooden body does. |
Ritteri...It's a bit hard to follow your logic. Your analogy to a violin, where the wood body is what makes the sound, is one that I might use to explain the function of the sound board in a piano.
Your preference for cone drivers in boxes is just your opinion. Others may disagree.
The idea of installing a small driver in an actual violin body has long interested me, but I haven't got around to doing it yet. Do you have any spare old violins kicking around?
And Tubegroover...I may be a "skeptic" but after rendering my opinion I often go away quietly and do some experimentation. A "crackpot" idea sometimes leads to something good, even if the original idea isn't. My "skinny wire for tweeters" biwire scheme is an example...IMHO. |
Dynamics arguable, but harmonics? |
Eldardtford: Cant go along with your theory on this one. Piano's have strings, so do Violins( I used to appraise and still play em), and what makes the sounds coming from the Violins is also the "wood" just like the soundboard of a piano. The bridge attached to the strings are coupled to the main body of the Violin. THe wood is what makes the sound resonations on the body of a violin, not the strings themselves. This being the case debunks your theory. I dont know of ANY transducer in the intricate shape of a violin. Besides its been widely accepted that dynamic drivers are best at reproducing the dynamics and harmonics of a piano. |
Ohnwy61 maybe Eldartford is on to something here. I believe that good horns produce horn sounds closer to real horns. The piano with planers, I'm not sure about that but his case does warrant investigation. Did you know that Jud Barber of Joule Electra uses spruce in his "musicwood" amps to maybe capture the resonance of the spruce wood of real string instruments? Of course you know by now that nothing can be ruled out in audio especially coming from such a skeptic as Eldartford. |
Khrys, read this - http://www.apogeespeakers.info/scintilla.htm - and write a report. Hand it in on Monday. Thank you very much. |
Eldartford, you can't be serious? |
A casual look into a piano will reveal many stings that get hit by felt hammers to produce sound. One might think that the sound source is the strings. Actually, behind the strings, and below them in a grand piano is a sound board. This is a large area of thin wood, and its name indicates its purpose. The tonal quality of the instrument depends very much on the quality and condition of this wood. Note that the sound board resembles a planar loudspeaker.
I have noted that loudspeaker fidelity is often improved when the loudspeaker resembles the instrument in some way. This is most obvious with trumpet reproduced by a horn driver. I have also noted that the titanium tweeter in a small B&W speaker that I have makes violins (with metal A and E strings) sound very real. So, according to my theory, planar speakers have a head start in reproducing piano. |
The Scintillas commercial success speaks for itself, don't you think? |
Pulling the subwoofer topic back into the main discussion, I do believe it is an advantage to have all frequencies expressed by the same driver type. The Scintilla can do all the frequencies required, without the aid of a sub. It also, as I have noted before, has just about the lightest unencumbered drivers ever devised. That leads to ultra fast recoveries, with no smearing. The marvelous frequency complexities inherent in a grand piano are fully expressed in life like manner. |
Frogman you are a good sport and I do appreciate your perspective. I literally tried for years to mate various subs with speakers whose midrange was glorious but low end insufficient. Perhaps the most entertaining combo I devised was ML CLSs with binaural Entecs. The sound was spectacular regardless of the recording which certainly impressed people but quickly became aurally tedious. I tried AP Virgos with a mono Minos and found that the lower the setting of the Minos the better I liked the music and once when my maid unplugged the Minos I listened for days congratulating myself on how well I had dialed it in until I discovered the plug on the floor! Thus began my disaffection with these things. With all due respect I find them to be low frequency reverb devices and little more. Try putting 0.05 msec delay between your R/L mains and see how that "recreates" the concert hall feeling. YMMV and I certainly understand your desire to augment the Stax which I agree is an awesome midrange mindblower. However there is no subwoofer on the planet that I have found to improve the sound of my W/P 7s, even Wilson's own WatchDog or Pow Wow. But I have certainly found a few that will "blow away" my guests and any semblance of real music as well. I've conceded the match but truly respect that you have take up the banner.
Good listening and Happy Thanksgiving to all, indeed (unless you're Canadian, of course). |
Frogman you are a good sport and I do appreciate your perspective. I literally tried for years to mate various subs with speakers whose midrange was glorious but low end insufficient. Perhaps the most entertaining combo I devised was ML CLSs with binaural Entecs. The sound was spectacular regardless of the recording which certainly impressed people but quickly became aurally tedious. I tried AP Virgos with a mono Minos and found that the lower the setting of the Minos the better I liked the music and once when my maid unplugged the Minos I listened for days congratulating myself on how well I had dialed it in until I discovered the plug on the floor! Thus began my disaffection with these things. With all due respect I find them to be low frequency reverb devices and little more. Try putting 0.05 msec delay between your R/L mains and see how that "recreates" the concert hall feeling. YMMV and I certainly understand your desire to augment the Stax which I agree is an awesome midrange mindblower. However there is no subwoofer on the planet that I have found to improve the sound of my W/P 7s, even Wilson's own WatchDog or Pow Wow. But I have certainly found a few that will "blow away" my guests and any semblance of real music as well. I've conceded the match but truly respect that you have take up the banner.
Good listening and Happy Thanksgiving to all, indeed (unless you're Canadian, of course). |
Hey Khrys, how do I know? I don't! I don't need to "know", if "knowing" means being able to "prove" it. What my ears tell me is all the proof that I need. What I can tell you, is that I have spent hundreds of hours in concert halls, and the sound and feeling of a good hall, it's scale of size, is present in the extreme low frequencies. And you don't need bass instruments to be playing to hear it, and very clearly. I am sure that there are are some with much more technical knowledge than I, that can explain what I am hearing; but hear it I do. Very full range speakers, and good subs, let me hear that sound/feeling. Is it an artifact? Who knows? I know what phase related distortions sound like, and it doesn't sound like that to me. Am I advocating the use of subs? Hell no! I definitely have a love/hate relationship with mine; and I use the term love loosely. However, in the case of my Stax F-81's, speakers that to me, have a midrange truth that no speaker, and I mean NO speaker, that I have ever heard has, the absence of anything below about 70hz, makes the experience incredibly frustrating. So, I'm willing to live with the obvious, but not gross, discontinuity between the midrange and bass, and the difference in timbre, to get some of the underpinnings present in music.
I will stick by my comment about how the woofers don't need to be flapping wildly for their contribution to be heard.
Good listening, and Happy Thanksgiving to all. |
Khrys...I think that your "going subless" is certainly reasonable. As I have observed, most of the time the SW cones are doing nothing. And "doing nothing" means exactly that. There is no subsonic hall sound that somehow gets reproduced without any motion of the cone. However, there are some recordings that do have hall sound, with cone movement, and there is some music that does really give the sw a workout. But these cases are few and far between.
I have an elaborate SW system built into the wall (3 systems/6 drivers), but it did not cost me a lot because I designed, built, and tweeked it. I enjoyed the construction process as much as listening. The amps are on a separate power switch. Sometimes I join the subless gang by throwing the switch. |
Hey Frogman, how do you know that the expanded soundstage added by your subwoofer isn't due to the 0.2msec delay between the sub and your mains at 80 Hz? Or the phase shift between running a mono sub with binaural mains? Why are you so sure that it's due to 20 Hz "undertones" that only a nearly inactive subwoofer can produce? Do you really think these practically inaudible tones are present on redbook CDs? As a recovering subwoofer user my opinions on this matter could be suspect but I offer them honestly. Jsujo is absolutely correct but Sam Tellig says it best in the current 12/03 Stereophile (p.36, col.2, p6): "Deep bass is almost always more trouble than it's worth." Free your ears from the tyranny of frequency response. Try going "subless"! |
Jsuso, you are correct; the use of subwoofers is problematic. Piano recordings are particularly good at demonstrating just how difficult it is to integrate a sub into a quality system. The timbral "sameness" of the piano throughout it's wide frequency range, make the problems at the "crossover" points, very obvious. I use a REL Strata III with three very different speakers (Stax F-81, Maggie IIIA's, Genesis IM8300), and while the added fullness that the REL contributes is, at times, appreciated, I am always aware of the fact that the lower frequencies are reproduced by a very different, and in the case of the Stax and Maggies, much slower transducer.
dmmcgregor, nice post. I agree, point for point. The issue is really about being satisfied. We don't need perfection to achieve that.
Best. |
I've found that my system reproduces lifelike piano music. I prefer SACD recordings of piano, though some CD labels can get pretty close (Reference Recordings, Chesky, JVCXRCD, Emil Berliner Studios etc).
We have a 1976 Kawaii grand that my wife teaches on in the studio. It has a very pleasing tone, though the action is a little heavy for small hands. I love the music that a piano is capable of.
My SACD's are sourced through a Denon DVD 2900 "hybrid" player, CD through Cambridge Audio DiscMagic/S700 DAC combination, with Creek 5350SE amplification, Totem Forest speakers and Wireworld Atlantis cables throughout.
IMO the transducer is only part of the equation in optimizing the realism of the reproduction of acoustic music. If you truly want to accurately reproduce acoustic instruments, you need to optimize source, amplification and the transducer.
I've yet to hear a recording of a piano that sounds "the same" as our piano. Given that I haven't hired a professional to come in and record our piano in its space to create a fair "test", that isn't too surprising. Having said that, I am totally satisfied by the realism offered by my modest stereo system. |
As I was reading a review in Absolute Sound, they were mentioning that the suckout that comes from adding a subwoofer to 2 ch music playback systems and the mayhem it causes, may not make it worthwhile to add subs, unless you can have 2 (due to phasing issues), and a 4th order xover....they argue that most 2nd order xovers included in most hardware doesnt do the job at all, and they actually have changing "Q's" as you adjust the freq cutoff./
Have you guys with subs measured your curve lately? |
To get back to what Gileon said, I must agree that the Thiel CS1.5's are very enjoyable on piano. I have heard the CS1.6's, and while the focus has certainly been bumped up a notch, I wouldn't necessarily call them more musical. Of course, I did not get to A/B them directly, and it had been some time since I had heard the CS1.5's. However, with regard to larger Thiels, I own a pair of CS3.6's, and I find them to be very enjoyable on piano, with good lower register reproduction (and I am an upright and electric bass player, so I like clean, tight, accurage lows).
I must add, though, that my father-in-law has a pair of CS.5's (which I helped him pick out, thank you) that are simply amazing for the money. Sure, they are frequency limited, but match them up with a good sub or two, and they can hold their own against speakers several times their price. The greatest thing about these particular speakers is that they really got my father-in-law back into listening to, and enjoying music (mostly piano). Of course, my mother-in-law is not so thrilled, but hey, you can't please everybody.
Later, Tom. |
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Frogman...Since a real piano can be perfectly reproduced (Ritteri told me so) there should be no problem making a perfect synthesized one. Right? :) |
Why not get a synthesized piano and be done with it?!?! you're kidding, right?
The reason is that, unlike Ritteri's contention, even a less than perfectly miked acoustic piano, will sound better than any electric piano; assuming a real piano sound is what's wanted. Engineers know this all too well; not to mention that players usually prefer to play on the real thing.
By the way, in case anyone was not sure about this, close miking of pianos is done in the recording studio, not in the concert hall; usually.
Good listening. |
Onhwy61...Uch!!! Why not just get a synthesized piano and be done with it? |
Eldartford, recording for pop/rock music imposes a different set of priorites than for classical or even jazz. Instrument separation is one of the key factors. You don't want the sound of another instrument bleeding into the piano's microphones. If it did, it would hamper the mix down to stereo process. In a small or medium sized studio this presents some problems. If you have access, take a look at photos of Phil Spector, Aretha Franklin, any Motown or Chess recording sessions and take note of how close together the musicians are positioned. One of the solutions to the separation problem is to place the microphones within the piano and close the lid. It won't sound like a real piano, but in most pop/rock mixes the piano isn't "naked" , but instead placed deep within the mix. Any of the classic Elton John tracks is an example of this technique. The engineers placed the microphone(s) inside the piano and covered the piano with several heavy moving blankets. |
I hope that everyone read the link provided by Onhwy61 in his post on 11/22. I didn't know that recording engineers customarily put microphones inside the piano. As someone who has played a musical instrument I generally like close mic recordings, but inside the instrument seems extreem. |
Eldartford: I know, Im kidding............ |
A few clarifications:
Khrys, difference tones produced in the
performance/recording venue as a result of real instruments sounding the fundamental frequencies will, by definition, be more accurate than those produced in the listening room by the playback equipment. Why this is so, should not require much explanation. There is much information in the 20hz that gives recording venues their characteristic sound signatures. This is a well documented fact, and easily demontrated by playing a good recording, done in a good hall, and turning those "flat to 20hz" subwoofers off; the soundstage will often shrink in size. There simply does not have to be an actual 20hz (or so) musical tone present in the recording, for the effects of these frequencies to be audible. Subwoofer cones do not need to be working hard and flapping wildly for their contribution to be heard. Simply turn them off and listen to the difference in the sound.
Ritteri, big band with a few tubas? I'm intrigued; seriously. Where can I hear this?
Slotdoc, just a gut reaction: If you think that Maggies and ML's sound fake, I think that, ultimately, you would not be happy with planars at all. Sounds like you would be happiest with a good full range dynamic speaker. Whatever sacrifice you would be making as far as ultimate timbral accuracy, I think would be made up for in the dynamics dept. Ever sit close to a concert grand played at full tilt? The sheer weight and and impact can be scary. For all their beauty of tone, not even Quads can do this.
Happy listening. |
