Eye Opening Experience

[ODS123]

3 hours ago, garyrc said:

@Tarheel TJ, did your friend play it loud?  I'm wondering about the dynamics of a speaker with sensitivity of 88, and power handling of 350 watts.  In a 4,500 cu.ft. room at about 13 feet, to produce the 115 dB PWK thought should be available for extremely brief "blood stirring" peaks, we would need about 1,700 watts -- for just that moment  --  and about 350 watts, the upper limit, for 109 dB broad peaks like those found in Fanfare for the Common Man, or The Great Gate of Kiev, or the finale of a Beethoven or Mahler symphony.  For a Klipschorn, the two figures would be about 120 watts for the momentary 115 dB peak, and about 30 watts for the 109 dB broad peaks. 

 

Very interesting point. ..I think you've explained why I had to eventually sell my vandersteen 3A sigs. Like the Martens Coltrane 3, they were a 1st Order Crossover design.  .For modest listening levels they were wonderful. ..But not so when I wanted to crank them up;  their max clean output was quickly and unenthusiastically reached..  Despite being impressively large and heavy they were not terribly dynamic.

 

Again...  I think it would be illuminating if we adopted an approach to listening to systems - at least upon first listen -  from behind a visually concealing though sonically transparent screen.  ..And told nothing of the systems cost, speaker size/design, etc.  Too often, I think we're influenced by all the sexy cosmetics, including huge (and several) speaker cones, sculpted faceplates with heavy milled volume knobs, garden hose sized speaker cables, glowing tubes, etc.. Makes you wonder why, if it's audibly better, do these companies dedicate so much expense to all the gaudy visual elements.

[DizRotus]

IMO, there is no such thing as an acoustically transparent screen.  Any screen that can visually hide components will affect the sound quality, but blindfolds, or total darkness, can work when trying to avoid bias.

[Tarheel TJ]

11 hours ago, thebes said:

Sounds like a fun day.  I'm gonna commit a heresy (yuck, yuck) here but LaScala is not my idea of a great speaker. Sorry, but upgrade to Khorns, Jubes, or even downgrade to Cornwalls and you will do better.

 

 

 

My current speakers are not anything like stock La Scalas.  They are more like a Jub-scala than anything else, and with a very powerful horn-loaded sub to boot.  Stock Khorns or Cornwalls would be a downgrade for me.  I have never heard full Jubilees so I can't comment.  I have no doubt they are lovely.

 

I considered the expectation bias thing, but I don't really think that came into play here.  If anything, I was not expecting his setup to be so good.  It is true, his room was setup well and included room treatments etc, but so is mine.  I have heard my system (maybe $5-6k invested) best $30k+ systems before.  Furthermore, his system was built around ideas that I don't normally associate with great performance (lower efficiency, high amplifier power, expensive cables and boutique electronics).  Thus, you can imagine my surprise when it performed so fantastically well.

 

He did play it loud, surprisingly so in fact.  It held up well.  Bass was strong and punchy, and it never got distorted or congested sounding in the least.  Very dynamic.  It may not be able to hit live rock concert levels like a good pair of horns can, but it got plenty loud enough, and sounded good doing it.

 

I really think his very high end sources had a lot to do with it, and those are things that could easily benefit my own system as well.  After all, I am running a sub-$1k turntable with a ~$50 cartridge on it.  Not really fair to compare to his setup, which costs as much as a nice compact car.  Same for the tape setup, I have a basic 7" reel Teac, playing pre-recorded 7.5ips tapes.  He was running a $10k Otari with $450 tape reels turning at 15ips.  I'm really bringing a knife to a gun fight in this area.

[Deang]

Big ribbons and Open Baffles do sound great - no doubt about it. 

[tube fanatic]

It is not necessary to spend a huge amount to achieve the described experience with the $200k system.    Here's a discussion about Cardas' method which I posted a couple of years ago:

 

https://community.klipsch.com/index.php?/topic/162062-near-field-listening-using-the-cardas-method-with-low-power/

 

Have no doubt- this method works exceedingly well (as does extreme near-field listening with desk top systems).

 

I also agree with the view that seeing what one is listening to, as well as knowing its cost, can totally influence a person's perception.  In the above thread you will note that I blind-folded the guy down the road so he would not have a clue about what he was listening to.  I've used that trusty device for decades and it unquestionably forces a listener to focus on what is being heard without the influence of visual cues.

 

 

Maynard

 

 

[Shakeydeal]

I know this won't be well received by many (most?) in this forum. But when one spends that kind of coin on a system, the icing on the cake is ancillaries like cables, interconnects etc. The more resolving the system, and by your account this one was VERY resolving, the more impact these things make. I would never spend 20K on cables. But if my total system price was 200K, you can bet your *** I wouldn't be using zip cord and the interconnects thrown in the box with a VCR.

 

Shakey

[parlophone1]

I tend not to stick to stereotypes. 

Very recently I was at the presentation of Danley products.

It was held at empty facility that was built to host smaller rock bands, maybe for 500-1000 people. Round layout with convex ceiling, completely made in concrete with no acoustic treatment.

We spent more than an hour listening all genres of music at SPL 80-110dB (there was SPL meter on the control console). Various synergy speakers with several subs, amplified with Danley amps of course.

Quality of reproduction was Ok until about 90dB, anything beyond that level was not pleasant the ears and turning into loud noise. I am sure that with proper room treatment, or even better in open space, the speakers would behave better.

[ClaudeJ1]

6 hours ago, Deang said:

Big ribbons and Open Baffles do sound great - no doubt about it. 

Yep, that's why I own 2 pairs of Carver Amazings (just sold a third pair and took Cornwalls in trade form a good friend).

[garyrc]

7 hours ago, parlophone1 said:

I tend not to stick to stereotypes. 

Very recently I was at the presentation of Danley products.

It was held at empty facility that was built to host smaller rock bands, maybe for 500-1000 people. Round layout with convex ceiling, completely made in concrete with no acoustic treatment.

We spent more than an hour listening all genres of music at SPL 80-110dB (there was SPL meter on the control console). Various synergy speakers with several subs, amplified with Danley amps of course.

Quality of reproduction was Ok until about 90dB, anything beyond that level was not pleasant the ears and turning into loud noise. I am sure that with proper room treatment, or even better in open space, the speakers would behave better.

 

That must have annoyed any Danley reps who might have been present.  It's amazing how many mixers don't seem to be aware of when the sound is distorted.  An example: my wife and daughter are quite used to loud sound in our music room/ home theater (on the average, we play movies at 5 dB below Reference Level).  So, they went to the Pantages theater in Hollywood to see The Book of Mormon.  They said it was excruciatingly  loud and distorted.  For them to react that way, it must have been horrible.

 

With a good classical, jazz, or movie recording, broad peaks of 110 dB sound fine on my equipment (see signature).  With bad recordings, forget it.  A fair number of rock, metal, etc. recordings don't sound good at that SPL with my rig.  The Dark Side of the Moon in surround sound (SACD) is great.  But, hey, the original recording was made in 1972-1973, back when they more or less knew what they were doing.  Chris-A has created several threads on this forum in which he describes current practice of many in the recording industry (a tendency to boost upper midrange, and attenuate deep bass) which make the recordings done in this way unsuitable, (unless they are "demastered" by the user) especially for playback at high SPL, IMO. 

[ODS123]

11 minutes ago, garyrc said:

 

It's amazing how many mixers don't seem to be aware of when the sound is distorted.  An example: my wife and daughter are quite used to loud sound in our music room/ home theater.  They went to the Pantages theater in Hollywood to see The Book of Mormon.  They said it was excruciatingly  loud and distorted.  For them to react that way, it must have been horrible.

 

 

That must have been so aggravating for them.  ..And a shame too b/c B of M is awesome and they udoubtedly paid a lot for the tix.  Thankfully my last three live shows - Hamilton in NYC, and Lucinda Williams and Richard Thompson in Philly were perfect.  ..Loud enough to be exciting but well short of causing my ears to clip.

[thebes]

11 hours ago, Tarheel TJ said:

 

My current speakers are not anything like stock La Scalas.  They are more like a Jub-scala than anything else, and with a very powerful horn-loaded sub to boot.  Stock Khorns or Cornwalls would be a downgrade for me.  I have never heard full Jubilees so I can't comment.  I have no doubt they are lovely.

 

I considered the expectation bias thing, but I don't really think that came into play here.  If anything, I was not expecting his setup to be so good.  It is true, his room was setup well and included room treatments etc, but so is mine.  I have heard my system (maybe $5-6k invested) best $30k+ systems before.  Furthermore, his system was built around ideas that I don't normally associate with great performance (lower efficiency, high amplifier power, expensive cables and boutique electronics).  Thus, you can imagine my surprise when it performed so fantastically well.

 

He did play it loud, surprisingly so in fact.  It held up well.  Bass was strong and punchy, and it never got distorted or congested sounding in the least.  Very dynamic.  It may not be able to hit live rock concert levels like a good pair of horns can, but it got plenty loud enough, and sounded good doing it.

 

I really think his very high end sources had a lot to do with it, and those are things that could easily benefit my own system as well.  After all, I am running a sub-$1k turntable with a ~$50 cartridge on it.  Not really fair to compare to his setup, which costs as much as a nice compact car.  Same for the tape setup, I have a basic 7" reel Teac, playing pre-recorded 7.5ips tapes.  He was running a $10k Otari with $450 tape reels turning at 15ips.  I'm really bringing a knife to a gun fight in this area.

Great of you to take the time to offer further details onwhy you liekd his sytem so much.

 

Now I know you are a primarily a RTR guy, but we have to do something about that $50 cart.  In about three or four weeks I should be able to fix you up with something better, gratis of course.

[Tarheel TJ]

Thank you for your kind offer.  A front-end upgrade is definitely on the menu for me, haha.  I could definitely stand some improvement in that arena.

[Chris A]

I think one of the areas that a lot of people don't really look at is the measured performance of their turntable, cartridge, stylus, and a typical phonograph record.  Phonograph test discs are available widely but to date, I've seen no one actually post the results of a measurement (which is also the way to insure that the stylus and arm/cartridge alignment is actually aligned). 

 

Here is a measurement of a Empire 398 turntable with 980 arm and Stanton 681 EEE Mk III cartridge, aligned to minimize distortion.  This is a dual-tone 60 Hz and 4 kHz track measurement normalized to a silent track measurement.  Pay close attention to the side bands that are produced, and both the close and wide spacing of those sidebands in frequency.  This is a major reason why records always sound much more opaque or woolly sounding (i.e., the "mud factor" as PWK termed it) than digital recordings--which have no modulation or harmonic distortion and therefore have much cleaner sound.  This is a significant part of the cleaner, more detailed sound that you were referring to. 

 

 

Chris

[Tarheel TJ]

Interesting stuff Chris.  I love seeing measurements like this!

 

That reminds me of another interesting point.  Having just stepped into R2R playback this year, I was particularly excited to sample his Tape Project reel.  The sound was superb, no doubt (was a Nat King Cole tape).  However, I think I came away more impressed with his vinyl rig.  To me, it sounded just a little bit better even than the tape did.  I was always under the impression that high speed tape was the best analog format available.  While this may indeed be true, I was surprised that the vinyl was able to keep up (maybe even beat it).  Glad to know it, as there is a much greater selection of music on LP than there ever was on R2R.

[Chris A]

2 hours ago, Tarheel TJ said:

To me, it sounded just a little bit better even than the tape did.  I was always under the impression that high speed tape was the best analog format available.

My experience with prerecorded RTR tapes is that they weren't always of the highest quality--especially the 3 3/4 ips versions which were always substandard to good phonograph records, IME.  The 7 1/2 ips prerecorded versions were much better--but not uniformly.  The 15 and 30 ips studio master tapes are almost always superb especially if played back on the same RTR machine model as the tape was originally recorded on.

 

I think a lot of people aren't paying much attention to the harmonic and modulation distortion figures for cartridges (which I've actually not seen posted before).  In my experience and because the magnitude of the distortions are really significant in the medium, modulation (also called "intermodulation") and harmonic distortion specifications are the most important ones to pay attention to--after frequency response. Vinyl does well if the instrumentation of the recording doesn't reveal modulation distortion issues, but I've found string orchestras and solo instruments, especially clarinet, organ, and piano usually are the Achilles heel of the phonograph format. [The next time you go to audition a phonograph setup--now you know what kind of recordings to take with you.]

 

Chris

[YK Thom]

Sounds like you heard one of those systems one reads about in Stereophile magazine. I have yet to hear one. One of these days I’ll run into one. When you get used to one type or brand of speaker it is easy to forget there are others, many of which are better.

Best sounding system I have heard up here was that of a mutual colleague who had a pair of top of the line Proac speakers with a Primaluna tube amp. Can’t remember what he was using for a CD player but it handled SACDs. I have never heard Dianna Krall sound so absolutely lifelike. A fantastic system he said he had about 50k (Canadian), into.

[MEH Synergy]

Anyone that wants to hear exactly what this sounds like, contact Acoustic Image in CA.  Never heard another system like it.   May never again.   To this day I still reminisce.   This man knows his stuff. Elliot Midwood 

[thebes]

11 hours ago, Chris A said:

I think one of the areas that a lot of people don't really look at is the measured performance of their turntable, cartridge, stylus, and a typical phonograph record.  Phonograph test discs are available widely but to date, I've seen no one actually post the results of a measurement (which is also the way to insure that the stylus and arm/cartridge alignment is actually aligned). 

 

Here is a measurement of a Empire 398 turntable with 980 arm and Stanton 681 EEE Mk III cartridge, aligned to minimize distortion.  This is a dual-tone 60 Hz and 4 kHz track measurement normalized to a silent track measurement.  Pay close attention to the side bands that are produced, and both the close and wide spacing of those sidebands in frequency.  This is a major reason why records always sound much more opaque or woolly sounding (i.e., the "mud factor" as PWK termed it) than digital recordings--which have no modulation or harmonic distortion and therefore have much cleaner sound.  This is a significant part of the cleaner, more detailed sound that you were referring to. 

 

 

Chris

I've always wondered where you guys get all those squiggly charts from and how you do it and what it all means. I've got about a dozen testing records, some of which call for things like Oscilloscopes,. Now I have one of those, but none of the instructions on the records tell me how to hook it up, actually run the tests, and what exactly the results should be.  Written by nerds for nerds, before they called them that. If someone wants to walk me through it sometime this Winter, I'd be happy to do it and post the results.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea that there are engineers and scientists out there thinking about this stuff and developing it, and refining the science. For us non-scientific types we mostly go with what the scientific types like, cause we think we know what they are talking about.  Or somebody we trust says try this. Or we use that large empty space between our ears as an echo chamber for what our ears are telling us.

 

But.

 

But what brought me to Klipsch for example was my ears during playback in a store. KG's versus Mirage if I recall. I've since heard

literally dozens and dozens of systems, and components in various setting, not to mention a lifetime of listening live.  All that has helped up the ladder but if won the lottery tomorrow, I'd make refinements, maybe even very expensive ones, but I'd know where I'm heading , and I wouldn't end up all that far from where I am, dare I say it, Right This Minute.

 

Certainly I can concur that when you are gauging a system, it's the reproduction of the individual instruments that provide guidance to whether your are hearing audio nirvosa or Billy Joel's "Best of Barry Manilow" album featuring Mitch Miller. To me its the trumpet. I was awful at it, but I learned the hard way just how good and magical it could sound, and like a piano,  or drums, or a violin, a great gauge of what's going on distortion-wise.

 

In the end, its about perception, energy and feeling, not measurements.  Certainly our fellow fine gentleman from the great State of Tarheel was there with his ears and not a host of measuring instruments.  Now like many southern rubes he was being conned by the sheer volume of Yankee dollars and Yankees fast talk, but I expect that the next time he turns on his own system, he will let out a long drawn out sigh of appreciation for what he has.

 

This sigh will not be rendered in zeros and ones, but in pure analogue.

 

 

 

[Chris A]

15 hours ago, thebes said:

In the end, its about perception, energy and feeling, not measurements.

Note that my posting that you quoted above was actually composed to the OP's comments so that he might see more clearly the physical reasons why he heard the differences that he did between the two systems.  I actually wasn't addressing you in my posting--rather the OP.  Apparently this wasn't clear in my response.  My apologies.  I'll try to be more specific next time. 

 

Having said that...

 

Marty, I'm not sure what's really motivating your response above. After rereading your entry to few times, I'm reasonably sure what's actually bothering you is not really in the words that you wrote. 

 

The argument quoted just above is quite familiar--and frankly overused in that it is always used to justify almost anything that anyone wants to make.  That argument is always used to justify the implied one says that "I don't want to use more information to understand the situation and make a better informed decision", because of some perceived threat. I suppose that threat might be may be "I don't want to take measurements, because I might change my mind..."  is the vaccime.  This is, of course, just a guess.

 

The information that I provided above to the OP has the added benefit of potentially saving a casual audiophile perhaps many thousands of dollars on devices of  type that cost the makers mere pennies on the dollar to produce (...like Bose for instance). 

 

Chris

[Marvel]

When I had my 2A3 amps worked on last year, I was in for a treat when I picked them up. The repair shop is in the same building as the Western Electric Co. here in Rossville. I had already had the opportunity to listen to their prototype 300B amp powering some  smaller Gauder Acoustik speakers. The source was a WE CDP (not yet released either). The sound was very good, but we were in a room with stacks of gear and not a treated room.

 

When I picked up my amps, the tech had them hooked up with the same CD player source, but they were powering some huge Gauder Accoustik towers that run about $160k. To me, my LS sounded every bit as good, but then that is part of the advantage of fully horn loaded speakers. The Gauders had no horns or compression drivers at all.

 

The tech also was blown away by my Welborne Labs 2A3 amps, which he said were really close to what the new WE 300B amps could do. He didn't work for WE, just rents space there. He likes the new WE equipment, but never hypes them up like you would think he might.

 

As Thebes said above, when your own system gets turned on, you appreciate what you have.

 

Bruce

 

EDIT: added link to the Gauders...

https://www.gauderakustik.com/index.php/en/loudspeaker/berlina-en/berlina-rc-12-en