Joe Roberts wrote:

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!

It is not correct. I did not report the “incredibly accurate picture of what they sound like” but based upon my experiences with single drivers and based upon the level of comment by the people who do appreciate them I do experience the incredibly low interest in those speakers. It would be less applicable to Mangers thsme that might be a good MF driver in right application.

Joe Roberts wrote:

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.

And I am sure that you will found a zillion people who report multiple orgasms and the sensation of rebirth just after they heard those plastic cone mini towers.

Joe Roberts wrote:

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.

Of course I did not deny the affected the directionality, looking at the geometry of Manger the radiation directionality is obvious. I said that to fight with this directionality by the means of external diffuser is not what attracts me, not to mention that they used diffuser not to fight directionality but primary to EQ front/back response.

Joe Roberts wrote:

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.

This has to do a lot with the “sniffing” that you misunderstood. I have to tell honestly that I was very much disappointed with your general comments about your expectation and your demands from audio. I do not mean to be judgmental, let say that you and I have different gold in sound reproduction. Let juts throw a comment that it hate very deferent audio to render the task if elevator music listening and the other tasks.  I do not what to discuss this subject, you had to discover it long time ago and if you do not them you seem in very shallow audio water. I do not mean to sound offensive and to express the “veiled personal attacks”; it is just how I see the things and I say it openly. I think if you discover “other” interests in audio then what you currently have then you suddenly might realize that some topologies are fundamentally by dealt dead for any more of less “higher” tasks…

Joe Roberts wrote:

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.

I do not what to argue this point. I just would mention that it requires different tools to accomplish different goals.  It is very simple to make audio to play well pop music. To seriously play serious classical repertoire is way more complicated task that demands very different means. I told you before that you might try to read my page dedicated to Macondo Acoustic System (on home page’s left nav.) but you ignored it.

Tuga,

I do not think we spoke about the specific problem of the single-driver class and one of the reason why I never brought it up was because I presume that every person with sane knows them and those problems are not even arguable.

However I would like to make a correction, in my view very important. You said that one of the fundamental shortcomings of single-driver class as they do not do wide frequency range. It is true but I would like to inject a twist into it. The problem with single-drivers is not that they can’t do peripheral frequencies – they do it. However they do it very badly and THIS is the problem. Pretend that you have two more complimentary channels above and below and you do the evaluation at which point the MF channel do worth then the peripheral channels. You will eventually lock the single-driver class into a very narrow NF band-pass or exactly where it shell be. Everyone bitch about the Lowther but look how wonderful the Lowther wok in Horings where it sits in MF only range.

Anyhow, my point was not what the single-driver speakers do not do (or as Joe is willing to present it) but rather that while they do what they shall not be doing they poison so much that the only thing that does not lose value with them is to play Patricia Barber with flute, thank Got she can’t blow the flute and to sing at the same time.

“I do not what to go there but be advised that touching an elephant’s tail you might have a wrong impression what elephant is all about.”

More accurately this should read as follows: “I do not what to go there but be advised that touching a horse’s ass gives you a pretty good idea about what the horse’s ass is all about.”

Your prose paints a better picture of your vanity than any artist could.

Then there’s this:

JR: “The problem is two or three identifiable frequency-dependent sources has no reference in live music either …”

RTC: “It is true…”

No, it is not true.  You’re both dead wrong.  All instruments are “frequency dependent sources.”  Do you really think that a bass drum and a piccolo produce an equivalent frequency spectrum? 

My takeaway from this thread is that the two main contributors to it enjoy postulating and posturing about what constitutes “proper music reproduction” yet have virtually no interest in actually listening to music itself.  If this were not the case, they’d be doing exactly that this very minute instead of spending every waking hour on this site doing what's really important to them: preening.

Joe Roberts wrote:

The illusion of a single source is lost.

Romy the Cat wrote:

The “single source” neither is a fact a byproduct of a specific sound reproduction method but it has no existence in LIVE sound and there is not need for it pursue in sound reproduction.

Joe Roberts wrote:

I have had round Edgarhorns and Lowthers so I understand what narrowing radiation as a function of frequency is about. 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. 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.

drdna wrote:

I would like to hear the opinions from people who have heard good point source/single driver installations (ignoring the shortcomings). What does the point source add to the audio reproduction? Adrian

tuga wrote:

If you have a midrange driver you can try that for yourself.

tuga wrote:

BTW, do you consider electrostatic speakers to be single point sources? Going back to the Silbatones, I wonder whether or not the back-loaded horn should be considered a point source...

Telus wrote:

JR: “The problem is two or three identifiable frequency-dependent sources has no reference in live music either …” RTC: “It is true…” No, it is not true.  You’re both dead wrong.

Although I do not disagree with you but you need to view Joe’s view about live music from a certain simplistic single-source point of view. Mostly his pop music is single event music and played mostly by a single instrument a time. So, from a certain perspective I do see why he considers that live music has single source radiation nature. (Let forget at this point about reflections).  So, I do not think that Joe would take any consideration about intermodulations, Doppler of exertion desideration seriously – it gives him a “pleasure” and it is all that counts. The definition of complexity for those people is be able to hear a phonogram and be able differentiate Willie Dixon from Patricia Barber and it is about it.

would you accept a photograph from a camera if it didn't do "blacks" and "extreme darks"?

inability to play loud and intermodulation distortion

This makes it inappropriate for evaluating a system or a component from a technical point of view when compared to jazz band or, even better, to a symphonic orchestra which are far richer in diversity, scale or any other parameter that you can think of.

And I am sure that you will found a zillion people who report multiple orgasms and the sensation of rebirth just after they heard those plastic cone mini towers.

I do not mean to sound offensive and to express the “veiled personal attacks”; it is just how I see the things and I say it openly. I think if you discover “other” interests in audio then what you currently have then you suddenly might realize that some topologies are fundamentally by dealt dead for any more of less “higher” tasks…

Tone in language is entirely different from tone in language.

Joe Roberts wrote:

This makes it inappropriate for evaluating a system or a component from a technical point of view when compared to jazz band or, even better, to a symphonic orchestra which are far richer in diversity, scale or any other parameter that you can think of. Or you can listen to circus music on the mighty Wurlizer pipe organ, Planet Drum (hate that fcking record), or the HFN&RR garage door record for bass and dynamics. But what if like me, you really don't fire up orchestra too much. What if I mostly listen to Washboard Sam? I can't agree that a system optimized for orchestral is automatically better for all music. Many traditions stress timbre and tonal color over scale. Even chamber music, which I prefer to grand orchestral, is better served by a speaker that does the color, texture, and sparkle right even if it can't do the cannons in 1812. Frankly, although  technically "easy" by some measures, vocal reproduction is the thing that really captivates me. Here is one area where single drivers can really deliver. And I am sure that you will found a zillion people who report multiple orgasms and the sensation of rebirth just after they heard those plastic cone mini towers. Amazingly, yes. I wish life was so easy that I could be happy with  a pair of Totems...but his only goes to illustrate the point that one man's gourmet meal is another man's Pizza Hut 2 for 1 special. I heard the sales pitch at CES..."Listen to that bass folks, it's clean, it's natural, It's deep, and its precise..."

Joe Roberts wrote:

I feel like I have heard every argument on the planet and I am not getting any new intellectual challenges here.

Joe, it is what you think but it is not what I see.  I do not insist that you shall experience any intellectual challenges in this argument but while expressing your audio view you do clearly demonstrate a lack of understanding of some very basic premise of Real Audio. So, I would not mind if you engage some own cerebral help and think about the subject a bit less shallow.

What I am talking about? I am talking about the fact that whatever you practice in audio (at least based upon what you expressed in this thread) I call “External Audio”, or a situation where audio try to create a brainless carbon copy of live sound, using the pointers of live sound properties as evaluation point for “comparing” and contradicting of live sound and reproduced sound. There is nothing prohibitive or anti-constitutional in it, the “hobbyists” are entitled to entertain themselves as they wish. After all, it is better then drinking or collecting baseball cards. Still, it has as much relativity to the tasks of “Another Audio” as the ink squirted by threaten octopuses has a chance to accidently organize itself into Shakespeare’s poems.

Since I recognized that you are not “there” yet I calm down with my interest, as I always do. So you do have in my view some room to grow in your understanding the objectives and methods of audio.  I might refer you to multiple moments at my site but it might not be necessary as I am a firmed believer that the most important things can’t not be taught of “direct delegated” but might be only rediscovered (or as I call it “recomposed”).

Just as the exempla. The simple word “imaging” might have at multiple level of understanding very different definition. For people who practice “External Audio”: Harry Pearson, Jonathan Scull,  Joe Roberts and 99.99999% of your other audio brothers and sisters the word “imaging” means soundstage, or a fandom depicturing of byproduct of phase processing by playback system. At higher level of understanding, the level where awareness of an orchestral conductor operates the “imaging” is an expressive tool of musical intention.  In audio at this level playback is able to demonstrate complex imaging without soundstage. To experience it you would need to go most likely much further then Mirrophonic’s  or Silbatone’s capacity and defiantly much further then juts “gives me pleasure” demands from musicality. At even higher level the “imaging” and “soundstage” merge again but soundstage there become not the soundstage of musical even but a conditional horizon of a listener listening consciousness. There is one even higher level, where the recognition of “imaging” and “soundstage” collapse again and replaced by other things but I do not want to go there now.

The point I am trying to make is that the definition of audio success to a high degree is a properly of level of success understanding.  I do not know what you practice personally but in your public appearances, including the one at my site, you demonstrate that audio objectives have very primitive caliber, the fact that you shot into this target for 30 years makes mater not more respectable but more laughable from my point of view. You need to understand that your audio thinning was limited by the fact that your entire public audio endeavor had objective to convince others.  In the “Mein Kampf” it was brilliantly put: “All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be.”  That was the Harry Pearson, Jonathan Scull and Joe Roberts level of applications but there is so much more in audio then shooting to the lower common denominator. 

Anyhow, I think you do a good job for Silbatone’s folks but only within the leash that you put on yourself. I do not see a need to argue the subject of single-driver potency here I see the leash. It would be like an attempt to teach an alligator to be a vegetarian – equally un-noble and pointless task.  I think if you looking for an intellectual challenges for yourself in audio them you might start from stopping to recognize yourself as the preverbal Jew who fixed own broken watch was and paid himself $20 for doing it.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy a good pizza. Unfortunately I won't find one in a Pizzahut. "That" man's 2 for 1 pleasure says a lot about his evaluating capabilities... I also enjoy several different kinds of music, mostly acoustic, but enjoying music and evaluating a system's performance are two completely different tasks.

the fact that you shot into this target for 30 years makes mater not more respectable but more laughable from my point of view.

Tuga wrote:

Joe, Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy a good pizza. Unfortunately I won't find one in a Pizzahut. "That" man's 2 for 1 pleasure says a lot about his evaluating capabilities... I also enjoy several different kinds of music, mostly acoustic, but enjoying music and evaluating a system's performance are two completely different tasks.

Joe Roberts wrote:

This notion assumes a universal standard. The Pizza Hut listeners were evaluating performance, only by a different standard than you or I use. I am not even sure what it was, but their amazement at the blue mini-towers seemed genuine. I can't always know the goals and I certainly can't and don't need to share everyman's goals, but I can recognize that goals and tastes are indeed individual.

Joe Roberts wrote:

Harry Pearson had the "more evolved" thing going too. Conned a lot of people into listening to things they didn't really like, trying to find their place in heaven.

Romy the Cat wrote:

At even higher level the “imaging” and “soundstage” merge again but soundstage there become not the soundstage of musical even but a conditional horizon of a listener listening consciousness. There is one even higher level, where the recognition of “imaging” and “soundstage” collapse again and replaced by other things but I do not want to go there now.

Joe Roberts wrote:

What makes any particular goal higher, beyond the goal-owners high opinon of himself, his own preferences, and his listening acumen?

A valid comment, I have nothing against it. There is however “lower goals”, or the goals that are below the available goals.

This is the old "evolution leads to me" argument, which looks silly when it is recognized that many and perhaps most societies have a similar theory.

Joe Roberts wrote:

Did you actually read 1980s TAS or just thought sniff it? I think I know the answer.

Nope, I did not. I arrived in US in 1992, spoke no English and was able to read cognitively after 1994-95.

Joe Roberts wrote:

Which one captured the musical intention of Muti better? It seems you might say EMI. If this is the case, how could Muti's intention forsee this unnatural 12 mic configuration that yielded the "imaging without soundstage" effect? Wouldn't the simple stereo mic configuration represent what Muti would expect listeners in the seats to hear and possibly be closer to what he himself heard?

It is not accurate example; there are quite a few reasons why. However, the evaluation of what microphoning techniques was better does not lie in audio domain….

Joe Roberts wrote:

Step back and think how obscure and meaningless for most listeners this concept of "external audio" is. This is not a mark of superiority but a sign that you are so far down in the hole that you are not seeing the larger picture of audio experience only the walls of your tunnel. But it is your tunnel and if are comfortable in it, that is what matters.

It is incorrect. I exceptionally well recognize the boundaries of my cave and I also set very precise margins for the content of this site. I for instance do not propose that one cable elevator is better than another just because according to Kurt Gödel’s theory of incompleteness there are “other considerations” that set the value of the first cable elevator to the astronomic heights.

Joe Roberts wrote:

As I mentioned, I have come to be in contact with many audiophiles in my career. The distinction I draw among them is happy ones and ones who are neurotic and suffering. Anything that leads to happiness and enjoyment to me is valid and anything that causes tension and pain is evil. One reason I am "retired" is that I grew weary of the neurotic ones, because I am not cut out to be a shrink. Fortunately, the mindset I tried to promote with Sound Practices allowed me to meet many happy audio pilgrims and these very fulfilling experiences and the joy in working with happy people directly contributed to my philosophy outlined here.

I think you mistyped here. Let me to correct your writing. I think you meant to write the following.

"As I mentioned, I have come to be in contact with many audiophiles in my career. The distinction I draw among them is happy ones and ones who are neurotic and suffering. Anything that leads to happiness and enjoyment to me is valid and anything that causes tension and pain is evil. One reason I am "retired" is that I grew weary of the neurotic ones, because I am not cut out to be a shrink. Fortunately, the mindset I tried to promote with Sound Practices and these very fulfilling experiences and the joy in working with happy people directly contributed to my philosophy.  I returned from my retirement last year after I had my small Aporia orgasm. Before of my Silbatone revelation I was so full with my happiness and enjoyment that I was about to send Anthrax-loaded letters of all subscribes of my Sound Practices. But then the earthshaking Silbatonisation hit me and the Universe flipped upside down in front of my eyes. I never heard anything quite like the Aporia. I shocked me more than the very first set of Ginsu Knives I bought - which is why Aporia interested me. After one week, I was still trying to deconstruct some of the illusions it presented. I could not identify deadly anomalies that ruined the fun in Silbatone’s Sound and my philosophy of sucking-in an enjoyment from a loudspeaker was demonstrating itself with Aporia at its full glory.  I was so impressed that I cut my “Stereo Sound” magazines for toilet papers, sold my Anthrax to Michele Framer, my crossed out from my will my beloved single-legged 12 foot giant lizard and put in there the Josef Manger’s children. The Aporia is an ultimate path to happiness, plus, they look good with oriental rugs. The Aporia is even better then Barrack Obama celebration coin! The sound of Magners is an ultimate remedy from neurotic tendencies and those Korean speakers are  anybody’s ultimate  way to observe the width of cosmos right from the whole of own suffering. Do you know that the Manger’s was discovered in a 12.000-year-old Egyptian tomb? Those prehistoric Egyptian knew that if to connect a Manger driver to a sheep and to rob the sheep's fur then the Manger will produce sound that allowed the listeners to meet many happy pilgrims…."

I can go on but what is the point? BTW, there is an interesting point that you and your Korean friends might get interest in.  It turned out that a friend of my read this thread and informed me that a few years back he invented a driver that has “some” similarity with Manger but it has some very fundamental differences.  According to him his driver is free from any existing Manger design limitation.  It is 100Hz to 20kHz and my it’s nature it is liberated from all know Manger’s issues.

Paul S wrote:

The things I like best about a good wide-range driver are coherence and immediacy: like nothing else I know of, but awareness of the limited range quickly come to the fore.

drdna wrote:

Romy the Cat wrote: At even higher level the “imaging” and “soundstage” merge again but soundstage there become not the soundstage of musical even but a conditional horizon of a listener listening consciousness. There is one even higher level, where the recognition of “imaging” and “soundstage” collapse again and replaced by other things but I do not want to go there now. Romy, I think above you said "soundstage of musical" when I think you meant to say "audio soundstage." Is this correct? If not, then perhaps I did not follow what you were saying; can you please clarify?

Joe Roberts wrote: Did you actually read 1980s TAS or just thought sniff it? I think I know the answer. Nope, I did not. I arrived in US in 1992, spoke no English and was able to read cognitively after 1994-95.

Well check it out before you go slagging on HP, because you might discover that he is, in fact, your DADDY.

The original formulation was a bit tedious but had more thought behind it than what "imaging" and "soundstage" developed into as we know it today in the streets. It sounds very similar in intent to your theory outlined in this thread and as I mentioned the overall evaluation program appears related in very many respects.

In general principles, Real Music = The Absolute Sound. Even those labels are similar.

Nothing new under the sun.

I think you mistyped here. Let me to correct your writing. I meant to write the following.

Keep your day job, Hoss.

It turned out that a friend of my read this thread and informed me that a few years back he invented a driver that has “some” similarity with Manger but it has some very fundamental differences.  According to him his driver is free from any existing Manger design limitation.  It is 100Hz to 20kHz and my it’s nature it is liberated from all know Manger’s issues.

Interesting! The Manger specs are 150-30k so that is not a great improvement, but in the Aporia, the backwave characteristics become important. The Manger backwave is not optimal. If this invention is as flat out the back as out the front, that could be an improvement. Does he have any drivers?

J Rob