Speaker design, KenjiT and others.

So what is this elusive experience that KenjiT claims may or may not exist?

Nobody knows what PERFECT sound can do to a human being. It may cause a heart attack or an extreme response. Nobody has heard PERFECT sound so it is impossible to say. 

PERFECT sound from a speaker has nothing to do with trying to recreate the sound we hear from a real life orchestra. Most music we listen to is done in the studio using instruments that dont exist in reality. There is NO REFERENCE POINT. 

PERFECT sound is therefore not only elusive but it is a MYSTERY. NOBODY has seen it or heard it and nobody knows what it can do.

Trying to solve this mystery has been the pursuit of many speaker tuners over the decades but nobody has cracked it yet, not even me. 

What I find a bit ironic in these discussions is that so much sound that we hear comes from speakers.

where is the irony? i dont see it.

I get it, and totally agree. The coolest live performance ever was the first minute of Holly Cole at the Showbox. Its a very small venue and she started off with I Am Calling You. Just Holly Cole. No mic. No amp. Just her voice. Now even in that small venue it would be too taxing on her to keep that up for a whole show. But oh my God was it freaking awesome! Friends we were with told me they never heard anything like it, their skin was tingling. Mine too. Tony Bennett did the same for one little bit of Tony Bennett Unplugged and you could tell by the audience reaction they went crazy.

I heard a real live symphony violinist play right in front of me in grade school. Spent 6 years playing live instruments in band. Knowing first hand what these things really sound like is a huge, huge advantage. I read somewhere that Tommy Dorsey (or maybe it was Duke Ellington, or Benny Goodman) performed before more people live than anyone ever. Yet the thing of it is, they did this back when it wasn’t tens of thousands in a stadium a couple times a year, it was hundreds in a club night after night every night for 20 or 30 years. Not a one of those people heard anything but the live acoustic instruments. Kinda have to wonder if we would have so much crap SS and digital today if people listened to real live music now as much as they did back then.

None of which is to say the goal is to recreate that live experience. That is like Mike Lavigne said recently a fantasy. What live experience? Virtually every single recording today was done in a sound booth. Are producers and recording engineers trying to recreate the sound booth experience? No way. They are painting with sound the way Picasso did with oils.

There’s no such thing as the perfect speaker because there’s no such thing as the perfect anything. All we can do is try and create a gallery all the art will look good in. The Rembrandt, the Picasso, who knows maybe even the Warhol and the occasional (shudder) Jackson Pollock.

Thank you Millercarbon. Yes every recording we have ever heard was first worked out in a studio by engineers and producers. These are what we are listening to. I agree that all non electric instruments fall into a category but many things such as room reflection and size play it’s part in how we ‘hear’ it. The kind of experience you described sounds truly memorable and almost like not even music. I highly recommend the book What is Music by David Byrne. It has some very interesting insights. 

What do you mean no perfect sound?
Is Kenjit getting dissed agin?

I can hardly believe that the almighty speaker tuner, Kay, has yet been able to crack the perfect speaker code.  With a record of 0-0, he will forever remain undefeated...