[David Ellis]

audiojerry wrote:
I have slowly been developing and evolving my listening skills and personal values regarding speaker virtues, and over time I am realizing that the strongest virtue in a speaker for me is transparency. More than than bass extension, dynamic range, or power handling, I cannot accept a speaker that lacks transparency.

Pedro wrote:

We part company here as I feel lack of real dynamic range is one of the barriers separating us from quality reproduction. Not sure what you mean by transparency as applied to sound, could you elaborate?

I am slightly confused here by what Pedro means by dynamic range.  Is this "impact"?

I think that Jerry refers to the lack of transparency caused by cone flex in paper/poly drivers.  This creates an even order distortion that is nice for some folks, but muddy for others.  There are some very stiff paper cones, but I don't believe, and the folks at SEAS don't believe they equal the stiffness of a metal cone.  Some Accuton comments would apply here too.

The trade-off between the number of crossover components and cone flex (temporary energy storage) is a common one.  Eventually all cones will approach a frequency where the energy loads inside the cone.  This energy will be immediately reflected (SEAS and Accuton), or temporarily stored then released. This temporary storage happens becasue the cone flexes and abosorbs the loading.  The flex gradually releases this energy in a form palatable for the listner.  The math concerning exactly how this happens is beyond me.   There are folks designing and building drivers who figure this stuff out.

Dave

[Pedro]

audiojerry wrote:
I have slowly been developing and evolving my listening skills and personal values regarding speaker virtues, and over time I am realizing that the strongest virtue in a speaker for me is transparency. More than than bass extension, dynamic range, or power handling, I cannot accept a speaker that lacks transparency.

Pedro wrote:

We part company here as I feel lack of real dynamic range is one of the barriers separating us from quality reproduction. Not sure what you mean by transparency as applied to sound, could you elaborate?

I am slightly confused here by what Pedro means by dynamic range.  Is this "impact"?

I think that Jerry refers to the lack of transparency caused by cone flex in paper/poly drivers.  This creates an even order distortion that is nice for some folks, but muddy for others.  There are some very stiff paper cones, but I don't believe, and the folks at SEAS don't believe they equal the stiffness of a metal cone.  Some Accuton comments would apply here too.

The trade-off between the number of crossover components and cone flex (temporary energy storage) is a common one.  Eventually all cones will approach a frequency where the energy loads inside the cone.  This energy will be immediately reflected (SEAS and Accuton), or temporarily stored then released. This temporary storage happens becasue the cone flexes and abosorbs the loading.  The flex gradually releases this energy in a form palatable for the listner.  The math concerning exactly how this happens is beyond me.   There are folks designing and building drivers who figure this stuff out.

Dave

By dynamic range, I refer to the ability of a system to assault your senses with an exquisite, massive, coherent, monolithic wave front of a sonic barrage (you can actually feel the air pressure around your  head, and I don’t mean loud) and then fade to a low level, delicate, airy pianissimo. Within this cycle, you can hear individual micro dynamics and nuances effortlessly and at their proper levels. Sound within sound. Volume within volume. Like live orchestral music. I almost have an out of body experience when this happens

As you well pointed out, the issue between cone materials and energy storage and release is a difficult one. Muddy or glassy. Dark or bright. Mellow or etched. I lean towards paper and composites for now.

Pedro

[David Ellis]

Now I understand.  You are seeking an out of body experinece.  I have experienced this a few times.  The most prominent out of body exerperience was quite striking.  These things seem to happen when least expected, and are quite memorable.

Just as I stepped out of my waterski at 43mph the ski caught a small wave.  My left foot drug with the ski, my body hit the water instantly, and STOPPED dead.  I lost my wind, and the pain of bruised/broken ribs haunted me for about 6 weeks.  I'll never forget hitting that water, even though I went black for a few seconds.  I suppose everyone has their own out of body experience, this one is my most memorable.  I haven't attempted barefooting since this incident.  

As an aside, when a waterskiier's body skips across the water, it is good.  This infers a gradual decrease in velocity.  When a waterskiier's body stops instantly, this is bad.  The G-Force is tremendous - ouch.

Aside from this I do understand what you convey about inner detail in music.  I get the occasionally get a spine tingle too, but most often at live events.  A good vocalist or violin sounds incredible in a large sympony hall - unamplified of course.  I still don't understand how those vocalists accomplish this feat.  Wow!

Every paper cone I have heard muddies up the midrange compared to a good stiff piston.  I haven't heard the speaker you recommend though.  Maybe there is something special.  Such a driver really has the most mature techology.  Years ago the acceptable frequency bounds were much narrower.  The uses of suspension in such drivers more closely mirrors that found in the full range stuff.

Dave

[Pedro]

Now I understand.  You are seeking an out of body experinece.  I have experienced this a few times.  The most prominent out of body exerperience was quite striking.  These things seem to happen when least expected, and are quite memorable.

Just as I stepped out of my waterski at 43mph the ski caught a small wave.  My left foot drug with the ski, my body hit the water instantly, and STOPPED dead.  I lost my wind, and the pain of bruised/broken ribs haunted me for about 6 weeks.  I'll never forget hitting that water, even though I went black for a few seconds.  I suppose everyone has their own out of body experience, this one is my most memorable.  I haven't attempted barefooting since this incident.  

He He, not quite the experience I am seeking in audio. Perhaps I went a little over the top with my description?

A long time ago, I almost drowned when caught in an undertow and saw myself from above grasping at the coral reef trying to pull myself out of the water, my hands bloodied from the barnacles. I was pretty young and had gone in against my mom’s wishes. All I could think was that if I survived, my mother was going to kill me! I survived both the near drowning and my mother.

Aside from this I do understand what you convey about inner detail in music.  I get the occasionally get a spine tingle too, but most often at live events.  A good vocalist or violin sounds incredible in a large sympony hall - unamplified of course.  I still don't understand how those vocalists accomplish this feat.  Wow!

That is precisely what I mean. Certainly the vocalists have the power and projection but that is only a small part of it. If you went down to the stage and started singing with the orchestra, you’d be clearly heard as well.

I used to attend classical guitar and lute concerts with full orchestras like Concerto de Aranjuez. The guitar always occupied its own “space in space” regardless how loud and intense the orchestra played.

Every paper cone I have heard muddies up the midrange compared to a good stiff piston.  I haven't heard the speaker you recommend though.  Maybe there is something special.  Such a driver really has the most mature techology.  Years ago the acceptable frequency bounds were much narrower.  The uses of suspension in such drivers more closely mirrors that found in the full range stuff.

I have not recommended any particular speaker, I wish I could.
Conversely, every metal driver I’ve heard has a whitish over etched character that bothers me more than the admittedly lower resolution of paper cones.


Let's stay out of the water...

Pedro

[randog]

Sorry for the lack of 'music' in this post...

I grew up with a boat. Waterskiing was not overly popular. We had the lakes in California to ourselves. All skis were wood. Long time ago...

Strangest fall: I was a teenager with my new O'Brien composite ski. Skiing along, ski suddenly stops! dead! I went flying clean out of full wraps front and rear. I skipped forever so it wasn't painful but I swam forever to get back to that ski only to find what was apparently a partially submerged piece of wood stuck in the skeg. Talk about pulling the rug out unexpectedly! That ski probably never moved after that.

Most painful: out of skiing for a number of years was introduced to wakeboarding. Took to it like a fish to water until coming back across the wake for the first time full speed, major air, nose touches down first on second wake and catapults me into the water like nuthin' I had ever experienced. Just like you describe above. I layed back in the water, bloody nose and all, stinging peacefully for awhile. All those years skiing and never had one fall that hurt as much as this one wakeboarding experience...


Back to your regularly scheduled program...

Randog

[Val]

It is convenient to use a common vocabulary, especially in audio where in order to explain phenomena one has to borrow words from the other senses. Otherwise it can be an acoustical Tower of Babel. I quote here from J. Gordon Holt, the inventor of subjective audio, a vocabulary that you can find at my website, on a link to Stereophile:

Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary

transparency, transparent 1) A quality of sound reproduction that gives the impression of listening through the system to the original sounds, rather than to a pair of loudspeakers. 2) Freedom from veiling, texturing, or any other quality which tends to obscure the signal. A quality of crystalline clarity.

impact A quality of concussive force, as from a deep, strong bass attack, which produces a brief sensation of visceral pressure.

dynamic range 1) Pertaining to a signal: the ratio between the loudest and the quietest passages. 2) Pertaining to a component: the ratio between its no-signal noise and the loudest peak it will pass without distortion.

Val

[Raul GS]

If I understand Pedro correctly, he is not so much talking about dynamic range, since there are number speakers out there that have that (and I'm guessing he does not like them) but rather driver compression.  The speakers he seems to describe are speaker with very high sensitivity, and when well designed, they have a wonderful lack of compression when reproducing sudden crescendos, thus the feeling of greater dynamics.  An example of this is reproducing a car door slaming.  Some speakers seem to have problems reproducing the sudden impact of the sound because of driver compression.

Just my 2c

Raul