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During the 2002 CES, late at night, a friend of mine demonstrate me something that was tying to address for a few years. It was a very different “tone” form a loudspeaker or I would rather say a different relationship between reproduced and auditable tone. I intentionally do not mention the brand and specifics as I do not what to create a wave of the typical audio-idiots who after hearing about a “pitched model” will run to Hi-Fi store and brainlessly buy their new stupid “Messiah”…

So, under the influence of that 2002 CES event after years of thinking and experimenting I have developed an observation that there is ”another” way to teach loudspeakers to sound, let me to explain.

We use to pursue a loudspeaker as a machine that with higher possible fidelity reflect the fluctuation of voltages and frequencies in respect to input signal. There is nothing wrong with it. We pursue the best resonance-free box, the most submissive voice-coil and the most dictatorial amplifier - sure it is a good way to go. However, the voltage stream that an amplifier sends to speaker has little relation to sound. Amplifier does not handle Reality. The “Really” via microphones is converted into a stream of transverse waves and then processed according to the transverse algorithms.  Whatever we do in electric audio we do not deal with Sound in its original shape (Sound is a longitudinal wave) but we deal with mathematical equivalent of Sound (electricity is transverse wave). It is like stroking your Cat not with your hand but with remote controlled robotic arms… So, I was always wandering if it is possible to make audio methods to “talk” using the original language of Sound.

As some of you know a few years ago I “patented within my perception” my “The Beach Effect”. Many who heard it for me do not understand how important it is but I still feel that the derivations form the “The Beach Effect” is the key. The combination between “The Beach Effect”, between that 2002 CES demonstration, between my desire to teach audio to “speak Sound”, between some of my recent experiments and between few other factors made me to think there is “another way” to make loudspeaker to sing…

Sound is a vibration of subjects in air. Loudspeaker is a machine that produces pneumatic waves… so, why do not make a loudspeaker to vibrate in air? Oops!!! Think about it deeper: this Oops was a “giant leap for mankind” in term of audio. Everything that we know today about audio is not compatibles with this “Oops”. We believe that a perfect signal means a perfect result but it is not necessary true under umbrella of the “Oops”. In the world of “Oops” artificial mechanical subject resonate in open air and the perfect signal would not be a sign that mathematically reflect the source but rather the signal that being consumed by a “resonating object” would produce the “equitable infliction to listening awareness, that is very identical to the infliction of original sonic event” (according to “The Beach Effect”).

I know: for many it would be difficult to grasp what I am trying to say - let me to simplify the subjects a little.  In simplification what I am trying to say is not as revolutionary as I would like to present it as some of the “Oops” techniques were used in past. It might a subject of debate if the “Oops” techniques of past were used intestinally or accidentals (I insist that it was accidental) but some of the loudspeakers of 30s-60s were made with insultingly resonating enclosures. They were so flimsy and so resonating in term of today’s standards that it is not even funny. it is not secret that people “thoughtfully” trash them. Sure many of those crappy-made and super-resonating enclosures were junk but at the same time they were a phenomenal playground to learn something about the ways to use the “Oops” principles.

A last week I was trying to pitch something among those lines to the guys at Yahoo’s Tannoy Group:

”Still, I hardly view the Tannoy boxes (and when I say Tannoys I mean the sub 70s Tannoys as anything they did later is crap) as a "loudspeaker solution" but rather a "freakish musical instrument" that made upon very different principles, different then you and I have accustomed nowadays (after the bass-reflex-school of thinking become dominating). Sure, the resonances are bad but not for a deck of cello or for the deck of dibble bass that are made to create, magnify and to mange resonances instead of killing them. Interesting that "allowing resonances" was a common for many loudspeakers of 50s and 60s (some Tannoy, Vitavox, EV, Klangs and others…), it is not that those loudspeakers were necessary "better" (I do not like them personally) but they had own merit and own means to create sound. I spent quite a time running a generator against a very resonant vintage Tannoy box. It is so "ringy" that is even laughable. Then I just for a sake of experiment took a tension bar (and some other tools) and begin to remove a resonance by resonance. Sure the enclosure begun to response WAY more civilized but… the entire loudspeaker was becoming (with removing of each resonance) to sound WAY less musical.”

Unfortunately that Group is not the place where people try to understand what others are trying to say. They have there a dozen or so local ever-presented idiots who pile up the new drivers into dead boxes, power them with mass-market consumer electronics behind the condoms of digitalis crossovers and being comfortably numbed that ready to insult anyone who will not blow this horn of brand devotion. As far as I concerned they are perfectly dead for my audio interest, but they are very much not alone – thier state of audio-thinning is very unfortunately common – why do you think I exercise for years the Presumption of Moronity (“Moron unless proved otherwise”) toward to audio people?

Anyhow, making loudspeakers as “active resonators” is out of mind not only for Morons. For instance a few weeks ago many of your read the thread about RAAL tweeter:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/LatestPosts.aspx?ThreadID=3766

The RAAL’s Alexander is very much not a Moron.He contemplating to make a dedicated MF ribbon that according to him will defeat any compression driver and he claim that he has an idea how it might be done (he allege also that no one ever did it in the way how it should be done). Well, the problem that I see in it is that a ribbon is too neutral and too colorless transducer. While Alexander was talking about the toneless tweeters it was OK but as soon we dive into the freakish world of MF then we deal with the damn tone on the radars. I hardly believe that anyone in audio know where “tone” comes from. So, I proposed to Alex to consider an idea of MF driver where in the back side ribbon will be an artificial, large, wood-made (?), resonating chamber. I meant to imitate guitar, or cello or a violin where strings will be substituted with ribbon. Alex poo-poo this idea and am sure he was laughing but I was very much serious as I feel that this thinking is very much affinity with my view of the “Oops” techniques where the “real and natural things to do natural activities to produce natural results”.

So, the readers open your mind a little and do you home work. There ARE very inconsequential movements in France and in Japan to make loudspeakers with incredibly resonant baffles.  It is very-very complex. It is also requires to BE SOMETHING INSTEAD OF TO KNOW SOMETHING as the results from naturally resonating “Oops” techniques  more reflects the master’s internal reference points  and intrans resonances.  A loudspeaker is not a machine after all but a musical instrument and all and you want a machine then buy BMW…..So, do you homework and try to learn how to make the speaker’s box to ring in a correct tonality  - it is what I call the “Deck with Crack” effects. Please report to this thread if you get any success as I would like to learn myself about mastering of these “Oops” techniques. Over the years I made a collection of the quite a number of different drivers that have material of their cone, suspensions  and some other characteristics very intriguingly cooperating with the driver ability ” to do tone”  in  resonant environment, so I would like to learn  more how I can USE my drivers....

During that 2002 CES it was not juts good “Deck with Crack” effects but it was so good that I still do remember that sound. I would tell you even more: I am experimenting now with Macondo applying some “Oops” techniques to its upper bass horn. I will report whet I get more conclusive results, so I hope you do.

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