Some AR2ax measurements

[Zilch]

So much for our agreement just yesterday not to do the subjectivist/objectivist thing, eh, Shacky?

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/sho...ead.php?t=23764

I do believe the participants here are abundantly aware of your opinion that it's all but meaningless.

Was there something else, like the flip side of the "Sharing our favorites" tune, perhaps?

[Shacky]

So much for our agreement just yesterday not to do the subjectivist/objectivist thing, eh Shacky?

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/sho...ead.php?t=23764

I do believe the participants here are well aware of your opinion that it's all but meaningless by now.

Was there something else, like the flip side of the "Sharing our favorites" tune, perhaps?

Thought my comments were generic enough - and not personal attacks towards you - which is what I felt needed to stop. Not the general objective/subjective debate in a polite way. Did I call your opinions meaningless? I just re-read and don't think so.

I see I called you out as far as running around in circles. Well I guess I am too. So my apologies. You have to admit you are putting a lot of energy into this argument and at a site where folks are obviously AR fans. It's like going to Yankee stadium and arguing the Yankees suck. The only reasons for doing so would be to enhance the arguement the Yankees suck by facing the utilmate fans or a yearning to get your @$$ kicked. I'm talking hypothetically of course.

[Zilch]

You have to admit you are putting a lot of energy into this argument and at a site where folks are obviously AR fans. It's like going to Yankee stadium and arguing the Yankees suck. The only reasons for doing so would be to enhance the arguement the Yankees suck by facing the utilmate fans or a yearning to get your @$$ kicked.

Dude, go back to Post #1. Speaker Dave posted MEASUREMENTS, eliciting an ensuing discussion regarding what they might mean.

Thus far, here and elsewhere, your contribution has comprised the following:

1) You like ARs, and presume that to be all that is significant.

2) You don't understand the measurements and don't care to.

3) By virtue of this discussion being meaningless to you, you consider it devoid of merit.

4) In fact, you further find it insulting that anyone would discuss issues in which you have zero interest.

Point to ANY post I have made in any of these threads on the several forums in which they currently appear where I have said that ARs suck. No matter, you apparently consider the mere possibility that I might not like them as well as you to be a personal affront.

We are looking at the "stats" and discussing whether the Yankee managers are getting optimum performance from their team here, is what, independent of whether they suck or not. Grant that it may be desirable to change pitchers....

[Shacky]

Like most of your arguements you make broad sweeping generalizations from tiny bits of data. That's dangerous in any industry.

I'll keep coming back to it. What matters most is what the speakers sound like to the individual human ears. I didn't say your data is worthless. It's just not the end all. You leave yourself open to misinterpretations since you refuse to tell your preferences to a group that has thoroughly shared theirs. Call that what you wish. It's not recommended in "How To Win Friends And Influence People".

[Steve F]

(sm) "I think LST would have been an even better performer if it had two midrange drivers on the front panel to pair with the two front firing tweeters...or one midrange and one tweeter on each of thee panels...or on four at equal angles to each other. I think the geometry of the arrangement was not the most favorable one AR could have picked. Just a hunch. I'm sure they tried many combinations, performed many tests before the settled on the one they did....but still...."

(sf) One tweeter and one mid each on each of the three front panels is the LST-2's layout. It does have a somewhat different tonal character than the LST due to the difference in their direct midrange radiation.

(sm) "String instruments are not necessarily softball to reproduce. If you are familiar with the sound of real ones, that is something you'd probably agree with. A cello is a very difficult instrument to reproduce convincingly. If you ever hear one played in someone's home, you'll know what I mean. Bass output is phenomenal, beyond the capabilities of most speakers. As for reproducing the sound of a Guarnari del Jesu violin, no commercial speaker I ever heard came remotely close. Usually you're just lucky if reproduction of massed strings doesn't sound like fingenails scraping on a slate blackboard."

(sf) Completely agreed, and all excellent points. My reference to 'softball' was that that was the popular opinion of the AR-doubting faction of the audio world: "Yeah, they can do low-level strings with no dynamics, but if they try something lively, brassy, percussive, forget it. They'll fall flat."

The 'AR doubting faction' may not have understood how difficult a string quartet was to replicate, but their prevailing opinion--right or wrong--was that strings were 'easier.' Grover's drums shut that faction up, even though others may have known more all along.

Steve F.

[Zilch]

Like most of your arguements you make broad sweeping generalizations from tiny bits of data. That's dangerous in any industry.

Please, link us to any more comprehensive exposition and exploration of AR data in the 40 years since Allison's AES paper than I have recently elicited in these several forums.

You have repeatedly affirmed that you don't understand any of it, and further, that you are relentlessly committed to remaining ignorant. I believe we all get that, yet you persist in disparaging others' interests in actually learning or knowing anything about AR speakers, based largely, if not entirely, upon the inane conceit that there is nothing worth knowing about them beyond the mere fact that Shacky likes them.

If you have anything more substantive to offer toward furthering the larger purpose here, it has not been apparent thus far, and there would seem to be little value accruing from your repetitive reiteration that you are clueless and prefer to remain so....

[Shacky]

Zilch,

I'm not sure what I posted in last 24 hours that ticked you off but I don't appreciate your rudeness. Appears you've gon off the deep end. These are speakers we're talking about for cripes sake. Don't get so hot under the collar. Get a life - maybe start listening instead of measuring them?

[soundminded]

It doesn't necessarily have to be. It might be fairly easy to make the speakers "sound better" than the originals based on your and other peoples' preferences, but I would guess that trying to make them sound identical to the originals, regardless of what you think of them, would be more difficult, especially if fitting behind the original grill is also a requirement.

Having played at this game for such a long time, having gone off in my own direction, and having felt early on that I was making real progress, a very important question occurred to me which I think never gets discussed, rarely if ever is thought about, and yet is at the heart of the matter. And that question is why is it important or desirable to replicate the audible experience of live music as exactly as possible? Is live music better or just different than recorded music. IMO, the question of why is much tougher to answer than how. Anyone else ever given this any thought?

[Zilch]

One way to know for sure if somebody is on the ball with their theoretical constructs is to see just what they consider as proper implementations of those constructs.

That's getting closer, Howard; what I DO is far more relevant to the subject at hand than what I might like, which is fully disclosed in over 20,000 posts to date on five forums....

[Carlspeak]

SM quote: "Is live music better or just different than recorded music"?

IMO, in general terms, live music is different - not necessarily better. The why or the how is good fun to take up as a hobby or avocation, but should not be the 'be-all', 'end-all' subject of endless debate.

Because, as I've written here before, at the end of the day....

[Zilch]

... the question becomes just how successfully vintage ARs such as AR3a actually met that now acknowledged constant directivity objective, and with factual knowledge of how loudspeakers and rooms interact, perhaps an estimate of what is optimum might be in the offing here.

Flat, Howard?

Narrow or wide dispersion?

0° - 90° in 7.5° increments, equivalent to a beamwidth of 180°:

[genek]

Is live music better or just different than recorded music.

Is chocolate ice cream better or just different from vanilla?

Perhaps a more appropriate question for this venue, what's the point of going to a convention of chocoholics and pointing out that vanilla is the biggest selling flavor of ice cream?

[Carlspeak]

Aaaahhh, another AR convert, and it doesn't appear he measured a damn thing. Even KK had a comment in this audioholics revelation.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=222444

[soundminded]

Is chocolate ice cream better or just different from vanilla?

Perhaps a more appropriate question for this venue, what's the point of going to a convention of chocoholics and pointing out that vanilla is the biggest selling flavor of ice cream?

Is this a trick question? No. Does the answer come easily? No, it requires a great deal of thought and insight. If hearing live music is no better than hearing recorded music, merely different from recorded music, then why bother to go to the extraordinary trouble and expense of duplicately it accurately, realistically? Why aren't JBL horn speakers good enough? Why go to live concerts which in the long run is even more trouble and has many drawbacks? If live music is better, why is it better. You can give flip answers but the fact that you have tried to buy equipment that comes as close as you can get to it, have spent a lot of money and taken a lot of time investigating it, and care about it, shows that it is of more than passing interest to you. If it weren't, a Radio Shack Mach I or a Cerwin Vega speaker might have done as well for you or better. I'm not going to give you the answers easily but I'll give you a hint. As Carl says, it's about the music.

[Mexicomike]

I don't get it at all. There is no great insight required, no knowledge of speaker design, no nothing EXCEPT what you like for whatever reason you like it. Saying that someone must understand all of this is silly. It's like saying that for a race car driver to be a champion, he/she has to understand engine construction and be able to design/assemble/disassemble it. It's absurd. A device that reproduces sound simply has to sound good to the listener. That's all it has to do. It doesn't have to meet any specs at all. That should be clear enough since most "good" speakers have similar specs but don't sound even remotely alike.

I totally agree that worrying about specs to the level involved in these discussions is like "proving" that one flavor of ice cream is better than another.

I also totally agree with the idea that if someone is unhappy with the sound of AR (or any other speakers) they should simply buy the speakers they prefer. Why the heck try to change the inherent sound of a speaker? It would be like owning an old Ferrari 328, being unhappy with it because it doesn't have a back seat, and trying to weld on some added seating space. Why not just buy a 4 seater in the first place?

Jeez...

[soundminded]

I don't get it at all. There is no great insight required, no knowledge of speaker design, no nothing EXCEPT what you like for whatever reason you like it. Saying that someone must understand all of this is silly. It's like saying that for a race car driver to be a champion, he/she has to understand engine construction and be able to design/assemble/disassemble it. It's absurd. A device that reproduces sound simply has to sound good to the listener. That's all it has to do. It doesn't have to meet any specs at all. That should be clear enough since most "good" speakers have similar specs but don't sound even remotely alike.

I totally agree that worrying about specs to the level involved in these discussions is like "proving" that one flavor of ice cream is better than another.

I also totally agree with the idea that if someone is unhappy with the sound of AR (or any other speakers) they should simply buy the speakers they prefer. Why the heck try to change the inherent sound of a speaker? It would be like owning an old Ferrari 328, being unhappy with it because it doesn't have a back seat, and trying to weld on some added seating space. Why not just buy a 4 seater in the first place?

Jeez...

Most experts about music agree that there are four major elements of which music is comprised. Does anyone here know what they are and how defective reproduction of music affects them? Hint Zilch, exactly where the musicians sit in relation to each other and to the audience isn't one of them.

[genek]

I don't get it at all. There is no great insight required, no knowledge of speaker design, no nothing EXCEPT what you like for whatever reason you like it. Saying that someone must understand all of this is silly. It's like saying that for a race car driver to be a champion, he/she has to understand engine construction and be able to design/assemble/disassemble it.

It's not even that close. It's more like telling the fans in the grandstand that they need that level of understanding to be able to properly experience the race.

It's a shame we can't get the dueling experts (both those posting here and those being quoted) into one of the Wrestlemania cages. Dog and cock fighting aren't legal in the US, so this is the closest we can get.

[Pete B]

It's not even that close. It's more like telling the fans in the grandstand that they need that level of understanding to be able to properly experience the race.

It's a shame we can't get the dueling experts (both those posting here and those being quoted) into one of the Wrestlemania cages. Dog and cock fighting aren't legal in the US, so this is the closest we can get.

This has been gone over in the past, as much as you wish everyone here were "fans" there

is no requirement - in fact the moderator supported free discussion in the past. Fans base their

views on emotion rather than logic, and it shows ... it is actually amusing, LOL!

I enjoy digging into the technical side of loudspeaker design and understanding the strengths and

weaknesses of many classic, and modern designs. This is one reason why I'm interested in AR.

We get it, that to like them is fine, but if you're going to throw out some antiquated technical marketing

claims in support of your object of love, then you had better understand and be up on the theory. Clearly,

most here are not. Get some perspective!

Perhaps you fans should get together so that you can share, repeat and memorize more marketing BS,

you see, cheap shots are easy - now why don't you drop it?

Pete B.

[genek]

This has been gone over in the past, as much as you wish everyone here were "fans" there

is no requirement - in fact the moderator supported free discussion in the past.

Wasn't my intention to try to stifle any of it. For those of us who don't have a lot of technical expertise to throw into the ring, the best we can do is toss in some raw meat now and then and use our share of the free discussion to make fun of those who fight over it.

Ultimately, what the dueling know-it-alls are arguing over is which of their approaches best achieves some goal of quality sound reproduction they can't even agree on, while those of us whose role in the process is to listen to what is offered and spend money on what we like base our buying decisions on something that has little if anything to do with the goal of quality sound reproduction they're arguing about. The marketing material is interesting historical stuff, but I don't think I ever saw any of it before I bought my speakers. I saved all the paperwork on my ARs when I bought them, and the only ad in them is the Miles Davis one-sheet that I jotted the prices on and took home when I was doing my listening in the stores. Bottom line, I based my decision to buy my ARs on the fact that I liked the way they sounded better than anything else I listened to, and claims of "accuracy" never entered into the decision at all. It's impossible for me to not find that funny.

[genek]

Is this a trick question? No. Does the answer come easily? No, it requires a great deal of thought and insight. If hearing live music is no better than hearing recorded music, merely different from recorded music, then why bother to go to the extraordinary trouble and expense of duplicately it accurately, realistically? Why aren't JBL horn speakers good enough? Why go to live concerts which in the long run is even more trouble and has many drawbacks? If live music is better, why is it better. You can give flip answers but the fact that you have tried to buy equipment that comes as close as you can get to it, have spent a lot of money and taken a lot of time investigating it, and care about it, shows that it is of more than passing interest to you. If it weren't, a Radio Shack Mach I or a Cerwin Vega speaker might have done as well for you or better. I'm not going to give you the answers easily but I'll give you a hint. As Carl says, it's about the music.

No, it's not a trick question. The reason that producing a reasonable semblance (because nothing I've ever heard duplicates live accurately) of a live performance as I recall it is desirable for me is wrapped up in nostalgia for past experiences; it has nothing to do with any inherent superiority that live has over recorded. For an apparently much larger portion of the audio buying market that has no experience of going to live concerts, recorded music appears to have as much appeal to them as my own nostalgia has to me, and for many of them JBL horn speakers, CVs, old Machs or Bose HT speakers seem to do the job.

The bottom line is, the things I like "better" are "better" for me because I like them, not because they have any inherent superiority. And while that may require a great deal of thought and insight and hair-pulling experimentation on the part of people trying to design and sell product, I can make a decision about what I like enough to spend my money on in a minute or less.

[Pete B]

I actually think that some progress might be made if some of the people here got together and

tried to have a friendly listening session where the classic design(s) are compared to an

excellent modern design. But, it is not that important to me to convert others, I have the A/B

switch and have done several comparisions.

[genek]

I actually think that some progress might be made if some of the people here got together and

tried to have a friendly listening session where the classic design(s) are compared to an

excellent modern design. But, it is not that important to me to convert others, I have the A/B

switch and have done several comparisions.

I agree. I also think that after you had a couple of drinks and a slice or two of pizza while listening to some music, watching these guys argue about accuracy might become as entertaining to you as it is to me.

[soundminded]

No, it's not a trick question. The reason that producing a reasonable semblance (because nothing I've ever heard duplicates live accurately) of a live performance as I recall it is desirable for me is wrapped up in nostalgia for past experiences; it has nothing to do with any inherent superiority that live has over recorded. For an apparently much larger portion of the audio buying market that has no experience of going to live concerts, recorded music appears to have as much appeal to them as my own nostalgia has to me, and for many of them JBL horn speakers, CVs, old Machs or Bose HT speakers seem to do the job.

The bottom line is, the things I like "better" are "better" for me because I like them, not because they have any inherent superiority. And while that may require a great deal of thought and insight and hair-pulling experimentation on the part of people trying to design and sell product, I can make a decision about what I like enough to spend my money on in a minute or less.

How sad for you that a poor facsimile of music is only second to real music because of nostalgia for past experiences. You truely disappoint me genek. I thought you were much more discerning than that. Why then did you go so many times? Is nostalgia that important to you? Were those past experiences so memorable for something other than the sound itself? Who you were with maybe? The time period of your life? I find the experience of sitting in a seat I can't leave for an hour at a time among a couple of thousand strange people who can distract my concentration on what I'm hearing with a cough or rustling of papers less than pleasant. Does watching a sporting event on television seem equal to attending a live one except for nostalgia too? Would a TV travelogue of the Grand Canyon equal seeing it live? What a surprising response.

[Steve F]

I have lots and lots of technical understanding and experience, lots and lots of marketing/sales understanding and experience, lots and lots of personal experience as a musical performer with formal training, the whole bit, and so on. (Please—hold the drummer jokes –“How do you know when a drummer’s knocking at the front door…..”. We ARE musicians—more or less.)

None of the above makes my opinion on anything more or less valid than anyone else’s, on any of these subjects. I may have my beliefs as to what’s important and what’s not, and if I’m in a position to implement my preferred way of doing something, I will. But I fully recognize that there is more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak.

After all, there are over 400 brands of speakers on the US market today. Some of them are actually pretty good. And who’s to say that Buddy Rich or Joe Morello or Jack DeJohnette or Steve Gadd or Peter Erskine or Dave Garibaldi is absolutely better than the next guy?

I think you listen to what other intelligent people say, you incorporate their learned opinions into your own set of experiences, and you evolve your positions as needed, with the all-too-human recognition that emotion and ego play a large role.

For me, live musical performances carry the promise of the unexpected, the surprising. That, for me, is the primary attraction of any live performance, whether it’s music, sports, theater, etc. I enjoy certain things ‘in person’ (like the BSO, for example) as opposed to on TV or FM because the experience is more direct, with less distractions. Yes, it ‘sounds’ better live as well, but it’s the direct, undistracted, focused connection with the performers that’s the primary attraction for me. Sitting 15 feet away from Roy McCurdy as he drums for Cannonball’s Quintet at The Jazz Workshop, I can literally follow every stroke and essentially get into his head, as if I’m playing right along with him. Man, that’s an intense experience.

Playing music at home on a system is akin to watching a recorded replay of a game that you’ve already seen. Once you play the album, you know the ‘outcome.’ The immediacy, the surprise, the tension of ‘how’s it going to come out’ is over. You already know the final score, so to speak. So, no, for me listening at home, I’m not trying to get the system to ‘fool’ me into thinking I’m at The Jazz Workshop. I know I’m not. Nor am I trying to get the system to ‘trick’ me into thinking that Horace Silver’s quintet is in my living room. I know they’re not.

I’m simply looking for the system to deliver the music I enjoy and to do a reasonable job of portraying the various instruments in what strikes me as a tonally-accurate facsimile of what I recall those instruments to sound like. And to reveal enough inner detail (the bass drum pedal squeaking, for example) so that on occasion, I smile and think, “Hey, how ‘bout that!” Or enough low-bass impact that my wife tells me to turn it down.

3a’s and 11’s do that nicely, for me, to my taste. I can go on and on about their technical strengths and shortcomings (as well as the validity/invalidity of their designers’ and proponents’ assumptions) as well as anyone here. I know all the pluses and minuses. I know what I believe, I know how my positions stack up within the continuum of thought that’s out there, and I know how closely most people cling to their positions (including me, in perfect candor).

But nevertheless, I find all this discussion fascinating, and I never tire of hearing what everyone has to say, regardless of whether they’re ‘technical’ or not.

Steve F.

[Zilch]

I don't get it at all. There is no great insight required, no knowledge of speaker design, no nothing EXCEPT what you like for whatever reason you like it.

There's nothing to discuss, then, is there, and all of the audio sites may as well shut down. All that matters to YOU is what you like, and by your own view, that certainly can have no meaning or significance to anyone else, not, at least, in terms of describing anything other than yourself.

Nobody with any interest in knowing what THEY like, or might like, can rationally give a flying whit about what you or anybody else likes, which is definitive of nothing. Instead, we look to the nature of the speakers themselves for these answers.

Rarely is the question "What speakers do you like," (and rightly so, as your are telling us no one should care, that being devoid of import,) rather, "What speakers are good," and instead of providing the appropriate response as mandated by the subjectivist nihilism you profess to embrace, which is "Whatever you like," (and pathetically non-responsive,) we leap to the conclusion that we are being asked for our opinions as experts (in our own minds,) and unleash a flood of drivel as to why what we like is good, or better, as surely it must be, since it is what we like.

In truth, we don't know what is good, which is why some of us look elsewhere than to whatever you or Shacky might like (which, by your own admission, is all but meaningless,) for the answers. No, we don't know it all, but certainly there is value in pursuing the inquiry, (and considerable enjoyment for those of us who do so, as well,) independent of whether or not you or anyone else cares to participate....