[-Richard-]

It may be interesting to note that the B200's in OB configuration are still fairly
new to many of us that understood its potential for a dramatic increase in
a living presentation thanks to DMason's experiments and his playful and
exciting posts which helped us to wake up from our sleep and lethargy
in order to participate in concert with his findings...

I am auditioning a speaker that is most impressive right now in every way
except one...is does not have that sense of release...of that: it-is-being-created-
in-my-room-moment-to-moment-as-live-music the way the B200's do in OB
configuration...

Deborah immediately pointed it out not more than a few moments into the audition...
she heard the box holding back the music from filling the room as if it was a live event...

Deb is as far from an "audiophile" as you can get, having little interest in technology...
but she loves music as much or more than I do...and she pays attention to what she
is listening to...

We need to keep experimenting here. Let's keep gathering our information and sharing
it with one another and see which preamplifiers with what tubes works the magic we
are looking for...

DMason has opened up the door once again on what is possible...let's keep
experimenting with Octals and how they are implemented...there may be a cheap
solution here that I would certainly want to explore before dropping big change on
what might turn out to be a component that is pricey...of course if one has the
spare change, why not?...

Meanwhile the electrostatic-like quality of the B200's in OB configuration along with
the richness of timbre, natural warmth, detail, realism, penetration of the space,
ambient resonant retrieval and enveloping sound field still inspires awe...

I am in the midst of redesigning my OB to be smaller and sleeker...I will report
on my findings soon...meanwhile I am awaiting with great expectations, the RealiT
from Vinnie...

Warm regards -Richard-

[JLM]

miklorsmith,

My speakers are single driver, mass loaded transmission lines, making them a very amp friendly 8 ohm load, rated 30 - 20,000 Hz but only 89 dB/w/m.  (No crossover, so it provides a direct amp to driver loading like being an active or bi-amped speaker.  The cabinet design evens out the bass impedence hump to extend bass.)  

So these speakers are not SET territory, but my stock Clari-T does just fine 90% of the time, but YMMV.  OTOH 5 minutes with a stock Teac AL700P convinced me that extra power would be MOST beneficial.  I tried them with a couple of Decware SETs, 2 wpc and 6 wpc, and they sounded anemic.  No comparision to the Clari-T.

Don't know what sort of load your speakers will provide.


Richard,

What speaker are you comparing the B200 O.B. to?

[miklorsmith]

These new speaks are 101 db efficient, 6 ohms resistance.  So, power won't be an issue, though Srajan likes the 45-watt Pateks best so far with his.

My guess is that the Clari-T, with its lightning-quick reflexes, will be awesome.  But ever the tinkerer, I'm sure to try other things.

Those Brines MLTL's seem to be an excellent single driver alternative.  My Fostexes are great with the usual SD suspects, but they fall apart with anything raunchy.  This is the negative association many have with the breed.  But, with a little more amp power, the Brines seem like an excellent choice.

The OB Visatons are exciting too, though bass integration seems like a real challenge.  I'll definitely check 'em out when Dmason/Omega gets up to Seattle for a demo.  

[-Richard-]

Hi JLM,

Since my comments about the boxed speakers I compared to the
OB Visaton B200's are not entirely favorable I will withhold their names...

This was not meant to be a formal review of those speakers...

I am doing this because my comments were only meant to serve a
particular truth...that almost ANY drivers stuck in closed cabinets would
have a similar problem in comparison...

Obviously I have not heard every boxed speaker system out there...
and Steven's (SRayle) Druid's and some others may be an exception...

No doubt this is one important reason so many music lovers opt for
di-pole speakers...electrostatics like Quad's, or planars like Magnepan's...

However, what the B200 piston drivers do in OB/di-pole configuration is to
present the music with electrostatic speed and resolution while loading the
room with a piston drivers powerful movement of the air...with the right
amplification equipment, pure musical fire and light...

However as with all things there are trade-offs here as well...the boxed
speakers I referred to may have better focus...an observation that has
already been well documented in the "OB" threads here...

But even this observation is somewhat contingent...when I sit before my
OB's, which are toed in and aimed to meet in front of the listening position,
I hear everything that is possible to hear given the type of amplification
and the dacts effective resolving power...it is only when I move further away
into the room that some of that inner detail is somewhat absorbed into the
musical fabric...

However, the way the B200's effect the room is quite extraordinary in that
it makes little difference where you are in order to be swept into the
penetrating PRESENCE of the musical picture...so that I find myself less
inclined lately just to sit, as I once did, in a listening spot...but I am quite
content to sit anywhere my work or inclinations take me with no loss of
emotional involvement...a satisfying trade-off indeed...

Warm regards -Richard-

[JLM]

Richard,

Didn't want to put you on the spot.  Our two observations regarding the type of sound one gets with O.B. versus "boxed" speakers agree.  My 8 inch full range speaker is boxed, but offers in room bass into the 20 Hz range (but at only 89 dB/w/m) and lacks the open/natural O.B. presentation.

A friend has vintage EV-12 coaxial drivers in O.B.  Interestingly the 2-way EV's have nearly the same frequency response, impedence, and efficiency rating as the B200s.  Sometimes there is little new under the sun.

[-Richard-]

HI JLM,

We Americans believe in progress...I do not mean each and every
American, here...I mean as a culture...as a society that is moving in time...

Progress as an idea fuels our engine for explorations of all kinds...
and even our sense of expectations...which is what gets us into
trouble innumerable times...

Rarely do we examine "progress"...the truth of it...to see what implications
our movement "forward" is leaving behind...do we as a society believe for
example that the war in Iraq is some form of "progress"?...or going even further
with this, do we believe that any war is a form of progress?

It is easy to see that we are destroying the earth in the name of progress...
our scientists and technologists have a free hand...and they are killing the
earth...and we are not separate from the earth...we are an expression of only
one life form on this once magnificent planet...even if we believe in our arrogance
that the earth was made for us to do with it as our self-interest demands...

The more I find out about early high resolution audio the more I realize that
we have not really done much to alter the quality of sound of our curious
predecessors...as you sagely point out, JLM...

What has changed is our sensitivity to sound...to hearing audio in some form of
contextualized FRAMING of what the sound we are hearing is in COMPARISON
to other sound reproducing devices...in other words our perceptions are shaped
by the audio press and copy writers of advertising agencies to form a BELIEF
around one form or another of the VALUE of how various products organize sound...

What these forums have done for me...and DMasons contributions in particular...
is to shatter that CONDITIONING of what constitutes HI FIDELITY sound...what
is RIGHT and what is WRONG in reproduced sound and where we should be
spending our money...

The irony here is that our perceptual life is totally malleable...we are susceptible to
being HYPNOTIZED...or if that is too strong a word for some (in spite of its obvious
reality) let us just say SWAYED...to hear what these shapers of ideas...the audio
press...want us to hear...

That is why it takes so many years for each of us to FIND OUT for ourselves what
constitutes a really magical experience of reproduced sound...

In other words we have to UNLEARN what we have been TAUGHT to think about
audio...unfortunately for many of us...our dollar expenditures do not always keep up
with out perceptual shifts...our learning process...

What DMason has done for us all is to give us permission to think about solving
audios real resolution problems on the cheap...anyone can throw money into this
hobby and wind up with jewelry that will impress their friends...if that is what one
wants to do it is there to do it...

But to take full responsibility for finding a really sophisticated component synergy
on the cheap...by identifying what it is that is really working toward that end...is another
matter entirely...that takes stepping back and asking a great many questions about
what is going on...

In DMason we have/had (?) a real fighter...a warrior of sorts who after going through
numerous iterations of speakers, amplifiers and so on, came to understand the
depth of his own conditioning and set out to start from scratch to identify what he was
looking for...which drivers in what configuration...or which amplifier in what circuit
topology and so on...

And he approached everything from the ground of being as inexpensive as is possible
under the present conditions of the "field" of audio design and its creators...going
so far as to suggest we build our own OB's...as he did...to experience what the
B200 could do for us...again, on the cheap...

That is why Vinnie Rossi is such an invaluable resource for us all...because he is able
to fashion for us a perfect fit of what our amplifier needs are in the most classical
design approach of keeping things extraordinary simple and direct...which translates
to the highest product value with the most inexpensive solutions possible...the same
goes for Louis Chochos of Omega speakers...

This is a revolution in audio...because we are controlling our experiences in audio
to the maximum without having to build everything ourselves...although that is a
valuable lesson for those of us who have the time and inclination...but for those
of us who do not...Vinnie and Louie are there for us with their extraordinary talents
and insights and strategies learned over hundreds/thousands of hours of
experimentation and careful critical thinking...

And if we wind up back were our grandparents or uncles were in the 1930's, 40's
and so on...well that is not so bad...I have no mythical belief that my generation has
some mystical edge over my predecessors for solving problems...the NEW in and by
itself holds no power over me...

Rarely do we stop to look carefully at where we have been and what we have done
to get us here...that is why governments can move us into wars every 20 years or
so...look at the history of the world over the last several thousand years...or the last
few hundred if you wish...40 years is the longest period we have gone without
a war...it seems we cannot stop it...because in order to stop it we would have to
take responsibility to explain to our children that war does not work...and our emotions
are unwilling to admit that when we are aroused by indignation...

Warm regards -Richard-

[miklorsmith]

Well said as usual, Ricardo.  I'm with you on the environmental thing.  The bitter irony is that "technology" is tossed around like styrofoam to correct the "future" ills of our ways with the world.  So, where's all that great science today to fix the existing problems?  Oh, right, there aren't any problems, just put your head in this hole right next to mine.  See?  No worries.  Maybe globalization will be the ticket.  Oy, vey.

And yes, it takes a long time to figure out what you want out of this hobby.  I am excited about the quiet revolution, afoot.  We need to wrest our own brains out of the conditioning of "Imaging", "Soundstaging", and "Extension".  The new way of dynamics, coherence, tonality, and emotion are much more compelling.

We are a small cadre, a niche within a niche.  Exclusivity is cool, but people really think you're nuts.  Even other audiodudes are like "your amp is how big?"  Oh well.  Nuts to them, eh?

[JLM]

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

I've very much enjoyed DMason's contributions.  His energy and pocketbook extends well past mine.  I too like the direction he's going.  Hope he rejoins us soon.

Our society barely knows what "real" (unamplified) music sounds like.  Instead we're "spoiled" by throughly processed, highly rehearsed, professionals played back via artificial means.  In the past nearly everyone was "musical".  Without TV, radio, phonographs, etc. you ended up entertaining yourself with ordinary folks using acoustical instruments and their voices.  Real acoustical treats were cathedrals with huge pipe organs.  All live performances, warts and all.  Even my Dad (age 81) was agasped at what an entertained society we've become the first time he got satellite TV and realized there was 500 channels available.

The only gold standard for audio is unamplified acoustical instruments and voice.  How few concerts or plays are left that don't use electronics of some sort.  

[JiffyBoob]

Well I just got back from the sandbar under the Southern Sky, spending some time in a garage where he whose name we do not speak is busy cooking up his latest alchemical  transducer assault on the high end, and I can tell you things are sounding verrrrry nice down there, AND even sweeter with a new custom made Octal tube pre amplifier driving the Clari-T, and ...my my my, such synergy. I cannot believe the level of sweet coherence, astonishing musicality, enhanced three dimensionality, and just drop dead gorgeous sound. This stuff, set up in a room in Denver this of all weekends, I believe would TRASH much of what is put up in the high dollar, bling bling audio sweepstakes.

[-Richard-]

Hi JLM,

There has been a great deal of ink spilled over exactly what it is we
are supposed to be doing when we try to put together our home audio
systems...

Many feel as you do that reproducing the actual sound of acoustical
music in real spaces should be our goal...and one can find a great many
intelligent (such as yourself) music lovers whose hearts are melted when
they achieve that lofty goal...

I for one do not care to tread those dangerous waters...dangerous precisely
because of the variables that are introduced into the entire chain of component
interactivity...with perhaps the most egregious errors committed by the media
itself...so many things can easily affect the delicate nature of music reproduction
that I opt instead for a sumptuously rich and beautiful tonal gamut in my musical
presentation with a natural warmth and lively inner detail...if there is "air" and a
sense of the ambient space in which the recording was made, hallelujah!!!

Organic sounding to be certain...which is to say all of a piece...but not "real" in
the sense of being able to match perfectly...sonically speaking...the source
recording in the space in which that recording took place...

Let me illustrate what I mean...when Deb and I would go to hear live quartets or quintets
in real spaces...something we used to do somewhat regularly at the lovely Metropolitan
Museum of Art in NYC on friday evenings...the music was free to entertain visitors that
sought comfort by sitting in an area on the balcony with table service of wine and
dainties...the sound was always extraordinarily transparent...the air vibrating with the
sensuality of the violins and cellos...the piano accompaniment was always rich but
entered the air with a startling penetration that could be felt as well as heard...the violins
would wound around each other in thrilling harmonies...but the all-over sense was one
of rapid disappearance of vibratory sound...even as you were listening the sound was
disappearing so fast as to suggest a dream like quality...

That experience I have never heard reproduced in any audio system...
it is too ephemeral...too spontaneous a diminishing sound...also perhaps what I
am pointing too is that one does not hear so much the instrument itself...as the air that
is being vibrated by it...it is as if the instrument is having a love affair with the air...
the air which we are seldom aware of...is permitted to vibrate in a way that is so
extraordinary...that a sense of music is created...like a fire transmuting the wood
into coal and ash...the instrument and the air transmute silence into music...

I do not think that "quality" can be captured...at least not exactly...and so I do not have
any wish to run after it...I am quite content if my audio system makes music that upon
hearing it, allows the mind to believe that something of the essential character of live
music is being introduced into the air...a facsimile...but I need not go further than that...

That is why, I suspect, that the plethora of adjectives that have grown up around the
attempts by reviewers to describe the attributes of this amp or that speaker has
become a natural descriptive analysis of the sound...which is necessarily a
fragmentation...a deconstruction if you will...of the original organic field that the music
was created in...

I am certain this whole realm of thinking opens up Pandora's Box for many of us
who find ourselves aligned to this position or that one around this very thing...

Warm regard -Richard-

[JLM]

Richard,

The state of the art of audio playback at home is still quite poor.  Occasionally a professional review can be found that dares compare their system + recording to the real thing side by side in the same room.  And of course it's never close to being as realistic even with relatively easy sources.  More often a complement can be found where someone mistook their system + recording for the real thing from the next room or beyond.

Naturally the venue is different from performance to home and the entire experience is different between living room and concert hall/whatever too.  I don't suppose we'll ever overcome this difference (and hopefully never will as this could allow for a science fiction sort of manipulated/confused state of being between reality and imagined existence, but I digress).  Most have gotten so conditioned to all the artificial aspects of recorded music and the various modern day comforts of home that the reproduced is preferred over the live event.  So they're unfamiliar with the sound of the "real" thing anyway.

But it seems the point you're making points to a basic question:  Is the goal of home audio playback chain (system + recording) to accurately reproduce the orginal event or simply to maximize our enjoyment of the music?  For some, both are the same.  For others a de-emphasis or exageration of certain characteristics of the sound is preferred.  This seems to boil down to three different ideals:

First is the purist camp where any distortions (any change from the orginal) interferes with enjoyment and makes the brain work harder to sort out what is expected to be heard.  IMO these distortions define what  listener fatigue is.  Those who strive for ever increasing levels of detail drift towards this camp.

Second are those who prefer added warmth, bloom, etc.  This is the romantic school that gravates to the tubes this thread is about (although the added soundscape benefits IME go beyond romance).  If clothes make the man or make-up makes the woman for you, this is your place.

Third are folks who need only a pencil sketch and will fill in the blanks to recreate in their mind a past or imagined performance.  In this case a minimal amount of aural information is ideal.  A local audio shop salesman told of a college music professor who had been using speakers with a blown tweeter for years and never noticed.  He only needed a few musical "hints" to know just how the piece should sound and recreated the rest in his head.  We all do this to varying degrees, starting with simply remembering a song based on hearing snipets or playing "name that tune".

Audiophiles naturally don't fit into the third ideal.  Most seem to be the analytical types and use music as a diversion from all the math and science in their lives, to restore balance to their lives.  OTOH music lovers can fit into the third camp and simply, blissfully enjoy the piece itself.

So I understand your position and agree with much of what you're saying.  Those times that the playback brings us within reach of the "real" thing (without a powerful mind or chemical assistance) are fleeting at best.  Bottom line, this audio endevour can easily turn into a bottomless pit and we each need to pick a direction and depth that balances with the rest of our lives.  And then stop so we can return to the music itself.

[-Richard-]

Hi JLM,

When I was in my twenties I found myself living in NYC...

I had purchased a loft in the first loft building in Soho to co-op (I saw only a very
very modest gain from owning this...I divorced my first wife leaving her in
possession of it...a long story that)...and I would take respites from my responsibilities
to visit the Zuckermann harpsichord shop not far away on 8th avenue at that time...

Although the harpsichord's they had there sounded quite striking with tremendous
dynamics...it was the modest Clavichord that caught my attention...

Against absolute silence the Clavichord gave off a sound that I can only compare
to the effect of what one hears as the sea rushes onto a beach...exquisite tonal
complexities that mingle in a rich aural soup...against any background noise the
same Clavichord losses its power to enter the ear and falls into a mere whisper...
and finally disappears entirely, even with the listener playing this earliest of keyboard
instruments with his ear up close...so delicate is the sound...

Unlike the mighty harpsichord which uses a plucking mechanism, the Clavichord
employs a small metal tangent that rises at the end of the key being depressed to
meet the strings...allowing the player to actually shift the pitch if he wishes merely
by the force of the finger on the key...and vibrato effects of the strings can be
comparable to a guitar...

However the Clavichord could not be used for public performance...much too quiet...
but for composing at night...or during the day in a room recessed within a well
insulated house...it was ideal...the overtones of this instrument is greater than 60...
many of the strings vibrate subtly with each delicate strike of the strings...

Zuckermann was a kit company...I bought the Clavichord kit and proceeded to
build it...it took me months of careful work to put that lovely keyboard instrument
together and weight each key with small lead dowels placed where a perfect balance
would occur...I figured out a way to double string this single string model and was
very proud of myself until on a random walk in the Metropolitan Museum's music
displays I noticed that my "original" idea was a regular feature of these seventeenth
century keyboard models...

I learned to tune its more than 60 keys using several different strategies...which
composers of the Baroque age used according to how they wanted to write their
music...hence the Well Tempered Clavier" by Bach...

Playing this instrument, which a friend who used to visit me once described as
feeling as if something human was being stroked, taught me how to listen to
musical sound...a better teacher one could not hope for...transparent in the extreme,
rich in overtones, sensitive to the touch...I cannot describe the happiness that
instrument brought to the inherent chaos of my life at that time...and in a thoroughly
strange way...it led to my leaving my marriage...my life that I so carefully built from
dreams and hard work...and helped me to drift into an entirely new direction...but
that is quite another story...

Once the ear is tuned to the actual sound of an acoustical musical instrument...
especially if one is playing it oneself...reproduced music appears to have a character
that is hard and incessant...it flagrantly mars the sound irrevocably...and assails
the ear aggressively...

Women are especially sensitive to this distortion...Deborah for instance cannot stand
transistor sound that has not been tempered in some way...too painful for her...
and that might account...at least partially..for why women traditionally do not migrate
to so-called high end audio...the exaggerated sound may be too painful for them...

Many audio enthusiasts are quite willing to have their ears assailed by sound that
is "loaded" with a great deal of information...like "detail" as you pointed out JLM...
and I agree with you that there appears to be little reference to actual acoustical
music in much of what passes for high end audio...

The use of electronic music in much of contemporary rock...which has been the
cultural musical driving force of every young generation since the 1950's...probably
makes it harder for young people to appreciate the sound of real instruments...
Deborah's siblings who are no longer young have no interest in listening to
reproduced acoustical music and that goes for all of their friends...although they
listen to a great deal of rock...and enjoy it...

Deborah's father grew up on Jazz and had a substantial collection of LP's of the Jazz
greats including the great Jazz singers...which is where Deb's love of 40's and 50's
female Jazz vocalists got started...big bands and small ensembles...he also loved
some forms of classical music...he would play music all the time...but except for
Deborah...his kids never picked up on it...

It may be that our love of hearing music reproduced is actually a skewering of our
own deep wish to make music...that is thwarted somehow by the complexity of our
lives that we have accepted as normal...if we do not make music ourselves
than we begin to place too much importance on reproduced music...a certain
neurosis is introduced...an attempt by the brain to reproduce that essential thrill of
hearing live music and what it does to release us from the dullness of our repetitive
lives...and if this is true...it explains our constant searching for a bliss that we shall
never obtain except in fleeting moments...compelling us endlessly to keep up the
search that will bring us closer to something that is unobtainable...

Warm regards -Richard-

[miklorsmith]

Aye.  Ye smart men raise this place above all others of the breed, methinks.  Richard, JLM, I concur with your sentiments and offer a few of mine own, thusly:

I think many of us are confused about what exactly we want from our gears.  Ironically, the best way to obfuscate the goal is to think about it.  Thought is directed at solving problems, which more often than not lead to additional questions.  Why do we focus so much time and attention on a purchase, fall in love with it completely, then sell it on Agon six months later?  (hint, I don't know)

We are presumptively chasing accuracy.  The boys at AH say that accuracy is 20hz to 20khz response flat, period.  If you can deliver that, in-room, you're DONE.  Of course, that's very hard to do on any budget.  I think a system built to that one parameter without further consideration would be very boring, indeed.  Why?  I keep Thinking.  

It has been pointed out to me that the recording studio is largely responsible for the difficulty in matching the original venue.  Holding that, are we then trying to match the sparkling, silver disc?  What's on that disc?  Our influence is limited to the last half of the process.  There is no way to "benchmark" the disc.  Familiarization with live sound is thus not a fair measure, unless we endeavor to record our own music.

Even the playback portion is full of compromises.  If you could hire Rives Audio to design your listening room, have it built, and spend commensurate dollars equipping it you'd be set.  Everything below that is a compromise.  Listeners choose their budget thresholds based on personal factors but those elements, like everything else we humans do, is subject to change over time.  My audio budget is much higher than it was ten years ago.  And, my knowledge of what I want versus my ability to obtain it has grown.  Of course, my ears have deteriorated.  C'est la vie.

We've all seen deeply irresponsible "professional" reviews.  In fact, the most thorough of observations are colored by personal biases as well as system- and room-variables.  There is no such thing as "objective" review.  The AH boys would chime in and yell "TESTING", but I'm ambivalent at best about such things.  Of course science has a role, but putting it too high on the subjective ladder is counterproductive.  So, where do we actually Learn about what we want and need?

So many questions.  The quagmire of 'empirical truth' pulls you down with every wriggle.  Every earnest quest unearths jewels though.  A few of mine:

1) Complex crossovers are bad.  They might help produce "flat" response, but a side effect is Flat sound.  2) Wattage is overrated.  How low does speaker sensitivity have to be to warrant 200-watt amps?  See '1)', above.  3) Tubes in the chain, somewhere, are good.  They can be overdone and choose wisely.  4) Think of the system as a whole.  A "sterile" amp can be mitigated with a "juicy" pre.  5) Believe your own ears and brain; don't discount a good idea because some talking head said it was dumb.

Did anybody make it this far?

[JLM]

Still with you milkorsmith.  

Old fashioned specs and measurements are the beginning of good design and good sound, but can't fully define it.  For instance, can't really have an audiophile system IMO if it doesn't cover the full frequency range of musical instruments (except those stupendous church organs).  But having 30 - 15,000 Hz flat response doesn't guarantee dynamics, detail, imaging, or a hundred other important aspects of good sound.

Audiophiles balance gearhead and musical interests.  The gearhead in us pushes for more and better and newer toys.

Yes, the most important component in the playback system is the recording itself.  I've often said speaker, then room.  Thanks for reminding me of what should be obvious.

The ideal listening room would probably be at least 12 ft x 20 ft x 32 ft, but that doesn't fit my lifestyle.  I'm tickled to have my own room coming that will be a decent size and proper design.  Treating it will be a major part of this hobby for me in the coming year(s).

I've ranted about "professional" reviews before, but they're only human too.  Most of them don't have as much equipment/experience as I'd like, decent rooms like mine, or sense enough to write in a concise, useful manner.

I agree with your jewels.  My speakers use single drivers, I only use 6 wpc, I'm looking into adding a tube buffer into an otherwise "solid" system, my Clari-T is most synergistic with my Bob Brines FTA-2000 speakers, and yes in the final analysis all that matters is that you like what you're hearing.


Richard,

Wish I had your musical background to better appreciate what I'm trying to hear and enjoy.  Somehow I'm drawn much more to the smaller, more intimate performances too.  Risking of being accused of stereotyping, I'll opine that women hear highs better, are more sensitive in general, and are more right brained (analog/emotive) which should make them better judges of audio.  Yes, most are guilty of "overcompensating" in our playback to equal the enjoyment of the "real thing".


JiffyBoob,

Now when we get another update from DMason on his forays into audio bliss?

[GHM]

JLM,
   I agree to a certain extent with you fellows . Being that I did some testing on the FTA-2000s and frequency response. Leads me to believe frequency response does play a role in how realistic some instruments sound. Now how you get that frequency response is the key. Using 100 lbs of crossover parts is a no no in my book. If it can be achieved with good design , good drivers and minimul parts ..it can be great!

By the way I noted an average in room frequency variance of only 1 db with the FTA-2000s from 200Hz down to 18hz. I heard the difference before I ever measured it in this speaker. When listening to well recorded classical with dynamics. The kick drums are the cleanest and most realistic I've ever heard in my house and any where else for that matter.Besides actually sitting at a real drum set myself. There's just nothing like a true transmission line bass when it's designed  to decay properly. I'm learning this is the down fall of many speakers.They cannot get the decay right on the instruments..especially drums. It's there of course but just not quite believable . SOme will have big bass and move your hair..but it's not real. You feel a real kick drum all over your body. But it doesn't make your pant legs ruffle. So well implemented frequency response does play a role in there some where. I'm guessing the response is just as good up to 15 or 16 khz.
This is outstanding for such an inexpensive speaker! Especially when you compare it to speakers 4 times it's price.
I did attempt to measure output from 20hz to 20khz..much more difficult.
I did find out the speakers do go to 20 khz with the BSC in place. At 18khz the output was still fairly smooth and audible.

[JLM]

GHM,

Didn't want to divert the thread, but YES!  MLTL is the way to go IMO for the past 25 years.  I haven't heard giant bass horns, only 36 cubic feet per channel and they wouldn't touch a good MLTL bass design.  What you're describing is spot on.

Don't know how sensitive (or not) I am to flat frequency, but in my book if it can't cover 30- 15,000 Hz it can't be audiophile grade.


Clarification:  my previous thread could be read to imply that I expect reviewers to use rooms like mine.  What I meant is that reviewers aught to use decent rooms to audition in, and that I consider my current (11 ft x 19 ft x 8 ft with picture window and two openings in the back) room decent.  Ideally their rooms would not be out of line with what many "ordinary audiophiles" might have available.  That would make the reviews more useful.