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BS Button List of worthy Myths


ClaudeJ1

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6 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

Yes, a mono switch is handy, and I have to laugh when I hear the first stereo Beatles recordings, which were better in mono.

 

Also, on the issue of woofer break-in, which it thing it's a 98% myth because I've not measured anything that drifted from specifications more than a few percent and is mostly BS as a result.

 

Quote from Bill Fitzmaurice, designer of the Tuba HT folded horn Sub woofers: "It can be measured. Fs, Qms and Vas will change, due to the softening of the suspension via flexing. It changes the most with woofers, since they have the most excursion, the least with tweeters as they have very little excursion."

 

To this I would add that it does NOT take 50 hours for things to "loosen up a bit" either. One day should do it, and it's still not that AUDIBLE.

Don’t agree…..

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1 hour ago, Khornukopia said:

 

A few percent improvement in performance is usually classified as success in most technical and athletic aspects of our lives, and the reason many people establish goals and try harder to achieve them.

 

A few percent increase in taxes would be considered a significant burden to most taxpayers. 

 

So, if a new loudspeaker might sound 2% better after xx hours of use, what is so difficult with accepting that as a distinct probability?

 

 

Agree

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On 5/22/2022 at 2:50 PM, ODS123 said:

Like some early Beatles songs where all the voices come from one channel, and the instruments from the other. I'd much rather hear those songs in mono.  

All they had was 2 track master with voices on one tack and instruments on the other. So along comes the big push to release it in "stereo"...and you guessed it..... 1 track from the master went on the left the other on the right. And yea it sounds hokie, better in mono. I usually pan the 2 to try and make a listenable facsimile of a stereo image.

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1 hour ago, Khornukopia said:

 

A few percent improvement in performance is usually classified as success in most technical and athletic aspects of our lives, and the reason many people establish goals and try harder to achieve them.

 

A few percent increase in taxes would be considered a significant burden to most taxpayers. 

 

So, if a new loudspeaker might sound 2% better after xx hours of use, what is so difficult with accepting that as a distinct probability?

 

 

Claude said  "I've not measured anything that drifted from specifications more than a few percent", not "sound 2% better".  

 

The "Myth" that is being called out isn't that there MAY be a tiny, minuscule change in measurements, it's the notion that speakers will go from sounding "meh" right out of the box to "Wow!!" after 10, 20, 200 hours of use (..or "break-in" if you must).  

 

If this were true, Klipsch would surely find a way to add break-in to the mfg process so that every speaker left the factory sounding "Wow!" 

 

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Just now, ODS123 said:

The "Myth" that is being called out isn't that there MAY be a tiny, minuscule change in measurements, it's the notion that speakers will go from sounding "meh" right out of the box to "Wow!!" after 10, 20, 200 hours of use (..or "break-in" if you must). 

 

 

You beat me to it. We've gone from changes that are "significant" (the best word that I can think of to summarize the various claims about the sonic changes) to "a few percent". So which is it?

 

In my experience, woofers do break-in, and the effect is measurable. Whether it's audible is in the ears of the beholder.

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1 minute ago, Edgar said:

 

You beat me to it. We've gone from changes that are "significant" (the best word that I can think of to summarize the various claims about the sonic changes) to "a few percent". So which is it?

 

In my experience, woofers do break-in, and the effect is measurable. Whether it's audible is in the ears of the beholder.

And so do compression drivers…..and at least to me….it’s significant. 

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6 minutes ago, Edgar said:

But does it take 200 hours at close to full power to happen?

Whether it takes 20 minutes or 200 hours, they break in. I will tell you that I don’t have 200 hours to waste. We apply voltage to get the drivers to 80%of their excursion level. Woofers for 30 minutes at 20 Hz free air.  And compressions drivers at 100 Hz for 30 minutes, no horn load. We check to make sure that they have achieved natural state by letting them cool down and doing a freq and impedance. And you would surprise when they line up almost on top of each other. And when a driver doesn’t, then something else is wrong…….there. I said it. 

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23 hours ago, ODS123 said:

Wasn’t  there an article years ago about world-class violinists not really being able to reliably hear a difference between a Stradivarius and cheap knockoff?

 

No. This is where a lot of people get confused about blind testing (double or not) - what is the test/experiment designed to do. 

 

The violinists could consistently hear a difference, they were asked to give a preference. They were not cheep knock off's to the extent that term suggests the comparison was with mass produced violins from China. The "modern" violins were the best of the best "modern" violins that run from $20,000 to over $100,000. They frequently use the same wood, from Europe, (spruce and maple) that Strad. and family used. I suppose a $75,000 modern violin might be considered a "cheap knockoff" compared to a $15M Strad, but they used top level modern violins. 

 

There have been a number of "tests," using the old Italian instruments (not just Strads). Some of the tests focus on whether the player hears, and some tests have been on what the listener/audience hears. Many have been blind tests, meaning the subject, whether it be the player, or the audience, had no idea what instrument they were playing, or what instrument they were hearing. 

 

The tests with the violin players were never about being able to tell a difference. Of course they could tell a difference, even I can tell a difference (and so can probably 90% of the people here can here as well). The tests of the players was about them picking a preference between violin 1 and 2. They were given 10 pairs to compare.  

 

"The consistency of results from session to session showed that soloists could definitely distinguish one violin from another. However, the soloists seemed to prefer the new violins, the researchers report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In their lists of favorites, new violins outnumber old ones roughly 3-to-2, and the most popular violin by far was a new one, denoted N5. Musicians rated qualities of new instruments higher, too. And when it came to telling old violins from new, the soloists did no better than if they had simply guessed.

 

Here is the NPR article about the test where you can hear a Strad vs. a modern violin, see if you can hear a difference, and see which one you prefer. 

 

"OK, here's a test. Clip one is a musical phrase from Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major. Clip two is the same phrase. The same musician plays both. But one is on a Stradivarius violin, the other on a violin made in 1980. See if you can tell the difference."

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/144482863/double-blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad

 

[I could easily tell a difference. I don't play any instrument, have zero musical ability, can't carry a tune, and am not a classical music/violin aficionado. My preference was the Strad., I wasn't trying to pick the older one, just the one I thought sounded better.]

 

Here is a full discussion from one of the people tested, and all of the limits that were placed on the Strads. The violinists were asked to state a preference. Which violin they preferred. It wasn't really "double blind" in the sense that the people administering the test knew which was which, but in a test like this it doesn't matter much if it is double blind or not, as long as you put protocols in place that eliminate any possibility that the researcher (test giver) doesn't give off any clues. The results of the testing got mis-reported in the headlines that top violinists couldn't tell the difference . They could tell the difference, and there preference tended to be modern. 

 

https://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20121/13039/

 

Since those tests they think they have some identified some things that make modern violins the preference of players. It has something to do with the volume of the sound in the players ear being at a reasonable level, while the sound of the instrument projects out to the audience. Whereas the old Italian violins are louder in the player's ear. So in that sense, the modern ones are more "efficient" maybe?

 

As far as listening tests from people in the audience, there is an article from Science magazine about two tests of people in the audience listing a preference between three pairs of violins, each pair having an old Italian the other a modern violin. The first test in Paris they were asked which violin "projects" better without giving a definition of "project." The second test in NYC they were asked which violin they preferred.

 

"The team then performed a similar test in New York City without the orchestra and with a different set of Strads and new violins. Again, the 82 listeners in the test reported that the new violins projected better. This time, Fritz and colleagues asked subjects which of the two violins in a pairing they preferred. Listeners chose the new violins over the old, they reported yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The New York City study also showed that listeners' preferences correlated with their assessment of projection, suggesting the loudness of an instrument may be a primary factor in the quality of its sound." (Emphsis added)

 

They didn't match each pair for loudness. We already know which speakers people will say they prefer if they are not level matched for loudness, they, on average, will go for the louder one. It would be extremely difficult and time consuming to "level match" violins in a live setting, but it can be done - you measure the average sound level at the listener position of each violin you want to test, you place the performer's chair on the "louder" violin further back until it is as close as you can get them. 

 

So 10 solo violinists were tested, 6 prefer modern, 4 prefer the old Italian multi-million dollar ones. 

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7 minutes ago, Chief bonehead said:

And compressions drivers at 100 Hz for 30 minutes, no horn load.

 

That is torture for a compression driver! Do you also get a lot of infant mortality with this test?

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8 minutes ago, Chief bonehead said:

Whether it takes 20 minutes or 200 hours, they break in. I will tell you that I don’t have 200 hours to waste. We apply voltage to get the drivers to 80%of their excursion level. Woofers for 30 minutes at 20 Hz free air.  And compressions drivers at 100 Hz for 30 minutes. We check to make sure that they have achieved natural state by letting them cool down and doing a freq and impedance. And you would surprise when they line up almost on top of each other. And when a driver doesn’t, then something else is wrong…….there. I said it. 

Send them to me (in their enclosures) I will listen to them for 200 hours, and send them back. 

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7 minutes ago, Chief bonehead said:

 Not if they are designed correctly. If we do…..back to the design drawing board. 

I get the impression that modern compression drivers are designed (at least in part) for much greater power handling and excursion than vintage compression drivers (such as my Altec 288). Do you find that to be the case? If so, what compromises were made in the process?

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41 minutes ago, Chief bonehead said:

Whether it takes 20 minutes or 200 hours, they break in. I will tell you that I don’t have 200 hours to waste.

 

Ok... but you're being vague - saying 20 min to 200 hours is quite a spread.  So let's cut to the chase.  ..In your opinion, do Klipsch speakers speaker sound different after, say, 20 hours and then 40 hours??

 

After unboxing my CWIII's and giving a quick listen to make sure both were functioning, I played music through just one speaker for the night and late into the next morning (>12hrs).  The next day I played a mono song and switched back and forth b/w the two using the balance control. ...Neither I nor ANYONE in my family could hear one IOTA of difference b/w the two speakers.  ..They sounded identical. 

 

I find it remarkable that we treat this question about Break-in as though it's some sort of an unknowable.  ..I suggested to others that they do as I did w/ my CWIII's with their next speaker purchase and literally NO ONE else has done this.  I think people don't really want their self-annointed golden-ear qualifications debunked. 

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8 minutes ago, ODS123 said:

After unboxing my CWIII's and giving a quick listen to make sure both were functioning, I played music through just one speaker for the night and late into the next morning (>12hrs).  The next day I played a mono song and switched back and forth b/w the two using the balance control. ...Neither I nor ANYONE in my family could hear one IOTA of difference b/w the two speakers.  ..They sounded identical. 

 

It would not surprise me if sample-to-sample production tolerance differences between drivers had more effect than break-in. For the record, that's just conjecture on my part.

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47 minutes ago, Travis In Austin said:

No. This is where a lot of people get confused about blind testing (double or not) - what is the test/experiment designed to do. 

 

Wow! An awesome post Travis.  Thanks.  ..Points well taken.

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