In praise of AR3a's

[Zilch]

But what you forget is that we do not listen in non-reverberant spaces. If you think those controlled directivity speakers you love so much are not engaging the reverberant field enough for big audible differences to result, go haul them outdoors and listen out there and see if they sound the same as they did inside. Of course, you already know this, and yet you still deny the huge impact of the reverberant field on what we hear. My take on this is that you have something to sell, but maybe you are just confused.

I have already pointed out that controlled directivity speakers as used in smaller spaces have sufficient overspill to generate the desired spacious and ambience WITHOUT adversely affecting the direct soundfield. Yes, we listen in reverberant spaces, but the the reverberant field does not dominate the direct in the manner asserted by Villchur and Allison; that does not occur in normal home listening spaces.

Measure what accurately? The comb-filtering effects of driver overlap when measurements are taken at different angles?

That does not occur in good designs. You choose to ignore what Pete B has emphasized: modern loudspeaker design has all but eliminated those artifacts so apparent in AR3a, for example, that we can now clearly see the phase interactions in the crossover region in the polar measurements of multi-way loudspeakers, and those have themselves been managed in such a way as to enhance the performance. See Toole Fig. 18.24, for example, as to how the performance has been improved by these measures in recent years.

Well, we at least know where you stand. You are basically not interested at all in simulating a live-music experience. OK, fine. However, do not downgrade speakers that can decently do that sort of thing, because I am pretty sure that the term "nobody" is in error. Lots of astute enthusiasts are interested in hall-style realism. That you are not tells me that you are kind of an anti-audiophile.

Not hardly. My point is that we can now do it better, and I have used the AR3a HF response as example, with uniform power response in lieu of the chaos Allison himself demonstrated (and rationalized) in 1970.

You know, for all this discussion re accuracy, music, etc etc etc, the fact remains that AR was the only speaker company to my knowledge that ever even attempted to publicly compare the sound of their speakers directly with live sound. Whether their effort was a objective as the advertising indicated, it was still an effort that no one else tried to match. One would think that all the other manufacturers could have done the same thing to "prove" their speakers could do it better and were therefore "better" than the ARs. But nobody else did back then...and nobody's doing it now.

What they DO is set up demo listening spaces similar to those actually used by listeners (scientifically, there's a "standard" room, even,) so that you, me, and everybody else can bring our own program material and here how it will sound under normal conditions. Do they manipulate those spaces to show their products in the best light? Of course they do. But in the context of the more intimate and personal experience of today's consumer listening preferences, it's far more meaningful effective than hiring Carnegie Hall and "faking it," for the most part, costing the manufacturers next to nothing.

I realize it is not possible to change your mind, although perhaps we have but you still have stuff to sell. However, by dealing with the subject as I have perhaps I can demonstrate to our rational other participants just where you are wrong.

As for Toole's comment, yes, I read that too, and that is one of the things that set me off. His dismissal should have been expected, because the success of the Villchur/AR demonstrations basically undermines half of what Toole has to say about speaker systems in his book.

Most gratifyingly, Howard, it would appear I have already moved you 3 dB in this; it's now only "half of what Toole has to say...."

I am thinking about a guy who comes to this hobby site about AR speakers and commenses to bad mouth the speakers for reasons that just simply must go beyond simple interest in other designs.

Look again to see what/who is getting the badmouthery here, Howard....

[Zilch]

I again note that it is preposterous to assume that the direct field dominates in typical home-listening spaces, unless the listener is sitting practically on top of the speakers or the room manages to mimic a padded cell. Allison showed how the reverberant field dominated way back in 1970, even with fairly directional speakers. And anybody can hear the profound difference if they haul their narrow-dispersion speakers outdoors and compare what they hear out there with what they hear indoors. Differences that big go well beyond a mild impact.

You've got that backwards, obviously; it's constant directivity loudspeakers that are used in outdoor concerts such that all members of the audience may enjoy the same sonic experience. Allison himself states that max dispersion loudspeaker designs such as AR3as depend upon the normalizing effect of reverberant listening spaces to do what he alleges they do:

If listening is done in anechoic conditions (outdoors, for example), the only information reaching listeners is the direct wave, with some interference from a ground reflection. Its spectral balance is the only thing that can be perceived. Therefore, the quality of the individual speakers in the system is of significance but does not alone determine the system performance. Interference and diffraction play major roles in what is heard.

In a perfectly reverberant environment, on the other hand, it would not matter in the least what the frequency response might be for the radiation at any particular angle from the speaker system. It would not matter at what angle most of the energy were radiated at any particular frequency. So long as the total energy radiated from the system were constant at all frequencies of interest (and of course if there were no audible time differences in the radiation), the sound field in most of the room would have the same spectral balance as it would have if this energy were radiated in a perfectly omnidirectional manner.

Quality speakers exhibiting constant directivity and uniform power response do not require the "assistance" of an artificial soundfield to sound good, and their direct field response is not contaminated with the anomalies common to earlier designs.

And I again make a point of mentioning that Villchur, way back in the 1960s managed to make speakers that you basically consider junk impress a whole lot of people (including assorted audio journalists looking to hear differences) with his live vs recorded sessions. There is no way the speakers could have done that if they were as bad as you say, or as bad as Toole has indicated. In all of your commentaries you still have not been able to explain away the ability of a pair of AR-3 speakers to be so close in performance to the live ensemble. Of course, there is one way to show how good your favored speakers might happen to be: do some live vs recorded sessions yourself. With your expertise the demo should be a snap.

I have indeed explained, several times now, that virtually any speaker with uniform power response suitably contoured will perform similarly in a truly reverberant space, and that modern designs having that characteristic will perform better, even. That was the "sleight of hand" in Villchur's LVR demos, in combination with his manipulation of the recorded program used in them. For marketing purposes, audiences were supposed to generalize from the experience, and the publicity associated with the "concerts," that commercial recordings would sound similarly accurate in their homes. It was no less fake than Edison's selecting instruments with limited bandwidth and using only singers who could imitate their own recorded voices in his "tone tests," over a century ago.

You are like a guy who arrives at a church dinner and commenses to swear like a sailor as he converses with the guests.

No, more like debating the existence of God, there apparently....

[soundminded]

"Stravinsky offered the opinion, "How can we continue to prefer an inferior reality (the concert hall) to ideal stereophony?""

Assuming he was not being sarcastic, that might be the dumbest thing he ever said in his life. And Toole was just as dumb for quoting it. Zilch, you like most audiophiles have completely lost all perspective. A recording is not music. It is only a facsimile of music. Music is a direct communication between real people in each other's presence. Sound is just the medium. Just as a photograph or a movie is not the same as being there no matter what emotions it evokes, listening to audio equipment is not the same as listening to music. Has it ever occurred to you that when you talk over a telephone, you are not actually talking to another person but to a microphone and listening to an earphone? When you see an image of a person on a television screen, you are not looking at a human being, just an array of lights that reminds you of one? The only question here is whether or not these can be good facsimiles or are nearly always poor ones. Being that I can easily and quickly tell them apart from the genuine article, I say that they are very poor. I think most disinterested people with normal hearing would have no difficulty telling them apart without trying very hard also.

[Zilch]

The hall also adulterates the music.

Pick yer poison....

[genek]

"Stravinsky offered the opinion, "How can we continue to prefer an inferior reality (the concert hall) to ideal stereophony?""

Assuming he was not being sarcastic, that might be the dumbest thing he ever said in his life.

Stravinsky was an experimenter in the final phase of his creative life. If he was alive today, he'd probably be turning out atonal electronic works composed specifically for 7.1 channels.

[Shacky]

No, more like debating the existence of God, there apparently....

Zilch,

Still an excercise in futility. Information is not knowledge. And sound measurements are not music. I think the majority of us that love AR speakers are folks that enjoy music. And AR were designed to replicate music. Probably the best attempts before or since.

Your arguments are futile. I'm reminded of the old saying "some people bang their heads against the wall becasue it feels good when they stop."

[Zilch]

Still an excercise in futility. Information is not knowledge. And sound measurements are not music.

Your arguments are futile. I'm reminded of the old saying "some people bang their heads against the wall becasue it feels good when they stop."

"Futility" implies an intent that's simply not in this mix, Shacky:

Zilch: "Marshmallows are white and puffy and measure between 26 and 31mm to a side."

Shacky: "I like marshmallows; I don't care what you say."

Zilch: "Uh, let me put that another way...."

-- anonymous correspondent --

[genek]

Zilch: "Marshmallows are white and puffy and measure between 26 and 31mm to a side."

Shacky: "I like marshmallows; I don't care what you say."

My impression of it goes more like:

Zilch: "Brand X marshmallows are white and puffy and measure between 26 and 31mm to a side. Most other marshmallows are 35 to 40 mm to a side and Brand X's are too small"

Shacky: "The size of Brand X marshmallows is just right for me. Marshmallows are sold by the pound, anyway, so what difference does the size make as long as they taste good?"

Zilch: "Most consumers prefer marshmallows that are 35 to 40 mm to a side, and here's a quote from a marshmallow expert who says that size is optimum and Brand X's creator was daft."

Shacky: "I like Brand X marshmallows; I don't care what you say."

[Mexicomike]

This is getting way to complicated for me. Shoot, I can't even figure out why "a confection that, in its modern form, typically consists of sugar or corn syrup, water, gelatin that has been softened in hot water, dextrose, and flavorings, whipped to a spongy consistency"* is even CALLED a marshmallow.

If this subject continues to head off in bizarre directions, next thing you know someone will start using "Bose 901" and "Accurate Sound Reproduction" in the same sentence! "Bose 901" and "Marshmallow" - that might work (see "spongy consistency")

* from Wikipdeia

[Zilch]

Shoot, I can't even figure out why "a confection that, in its modern form, typically consists of sugar or corn syrup, water, gelatin that has been softened in hot water, dextrose, and flavorings, whipped to a spongy consistency"* is even CALLED a marshmallow.

My handy-dandy $3.95 toolbar Webster's says:

Orig. a confection made from the root of the marsh mallow.

[Whatever the heck that is.]

I'm whipping up a little experiment for everyone to try....

Equipment list:

Bag of marshmallows

R/S SPL meter or equal

Tripod

Tape measure

Pink noise file or disk

Graph paper and pencil or spreadsheet with graphing capability

Instructions:

1) Mount SPL meter on tripod at seated ear height, as measured with tape measure.

2) Along the centerline between speakers, use tape measure to lay out a row of marshmallows spaced 1' apart from the front to rear walls of listening room.

3) Playing pink noise through the system with the bass turned all the way down, record the SPL (dBA weighted, preferably) with the tripod centered above each marshmallow.

4) Plot dB SPL (Y-axis) versus marshmallow distance from front wall in feet (X-axis).

5) Post your empirical finding(s) here.

[genek]

Shoot, I can't even figure out why "a confection that, in its modern form, typically consists of sugar or corn syrup, water, gelatin that has been softened in hot water, dextrose, and flavorings, whipped to a spongy consistency"* is even CALLED a marshmallow.

Because they used to be made from the marshmallow plant, and the name stuck long after the content was changed. Sort of like modern speakers that have AR badges on them.

[Mexicomike]

Because they used to be made from the marshmallow plant, and the name stuck long after the content was changed. Sort of like modern speakers that have AR badges on them.

AH! Thanks, it's perfectly clear now. Great explanation!

[Shacky]

My impression of it goes more like:

Zilch: "Brand X marshmallows are white and puffy and measure between 26 and 31mm to a side. Most other marshmallows are 35 to 40 mm to a side and Brand X's are too small"

Shacky: "The size of Brand X marshmallows is just right for me. Marshmallows are sold by the pound, anyway, so what difference does the size make as long as they taste good?"

Zilch: "Most consumers prefer marshmallows that are 35 to 40 mm to a side, and here's a quote from a marshmallow expert who says that size is optimum and Brand X's creator was daft."

Shacky: "I like Brand X marshmallows; I don't care what you say."

I do think that's more like it. Of course Zilch never admits which Marshmallows he prefers but goes cutting up all the ones we like while shoving cheap econo-wave thingies in them making them look hiddeous and repulsive to all traditional Marshmallow aficionados...

[Zilch]

Of course Zilch never admits which Marshmallows he prefers but goes cutting up all the ones we like while shoving cheap econo-wave thingies in them making them look hiddeous and repulsive to all traditional Marshmallow aficionados...

I believe those are called "S'mores," Shacky.

Try some....

[Shacky]

I believe those are called "S'mores," Shacky.

Try some....

Now that's downright funny You do have a sense of humor

[Zilch]

Now that's downright funny You do have a sense of humor

You are unfamiliar with such contributions to the Loudspeaker Lexicon as "Imaginary Gonadotrophic Effect," apparently....

[Steve F]

All—

I just thought I’d toss this tidbit out for everyone’s enjoyment. My daughter lives in Italy, and has for about 6 years now. She comes back to visit 2 or 3 times a year, usually for fairly extensive visits of several weeks. Like any self-respecting, fashion-conscious woman in her late 20’s, she is not particularly well-acquainted with the phrase “packing light.”

Needless to say, when the time comes for her to re-pack for the trip home to Italy, it’s a major ordeal. Several days’ worth of laying things out, trying to determine how to get ALL THAT STUFF to somehow fit once again into two suitcases and make the weight limit of 50 lbs per bag.

My music system occupies an upstairs bedroom, and as my daughter packs, she plays her CDs on that system so she can hear her music as she feverishly goes about her tasks, moving in a panicked fashion from her room to my other daughter’s room (she invades her sister’s closet as well) to the bathroom and back again to her room.

A few visits ago, while she was going through this routine, she stopped, and yelled downstairs for me to “Come up right away!”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“It’s the stereo.”

“Something wrong?” It didn’t sound like anything was wrong from downstairs, as it was being played loud enough that it sounded like I was in the same room.

“No, it just sounds so good! I mean REALLY good! Are these new speakers or something?” she asked. Now, my daughter is completely uninterested in anything audio, and has absolutely zero knowledge of or awareness of anything we value so much on this Forum. She does, however, have an intense interest in music and concerts, and has the hearing of, well, a late-20’s female.

She was listening to my 3a’s, which at the time had been recently refurbished back to factory-like newness and had been taken out of mothballs and put back into front-line service.

To me, her unsolicited, unprompted reaction said it all.

After all, they’re 3a’s.

Steve F.

[Shacky]

That's a great story Steve. Unsolicited compliments are the best.

[Mexicomike]

My wife's response to the restored 3As was virtually identical, adding that she couldn't understand how a 40 year old speaker could sound so much better than our much newer Maggies or Thiels...

[genek]

My wife's response to the restored 3As was virtually identical, adding that she couldn't understand how a 40 year old speaker could sound so much better than our much newer Maggies or Thiels...

When my wife and I were first married, she liked the idea of those little, virtually invisible Bose speakers with the hidden subwoofer. Until she heard them. We eventually opted for putting my 2ax's into a wall unit with doors that can be closed when the audio is not in use.

Last year I refurbed a pair of 3a's with the intent of putting them into the wall unit where the 2ax's have been living for these past 11 years. My wife listened to them and asked "Wouldn't those sound better if you put them outside the wall unit?"

I am currently shopping for stands.

[Guest Sonnar]

When my wife and I were first married, she liked the idea of those little, virtually invisible Bose speakers with the hidden subwoofer. Until she heard them. We eventually opted for putting my 2ax's into a wall unit with doors that can be closed when the audio is not in use.

Last year I refurbed a pair of 3a's with the intent of putting them into the wall unit where the 2ax's have been living for these past 11 years. My wife listened to them and asked "Wouldn't those sound better if you put them outside the wall unit?"

I am currently shopping for stands.

Hi, here are some of my speakers. Under the AR 3 are the Altec 846 Valencia, not exactly a compact speaker . In my mother's house I put a pair of original AR 3a, KLH Six, KLH 31. Last month I missed a pair of JBL S8R Olympus, I'm too late. I'm happily and faithfully married since 1986, and my wife and my two daughters thinks I'm a little crazy, but I said: Do you prefer a husband that dreams of speakers or a husband that dreams of other women? She agree.

[genek]

Actually, after reviewing hundreds of contemporary digital recordings as to their sound quality in two books and dozens of magazine articles, I can faithfully say that many of those dealing with large-ensemble classical concert works are still blessed with excess high-frequency levels, compared to live-music balances.

On the other hand, most contemporary jazz (and certainly pop/rock) recordings seem to sound better with the treble output less angled downward.

I've concluded after many years of fiddling with my speaker and amplifier tone controls that there really is no such thing as an "optimum setting" for either. The only thing the speaker level controls do is allow me to control where my amplifier's default tone control setting will be. And just about every recording I play ends up getting bass and treble turned either up or down unless I'm playing it at very low background volumes for home Musak purposes.

[kkantor]

Actually, after reviewing hundreds of contemporary digital recordings as to their sound quality in two books and dozens of magazine articles, I can faithfully say that many of those dealing with large-ensemble classical concert works are still blessed with excess high-frequency levels, compared to live-music balances.

On the other hand, most contemporary jazz (and certainly pop/rock) recordings seem to sound better with the treble output less angled downward.

Howard Ferstler

Most interesting, actually. Do you have any theories about why this is the case?

-k

[Zilch]

2. The AR-3a was never used in any Villchur LVR demo. He used the AR-3, which was not as good a speaker as the 3a.

Thank you, Howard for reiterating my point: they are not wide dispersion. We don't know what the AR-3 system dispersion actually is, because nobody's ever measured it, apparently, but the tweeter measured on a test baffle by AR barely makes it to 30°, and the midrange tanks there, as well.

http://www.classicspeakerpages.net/IP.Boar...amp;#entry80009

3. Regarding "direct vs reverberant soundfields in small rooms," I'll bet you really are an expert on speaker sound in "truly" small rooms.

Alas, your reverberant field thesis lost its legs in 1970. Try and keep up, would you, please?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society

[soundminded]

"1. The engineers do indeed capture the ambiance of the hall, but, unfortunately, all of that ambiance is coming out of the speakers up front, along with the ensemble sound."

The reverberant field captured on a stereophonic recording is only a small fraction of the percentage compared to the direct field and early reflections as you hear at a live performance even in some of the up front seats. This is because the microphones are much closer to the musicians than the audience and they usually use cardiod pickup patterns which makes them directional in favor of sound coming from the direction of the instruments. The 4 channel matrix quadraphonic concept was based on the naive belief that the reverberant field could be isolated from the direct field through tricky phase cancellation techniques that would eliminate the direct field entirely or almost entirely leaving just the ambient field for seperate amplification and speakers in the rear channels. This was conceptually analogous to the way an FM stereo demultiplexer works to cancel out the L+R signal by adding it to the L-R signal transmitted and recaptured on the subcarrier frequency. But it never worked. Trying to cancel out the complex acoustical field this way was an impossibility while canceling the electrically in phase signal from an FM tuner was straightforward even in 1959. The direct approach didn't seem to work very well either since neither the RCA CD-4 system nor discrete 4 channel tape ever went anywhere. This experiment in the 1970s was the last serious commercial attempt made to recreate concert hall acoustics in the home from recordings.

I think if you played a binaural recording through a pair of loudspeakers, what you'd hear would resemble the sound of the speaker being inside the Lincoln Tunnel and you being on the outside. All the reverberation is in the same proportion to the direct field and early reflections as at a live performance but it all comes from the same direction. Its subjective quality is very different from live music.

My experience with compact discs is that their spectral balance is all over the map. I find it impossible to generalize about them. Every one has its own peculiarities even from the same record company. As I have become more sensitive to differences in timbre through more careful listening, I'd say that an error of even 1 or 2 db over an octave or more is clearly audible to me. It is very hard to make these discs sound anythig like musical instruments without a great deal of patience and trial and error. Often by the time I'm even close, I'm so tired of hearing them I put them away for another day. It helps a lot I think to record equalizer settings for each one for future use to get back to where you were the last time you thought you had it about right. Making it even more complex, each of my sound systems requires different settings of their equalizers for various reasons.