[Ferstler]

On Jan 14, 11:56*am, Boon wrote:
On Jan 14, 1:49*am, Bret L wrote:

*Ferstler has never done any DIY projects. Nor is there any evidence
that he could.

*David Rich is another matter. In the old "Audio Critic" he would g
through commercial designs and essentially critique their component
engineering, always suggesting a better IC or other part for each
stage. Why he didn't simply design one "de novo" and publish a PCB
layout for us proles is my question, and one he never deigned to
answer.

Everything Ferstler did in regards to DBTs and DIYs were done under
the careful supervision of Roy Allison. Under scrutiny, it was
revealed that Howard did the DBT incorrectly anyway. That's the reason
why Howard was relegated to subwoofer and surround sound processor
reviews in his later years...when you spend most of the review
regurgitating the owner's manual, it's relatively hard to screw it up.

I decided to take a look here on a whim, and instead of you guys just
giving it a rest you decided to do a fast slandering job on me. Since
there may be people here who are not up to date on how you guys
operate, I have decided to interject the information below.

Roy Allison never did "supervise" my DBT work. I have only met him
three times in my life, and we never even lived close to each other.
Sure, I wrote him regularly (and still do), but most of the time we
just chatted about topics unrelated to audio, let alone about any of
my reviewing projects. I will say that no audio writer or engineer
worth a flip would do serious comparing work by any means other than
the DBT protocol.

The response-curve readout technique I used with speaker A/B comparing
was developed by me independently from anybody else. First, a stereo
pair of speakers are arranged AB/AB style in my main listening room (a
3400 cubic foot area that has the speakers 11 to 15 feet away,
depending upon manufacturer suggestions, from the listening and
measuring axis) to keep their soundstages the same width. The
procedure itself consists of first level matching the speakers using
an RTA to get their outputs to overlap as exactly as possible, using a
broad-bandwidth, pink-noise source.

Level matching with speakers, as with any other components being
compared, is critical, and to do that I use an AudioControl SA3051 in
its 20-second averaging mode do a cumulative readout as I slowly move
the microphone over a 1 x 1 x 5 foot area near seated ear height at
the listening couch as the broad-bandwidth pink-noise source is
played. I have done it that way, in that room for many years, thereby
giving me a consistant reference standard for loudspeaker performance,
and the idea is to get a proper room curve that approximates a power
response readout. David Moran, who uses a dbx RTA to the same kind of
comparisons, but with somewhat different microphone movements, has
indicated to at least one chat group that my results parallel his when
the same speakers are involved. I use this technique to both set
levels for A/B comparisons and to give me response curves to reproduce
and discuss in my speaker reviews.

Once the levels are properly set for the comparison work, I go on to
do standard comparisons, using a variety of classical, romantic-era,
and baroque sources. I even use rock and jazz at times, and with most
of my speaker reviews I tell the reader just what recordings are
involved, even going to far as to print the recording stock numbers.

Anybody who has ever read any of my product reviews (that probably
does not include you) will acknowledge that my reports (be they about
speakers or be they about anything else) are anything but
regurgitations of the owner's manuals. Sure, I note manufacturer specs
and comments (any good reviewer should go over those in a review), but
I then do a decent analysis of the performance of whatever component I
am dealing with.

When doing my DBT work with amps, wires, and players I either used a
switcher and reference amp that allowed me to get the levels precisely
matched before doing sighted comparisons, or else I used an ABX
Comparator that Tom Nousaine loaned to me for several months. The
device had an on-board digital volt meter and signal generator that
allowed for very precise level matching, one channel at a time, and it
also forced the participant to do the comparing blind. The results I
got with the device were consistant with what I discovered during my
sighted and level-matched comparisons. Using the ABX device finally
convinced me that doing amp, wire, and player reviews was just not
something I cared to fool with any more. There simply was not anything
one could say about their sound, because they had no sound. I did
stick with reviewing receivers and processors for a while, because
those at least had surround technology that could be analyzed.

The resutls with my ABX comparisons were that any good amp, provided
it is not pushed hard against its clipping level, will sound the same
as any other good amp. Good amps are common enough for most
intelligent people to make purchases based upon price and maximum
power needs. Other results were that any good lamp cord 16 AWG or
larger, will sound as good as any exotic versions, unless the
manufacturer of the exotic has managed to screw up their performance
by installing shunt capacitors or some other inane modifications to
make them sound different from (read, less accurate than) good-old
wires. Ditto for interconnects. As for players, well, any good CD or
DVD player will sound identical to just about any other, with the
primary exceptions being exotic models that have been modified by
their borderline corrupt manufacturers to sound different from (read,
less accurate than) the norm.

Finally, just in case you or anybody else here really does want to
read some of my published reviews, go to:

http://findarticles.com/p/search/?tb=art&qt="Howard%2C+Ferstler"

The only problem with the reprints is that the program will not
reproduce my measurement curves, but you should not care, anyway,
because you could not tell an honest review from a dishonest one if
your life depended upon it.

PS: I have known David Rich for years (we have even done joint reviews
together), and while he and I disagree about how speakers should
perform (reverberant-field bias vs direct-field bias), we agree
precisely when it comes to amps, wires, audio gimmicks, and players.

Howard Ferstler