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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Aporia - Silbatone Acoustics speaker
Post Subject: Don't sniff my thoughts, sniff my speakerPosted by Joe Roberts on: 1/24/2009
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BTW, I have a incredibly accurate record of sniffing those thoughts.


Thought sniffing is precisely the problem. Too much thought sniffing.

You have not heard Mangers, Aporia, or Loth-X speakers yet you thought sniffed yourself into an incredibly accurate picture of what they sound like. Great trick!

I admit I do this about, say, plastic cone mini towers. But while at CES I went and heard about ten plastic cone mini towers. They BLEW. But, at least I gave them a listen. Who knows, maybe somebody finally came out with a one that I liked. They didn't.

I point to your discussion about the Aporia diffusor. You denied that it affected the directionality of the speaker, yet I actually heard it with and without, moved across the room while listening to each configuration, and I HEARD the reduction in beaminess with the diffusor.

I have had round Edgarhorns and Lowthers so I understand what narrowing radiation as a function of frequency is about. Even in midbass there was a reduction in response at 50 degrees off axis. With the diffusor this was mostly gone. Yes, this does involve frequency response (EQ) but there is another factor (angle).

You yourself intially said it is impossible to predict what such obstructions will do, yet in the next post you turned around and thought sniffed it.

In my view, experimental evidence, even casual experiential evidence, trounces thought sniffing.

I say that as a highly practiced thought sniffer myself.

I look at your manifesto and gear choices and I really can't know if this stuff sounds great or you are just another experimenter with mediocre sound who thinks he found heaven. HOW COULD I KNOW? It could be good, so I give you the benefit of the doubt, but your saying so don't make it so.

My thought sniff tells me Romy's rig is good enough that even if there is some component of self-delusion, as is usually the case, at least it is not embarrasingly delusional. Otherwise, I'll not be impressed without hearing it and feeling impressed at the time.

I could say that I had similar setups in the late 80s and early 90s so I KNOW what it sounds like, but that would be stupid.

I see you have a REL tuner. I had three and they were all totally different. Two were accurately aligned by the same tech. One was stunningly great, the others were good-very good.  Do I know what yours sounds like? No idea.


Anyhow, if you have Ku Klux Klan members who very enthusiastically encourage you about their new candidate in Congress, claiming that the candidate has a “new view on racism”, then how serious would you consider to pay attention to this candidate?



I would pay attention. Actually, I have a strong interest in racist and nationalist movements and rhetoric used in such political programs. I fear that this (or any) country can head that way in the coming hard times, as history demonstrates. This is one of my personal concerns and something that I study a lot.

As for the relation of this metaphor to the ongoing dialogue here, I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about. Enlighten me.


Harry Pearson and Peter Aczel


Were you here in the States in the 80s? The points above were not a random stab.

Much in your rhetoric dovetails with themes in 1980s audio criticism. The "absolute sound of unamplified live music (i.e. classical)" as the only valid reference, the transference of objective criteria of musical sound to listening evaluation of musical performance, the notion that the "objective" nature of the evaluation program yields an unassailable platform.

And worst, the idea that if somebody disagrees or has different preferences they are WRONG, not serious, and somehow less evolved. This is total ethnocentricism and outlandish snobbery.

This is corny and discredited stuff to me, but perhaps you missed it the first time around. This kind of rhetoric can be very evil in the way it sets up fake authority and an us vs. them mentality. I saw this first-hand in the 80s. I worked in a high-end store at the peak of this stupidity. You claim to be against the morons, yet practice the very techniques of the shepherds of audio morons.

Laugh all you want, but I see a quasi HP in cat suit.

At least you insist that it is only for you, but I wonder since you have a website and all.

To your credit, you are way funnier then these 80s jokers and appear to have better taste in gear, but your thought sniffing patterns are remarkably consistent with the 80s ideologies. At least you don't get into elaborate photographic metaphors to describe imaging like 80s TAS writers did. That would be going too far.

I like independent perspective and I appreciate this site on that level. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. I now have more posts here than on all audio forums since the web started combined and I have been online since 300 baud modems.

Hovever, I do not get responses to the questions I posed about gaps in your evaluative logic and the lack of direct experience, but only a thinly veiled personal attack and a self-fulfilling thought sniff that takes you back to where you started. If your mind is already made up, why bother going through the exercises?

If you think you are telling me something new that triode, horn, and single driver guys can be totally mindless too, you're not. Some of them do give me hope for the human race though...mainly they ones who experiment, listen, and progress.

Take my advice: Don't listen to what I say, listen for yourself.

Or... Don't sniff my thoughts, sniff my speaker.


Joe Rob

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