|
|
January 14
The spread of Freud's thinking put the final nail in coffin of "insightful" art, as photography had to "representational" art. The dominance of conceptulism in the 20th Century, including the more intellectually coherent forms of "abstract" art, were the direct result. It gradually became impossible to an educated artist to work without some degree of self-analysis. Given the somewhat ubiquitous endgame of successful psychoanalytic introspection, the territory was soon well-mined by the surrealists.
Artist became increasing focused on the primacy of the process, not the piece. No doubt, this was also influenced by the widespread adoption of almost metaphysical frameworks in the natural sciences, and by a general trend away from materialism in intellectual circles. June 29 6/28
I've said it several times over the last couple of weeks... now I want to commit it to print: I think the IPhone is going to fall short of sales expectations. Of course, there will be healthy pipeline fill, maybe some production shortfalls, too. I'm guessing about 1M units will move in '07. Not bad, and not up to forecasts. But, eventually, it comes down to Kantor's First Rule of Convergence.
No multi-tasker has even been a truely paradigm-shifting product. What function does the IPhone actually do BETTER? Not cooler, not different, just better. I can think of none. In fact, the convenience of all the functions seems to have been slightly reduced, in service of an abstract design idea. OK, perhaps I will feel differently when I actually use one, and my opinion will change. But, for now, I see the product as the embodiment of convergence gone astray. The phone gives the music player a shorter battery life. The music player adds extra button-pushes to making a phone call.
It is purely a conceit that the IPod succeeded on the basis of appearance and coolness factor. The IPod rose from the crowded ranks of MP3 players because it was easy to use. It worked seamlessly. It didn't have extraneous features. Can the IPhone say all those things? Maybe in a year.
The other thing is customer segment focus. If this is for kids and techies, shouldn't the messaging functions be slicker? No custom ringtones? If Google is going to buy Apple (just joking...), shouldn't you be able to make YouTube clips with the IPhone? No video? Really??? OK, so are we talking affluent users? How about a decent speaker phone, or a memory card? Voice dialing?
I'll check back and update this post, when the dust has settled.
April 22
Consumer loudspeakers are as much lifestyle accessories as they are tools for communication. But, even if traditional notions of fidelity are no longer as commercially relevant as was once the case, we still need to work out end-to-end standards for how audio signals are handled. Artists and content-creators have to trust that there is at least some range of technical consistency to the distribution chain. At best, decisions made by loudspeaker makers should be synergistic with customers' choices of music; at worst, these decisions shouldn't render the content unusable. In this regard, clear standards are even more of an issue when there is no original acoustical event to refer to. Currently, producers and consumers of electronic sound are relying on the fact that the signal chain also must deliver (at least basic) levels of intuitively satisfying fidelity, including intelligibility. This requirement sets certain boundaries on performance. Clearly, these minimum levels are insufficient for audiophiles, but they seem to serve general consumers somewhat sufficiently.
I don't expect much meaningful progress in loudspeaker technology until the goals become more well-defined. Once this is done, loudspeaker engineers can get back to the task of optimizing the process.
-k
|  |
March 03
High fidelity recording.... frankly, its a bigger can of worms than just about anyone wants to think about.
Audiophiles take it for granted that because we have only two ears, two signal channels must theoretically be able to reproduce exactly what we hear, provided the channels are applied correctly. Unfortunately, the two-ear/two-channel logic is false, and only occasionally leads to really good listening experiences. The problem arises because human ears are not just fixed points in space, to be simply fed from fixed microphones. Rather, human hearing works in a complex way, with the ears and head cooperating to understand the timbre and direction of impinging sounds. In other words, our ears process the local sound fields near to them, not only fixed points; they are moving, intelligent, directional sensors. These varying local fields must be recreated as functions of time in order to properly convince the hearing system of a virtual reality.
In one very reasonable analysis, recording/playback is essentially a spatial-sampling problem. For reliable reproduction, many sample locations are required in a given room. Further, if one samples the recording room at an inter-microphone distance greater than twice the spatial Nyquist, as defined by the shortest acoustic waves one wants to reproduce, one gets stuck with spatial aliasing during playback. (Not frequency aliasing, spatial aliasing... the existence of spurious artifacts in the geometry of the reproduced sound field.) This is neither negligible nor trivial. In fact, some of us believe it is an important underlying reason why recordings sound non-live, and just don't get much better as one tweaks the tonal spectrum or lowers the distortion beyond reasonable levels of accuracy. Add to this spatial aliasing problem the differing boundary conditions between recording and playback environments, and true "fidelity" becomes an extremely illusive goal.
It's not just difficult to achieve fidelity, it is almost impossible to properly define it. The anachronistic notion of a microphone connected to some kind of spectrum analyzer is quaint; it is easy to understand, but it is essentially flawed. In reality, there is no possible one-to-one mapping between a soundfield and any finite number of V(t) electrical signals. Transfer-function-like desciptions of recorded fidelity are non-operative when irreverible changes of signal dimensionality are involved, ie- when one or more microphones are used. Transfer functions, of course, can be applied to amps and CD players, and such, only because the mathematical dimensionality of the signal is not changed. The 2-D signal remains a 2-D signal. When ears, loudspeakers or microphones come onto the scene, one is forced to employ non-transform metrics of recorded quality.
It is possible to pick some arbitrary functions to map between the recording and playback space, while ignoring the inherently under-deterministic nature of these functions. For example, the average spectrum with such and such time constants, or an anechoic impulse at one meter, can be optimized by design engineers, and we all call it a day. The audio industry, of course, then argues ad infinitum about which of these functions (if any) bests fits the human cognitive process, ignoring how profoundly reductionistic they all are. This is essentially the situation we have in the audio industry today. In fact, it is the best of what we have today. Unfortunately, many in the industry, and many of the industry's consumers, don't understand what a profound and inadequate compromise such "specifications" as frequency response and distortion are, when it comes to capturing and to perceiving acoustic events. It is certainly better for all that objective specifications do exist and are used. The flip side is that specifications become a tool of stagnation, even in the hands of the well-intentioned.
So where to go next? I have in the past called recording "lossy compression." We take an informationally complex signal, we ignore aspects of it believed to be non-essential, and we encode the remaining data. That is exactly what happens in the recording process, regardless of the number of bits, channels or sample rate involved. Compression starts at the microphone. Even if the recording medium itself has perfect electrical fidelity, it can at best preserve only that fraction of the information that the microphones send to it. OK, reductionism is always necessary in life, and it can be done in sensible ways. The trick is to toss the right data based on an understanding of the perceptual system, instead of the current trial and error machinations that comprise "mic placement" and "speaker positioning." There are a few people thinking this way, working on acoustic "wavefield synthesis" and "auralization." Good stuff. But far, far from the kind of record/playback schema that are presently entrenched. February 06
Here's one lone contary voice:
If you like the speakers, I suggest you replace that big cap with a standard bipolar electrolytic from Madisound or Parts Express. Here's why:
That old style cap probably has a series resistance of several Ohms, even when new. That resistance will definitely be part of the crossover shape and frequency balance of the original design. If you put in a film cap with very low resistance, the level of the driver it is connected to could easily go up or down by a 2 or 3 dB. That's a lot of tonal change.
Of course, I know that many people like to replace their electrolytics with film. The trouble is, 9 times out of 10, what they are doing is boosting the tweeter level, and believing they've added more "detail." (These sometimes the same guys who would have a siezure just looking at an equalizer...)
So, sure, if you don't like the speakers, of course, mod them! Why not? But, if you want to restore them, totally changing the crossover by changing the type of cap won't get you there.I think you will find that modern electrolytics are MUCH better than the generation that is in your speaker, anyway. If you feel you must use a film cap, consider adding a small resistor in series with it to maintain the balance of the speaker. How much to add is best determined by listening. (Hey, resistors are really cheap.) I'd figure somewhere between 0.5 and 5 Ohms.
-k
February 03
I sat, literally, next to the AR copywriters as they brainstormed the original promotional pitch on "truth in listening." Of course, I am very familiar with the arguments about how one needs a reference to design speakers, how live music is a stake in the ground for accuracy, etc. As I said, it is not as simple subject as advertising would have you believe, and I encourage you to approach it with whatever balance of cynicism and an open mind you can muster.
I am not a subjectivist about audio. However, after many years of typical logical positivism, I have come to a place where I believe that such dogma is hindering meaningful progress in audio system accuracy. To move beyond what we experience now demands new thinking about how to incorporate the characteristics of the human perceptual system into notions of loudspeaker accuracy, and also requires the consideration of musical context into the reproduction ideal. This does not require either opinion or subjectivism. But, it does require thinking that is well beyond 4-terminal I/O transfer functions, including the concept of "frequency response" as it is currently used.
January 28
Tymphany's Ken Kantor proudly displays a version of the company's innovative "high-density" bass driver. It addresses the problem of packing powerful bass into small spaces and is said to be capable of achieving 300% space reduction relative to conventional woofers. Imagine subdividing a large cone into multiple sections and arranging them in a cylindrical linear array which is inter-connected by sets of piston rods. The elements operate in push-pull fashion and pump air through acoustic side vents. That in a nutshell comprises the Tymphany Linear Array Transducer (LAT).
Its form factor is such that a small version of the LAT can actually fit into the back of a plasma display. Or it may be used to develop a dipole woofer with extension to 20 Hz in a fairly slender enclosure with displacement equivalent to 16 12-inch woofers. Pretty impressive!
Since veteran Acoustic Research loudspeaker designer Ken Kantor and Chris Byrne founded the company back in 1986, NHT has been tossed around like a corporate football: first to Jensen International in the early 1990's, then to Recoton, and to Rockford Corporation in 2002 following Recoton's failure. Finally, in 2005, Rockford handed it off to Colorado-based Vinci Group. Yet despite of its corporate instability, and the departure of the innovative Kantor, NHT has produced a remarkable run of outstanding, popular and affordable loudspeakers, thanks in part to a team of inspired designers and the consistent direction of Managing Director Chris Byrne, who's navigated the company through these troubled waters since its inception. Looming large in the NHT legend are designs like the 3.3 from 1994 and the compact Super One and Super Zero speakers, not to mention recent efforts like the Evolution T6 and the innovative, snazzy-looking Xd. All of these speakers have earned NHT a consistent reputation for bringing great sound to audio and videophiles at remarkably reasonable price points. NHT's latest effort is the Classic Series, which is comprised of a number of sleek, handsome, black lacquered two, three and four-way loudspeakers. The review system is built around a pair of four-way Classic Four towers in front ($1,800/pr.), partnered with a three-way Classic Three C center channel ($600/ea.), plus a pair of stand-mounted three-way Classic Threes ($800/pr.) as surrounds. The Classic series also includes some less expensive models based upon the same drivers. The Formidable Four and More. January 19
COPING; With Placing Stereo Speakers
By IVAN BERGER; IVAN BERGER IS AN EDITOR AT AUDIO MAGAZINE.
Published: January 5, 1991
The sound you hear from your stereo does not just depend on your components. It also depends on your room and how your speakers are set up in it.
Rooms differ too much for instruction sheets to tell you just where to place your speakers, but there are some general guidelines that will get you started. After that, you can fine-tune by ear.
For a good stereo image, listeners should be roughly the same distance from the left and right speakers. You can compensate for an off-center location by setting your balance control so that you hear the same volume from each speaker, but you will still hear one speaker a little sooner than the other, which can make the stereo effect a bit less realistic. That realism diminishes, the farther off-center you get.
To broaden the zone where stereo effect is best, you can often cross-fire your speakers, aiming the right speaker at the leftmost listener's ear, and vice versa. This makes the farther speaker's sound the louder, but the near one's sound will be the first to arrive. Some speakers, notably most Bose and Now Hear This models, do this automatically.
Treble notes and overtones need a clear path to your ears, so the speakers should be high enough for a seated listener to have a clear line of sight to the small tweeters that deliver the highs. Floor-standing speakers usually insure this, if you do not put high furniture in front of them; smaller speakers should be mounted on bookshelves or stands, rather than set directly on the floor.
Setting such speakers right on the floor can also make them sound boomy, because of bass reflections. Every room surface near a speaker will reinforce bass tones. A speaker will have more bass when it is against a wall than when it is out in midroom, and the most bass (often an unnatural amount) when it is in a corner near the floor or ceiling.
If your speakers' instructions give no guidance for their placement, their construction may: speakers with unfinished backs are nearly always designed to go against the wall, while those with finished backs are often designed to sound best a few feet from the wall.
Boominess can also be avoided by following the rule of thirds: either the listener or the speaker should be about one-third of the way along the room's horizontal and vertical axes. If you sit against one wall, your speakers should be placed a third of the room's length from the opposite wall, and each speaker should be about one-third of the way in from the side walls. Or if your speakers are placed against a wall, you should sit one-third of the room's length from the opposite wall.
In practice, most speakers and most seated listeners' ears are about one-third of the room's height above the floor, so those requirements are automatically taken care of, unless the room has particularly low ceilings.
In a big room, the rule of thirds is no problem. In a small room, it conflicts with the equally good advice that the speakers should go on the room's long wall rather than along the short wall, to avoid reflections from other walls nearby. "Such reflections can cloud the sound," said Ken Kantor, the designer for Now Hear This. For the same reason he also suggests that listeners should "try to avoid placing a small speaker toward the back of a large table or shelf, so the front of the speaker can fire free and clear out into the room."
The less reflective nearby surfaces are, the better. Mr. Kantor suggests that "placing a small rug on the floor a few feet in front of your speakers can work wonders for the mid-range." Similarly, surfaces near the speakers can be softened with wall hangings or book-filled shelves, and even by simply closing the draperies over the windows.
Glass is an especially harsh sound reflector. If you can see your speakers' image in a mirror, move the mirror or the speakers. (On the other hand, an assistant with a mirror can show you where your room's reflective surfaces are. Sitting in your listening chair, have the assistant move the mirror along the side walls. Whenever you can see your speakers reflected in the mirror, put padding or bookshelves at these points.)
While reflections from walls and floors reinforce low bass, they interfere with upper bass frequencies, including some musical notes. The effect is usually not too bad, as long as the center of each speaker's woofer is a different distance from each nearby room surface, says Roy Allison, the speaker designer for Allison Acoustics.
Finally, try to give both speakers similar environments. If one speaker is right by an open archway while the other is right up against a wall, the speakers will not sound alike. As a result, some voices and instruments may seem to shift positions as they move up and down the scale.
Unless you build a room specifically for your stereo system, you will never be able to follow all the rules. Reality intrudes: you cannot block windows and fireplaces and the family must be able to walk through the room without tripping over speaker wire or the speakers themselves. Just follow the rules as best you can, and then experiment from there. The rules will get you into the ballpark, but you will need some minor adjustments to get past first base.
In my own living room, I have found that speakers that sound lackluster at first can blossom with beautiful sound just by shifting them to positions less than six inches from their starting point.
January 18
From the New York Times, 1985. 22 years.
July 14, 1985
SOUND;
TWO NEW APPROACHES TO OLD LOUDSPEAKER PROBLEMS
By HANS FANTEL
Reinventing the wheel has become a metaphor for redundancy. Reinventing the loudspeaker, by contrast, occasionally leads to valid innovation.
The reason, I suppose, is that the wheel - assuming it is really round - can't be much improved. Loudspeakers can, and lately a few venturesome engineers have made a stab at it.
Such attempts may involve imaginative departures from established norms, as in the case of the Acoustic Research MGC-1 and the dbx Soundfield 10 - two new models that were sounding forth with notable eclat at last month's Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. Both designs represent new ways of dealing with one of the oldest and most recalcitrant problems in sound reproduction -the question of ambiance.
The problem is fundamental and arises from the fact that playing orchestral music in the living room is obviously unnatural. Orchestral sound is conceived with the aura of large spaces for the simple reason that no other kind of space could accommodate a hundred musicians plus their audience. The reverberant character of the concert hall is therefore implicit in symphonic music - an inseparable aspect of the sound imagined by the composer as he wrote the score. When such music is played via records or radio within the narrow confines of the living room, a contradiction develops between sonic and architectural dimensions. These new speakers - each in its own way - try to resolve this contradiction.
In the case of the Acoustic Reseach MGC-1 - a design developed by the former M.I.T. psychoacoustics researcher Ken Kantor - a sizable enclosure (25 inches high by 26 inches wide by 16 inches deep) actually houses two separate speaker systems. One projects the sound toward the listener while the other, set at an obtuse angle, directs the sound toward the nearest side wall. The speakers aimed at the listener are quite narrowly focused. You might say that they ''shine'' the sound at the hearer the way an automobile headlight points the light directly ahead in a tight beam. This pattern of sound radiation conveys a precisely defined aural image of the musicians' various locations on the imaginary stereo stage.
Such narrow sound projection normally entails a major drawback: It yields a hard, tight, even strident sound, bereft of the feeling of ambiance. But when supplemented by the speakers aiming at the wall, this liability dissolves, and the sound assumes a natural spaciousness, without losing the precise definition of the player's location. In the past, spaciousness of sound and precise stereo imaging have been mutually exclusive design options. Now Acoustic Research appears to have found a way to have the acoustic cake and eat it, too.
One striking effect of this unique speaker is the apparent enlargement of one's living room. As the music starts, the walls of the room seem to recede to form an aural environment as capacious as a concert hall. This is not done by wall reflection alone. The trick is accomplished by a special delay circuit, which holds back the sound for the sideways speakers by about 0.02 second - roughly the time it would take for the sound in a fair-sized hall to reach a listener near the center after bouncing off the side walls. In other words, this speaker contains integrally the kind of ambiance-enhancement that is usually available only as a separate add-on device for highly elaborate sound systems. The result is an uncanny trompe l'oreille which transforms a residence into an auditorium, especially if you close your eyes.
Initial impressions gained at the Chicago show left no doubt that the Acoustic Research MGC-1 - quite aside from its ability to suggest ample aural space while maintaining precise stereo imaging - is a speaker of splendid fidelity, capable of doing full justice to any kind of music. And so it should, what with a price tag of $3,600 per pair for the walnut version, or $7,100 if your taste runs to rosewood. January 15
thiphi Audio THT model 6A 2.1 Versatile Speaker System
Ken Kantor [co-founder of NHT] designed model 6A 2.1 speaker system delivers a full sound stage for all movie audio and music applications. Model 6A has a unique appearance tower array of micro transducers that emit a constant directivity sound field. Two 3" mid range transducers, mounted at a 45 degree angle on each of the towers emit a full mid range. Dual 8" cone subwoofer brings powerful bass to all movie and music soundtracks. This system has a unique crossover that enables the tower array to behave as one large tweeter with high power handling capability. Because of the volume of data required to go to the towers, the system speaker connects are standard Ethernet cable, CAT 5. All electronics [crossover, amp] are housed in the unique looking subwoofer. Visit thiphi in Room 1251
NBC Olympics Will Monitor Through Vergence Loudspeakers
Benicia, CA- Vergence Technology Inc, makers of the award-winning line of Vergence active studio monitor systems, has announced its agreement with network broadcaster NBC to act as primary monitor supplier to NBC Olympics, Inc. The agreement, which will place Vergence’s distinctive designs and bright yellow “V” logo in the NBC Olympic control rooms, will begin with the upcoming 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and continuing through multiple games.
“We listened carefully to a lot of monitoring systems,” observed NBC Olympics manager of Sound Design Bob Dixon, “and the Vergence products’ system design, video shielding, configuration flexibility, customer service and, most importantly, sonics, ultimately won the contract.”
According to Dixon, NBC will use the Vergence A-20/B-20/C-20 surround system for its main control rooms, and the M-00/S-00 system in some of its editing facilities.
“This is a great validation of our insistence on excellence in every product, and the unusual design approach we use in producing it,” commented Vergence CEO Chris Byrne. “Having our monitoring systems used as the reference for sound that’s going out to a hundred million people worldwide is an honor, to say the least.”
Added Ken Kantor, Vergence CTO and designer of Vergence’s products, “Critical applications are exactly what our monitoring systems were made for — professional conditions where every decision is crucial, and the monitors have to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RECOTON CORPORATION TO LICENSE NHT BRAND NAME TO VERGENCE TECHNOLOGY FOR PRO MARKET APPLICATIONS
Lake Mary, FL, March 17, 1998. Recoton Corporation, NASDAQ National Market: RCOT, announced today that it intends to license its NHT brand name to Vergence Technology Inc. NHT is a name well known among audiophiles for its complete line of high-performance products for home audio. Vergence intends to utilize the NHT brand name on its new line of products designed specifically for the Pro Audio and Professional Home Music markets. Planning for this marketing agreement has been in development for many months with Chris Byrne and Ken Kantor of Vergence Technology, who were the founders of NHT. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Robert L. Borchardt, Recoton Corporation's CEO, stated that "Recoton has its roots in the music business, and we are particularly excited about the potential of today's market. Vergence's intent to extend the NHT brand name further into the pro marketplace is welcomed. The track record of the principals of Vergence Technology holds credibility with retailers, the press and influential customers for creating products with the right elements of technology, performance and value. We feel this is a great match which will benefit our continuing use of the NHT brand for home audio products."
Sensible Sound Excerpt:
NHT proudly proclaims that their drivers are of European origin. Wow! I am impressed by European technology, like Russian tubes exemplifying 1920s leading edge technology, the 2% of the Internet using the French language (85% for the American language), the English audio industry building 20 watt amplifiers that were leading edge technology in the '50s, etc. We've sent men to the moon and back again, have a little tank roaming Mars and sending back detailed color photographs, placed satellites into orbit, removed satellites from orbit, have more PCs than all of Europe, a chip technology so advanced that Europe is on the verge of being relegated to a position of permanent dependence on the USA, etc. Am I missing something? Made in Europe? Yawwwwwnn. If this paragraph is included in the review I owe Karl a $25.00 donation to a charity of his choice!
[Joe, you have outdone yourself this time. None of the bilious non sequiturs you bring up has anything to do with driver technology. Although there are some good drivers made in the U.S., the fact remains that Europe is currently the most fertile source of driver technology, and I certainly see nothing misleading or nefarious about NHT noting that they use European drivers. I had planned to edit out your diatribe to save you and T$S some embarrassment, but then I would have been denying some needy folks a chance for some assistance, and Ken Kantor a good chuckle. So I've called your bluff and let your paragraph stand. Please send your $25 check or money order to Latter-day Saint Charities, 50 E. North Temple -- 7th Floor, Salt Lake City, UT 84150. --KWN]
12 NR 7-8 2006
På senare år har amerikanska NHT
sysslat mest med okonventionella
lösningar som DSP-korrigerade filter
och modulbyggda högtalarsystem.
Med Classic-serien gör de en nysatsning
på mer konventionella högtalare. Vi har
lyssnat på fyran – NHTs enda golvhögtalare
i det nuvarande sortimentet.
Now Hear This, sa Chris Byrnes mamma
och därmed var problemet löst. Chris och
Ken Kantor hade konstruerat sin första högtalare
men glömt bort det viktigaste; vad ska
den och företaget heta?
NHT blev firmanamnet och 1987 – året
därpå – visade de den första modellen med
beteckningen Model 1. Kanske inte så fantasifullt.
Eller ska vi se det som en styrka att
de brände krutet på andra saker än namn
och modellbeteckningar?
Redan från start gav NHT snarare maximalt
med valuta snarare än flashiga lösningar
och exotiska material. För mig har det
varit ett märke som representerat det sunda
förnuftet.
Runt 1994 kom NHT tack vare Göran Chatall
till Sverige. Året därpå testade jag modellen
2.5 som välförtjänt blev en storsäljare i Sverige.
Och den var typisk för NHTs dåvarande
sortiment. Fronten var avfasad 21 grader,
vilket möjliggjorde en smal profil sett framifrån.
Basen var placerad på golvet, på insidan
så att säga – den trenden startade Ken Kantor
och hans NHT. Och det var en 3-vägare som
delade basen lågt – runt 80 Hz.
Högtalaren var mycket bra och kommersiellt
riktig; den flirtade lite extra i basen
och spelade mycket snyggt i de högre registren.
Eller ta min absoluta favorithögtalare;
NHT 3.3. Den byggde på samma idéer som
2.5 men dragna till det absurda. Högtalare
är en meter djup, en meter hög och en decimeter
bred. 65 kilo kärlek, den mest neutrala
högtalare jag hört och Ken Kantor's magnum
opus. Fortfarande min referens.
Jag har oerhört stor respekt för sagde
Kantors kunskap, och jag gillar hans attityd.
Ken Kantor from NHT on Wires
DIGITAL GRAFFITI: WIRE WE HERE?
Wire reviews are a waste of time
By Ken Kantor
September 14, 1999 -- I'm really over reviews of speaker wire. Generally based on technical misunderstandings, the information they include almost never translates from one situation to another.
And to the "wire-makes-a-big-difference-and-I-have-better-ears-than-you crowd": Spare me the vitriol. Been there, done that, got a T-shirt.
Yet another intelligent and well-meaning audio lover becomes convinced every few minutes that wires play a big role in getting high-quality sound. And why shouldn't they?
These folks are consistently told that there are great differences between the various types of wire. It becomes the hot topic of social gatherings, ("My wife even asked me what I had done to my stereo -- before I told her about the new cables!").
Don't even go there
Most hi-fi reviewers are self-assured of their ability to perceive and categorize obvious and consistent differences between brands of wire. No matter who you are or what your credentials and experience may be, if you minimize the importance of wires in the sonic equation, you are ridiculed for your lack of accurate hearing, for the quality of your system and for the conservatism of your viewpoint.
You really can't win. For instance, I have friends who enjoy debating about politics, religion and ethics. Yet as soon as I start to explain the basic, known science of audio cables, they turn red and throw things. In audiophile circles, you could promote the benefits of molestation with less scorn than you get from downplaying cable differences. How "politically correct" does one have to be?
Maybe it's a basic yearning to experience the unknown. It was Einstein who said, "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." In short, weall love a little mystery in our lives. But if there is anything in audio that is well understood, it is wire.
Unbind your mind
That doesn't mean all speaker wire "sounds the same." It does, however, mean that the way they work is not magic. Open your mind and your ears and take a minute or two to understand the real deal. Once you do, it will become clear why the prevailing popular notions are wrong. To do so, though, you must first let go of your preconceptions.
Any cable interposes an electric circuit between the amplifier output and the speaker input. Whatever the cable is -- and however it is constructed -- the effect it will have on the sound of your system boils down to three, easy-to-understand factors: resistance (R), capacitance (C) and inductance (L).
If these three factors were all equal to zero, the cable would indeed have no effect whatsoever on the signal. Given that this is never the case, there always will be some influence -- perhaps audible, perhaps not -- exerted on the signal. Exactly what sonic effects a given combination of R, C and L will yield depend entirely on the amp and speaker used. One speaker/amp combination will get a bit brighter with more capacitance added; a different one will sound duller; and a third will be virtually unaffected.
Likewise, the effects of resistance and inductance are impossible to generalize. What's more, all three intermix. For this reason -- and contrary to modern "wisdom" -- wire brands cannot possibly have any truly inherent sonic character. To speak of a "smooth" or "detailed" cable is incorrect and misleading. The difference in sound is all in the matchup -- and reviewers should know this.
Studies have shown ...
The fact is that, over the years, there has been much research and investigation into the sonic effects of speaker cables. Sure, some of it is sloppy and virtually worthless. The majority of professional studies, however, have been conducted with great care by qualified audiophile scientists.
What has consistently emerged from these studies is that although speaker cables sometimes influence the sound, they usually do not. Even the most biased audiences seem to lose the ability to distinguish between different cables when they can't see what they are listening to. When you take the time to track down and analyze the apocryphal stories about miraculous wires, you find that people moved their speakers by an inch or two, or perhaps they absent-mindedly cleaned the amp terminals before hooking up new wires.
Carefully eliminate these subtle variables and wires start to sound surprisingly similar. Not always perfectly identical, to be sure -- but not responsible for the huge improvements in tonality, depth and imaging that many people have been led to expect.
What to do?
In all cases, the lower the R, C and L, the less the sound will be altered. Accordingly, you should use heavy wire and solid connections. It does not mean you must use expensive or brand-name wire. Actually, heavy zip cord is pretty hard to beat for signal neutrality.
In fact, zip cord is not just OK, it's better than much of what is being sold today (that is, if accuracy of sound is your goal). Transmission lines? Characteristic impedance? Skin effects? Risetime? Get a clue! These terms are meaningless when applied to audio. The wavelength of a 20 kHz sound in a speaker wire is several MILES long. That means that audio frequencies are much,much lower in frequency than the point at which detailed construction aspects of the wire are going to have any influence on the signal -- so much lower that it isn't even a gray area. Don't believe me? Ask your local physicist, the one who doesn't work for a hi-fi company.
Human hearing is very much subject to conscious and unconscious influences. If even you can't be completely certain of what you are hearing, how could anyone else? By all means, feel free to succumb to whatever mixture ofillusion and reality feels good when choosing your cables. Just take all the stuff you read with a big grain of salt. It isn't borne out by scientific research and, more important, it isn't supported by controlled tests -- regardless of how persuasive and seemingly logical the advertisements and reviews may be.
Trusting your ears sometimes means learning to hear a subtle difference or discovering a hidden cause. More often, though, it just calls for an admission that you're making an audible mountain out of a sonic molehill. Hey, it can happen; the majority can be wrong. January 14
Many years ago, I used to TA a course called, "Electronics for non-Electronics Majors," or something like that. The class required solid math skills, (as will any kind of real design work), but was not hardcore. I think the text book was very good and easy to follow, if you can find one:
Very much has changed over the last couple of decades, but much of the change has been in digital. If you want to design analog comps and preamps, this book will get you going. The only thing that really is missing is modern-day simulation techniques: p-spice, etc. If you can get yourself through this book, and eat up all the schematics you can find, open up gear and learn to use a scope to trace the signal... you are on the way. The only other thing I can suggest is to build things, break things and fix things. Find a mentor, too. You aren't going to learn to be a decent designer, or even a repair tech, by surfing.
I don't think a Rat-Shack kit is going to be of any use. These things are designed to make kids feel smart, not be smart. Their biggest goal is not to be returned to the store by an unhappy parent.
-k
From:
In Response To: Why so few acoutic suspension woofers? Ken Kantor? (Tim Kolody)
I have a somewhat different take on your question about acoustic suspension speakers than others that have replied so far, FWIW. I believe that most sophisticated designers are finally aware of the situations where acoustic suspension speakers would make the best choice, and where a different approach might be preferrable. Efficiency seems to have dropped off the average customer's radar screen. Power is now so cheap, and the ultimate difference in max SPL between AS and vented is small enough, so that I don't think this is a major issue these days. I can't back that up with hard data, but it is common industry wisdom. Also, it is not as simple as using any woofer that happens to work in a sealed box. If the mechanical suspension is contributing most of the spring force, it isn't AS. It's more like an infinite baffle. To get all the characteristics of a proper AS design, the box compliance must dominate. How important this is depends on how good your mechanical suspension is, and how linear your motor is. (I'm not debating the merits, just clarifying the terminology.)
The problem is that manufacturing a proper acoustic suspension woofer is a real pain. Few driver companies are anxious to put them in their standard line. In turn, this means that a designer/brand wishing to make an acoustic suspension speaker has to devote extra effort towards engineering a full-custom driver, and paying the premium that this entails.
To summarize a complex issue, the high compliance of acoustic suspension woofers make them ill-suited to automated production. It's difficult to handle very soft parts, keep surrounds in shape as you glue them, maintain positions exactly as the glue dries, etc. Also, on a production line, its not easy to rapidly test an Fs below 20 Hz. Data acquisition time and ambient vibrations are both the culprits here.
(After I chose to design the 1259 woofer for the NHT 3.3 as an acoustic suspension, it took a great deal of arm-twisting to get any of our suppliers to even quote on a driver with an Fs below 25 Hz. The lack of AS woofer availability was one reason I decided to make the 1259 available to DIY.)
There's one more factor that I personally think inclines speaker designers away from AS. Let me try to explain:
With an AS design, there is only one, and only one, box that will lead to the target response. There is no way to tweak the response of the system to "tune" things after the fact. (Besides active EQ, and a very small effect from stuffing.) If the production driver does not match the prototype, or if the designer wants to fuss with the results at the last minute... too bad. This means that AS design is less forgiving of error or uncertainty. On the other hand, many designers like to tweak the bass response with port tuning, long after the drivers have been placed on order. Given a typical woofer production lead time of several months, this can be significant.
Sorry if this was too much information....
-k
January 11
During the early- and mid-90's, I was the Technology Editor for the influential, but now defunct, "E-Town." A proto-Blog. One of my favorite editorial subjects was the concept of "Convenience over Convergence." At the time, the idea of morphing piles of entertainment and information products into super-appliances was new and appealing. Except to me. I mused that consumers wanted convenience, and "convergence" would only work if it delivered this:
I'm at CES now, and convergence is yet again being resurrected as a guiding principal of product development. Obviously, this is good for digitally-based manufacturers who hope to capture markets that used to be off limits to their technology core, ie- cellphone cameras. And integrated manufacturing drives cost down when it is appropriate. Contrasted with this, several of the most successful consumer electronics products of the last decade are anti-convergence. Rather, they are, specialization products, like the IPod, which lasers-in on pure audio functionality, and Google, which searches very well but does not directly promote social networking, travel booking or gateway services.
I'm not saying I don't want some converged products. I'd like a converged power supply to replace all the crap I carry on business trips. I like surfing the web on my Treo. But, for once Oh Gods of the CE industry, serve your customers first. Your investors shall reap the rewards. Give us convenience in our hectic lives. Give us common interfaces, and things that are easy to use. Things that do things really well. No more bad audio jammed into lousy TV's with intermittent SD card readers and wifi links to nowhere (the "ether"...)
October 16
More than 10 years ago....
Balance is Key
To appreciate happiness, one must know sadness. To appreciate one’s relative prosperity, one must know what it means to be poor. To truly appreciate a great speaker, one must expose one’s self to some of the junk out there. The more I hear of the generally recommended speakers out there, the more I appreciate the cream of the crop.
Balance, I think, is also what it takes to make a successful speaker company. Take NHT, the company that manufactures the 2.9, which just so happens to be the subject of this review. NHT’s President (at the time of this writing anyway) epitomizes balance himself. A musician on one hand, and an extremely talented engineer and graduate of MIT on the other, I believe Ken Kantor has two of the better ears in audio and also has the talent to put them to good use in his designs. I have no idea whether his designs are a practice in art or science or a combination thereof, but one thing seems for sure, he can hear when they are right.
As a company, NHT exudes balance like no other company I know of. Starting with the dwarf of the line, the SuperZero, all the way up to the flagship 3.3, I can’t point to one speaker in the line which is not at least competitive with the best in its respective class. Give me a price point and I’ll recommend my 4 favorites and I can wholeheartedly place an NHT on the list. I know of absolutely no other company I can say that about. In my humble opinion, the NHT line is hands down, the strongest complete speaker line in audio.
The Genesis of the 2.9
The 2.9 is itself an exercise in balance. Mr. Kantor started with his flagship 3.3 and sought to make it more accessible to the masses both in terms of price and physical size. The 2.9s use the exact same three forward facing drivers used on the 3.3 -the lower midrange, midrange and tweeter. But as the 2.9 is a smaller, "easier-to-live-with" speaker than the 3.3, it uses a 10 inch long throw woofer in place of its larger sibling’s 12 incher. Finish off the speaker with a box which is two inches shorter and 9 inches less in depth and you have a speaker almost half the price with at least 90% of the performance.
Balanced Sonics
Balanced is also a starting point for describing the sound of the speaker. With bass extension to 26Hz and a smooth and extended treble out past where you and I will ever hear, it’s a marvel in spectral balance. Tonal balance is a big problem for me with many of today’s more highly touted speakers. I find many of them with spitty, hard trebles or too much upper midrange energy. The balance of the 2.9 is, for my taste, just about perfect in this regard. I found them completely neutral across the board. As is the tradition at NHT, the midrange is spectacularly clean with low levels (if existent at all) of coloration. Bass is strong, articulate and visceral. Upper midrange/treble is smooth and neutral with no glare, grit or grain.
As I found with the NHT 2.5i, bass performance, while by no means the only claim to fame, deserves special mention. On most music, the bass is articulate and in excellent balance. Unlike some speakers which always sound bass heavy, the NHT’s bass is completely unassuming and well behaved. But just awaken its capabilities with some content with unusually deep or powerful bass and you had better stand back! The usually mild mannered NHTs don’t even need a telephone booth in order to morph into Super NHTs!! It’s instantaneous! These things will knock your socks off ! Additionally, I found that as you move down in volume, bass performance tracks very well with that of the rest of the spectrum. In other words, where most speakers get anemic as the volume goes down, the 2.9s maintain a solid bass foundation into the quiet, late night listening levels.
Upon initial set up, I was NOT kind to these speakers. The very first thing I put on was my favorite Telarc/Erich Kunzel extravaganza, "Erich Kunzel’s 20 Greatest Hits" and went right to my favorite "Chiller" cut, the one that opens with the clap of thunder. I shouldn’t have done it, I know, but what can I say? I guess I just knew that they could handle it. Well, of course, it sounded fantastic, quick, sharp, and powerful, but what gave me a kick was what I saw! Instinctually, I was looking at the grill cloth covering the woofer and the thing was flapping in the wind! I’ve never seen a grill cloth flap in the wind before, have you?? These woofers can move some air!! Well, after that, I was a kinder and gentler reviewer until they were broken in. For the next couple weeks, I fed them a diet of Rock and Roll.
One disc I bought some time ago, didn’t care for at the time, but have grown to love (partly due to the 2.9s) is Chris Isaak’s "Baja Sessions" (reprise 9 46325-2). It is a mellow recording, extremely clean and smooth with excellent sense of depth and space. Well, that’s how the 2.9s gave it to me anyway. Tone on Chris’s Gibson was clean, deep and inviting. Overtones were presented with a warmth that put the "ha!" in Baja! Again, the bass was well balanced and articulate making the bass lines as easy to follow as falling off a surfboard! The vibrato in Issak’s voice on "Only the Lonely" will send shivers up your spine in spite of the warm surf breeze!
Did I mention that Ken Kantor is a musician too? About the same time I got the 2.9s, I got a copy of Ken’s own CD, "Incoherent" (Anxious Hippy 6601). I’m no music reviewer, but it seems to me heavily rooted in late 60's/early 70's rock. But "Another Time" is a cut where raw 60's rock meets early 80's "techno" with pleasing results. The CD content is varied but the constant through most of it is the fact that Ken does all the performing! With the exception of one cut where he has some help on the drums and guitar, it’s a lone effort. In particular, I like the lyrics. Song titles such as "Softhearted Superman", "Greed" "Redneck Love" and "Funny" demonstrate the varying themes through the disk. Its a fun disc. Track #8 "Drum" was a good indication of why Ken is so good at producing bass, he enjoys the realistic portrayal of the bass drum and had it recorded that way. Track #16, "My True Tendencies" is a great track. You gotta hear the bass line here at realistic volumes! Cool! Track #2, "Tangles" is another favorite of mine. The shimmer of the cymbals, the strong bass foundation in contrast to Ken’s lyrics are demonstrative of the 2.9’s ongoing balancing act. Needless to say, the NHTs excelled at producing it all.
Over the following weeks I put the 2.9s through its paces with too many rock CDs to count. ZZ Top, The Wallflowers, Tears for Fears, Peter Gabriel, etc., etc., etc. Whatever I put on, it was always the same. Great. I have to say that I found them slightly forgiving too. Now, I know Ken is from the "Accuracy" school of speaker design, and what goes in should come out. Well, it’s not like the 2.9s are veiled or overly polite or anything, they don’t cover up problems in the recording, but in contrast to some other high resolution speakers, I find that the speakers make some disappointingly recorded CDs more listenable. I almost wrote that they took some of the edge off these discs, but when I considered the fact that they didn’t take anything away from better recorded efforts, I had to conclude that their smooth and neutral tonal balance just serves not to accentuate problems in recordings as many brighter speakers can. Score another one for neutrality!
Eventually, on one fateful day, I felt like some large scale symphonic music again. WOW!! I was reminded that while Rock is cool, with its constant and varied bass lines, thumping drums, and biting guitars, if you want to test a system’s dynamics, you need to get out some large scale classical music. The dynamic swings, the challenge of reproducing the differences of a plucked or bowed bass string, the glorious sheen of a massed string section, the reproduction of the lone soprano to a full chorus, and a dynamic range that, by far, exceeds that of popular/rock music, this is how you put a speaker such as the 2.9s to the test.
As it happens, I guess I wound up saving the best for last. Through all the aforementioned tests, the 2.9s arose and performed with aplomb but it was here, on large scale classical, that the speakers really showed their stuff. It’s also where they showed off my one and only item on my "wish" list. You know, the list I make where if I could, I would click my heels together, make a wish, and make a great speaker a more perfect speaker? Well, the one and only item I would wish for is a taller sound stage. I love the floor to ceiling sound stage one gets with taller planers, ribbons and electrostatics. It just sounds more real to me. Unfortunately, these are a dying breed too! One maker of Planar speakers has been chopping the tops off all its affordable speakers in the line leaving my kind of sound stage available from only speakers exceeding the price of the 2.9s. I hear it has something to do with the old WAF. It seems that there are, believe it or not, just some homes where six foot tall speakers are not welcome! Now, as usual, I have one caveat with my caveat! And that is that you can’t find this kind of tall sound stage in conjunction with the rest of this speaker’s performance, from any speakers that I know of anywhere near the NHT’s price point. Nothing, zip, nada. Just forget it, I already looked. But anyway, that’s the only item on the wish list. As far as sound staging goes, there is one more point I want to make. In the review of the 3.3 in one of the bigger magazines, it was observed that the sound stage is restricted pretty much to between the 3.3s. Well, that’s just bull! Properly set up, the imaging is positively holographic and extends way outside the position of the speakers. They present as wide a sound stage as I’ve ever heard. The 2.9s are no different. Additionally, lateral dispersion is outstanding. As you move off axis from the sweet spot, tonal balance remains excellent, and you have to be really off axis, outside the near speaker, before the sound stage collapses. While it shifts somewhat, it manages to remain between the speakers.
Getting back to the music, one of the CDs that I’ve been listening to a lot recently is another Erich Kunzel CD on Telarc, "The Great Fantasy Adventure Album" (CD- 80342). It’s another Cincinnati Pops Orchestra disc containing a variety of selections from various soundtracks and scores. "The Abyss: End Titles" is one of my favorite cuts. It’s a lovely cut with a sweet melody which collides with the intense writhing of the basses and string sections warning of impending...well, I don’t want to spoil the movie for anybody! But the 2.9s offer a wonderful contrast between the sweetness of the strings, the breadth of the chorus and the power of the bass drums. I find it very moving. The theme from Beetlejuice is likewise presented with a jumpy rhythm and excellent contrast between the sweet strings and the biting brass section. But my favorite cut would have to be the "Hymn to Red October". The Russian singing chorus envelopes the sound stage in large dimension and is accented by crashing cymbals which are portrayed with no hint of fatiguing "hiss", just clean brass on brass. The 2.9s gave me everything I was looking for- just as I wanted it.
The other night I took out my favorite of all time, classical disc. It’s the mother of all classical "show em what ya got" CDs. I brought out, dusted off and slipped into the tray Carl Orff’s "Carmina Burana" (RCA/BMG Classic 09026-61673-2). Probably most widely recognized as the bombastic theme from the third Highlander movie, this is one fantastic piece of music and an excellent demo disc. I saw the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra perform it a few years ago and it was an experience I’ll never forget. It took a fortified orchestra to reproduce the work. There were so many musicians on stage that half of me was waiting for the stage to collapse. Behind the orchestra was a full chorus, and up on one of the balconies was a children’s chorus. It was one of the most moving works I’ve ever seen/heard performed, and it was also the loudest!! The music takes you every which way but loose. From full orchestra crescendos backed by the chorus at full tilt to the solo soprano that gives me goose bumps and brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it, listening to the CD over the 2.9s brought me back to the live performance as closely as I have ever been. It was freaking glorious!!
Conclusion
The NHT 2.9s are one hell of a speaker. I find them handsome, and in the Sycamore finish the review samples came in (yes, only through the miracle of my bad photography do the 2.9s look like a slab of yellow countertop turned up on end, they are actually a very nice soft grained sycamore wood laminate), they blend very well into my room. Chameleon in nature, they can sound sweet and delicate when they should but they can rattle the rafters when you ask them too. They possess tremendous dynamic range with my modest 100 watt Classé amp but can even handle much more power. Completely neutral across the board with a clean, detailed and transparent midrange topped off with a wonderfully smooth, grain free treble, they can get down and boogie with the best of them. While intensely musical, the 2.9’s ability to produce copious amounts of quality bass make them perfect for the audio/video system. Imaging is outstanding as is sound staging. As is usual for me and NHT, I can’t think of another speaker in its price range that gives such a balanced performance.
Now the only thing that remains is for you to go for a listen yourself. But speaking of balances, better check the one in the bank book first! I did and I’m buying them!
Good luck and listening,
© John R. Potis Jr. 1997.
|
|
|
|
Tools 
Help
