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  »  New  Do not pursue full-range without being ready...  ...observing the better and worst in upper bass......  Audio For Dummies ™  Forum     8  82028  01-02-2005
  »  New  Lowther Driver..  Selling OCD Lowther DX-4s on OBs, +++...  Audio Discussions  Forum     62  574730  11-15-2006
  »  New  Maxonic drivers from Japan..  Large midwoofers...  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     6  87500  06-14-2007
  »  New  About cost of electromagnetic drivers...  About cost of electromagnetic drivers....  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     0  23273  07-08-2007
  »  New  RMAF 2008 observations, opinions 1) ceramic drivers..  Mystification-masturbation?...  Audio Discussions  Forum     32  271027  10-15-2008
  »  New  Aporia - Silbatone Acoustics speaker..  High Level Input SS "Plate Amp"...  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     107  911900  01-10-2009
02-14-2007 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Dominic
Montreal, Canada
Posts 69
Joined on 08-23-2006

Post #: 21
Post ID: 3731
Reply to: 3729
i had written more
 Paul S wrote:
First, I just have to ask: What are the odds that the same AA guy I just referred to obliquely in my previous post turns up immediately thereafter?


pretty good since he's the only guy who talks about them?

 Paul S wrote:
Unlike Romy, I have no problem with "yellow drivers", per se, rather it is the fact that people insist on calling them "full-range" that sticks in my craw.  And here is this pip-squeak 4" driver touted as God's gift to music, and here are grown men vying to enter a lottery for the chance to buy one at great expense.

And, oh yes, the hyperbole; as though exotic construction will somehow suspend the laws of Nature.


i'm not sure there's an intelligent response to such a vitriolic attitude, but we might try: if the single ended topology was god's gift in the  amplifier realm, why can't a single driver, in the speaker realm. The limits of each seem to be approximately the same, and so with the virtues, the only real difference is that we can get around the difficulties of the SE by throwing many thousands of dollars in iron at it. I think the hope of the those who develop single driver designs is along the same lines, hence field coils, lowther inspiration, etcetera.

 Paul S wrote:

But now I am wondering if any of the drivers in question - forget the enclosures and "FR" business - might actually do some part of the sound spectrum well.  Of course this question derives from personal experience at taming Lowthers, and to elaborate, my question is whether targeted listening might indeed reveal something these powerful and carefully-constructed midgets could excell at - say, 1k - 10k Hz.  Not that I would want a crossover at 1k, but some of you hornys out there don't blink at this.

In my mind, this situation loops back through and mirrors "the idea of the idea", where someone sticks with a formula because the formula itself seems so attractive, unto an end in itself.  In this case I'm curious about the "opposite", if the current made object could be commandeered and put to better use elsehow.

Curiously wondering,


yer bet nah, but! As Viki Pollard might say.
That is the reason i started that thread about lowthers, and i assume why you had your little lowther open baffle project.
I think the crux of the biscuit is that 'hard' drivers, as in with huge power to weight ratios and no inherent acoustic loading, and or field coil drivers, require different kinds of approach, that perhaps aren't fully understood by their parctitioners, meanwhile there seems a constant, though perhaps very faint glimmer of potential all the while. perhaps even, that glimmer is the end of the road, it could still be a worthwhile in certain contexts.

appy polly loggies for all the 'perhapses'
02-14-2007 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,570
Joined on 10-12-2006

Post #: 22
Post ID: 3738
Reply to: 3731
The limits of compromise
"Vitriolic" is certainly the wrong word to apply to my "attitude"/post(s), Dominic.  "Amused" is more like it.  I am amused by claims that ANY 4" driver makes a stand-alone "Full-Range" speaker able to  "present the orchestra in all it's living glory", etc, etc.  And that sort of drivel is what I refer to as "hyperbole", because it perfectly fits the definition of the word.

While I think I understand why you compare 4" drivers to SETs, I am not sure that the potential for each of those topologies is equal in terms of frequency response range in a hi-fi system.  As you mention, it is possible to "throw many thousands of dollars of iron at [the SET]", not to mention the possibllity of feedback, etc., to "make" the SET do as creditable a job of reproducing the sound spectrum as any other amplifier topology (better, IMO).  But the fact remains that a 4" paper driver just can't do the job that these overly-enthusiastic disciples claim it can (using their own words as performance criteria), no matter how it is manipulated, and no matter how much iron, cobalt, bronze, gold, exotic wood or secret-recipe varnish you throw at it.  I hope you can at least acknowledge that.

HOWEVER:  No reason to believe one of those little drivers can't do anything right -- right?  Hence, my previous post.  And this ties back to an earlier post I made about taking advantage of "the good parts" of even the most cock-eyed, misguided applications of the most locked-in, mis-directed quasi-geniuses.  EG, There's gold in them thar hills!

Likewise the Lowther DX4, IMO.  If certain critical limitations/flaws are recognized and dealt with, it can be a pretty nice wide range driver.  Basically, I found it much easier to figure out and adapt for my purposes than horns. But the key words here are "limitations" and "adapt".  Hence, my previous post.

Best regards,
Paul S 
02-15-2007 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Dominic
Montreal, Canada
Posts 69
Joined on 08-23-2006

Post #: 23
Post ID: 3741
Reply to: 3738
perhaps
 Paul S wrote:
"Vitriolic" is certainly the wrong word to apply to my "attitude"/post(s), Dominic.  "Amused" is more like it.  I am amused by claims that ANY 4" driver makes a stand-alone "Full-Range" speaker able to  "present the orchestra in all it's living glory", etc, etc.  And that sort of drivel is what I refer to as "hyperbole", because it perfectly fits the definition of the word.

While I think I understand why you compare 4" drivers to SETs, I am not sure that the potential for each of those topologies is equal in terms of frequency response range in a hi-fi system.  


Well you continue to make the same mistake, the one basically that i was driving at. The magic, and the worthiness, so to speak, has nothing to do with being better than 5db down at 30 and 30k hz and managing 30db peak to average ratio with peaks over 120db . It has to do with a contextual reading of the music. that is all. The effort is put in because, in certain contexts it manages enough of the frequency range to feel promising. Drivers like the Feastrex are designed, not because of the "managing enough..." but because of the "contextual reading" where the efforts let slide some shortcommings in favour of a certain kind of connection with music. You don't have to need the full dynamic power of a Vienna Phil, to appreciate the themes and tonal changes, and melodies, and dirrection changes. Let me put it this way: many of the realy great works require you to sit down and concentrate on what's happening, if you're doing that anyway you don't need the crecendos in the overture to hit you in the chest acoustically for them to get your attention. I can totally appreciate massive dynamic capability, and i'm headed in that dirrection myself, but to sell the whole idea..... you know where i'm going with this i think.... near sighted. I'm showing my annoyance, and it wasn't there when i started writing this response, so we'll drop this i think.
Not to milk a chafing cow, but you keep rounding down the diameter of these/those things.

As far as vitriolic, that's just how you came off; or more accurately, a snide and derisive pontification, with a bit of haughty befudlement at the end. That's just how it read you understand.
Perhaps i'm just used to people talking about things like that.

 Paul S wrote:

HOWEVER:  No reason to believe one of those little drivers can't do anything right ...........and dealt with, it can be a pretty nice wide range driver.  Basically, I found it much easier to figure out and adapt for my purposes than horns. But the key words here are "limitations" and "adapt".  Hence, my previous post.

Best regards,
Paul S 


i think we've covered that bit, and agree, but perhaps in different ways. Maybe just because i'm comfortable with certain 'colourations' (horns) that you aren't and vice versa, i suppose.

Unfortunately i don't think this line of discussion is really helping grow the knowledge tree. We're more just trying to understand our opinions vis a vis eachother. To be perfectly honest i think this entire thread was a little pointless. I don't believe Romy's opening argument held much relation to its subject.
02-15-2007 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Dominic
Montreal, Canada
Posts 69
Joined on 08-23-2006

Post #: 24
Post ID: 3742
Reply to: 3738
i didn't want to get too far in this direction.
but can you dirrectly link me to somone who:

 Paul S wrote:
claims that ANY 4" driver makes a stand-alone "Full-Range" speaker able to  "present the orchestra in all it's living glory"


you must be using some hyperbole here yourself, even the most diehard fr fan wouldn't say something like that.
10-12-2007 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,049
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 25
Post ID: 5587
Reply to: 1955
Christopher Witmer’ Sound: evangelism vs. propagandism.

Christopher Witmer with his upcoming US show initiated a new wave of Feastrex propaganda.  I have mention Christopher in context of his Maxonic drivers before:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=4601

Christopher suggests that that the new reiteration of his Feastrex drivers is better than ever and so on …and so on …and so on…. I very much do not accuse him, as some other idiots do, in his desire to administer a marketing hype for one or another Japanese manufacturer – why not let him to do it? I truly care less who buy or see those drivers and the only interesting ingredient in that whole saga – what Sound those products are capable off.

I have to admit that I can’t talk about Feastrex Sound objectify as I did not heard them recently. The only evidences about their sound that are available to me are circumstantial. Looking at those circumstantial evidences I do not feel comfortable nether about the Feastrex offering not about the Christopher’s comments about the, let look at them specifically.

A disappointment that that I get from Christopher Witmer’s attitude is that he is going ecstatic over his toys, attributing the source of ecstasy to drivers. I am sure that is the Feastrex do not sell driver but for instance cable elevators then Christopher would appoint the cable elevators as the “responsible for party” for an “excellent sound”. I also question Chris’ sense of ecstatic satisfaction with Feastrex’s results. He demonstrated the identically ecstatic mood before SEC 2006 and then, after being exposed to the results at the show, he admitted that Feastrex demonstrated not very interesting sound. I do not know if the result at that CES was indicative for general Feastrex level, but if Chris say so then I prelim he does not lie. Anyhow, nowadays, the story invented that “the drivers sound this time different” but we are adults, are we?

Anyhow, Mr. Witmer’s attribution of entire sound results ONLY to the drivers is something that makes me very uncomfortable. It is like the Morons who buy expensive ALE or GOTO drivers, pile them up in a random order, with no good electronics, shitty horns, with no crossovers and then sit in front of them, crying about the “glorious sound”… Sorry, it does not work with me, as I know too much buy means of what efforts Sound might be created. None of the installations with Feastrex driver that I have seen (pictures) impressed me as interesting (enclosure, electronics, positioning and etc)…. Last day Mr. Witmer got specifically exuberant about the sound that he got during the reticent Mid West show but if it is true then: was that sound of the Feastrex driver or it was just  Christopher’s FIRST exposure to a more or less capable amplification (Lamm M2.1)? BTW, how dull those drivers are if they need 200W of PP to drive them?

Let now to talk about the Feastrex drivers as Christopher insist. There are a few very “open” issues in there.

 Christopher Witmer wrote:
The most important difference is the paper. The paper used in Feastrex's drivers is totally unique. If you have two musical instruments that look the same, and one is made of lauan plywood while the other is made of the finest grade of Picea abies, that one difference alone will cause them to have a hugely different sound. Lowther uses the same paper in their whizzer cones and in their main cones; Feastrex uses two distinctly different handmade Japanese papers for the two cones. I encourage you to look at the link to learn about the amazing paper used in the Feastrex main cones.

Yes, it might be the case and Christopher provides a link to the page that poetically describes the manufacturing processes of Feastrex paper.

http://www.washiya.com/shop/iwanohousho/kodawarienglish.html

However, if people were familiar with technological stages of cellulose manufacturing at any today chemical plant then they would witness that it is 10 times more evolved and more complicated processes than what Feastrex does. Sure, no one adds to commercial paper the “ejaculate of blue tuna” or to spay the driver paper with “shark fins soup” but no one say that it is necessary for sound. Perhbas the paper that Feastrex's drivers use is totally unique but “uniqueness” does not automatically presume any contributive values. Is that paper good (better) for Sound or not? The answer to this question can’t be explained by the argument of uniqueness but it would need some other arguments that Feastrex so far failed to present.

 Christopher Witmer wrote:
The range of motion of the diaphragms is much different. Lowther moves within a range of +/- 1mm; Feastrex drivers are totally happy moving in a range twice that large.

Hm.. perhaps.. I am from different religion and from where I stay a larger motion of the diaphragms is not better but worse as it subjects diaphragms to more mechanical distortions…

 Christopher Witmer wrote:
Feastrex makes Lowther (and AER) drivers look inexpensive by comparison. Whether that difference is justifiable is something only each user can decide, but it is certainly an inevitable difference. For example, the manufacturer's cost of the Permendur used in one of the all-Permendur motors (i.e., a cost of thousands of Euros) is higher than the end user's purchase price for a pair of another company's "high end" fullrange drivers.

It is incorrect. Permendur is not an exotic or overly expensive material. It is a magnetic alloy that is very wildly used in radio transformers. It is still, possible that Feastrex has some advancement in their motors but I never hear anyone, including Christopher to say anything about those advancements.

 Christopher Witmer wrote:
… for some people who want extreme levels of performance from a fullrange driver and are willing to pay a significant premium to achieve it, Feastrex represents a possible solution.

Why an “extreme levels of performance” should be necessarily associated with a “fullrange driver”? If a person is willing to get a full range string sound from of orchestra then he use many different size of string instruments without trying coming up with one super-fiddle that would cover 20 octaves. If the Feastrex driver are good and the Feastrex managed to “get” a good combination between magnet, paper and suspension then it is fine. Still, this combination is frequency-dependent, as much as the anti-scatting adjustment is “perfect” only for a single point on the disk. If the Feastrex has OK drivers then it is necessary to find out where they do OK and where they are presumably more interesting then some competing options.

Unfortunately no one talks about the sound of those drivers or about a way to use them in context of “serious” objectives. People like Christopher mostly blab about marketing hype of “extreme levels of performance” and the AA-level Morons juts suck up and repeat everything what they told. Feastrex still produces drivers, Christopher Witmer still is trying to expose them to public. Now Christopher is attacking the Mountain's Audio Bottomesters with stories about the Emperor Jimmu’s adventures and the sounds of Lamm-powered Feastrex. Since it will be first time when the Midwest White Trashes (after their PA amplifiers) will be hearing Lamms I presume that … the new revision of the Feastrex should be sounding “better”….

Rgs, Rony the Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
01-30-2008 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
el`Ol
Posts 225
Joined on 10-13-2007

Post #: 26
Post ID: 6491
Reply to: 1956
Washi and Feastrex

I don´t wonder at all that they achieved the best results with traditional Washi and not with modern paper. The only material that comes close is Nepali Lokta paper. And labour cost are near to nothing there. Would be funny to fight against the audio establishment from the roof of the world.

10-18-2009 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,049
Joined on 05-28-2004

Post #: 27
Post ID: 11993
Reply to: 5587
Goodbye Chris Witmer
fiogf49gjkf0d

Said news indeed.

http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=1724.0

Last few months quite a lot of audio folks have gone to the “better world” by none-natural means, stating from being lost and frozen during hiking and ending by such a radical  way as the accident with Chris Witmer.

Despite I never shared Chris enthusiasm with neither Feastrex nor with his desire to serve industry interests but I liked him and we had a number of stimulating conversations.  The 7 daughters and the truck incident? Well, what can we do? It is what it is. Those events just highlight for us, who still alive, the fragility of out lies, the fragility that we probably shell celebrate more than we do.

The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Page 2 of 2 (27 items) Select Pages:  « 1 2
   Target    Threads for related reading   Most recent post in related threads   Forum  Replies   Views   Started 
  »  New  Do not pursue full-range without being ready...  ...observing the better and worst in upper bass......  Audio For Dummies ™  Forum     8  82028  01-02-2005
  »  New  Lowther Driver..  Selling OCD Lowther DX-4s on OBs, +++...  Audio Discussions  Forum     62  574730  11-15-2006
  »  New  Maxonic drivers from Japan..  Large midwoofers...  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     6  87500  06-14-2007
  »  New  About cost of electromagnetic drivers...  About cost of electromagnetic drivers....  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     0  23273  07-08-2007
  »  New  RMAF 2008 observations, opinions 1) ceramic drivers..  Mystification-masturbation?...  Audio Discussions  Forum     32  271027  10-15-2008
  »  New  Aporia - Silbatone Acoustics speaker..  High Level Input SS "Plate Amp"...  Horn-Loaded Speakers Forum     107  911900  01-10-2009
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