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Interview with Greg Timbers (formerly of JBL) at DIYaudio Plus PART TWO added 6/22


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Interesting perspectives from a speaker engineer & designer who had an illustrious career at JBL. The interview is lengthy and not always crisp, but there are insights  about "horn sound", relations and interactions between dynamics, dispersion, and efficiency, and the difficulty of understanding what creates good imaging. 

 

-Enjoy

 

EDIT: There is now a Part TWO interview linked at the bottom of this post. As before the interview is lengthy and rambling, but educational. 

 

 

PART ONE:

 

 

Part TWO:

 

 

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Thanks, Tom. Agree with your assessment about "not always crisp". 

Erin mentioned it wasn't meant to be an "interview", but just a casual chat between enthusiasts. That being said - it does seem like a missed opportunity to discuss more technical concepts re speaker design from one of the best in the industry. I'm super impressed with Erin's guest list so far - I just wish the channel could expand to covering  more technical concepts. 

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On 5/22/2022 at 11:25 AM, PrestonTom said:

 

Interesting perspectives from a speaker engineer & designer who had an illustrious career at JBL. The interview is lengthy and not always crisp, but there are insights  about "horn sound", relations and interactions between dynamics, dispersion, and efficiency, and the difficulty of understanding what creates good imaging. 

 

 

Thanks for posting. 

 

I may have made the same gaffs, but I found the following funny being a JBL enthusiast. 

 

   Q.  Why did you make those speakers slanted, I have never seen this before. 

 

    A.  Baffle effects, etc..... The same design as the L250s.

 

   Q.  I never heard of those.

 

    A.  We started making them in 1980, made them for 20 years.  😄

 

 

The other gaff that was funny was, I have 2446 compression drivers, have you heard of them?

 

 

I would have liked to hear about the various speakers throughout his career.  Century 100s & various studio monitors, 250s, L7s, 5 series, Everest.

 

 

I was reading Greg Timbers posts recently regarding charged coupled crossovers.  He swears by them, recommending them for the 250s.  Pretty expensive to build as you have to use four times the capacitance. 

 

A sad story, I found a post by Timbers stating that Harmon just had security show up one morning and escort him out.  That is how his career was over.  The older I get and the more of the business world that I see the more disgusted I am. 

 

One thing that he stated, as an engineer, they expect you to go into management.  That is the exact reason I left the profession.  It seems that eventually I would not be designing anymore which was the reason that I went into the profession. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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20 hours ago, babadono said:

records (LP as in vinyl) are more dynamic than CDs....always?

doesn't that depend on the mixing and mastering...and the loudness wars...and the opinion of the artist and the producer ad naseum

If you go back and listen to those comments, I think he was being careful and listing what  things might create good dynamics and also painting with a broad brush. My take away was that a number of things can contribute and the complete picture is not yet understood. Think of "dynamics" in terms of his observation about hearing a live piano in a noisy background (the anecdote about shopping in the mall at Christmas time). 

 

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9 minutes ago, PrestonTom said:

Think of "dynamics" in terms of his observation about hearing a live piano in a noisy background

Yes I was with him about being able to tell if it was a real live piano or a recording from a sight unseen location but the jump to LPs sound more dynamic than CDs...

I'm not there. I know I'm preaching to the choir....CDs have the capability in DR to leave LPs in the dust but usually the artist/engineer/producer destroy those capabilities.

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14 minutes ago, babadono said:

Yes I was with him about being able to tell if it was a real live piano or a recording from a sight unseen location but the jump to LPs sound more dynamic than CDs...

I'm not there. I know I'm preaching to the choir....CDs have the capability in DR to leave LPs in the dust but usually the artist/engineer/producer destroy those capabilities.

You need to be carefully about distinguishing "dynamics" and "dynamic range". They are not the same thing. The former is partly subjective (and comprised of several different phenomena) and the latter is objective (physically measurable). 

 

So what are "dynamics" ? Difficult to describe .... but you know it when you hear it

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  • PrestonTom changed the title to Interview with Greg Timbers (formerly of JBL) at DIYaudio Plus PART TWO added 6/22
23 hours ago, PrestonTom said:

I added the second part of the interview. So I am bumping this thread so folks are aware of the additional content.

Enjoy

 

I started watching last night.  They need a much better interviewer. 

 

First question for Gregg Timbers, the designer of the L250, Everest and many others, 'how do I control the volume when I use my laptop?'

 

If you have bad questions, ask him about the speakers in the background.  How about the iconic L100 or Everest? 

 

Hopefully it gets better. 

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