Vibratory or Not?
This is a discussion that for me began on the Stereophile forum which went horribly wrong in my opinion. I was wondering though if this same topic could be discussed here as it comes up a lot in one form or another. My background has been about vibratory tuning as far back as the 70's work in the recording industry and continued into home audio and beyond. The audio signal is one that can be easily tuned, I doubt there is much room there for debate, but we will see, it's Audiogon after all. This being the case I have always concluded that the audio signal is vibratory so has anyone I have ever worked with. It's a common and sometimes even daily practice for someone here to make a vibratory adjustment changing the sound which is obvious to all.
On some of these forum threads however you will see posts saying to get rid of the vibration, without any explanation as to how to remove vibration without altering the audio signal. Every vibratory move I have ever seen done changes the performance of the sound. I've also been a part of the variables of the audio signal during play in real time. If the audio signal is not vibratory how does it change?
I invite you to discuss the vibratory structure and nature of the audio signal.
thanks, lets keep trolling to a minimum please
Yep, and the pair you’re listening to are from the same run as the ones I’m playing. They’re just now getting into that rich body sound. I went back in and listened to another pass of Tracy, pretty darn good! This next week or two is when the tone is going to really gel. The ones I’m playing now already take the Tonian, and that pair of Tonian are very nice, the best pair I’ve heard. I’m playing the Rev Combo though so that’s not fair. You wait a couple more weeks, going to be scary. Need to get you the SW15. MG |
Hi tjbhuler Good to see you having fun! Also good to see you on Agon. Hope it’s ok for me to share your TuneLand thread. http://tuneland.forumotion.com/t404-my-tunable-room-tjbhuler I think for a lot of listeners it helps following someone who has gone from the typical HEA system to a Tunable setup and seeing the path. As people are emailing me wanting to know more your presence on this forum will be helpful for those on the tuning journey themselves. I look forward to having some exchanges with you here! It would be great if the Tunees made this a hangout. MG |
| Post removed |
Oh wow 30th anniversary thats cool I didn't know that!!. Ever since I have been tuning with your PZC's and using the tunable room that you designed it has brought a new perspective to me towards this hobby and what the variable tuning design can do, it's powerful. Tuning a system base on vibrations or others may say in other ways makes a lot of sense to me. Am still burning in your Rev 6 Signature speaker hopefully it will be ready for a review soon :). |
michaelgreenaudio OP728 posts03-25-2019 2:02pm "Michael, and how exactly does that information help your argument?" Sometimes I copy and paste things directly from the text books so I can avoid any arguments like I did in this case. If someone wants to argue it’s not with me. I find physics to be pretty simple stuff, well documented and easy to demo. I see HEA many times trying to reinvent the wheel, but that just leads to heated discussions and I’d rather be listening to music. >>>>>Well, you started the thread. Define vibration. Define audio signal. Otherwise you’re the troll. And you’re the one who asked to keep trolling to a minimum, remember? Don’t be alarmed by the word argument. It’s not supposed to be a threatening word. Well, not usually, anyway. If you find physics to be pretty simple stuff then you are one of the very few. I think it was Feynman who said, if you think you understand electricity you probably don’t. |
"Michael, and how exactly does that information help your argument?" Sometimes I copy and paste things directly from the text books so I can avoid any arguments like I did in this case. If someone wants to argue it's not with me. I find physics to be pretty simple stuff, well documented and easy to demo. I see HEA many times trying to reinvent the wheel, but that just leads to heated discussions and I'd rather be listening to music. MG |
Michael, and how exactly does that information help your argument? You need to take it to the next level. It’s akin to claiming the sky is blue. It’s a truism. For those who aren’t convinced by or don’t care about the physics all you really need to do is try isolating something. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. |
Hi tjbhuler, good to see you and thank you! "Are they all talking the same thing as you have been for the past 3 decades when you say vibratory tuning ?" More or less, yes. Many of mine incorporate variable adjustments much like musical instruments use and not just placing around, but they would be in the same general family of products. My designing also covers a wider range of frequency response I believe. Meaning I start with lower tones and tune up. Plus I variably tune the entire audio chain. And yes this is RoomTune’s 30th Anniversary (can you believe it). I did tuning long before that but 1989 was when RoomTune hit the scene. MG |
This is a great thread Michael! I was always confuse when companies talked about resonance tuning. For example Shun Mook talks about sympathetic resonance tuning, Marigo simply says it as resonance tuning and Harmonix says it as controlling negative and positive side of the energy. Are they all talking the same thing as you have been for the past 3 decades when you say vibratory tuning ? For the past several years after reading your descriptions regarding variable tuning and vibration control I've tried out more and more of your ways and have found that using even a simple wooden chip placed under an equipment or PZCs on walls can seriously affect the sound. This is not something new but it takes my thoughts all the way towards how much can we tune in our preexisting system and how much of an improvement we can make by applying your methods. |
| Post removed |
Whoa! What! When did I break away from the four fundamental interactions? Them’s fighting words! I embrace the four fundamental interactions. Let me ask you a question or two. Which fundamental interaction is seismic vibration? How about acoustic wave vibration? What about vibration induced by CD vibration or vibration of the CD transport motor? Why are you ignoring those fundamental interactions? More to the point, why do you think the audio signal in wire is immune from those fundamental interactions? Why do you think you are not subject to the same laws of physics as everyone else? Next up, which fundamental interaction does the audio signal in wires and cable fall into? What about current? Also next up, can one fundamental interaction affect another fundamental interaction? Also next up, the difference in physics between a variable and a constant. |
Hi Geoff When you did your research on the 4 above you did not find any variables? I have yet to find any audio placements to not be consistent with the four fundamental interactions. I don't see any differing definitions within the physics teaching here. The laws of interaction seem to have always been pretty clear to me or anyone I have ever studied with. How did you break away from the four fundamental interactions? mg |
It all hinges on how one defines the word vibration. And on how one defines the audio signal. So, unless everyone agrees on terms, which I actually don’t see happening, it will always be a Tijuana stand-off. One way to figure out if vibration isolation is real is to isolate a component and see if it improves the sound. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist. 🚀 There are many inexpensive ways to isolate a CD player, preamp or amplifier. Here are a few. 1. 3 Super Balls (1”) in short glass candle holders with inside diameter 1 1/2” 2. Suspension using bungee cords 3. Compression springs of the correct stiffness and geometry 4. Very small bicycle inner tube, inflate to 15-30 psi depending on weight of component, not too stiff, not too floppy |
Geoff asked "Oscillation is not vibratory. Agree? Disagree?" The term vibration is precisely used to describe mechanical oscillation. That's a wiki quote. Yes oscillation is vibratory. Oscillation is another very cool word. Vibration, oscillation, cycles, field, harmonics, force, motion we have a lot of great words to use in audio. I know what you're saying though Geoff and have said about vibrations in the negative sense as a random disrupter and don't want to marginalize that thought, because vibration is also used as the word that causes distortions. I give the word more latitude as in being in or out of tune. If a vibration is in-tune it's a great thing but out of tune not so. And tune itself is interesting because something out of tune can still have harmonics (or partial) in action. I love the whole science of variables and how it works with the audio signal. mg |
| Post removed |
Exactly, Tonian is actually one of my reference speakers. In fact when Tony delivered mine I asked him if he minded me making it variable. The Rev6 Signature came out so I hadn’t the chance to explore this further. First thing Tony said to me when he came to my place was "you know I'm into tuning right" a great example thanks! |
Gentleman On these threads there are many debates about the making and use of tweaks, some of them get vary heated. I myself could careless about the heated debates here and who thinks who is right or wrong. I'm here for one purpose and one only. HEA has incompletely manufactured itself. Because of this tweaks came along as correction devices. There are many examples to go through and when the egos settle down and the marketing has run dry on the over built and incomplete designing the correct designing can be made. First we are going to have to find the correct platform to present these things and after that challenge is met the products of the audiophile will take on a new shape form and function. None of this is new it has just been kept from you as buyers. The internet plus the slow down of purchasing the overbuilt has made way for the next chapter. mg |
One of the best sounding speakers, if not the best, were my Tonians Labs TL-D1. They vibrated but quickly dissipated the sound much like an instrument would, adding to the tone and realism of the sound. You could even tune the sound by using different sized slats on the rear of the speaker. It was never completely enclosed. If one were to deaden the cabinet, it would have ruined the sound. Is that what's being discussed? All the best, Nonoise |
For myself it’s a no brainer as to what HEA folks want to call things and I don’t much get involved in the debating team. The signal is highly tunable and that’s the part I care about. Saying that, I’ve always studied in the area of the four fundamental forces (interactions) and don’t see many in this part of the industry talking much about this. The basics though are that these are the four interactions that all other interactions boil down to. All of these are forces and motion and all are a part of vibratory structures. Where the audiophile world wants to weigh in on this is really a variation on the variables. Glupson said "Sound is, in the simplest term, a vibration. No vibration, no sound." and this is the basic building block. No matter what audio science theory wants there are they must be a part of the fundamentals. Everything else is fun but many times speculation. What I have found to be true is, I feel, most important to audio here’s why. If the four fundamental forces ring true this means there is no such thing as absolute isolation, no such thing as absolute inert, no such thing as absolute measuring and no such thing as being void of motion. This turns many HEA beliefs on their heads and needs to. The ultimate technology to successful playback is going to be a variable. That means that at the end of the day there is one basic method for dictating how anything sounds if we are going to be in control "The Method of Tuning". This changes our industry paradigm. It changes the way we look at audio because being variable sets in motion a whole galaxy of old rules that we have over looked. I’ve attempted to present this many times to our hobby and each time there has been a certain amount of progress but in the end the money that ruled didn’t want to take the marketing wheel this direction. It didn’t change the truth but it effected the reality of the marketplace. Now that we have started to move beyond the paperback days and have gone through the internet cycle of trolling we can get down to business and give a righteous birth to our inevitable future "variable audio". We’ve always had it but got sidetracked by Plug & Play and the money game. Once our technical heads have a meeting of the minds Tunable Audio will become the norm and the (I don’t want to say next) industry will adapt a more physics based path. Not a what if path but a basic fundamental foundation. mg |
Everybody knows phono pickups (cartridges), loudspeakers, and microphones are considered transducers because they convert one form of energy to another; pickups from groove modulations to an electronic signal, loudspeakers form an electronic signal to acoustic sound waves, a microphone acoustic sound waves to an electronic signal. Once acoustic energy has been converted to an electronic signal, to what degree is that signal effected by vibrations? Power transformers create enough mechanical vibration that removing one from a high-gain component (an RIAA phono stage, for example) may provide a worthwhile improvement. Rich Schultz did just that in his modification of the Audible Illusions Modulus pre-amp. Will lifting the wires in a pre-amp off it’s chassis result in improved sound? Will doing so make a Modulus sound as good as an ARC Ref 5 or Atma-Sphere MP-3? Douglas’ main point above is very well taken; to focus on tweaking an inherently-flawed product instead of replacing it with a superior one is pretty silly; tweaking can do only so much. A power amp exhibiting poor linearity, stability when clipping, power supply ripple, etc., is not going to be transformed by any form of "tuning"; the amp is still going to exhibit those poor characteristics. Why put high-performance tires on a car with a poor suspension? The most serious vibrations created by a hi-fi system are those of the loudspeaker in the room (the two are inseparable). Room acoustics products convert sound waves to heat via friction, and are the most cost-effective means of improving the sound of any system. |
Imo the lack of any clear definition of the "vibration" makes the discussion only marginally useful. Specificity would force a discussion of methodology. A nebulous endorsement or resistance to "vibrations" I find not much more meaningful than marketing. i.e. "Want to banish harmful vibrations? Then you need our product!" :( Once again, imo, expending one's efforts at "vibration" control as opposed to focusing on the signal path and quality of equipment (i.e. synergy) to be majoring in the minors, and minoring in the majors. YMMV i.e. When a person elects to use a smallish box speaker and then tune the crap out of the room, the stand, etc. they have already forfeited any chance they had to approach SOTA by the methods used. They have chosen to employ their resources on what is a more negligible aspect of performance rather than vastly improve the overall performance by expending time/money on a far superior speaker, i.e. one that can reach lower in LF. This is not meant as a troll, but rather a perspective from someone who employ�s radically different means to approach superior sound. One thing is for sure; there are some vastly different perspectives and methods going in this hobby. You pick your authority, and you get your results! :) I am not interested in debating my perspective. |
Of course, the $64K question is whether the audio signal in electronics is vibratory. Everybody and his brother agrees the acoustic waves in the room produced by the speakers are vibratory. The reason that’s the $64K question for those who haven’t had their pick me up this afternoon, is because of the whole argument as to whether it’s better to let vibrations run free in the system or to isolate electronics from them. Talk amongst yourselves. Smoke if ya got em. |
Sound is, in the simplest term, a vibration. No vibration, no sound. It might have been inaccurately repeated to "get rid of vibration" and then also oversimplified during reading. Probably the actual "argument" is to leave the outside (not in an audio signal from the beginning) vibration out/suppressed so not to influence the sound in an, presumably, unsatisfactory way. Now, some may actually find fiddling with "outside" vibration and subsequent results to their liking while some may consider it an anathema. |
