Why is science just a starting point and not an end point?

Ask yourself: When science has been corrected: how was it corrected?
That's right, by more science. It's a self-correcting method.


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Exactly. 
this is what is going on in the world of high fidelity speakers right now.
2 labs in germany wanted to know and discover, what was it that made the Field Coil speakers of the 1920's, made in Chicago Illinois  and Klangsfilm in Berlin/ so special in reproducing midrange/high fq's.
So they broke apart these drivers. Added in the experiements from Fostex, and Lowther and now have taken the old science and developed a  new speaker science.
Yet seems the audiophile community prefer to stay with the OLD-new science =
The xover science in speaker designs. 
We all fell for the marketing hype, ,, minus the horn crowd, they knew better. 
man I hope i never ever listen to a   speaker with a  xover in the 800hz=15khz range ever again.
I'm done with dome tweeters, ribbons, horns, ,,
Wide band for me is the   end of speaker technology. 
back to The Future, back to  1920's Chicago and Berlin. 

Look, I can see we have quite a few good thinkers, well rounded high intelligence participating on this topic.

But can we get back to some fundamentals concerning the main topic.
Audiophiles and who/why do they kid themselves in all their endeavous of tweaking, modding, upgrading,,,when the truth  of all their ventures at making a  better sound syatem,,, is not very well thought through. Let me try to clariy.

If you've followed my many posts past few weeks on the new wide  band speaker technology, You will know where I am comming from.

My ideas palce speakers at the pinnacle of our systems, Speakers are the heart and soul of the sound produced.

Amps/sources are only servants to the King (ie speakers) Nothing more.
In this sense.
Example
Gather together all of Jadis' top of line components.
Now voice this system through,,say any xover design speaker you wish.
Jadis will only sound as good , or as bad as the speaker voicing the music.

Thus
Folks spend who knows how much on high priced cables , interconnects, new expensive Mundorf Caps, all sorts of high priced tweaks/mods/upgrades.

Why? 
It will all be miniscule, yet the gains are real and this is why we make these tweaks.
(some are pure snakeoil, having not even a  miniscle gain in sonics))
Now what good was it to  go through all those tweaks/mods/upgardes,,when in fact these additives might just ~~NOt show up in the over all sound~~~
Why?
Ready?
Faulty speaker design. 
Yep, bass is ok, highs not bad. 
Midrange 1k-6khz's, here there may be serious issues, = distortion/coloration.
Thus rendering all our efforts and not to mention money,,all near futile

All because we did not approach this hobby from a  well thought out ((scientific  rationale)  game plan, Perhaps we left common sense out the equation.

Why? How could we?

Marketing propaganda goes a  longg way to fool us all, thus we kid ourselves  all along the speaker Merry Go Round path.

I made a few critical observations just after I spend $1200++ on upgarding my 20 yr old Seas Thor speakers,,
I figured if I upgraded the Hovland caps to all Mundorf high end (=$$$$ EACH!!!) caps, I'd  have a  **super high fidelity* speaker, Like WOWW, Totally  transformed into something super musical.
~~WRONG~~~~~
))-: (sad, angry, frustrated) Where did I go wrong.. Brand new Seas Millennium tweets as my tech geek  said , *time for new ones they are off .5 ohms from original* + wrong, sounded exactly like the old Millenniums. 
= $1500 upgardes all for nothing. 
Only the W18's now had more slam, = Big deal, My classical really does not require **slam bass*
,,Hummm, Lets see , where do i go from here,,Gotta think,,hummm, what about those starnge, oddities on Ebay called **Full Range***, hummm, let me order a  few different ones, see what gives**

Millennium on one channel, DavidLouis 4 inch Full Range (150hz-12khz) on the other,,, Flipedd the balanced several times, 
Well actually the 1st flip, was 
The Awakening
Scientific experiement complete
= The Full Range  was the answer all along to my problem.
Off went the new Millenniums, and now today, just placeda  order for the new high tech wide  band drivers.


Now all my new Takman REy resistrs, Mundorf  caps in the Defy7, Jadis DAC, jadis linestage, new high tech silver/copper wiring throughout entire system , new high tech JFET opamsp,,now with a  speaker that has the capability to detect and voice these miniscule upgrades,, will be cleanly, clearly heard in all their brilliance.


Conclusion: WE must  begin to approach this hobby  froma  more careful thought out understanding of how each component is making its contribution to the final sound.

Somehow amplifiers has been given some Kingship status, as if  one  KT88 design will be something ~~more ~~ or something ~~ less~~~ of another
fact is, in my experiement, a tube = a  tube, with only slight nuance /miniscle of differences.

Thus amps have to be lowered in importance of the scheme.
Again a  good tube cd player = a  Good tube DAC, minisclue differences.
And so on , so forth. 
I did not say **negligible** , **not noticable**  But so little nuance as to make  a  tube amp = a  tube amp.
Now if amplifiers and sources have been lowered to Servant status, 
Which component now will  step up to sit in the Royal Seat of Kingship?
That  privilidge belongs to only 1 component
The Speakers
And now which Design is most musical to become Most critical component.
Its up to each of us  as individuals to make this hopefully ~~well thought out~~~ choice,.
Either Xover traditional .low efficiency  design. (The design that pushed Field Coils under the bus) 
Or Wide band/high sensitivity designs. 


Most give these essentuial Q's no sense of importance. 
I never did, just went along with the flow.
I began thinking outside *the box* (pun intended)

For me, there only exists one design that can rightfully sit in the Critical component seat, That of Field Coil's reborn as new wide band speakers.

If  we accept the new sciences in every single area of our lives, cp's, computers etc, Why not accept the New Technology in our audio hobby?

These new speaker technology is here to stay, 
It will eventually over take xover design sales, but it will come very slow,  very cautiosly, 
As folks fear the odd, the strange, the not well understood, = **No xovers??* How?  What are these weird  things?? 
Folks incredulously ask themselves. 
Xover designs are the only thing they know.
Little do they know these high sensitivity speakers may just be the lucky ticket to the  end of their speaker journey,
They can now finally get off the Speaker-Merry-GO-Round.
 They now have super high fidelity in their system for the very 1st time. 

Let us deny the past progaganda of speaker ads, and fully embrace what may bring us  into the New 21st Century audio experience.
It already exists, 
Why wait any longer?

At least thats how i sum things up after 30+ years experience in this hobby.
I am awakened now.

I have read perhaps 30% of this thread, so excuse me if this post is redundant.  I would like to suggest that science clearly has an effect that is demonstrable in many ways.  However, the complexity that cannot be quantified and is one of the primary drivers of diverse opinions cannot be measured.

Each individual hears things differently due to having ears that have different abilities to process the signals being received.  This is then assimilated by the brain, a vastly complex organ whereby two people can listen to the same thing and react very different.y to the same input.  Implicit to the brains though created I. Response to the sound received are psychological components with regard to a variety of biases.

This might partially explain why some like horns, others enjoy planar speakers and yet others enjoy enclosed box speakers.  The same is true for all components and the complexities synergy among those components.

Science can create better and better resolution, yet what sounds “best” is beyond anyone’s ability to create an element that spunds “Best” to everyone.  Thus, we have the never ending arguments (to the joy of this forum) as to why their preference is better than yours.

Thanks for your wise common sensical post...
My best to you....

lhasaguy263 posts07-06-2021 7:51amI have read perhaps 30% of this thread, so excuse me if this post is redundant. I would like to suggest that science clearly has an effect that is demonstrable in many ways. However, the complexity that cannot be quantified and is one of the primary drivers of diverse opinions cannot be measured.

Each individual hears things differently due to having ears that have different abilities to process the signals being received. This is then assimilated by the brain, a vastly complex organ whereby two people can listen to the same thing and react very different.y to the same input. Implicit to the brains though created I. Response to the sound received are psychological components with regard to a variety of biases.

This might partially explain why some like horns, others enjoy planar speakers and yet others enjoy enclosed box speakers. The same is true for all components and the complexities synergy among those components.

Science can create better and better resolution, yet what sounds “best” is beyond anyone’s ability to create an element that spunds “Best” to everyone. Thus, we have the never ending arguments (to the joy of this forum) as to why their preference is better than yours.

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Aint buying any of your ideas.

This sounds so so cliche, Just a  sweet sounding  truism which many here might well believe. 
Only in Jungian psychology is The Individual is the most critical factor. 
In speaker fidelity, no such thing as each his own. 
This fallacy reduces true high fidelity down to   never becomming defined and understood as a  objective fact , which is opposed to subjective faulty, biased opinion.



Science might tell us all the specs in graphs, measurements, other baloney to lead us astray...
In the end only the astute, qualified, highly sensitive judgement can say how the speaker really truthfully sounds.
By what standard shall we use?
That of the 1920’s Field Coils
These designs set the standards, and so we employ wide band as the judge against which all other speakers are rated.
= Xover designs fail miserably due to IN-Efficiency.
By low sensitivity they are crippled from voicing true bonifide high fidelity.
There is no such thing as to ecah his own tastes.
Thats baloney
Obviously you , among most here on audiogon, have never in your life heard a true high sensitivity driver.

Measurments can not tell how how a speaker will sound, The only most important spec is the sensitivity rating.
This is the only spec that can give us some inkiling of a idea how the speaker responds to the source energy.

Low sensitivity = distortion,
High sensitivity = true high fidelity.

Wide band/High sensitivity is The Bench mark against which all other designs are judged.
These wide band/full range are the speakers which define what is and is not high fidelity.