Oltos,
Compression drivers already have phase plugs. Their efficiency is much higher than the woofers, so quite a bit of attenuation is used in the crossover. By applying less attenuation to the highest frequencies, flat response is achieved well into the top octave.
You wrote:
> But might AMTs’ off-axis HF response be extended without penalty via EQ software while
> playing digital source material?
It is not possible. You can only change the overall output at the desired frequency; the off-axis drop in response will always be in the same proportion. Increasing the output will of course provide more off-axis energy, but with an unwanted excess of on-axis energy.
Gary Dahl
Compression drivers already have phase plugs. Their efficiency is much higher than the woofers, so quite a bit of attenuation is used in the crossover. By applying less attenuation to the highest frequencies, flat response is achieved well into the top octave.
You wrote:
> But might AMTs’ off-axis HF response be extended without penalty via EQ software while
> playing digital source material?
It is not possible. You can only change the overall output at the desired frequency; the off-axis drop in response will always be in the same proportion. Increasing the output will of course provide more off-axis energy, but with an unwanted excess of on-axis energy.
Gary Dahl
Some essays by James Boyk that Oltos (and others) might find interesting:
Collected writings are here.
The Ear of the Beholder
Dynamic Inflection and the Beauty of Live Music
From a seminar presented at the University of California in San Diego on April 8, 2004:
Capturing Music: The Impossible Task
It concludes with these paragraphs:
Collected writings are here.
The Ear of the Beholder
Dynamic Inflection and the Beauty of Live Music
From a seminar presented at the University of California in San Diego on April 8, 2004:
Capturing Music: The Impossible Task
It concludes with these paragraphs:
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What is great is that while the human condition fundamentally remains the same, the science does massively move on. I glanced through this one article, and feel it could have been written more concisely, but it is also belongs to yesterday. No reflection or criticism of the posting. It
was surely time for a post like this.
The great future is always there, to move us from one status of understanding in this applied engineering to new unforseen engineering possibilities. Also, that is why none of our stuff is really an investment as such.
Joy for the day, in our listening experience is usually surely what matters to most.
Micro correlations of serotonin secretions in the brain that correlate with our musical experience, even down to the valve selections in the chain of reproduction, picking from the myriad of detail.
On another blog - the multistacking of DAC boards to get nirvana. Just talking about stacking 16 DAC boards can bring on serotonin, (unless you have a headache). And it may just give some small parametric shift that is irrelevant.
The focus is surely still Lecleach (RIP), CD mid, 15" woofer. Is it that simple?
Let me share here.Lynn Olson; said:
I'm an ardent music lover since my teens (now 72 year old).
Living on a very modest monthly salary for most of my life, all those years I had a very modest and basic stereo setup. Few years ago, some money came by, so with all of it I upgraded my stereo setup, which I was very satisfied with… for a while…
I have a subscription to the Israeli philharmonic Orchestra. 2 years ago they renovated their Tel Aviv Auditorium. Now the acoustics of the hall is fantastic, many miles ahead of any other music hall I've ever heard. The gap between how I hear on live concerts and how I hear at home is so big, that in recent months I stopped listening to music at home completely. I cannot bear the pale imitation of the real thing being reproduced in my living room.
Admittedly, my stereo setup is very far away from being a really good one. It's based on low efficiency speakers (Bosendorfer/Brodmann VC-2) and transistor power amp (Pass Labs XA30.5).
I never heard a system based on high efficiency speakers and DHT power amp. I believe it would sound much better in reproducing classical music. However I don't have the money for any major upgrades/changes to my setup.
So I'm being satisfied with listening to live concerts.
Recording quality can still be a problem. Listen to live broad casts if you want live quality. Only live broadcasts can get the feel of being there.
Make a Troels Gravesens TQWT or get someone to make it for you.
Thanks.
No, it isn't the recording quality, I have on both vinyl and CDs the best recordings; live broadcast doesn't change the main picture.
No, it isn't the recording quality, I have on both vinyl and CDs the best recordings; live broadcast doesn't change the main picture.
About how much is it, excluding the cabinets?
Hi Joshua
It tends to be the limitation of recording quality, when the reproduction sytem is state of the DIY art. You can hear what you want and artifices or degraded tone you dont want. The best vinyl I can play, but the worst is far from enjoyable for me.
I would have thought the Nelson Pass amp would be good enough, with a better set of speakers, like the TQWT, and they look WAF or partner neutral or whatever.
The TQWT as a kit of parts from Jensen Audio without cabs is circa 700EU. It is tried and tested HES, and would work with low wattage DHT amp or your Nelson Pass amp. The amp could probably be tweeked anyway.
Do you also find the gap between live concerts and reproduced music unbearable?
Did you manage to recreate the auditory impression of listening to live music?
My speakers are the most neutral commercial speakers I ever heard. They reproduce acoustic musical instruments and unamplified human voices better than any other commercial speakers I ever heard.
What they don't do (and no stereo setup I heard so far do) is to reproduce the auditory impression of listening to live music, in a music hall with superb acoustics.
What makes you think that the TQWT will reproduce classical music in a way that is drastically different from my present speakers?
That's affordable however I'm not going to invest my last remaining money on something I cannot hear prior to purchasing.
I learned the hard way not to purchase anything without hearing it first.
Anyhow, thanks for your good will.
Listening to live radio concerts as they take place can be very close, with considerable emotional realism at representative sound levels. For me it is generally better than any studio recording. There is no absolutely hard and fast rule. I cannot listen to poor recordings, unless thay are a real classics or historical performance of merit. To lift the last vestage of wanted reproduction then is satisfying. Callas, Caruso, Elgar, Earl Garner, Amadeus String Quartet , Alfred Cortot, Even Gone with the Wind, or West Side Story - Bernstein conducting
Gary Dahls aim as a conductor, seems to me is foremost, to achieve a front seat listening experience. So are we all perhaps. It really remains that nothing ventured is nothing gained, so we all have to work at it -from the system source right through to the reproduction. Hard work is still in the end, the only way, and one pays the price, but you persevere.
The guy with his 16 stacked DACs is almost certainly feeling he will be getting a more joined up jitter free digital output nearer to analogue. More able to repeat the realism he wants.
Boldname,
I think we can do a fairly good job if not an excellent job at reproducing a recorded piece of music. Where I think we have problems is in the ambiance, getting the actual size of the original venue correct. This would either require an extreme level of acoustic treatment of a room or an exceptional recording that can actually capture that sound field. Otherwise i think we can get fairly close to getting things to the point that we can imagine we are in the original space.
I think we can do a fairly good job if not an excellent job at reproducing a recorded piece of music. Where I think we have problems is in the ambiance, getting the actual size of the original venue correct. This would either require an extreme level of acoustic treatment of a room or an exceptional recording that can actually capture that sound field. Otherwise i think we can get fairly close to getting things to the point that we can imagine we are in the original space.
Possibly different people evaluate realism differently.
Also, I wasn't aware of the huge gap in realism until the recent level of the concert hall's acoustics.
I'm not looking to recreate front row experience, I don't like sitting on the front row in concerts. I'd suffice with 30% of the experience in the 10th or 20th row in the present concert hall.
However without actually hearing it, it's impossible to get what I'm talking about.
It wasn't like this on the same concert hall prior to the recent renovations and it isn't like this in any other concert hall in my country. I attend various concerts halls frequently.
Different acoustics of different concert halls create different listening experiences, when at times those differences can be huge.
So you also have an Troel's TQWT?
I can confirm one thing: these speakers sounded good for classic, the best I've ever had.
But my feeling about music played at home is in line with what Joshua_G said, and I also agree with the late Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg when he said that generally we have 90% of TMD (total music distortion) in our homes. I contend that we have is a 95-99% loss of raw content in relation to reality, even in direct studio or with multi-$$ systems.
In addition to classic music, another example of recordings that reveal how far we are from reality is capturing sounds of nature. All I have listened have gross colorings, lose the delicate echoes / reverberations that occur in the treble-band end, or simply the sound seem like it was played with limited bandwidth like AM radio (for such small signals even the today-practical 24 bits recordings have serios compromises)... animals, breaking branches and other things have a wealth/reality of treble band that no record came close, in my opinion.
A Brazilian audiophile, the Holbein Menezes, quips the recordings as "sound in preserves/conserve/pickle" ... I agree; home sound reproduction is "sour/gross" in comparision to the real thing.
This lack of resolution in delicate passages forces me to increase the volume to compensate for this lack, being unnatural the result. I also realized that certain musical instruments have a real SPL level relatively low, but to look more "real" in electronic systems I have to use a volume level that makes me fight with the neighbors ...
I've heard several multi-millionaires sound equipment with different technologies, but always without being convinced to be listening to something real. And one time I listened an full-range driver making an splendid drum solo, really better/more real than most correct systems... Maybe the recording in question was very closed-in and the full-range eccentries make the day...
So I do not usually question the full-ranges fans and other "oddities" (like SE amps, I have one), because since even the most correct system I have heard is pale compared to reality ... so bring FUN! The art of audio reprodution is a lie (music not exist), so we use all weapon disponible.Also, most recordings have far more audible THD than some SE amps...
I still have another defect: the more refined is my system, the less I get rested...
Yet I have to say: at least someone on this planet should follow the development of the audio, so maybe this points into something really splendid ...
Well, it is my 2 Real cents (less than 2 Dollar cents) on the issue ... and back to issue...
Getting the impression of the actual size is one difficulty (or impossibility) to recreate faithfully.
However the hall's size issue was there before I got so frustrated with my stereo setup. With the new concert hall's acoustics, much more is lacking. If I could find words to describe what's lacking, it will be a long tale.
So, in your view, those speakers wouldn't be my salvation?
Indeed, this is also my experience.
Yes Joshua_G, this TQWT is in an excellent level of refinement, better than most things I have heard, but it's still ... speakers, and is subject to all applicable rules. So I fear that TQWT not be the answer, nor any that I have heard. Maybe some "beyond the Ariel", who knows?
Still, for me it was an excellent choice for now, since much more expensive boxes in this concept do not do much better than it ...
Still, for me it was an excellent choice for now, since much more expensive boxes in this concept do not do much better than it ...
Thanks for the article... looks a lot like "creating artificial reflections" to get left/right phase opposite of each other. Section 3.4 appears to be for a mono source though.
These unfortunately I never heard, so I will not be able to say "how different" TQWT would be, although certain parameters suggest that the TQWT would perhaps be more "interesting", for lack of better term, at least from the viewpoint of lower power amplifiers, given at least solid 94-5dB from TQWT (and most time I use an 5W amplifier with them).
I'm sorry gents, but no matter how much money we throw at it, reproduction will always be 'canned music'. Some systems are obviously better than others, but for obvious reasons it will never be reality. We just have to ive with that. Funny though, that a fairly large number of performing musicians live with rather mediocre systems, accepting the imitations as they are. They obviousy have another reference than HiFi geeks....
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I'm sorry gents, but no matter how much money we throw at it, reproduction will always be 'canned music'. Some systems are obviously better than others, but for obvious reasons it will never be reality. We just have to ive with that. Funny though, that a fairly large number of performing musicians live with rather mediocre systems, accepting the imitations as they are. They obviousy have another reference than HiFi geeks....
I can understand how you feel, but it really is rather better than that. It is much easier to reproduce simple instrumental say flute or clarinet or vocal work, and it really does get that good. Orchestral works will find it more challenging and of course demands more power, while dealing with so many variables but still can be very good. Very few realise this quality of reproduction but it is out there.