At all other times they are miserable failures that make you wonder why you ever got into Hi Fi at all, and whether you will ever be happy again.
Best,
E
I use my sub in my HT system. I prefer 2-channel without a sub, but occasionally listen with the sub That being said, you should search for Dave Wilson's comments regarding why he uses subs with the $200K XLF speakers. I guess it makes you feel better to say something bad about my speakers. As a matter of fact, educate yourself on why many people use subs with their speakers. |
p59teitel, Bo isn’t the only one that’s arrogant on Audiogon. The epitome of arrogance is when someone makes statements about how somethings sounds, yet they’ve never heard it and many people on Audiogon do it all the time. Again, I don’t agree with Bo and how he approaches audio. Despite what Bo thinks, I can name several speakers that I would take over my PL500’s. |
"I’m not a client of bo1972’s, but I’m very satisfied with my Monitor Audio PL500’s." I’ve never heard your speakers, and I’m glad you like them. The issue isn’t the gear per se, it’s the pure arrogance in claiming that only the gear he prefers will give the best results - and even then it can only sound right if he sets it up according to some hidden process he only describes with a gobbledygook buzzword. |
Shadorne, My only point is you attack MA, because of your disagreement with Bo. Despite the fact that I love my speakers, I repeatedly say there are no absolutes in Audio. As a matter of fact I didn't like MA Platinum Series I. I think it's more productive to describe the differences between speakers using several recordings. I've had several speakers in my room during the past few years. The best way to discern differences is through listening, not based on design. It was relatively easy to hear the differences between the Aerials and Revel speakers I had. |
ct0517, My speakers are 5 ft from the front wall. As far as how deep the drummer appears when setup properly or close to the wall? I'm not Bo and really not interested in a conversation about that. They sound good to me and I enjoy listening to music more than ever before...that's more important to me. |
@ricred1 Your PL500 must sound fantastic. My comments above with regard to MA design are primarily directed at Bo who is a shill for MA on a thread about Wilson. The design choices or trade offs MA have made have clearly resulted in a world class speaker. I just deliberately disagree when Bo claims MA have discovered some new 3D paradigm in audio that totally trashes everything else. I just wanted to point out that Bo's 3D discovery while desirable, impressive and enjoyable - might not be what every audiophile or speaker designer is striving for. Simply put - there are tradeoffs in every design. Horses for Courses. There isn't one speaker that is totally perfect at everything but there probably is an ideal speaker for each audiophile - one that suits listening preferences, space and aesthetics... |
p59teitel, LOL :) ricred, I can confirm again that MA PLII series are some special speakers. Very nice sounding and the stage is very spatial. I have listened these many times with different amps and they are far from distorted sounding. Vast majority of other brands are just a bit boring and mid-fi sounding. No need to even a-b or some blind tests. JL makes one of the best subs available and for a reasonable price. I have F112 myself and must say that they have incredible customer service as-well. I must also thank Barry from Soundoctor. Very helpful and knowledgeable person. Barry has a guide with test CD on how to properly set up JL sub that I can recommend. It is very profound. Nothing that you will find on some webpage. Anyway you have extremely good speakers. Don`t worry what some measures or thinks. |
p59teitel, I'm not a client of bo1972's, but I'm very satisfied with my Monitor Audio PL500's. I think bo1972 goes about it the wrong way and talks about audio as absolutes as opposed to opinions/preferences. I've been in this hobby/obsession for 30 years. I don't know everything, but I think the room has a large impact on what speaker works best for your particular preferences. Although not "speakers", I recently traded subwoofers with my friend. I had a SVS SB16 Ultra and he had a JL Audio F110 v2. My room is larger than his and has acoustical treatment; however his room is completely open. In my room, no matter what I did the SB16 wasn't musical and had too much output. In his room , no matter what he did he felt the F110 v2 lacked output. Now both of us are happy! Different rooms, different results. I might add, different preferences. He prefers exaggerated bass, I prefer very tight musical bass. |
bo1972 2,243 posts Hmmm...2,243 posts so far in this never-ending misinfomercial, yet not a single testimonial from a satisfied client. Weird, huh? |
@erik_squires "your writing confuses beaming with lobing and compression" No it does not. I am just talking about trade-offs between several related factors. One way to solve compression problems from a driver with inadequate SPL or not enough linear dynamic range from the drive motor is to employ a larger diaphragm - this is why folded ribbons are larger than dome tweeters because they don't have as good linearity at higher SPL. The downside of a larger diaphragm is initially beaming (at lower frequencies) and eventually lobing at much higher frequencies. Beaming is related to lobing in that the initial beam is actually one lobe that is directly forward of the driver and this eventually becomes narrower and narrower as frequency increases. Also additional side lobes appear as frequency increases. This is all interrelated to the problem of using to large a transducer or diaphragm. |
I want to add: No one buys "accuracy." We buy music pleasure, or we should. Some car drivers like having a slippery rear end. It’s part of the fun. Many speakers in this day and age are like that. Life is short, and money limited. You should not go to your grave adhering to some intellectual principle that doesn’t serve your enjoyment of music and culture. I also discourage anyone from focusing on technology being superior. Be tweeters are a good example. My gods, there is a VERY broad range of quality and construction and cost and performance between all Be tweeters, and there are some very good dome and ring radiators which challenge all of them. Having a Be tweeter nor not should not be what motivates you. There is also the matter of ACTUAL listening styles. A lot of us buy speakers like we buy SUV’s. Preparing for the apocalypse, when we mostly drive to the store. Pay attention to your actual listening style and pick gear according to that. Do you listen on a throne? Do you work and move around? Are you on the phone? Do you do half movies/ half music? Concert levels, really? Best, E |
@ricred1 Eff no!! The last thing I would call them are accurate. Definitely preferred by some. High-end I would think are objectively close to very accurate include Crystal Cables, Monitor Audio, Gryphon, Magico. Whether they are preferred, that’s another thing entirely. I think if anything, you should look at some of the articles about how Wilson chooses his tweeters. He’s definitely going by subjective preference above all, which puts him in the category of "trendy" and in many ways, helping to set the Stereophile "house curve" to which other speaker makers sometimes gravitate to. E |
@erik_squires Sorry but you are misinformed - single drivers can and do beam and ALSO can have lobes - just not as common a problem as not many folks use 3 inch tweeters for 3.4KHz and above range! You are absolutely correct that lobing occurs more commonly with multiple drivers and panels. It is rarer in most modern speakers because designers do not often make mistakes like MA has done. I do not discount any of the designs such as AMT, Ribbons, horns or panels - all can sound great and have pros and cons. However, when an amateur tells everyone incessantly that he has the found the holy grail in speakers I feel compelled to point out the very obvious deficiencies and false 3D artifacts coming from said design. It is common audiofoolery to promote weird designs that sound different and have artifacts because they do sound impressive or very different - good if you like that kind of thing but NOT the holy grail in high end accuracy - in fact far from it!!!! |
@shadorne You say "problems’ as a speaker designer I say "possibilities." The directivity of an AMT is different than a dome or ring, but if you are going to attack it, you will attack all line or planar sources, including ESL speakers from Martin Logan or Sanders, Quad, blah blah. not to mention most horns as well. You are conflating compression with directivity and lobing. Three different things. Let’s get compression out of the way first. When you add X dB to the input but the output is not uniformly X dB louder. About the only reviews that have this routinely are the one’s from speakermeasurements.com So I stand by my original statement, the best AMT's can compete with the best of any other type of tweeters in terms of compression. Let’s discuss the rest. Lobing isn’t really caused by a single driver but how it interacts with another. It is caused by one driver interfering with another at different angles over the frequencies at which they are both working. This can be pretty complicated as the acoustic distances between 2 drivers varies in three-dimensional space. This is why lobing is a 3D problem, and why many manufacturers align their drivers in a vertical line, to minimize the complex and unpredictable (but not impossible to simulate) nature. A single driver can not lobe. Single driver and single panel ESL speakers are immune from this behavior but any 2 drivers can lobe, it is not an issue of planar vs. dome at all. It’s an issue of the acoustic centers not being aligned and crossover design choices. Any time you have 2 or more drivers which overlap in the frequency domain and are not coincident in 3D space lobing can occur. With a theoretically perfect crossover, lobing disappears, but no one has made this yet. Admittedly the Joseph Audio 100 dB/octave crossovers come close. Co-axials are another nearly perfect solution to this problem. Lobing is sometimes deliberately caused. For instance, the super-expensive, super-ugly B&O Beolab 90 takes advantage of this, and uses DSP to stagger the delays between similar drivers. Also a technique used in professional arrays. In the Beolab only dome’s and cones are used, but it’s been demonstrated many times they can "lobe" very well. So with that out of the way, neither very broad nor very narrow drivers are "best." Narrowing the angle of radiation can be VERY beneficial. Time domain problems, and therefore frequency response, at the listening location are greatly reduced by using larger diaphragms and have the perception of transparency and neutrality in spades. Anyone who has spent time listening to a good AMT or larger ribbon driver will attest to this. Sure, if you are designing a speaker that needs extremely broad radiation in the vertical and horizontal plane, a broad frequency, planar driver is not going to be for you. That’s a reasonable trade-off, but neither should be judged by the Audiophile Gods of All That is Good as an absolute measure of "better." Unfortunately, I find your prejudices unjustified. You should of course buy and live with whatever drivers you want to but AMTs in general deserve a better treatment than you are giving them. For the top end, I really encourage anyone who can listen to the Gryphons to spend some time with them and compare to some of the low-end "giant killers" being touted as superb. Best, E |
shadorne, Let's say everything you suggest is true about AMT folded ribbon drivers. I still prefer the MA PL500's over any Wilson speaker I've ever owned or heard. I've learned after making a generalization about Class "D" amplifiers that unless I've heard every component out there, it's hard and/or impossible to say how it sounds based on specifications or design. |
@erik_squires I am sure you are right that AMT can be built to avoid compression however doesn’t this result in a transducer that is too large a diaphragm for the frequencies they transmit? In short: Eliminate the compression means you begin to have directivity problems. Rule of thumb is that the diaphragm should be no bigger than 1/2 the wavelength or you start getting beaming at that frequency and for even higher frequencies (shorter wavelengths) you get off axis lobing. Lobong creates a spurious 3D effect where certain sounds come from the ceiling and some from the side walls depending on the frequency. An overly tall tweeter will have serious lobing in higher frequencies in the vertical axis but less so horizontally - it is the weird vertical response that gives spurious 3D effects while listening to music with a variety of frequencies - nothing to do with the source and everything to do with bad design and poor implementation. Technical details explaining why you get spurious 3D effects with this design: Please refer to the article and charts at this link http://www.acousticfrontiers.com/20131129controlled-directivity-speakers-open-up-your-acoustic-treat... The AMT folded ribbon driver in the PL 200 is 3 inches tall. At 6000 Hz it has a KA of 5 in the vertical and at 12000 Hz it has a KA of 10. These frequencies are within the important musical range. You can see on the polar plots how serious of a problem these speakers have in the vertical axis. |
My opinion isn't more valuable than anyone else, but I have owned both Wilson Audio(WA) and currently have Monitor Audio(MA) PL500 speakers. Although with different components, I've been able to compare WA Sophia 2's, 3's, and Sashas to MA PL500's in the same room, which to me is one of the more important factors that impacts the overall sound. I think BO and so many of you do a disservice to potential buyers of either speaker. In the final analysis let your own ears decide, but don't destroy the other product because you have a different preference. |
You know, sometimes I think that Bo1972 is AudioGon's version of Fabio...... Did I just say that ? ah, work with me on this. Well we now know, it is in fact - fact, as evidenced on this thread; that Bo is bigger in importance than the music room itself .... @ Bo1972 - I have a business suggestion forget Tru-fi .... Its boring sounding, and breaks no new ground. I have a better business name and slogan for you and your services. "Fabio Audio ... by Bobbio" "When we get finished with your room, no matter what gear you own, it will end up in a line-io" *************************** fun thread sorry to the Op for digressing. |
The immortal has spoken! So it is written, so let it be done! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4emcNAf5lY |
People need to learn not to focus on products and brands. Only when you focus on sound you will reach a superior level in quality. When you use audio by Tru-Fi even each Monitor Audio loudspeaker will sound totally different than the way the rest creates an audio system. That is why the focus of how you think about Monitor Audio does not make sense. Because you see it as a product or brand. Like you auditioned it by trial and error. The limitation is that all of you only will hear a small part of the whole quality it could create. Like I said before; it will be a demo what is still incomplete. This counts the same for other products. Tru-Fi will give access to all the properties a product owns. This makes a huge difference to all the trial and error ways of creating an audio system. For us Monitor Audio is only a small part of Tru-Fi. Tru-Fi is in charge how an audio set is being created. All products are only used based on the properties they own. Only the properties matter and this is what we use. That is why audio is all about sound and not about a brand or product. Products are of minor importancy in our world. This sounds crazy and difficult to understand for you. And we understand this. Tru-Fi is a different approach, but based on the human emotion so much more effective. Now it is time to reveal what Tru-Fi is and how it works. |
The difference where we are compared to the rest is galaxies away. 2017 will be the year we will share it, soon you will hear from it as I told before. You have no idea that Tru-Fi will be a benefit for you all overhere. After that you will understand the words I wrote. Now we see that people react based on the knowledge and insight they own. For us this is the past, like you go back 20 years in time. This is how we experience each single sustem over and over again. The people who create it still work on trial and error. We will proof on facts soon that this is extreemly ineffective. That it has nothing to do with personal taste. Now I write this, you still don’t understand. But I promiss soon you will understand and than it will change your mind and thought about audio. The audio industry slept for a long time, at that time I looked so much wider than any person ever did before. When I say; I have done thousands of tests, this is not a silly line what I write. No, it is the truth. For people overhere this is difficult to understand. When I say: this is a part of who I am as a person, it means that it has become my second nature. This makes me able to see 3-4 steps further in sound than any other person can. And I can proof this by sound. And I can do it over and over again. People still think audio is all about personal preference. We can proof by facts that their system is still incomplete and misses parts what influences our emotion. So when we create new parts of Tru-Fi ir sytem the level of emotion will become higher. Each single person will prefer this over the sound that had. Tru-Fi has nothing to do with personal taste. That would be even silly or stuppid. Each single person will prefer this, because it is based on the human emotion. People have no idea what the level of perfectionism I created. Because it improves faster than any one can imagine. I wanted audio to sound like voices and instruments sounds in real. This is not only the sound, but also how voices and instruments they are projected and being formed as a shape. It is based on patters in sound and in vision. I learned to take part all the different parts of a single tool in an audio system. This was needed to understand how it is build. I needed to understand the dna. Tru-Fi will help you to use the full potential of a loudspeaker. Now we see that most systems only use a small part of the full potential of a loudspeaker. And again we can proof this by facts. For me it is simple like 1 and 1 is 2. When you have no idea what the properties are of the speaker you bought, you will never be able to use them. It is that simple. This is what we show to our clienst. To make them aware of what is missing and also what is there. When i said; they have to pay for it, I meant I will not give it away for free. Because I will use the money for our foundation. This is my goal in life. To give peope who have nothing a better life. I created Tru-Fi to give as many people possible a much higher in sound realism. I love music since I was a child, and now I want more people to experience how music sounds in real. Fully free tangible in front of you with all the diversity the music owns. So you can really experience the emotion of the music. We all see that the world becomes harder each year. And people are more divided than ever. Life is not about what you take, but all about what you give. That is why a foundation is my goal in life. I had it in my mind for many years, but I didn’t know how to create it. But now I reached a level in insight that I understand how to create it. It is the same thing as I created Tru-Fi. It is all about becoming aware of why it is as it is. I will use the money we make for different projects for people who have no option to create a better life than they have now. Because they will never have an option to make it better. I do not do this to show how great I am, I want to show that how simple it is to help others who have nothing. It is not about me. I did not create Tru-Fi for myself, but I did it so people can experience a new level in sound realism. Music is all about emotion, this is what Tru-Fi gives to people. The emotion music possesses is what will touch you. Music makes people become more humane. It will bring the emotion inside you to come alive. I am sorry that my words offended others and I want to apologize to those who felt offended. It was never my intention, I wish a better sound for each single person. Like I wish a better quality for each single manufacturer who make audio products. That is why I want audio to become more transparent and honest for customers who buy it. I promiss soon you will understand what Tru-Fi will do with your system and the level you can reach in audio. See you all soon. |
@shadorne I take exception to your claims about AMT’s compressing. The real problem is, like many technologies, there are AMT’s and then there are AMT’s! Just like any speaker technology, no 1 aspect of a tweeter can tell you if it’s good or not. There are very very good Be tweeters but most are mediocre, as is the case for ANY other type of tweeter. I have measured AMT’s from a top-end manufacturer and they are among the very best drivers in the world, ESPECIALLY when it comes to compression and time domain problems. They are also very flat and well behaved electrically. Now, I am a fan of Monitor Audio for their engineering and price, but I have never heard or measured their latest. What I am most impressed with in the PL200 however is their step response. Absolutely outstanding for a non-time coincident 3-way. Also, Monitor Audio doesn’t play the same frequency games Wilson/B&W/Focal/GE do. No dip at 2.4k and they use a very smooth instead of ragged tweeter which is in vogue and touted by some reviewers as most revealing. Kill me, they sound horrid to me. Now, which of these should YOU buy?? I have no opinion, but I would not discount AMT’s at all. The very best AMT's hold their own against the very best of any other tweeter technology in time domain, frequency domain, distortion and lack of compression. Best, E |
Bo should meet Audiotroy who works for Audio Doctor from Jersey City NJ. I call that shop the king of audio hyperbole. Whatever they are selling at any time (and that changes like the wind) is the best ever based upon the best engineering and is, simply, well undeniably the best there is at 3x, 5x or whatever the cost. Audiotroy pollutes threads with claims of superior knowledge and superior experience and then spouts pure unadulterated salesmanship. Audiotroy is pushing the new Paradigm speakers which I have heard and are worthy of some praise. Bo does the same thing as he relentlessly pushes Monitor speakers which I can also attest are excellent speakers for the $ throughout the line. Bo is the king of a kind of vague, meandering, audio verbosity. BUT...... Many of us have auditioned many speakers with many combinations of electronics before making our choice. Many of us have selected speakers which we believe (as do many others) are superior to Paradigm's or Monitor's latest. So----Wouldn't it be great if Audiogon limited Audiotroy's and Bo's membership to a special thread in which only they could participate. There they would be condemned forever to speak and sell only to each other. It would be sad and hilarious. But at least we would be entertained by them instead of bothered by them. I used to engage in threads with many of the members who are here for the right reasons---to share their joy, love and experience in this wonderful hobby which revolves around the love of music and how we hear it. But lately, I've come to feel like a bit of a hall monitor calling out the bad guys because I am so sick of blatantly close minded members who claim to have superior knowledge and spend their time lecturing others as to why their favorite brands are scientifically and factually superior to any other. They are not engineers and indeed often simply repeat the promotional highlights that are available to us on their brand's website. I hold in especially low regard audio salesmen who do this as they do not belong here. Can I get a witness? |
Thank you timrhu and czarivey for the visual aids, it helps my comprehension immensely. I thought I was ok until clearthink brought up "the world of music reproduction systems is shifting from one of widdley-tiddley voodoo to TruFi, which is recognized by all who hear it." Unfortunately, I have spent years tuning my modest system to produce the most accurate widdley-tiddley voodoo possible. And now I ask, what next! |
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After reading a couple pages of Bo's ranting it's time for this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWjIZLO-PwE |
We are all deeply thankful to Bo for his continuous enlightenment!Yo! Problem with Bo is, he keeps praising himself or his system about "this and that". The forum would like to "see" and "hear" some of what he talks about. It is easy for Bo to look at our system, and judge it. If his system is really so great, he should post it here or provide link on the site where he has posted it. Come on Bo, be a man. It's alright if your system is different that what us mortals have. How do you expect people to believe you, if you just say you are great, your system is great, your devices are great, etc? You either prove it or stop your self advertisement. |
Again,with the kind permission of Bo, the group and the moderators kindly please allow me to expand a bit on TruFi, what it means for the world of music reproduction systems and how it will change the industry. Kindly please remember that I am not not a spokesman for TruFi. I am a client of Bo's and it has been proven to me and it has been proven to everyone that the world of music reproduction systems is shifting from one of widdley-tiddley voodoo to TruFi, which is recognized by all who hear it. Bo does shootouts. Using properties identified under TruFi and measurement techniques, Bo can demonstrate a diversity in sound that no one else can deliver. He can do this because he alone has developed TruFi, the only means so far developed to allow music reproduction systems to show the true diversity of sound that only TruFi can deliver, so far. Until now music reproduction systems have been built using information from paid for advertising and "reviews" and trial and error approach. This is why all music reproduction systems other than TruFi are 1D or 2D while TruFi systems are 3D. This has been proven many many times, so there's no need to debate that here. As I said earlier but some seem to have not understood Bo is an innovator, trailblazer, and a visionary. As such of course he is a threat to the current establishment of hi-fi and music reproduction systems. These people need to defend their businesses and hi-fi religion so they do that here! Some have accused Bo of using this group for advertising but the opposite is the truth. It is Bo's attackers who use this group to promote their own self interests above those of the true lover of music, which is all about emotion, and the music reproduction systems we use to reproduce it. TruFi works with properties and develops diversity no other music reproduction systems can. This has been proven many times and is a fact. It is also a fact as Bo has so clearly stated that this is not an opinion but a FACT that TruFi can do this. I will not call the Audio Research Reference 5SE garbage but it is close. For much less money you can have TruFi and for the same money you can have a music reproduction system that will make the ARC sound like a cheap Chinese slave-built toy. But you cannot just buy this equipment as Bo has stated because it is only with TruFi that this level of performance can be obtained. There is only one source of Tru-Fi and that is Bo. In the future you will read what you have written here and be embarrassed that you were all so ignorant of the potential of TruFi. This is the burden that visionaries, innovators and trailblazers must endure. So it was with Edison and Tesla and the Wright Brothers. Of course it is easy to criticize! Man will never fly! We will never have electric light! We cannot have Tru 3D sound! Do you see? You are all like a box of rocks serving as obstacles to the growth of TruFi, the only method for music reproduction systems to deliver TRUE 3D sound. I again thank Bo, the group and the moderators for allowing me to elucidate on the true nature of TruFi. if we were lying about TruFi or using the group for advertising surely the moderators would not allow it! Please kindly consider that as you post the anger driven attacks against Bo in this group. Perhaps the moderators know a thing or two that the rest of you do not, other than Bo. |
plutos102 posts01-19-2017 2:03pmBo, Meybe he's jut a photograph? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ3oeboZ7ts |
@shadorne In a A-B shootout the Pl-200 II outperformed the Sasha. This is how audio is being exposed. When people read the things they do not want to hear or read they directly go on an attack. That is fine with me. Audio is being fought out by sound. The best one always wins. I do this since I was 6. I had the freedom to test hundreds of amps, sources, cables and many tools in audio for almost 19 years of time. I sold many brands you own so we know exactley the DNA and quality of them. The level in accuracy how we work is new in this world. It proves a new and superior level. We will proof it by sound, than you can respond :) |
Your all are such gentlemen/women, I have a whole different attitude towards anyone whose main message is that what you own is crap, whether it is or not. Having to believe that one's own opinion and material things are superior than everyone else's is a symptom. But he will keep on saying it, over and over. Bo, stay on Europe's A'gon. |