Howard Ferstler, Zilch, and the AR-3a.

[Zilch]

but does your definition of the terms equate bright with accuracy and dark with a lack of accuracy? based on my subjective listening they are mutually exclusive characteristics of sound.

It's clear that AR3a's are inaccurate by design, to simulate concert hall coloration.

Accurate doesn't sound particularly bright to me, but then again, I'm sorta used to it....

[Shacky]

by his latest clarification i get that he is talking about the performance and ability of fully functional tweeters. so long as his findings and interpretations of the data from others are not misrepresented, i dont see the conflict. is it not a natural course of events for AR3a owners who prefer a brighter presentation to look for ways to attain it while those who prefer a darker presentation might not? why is this a point of contention, what am i missing here?

Maybe I read your post wrong. I thought you said we were getting somewhere becasue Zilch made it clear his discussion involved less than fully functional tweeters which he has referred to in previous posts. Something to the effect that it's not that we have a lot of tweeters performing lower becasue they are old and worn out. That they were like that in from the beginning.

The subject of folks modifying AR 3a speakers to perform more like modern speakers (bright) is another whole can of worms. My take is if the modification is reversable, i.e. it doesn't mean cutting a huge hole for an econo wave, then why not. But that's my opinion and folks are going to do as they please with their speakers.

I would still say if someone needs to do that much modification on an AR 3a, then sell it and buy something else. There is a very limited supply after all.

But my apologies if I misunderstood your post.

[soundminded]

"Accuracy" and "High Fidelity" are well-defined terms of art. If the objective is to reproduce music, be it Beethoven or Bon Jovi, accuracy is prerequisite, and an accurate loudspeaker will deliver either with equal acumen. You presume that Toole & Olive's listener preference correlations are derivative in their entirety of a protocol limited to what you consider to be "junk" music. It would be good if you researched what you're talking about, and the information is readily available for all to review."

First of all there isn't even an agreed to definition of what music is. Organized noise? That's what some say. I'll tell you one thing, in the range of definitions I am willing to accept, a guy shrieking his guts out accompanied to the deafeningly amplified twang of an electric guitar and a droning thump thump thump, all representing the 3 minute work product of a two bit hack of a song writer doesn't fit into it. Neither do recordings of real music except in the loosest sense. Recordings are a facsimile just the way a picture post card or a video travelogue is not a trip to the Grand Canyon. As far as the facsimile of what is worth trying to recreate, with the exception of two brief examples I have cited at LvR demos, nothing sold came close to convincing me and I don't think anyone with normal hearing would be convinced for one second either. But I will not yield one inch. If Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi were suddenly all that was left and all that ever will be left of what is tendered as music, every piece of electronic equipment I own would be out on the curb tomorrow morning for the trash collector or whomever else wanted to haul it away, it would be of no further use to me.

"You and Howard presume that any listeners who do not share your preference for AR3a's (and/or Allison's) "concert hall" (I'll spare everyone the descriptives) presentation of classical music are inherently knuckle-dragging ignorants, and the purpose you profess to embrace is ill-served by this perspective, which pollutes your every post. If there is merit in what you do, then demonstrate it; your cause is clearly not advanced by these relentless attempts to elevate yourselves above all others by attitude alone. Your bags are full of decidedly counterproductive gas."

First of all, I am not Howard Ferstler. Before he posted here, I never heard of him. All that I know of him is what I've read from his postings here. And if in some distant past by accident I read an article of his in High Fidelity Magazine, I forgot the article and who wrote it, it was so unmemorable, so long ago, and I've read so much since.

I do not have a preference for AR3a or any other speaker I can buy. That is why I've been re-engineering all of the ones I own. It's cheaper and easier than starting from scratch. Some can be drastically improved, some are beyond the pale. I will say categorically, not AR3a nor any other pair of loudspeaker systems you can buy or build used in your home can duplicate the sound of a live performance in a concert hall to the convincing satisfaction of anyone with normal hearing. That is not a wild stab in the dark, it is based on an exact mathematical model I invented 35 years ago that relates the way sound is propagated to the way it arrives at a listener, whether that sound is a symphony orchestra in Carnegie Hall, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Tabernacle, or a loudspeaker in my living room. There are almost no similiarities between the live performance and the facsimile. Pretending otherwise is a delusion. It is also backed up by a complimentary model of hearing that is also unpublished and explains why. The reason these models have not been published is because I haven't figured out how to make any money out of them yet so they remain proprietary. Even a patented invention based on it that was infringed on could not be protected. BTW, I also like other kinds of adult music...like jazz.

"If the starting point is an accurate loudspeaker, it is easily seen that the same may be "tuned" to taste, once the parameters are understood. If I want a concert hall presentation, I push the "Hall" sound field button, and adjust the toe-in for enhanced ASW. I can't achieve LEV in a small room but via multi-channel, and somebody's going to have to figure out how to get the appropriate cues in the program to begin with."

The starting point is live music of a type serious enough to merit the time, effort and expense of trying to duplicate its sound. Hundreds of millions of dollars, millions of manhours, and decades of research have by and large failed to duplicate it satisfactorily. That's not just my opinion but that of regular concert goers (otherwise why would they keep going to them) and some widely read people like Gordon Holt, the editors of TAS Magazine, and Genek. Concert halls can be tuned to taste. In the current state of the art, loudspeakers can only be tuned to which forms of distortions they produce are more or less prominent. That was Victor Campos's assessment forty odd years ago and it is still true today. There are no buttons to push that work. You can't even duplicate the sound of a grand piano or a fine violin playing in your own home, how do you expect to be able to reproduce the sound of a hundred musical instruments playing together in a room 200 to 300 times the size of yours and built at a cost of over 100 million dollars for the sole purpose of enhancing sound for an audience? Especially when much of what you would hear there isn't even on the recording?

"Your suggestion that the HF and VHF of a purpose-designed speaker such as AR3a might be tweaked into accuracy using 10+ dB of external EQ is certainly valid in that the 40-year-old tweeters, having met with untimely demise as consequence of the practice of driving them with 10+ times the power for which they were designed will, of necessity, have to be replaced with drivers more capable of producing the desired performance. Good plan; did you have something specific in mind? "

That is not what I said as I recall it. You said that the output of those tweeters was down 10 db from that of the other drivers in the system. That means if you play them 10 db louder they will be at the same loudness. That could be done with an equalizer, by bi-amplifying them, or by installing 10 of them. AR3a new or 40 years old was not and cannot be made an accurate loudspeaker anymore than anyone else's can by tweaking its frequency response. It would have to be re-engineered radically. Even AR knew it. That is why it took the equivalent of four AR3a's not counting the woofer to engineer LST. Even that was not adequate but at least it went in the right direction. BTW, you left out the gross shortcoming of trying to marry a 2" midrange to a 12 " acoustic suspension woofer that is flat to 42 hz either at 1000 hz in an AR3 or at 575 hz in an AR3a. Since loudspeaker drivers are inherently resonant devices and at best can usually only be relatively non resonant over about 2 octaves while the range of hearing and music is 10 octaves, unless drastic measures are taken, three of them cannot cover the entire gamut to be assembled into a system that appears to be a single source non resonant over all ten octaves. That is why AR finally threw in the towel and added an 8" LMR to AR9 and why Bose 901 needed to use an active equalizer that was still inadequate for flat response over the entire range of music. Beyond that, the model used for assessing loudspeaker accuracy is so crude, it is surprising they work as well as they do....even once in a while.

I have told you something about some of my theories and what I have done to build and experiment with equipment to assess their value and refine them. You've spoken a lot about your own theories and why others are wrong but what have you done with it? What can you show us to convince us of the veracity of what you claim? What can those of us who would travel to your home, hear that you built along your lines of thinking?

[dingus]

Maybe I read your post wrong. I thought you said we were getting somewhere becasue Zilch made it clear his discussion involved less than fully functional tweeters which he has referred to in previous posts. Something to the effect that it's not that we have a lot of tweeters performing lower becasue they are old and worn out. That they were like that in from the beginning.

The subject of folks modifying AR 3a speakers to perform more like modern speakers (bright) is another whole can of worms. My take is if the modification is reversable, i.e. it doesn't mean cutting a huge hole for an econo wave, then why not. But that's my opinion and folks are going to do as they please with their speakers.

I would still say if someone needs to do that much modification on an AR 3a, then sell it and buy something else. There is a very limited supply after all.

But my apologies if I misunderstood your post.

no need to apologize Shacky, no harm done.

as i understand it he is saying that the lack of brightness is attributed by some as being the result of the tweeter no longer operating to spec due to age. he is asserting that the tweeter is lacking in brightness due to original design.

i'm with you on the mods. i would rather see folks pursuing speakers they find more to their liking rather than gut perfectly good AR's.

[Zilch]

First of all there isn't even an agreed to definition of what music is. Organized noise? That's what some say. I'll tell you one thing, in the range of definitions I am willing to accept, a guy shrieking his guts out accompanied to the deafeningly amplified twang of an electric guitar and a droning thump thump thump, all representing the 3 minute work product of a two bit hack of a song writer doesn't fit into it. Neither do recordings of real music except in the loosest sense. Recordings are a facsimile just the way a picture post card or a video travelogue is not a trip to the Grand Canyon.

Thankfully, no one but you gives a flying whit what you believe to be music and what not. It is not necessary that one prefer nor even like the program to ascertain whether the loudspeaker accurately reproduces the content.

Try as you will, having a "secret" does not meet sufficiency criteria for establishing to the satisfaction of anyone other than yourself that the universe of all others is comprised in its entirety of feckwits.

I have told you something about some of my theories and what I have done to build and experiment with equipment to assess their value and refine them. You've spoken a lot about your own theories and why others are wrong but what have you done with it? What can you show us to convince us of the veracity of what you claim? What can those of us who would travel to your home, hear that you built along your lines of thinking?

The thesis has many notable proponents. If your interest is genuine, you might look where I have already suggested. The admission fee is $168, with none of that payable to me. Forty-five others have officially plied the path ahead of you to date....

[soundminded]

The thesis has many notable proponents. If your interest is genuine, you might look where I have already suggested. The admission fee is $168, with none of that payable to me. Forty-five others have officially plied the path ahead of you to date....

I'll wait to catch the review in Stereophile Magazine. I haven't had a real good belly laugh in awhile.

Are you claiming that is your design?

[Zilch]

Are you claiming that is your design?

The design intent and process are well documented.

As is your intent to ridicule.

No matter; it counts in no eyes but your own.

[How long have they kept you in confinement like this...? ]

[soundminded]

The design intent and process are well documented.

As is your intent to ridicule.

No matter; it counts in no eyes but your own.

[How long have they kept you in confinement like this...? ]

"As is your intent to ridicule."

Some who post here would find biting irony in those words coming from you. However, I must ridicule where ridicule is deserved. And you will note that I have not been unfairly selective in my ridicule such as you have been. I have ridiculed even handedly an entire industry based on the vast gap between its implied claims which it asserts justifies the often exhorbitant prices for its products and what those products actually deliver in the way of performance. I have used the same objective standards those implied claims assert they achieve, not the relative and therefore unreliable standards of the whims of preference of a marketplace at any particular time. I have also been fair in separating my personal opinions such as the worthiness of some music for the substantial effort to obtain an accurate facsimile and the unworthiness of other music in comparison to what I assert as facts resulting from my own experiments and mathematical models and the conclusions I have drawn from them.

I have also given credit where credit is due such as the remarkable achievements of the modern solid state amplifier and the RedBook Digital Compact Disc, inexpensive and widely available examples of which perform their tasks flawlessly and reliably. I have also acknowledged the valuable contribution of the avialability of other powerful and useful tools such as low cost graphic equalizers and digital signal processors whose potential in this area has not even begun to be tapped.

The only way my ridicule will end is when at least some of those products begin to approach their implied claims by demonstrating far superior performance to what they now achieve or when their manufacturers and proponents admit that they do not come close to achieving them because they are based on inadequate scientific understanding of their requirements and therefore substantially fail to meet them.

[Zilch]

Some who post here would find biting irony in those words coming from you.

Moosquat.

I haven't ridiculed anything. If it can be said that I have even criticized anything, it is Howard's erroneous reading of Allison & Berkovitz's 1970 study, which he has been waving in my face since the very beginning of this discussion.

Look at the stated intent of this thread; it's a wrap, all right, complete with burial, as well, of a steaming pile, long overdue....

[soundminded]

Moosquat.

I haven't ridiculed anything. If it can be said that I have even criticized anything, it is Howard's erroneous reading of Allison & Berkovitz's 1970 study, which he has been waving in my face since the very beginning of this discussion.

Look at the stated intent of this thread; it's a wrap, all right, complete with burial, as well, of a steaming pile, long overdue....

It may come as a shock and disappointment to both you and Mr. Ferstler but I did not read most of the posts in the exchanges between you and him. I found them inane and of no interest to me. My time is too valuable to read more than a handful of posts and only on threads that interest me. Do you fancy that you are so important that I would spend all my time here? I've got other people's ideas on other message boards to ridicule too you know.

[Zilch]

It may come as a shock and disappointment to both you and Mr. Ferstler but I did not read most of the posts in the exchanges between you and him.

No shock at all; most everyone recognizes that your primary purpose in life is to thread-crap.

[soundminded]

No shock at all; most everyone recognizes that your primary purpose in life is to thread-crap.

Yes and I threaded you right through the eye of a very sharp logical needle.

[Zilch]

Listen, pal, Roy Allison is a friend of mine and we have discussed his approach to audio, loudspeakers, and sound on numerous occasions. So do not presume to lecture me as to what he and Berkovitz meant when they did that paper.

Bring him ON, Howard.

[There's a few points that need clarification. ]

You might have him read what I have written with respect to the paper and tell you whether it has merit or not first, though....

[Zilch]

As for the periodicals (and the books, too, pal, don't forget those) that I have published, at least I had the nerve to put my ideas into print form and did so with my name attached.

You are truly a glutton, Howard:

Florida State University librarian Howard Ferstler has written a book about audio that has about as much to do with audio reality in the '90s as bell-bottom pants and "Laugh-In"; High Fidelity Audio/Video Systems is about as dated and uninformative a how-to book on hi-fi as I've ever read.

http://www.stereophile.com/reference/101/

And from the editor:

Despite Mr. Ferstler's spirited defense of his brainchild, I concur with CG's review judgment that High Fidelity Audio/Video Systems contains too much misinformation, is too much concerned with long-obsolete components, and is too unconnected with the reality of what audiophiles face when deciding what to purchase and why, to be recommendable.

[Shacky]

Zilch,

Thanks very much for posting that stereophile review of Howard's book. I'm looking for a copy to take on vacation with me next week.

Obvious why Stereophile was critical. They cite Howard's challenges of them as well as other magazines. Are you so naive to think there are no challenges to spending more and more money for ever increasing search for audio utopia and the commercial vehicles promoting them?

From what I read in this horrid review, I loke what Howard is supporting.

So is the book still in print? If so sign me up!!!

I agree with most of this:

The Good:

• Sonic Hologram/Polk SDA-type circuits.

• "Subharmonic synthesizers" that synthesize "new" low bass that wasn't in the original recording.

• dbx dynamic range expanders.

The Bad:

• High-quality cable.

• Film-type capacitors.

• Outboard D/A converters—"If you buy an outboard mounted unit, chances are that any changes you hear will be the result of deteriorated performance" (p.213).

The Ridiculous:

• Acoustic room treatment.

• Cones for use under speakers and electronics—"Any audio or video buff who thinks that such gimmicks are accomplishing anything is deluded...an otherwise rational columnist for a major audio magazine [Audio's Bert Whyte, I assume—Ed.] once praised those accessories for their effectiveness. To this day, I do not know what possessed the man to say what he did" (p.214, emphases added).

• 18- and 20-bit DACs.

• LP clamps and stabilizers.

• High-end analog playback systems—"None of these products is better enough than a good, medium-grade turntable/arm/cartridge combination to clearly demonstrate its superiority with a typical LP recording. Many of these exotic designs are inferior to some mass-produced Asian models" (p.215).

[Zilch]

Zilch,

Thanks very much for posting that stereophile review of Howard's book. I'm looking for a copy to take on vacation with me next week.

Geez, Shacky, I don't know how you coulda missed it but by not paying attention to where you squat.

The Bad:

• Film-type capacitors.

Time to rip out your recaps, Shacky.

Perhaps Howard will advise you what to use, instead....

[Shacky]

Geez, Shacky, I don't know how you coulda missed it but by not paying attention to where you squat.

You continue your downward spiral in rudeness. Try being a gentleman please.

[Zilch]

You continue your downward spiral in rudeness. Try being a gentleman please.

Entertainment, Shacky, entertainment; c'mon, now, get with the program.

If I were to enumerate the gratuitous insults lobbed in my direction here thus far, it would comprise the longest post ever composed for presentation on this site....

[Shacky]

Entertainment, Shacky, entertainment; c'mon, now, get with the program.

If I were to enumerate the gratuitous insults lobbed in my direction here thus far, it would comprise the longest post ever composed for presentation on this site....

Using others to rationalize your behavior is slim excuse. Besides, you seem to be the glutton for punishment coming to a site like this a crapping over AR speakers and their designers.

[Zilch]

If the subject were classical music recording quality, Howard, I might hold your expertise in high standing, but insofar as loudspeaker design is concerned, you appear to be stuck in a time warp. I suppose one might reasonably presume that there would be a receptive audience of adherents at Classic Speaker Pages, but I believe I have demonstrated that your specific understanding and perspective do not even find support in the contemporaneous scientific literature you yourself cite as definitive....

[Zilch]

Besides, you seem to be the glutton for punishment coming to a site like this a crapping over AR speakers and their designers.

Where, Shacky, WHERE?

You obviously have not understood anything I have written here, and have no option but to fabricate a fictitious frame of reference as to intent.

We had virtually this same discussion previously among the membership of AudioKarma, and you didn't get it THEN, either....

[Zilch]

I never said I didn't like classical or jazz.

Like what my system is, it's irrelevant as to the matters under discussion, is all.

But if it'll help you to "connect," Patricia Barber is a current favorite here at ZilchLab.

The Cole Porter Mix is playing right now, in fact, on a pair of Karma Indignias.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_...amp;safe=images

[Call him "Credentialed...." ]

[Shacky]

Where, Shacky, WHERE?

You obviously have not understood anything I have written here, and have no option but to fabricate a fictitious frame of reference as to intent.

We had virtually this same discussion previously among the membership of AudioKarma, and you didn't get it THEN, either....

Perhaps you should turn that energetic focus of yours back on yourself. Why do you think so many people point out your negative comments on AR and other EC, non econo wave speakers? Do you think we are all making this up?

Spend some time re-reading your 20,000 posts. I don't have time to remind you of your previous comments.

Zilch, you have a very altruistic intent. Stick to that and you will get much more accomplished - rather than all these pi$$ing battles saying no I didn't when you clearly have.

[Zilch]

If I had asserted that AR3a's are inaccurate, dismissed them as junk, and walked away, you might be justified in suggesting that I had bashed them, but that's not what has happened here, rather, I have sought out the reason they are inaccurate and the manner in which they are, how that occurs, and to what extent it conforms with the design intent for their use. From this, we might all come away with a more comprehensive understanding of what AR3a's are about, unless, like you, we have no interest whatsoever in anything beyond whether we like them or not, and/or what they currently sell for on eBay.

There's more yet to be accomplished here, and I'm certain the forum very much appreciates your ongoing endeavors in encouragement of that pursuit....

[dingus]

...Stick to that and you will get much more accomplished - rather than all these pi$$ing battles saying no I didn't when you clearly have.

indeed. i have no doubt that there would be much less contention if people would not engage in these tit-for-tat encounters. a wise man once told me; "once you start slinging shit, people dont care whether you are right or wrong and you just wind up getting shit on your hands."