[satfrat]

Thanks Steve for the very informative post, it's been a long time coming in this thread. And welcome to AudioCircle. Hopefully you won't have to put up with the same type of crap here that you dealt with on Stereophile for simply stating your observations and opinions on a product that you actually tried. It's a very welcome read.


Cheers,
Robin

[2bigears]

  11 pages,now that's freaky.it was said and hit the nail right on the head,you can spend the 3k on this system if 'you' think it's worth it.the normal dude on the street would first think 3 large can get you greater pay back,the rich guy thinks different.the first thing that came to my mind seeing the set was,wow,what is that stuff,looks like sano space art.knowing now what it is and purpose,i pass it of in a heartbeat,a blue collar guy just instantly knows he can find greener fields for three grand.each to their own : Merry Christmas

[PumaCat]

Who is the rich guy?  

[Ethan Winer]

First, happy holidays to all - sincerely.

If you say the laws of physics say it cannot work, then you should back up your claim by showing the equations that demonstrate they cannot.

Here ya go:



Read more about Sabine's equation and the physical relationship of treatment size versus total surface area:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverberation

If you dispute Sabine's equation, please explain why and how being as detailed as possible.

And please don't shoot the messenger.

--Ethan

[warnerwh]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would appreciate to see what and how various treatments work according to known physics. I'm sure we have more than enough knowledge to scientifically cover 99.9% of what happens with sound waves. The other .1% that we don't know really being inconsequential.

What works and why is what matters.  That's what we spend our money for. 

[satfrat]

I have yet to hear an equation so I'll trust my ears when determining a products worth before I'll listen to what a joke cracking one liner messenger has to say myself.

More words of wisdom from the messenger in his Stereophile performance:




Cheers,
Robin

[Bob in St. Louis]

Wow.  Where's my coat, it's getting cold in here.

[satfrat]

Wow.  Where's my coat, it's getting cold in here.

Hey he posted it on Stereophile here so don't shoot the messenger.

Cheers,
Robin

[Russell Dawkins]

'tis the season to be ...  aaaak! 

[warnerwh]

If you want to design something that is of world class quality isn't using all the knowledge you can a good idea?  Without equations cars, buildings and space travel among numerous other things would leave too much to be desired, especially safety. Anytime someone wants to ignore science they're flying blind.  It's like an ostrich sticking it's head in the ground to hide.

Why would you ignore facts that are provable? The tiny bit that we may not know can be addressed AFTER all that is known has been established or you are wasting your time.  Also the tiny bit of knowledge not known has far less to do with the sound we hear than what we do know and may be inaudible except in the human mind.

I'd sure like to hear why someone would design a product and NOT use all of the provable facts they can that will affect their products performance.  Btw I'm only taking MY side.

[satfrat]

If you want to design something that is of world class quality isn't using all the knowledge you can a good idea?  Without equations cars, buildings and space travel among numerous other things would leave too much to be desired, especially safety. Anytime someone wants to ignore science they're flying blind.  It's like an ostrich sticking it's head in the ground to hide.

Why would you ignore facts that are provable? The tiny bit that we may not know can be addressed AFTER all that is known has been established or you are wasting your time.  Also the tiny bit of knowledge not known has far less to do with the sound we hear than what we do know and may be inaudible except in the human mind.

I'd sure like to hear why someone would design a product and NOT use all of the provable facts they can that will affect their products performance.

So what exactly is your experience in this field and with the Acoustic ART system? I myself have none and I've never had any exposure to this system,,,, have you? Stephen Scharf has had time with the Acoustoc ART System and I am more inclined to believe his personal experiences than to believe the constant stream of useless babble thank you. I'm not saying you are either right or wrong, just saying if you do ever have any personal experience with the Acoustic ART System, then I'd love to hear you opinion also.


Cheers,
Robin

[warnerwh]

I've not claimed I had an opinion of anything. However I figured this would be a good place to learn something.

Believe me when I tell you I would be the first one to admit that there's more than likely more about physics we don't know than what we do know.  It would be nice if these guys would lay out in front of us a certain product and explain how it works. We DO have quite of bit of empirical data on acoustics. I think that would be a good place to start.

[satfrat]

I've not claimed I had an opinion of anything. However I figured this would be a good place to learn something.

Believe me when I tell you I would be the first one to admit that there's more than likely more about physics we don't know than what we do know.  It would be nice if these guys would lay out in front of us a certain product and explain how it works. We DO have quite of bit of empirical data on acoustics. I think that would be a good place to start.

OK I can go along with that for sure but I would also think that personal experience with any product from someone who's using his ears and not a chalkboard is also a good place to start. Myself, I don't need a calculator to tell me if I'm enjoying what I hear. But hey, some folks need to be told what's good and what's not cuz they can't make their own decisions. That's a real shame cuz it's a closed minded way to be listening to audio IMHO.

Cheers,
Robin

[Bob in St. Louis]

Warner, that's by far the BEST point I've heard yet for these ..... um..... things a fellow is suppose to put in his room to date.
The other arguments have been garbage.
I have NO DOUBT that anything that enters a listening room has an effect (positive or negative) on the sound. It's even measurable I'm sure.
Admittedly, I have about as much knowledge in this area as Ethan (or Tom, or Bryan, or....) has in a pimple on their collective butts. However, having a pretty sound mechanical knowledge of how things work, I have a very hard time grasping what these diminutive devices are suppose to accomplish. If they're really having an effect on a system, then we should also take some other things into consideration.

If you'll indulge me, here's a few I've been wondering about:
- Which broach Grandma is wearing (the big one or the small one) when she enters the room. And what type of metal it's made of.
- How many beer bottles the attending audiodudes have leave scattered about, and where are they located.
- If a fellow audiodude brought a box of tubes into your room to roll in your amp, how is this box of glass vacuum tubes affecting the room. Surely a glass vile that contains an absence of pressure would change the frequency response of a room. Conversely, what if you brought glass tubes into the room that contained a higher than ambient pressure into the room. Like, oh, I don't know..maybe like beer bottles, but unopened.
- As the night with the audio guys wears on, the positive pressured glass containers would decrease in quantity and the ambient pressured glass containers would increase. Of course, these "ambient pressured glass containers" would all be localized in one place thereby creating a possible null in the room. Or would it be creating a peak in frequency response?

That's just a few questions I have. I could go on, but I've got a basement bathroom to build. Which reminds me, I'll have many pieces of oddly shaped pine 2X4s as scrap. If anybody wants them, I can varnish them and let them go for, say, $100 each. You could spread them about your room as they (apparently) would be considered "room treatments".

Have a wonderful Holiday my friends. Peace be with you and yours through the new year.

Bob

[PumaCat]

Believe me when I tell you I would be the first one to admit that there's more than likely more about physics we don't know than what we do know.  It would be nice if these guys would lay out in front of us a certain product and explain how it works. We DO have quite of bit of empirical data on acoustics. I think that would be a good place to start.

I agree. While my listening experience tells me that the ART does work, I would like to understand how it works. But, per my original comment, while the fact that the ART works has to have some basis in physics and acoustics, per Ted's point, it may be difficult to understand completely HOW it is working. YET. Measuring something just for the sake of measuring often  doesn't get you very far. The basis of hypothesis-based science is that there is a hypothesis or theory of how something works or behaves that is derived. The metrology is then devloped to test whether or not the hypothesis holds.

OTOH, functionality is often developed strictly empirically, by trial-and-error or build-test-fix. Japanese samurai swords, which arguably represent the pinnacle of sword design and functionality were originally developed empirically...it wasn't until much later that the principles of alloying metal and how work-hardening actually worked at the atomic level which allowed a theoretical understanding of why samurai swords were as good as they were.

From reading about the development of the ART system, and Ted's posts here, there were three concomitant development programs occurring simultaneously in the development of the properties of the steel, shape, hardness, ductility, and surface treatment of the "bowls" that created functionality. Ted mentioned that the current pass rate of hand-tuned bowls is 50% and is determined by a measurement system, hence part of it's price structure. He also mentioned that they are putting some metrology in place that will help to demonstrate how this system works in principle. It's my guess from what I've read that the design that provides the desired functionality was arrived at empirically by experimentation, and Synergistics have yet to fully to develop a theoretical model of how it does what it does. And I'm totally okay with that. As they develop their metrology, it will help inform their hypotheses, and as they develop their hypotheses it will help inform the metrology required. Development such as this is iterative, as is 99% of design. It rarely happens all at once, SPROING, a fully developed and optimized functionality just appears.

I am pleased that Ethan published an equation describing decay of reverberation time in a room of specified volume. While I am certain the Sabine equation describes the behavior of traditional damping materials with respect to reverberation decay time (Sa is an absorption coefficient in sabins, for example; see Ethan's equation above), my guess  is that ART does not provide it's functionality in this manner. Hence while Sabine equation describes one type of functionality, my guess is that there is another transfer function which provides a better model of how ART works at a fundamental level (no pun intended).

Now that Ethan has stepped up, I would hope that Ted will provide some input into possible funtionality modes, or when his metrology is refined, what the transfer functions are that describe how ART works.

[Browntrout]

Hello, could I first say that the natural world does not follow or behave according to rules or equations. It does what it feels like and we look at it and try to understand it by making up rules and equations that appear (to us) to fit in with what we see.
  While at a deeper level we create 'units' that have definitions that relate directly to some physical character that we percieve in nature. These units then form part of equations giving these mathematical tools relevance to the real world through our definitions of these units.
  On a base level these units (metres, Volts, Kg, N, etc etc) have no real meaning, not to us or the natural world. Upon detailed examination of the units they infact, by their own definition cannot exist in the natural world! (if you doubt me please read the definition of an amp which requires the use of two wires of infinite length in a perfect vacuum. If I remember correctly, which I may not of course  )
  It is a missunderstanding to think that science explains anything, it simplifies things in our minds to a very basic level so that we can work with it.
   Right, enough of that!    To my mind it would appear that these resonators are an active type of device compared to the passive diffusors and absorbers. I assume I'm correct in saying that they are hit by the sound and part of that sound excites them (at the frequency they have been tuned to?) they then vibrate at a high frequency (receiving energy from the stereo) emitting their own sound which contributes to the sound of the system/room. Now I guess they are absorbing energy from a relatively broad range of frequencies (nature of their shape) and emitting a relatively narrow band of frequencies?
   P.S If I'm way off here please don't hesitate to say so, I'm only postulating for fun. Cheers, and a Merry Christams to all!

[PumaCat]

Hello, could I first say that the natural world does not follow or behave according to rules or equations. It does what it feels like and we look at it and try to understand it by making up rules and equations that appear (to us) to fit in with what we see.
 
  It is a missunderstanding to think that science explains anything, it simplifies things in our minds to a very basic level so that we can work with it.
 

Sorry, Browntrout, but that is not true. Science does explain things, and the universe DOES, in fact, follow rules or equations. Electromagnetic radiation intensity (as well as many other phenomena) really does fall off at 1/D^2, F really does =ma, and F = G*(m1*m2)/r^2 really does allow us to predict the motion of the planets.

[Browntrout]

Really? Can you tell me how one mass acts upon another mass then? Even when it is not touching it. If you can explain your 'understanding' of it, thats all I ask.

[DaveC113]

Really? Can you tell me how one mass acts upon another mass then? Even when it is not touching it. If you can explain your 'understanding' of it, thats all I ask.

While gravity cannot be satisfactorily explained yet, it's effects can be predicted with a great deal of accuracy, according to simple formula.

Calculus that defines fluid flow, thermodynamics,  etc... has been proven accurate. Mathematics can be used to define all of physical phenomenon, it's only our understanding that is often lacking.

[Browntrout]

Quite agree. The important thing to remember is these laws we think of as solid and unbreakable are only such in our minds. They work very well when we isolate variables or ask simple questions that rely upon the microscopic events being hidden in the real world application.
   I can give an example of something I recently read in a HiFi magazine (of all places) that in a university (Manchester I think) they have made the worlds smallest transistor being only ten atoms in size. It works but what they can't understand is there is no movement of electrons in the device bringing to mind the question what is electricity if in this instance it is not the movement of electrons?
  Something that is taught to us all in a very simple manner at school is infact incorrect even though the formulas still allow us to design and work with electricity.