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New Loudspeaker Eliminates Distortive Influence
fejrskov writes "The Danish audio/video company 'Bang & Olufsen' announced a new loudspeaker which promises to eliminate the bad influence from walls, floors and ceilings on the sound. This is achieved by using two technologies: ALT (Acoustic Lens Technology) uses sound dispersing lenses to make sound travel equally in all directions. ABC (Adaptive Bass Control) involves sliding a tiny microphone out at the base of the speaker, playing a series of test sounds, and adapting the bass according to the measured acoustic response. Each active loudspeaker contains amplifiers for a total of 2500W (!) output using B&O's patented ICEPower concept. The price? Approximately 55.000 Danish kroner (8.000 Euro) each."
Wow, the BeoLab 5 is one unique speaker. Aside from the price tag I couldn't afford if I wanted, I wouldn't have anywhere to put it. It's much more intrusive than the BeoLab 6000, but then, if you can afford 16.000 Euro for the speakers, you can probably re-design the room to match.
Additional note: the first B&O page linked has some display issues on Safari.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I hear they make 'stereo' equipment as well.
Seriously, though. I listened to some very, very expensive B&O speakers in their showroom, and I was astonished at how awful they sounded. No midrange and bass everywhere. Maybe it's just my ears, but it would take a vast improvement for me to ever consider spending that much money on their speakers.
Then I remembered that European countries have the odd habit of using decimal points to seperate thousands rather than commas... blah.
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Thats $8,494.07 USD.
http://xe.com/
the 16.000...that would be 16,000 for us savages in America right?
If so.....DAMN.
Sent from your iPad.
What would REALLY be neat is if they could make microphones that weren't affected by room dimensions, walls, etc. Doing home recordings can be a giant pain, especially when recording drums... the room contributes so much to the sound, and since most home musicians can't afford gigantic rooms, you wind up recording in a tiny room which, for those of you that know acoustics, makes things very boomy and difficult to control. Then we have to go and spend hundreds of dollars on bass traps for the room corners, which still don't fix the problem, they just make it less noticable... sigh.
evil adrian
At my church, we meet in a room that looks like the inside of a whale (no, really). To counter this, we installed a computer-based equalization system from Meyer sound labs: the SIM II. Not counting the speakers' cost (about half-a-million), the SIM unit itself ran us (I think) about $35,000 with microphones--and you still do some hand-tuning. Nice to see "mini-SIM" technology at work (especially because it's automagic).
Q: "Why do sound techs say 'check 1, 2'?"
A: "Cause if they could count any higher they'd be lighting techs."
Seriously, "acoustic lens" is just a fancy term for a horn, something that has been used for years to control dispersion and distortion. Also, a mic extended from the base to measure the low-end response? Has anyone heard of a Real Time Analyzer (RTA)? Linear X makes a PC based RTA for around $900 (PCRTAjr). If you can afford a $16,000 pair of speakers, you can afford to buy an RTA to set it up, or find a dealer that has one.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Are these loudspeakers designed for use in say, a PA system? Or for use in home theater, or theater theater? Perhaps for DJing purposes? What exactly is it intended to do that a well equalized set of JBL speakers can't produce?
Seems like it's only prominant feature is the ability to produce 360 degree sound, but for that price, you could easily get 5 or 6 high quality speakers and arrange them in a circle.
The flash based site doesn't yield any useful specs either.
Yeah, it'd be a shame if you spent that kind of money on, say, the homeless.
Actually, at the current exchange rate, it would be $18,345.61 for us savages. :)
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Yes its a form of oppression forced upon us by our evil overlords. Please come and liberate us from this monstrocity
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
slashdot marketting for B&O?
An acoustic lens that makes sound travel equally in all directions? Sounds like a fast DSP that cancels out room reflections.
I'm surprised they got a patent on this, the military has been studying this for years. Edelman's recent work uses inverse functions to counter multipath interference in sonar with security applications. The only difference here is application as far as I can tell, the technique appears similar.
Drug addicts will at least leave you in peace, shooting their arms up in abandoned alleyways and passing out with friends around the bong.
Moreover, when drug addicts throw their money away, they're usually pumping it back into the local economy instead of shipping it off to hardware manufacturers overseas.
Audiophiles, in contrast, aren't content to waste their money in private or among other like-minded individuals. Oh no. They have a compulsive need to prosthelitize about their audiophilia. As if there weren't enough of their kind in this world as it is, they will openly moan and complain about the quality of others' audio equipment and wax on end about the relative merits of whatever their latest hobbyhorse format is over mp3 which is far too lossy or whatever they're bitching this week.
In all my years of knowing dope smokers and heroin addicts, I've never known any to spend half as much time trying to justify the benefits of their drug of choice as audiophiles do about their wares. It just isn't done. Drug addicts are content to enjoy their recreational substances and leave it at that. Audiophiles feel a need to go so much further.
The other day, I was reading about the US Supreme Court's latest court case upholding the constitutionality of religious groups' use of public school space for after-school bible classes. But what I think was left out of the debate was how religious groups are such a small threat when compared to other secular groups. Whereas the liberals would like to bar the Good News club from coming to elementary schools, they would happily and cheerfully admit an audiophilia club. Whereas the Good News club is just trying to save your soul, the audiophiles are both trying to steal your soul and bilk your wallet at the same time. That is the true threat in our society today.
I'm glad someone is finally casting the light of public scrutiny upon this pestilence in our midst. Audiophilia must be banned and criminalized as it has no place in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Our forefathers did not give their lives to found a nation where we could scamper around with our goldplated headphones and 10 megawatt amps in one giant aureal masturbatory frenzy.
I detest companies that use trademarked phrases as if they are scientific principles.
'ALT (Acoustic Lens Technology)' and 'ABC (Adaptive Bass Control)' sound like marketing buzzwords. Where's a peer-reviewed paper describing the phenomenon?
The technology might be cool, but this sounds like a verbatim fax from Bose or similar hype marketing outfit.
I've been hating Stereo Salesmen since first encountering the snide ignorant critters during my connector quests of the 70's. I stomached being in their presence a few years ago to replace my ailing Harmon-Kardon tube integrated amp with a new Yamaha unit, now I'm free of that B$ for 20 more years.
Sorry, my math was from the inaccurate "8000 Euro" listed. It's only 7408 Euro for one, bring the dollar value to US $16,988.14.
Special Thanks to BillYak and his much more accurate comment.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I'm having a hard time swallowing this.
Acoustic lensing has been used for quite some time. I'm also not convinced that equal distribution is a good thing. With the traditional sound cone, most of the sound is directed at the listener. With equal dispersion, a lot the sound is being reflected. This means it's being muddied on reflection, and you have delay issues.
Regarding ABC: One of the biggest problems in bass is the standing wave. A standing wave is inaudible at one part of the room, but overpowering in another. One aspect of a standing wave is that it has no effect at the speaker.
Now, using a mic for calibration is a good thing. The Pioneer Elite VSX-45TX reciever, for example, can be hooked up to a mic that is placed at the listening position. It can then calibrate itself for delay, levels, and per-channel eq. That accommodates most room dynamic problems as well as they can be, at least by preprocessing. But if your subwoofer seems to have a screwy response curve, then no preprocessing is going to make it right-- you have to actually stand up and move it.
Check out the latest Bose Lifestyle systems with Adapti-Q(sp?).
They include special "headphones" (microphones you wear on your head). You sit in five locations where you normally listen to music/movies and play the special CD. It listens to itself and adapts the system to your living room. Yes, the change is clearly audible.
It also means your speakers don't have to be in a perfect rectangle. Place them anywhere you want and it will adapt.
I got the Lifestyle 35 (integrated DVD/AM/FM) for $3000 US. RF remote, sounds awesome and the speakers are *tiny*.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Okay, so the ALT disperses sound in all directions. That doesn't stop the acoustic presence of walls, floor, ceiling, and whatnot.
Acoustic reflections are going to happen unless you treat the surfaces that the sound is reflecting off. And to make a room more accurate, absorption is only one of the necessary treatments. Without diffusion, the room will sound very dead and, to many, quite uncomfortable.
The design (and placement) of an audio source is only one small part of making a room sound good.
Been into any hoity-toity restaurants in the past few years and noticed you can't understand the person 2 feet away from you? The popular design of restaurant spaces lately includes big vaulted ceilings and lots of open space, but few use any acoustic treatments in these spaces, causing large, boomy rooms.
It's not the source of the audio that needs to be changed (the talking people or the loudspeaker), it's the room itself.
The ALT simply attempts to remove the focal point (or sweet spot) from speaker placement. I've not heard one of these, but my feeling from looking at their website is the eliptical dispersion simply puts the focal point in a spot where no one actually sits and then tries to relfect that spot to the rest of the room.
Jory
55.000 DKK (Denmark Kroner) = 7.40805 EUR (Euro) Notice I use the US thousand seperator here ;)
--
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
At 8k per speaker, and I only need seven for my in-home theatre... yup, spending 56k on speakers will definitely result in my fiancee leaving me. Thank B&O!
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
When will we get this?
Then there was a slight whisper, a sudden spacious whisper of open ambient sound. Every hi fi set in the world, every radio, every television, every cassette recorder, every woofer, every tweeter, every mid-range driver in the world quietly turned itself on.
Every tin can, every dust bin, every window, every car, every wine glass, every sheet of rusty metal became activated as an acoustically perfect sounding board.
Before the Earth passed away it was going to be treated to the very ultimate in sound reproduction, the greatest public address system ever built. But there was no concert, no music, no fanfare, just a simple message.
"People of Earth, your attention please," a voice said, and it was wonderful. Wonderful perfect quadrophonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep.
"This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council," the voice continued. "As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less that two of your Earth minutes. Thank you."
The PA died away.
Do not read this sig.
hehe... nice. that's funny. =)
sounds kind of boring.
American Technology Corporation has a much cooler product that will revolutionize audio (not streamline an old tech).
http://www.atcsd.com/
Eight Thousand Euro???
Wow.
That's what I call getting a Bang for your bucks.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Just because the USA does it one way doesn't mean it's right.
Dear brainwashed hostage,
Please tell me what country you are living in that promotes this viewpoint, so that I may send the United States armed forces to liberate it.
Sincerely,
President George W. Bush
Approximately 55.000 Danish kroner (8.000 Euro) each. Since when has either of those currencies been considered real money? pfft
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Sounds like you need some bumperstickers for the cause!
Here's my first contribution:
Use vials, not tubes!
Jory
Ever notice how the large majority of speaker companies have speakers that look like a box?
Ever wonder why after decades of research they're still a box?
Ever notice that B&O likes to make non-conventional looking stuff and then charges an arm and a leg?
They're selling you functional art at really high prices folks.
If you want speakers that actually sound good, then try an electrostatic or planar speaker. Magnepans aren't a kajillion dollars and are a damned good place to start looking for planars.
Approximately 55.000 Danish kroner (8.000 Euro) each.
Or........... About 8 VW Beetles..
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
Who the hell uses Euro or kroner? Please. Tell me in terms we know, such as Fish Market exchange rate, or cantelope or concubine women or something USE-FULL!
I suggest you read Slashdot
> Re:What does this do that a serious audiophile can't?
It looks fancier and thus the wives can accept them in a living room.
I'm waiting for a system where the loudspeaker cables are digital, as well as the crossover. Each loudspeaker driver would then have its own DA-converter and loudspeaker. In combination with calibration systems like the one mentioned in the article, I would expect a very nice system.
Or maybe such a system already exists?
That's $4.8 million Canadian
Too bad I can't read the site (even AFTER the page fully rendered 100% fine):
Another browser needed...
To view this site, you must use either:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5+ for Windows or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0+ for Mac OS or Netscape 6.0+ for Windows or Mac OS or Mozilla 1.0 for Linux users
Please visit the supplier websites to attain the appropriate browser
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Since I can't view the website, I don't know what, if anything, they're offering. But given a room with some reflections, speakers with a constant coverage angle and constant directivity can sound less colored by the room. This doesn't mean 360 degree coverage is a good idea - it will decrease the ratio of direct to reflected sound. However all practical speakers become 360 degree radiators below a certain frequency. So the question is, how should the speaker behave at the frequencies where directional control is possible?
In a typical multiway home speaker, each driver has a wide coverage angle near the bottom of its frequency range, narrowing to a small angle near the top of its range. Therefore the walls and ceiling receive a very uneven frequency response, which they pass on to the listeners. If you compensate this with equalization, life still isn't perfect because the direct sounds seem quite different in localization and character from the reflected sounds.
A typical small PA speaker will go from 360 degree radiation at low frequencies to 90 degrees at the top of the LF driver's range. Then we cross over to a HF horn carefully designed to match the LF coverage, at least horizontally. The HF horn will preserve a roughly 90x40 degree coverage to the top of its range. Thus the room reflections will be much less peaky and colored sounding. But there will be anomalies - for example, at the crossover point the woofer and horn will conspire to throw a narrow beam of sound in the vertical plane.
Going to a 360 degree design is one way to eliminate all these issues. It's not necessarily a horrible idea. It would probably work best with very dry recordings - recordings without much room sound or electronic reverb. It will inevitably blur transients - a "click" is going to sound fatter and fuller if reinforced by a substantial reflection from the wall behind the speaker.
Sad that such a topic shows up on Slashdot without mentioning open source solutions which are cheap to free. Check out Digital Room Correction and BruteFIR for instance.
tcboo
So it makes sense to use the same symbol to mean two completely different things? I use metric measurements for most things, but this has nothing to do with the metric system.
Username taken, please choose another one.
MBL makes 360 degree speakers also. But they are probably even more expensive.
*yawn*
A few experimental clicks in the Internationalization settings of your OS would reveal this... But I'll explain:
(Most) of Continental Europe uses periods as thousand-separators, and commas as decimal separators. It's not uncommon to also find a space used as a grouping symbol.
The US uses the same system as the UK & Republic of Ireland - commas for grouping, full-stop (period) for decimals.
It's largely a non-issue in less, ahem, parochial nations. The RoI uses the Euro, and yet has the Anglicised number format. They seem to have coped just fine without bursting into fits and giggles at those on the Continent.
In fact, I've taken my own advice and looked through the Regional settings on my machine. Looks like only the UK/US/Canada/RoI (and I'm guessing, soon enough, Iraq too) use the Anglicised format.
If you really want to explode your mind with numerical nomenclature, I suggest you google for some info on Indian/sanskrit notation.
Vive la difference!
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
"Excuse me, but 'proactive' and 'paradigm'. Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that. I'm fired aren't I?"
"Oh yes."
B&O kit is for people with more money than sense (sense of hearing that is). The amount you pay for it, you can get the same results with kit a tenth of the price. You are only paying for the design.
IMHO, all this crap that companies like B&O and Bose spew about their R&D and the latest gadget they've come up with to "shape" the sound or whatever has little basis in reality at all. Audio reproduction is not a mystery. It is well known how to get good results. There's no secret to it and B&O have not made any breakthroughs.
So if you have the cash and the inclination, instead of spending 8 grand on a pair of these speakers, get yourself some kit from Quad, TAG McLaren Audio, Arcam, Mission, etc. I'm willing to bet you could put together an entire system that'd sound ten times as good as these for a quarter of the cost of these speakers alone, without any of this nonsense they're putting in them.
Having said all that, I'm currently listening to a pair of B&O speakers, although they are about 30 or 40 years old. Obviously they had a bit more of a clue back then as the speakers sound amazing, although they were marred by the very long and very thin cables they came with. A bit of modification of the terminals to accept a thicker cable made them sound like a completely different set of speakers. It makes me wonder, if B&O were prepared to completely ruin the sound for the sake of the design of the cable, of all things.. what else are they doing?
He did mention he was using the US separator. In other words, those were decimal places, not hundreds.
As I always say, the louder the music, the less likely they're going to notice you're smashing up their car with a sledgehammer. Just remember to sync your strikes with the bass.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
I've a pair of 6'x4'x2' magnaplanar mg2b's from the mid eighties which sound amazing when powered with good gear... for <1/10th the price of those new B&0s. If you want a good set of speakers within that price range, try something worthy.
B&O have historically targetted a certain demographic, and done very well by doing so. Namely, the wealthy who want an obviously expensive and gorgeous sound system, but who don't really know or care much about the sound itself. B&O is one of the fashion trend setters for speakers. For example, Sony's chrome metal column home theatre systems were designed to look very similar to one of B&O's older systems.
B&O's spiel on audio lenses, etc. really is a bit of a smokescreen. There's no new technology here, and probably not a particularily good implementation of existing tech. However, it has great packaging, glossy magazine ads, and you can bet your arse those B&O store salespeople are smoooooooth!
Bose is sort of a low end version of B&O. Bose has the most effective and innovative marketing department of any speaker company out there. High margins for dealers, salesperson training, you name it. Watching a bose demo is as entertaining as watching a carnival sideshow. They'll play those little plywood boxes with paper cones through PVC tubing, inside other much larger "Speaker boxes", and a plethora of other gimmichs while gushing about how great they sound. You'd be surprised at what people will believe if they're told to. White Van speaker companies like Dogg Digital or Nuance are but pale imitators of the origional master, Dr.Bose. Truly a master.
While I respect them as highly profitable and effective companies, would I buy B&O or Bose myself? Probably not. When you want better sound for your dollar it is best to go elsewhere.
I see what you mean. I look at rain turning into hail and I immediately say "it's so obvious, it must be... 32 degrees!". Or I look at water in a pan, and when it starts boiling it just screams "212 degreees"! Amazing how well it adapts to daily experiences.
What relevant thing happens at 0 F...? Or at 100 F, for that matter?
The centigrade scale is based on water, which is "just" one of the most common (and arguably the most important) substances on Earth. Do you know what the Farenheit scale is based on? Let me quote from a History site:
"For seven years Fahrenheit worked out an alcohol thermometer scale based on three points. He chose the freezing point of a certain salt-water mixture for zero. He used the freezing point of water for 32 degrees. And body temperature he called 96 degrees.
Why the funny numbers? He originally used a twelve-point scale with zero, four, and twelve for those three benchmarks. Then he put eight gradations in each large division. That's how he got that strange 96 number - it was eight times twelve. Body temperature is actually a tad higher than 96, but it was close. Later, Fahrenheit made mercury thermometers that let him use the boiling point of water instead of human body temperature for the high mark."
But of course, by then the "standard" had been defined, so water now had to boil at the lovely temperature of "212 degrees".
In other words, Farenheit is the way it is because of legacy support (what does that remind me of?). Its "design" was shaped by the equipment's limitations and by totally arbitrary things such as "the freezing point of a certain salt-water mixture".
Just because you're used to something doesn't mean it's "better" and it certainly doesn't mean that whoever invented it spent much time thinking about it. Look at some modern "standards" and you'll see things haven't changed much since 1700.
RMN
~~~
P.S. - If centigrade is "stupid" but Kelvin is "smart", then why did Kelvin adopt the same "size" for the degrees? The only difference between Celsius (centigrade) and Kelvin is that Celsius' zero is based on water and Kelvin uses the absolute zero.
This Tracking Downconverter supplies their 11" cube subs with enough power to get the stroke of the subwoofer to over 2"... that's moving quite a bit of air. With I believe an 8 pound magnet, and 16 pounds of dead weight on the opposite side (moved thanks to Newton) they pack 18Hz flat response into a tiny package. I was wondering if this 'ICEpower' is just the same thing.
You can check out Sunfire's 'True Subwoofer' here.
---
Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
and watch the stuffy sales clerk walk around like a snob and turn everything off including the lights without speaking to you until you leave.
that's how "Good" B&O equipment is. they're worse than Bose when it comes to selling for 8x markup.
Yes, someone who measures his room response and compensates for this (real-time is a bit overkill?) is better off. But hey, people don't want to do this. (if you want something for linux, look at this program for a start).
:-).
Also the whole press statement is a buzzword hype indeed. The words on the lense technique don't make sense, but the company who filed the patent knows their technology is not perfect, but can help a little, read their PDF's. Also the author done some serious research, although you need access to the AES library to read his articles (which I have
It is not a standard horn technique (as a compresssion driver, (JBL 2445 and such)), merely a craftly construced baffle. Nothing world shocking, but perhaps their is some truth in it (anybody heard a demo of this?).
Entirely right. Back in the 1970s the British Wireless World magazine published some stuff about Russian Hi-fi. Because components were so expensive, Russian scientists were building home amps using transistors with carefully selected linearity, and very little feedback (minimising phase distortion). Coupled with properly designed horns, they were giving very high quality output off a few hundred milliwatts. A Class D amp is just a solution to the problem of trying to build an aesthetic loudspeaker - part of our perpetual attempt to find a technical fix to the problem caused by the last technical fix.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
There is a movement wherein old analog synthesizers are highly saught after by musicians, and they are adding synthetic "old record" sounds (scratches and pops) into their songs.
It seems some find digital music too clean and pure. The "dirt" adds personility, and this is even from the young croud, not just nastalgia seekers.
Perfect reproduction and esthetic enjoyment are not necessarily the same thing. A lot of it is one-upmanship. Then again, some get entertainment from listening to music, others get it from playing with and comparing the machines of music.
Table-ized A.I.
I'd term it more an acoustic mirror, and acoustice mirrors are notorious for colouring the sound. Anyway - who wants wide dispersion?
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Now the wives (or the odd husband) of audio freaks everywhere have some chance of removing the big leather chair from the middle of the room, if the sweet spot is everywhere.
Beep beep.
Funny isn't it?
People who use horns are used to getting 108db from a couple of watts, not 2500!
And yes, unless you can reach 120db with a handful of watts, your speaker is going to be distorting like hell at lower, more listenable volumes.
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
$15k for a meter of stereo wire? Holy crap--I need to get into this bidness. Maybe I can think up some useless crap to get rich selling to people, like the genius who came up with parallel-wiring speakers.
Or how about "Tubes are for Rubes"
Err, actually, Perpetual Technologies have something equivalent with their P-1A (speaker correction and room correction... perpetually to be released next quarter [room correction]) DP. Granted, it's only going to work with a digital source, but that shouldn't be a problem for most. Very much cheaper than the B&O gear (never trust an audio company that has more lawyers than engineers. Hell, any company for that matter). And you can keep your old speakers (anyone here know of a source for the Diatomes with the woven woofers?).
Have both the P-1A and P-3A, and would freely recommend them (sound very nice).
Stereophile product of the year (not that that should mean anything) from what use to be Audio Alchemy (which means everything).
I sometimes think AC was right, heroin would have been a better choice *sigh*.
But since you said "Yen" instead of "USD", it's just ignored by the US-bashing folks like me...
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
I always thought it was my pot-smoking brother that was the bad influence...now I find out it was the floor, walls and ceiling all along...
If you really want a speaker that performs in a similar manner and you're not afraid to build it yourself, take a look at:
http://www.agora.dk/users/ole.thofte/conus1.htm
This is the Conus I speaker by Ole Thofte- he estimates that it costs about $85 to build, and it should sound as good or better than the $8,000 B&O speaker. And as for the little microphone? If you get some books and a few pieces of test equipment, you can take care of this yourself at a very low price. Either that or you have an extra $7,915 to hire a professional to do setup and placement for you.
Also, the acoustic lens is nothing new. I just looked it up in the Audio Cyclopedia, and while there was no date of origin, the Cyclopedia is copyrighted 1959, so the acoustic lens is at least 44 years old. This is just another example of tarting up old technology and trying to pass it off as something new. This kind of snakeoil is not unusual in high-end audio.
What's sad is that if you want a decent stereo and not pay a fortune for it these days, you have to build it yourself. Speakers sold at the big box electronics stores are not good (including Bose; if you don't believe me, go Google for some performance specs on them. Your $20 computer speakers probably have more accurate reproduction), a quick comparison with "good" speakers leaves no doubt, whether you're an audiophile or not. As for me, I dropped about $250 to build a pair of full-range ribbon loudspeakers with wonderfully flat response. Could have built them for less, a lot of the price was for two types of exotic wood I wanted to use. Anyone seriously interested in good sound should skip this overpriced crap and check out the DIY forums on the Internet. You really can set up a wonderful system for well under $1,000.
IAAL
eliminates distortive influence, eh? someone should try using these while watching Fox News...
What relevant thing happens at 0 F...? Or at 100 F, for that matter?
IIRC Ethanol boils at 100F and freezes at 0F
Perhaps it's because B&O isn't a US-based company, but based out of Denmark?
However, the interference of sound and magnetic waves has been studied to death by the military. The technology developed by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs for doing A/D encoding ran into just such an issue with the US military -- it turned out some of their approaches were being used by these little cruise missiles the US had spent a couple billion developing. (They ended up being allowed to use it, but it was restricted so that they couldn't sell their solution to anyone else.)
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Reading this I'm reminded that before the era of the personal computer, it was mainly audiophiles who spent a large percentage of their time writing about things most people couldn't give a shit about.
Biwiring speakers that are also bi-amplified makes perfect sense. It's the people who bi-wire without multiple amplifiers that are wasting their money.
There are two "audiophile" markets. One is the true audiophile that arranges equipment, furniture, etc. to maximize sound quality.
The other is buying 10-15K components because they're more expensive, and therefore must be "better". This market isn't just about functionality any more than buying a Porsche. Unfortunately, it's also probably about 75% of the "audiophile" market.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
All the major English-speaking countries (England, US, Canada, Australia, and some others) use the comma as the thousands separator. Last I knew, France and Sweden used spaces as a separator, and Switzerland used apostrophes. So just which countries, aside from a few in Europe, use the period, and who has agreed to the standard you mention?
since it is so unsightly looking, i imagine it's shape is more functional than fashionable.
--TRR
... were the KLH 900B speakers... still have them after nearly 10 years, and they still sound better than anything else out there...
No. Ethanol boils at 173.12F, freezes at -174.28F (78.4 and -114.6 Celsius respectively). Fahrenheit also fucked up when setting 100F to be body temperature; it is actually 98.4F, and it's not constant anyways. 0F was supposed to be the coldest temperature he could obtain, a water/salt mixture. He was also off on that one, the coldest possible mixture can attain -4F.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Nowadays, they are for rich people looking for a big brand, and who can't tell the difference between high-end and top end.
http://home.earthlink.net/~busenitz/bs.html
Wow, so only 9.17 US dollars? Amazing! Or did you mean eight-thousand Euros, not eight and zero one-hundreths? Then it would cost 9,172.90 US dollars.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I believe Kelvin uses the same size for the degrees for legacy support as well. Yes, Fahrenheit is based on funny starting points, however I agree with the grandparent. Although nothing dramatic happens at 0 or at 100 specifically, any temperature below 0 or over 100 is going to be highly uncomfortable, even dangerous, if one does not take proper precautions.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I think these B&O loudspeakers are just big fancy sculptures for people with too much money to spend on their hi-fi.
... audiophile gear (and culture) to me seems full of ridiculous claims, and prices.
You can get a decent set of powered studio monitors for like USD$500. USD$1500 and you've got -great- speakers. I've got AUD$300 (approx USD$180) Acoustic Research infinite-baffle bookshelf speakers in the loungeroom and they are well loud and clear enough (with the late 1980s model Yamaha class-A amp) for recreational listening purposes. My studio's speakers are much more expensive, but their job is quite different and my expectations of them much more demanding.
Why would I want to spend EURO$8000 on a pair of speakers that are more expensive than the microphones that the most of the music I listen to was recorded on? I am also a bit suspicious of the claims mad for them as well
-A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed-
if they are using lenses to focus the sound;
- how wide is the sweet spot?
- what is their stereo imaging like?
-A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed-
Again: you are coming up with a justification a posteriori. Farenheit was not thinking of "human comfort" when he defined the scale. And it would be a pretty silly argument for a scientist, anyway. Is -1 F particularly more "uncomfortable" than 0 F? Are there "comfort thresholds"? Did I miss an RFC...?
The Farenheit scale is simply a consequence of the equipment he had and the results of some experiences he made (which turned out not to be very accurate).
The centigrade scale, on the other hand, is based on the substance we deal with more often: water. And has pretty well-defined critical points: phase changes (at 0 and 100, hence the name "centigrade", which means "with 100 degrees"). Of course, you also need to take pressure into account, etc., but it's still based on something "real", it's not just a bunch of numbers picked at random.
To measure temperatures in abstract, any linear scale works equally well. But as far as a connection to "everyday physics" is concerned, centigrade is certainly more direct.
RMN
~~~
So? If it works, it really doesn't matter who came up with it or why. A posteriori arguments are perfectly valid, because the original intentions of the creator are irrelevant to the advantages or drawbacks of a system's continued use.
And it would be a pretty silly argument for a scientist, anyway.
That's true. Most of us aren't scientists, however. It's stupid to justify a measurement system on the basis that "it's better for scientists." If that were a good argument, we'd all be using Kelvin. At least "Kelvin" is the easiest to spell :)
it's still based on something "real", it's not just a bunch of numbers picked at random.
So what? Does it bother you that the meter was mis-measured, and hence isn't based on something "real?"
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I've been waiting ages (since about '96) to see these show up on store shelves here in Canada. I wonder what's preventing them from small speaker market domination. If the HSS speakers work as ATC claims, they'd be awesome in so many different applications.
I have to wonder if perhaps they're not truly 'hi-fi' across the audio spectrum and thus not appealing to the home theatre and music crowd.
Still, a fascinating bit of technology!
...the four amplifers per speakers are listed as:
250 W for treble
250 W for mid range
1000 W for upper bass
1000 W for lower bass
So, this implies a crossover filter, right? Then the power of the amps do not ADD, then they MULTIPLY! 250x250x1000x1000=62,500,000,000. That's effectively 62 and a half BILLION watts of audio power. And this only gets you 108 db? These puppies should be rocking an arena! They should liquify protoplasm at the first 20 yards or so! This is Disaster Area's sound system (read Douglas Adams)! My first guess is these are not RMS Watts - except that IS required by the FTC in the U.S. Second, they are the World's Most Inefficent Drivers.
Anyone know? Where am I wrong?
You can get uber-FLAT frequency-response condenser and uni-directional mics for $300 or less, retail.
We used $250 dollar mics to do acoustic triangulation, which is very sensitive to input characteristics, and we didn't need anything special. So those types of input devices would be well suited for setting up a DSP and tuning room response.
The more expensive ones are meticulously designed to color the sound slightly to complement the human voice, hence the high prices.
BTW, even hand-made infrasound microphones (used to detect unmanned drones) only cost about $2000 a pop.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Actually, you can, provided you use a high-enough ordered FIR filter. But the problem you run into is that the filter may be ill-conditioned, and the wrong kind of quisecence could send it into drive... which is bad.
This can be helped by using an IIR filter, but that is harder to set up from the room response, and you may have to use shortcuts that while not optimal, will sound okay.
The thing that isn't recoverable isn't time smearing, it's the non-linear response of the echos off the imperfectly-elastic walls of the chamber. Fortunately it's only slightly off. So you make a best linear-filtering attempt. Time-smearing and spectrum coloring are both linear processes. The physics involved isn't.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Linn is a small Scottish company with extraordinary engineering and products. Linn does what Bose and B&O attempt to do but without all the glitz and with incredible performance out of compact electronics. Their speakers are good too, so they offer complete systems. See:
linn.co.uk
For their 'low end' all in one home theatre CD, DVD, Tuner, 5.1 channel preamp/amplifier, multi-room capable receiver, see Linn's Classik Movie System (CMS) and CMS Di[gital] at:
classik.com
You'll also find their entry level Classik Music (two channel amp, tuner, preamp, multi-room capable) System. The newer, more complete Classik Movie includes CD/DVD/Tuner with 5 channel amplifier and component video out. The brand new CMS Di includes all the features of the Classik Movie but adds an even better CD/DVD processor and source input for both video (component video in) and audio (toslink optical 5.1 channel). The advanced CD/DVD sound processing is trickle down technology from Linn's brand new, state of the art Unidisk CD/DVD/DVD-A/SACD disc player.
All three Classiks have the same tiny form factor, except the new 5.1 channel Movie units have more controls and therefore a different face (same diminutive size though).
Despite their diminutive size, these units are better than most separates. Needless to say, Linn is very popular in Japan where tiny, powerful, state of the art electronics are a sign of excellence.
The pricing is under $2k ($1500?) for the Classik Music (CD, Tuner, et al.), $3k for the Classik Movie all-in-one (DVD, et al.), and $5k for the no-compromise movie Di (Unidisk processing trickle down, and component video and toslink inputs). The Di is not exactly cheap but packs amazing capabilities and superior quality into unbelievably compact package.
The units even include multi-room capabilities using multiple Classik units (Linn's "Connect" system), or connecting to Linn's versatile "Knekt" system to connect a variety of Linn components throughout the home/office into one system. Both Connect and Knekt offer keypad controls (e.g., wall-mount units to control the Linn Classik or other (Linn and non-Linn (by IR) components)).
Linn technology is unique in its blend of high technology and no-compromise emphasis on audio quality. For example, Linn uses surface mount technology and switch-mode power supplies which are rare in audiophile products (due to complications Linn has innovated beyond). In contrast, Bose has a reputation for taking cheap components and equalizing the hell out of them to get the semblance of accurate sound (but delivering an essentially synthesized sound on any music). B&O offers a genuine value in style, design, and compactness, but with some significant (but not necessarily critical) sonic compromises. Linn does not take the sonic shortcuts.
Instead, Linn innovates in a variety of ways (the first audiophile quality CD/DVD/DVD-A/SACD transport, innovative FM tuner technology, active speaker amplification, multi-room capabilities, etc.) and trickles the technologies throughout their product line. Few if any other companies even have the capability to pack everything into a single compact box with top flight musical and video quality as in the Classik product line. For Linn, the Classik just takes advantage of a host of their more advanced power supply, amplifier, tuner, multi-room, CD/DVD, and video technology all in one unit.
IOW, what Bose and B&O market in appearance, Linn delivers in performance. Anecdotally, Linn delivers the soul of music, musicians often choose Linn over other audiophile systems, and Linn deliver foot tapping sonic excellence. Linn's byline is "pitch accurate" sound. Let your ears be the judge.
Dunno about that. I had to make a lot of compromises (size of speakers and housing of all the boxes) to get a system I could listen to and which my wife would allow in the house. Sometimes makes me wonder if all _serious_ audiophiles have to be bachelors :-).
I don't understand this at all. Speakers are analog devices. What are you talking about? Not surprising this is an AC post.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
When we complain of awful sounding loudspeakers, sometimes it's the loudspeakers that is at fault.
Sometimes.
In some situations, however, even if you put the BEST loudspeakers in the world in a really lousy environment, you will get bad sounds.
What lousy environments, you may wonder.
Well
Not all the rooms (environment) are similar. There are a lot of variables:
The shape of the room;
The size of the room;
The position of the loudspeakers;
The volume of the sound;
The pitch (hi/lo) of the sound;
The material of the wall coverings, ala
if it's soundproof or not;
All contribute to the "total effect" of what your ears will hear.
If you play loud bass, that is, you wanna "hear the things you can feel", - those thump, thump, thump thing from sub-woofer, then you may need to take the width and length of the room into consideration and place your subwoofer (and woofer) accordingly.
You see, low pitch sound has a longer wavelength than high-pitch sound, and if the sound emitting from the sub-woofer hits the walls HALFWAY through the wavelength, you _may_ get echoes - much like what you'll get if you shine a light at a mirror, and the light reflected back, depending on the angle of attack.
So the best bet is to place the subwoofer about a wavelength unit away from the wall closest to it.
If the room is too small and you can't do that, then the next best thing is to sound-proof your walls - like what you see on the recording studio, line up your walls with cone-shape sponge thingies.
If you can't do that, then the next best thing is to hang THICK CLOTH - kinda like window panes - and let the thick cloth (and I mean THICK CLOTH) soak up the echoes before they bounce back into the room and mess up the whole environment.
All in all, it's a trial-and-error exercise.
Who knows, after playing for a while, and you may get the hang of it and become a sort-of "expert" and write a "how-to" on proper placement of sound equipments, sound-proofing your room, etc.
Hope this helps !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
But that's half the fun!
:-) Then I'd just say "eh!", shrug , and leave. It was great.
A few years ago, I finished a job (after 5 years) with about 80,000 in the bank. I used go round prestige car lots in my scruffiest gear and see how long it took for someone to serve me. Then casually ask If I could take their latest and shiniest for a spin.
Normally the answer was no, until I asked for a phone, rang my bank and got it to read my balance out on the speakerphone.
I used to get to drive every car on the lot after that. (and drive em HARD too
Just doing my bit to put the snobs in their place.
(No, in the end I put all the cash on a house instead)
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I don't know about the quality of their current stuff, but I bought Bose 901s (Series I) in the late 60's after auditioning a huge number of speakers (my overall impression was that the more drivers a speaker had, the more muddled it sounded to me; the 901s were the only ones that sounded clear). Those speakers have continued to sound great for 30 years. Last year, I noticed some distortion that I traced to the equalizer. I sent it back to Bose and they fixed it for $35. I've run across manufacturers that wouldn't even look at a 10 year old product, let alone 30.
You're right, it is arbitrary psychological crap. When it's 25 C (77 F) here in Lisbon, most locals are wearing coats and most tourists are wearing T-shirts. When it's 40 C (104 F), most locals are wearing t-shirts and most tourists are melting.
I suspect that if we move to other planets we'll change their atmosphere to match the Earth's. Either that or we'll live inside closed biospheres with Earth-like conditions. So we'll still be using centigrade. And x86. And a DOS compatibility layer. And complaining about the CowboyNeal option in polls (or the lack of it).
RMN
~~~
Re: Re:The little company that could: Linn!
linn.co.uk
classik.com
I was answering the poster that said that "Fahrenheit makes way more sense for human-experienced temperatures" and that "0-100 is the range of temperatures in which humans can expect to be able to survive", concluding that "it's quite logical".
First, none of those issues was taken into account when creating the scale (so even if they were objective arguments, they wouldn't make Fahrenheit "quite logical", it would simply be a coincidence).
Second, they are not objective arguments. Different people are used to different temperatures (and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some degree of genetic adaptation). People in central Africa can be comfortable at 45 C (113 F) while people in northern regions (ex., Siberia) probably start feeling pretty uncomfortable at 30 C (86 F).
I doubt anyone will survive for long at 0 F without a very thick coat (meaning they won't actually be in contact with 0 F). 0 F is below freezing point, and the water in their bodies (starting with their skins) would freeze and form crystals. Very nasty. On the other hand, people can swim in water at just above freezing point - 0 C - for some time and be perfectly alright. They'll be cold, and may pass out from hypothermia (which can lead to death if they stop breathing), but will not freeze (no crystallization means no permanent damage to the tissues).
Kelvin is a great scale for physicists, but centigrade is actually more practical for some areas of chemistry and - especially - biology, because water plays a big role in those sciences.
I definitely don't think it's stupid to justify a measurement system on the basis that it's better for scientists. Mesuring something objectively (i.e., in abstract units instead of saying that something is "hot" or "cold" or "big" or "small") is a scientific notion.
And no, it doesn't "bother" me at all that Fahrenheit is based on random values. As I said above, for the purpose of measuring temperatures, any linear scale will do roughly the same job. It's simply a matter of convention and habit.
The Celsius scale has its "key points" (0 and 100) set at temperatures where very obvious, very visible "natural" things happen (water phase changes). And that's why I disagree that Farhenheit is any more "logical" or "makes more sense" for the temperatures we deal with than centigrade. Just because you're used to something that doesn't make it more intuitive, and certainly doesn't make it more logical. In abstract, centigrade is slightly more "elegant". As a tool, both scales are more or less equivalent (centigrade is perhaps a bit more practical for cooking, but most people don't actually measure temperatures when they're cooking).
RMN
~~~
Either that or rich enough to be able to afford both the equipment and the relationship.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
...you just need to know exactly how imperfect the one you're using is!
I was thinking of a single source and mic. yarrrgh. I guess it's valid for doing subwoofer calibration since the wavelength dwarfs most anything that reflects in the room.
And in the case where f(t) = f1(t) * u1(t) + f2(t) * u2(t), with a stationary mic you can find v1(t) and v2(t) such that f'(t) = f1(t) * v1 (t) * u1(t) + f2(t) * v2(t) * u2(t), where v1 and v2 cancel out u1 and u2. But it will only work in that one spot.
Now if you have multiple spots, you can find v1' , v2', ec. that minimize the least-squares difference between fi * vi' * ui_k and fi for all i in n, and for k microphone positions. But that will probably only fix any pervasive effects of room resonance, and no local effects.
sigh. No free lunch. It's a lot easier to make your room sound good then to brute force the signal, eh?
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
A few posts here complain about the $8000 each price of the speakers. That isn't even close to being the most expensive available. Wilson Audio used to sell a set of speakers that cost $125,000 a pair. I don't see it on their web page anymore, but I did see the X-1 which cost $75,900 per pair according to this review. Thing is, the review was almost 4 years ago, they probably cost more by now.
I'm assuming the speed of sound "c" is relatively constant.
To reproduce sound down to wavelength L, a round horn should have at least diameter L/PI, which is c/(f * PI) where f is the frequency corresponding to L. C is roughly 1100 ft/s, so a horn subwoofer going down to 40 hz should have a mouth diameter of almost nine feet. This can be reduced by putting the speaker on the ground, near a wall, etc. But it points to why a no-compromises horn subwoofer is rarely built. A designer might design the horn to a higher cutoff frequency and use a different mechanism, like a tuned port, for the last half octave or so.
Another example, although this time "c" won't rear its head directly. A constant directivity horn has a width in inches of x, a design angle of theta in degrees, and a break frequency f - below f, the horn starts to lose pattern control and widen out. They are related by f = (10^6) / (theta * x). So a 100 degree horn 10 inches wide could preserve pattern control down to 1 khz. To preserve that control down to 500 hz, you'd need a 20" width. While c isn't in the equation (which is empirically derived) it's in the background - all length dimensions in audio equations come from it.
Now imagine a small PA speaker with a 12" woofer and a 90x40 high frequency horn, 12" wide by 4" high. The crossover frequency is 1600 hz. Horizontally, this horn is big enough to maintain control down to the xo frequency. But vertically, it loses control at 6250 hz! By the time it reaches the xo, it's basically omnidirectional. Why didn't the designers make it taller? Well if they made it 16" tall, adding a full foot to the height of this small speaker, most customers would find it unwieldy.
Imagine a 6 cubic foot speaker enclosure. It could be a home subwoofer, going down to 30 hz. Or it could be a small PA speaker, going down to 60 hz. But the home speaker works hard to hit its max output of 108 dB. The PA speaker is hardwly working at that output level - it can play at 126 dB, even if it's a cheaper product sold to musicians. If it's pro grade, it could play at 130 dB. There's a tradeoff between bass depth and loudness/quality.
I hope this makes some sense.
A: Because they have Lucas refrigerators.
He also defined the Morris Minor as the world's only true sportscar -- because it was the only vehicle that gave the elements an equal chance. Yeah, I know: -2, offtopic.
And you, madam, are very ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.
"Seriously, "acoustic lens" is just a fancy term for a horn," .... talking BOLLOCKS.
Apparently you haven't done your homework on this one!