pauln

Moer info would be helpful, but there is a procedure for chasing down these kinds of problems, especially when the problem is not obvious or experience dosn't indicate what to search for right off the bat. If you have a couple of tools and a notebook to keep track of it all you can do this: Reverse the cables so the left and right channels go to the right and left speakers (trade channels) and see if the problem moves from one side to the other. If it does, it may be the upstream gear, not the speakers. If the problem stays with the same speaker after trading channels, trade crossovers between the speakers and see if the problem moves to the other speaker. If so, it may be the crossover network is the problem. If not, keep going and trade the woofers, check for problem movement to the other speaker. Trade the mid horn, then the tweeter... basically, start big and work your way through down to the smaller parts swapping them back and forth to isolate the problem. When you find that the problem reliably moves to wherever you place a particular component, that will be the component you want to look at as a possible problem. If the problem might be in your electronics gear, depending on what you have, you can use the sme kind of process of trading signal paths back and forth to isolate some poblems there, too. Just work methodically and keep a notebook listing all the changes you make (so you can put them back) and record the results carefully along the way. You will learn quite a bit about your system, have some fun, and may discover the problem. Let me add that if you are very carefull in how you keep a record of the connections and tests, you may not really have to remove the crossovers or the drivers themselves, just use long wires to make the changes to the connections. If you are totally unfamiliar with electronics you might want to get a knowledgable friend to help out with the wiring changes as it can get a little complicated...

You might try experimenting with a pair of wool* socks variably placed in or about the tweeters... [] Then take a reading when it sounds right to measure that level, do some math, and estimate the circuit that will yield that relative level without the socks. * For best results try to find Scottish undyed socks knit from free range highland yearling lambs shorn in mid summer.

The article states but does not explain why horns would tend to frequency modulation distortion and direct radiators to amplitude modulation distortion. Searching the web shows little about it. I did find: "The distortion due to amplitude modulation is caused by the dependence of the radiation efficiency of the high frequency driver on the displacement of the diaphragm of the low frequency driver. The distortion due to frequency modulation seems to be produced when the high frequency sound has a non-zero particle velocity in the axis direction at the surface of the low frequency driver's diaphragm." If both frequencies are in the same driver I think I understand a little bit why AMD might be more in the DR, but I don't see at all why FMD would be more in the horn - seems like it would be less because of less excursion. Non zero particle velocity on axis in front of the driver just means Doppler shifts due to the superimposed driver movements of the two frequencies. Why would this be less in a DR that has a greater excursion? Or did the article just mean that DRs have a lot of AMD and some FMD and horns just have a little FMD?

LOL, me too! I've been listening to the White Album a lot lately... I mean a real lot! I am part of an organization of Houston musicians performing the White Album in concert at Rockefeller's in Houston in mid November to benefit the Texas Childrens Hospital. Over fourty very fine musicians are involved including horn and string sections. I have the honor of being the lead guitarist; I've always loved the music and look forward to putting on quite a show. We are competing against a Madonna concert the same evening, but I feel we will attract a different crowd, hope some of you in the area may chose to attend. http://www.lovestreetlightcircus.org/Events/White-Album

Is it an unfair generalization to suggest that those who "listen to the gear" tend more to hear music as sound, and those that "listen to the music" tend more to hear sound as music? It is a subtle distinction, but I see it all around. My gear is modest, but the music is awesome. I notice that a lot of musicians (me included) seem to "hear into the music" more than their gear should actually be able to objectively produce. This just makes it even more difficult to know what is really going on...

Nice deal on the Heresys! I bought a pair in 1975 that served me well for 30 years until I got La Scalas. During a good portion of that time I drove the Heresys with a Carver M500t power amp (250W/ch) and they sounded great, 99% of the time the meters stayed below 3 watts but you could tell there were plenty of additional watts ready behind that. As far as impedance matching goes, it is really not too critical until you are transfering a great deal of power. The efficiency of the Heresys with a strong amp means you won't ever really be putting much power to them so you may just try a few different settings to find how they sound best. The Heresy I's are nominally rated at 8 ohms, but their lowest impedance is really about 10 ohms around the 150Hz range. This means they are an easy load for the amp to drive, and you may find that driving them off the 4 ohm taps gives them a bit more "body" in the low end, and a slightly "darker" voice overall compared to the 8 ohm tap - really depends on the particular amp, so try both, you will hurt your ears long before you hurt the speakers or the amp. As they are 25 years old, you might consider refreshing the crossover networks - it can make a big difference to the clarity of the sound. Look around the forum for information about that and the folks here that rebuild old ones and build new ones.

You are spending the evening listening to music and after a couple of albums you find you are approaching "peak buzz"; this is the point where you know that you are most receptive to enjoying listening and you want to maximize the joy by playing that very special album that always offers the ultimate in listening enjoyment. Yes, you have a few that do it for you among the ones in your collection, but there is a special album that holds the first rank among the very best. It the one that has never failed to be everything you expect, the one you have listened to for years and never gets old, the one that always blows you completely away with bliss and rapture, the one you reserve for "peak buzz". I know each of you have such an album that defines your personal idea of the best of the best. What is that album for you? Mine has been Steve Hillage "Fish Rising" since 1975. The first time I heard it I had the scary feeling of certainty that this might be the best thing I had or would ever hear. That has been true for over 30 years. I dearly love many of my albums, but this particular one holds a special place that has yet to be surpassed. So, what's yours?

Don't get too excited and assume the tide has turned... this is a temporary artifact of China's leaders' direct manipulations to clear up air pollution during the lead up to the olympics. Because of politically damaging air pollution, China's leaders basically ordered a massive shut down of industry about a month ago to clean up the air and ordered more than a million cars and trucks off the roads around the olympic site more recently toward the same end. The benefit to their air may or may not be happening in time for the spectacle, but the incidental benefit to the dollar and oil price is huge. Once the spectacle is over these smokey factories and cars will be released back into service, return to their polluting and oil consuming ways, and resume their previous course of global financial impact.

As numbers go, one trillion is not so big. There are about 10^60 protons in the known universe, about 10^123 different combinations of human DNA..

That's one of the real neat things about geneology, you find past relatives (like the past relatives found even more past relatives) from the past that have already done some of the work, and if you are lucky they keep popping up way back over and over. Sometimes a modern day searcher will strike the right vein and find documented trails going back many hundreds of years.

Best wishes, Carl. I support the Texas Children's Hospital through one of my charitable projects, Love Street Light Circus, recently created to promote volunteerism among Houston’s musicians in support of children’s causes. Its inaugural event will have over 40 of Houston’s top musicians performing the Beatles’ White Album in it's wonderful entirety live on stage at Rockefeller Hall on November 16, 2008. I'm honored to have been asked to perform, TCH does great work.

Tips for meeting your future self

If "An unfunded liability is one that is not covered by an asset of equal or greater value" then 55.5 trillion of the 60 trillion world product (about 92.5% of all the "money" in the world) qualifies as unfunded liability.

Wouldn't it be $10,000 per person using your figures? OK, well I guess that global money redistribution plan goes back to the drawing board; I feel like I just lost $9,990,000[]

The world gross product (all the "money" in the world including investments) is about 60 trillion dollars. There are 6 billion people in the world (I'm using whole numbers), If it was all distributed evenly that would be 10 million dollars for each person on Earth. Does this make you question the value of money? Constitutional US money is only made of silver or gold. Those Federal Reserve notes represent debts, as do the accounts on the US and world governments' books. Debts are not money, but they are transfered throughout the US and world economy as if they were; but only real money (silver and gold) can relieve a debt. Why do you think the central banks of the world hold gold instead of "money"? When it becomes necessary to unwind debts (like now) where fiat currencies fail or even just severely devalue (like this Fall), the value of gold rises, a lot. The amount of "debt created money" exceeds the amount of true gold at today's price by a factor of over 12000. If the 60 trillion of "money" was fully backed by gold there would need to be 66 billion oz of gold in the world, but there are only 5 billion oz of gold in the world, not even enough for each person to have just one oz., more like about .83 oz each.

Interesting thinking from Jim Kunstler... "One consequence is that other nations sitting on our exported dollars (from our massive trade deficit) have apparently decided to spend off those dollars rather than wait for the fullblown financial collapse of the nation issuing them. My guess is that they are spending those dollars on oil, the primary resource of industrial economies, and that they are prepared to outbid other contestants (including the USA) no matter what -- because they know the dollar is losing value, and that those losses are apt to accelerate over time, and what else would they spend them on? I suspect this is behind the rising price of oil more than anything else -- certainly more than the phantom "speculators" the right wing is yelling about -- and that behind the spending off of those exported dollars are the geological facts of oil being a finite resource inequitably distributed around the world." From here

I just checked the countdown clock and realized I had misread the days for hours... duh The Earth is safe for at least another 31 days...

Would this be a good deal at $40K+? Let's find out... I already have a nice VW that gets 44mpg on the highway. For 11K miles a year that's 250 gallons, so at $4/gallon that's $1000/year. The new VW at 235mpg for 11K miles per year would be about 47 gallons, at $4/gallon that's $188/year. So I would svae $812/year, and the breakeven point would be $40k/(1000-188)= 49 years?!! Not for me...

The Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to activate in one day and 12 hours, see countdown clock here. The scientists have acknowledged that there remains a very, very, very, very small probability that the microscopic black holes created in the collider may accidently consume the entire earth... they are not supposed to exist long enough to cause any trouble, but if a couple of them combine the evaporation rate may not be fast enough to overcome the subsequent accumulation rate, in which case the resultant little black hole will get larger as it consumes the machine, the scientists, then the facility, the region, the continent, and eventually the whole Earth. Or more likely, not...?

The next bubble? It's got to be the "reverse" of some current behavior. Reverse Auto Industry Opportunities: Wrecker trucks and repo companies. Companies that specialize in SUV conversions (into small homes). Companies that take car titles as collateral for a loan. Reverse Real Estate Opportunities: Storage facilities for folks needing to store their stuff when losing their homes. Yard care companies maintaining abandoned homes whose community associations require pretty yards. Specialty sign companies that make placards for pre-forclosure, auction, govt. owned, FSBO, and resale of homes. Reverse Financial Opportunities: How to get out of the unwinding markets. How to recover your hosed credit rating.

I'm imagining someone hooking up their pot plants to play music, putting on Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf", and cranking up the volume until the "speakers" start smoking...

Please keep in mind that the fundamental advantage of solar power is defeated when you see ideas that look like turning the state of AZ into one big solar collection site. The distribution logistics eat up the cost structure and you just end up with another "utility". The beauty of solar is that it is already freely distributed. It will be unlike the development of the telephone - being the first home in town to have a telephone didn't make much sense; it is only after a large portion of everyone had one that it's function took hold - because it's functionality depended on pre-existing infrastructure and distribution. Being the first in town to go local personal solar works from the get go on day one... no need to wait or depend on the development of an infrastructure to support the distribution aspects of it. The very ideal best methodology is to build and maintain it yourself from materials at hand. The indicator that personal local solar power generation is here for good will be when commercial electrical appliances switch to be run on DC. "Current" local solar power still needs to be converted to AC (at a loss) to drive current products, even though these products immediately convert internally to DC (at another loss) to operate most functions. AC only serves the distribution of electricity. Some local personal solar enthusiats already convert their appliances to DC to allow direct operation without conversion. Of course industry and government may step in to cause trouble - I read that in Australia the water utility has made it illegal in some places to collect rain water rather than pay for the utility supplied water.

Here is an IT perspective of the DJIA... The green line represents the slow steady growth of business productivity from office machines and the developement of mainframe computers. The red line shows the impact of the introduction of the personal computer in 1982. The purple line shows the impact of the internet and commercial web browsers. Seems that the internet bubble was unsustainable and unrealistic. I think the DJIA is headed for a more natural level of 8000. Please return your trays and seats to their upright position...

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I could definitely listen to just J. S. Bach records for the rest of my life, always been my true favorite.