Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

By the time I got seriously involved in hi-fi, in the early 60s, speakers and their drivers were already undergoing significant changes from which they would never "recover".  Basically, for reasons that are no longer clear to me now, drivers and speakers alike - in general - began to be built to absorb and withstand more and more power from amps that seemed to double in power, annually at first, and then, monthly.  One thing that my friends and I took for granted at that time was "Tone", that any and every speaker would have more or less of it, and, if necessary, we could either restore or imbue a speaker with Tone by various means.  Whether "dope", cabinet "tuning" or X/Os, I don't remember ever doubting my own ability to find a driver and make a speaker to sound the way I wanted it to.  But as power came to the front, Tone dropped to the rear and, finally, it was gone, and somehow Tone became less important than "transients" and "detail", and "clarity", until it became pretty much a non-issue, as though it either did not matter, or it was there all along (although it was not), or it was just a minor sacrifice for better "detail" and more aggressive "transients".

Fast forward to 2011.  "Tone" is definitely a lost art, tossed in at the last minute like a handful of salt or pepper when it is considered at all.  And, annoyingly, nothing seems to sound like it used to, back in the day, anyway, according to my experience.  The crux for me now is to find and nurture Tone, then to push it beyond GWB (girl with balalaika), into the realm of Serious Music.  Of course, part of the "problem" is expectations, that we can somehow make new the best of what is now - in fact -  quite old.  Also, as I described in the previous post, there is the "problem" that tuning too "true to life" requires true-to-life SPLs to finally bring it home.

This is, I think, another good reason to take it slow: to take in and process the "paradoxical" information in a way that will yield actual (as opposed to idealized) results.  Yes, I insist that a violin is not a viola, etc., etc. But in my own case I think I can back off sustained 120 dB in order to have Tone, if this becomes necessary.  OTOH, I am not going through all this merely to re-create an idea whose time has already come and gone.


Paul S

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site