Last few years my interest in audio “out there” got subsided and nowadays I seldom exposed to new amps, speakers and other product that the industry offers. It only partially might be explained by the fact that I got worn out on the primitive standards of high-end industry loudspeakers realty. Another side of the medal is that the result that I am getting from Macondo is far beyond from what is out there, I am not just bragging - it is a sad truth.

I many times wrote that the entire industry has very wrong strategic vision about the duty, capacity and use of loudspeakers. The primitivism, ignorance and in many cases juts general personal stupidity of the many individuals why involved in design, manufacturing, promotions and sales of acoustic systems is a clear assurance that the situation will hardly be changed. 

Anyhow, yesterday I was exposed to Mecca of today’s loudspeaker, or at least how this price of sonic crap is being promoted by the industry drummers. I explicitly would not say the brand and model – it is irrelevant. However, what is not irrelevant is the fact that the given loudspeaker is the most “best” among those that present those collective objectives and intentions of the sonic surrogate that industry is try to promote.

It was a $25K loudspeaker that today audio awareness promotes as some kind “summit of audio accomplishment”. What however is the most horrible is the actual sound that the loudspeaker and the entire family of those loudspeakers, do.  So what those types of speakers do? I would not right long about it and will motion juts 4 points that truly shocked me

First, they are absolutely immuned to tone. Instead of notes those speakers push relative pitches – the actual play is hardly recognizable. I am with Macondo not so not accustom to this sound that my initial reaction was that the amplifiers of digital sources were just broken. Most of Macondo efforts were spent to profile geometry, weight and expressive value of tone, preserving as much as possible its esthetic value. With that “industry speakers” it is obvious that those people who made, promote and sell that crap not juts unable to deal with tone but they also have no understanding of tonal values in sound reproduction.

Second, those speakers have absolutely different sounds arcos whole spectra and gimmick range. With Macondo I am so accustomed that with sound go up or down, dynamically or tonally, I experience no event of sound reproduction efforts. Just volume or tone changes but nothing else. With that yesterday’s anti-Macondo speaker it was like each member of orchestra got randomly electrocuted and they just burst the sounds of own instruments fortuitously without any awareness. To demand from those speakers anything more than just the Boolean residues of note was absolutely imposable. The events when coopers instilments increase tone but decrease volume sound on those “industry speaker” like wolfs farts that end up with whistles

Third, none of the notes are connected. That was horrible. You know, a bad Bach player would play partitas where end of the partitas are not connected with the middle of the partitas. The bad “industry loudspeakers” are able to make two next to each other notes to be not related to each other. Instead of Sound that damned loudspeaker garbage presented just a mosaic of indivisible sounds. It is like instead of eating salad you chew individual ingredients…. Funny-funny but the industry whores are trying to preset the idiot who is responsible for this product as some kind of musically-endowed person…

And the last one. I have been telling about it for years but yesterday I was stunned now sever the problem is. Any “industry sponsored loudspeakers” must be high-passed above 150Hd or not to be played above 80dB. They just could not do it (Nope, it was not Kharma)

So, who is to blame? The manufacturer who made this crap? I would not think so. The guy is trying to make living as good as he can: everyone interested that high-end audio manufacturing and production is as much a way to pay bills, nothing more or less. The consumers who buy this crap? I would not be too hard on them as well. I told that 99% of all people practicing audio are juts recreational participants who have no vested interest in result and for whom is does not matter what to do: buy speakers, to polish Harleys or to watch another stupid sport on TV. The people that I hold personal responsible for that fact that the incredible horrible Sound is promoted as some kind of reference  would be all that marketing and reviewing dirt that in created the situation and keep propelling it from worse to the worst.

Well, it is not a surprise that after spending a few years with Macono I have developed vomiting reaction to the loudspeakers that made to comply with pre-developed industry philosophy of “what sound is convenient to sell to barbarians”…

I have sometimes people asking me questions about Macondo and in very many instances I laugh when I hear them. I wrote up a page where I put all that people need to know about Macondo:

http://www.romythecat.com/MacondoAcousticSystem.aspx

… but it looks like people do not read it. So, I keep getting emails asking about the Macondo’s plans. Well, I relay do not know what to say as I have neither plane not intentions to help the people that ask idiotic questions.

I know 8 people out there who are trying to build an acoustic system based upon many of Macondo premises, 3 of them in my view do it properly and the rest have no own brain to understand what Macondo in fact is all about. So, the plans, or any guidance about Macondo not only unavailable because of my attitude but they also unavailable because they do not exists outside of a realm of own understanding of self-actions. Macondo to be properly implemented required to be reinvented. A person shell accept the Macondo’s axioms not because I enumerated some of them at my site:

http://www.romythecat.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4832

…but because people must have his/her own feelings that the Macondo’s axioms are valid postulates of sound reproduction. Only after then the “use” of Macondo’s principles is reasonable.  However,  then you will not have any questions about Macondo or need of Macondo as your own design of acoustic system will be a logical flow out of your own experience with sound. Do not be surprised if your own creation will be identical or very similar to Macondo – there are very little paths to make multi-ways horn-loaded acoustic systems to sound PROPERLY.

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Well I assume you mean the "pros". After this weekend at the Paris Hifi show (first one ever for me), I cannot say that I place much value in what the "pros" might think. Man, honestly, what crap sound in most every room, including those run by the respected names of the industry. Best was the Wilson/Audio Research room (a suit actually) : In this room was a pair of Alexandrias driven by 100% Audio Research electronics, including a pair of big "Reference 210" amps. To their credit, the guy running this rig was playing mostly complex, large-scale orchestral music. I was however expecting more from such a setup (around $200K, electronics + speakers). Though they are supposed to make 210 watts each, the Alexandrias actually sounded under-driven, and not able to produce live concert levels; the sort of max levels one might use at home when the wife is out shopping on a Saturday. Nevertheless, though this room did sound best to me (which is not saying much), I walked away thinking how much potency and life the system lacked compared to what I've come to expect; and this in both the mid frequencies as well as (surprisingly) the bass. Other expectations : I was expecting to be tempted to spend money on something at the show, but left the place sort of laughing.

First of all Jessie’s comments have nothing to do with Macondo and I use his quotes as a playground for a free interpretation. What attracted me in his quote that I have very much the same attitude toward to others speakers. I listen them or I am trying to understand what people were trying to accomplish and I very much look forward to be “tempted”. If people would even know how much arguing with others or “hating” what other do I look forward to be wrong and grasp a sign worth of adoption and embracing. Money or other structures or venture of investments never were an issue for me, but the nobility of services for an idea always important to me. I try to recognize in others speakers that “twist” that point out that an acoustic system is not just a tool to push air but might be an instrument of something else – most other speakers are numb about it. Even more most of other people in audio are numb about their objectives and the speakers they build or sell are a direct representation of their purposeful nothingness. The Stanislavsky’s supertask in context of many speakers out there is just a stupid illusion, not even understood illusion.

I do not see a confrontation between Macondo and “pro”, commercial or even most of the DIY speakers. It is not that one side of the “confrontation” is better but another side is worse. It is rather the absence of a proper competitive evaluation scale that would allow Macondo “compete” with others loudspeakers and to confront alternative views of acoustic systems implementations. I hear/read what people talk about acoustic systems and I truly like communicate with them in different language. Even the few Macondo’s critics that I heard were from complete idiots who have absolutely no understanding what the deal with.

The irony is that regular people out there do not truly interested what Macondo is all about. Most of the Audio Morons believes that what Macondo is the loudspeaker the Romy the Cat happen to build and then as any other Hi-Fi idiom he keeps parsing his own audio position. This view is foolish from two perspectives. First - I am the most vocal and prolific critic of what Macondo does. Second – most of the Audio Morons do not even understand what Macondo is.

  A year or so ago I made a write up about Macondo’s history and the Macondo’s ideas.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/MacondoAcousticSystem.aspx

In there I said:

“What is also important to mention is that Macondo Acoustic System is not a design that I advocate as a “winning design” (though I do have a lot of convictions about it). The Macondo concept is not the collection of drivers, horns and frames; it is not the specific implementation – you will not be able to see what Macondo System is all about until you understand the correlation between what it meant to do and what it does. The Macondo System is rather a concept, a winning sequence of conscious ceremonial realizations and actions that lead a person from taking a room and converting it into a sensible and involved medium of musical intercourse.”

So, how it all linked to the subject of the thread and the Jessie’s quotes? Well, I do not know what Jessie’s does and look internally with his project. Externally however he implemented many of ideas that Macondo’s Axioms outline, taking it further and perhaps improving upon the Axioms, and I think he might experience some signs of Macondo-like results. When he finish and calibrate his Macondo++ System (Look for Jessie’s project elsewhere ay this site) with those upper bass horns then I will perfectly understand a very high level of arrogance he might express toward too many other acoustic systems he might come across. He will be way above the level of the “rooms” at a Hi-Fi shows.

The Alexandrias vs. Macondo? Well, this is difficult subject because as I said there is no framework primer, no competitive evaluation level in those conversation with audio people about this competition. Have you seen any Wilson owner who will be wiling to open his or her mind and just to talk about the actual Sound of the thing? I do not know the people who are able and experience to get best sound out of the Wilsons but at the same time have enough freedom of mind and judgmental integrity to observe the actual Result. So, I feel that Alexandrias world and Macondo worlds are not truly competitive and they are not competitive at the level of human factor. I did heard Wilson Alexandria twice, I would not say that it was waste of time, there is a lot that might be learned from this loudspeaker. However, in my view Alexandria is just a “Black Box”, the silent solution that doe what it intended (if it does to you!!!) and has no ability to adopt itself for evolving requirements of Sound reproduction objectives of the system owner. David Wilson is trying to suggest that following each two year with Wilsons release a new modification an owner might get “better” sound but this view too much insult my intelligence. So, in addition to all pure audio issues that I found with Alexandrias (I did not leave with them long enough to talk about higher then second, the 3-6 levels of listening perception) I think Alexandrias lack that essential component of “conscious ceremonial realizations and actions”. It is highly possible that the “ceremony” had taken place in David Wilson head but I feel that there is so much artificial structure between David’s mind and the minds of audio users that I think that if David Wilson meant to say something via his speakers then the message is very much diluted when it reaches listening rooms in the fields…

The irony is that regular people out there do not truly interested what Macondo is all about..."

People don't get to hear what might be possible with audio that has not been conceived in accordance with the character of today's typical hifi, but this may not mean that they would not respond to it if given the occasion.

I find this situation fascinating, to the point that I have taken to occasionally grabbing "the innocent victim off the street" and sitting them down to listen to what I'm building. (This usually happens after meeting someone who eventually asks what my interests might be. To that I might say "audio", but rather than going into detail, if I know the amps are warm, I might invite them to see and hear the project). It usually goes like this :

There is no intro to the "demo"; I don't explain anything until after they've listened and given me their perceptions.

Once in place in front of the horns, and before they hear any sound from the system, they are invariably prompted to utter a disclaimer which can be summed up as follows :

"...Ok so, you have to understand that I don't have your ears, and that I may not be capable of hearing what you undoubtedly hear... I'm not at your level, you know, just a "man off the street", etc..."

To which I usually respond something to the effect of : "You can tell me about it after listening"

I very much value the perceptions of non audio-obsessed people. I have no idea what an audio-obsessed visitor might say (I don't really know any locally), but my experiences with "regular people" have, up to now been quite positive. Most surprising is that post demo, they seem to genuinely sympathize with my decision to have temporarily put my life and living space on hold (Translation : I've got quite a mess going... Navigation around the mid-bass construction zone is best done after having convinced one's self that he is in fact not man, but sand-carb!).

jd*