AR Live vs Recorded sessions, Opinions of people who may or may not have been there.

[Zilch]

I accept the limitations that small rooms apply to listening situations (I partially overcome this by having a somewhat larger "small room" than typical), and move on to enjoy my two audio systems.

PLEASE, Howard, post another 20 Meg of images showing us unwashed Hi-fi-in-a-closet pedestrians your superior listening environment(s)!

[Zilch]

Just look at the historical market share AR had (the highest ever). No it doesn't have it now. Of course it doesn't.

Bose has it now.

[Pale evidence. ]

I believe you remain confused about just what is involved with a good LvR demo. Sound reinforcement at rock concerts does NOT involve LvR work, Zilch. Heck, Zilch, you do not even need "hi-fi" speakers at rock concerts, or even at home for listening ro most rock recordings. (OK, with some rock recordings you may, but the number is a small percentage of the total.) Rather, all you need are "loud" speakers.

If only you knew!

When pigs fly and it rains beer.

Pigs been flyin' for decades, actually, to the Dark Side of the Moon.

Pink ones. You really should get out more.

Wash up your mugs, Howard, I have a secret....

[genek]

The Boston area live vs recorded concert was held in John Knowles Paine Concert Hall, a 400-seat auditorium on the Harvard campus.

[tysontom]

Cite ANY negative comment I have made regarding AR speakers in these pages. Much as you might want to brand me as an ignorant detractor, that is very far from the truth. Surely there is more substantive evidence of their actual worth than these promotional "side shows."

Tell us, please, Tom, where were the Grand Central Station AR live v. recorded demos actually performed?

Wow, Zilch! I left my message and then stopped for a quick supper. When I returned, there were about thirteen new replies and retorts posted.

There were never any live-vs.-recorded demonstrations done at Grand Central Terminal. There was talk once about the 1910 Nickelodeon being taken there, but it never happened. The New York Live-vs.-Recorded concerts were done at Carnegie Hall. AR did mount AR-3s up on top of the AR Music Room on the west balcony, and played Christmas music at fairly high levels throughout the station, but no LvR sessions were done there. Also, no sales were ever initiated there; only demonstrations of the different AR speakers, AR Turntable and later AR Amplifiers. Zilch, you might call this a gimmick: Villchur insisted that no visitor ever be approached about buying an AR product at any time, but employees were told to answer any and all question on high-fidelity products. Tens of thousands of people poured through the Music Room, and there is no telling how many sales were made just by letting people come in there after a hard trip somewhere and enjoy high-fidelity music in a completely relaxed atmosphere. Another brilliant strategy on the part of Edgar Villchur, or was it the fact that Villchur was disinterested in the "business" of business? He literally hated the business-side of AR; all he wanted to do was research and furthering the science of high-fidelity music. He was more interested in designing and testing speakers and turntables (Zilch, you love to measure loudspeakers: AR ran more than 1,500,000 anechoic-response and distortion curves on speakers before EV sold AR to Teledyne) than running the business, so he left the tactical part to others. This is probably one reason that co-founder Henry Kloss became disenchanted at AR in 1957: he felt like he was doing the heavy-lifting back in Cambridge while Villchur was doing the cognitive work in his labs in Woodstock. Villchur would spend two or three days in Cambridge and the rest of the time back in his lab in upstate New York!

--Tom Tyson

(1) AR LvR Philadelphia, PA

(2) AR Music Room GCT

[soundminded]

I noted in an earlier response to Zilch that the term "deception" is not necessarily derogatory - unless it is applied the way Ziilch used it to make it look like Ed Villchur was some sort of con artist.

I will admit that music played through loudspeakers cannot simulate the sound of live, large-scale orchestras (or even remotely large combos) in typical home-listening areas. The best they can do is accurately reproduce the input and then leave it to the outboard, multi-channel processing gear and multiple amplifiers to provide a decent soundfield simulation with several speakers sensibly located in a good room. However, even then the results will fall short, because small-room acoustics will still intrude. However, decent surround synthesis or extraction techniques can certainly go beyond basic two-channel stereo.

I continue to believe that the major problem with the AR-3 involved its too-high woofer/mid crossover point. The AR-3a went a long way towards solving that issue, but even its transition point was a tad too high. The Allison models got the transition point down lower still, which is one area where they bettered what the AR models of the era could do. (The AR-9 also did this, of course, and the Bose 901 had no transition point at all.) And of course we have the continuing controversy about the upper-midrange and treble attenuation dialed in to the AR speakers. I prefer flat speakers myself, but given the recordings of the day (and even many still coming out now) the attenuation feature was a good idea.

I agree with you that the present state of the music-reproduction art is subjectively primitive (the stress these days is on home-theater sound), but the primary reason for this is the inherent small size of typical home-listening rooms. No amount of DSP work is going to overcome that problem. However, I will also admit that the problem is not all that critical for me. I accept the limitations that small rooms apply to listening situations (I partially overcome this by having a somewhat larger "small room" than typical), and move on to enjoy my two audio systems.

Howard Ferstler

"I will admit that music played through loudspeakers cannot simulate the sound of live, large-scale orchestras (or even remotely large combos) in typical home-listening areas. The best they can do is accurately reproduce the input.."

The statement is meaningless. The input is an electrical signal whose only dimensions are voltage amplitude and time. The output is a fluidic field whose dimensions are amplitude, time, and propagation in three dimensions in space. There is therfore no correlation between them. The relationships of the fluidic field to the input signal not only varies where amplitude as a function of frequency is considered but where that relationship is also directionally dependent. What's more the correlation between the propagated field at one point in space and the resultant field at another as the result of the acoustic effects of the environment is also unknown. Not only are there no known methods to accurately calculate this relationship, there are also no measurements or measurement methods to accurately describe it either. At the current state of the art, this problem is beyond solution. It has beaten the best efforts of those who took it on and they are in full retreat.

"However, even then the results will fall short, because small-room acoustics will still intrude."

The threshold of audibility of this effect and what can be done to mitigate it are unknown. The importance of this effect may be less important than you think. What's more, it may be possible to exploit the acoustics of the listening room to advantage. The current strategy of fighting the room is a hopeless cause. It's a fight the designer can't win. If a successful strategy ever emerges, it will involve understanding the room and customizing the design and performance of the equipment to accomodate the variables of each room individually. The room itself will become an inherent part of the sound reproducing system. Past strategies of tweeter and midrange controls and graphic equalizers alone are laughably naive. They have not solved this problem even for experienced listeners. In the hands of tyros, they create more problems than they solve.

"I continue to believe that the major problem with the AR-3 involved its too-high woofer/mid crossover point. "

I will not become embroiled in a war over the worth of AR3. It is a known quantity that has been extensively studied as was AR3a. They are both significant as landmarks in the development of a technology. They each represented an advance in the art at the time they were introduced. Sadly, half a century later, the industry has not moved much further ahead. In many ways it has moved backwards. This during a period when other technologies have made stunning strides. Neither speaker was the ultimate solution to the problem of high fidelity but their significance and contribution should not be underestimated. This is one of the reasons for their commercial success, they brought solutions that hadn't been seen before at a price and size that made them an attractive option at a time when the market for such products was ready for them. To the degree that these speakers can perform successfully in LvR demonstrations like those we've discussed depends upon among other things the degree to which the acoustics of the room they are demonstrated in mask or reveal the differences between the directional sound propagations characteristics of the speakers and the instruments they are being compared to and also the hearing accuity and listening attentiveness to detail of the audience which is experiencing the comparison. Audiences inexperienced with such details and with critical listening as I was at the time I attended the demonstrations will be more readily convinced that the facsimile is perfect than those of greater skill as listeners will be. In other words, flaws I would have completely overlooked forty years ago might be very evident to me today. Unfortunately, no opportunity for a retest is likely to present itself.

"I agree with you that the present state of the music-reproduction art is subjectively primitive (the stress these days is on home-theater sound), but the primary reason for this is the inherent small size of typical home-listening rooms."

The primary reason for this is that lack of scientific research has resulted in failure to correctly and profoundly understand the underlying principles of acoustics and psychoacoustics which lie at the heart of high fidelity. Engineers cannot solve a problem they don't understand. At the current rate of progress...come back in a hundred years, we'll see if there is much change by then.

[Zilch]

Incidentally, Zilch, in spite of all of his jabbering, jesting, fabricating, and dodging, has absolutely no idea at all about what we are talking about. He is an electrical diddler with no idea of what is involved with the reproduction of acoustic instruments in small-room spaces. Heck, he does not even like acoustic music.

Forever clueless, Howard, what you don't know is that I have been a lousy acoustic musician, formerly pro, actually, for over 40 years.

It is fascinating to see you dodge, weave, and obfuscate when the facts pile up against you. When all else fails, Zilch makes jokes or tries to be the posessor of mysterious and profound secrets that prove his points - but will not be revealed.

Your sabbatical was decidedly short-lived here, obviously. Doesn't your driveway need edging today...?

[soundminded]

I normally agree with much of what you say, but your dismissal of my statement as "meaningless" is rather meaningless itself, and the rather convoluted explanation you append to it really does not do the problem justice. The problem is that small rooms overlay a small sense of space that all the DSP in the world cannot fully overcome. Good DSP can do wonders, but wonders are not a full cure. Frankly, I think the best audio minds (of which there are probably only a few these days) are well aware of the problems (not unaware as you imply) and that it is not ignorance that has resulted in no solutions but the laws of physics themselves.

I'll stick with what I said about the AR-3, as its deficiencies relate to home-based, small-room playback, but not to larger area playback such as the LvR concerts. Frankly, the individual radiation patterns of instruments in a playback space are probably not all that big a deal. If they were the LvR concerts Villchur did would not have succeeded. On the other hand, the radiation patterns of those individual instruments ARE important when making anechoic recordings of their respective outputs. This is where Villchur succeeded admirably, because he managed to get direct-field results that nicely simulated the wide-angle acoustic balance of the instruments. This allowed the speakers to input power that closely matched the spectral balance of the live ensemble.

At the playback end the speakers managed to simulate the soundfield of the ensemble, in spite of the obvious inability of any pair of speakers to reproduce the individual radiation patterns of each instrument. Villchur proved something very important in doing that: it is the total sound power of the ensemble that mainly matters, with individual instrument RPs not being a big deal. That he did this with a small quartet makes the revelation even more important, since the individual-instrument radiation-pattern artifacts with larger ensembles (orchestras) would be even less important.

I think that just about any attempt these days (or back in the Villchur at AR era) to duplicate what Villchur did would probably result in failure, even with speakers that would be able to do the job. The reason? Because, probably no speaker manufacturer out there these days would have the patiience and expertise to get the recording work done properly.

Incidentally, Zilch, in spite of all of his jabbering, jesting, fabricating, and dodging, has absolutely no idea at all about what we are talking about. He is an electrical diddler with no idea of what is involved with the reproduction of acoustic instruments in small-room spaces. Heck, he does not even like acoustic music.

Howard Ferstler

"I normally agree with much of what you say, but your dismissal of my statement as "meaningless" is rather meaningless itself, and the rather convoluted explanation you append to it really does not do the problem justice."

Howard, my statement regarding your assertion that "The best they can do is accurately reproduce the input.." is not an opinion, it's a statement of scientific fact. The input to a loudspeaker is a quantity called a scalar. It has magnitude but no direction. The output is a vector field which has both magnitude and direction. There is no way to correlate them, they are entirely different kinds of variables. I did not make this statement to single you out personally but to take the opportunity to correct what is a commonly held misconception. In fact it is often repeated by many people, among them audiophiles and engineers. The engineers should know better but usually don't. Mostly they are electrical engineers who have at one time in their education studied three dimensional vector electrical and magnetic fields but often restrict their professional work to circuit design where they are dealing with scalars. The spatially integrated acoustic energy can be computed and compared to the spectral distribution of the electrical signal but that is of very limited value, in fact very different spatial distributions of acoustic energy will yield the same averaged magnitude and are not comparable to each other. For example, a speaker system with a single sharply focused tweeter can be equalized to have the same total spectral energy power output as a pulsating sphere of uniform frequency response but they will not sound anything alike.

You are right that I overly simplified this which points out another misconception that is widely believed at least by those who have studied the work of Villchur et al and that is that the spatially integrated energy response is of primary importance. This is also not true because it fails to take into account many factors introduced by the room acoustics. What ultimately matters is only the field that reaches the listener's ears. I had come to this conclusion 8 years before I heard Peter Snell say it. The spectral distribution, directions and intensities of reflections, and times of arrival are what is critical. These are at the current state of the art, at least with any commercially manufactured loudspeaker systems I have seen beyond the control of the designer. They are not taken into account in the design. Therefore variables introduced by room acoustics go virtually unaddressed and are left to chance. The result is that even with identical equipment installed in different rooms, no two sound systems sound exactly alike. This alone demonstrates a serious flaw in the current paradigm of a high fidelity sound reproducing system. The analysis also shows why the model of a perfect high fidelity loudspeaker being a pulsating sphere which I think is usually attributed to Olsen is also wrong. The pulsating sphere suffers the same limitations of being non adaptive to indivudual room acoustics as every other speaker design.

"Frankly, the individual radiation patterns of instruments in a playback space are probably not all that big a deal."

Actually it is a very big deal. There is no signal that can be fed to an AR3, an AR3a, an AR9 or any other conventional speaker in most small rooms that will convincingly reproduce the sound of a grand piano. Even when the timbre is a dead on match, the subjective difference is one of a large powerful instrument compared to sound coming out of two boxes. As the room gets larger and the instruments get further away from nearby walls as was the case with the guitar player, the effect that the room has in producing these early delays from different directions from the piano but not from the speakers diminishes and the two sound more alike.

"If they were the LvR concerts Villchur did would not have succeeded."

This is why I wish I could hear them again. I've become much more aware of this aspect of sound and I'd like to judge with this improved level of attentiveness how similar or different they sound to me now.

The question of the effect of listening room size in simulating the acoustics of large halls is an entirely separate matter. Your observations about small rooms revealing themselves by affecting the undelayed field producing early delays from many directions reaching the listener was of concern to me from the very beginning. I have experimented with this problem for 35 years. My experience is that in simulating the acoustics of large halls in small rooms, the field contributed by the acoustics of the listening room from the undelayed and very early delayed sounds is always swamped in magnitude and is masked by the much larger contribution of the delayed field even where the listening room has relatively live acoustics.

[soundminded]

Regarding your comments about directional tweeters being compared with more widely dispersing designs, even after equalization for equally flat spectral balance, Mark Davis analyzed the directionality issue decades ago starting with a series of A/B comparisons between a pair of AR-LST units and a pair of AR-7 units. Even when equalized for equal power response the pairs sounded different. However, when he added two more AR-7 units and angled each pair of them on each channel to the sides so that they were radiating at angles similar to those of the side panels of the LST units and then equalized for flat power the AR-7 double-pair combos sounded pretty much identical to the LST pairs. That is when he realized the impact of radiation pattern on sound behavior of loudspeakers in home listening rooms, and when he began further research that resulted in the first dbx Soundfield speaker. In home listening rooms this radiation-pattern issue has no impact on spectral balance, but it certainly has an impact on the sense of spaciousness and the ability to stabilize the forward soundfield.

In all of my speaker reviews I have taken this into account. While I favor the wide-angle approach (particularly with tweeters) for its ability to decently simulate front soundstage spaciousness, I can also see the point of more directional designs (certainly in the tweeter range) that offer pinpoint accuracy and precision soundstaging that is often even superior to what one gets at live performances. This is where taste comes into play, and I am far more forgiving of that than some of the more doctrinaire members of either (wide vs narrow dispersion) school. All I ask is that the response at the listening position be smooth. I even allow for some of that downward treble sloping that is so often debated, since the artifact works as well with some recordings as it works poorly with others.

Obviously, two identical systems will not sound the same when located in different rooms. Even different listening locations in the same room will result in perceived differences, as will moving the speakers to different locations in that same room. However, the best any speaker can do is input smooth (or if one is a purist, flat) power to the room, along with a radiation pattern that is wide enough for the direct field response to not be radically different from the power response at different listening angles. This is the Allison approach, of course, and has been his approach since he designed the LST. And of course a pair of more directional speakers that are angled inward just right, with the listener occupying the sweet spot, can in a more limited way do much the same thing, but without, of course, the sense of spaciousness up front. Certainly, the field that reaches the listener's ears is primary, as you say, and a good array of speakers will work with whatever DSP devices are involved to do a simulation that overcomes many, but certainly not all, of the limitations we have with small home-style listening rooms.

It is too bad that the Villchur concerts cannot be replicated. If the tapes and performers (and instruments) were still available something like that could be done, but it is too late now. I realize that you would like to be temporarily transported back to that time and place to give things another listen, but maybe we can at least agree that at least some of the other attendees (like Julian Hirsch, as quoted by Tom Tyson in an earlier post) were astute enough at the time to do fair appraisals of what was happening. Nobody that I know of who attended them (this obviously leaves out both Zilch and Floyd Toole) ever dismissed the concerts as gimmicks that proved nothing. The concerts proved that at least in some rooms, with some recordings, a pair of now classic speakers could do close to a perfect job of reproducing the sound of live instruments. In a smaller home listening room, with the acoustic problems such spaces generate, the same speakers (or any other speakers, then or now) could not do as well, but then few recordings then or now would be as perfect for simulating realism against live instruments in an original space as those made by Villchur.

I would like to think that really good home listening rooms, at least if they are large enough and not weirdly shaped, are indeed decently swamped enough by digitally fabricated sound fields working with many speakers to allow the listener to get pretty close to a live-music simulation. However, my experience has been that only with the very best original recordings (even good two-channel CDs are proper, at least if the home DSP gear is good) can this happen, and the results are still only "pretty" close.

It may be possible to generate a borderline perfect simulation in a good home-listening area, but the cost, complexity, and configuration required would limit the issue to only a handful of enthusiasts. (They would also have to have very tolerant wives, unless they were milionaires having dedicated rooms off in some corner of the mansion.) Most other enthusiasts would remain more than satisfied with results that were almost as good (and far less damaging to current home-decor principles), which is why such super-duper systems are a financially non-viable pipe dream.

Howard Ferstler

"In home listening rooms this radiation-pattern issue has no impact on spectral balance,"

I must strongly disagree and you know where the truth is by the proof of the soundfield speaker, ARLST vs AR3a, and your own claim about Alison speakers. If what you said was true and ARLST and AR3a were adjusted to have the same spectral power output, they would have the same spectral balance. The difference is that ARLST provides many more reflections with high frequency content arriving at the listener over a wider angle than AR3a does for the same spectral power output. When adjusted this way, they will have a different perceived spectral balance because the hf content arriving at the listener when taking all of the room reflections into account which comprise much of the arriving total sound field will be different.

"but it certainly has an impact on the sense of spaciousness"

Now why do you suppose that is? It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that high frequencies arriving from a wide range of lateral angles the way they do from real musical instruments are critical to creating the sense of space, just as they are critical to creating the sense of timbre.

"I can also see the point of more directional designs (certainly in the tweeter range) that offer pinpoint accuracy and precision soundstaging that is often even superior to what one gets at live performances."

I am truly disappointed in you Howard. I am not surprised at inane comments coming from Zilch, that he chooses often to play the buffoon disguises whatever gems he has to offer by planting a garden of weeds around himself. But "superior to a live performance" is not worthy of you since the stated goal of high fidelity as opposed to marketing audio equipment is to reproduce live performances, something audio equipment can't do yet. In fact I've spent some time studying real instruments and how they make sound, what they have in common in this regard and how that is different from loudspeakers. Most acoustic instruments with respect to the listener are indirect radiators, quasi-omnidirectional radiators, but never focus most of their sound at the listener. And with rare exception, the whatever direction you are in relative to them, there is little if any change in their timbre when you move around them, the relationship in the loudness of their fundimental and harmonics shows little change with listener position. Next time you hear a real piano being played where you are free to walk around such as a piano bar, try it and see if there is an audible difference. There are no sweet spots. By contrast, loudspeakers focus their sound increasingly as frequency rises for each driver. Even the best single tweeter designs INCLUDING AR3a focuses its high frequency sound stratight ahead. For example, given Tom's data where the tweeter is down 5 db at 60 degrees off axis at 15 khz, that means that the falloff is 70% at that frequency. At 100 hz there will be virtually no falloff or probably under 1 db. 180 degrees off axis, there will be no output at 15khz at all while the 100 hz output may be down 5 db or so. The polar response for 360 degrees even in one plane is revealing of where the energy goes.

A grand piano is not a point source, it does not sound anything like a point source unless it is heard at a very great distance, and it should not sound like a point source. Otherwise it might be called a not so grand piano, more like a toy piano. Enjoying real music does not require you to put your head in a vice to keep it in one spot and one orientation.

"However, the best any speaker can do is input smooth (or if one is a purist, flat) power to the room, along with a radiation pattern..."

" a simulation that overcomes many, but certainly not all, of the limitations we have with small home-style listening rooms."

You continue to think in terms of the failed engineering paradigms you are familiar with. That is what most people do including engineers. In fact today's crop are so pathetic, all they do is try to beat the same dead horse ideas that have been around for the last 50 years. It won't get any deader and I make no apoligies to them. If you want to know why the consumer audio industry for high quality equipment is dying, one explanation may be that it is intellectually bankrupt. It has nothing genuinely new or better to offer than it has in the past and on rare occasions when notable people are frank about it like Gordon Holt was just before he died and the editors of TAS Magazine several years ago, it is far short of what they had hoped for and expected. Defenders of the faith can whine all they want to but there is nothing on the horizon I can see that will convince dedicated concert goers who attend symphony performances, operas, choral and pipe organ recitals and patrons of these fine arts who donate money in vast amounts that listening to recordings is anything but a poor second best to a live performance. Face it, the industry has failed its original goal so to survive as best it can, it has found a new goal which has nothing to do with reproducing the sound of the best live music. How fortunate they are that cutbacks in music education in most schools has left most people musical illiterates. We have students who come here for violin lessons who have never heard even one symphony or even al live symphony orchestra once. Not just a few, most. Perhaps that's why they are satisfied with their i-pods and ear buds.

"It may be possible to generate a borderline perfect simulation in a good home-listening area, but the cost, complexity, and configuration required would limit the issue to only a handful of enthusiasts."

Again the current paradigm is your mental prison Howard. Escape from it is merely a matter of opening the door and leaving it. It is unlocked. As for cost and complexity, that too is different and may change. Don't be wowwed by what is now called high end audio. Those designers are marching down the wrong road throwing away money left and right on things of no value at all. As for complexity, a computer 35 years ago took a computer expert to make use of it. Today a five year old can make use of one. Radically different and far more advanced engineering concepts based on entirely different and much more powerful analytical tools can relegate the best the science has to offer today entirely obsolete. Will it happen? Nobody knows. But it could.

When I first started working around 1970, I read a technical article entitled "will the 4 function calculator ever break $100?" How does that sound in retrospect?

[Zilch]

Zilch, a whle back you posted a photo of a room you claimed was your listening area.

Never happened, Howard. You assumed.

Another member here noticed that it was a room pictured normally on somebody's (not yours) web site.

Spoiling the ruse before it had played out, alas. I suspect there will more yet to come.

So, what makes you think that I or anyone else here is going to believe you when you say you were a long-term musician of any kind, including lousy?

Aside from its entertainment value, I don't give a flying whit what you believe; count on it.

Heck, you will not even use your real name. How is anybody able to get any "clues" about a guy who posts as a sockpuppet? At least I use my real name and people can judge me and not some phantom that cannot be shamed.

The proof is evidenced by the results of what I do.

My sabbatical ended when YOU decided to post some stuff copied from RAH-E that was patently in error. Dunlavy was in error when his memory failed him about the AR demo room at GCS and you were in error when failed to spot his error. Errors are your stock in trade, Zilch. They are how you attract fans and promote yourself.

You again missed the point by a substantial margin.

Go play in your junk room.

Your showplace tools need dusting from disuse, obviously, Howard.

How 'bout you go out there and actually DO something; I've given you plenty of cues.

Again the current paradigm is your mental prison Howard. Escape from it is merely a matter of opening the door and leaving it.

+1....

[soundminded]

+1....

Zilch, Howard and I were discussing the reproduction of music. This has nothing to do with you.

[Zilch]

Zilch, Howard and I were discussing the reproduction of music. This has nothing to do with you.

No, huh?

It certainly has to do with Howard and how he might contribute to breaking the logjam....

[Zilch]

Basically, you are saying that the ends justify the means. Machiavelli would be proud.

I am saying DO something, Howard, besides blather.

You have the means.

Must I draw you a picture...?

[Zilch]

I am pleased to have afforded you the opportunity to summarize your career, for what, the sixth or eighth time here now is it, in the interest of patent self-service?

Once again, you miss the mark.

[Alas, I shall have to do it myself, then, with a pair of Bose 301s.... ]

[soundminded]

Re: your first paragraph: re-read what I said about the Mark Davis experience with the AR-LST and two and then four pairs of AR-7s. While the equalization work with only a single pair of AR-7 units resulted in similar spectral balance to what they heard (and measured) with the pair of LST units, the sense of spaciousness was different. That difference was eliminated when they introduced a second pair of AR-7 units and splayed each pair (two on the left and two on the right) at angles. The initial differences did not involve spectral balance. They involved spaciousness, and the spaciousness difference was pretty much eliminated when they opted for four AR-7s in a splayed out arrangement.

I have compared some very different speakers (Allison IC-20s vs Dunlavy Cantatas, being two radical examples out of many) that had substantially different radiation patterns, but which both had smooth total-field measured response at the listening position. They sounded very similar in terms of spectral balance, but they sounded quite different in terms of spaciousness and center-area stability. The Dunlavys even sounded a tad clearer, due to the reduction in upper midrange and treble reflected energy.

My own IC-20 models used to have a feature that allowed the user to have all four panels of the pair outputting the same or having the inward-facing panels roughly 10 dB louder. (You could even do the switching remotely, from the listening position.) The only audible difference was a change in soundstaging spread and spaciousness. The spectral balance remained the same whether the panels were all at equal loudness or the inward-facing ones were louder. (Even reviewers in Stereo Review and High Fidelity magazines mentioned that characteristic when they reviewed the speakers.) The advantage of having the inward-facing panels dialed up louder was that the clarity was slightly improved (more direct-field energy) and the soundstage was stabilized (a time/intensity tradeoff, just as Mark Davis discovered with his dbx work), with the center imaging remaining fairly stable even when listening from away from the sweet spot. Not as good as the dbx models (because the Allison drivers are pretty wide dispersing even if only the inward panels are dominating and so they do not "aim" well), but still more stable than with the wide-dispersion output of all panels operating the same way. The tradeoff: spaciousness vs soundstage stability, but with spectral balance remaining the same no matter which mode was chosen.

And I certainly am aware that wide dispersion in the treble enhances spaciousness. I have been saying that both here and there ("there" being four books and dozens of magazine articles) for a long time. You make it sound as if I only realized it after reading your input. Hell, anybody who has ever heard a pair of AR-LST units will realize the value of wide dispersion in the upper midrange and treble.

However, make no mistake about it, with some highly directional speakers (at least with some good recordings) you DO get better imaging than what is obtainable at most live concerts, assuming the listener is not in the front rows or conducting. This is what a lot of buffs like, but not me. I am as aware as you that at live concerts instruments (including the piano) do not offer up point-source imaging, and the ensemble overall certainly does not. However, many listeners DO want that characteristic (not me, remember), and some recordings, with some speakers, deliver that result. It is not an example of simulating live music, but some of those buffs want something they consider better: super imaging and super soundstaging. OK, they get it, and if the speakers can do so while delivering smooth response as well - then more power to them. Just because it is not a perfect live-music simulation does not make it bad. You seem to think that the lack of perfection in today's components is some kind of technological crime that maybe only you can solve if the right people out there just listen to you.

If a speaker is backed up to the front wall then the polar response in the bass will for all intents and purposes be 180 degrees, simply because of the existence of that wall. If the midrange and treble drivers are basically omnidirectional over the same 180-degree angle then the result will be sound as subjectively omnidirectional as what you say most instruments deliver. (I tend to disagree about that supposed instrumental omnidirectionality you claim exists with most instruments, given the diagrams I have seen of the directional characteristics of violins, cellos, trumpets, etc., and even the piano, but I will cut you some slack.) Unlike what you claim, a fair number of against-the-wall speakers can be as omni (or, rather, half omni, since they obviously cannot radiate behind themselves if they are bumped against the wall) over a broad frequency range when against that wall. The AR-LST was pretty good at this (although it beamed at bit just below the woofer/mid crossover point), and the triangular-cabinet Allison models can do this, too. Indeed, they do not essentially beam at all over the forward hemisphere well into the treble range. That was a salient characteristic of the Allison design.

Note also that the Allison tweeter is somewhat better at 15 kHz and 60 degrees off axis than the AR tweeter, but more importantly at 10 kHz it is only about 3 dB down even at 90 degrees off axis. This allows the more conventional looking Allison models with only a single forward-facing panel to be surprisingly omnidirectional over a broad frequency range. Not perfect, but pretty darned good. However, when the drivers are installed in the angled-panel Allison cabinet there is essentially zero reduction in system output uniformity at 10 kHz all the way out to 90 degrees off. The Allison triangular models (and the LST no doubt comes close to this, too) are as flat responding out to 10-12 kHz at 45, 60, 75, and even 90 degrees off axis as they are on axis. And don't go telling me that performance at 15 kHz is all that musically important. Heck, most middle-aged buffs simply cannot hear that high up, and most instruments are petering out that high up, too. Then again, even at that frequency the Allison triangular-cabinet units are still close to omni over 180 degrees. They certainly radiate wider than the AR-9 or Bose 901.

And this is why they are superior (in terms of the spaciousness and ensemble realism you love) to most other speakers available. In an auditorium this would not be a particular advantage (after all, the more directional AR-3 did great in such a space), but in typical and not too large home listening rooms the effect sets such speakers apart from much of the competition. Then, again, as I have noted, some listeners do not like the effect and prefer the soundstaging precision of more focussed speakers - at least when toed in and the listener is locked into the sweet spot.

Note that I am not wowed in the least by high-end audio. I have railed against some of that inanity for three decades, and have railed against tweako publications that support the fantasy. Sure, some upscale speakers can do some wonderful things, but most are not much better than their cheaper counterparts, unless you count the ability of the bigger upscale models to play louder and maybe go a bit deeper into the bass.

As for what has caused the hobby and industry to decline, I do not at all think it involves a loss in quality or a failure to deliver performance on the level you seem to think is needed. It has declined because listener taste has declined and fewer and fewer people these days are interested in the nitty gritty involved with any serious hobby. People are too busy partying and making money and listening to junk music to appreciate good audio. Home theater has also played a part, because it has caused people to sink megabucks into super TV monitors, leaving little cash for speakers and audio gear beyond a modest surround-sound receiver and modest 5.1 speaker package.

Even if the super systems you seem to think should be developed were built few people would purchase them. Few people would see any benefit. Any company getting into that business would go broke fast.

Howard Ferstler

Some observations;

" It is not an example of simulating live music, but some of those buffs want something they consider better: super imaging and super soundstaging."

Are we entering the world of Floyd Toole where pandering to a market takes preference over high fidelity? I have nothing to say about that. The capricious whims of the marketplace may be the reality of the audio business as it has evolved. I'm only about the science. But I think most people would enjoy the sound of recordings that could sound like real music much more than what we have now no matter how good its imaging is.

"You seem to think that the lack of perfection in today's components is some kind of technological crime that maybe only you can solve if the right people out there just listen to you."

The crime if there is one is the money wasted by other people. It's not a crime against me and so I'm not shook up about it. But I will not pretend for one minute that these products have any technical merit. Their claims are entirely empty IMO. I know I'm headed in the right direction. That is because I have frequent access to real music to compare my experimental ideas against. That for me is the only standard that matters because it is based on a clear goal that was promised by others but never delivered on.

I think you are far too caught up in the here and now, far too preoccupied with equipment as it exists and as you expect it to. You probably need to hear more live music to remind yourself what this is about. It's easy to get caught up in recordings and equipment to the point where hearing real music becomes a rare experience. You don't need double blind tests to know just how far there is to go. The question of which of todays equipment comes closest to real music is about as pointless as which is the more accurate sounding radio, a Crossley or an Atwater Kent. Both are convincing to zero percent of people with normal hearing one hundred percent of the time. The results are the same with today's equipment.

The first mistake anyone seriously interested in studying this problem from a scientific point of view makes is to think that it is about engineering equipment. In fact the entire problem centers around engineering sound fields. The equipment is a means to an end. When it becomes an end in itself, it is doomed to fail its technical purpose. When an idea doesn't work, doing more of it won't make it work any better. You can harness 300 horses together to pull a carriage but it won't go faster than the fastest one of them. It's no match for a car with a 300 horsepower engine. If you want to duplicate sound fields from recordings to the point where they are subjectively like sound fields from music, then you study sound fields, how they are generated, how they work, how they interact with rooms, how they are perceived. Woofers, tweeters, crossovers, transistors come last. They are the least important part of the problem. When you don't approach the problem that way, you can't solve it. These people keep hitting their heads against the same brick wall but no matter how hard they hit it, it won't budge an inch.

"I tend to disagree about that supposed instrumental omnidirectionality you claim exists with most instruments, given the diagrams I have seen of the directional characteristics of violins, cellos, trumpets, etc., and even the piano, but I will cut you some slack"

If you ever have somone point a trumpet directly at you and blow through it even from 40 feet away, you will understand what I am talking about. Performers point them down at the floor for a reason, that reason being so that they don't deafen the audience. Next time you see someone play horns (which includes both brass and reed instruments) watch where they are pointed. Then be somewhere in a different direction.

"Even if the super systems you seem to think should be developed were built few people would purchase them. Few people would see any benefit. Any company getting into that business would go broke fast."

About 30 years ago, that's what IBM said about the PC. Why in the world would anyone want or need their own computer? How could most people possibly learn to use such a complicated machine?

Next time you are at a concert where there is a symphony orchestra playing, close your eyes and imagine you are at home listening to that sound in your own room. Then stop off somewhere and have a couple of drinks so that you don't go home and toss all your equipment out in the trash. I know you won't believe me when I tell you that much better and far more pleasing sound systems are possible and they could be designed to be simple enough for anyone to use, they will not be megabuck products any more than large flat panel TVs have become. But they won't be cheap either.

[soundminded]

Obviously, we disagree about many things.

Howard Ferstler

You've reviewed equipment. I've reviewed ideas. Your reviews have been much more generous than mine.

[Zilch]

You are like a bug at a picnic.

Admit it -- you couldn't possibly resist a shootout between Zilchified Bose 301s and $5 Allison 110s....

[Zilch]

C'mon, guys, use "Fast Reply" or "Add Reply" at the bottom of the page rather than ""Reply" under the post.

Y'all render the thread unreadable by gratuitously reposting each others' posts....

[Carlspeak]

Perhaps they want it to be clear which post they are commenting on.

However, that could easily be accomplished without hitting the '+quote' or '"reply' button and needlessly consuming more of Mark's server space by simply typing at the beginning of their post:

"With reference to your post #XXX"

[genek]

Maybe somebody (gad, not Zilch) ought to explain what each of those buttons do and do not do. It seems normal to me to use the "reply" feature when, well, replying to a message, and that would do the job just fine.

Just hit the "repy" button and then edit the part inside the quote tags to remove extraneous materia;l.

[Carlspeak]

I am sure Zilch would be relieved, and it is likely that he is the wave of the future, anyway.

Howard Ferstler

I think he would be dissapointed if you stopped posting. My impression is you're his entertainment here at CSP. At AK he's all business advising all on his e-wave designs whilst quoting the JBL guru, Toole, whenever possible.

[Zilch]

Sure, I could experiment, but maybe I do not want to bog the site down with my research work.

[Zilch]

I am really disappointed, Howard.

I should think that someone who has made a career out of making stuff up such as yourself would exhibit a far higher level of skill in posting their delusive fantasies here.

500 pages, 7500 posts, 395,000 views this morning, and 66 builders with projects "Officially" completed; you can stop clicking, now, really....

[Zilch]

Until you actually produce "real" magazine articles or "real" books (working with "real" editors), you have no idea of what it is like to actually publish something. When it comes to "publishing," the internet is a circus, and most of the "writers" are clowns.

A circus clown produced a worldwide benefit concert from the Space Station last week.

Aspire to greatness, Howard, it could still happen. Fasten yer seat belt, though; that could be a bumpy ride....

[Zilch]

You can amend a new chapter; one devoted to the AR LvR concerts, with opinions culled from a whole raft of individuals who were never at any of them.

No need, Howard; Toole already gave them the full measure of attention they deserve from a scientific perspective.

I have every confidence that our forum pal Soundminded could fake it equally convincingly using Bose Wave Radios....

[soundminded]

No need, Howard; Toole already gave them the full measure of attention they deserve from a scientific perspective.

I have every confidence that our forum pal Soundminded could fake it equally convincingly using Bose Wave Radios....

Zilch, when it comes to duplicating the sound of individual acoustic instruments, small groups of instruments, and singers as they would be heard in the room the equipment is in, I'll put up my system which includes a re-engineered Bose 901 system against anything made by anyone selling at any price and that includes my own modified AR9s. Against your equipment there'd be no contest. Remember, I hear real live music every day. There are music students playing violins, violas and the piano here every day. There is intense practicing at the highest level here every day. There is a small string orchestra playing here every week. There is a Baldwin and a Steinway piano in this house. This system will even show up subtle differences between the sounds of Steinway pianos and Baldwin pianos, between Stradivarius violins and Guanari violins. The speakers were not re-engineered as an end in themselves but as part of a system whose goal is to produce sound fields of specific shapes, directionalites, and time relationships according to unconventional concepts developed in a mathematical model, not in a test chamber but in the room they are installed in and not reproducing test tones but reproducing recordings of actual music. By comparison, in achieving this goal, other sound systems no matter how expensive to build or how carefully manufactured by virtue of their engineering concepts are primitive.

Here's a good recording for you or anyone to test their sound system's accuracy with, Yvgeny Kissen playing the Busoni transcription of the Bach Chaconne RCA 09026-68911-2. The Steinway D whether heard live or in a well reproduced recording is a stunningly beautiful instrument to listen to easily justifying its $90,000 price tag and explaining why it is the overwhelming choice for performing concert pianists around the world. Its tone, range, and power can fill up the largest concert halls with magnificent sound right to the last seat in the highest balcony. Kissen plays it for all its worth, the Busoni transcription giving him every opportunity to display his technical prowess and his musicality. It's an outstanding recording and performance IMO. Also noteworthy on this recording is his performance of the Schumann Kreisleriana. Howard, do you have this recording? How well does your equipment reproduce it and what do you think of the recording if you have it?