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Dick Pierce
 
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Default Dick Pierce on Altec, or MM?

(Sam Byrams) wrote in message . com...

That a
hobbyist can build an amp as good as a c-j, Audio Research, or VTL, or
a speaker as good as a Thiel or Vandersteen for a fraction even
counting his own time at market technician/assembler rates, is
ludicrous. (But very true.)


But very FALSE. I would be interested in seeing but a single example
of your assertion demonstrated as such with a reasonable acceptable
auite of measurements.


In the case of the amplifiers, it would be easy to settle the matter
with an AP box, a couple of fat Dale noninductive resistors, and the
needed test leads.


In which case, it's clear that you'd have a woefully incomplete
test. Most of us gave up testing amplifiers in such an incredibly
crude and anachronistic way several decades ago. Fat Dale non-
inductive resistors and the typical sort of measurements do not
a comprehensive set of measurements make.

In the case of the speakers, I'd say you need an anechoic chamber,


Again, your comment speaks volumes to, no disrespect intended, how
far out of date your notions of the state of the art of loudspeakers
are. Back 60 years ago, people like Altec new they were lucky if they
knew someone whose uncle worked at a place that ahd an anechoic chamber.
Now, we're 30 years paste the time when they were a requirement.

but it's no secret that the more determined hobby
guys are very competitive with some of the High End factory stuff.


But, that's your opinion. And, thus far, we haven't seen single
shred of credible data to suggest that it has any veracity. I'm
not defending the so-called "high-end;" anyone who has seen my
comments on them would know better. But I would hazard to suggest
that your opinion of the technical merits of the ancient 604 are as
wildly out of touch with physical reality as is your opinion of the
current state of the art, which is NOT represented by the hobbyist
market, not by a long shot.

Your raising of that hobbyist market is nothin but a strawman: it;s
easy to knock down. So what? The hobbyist market has NOTHING to do
with the state of knowledge in acoustics and loudspeaker design. Why,
then, do you insist on raising it, other thna as a purely argumentative
strawman?

Whether this means the hobbyists are good or that a lot of the High
end stuff is not-and I suspect it's both-I don't know.


Well, all due respect, these last 3 words are the answer.

Can we do better today? You'd think so. But I think it would mean
spending money, and the audio industry seems allergic to this.


We HAVE done better today. As I said, you chose to ignore the very gross
technical failings of the 604 in the points I rasied, just from the fact
that on the basis of it's electromechanical parameters alaone, it is
a product desgined in an era when, quite literally, the people at Altec
and elseqhere were essentially clueless as to how drivers and cabinets
integrated into systems. The cabinets recommended and manufactured at
the time resulted in, as I said, abysmally poor low-frequency response.
"Redesigning" these cabinets using concrete changes an abysmally poor
system into a heacy, hard-to-manage abysmally poor system.


In some cases we have. In others, we-actually "youse" since I don't
design speakers-have ****ed up really badly. FWIW not many people are
still mixing down or mastering on 604s, although several speakers are
in use the Genelec seems dominant.


If you think the mastering world consists of either 604s or Genelecs,
you ARE woefully out of touch.

Are the active Genelecs bad
speakers? No. If you listen to a Jimi Hendrix record on Genelecs or on
604s, which is more likely to replicate what Eddie Kramer-or whoever
mixed it down in 1969-heard in the room back then?


If they used 604s in comething like UREI cabinets, then we can say
for certain, they heard something with a seriously bloated, woefully
underdamped, highly-distorted bottom end, a major midrange suckout as
that 15" struggled mightly to keep up with a tweeter that had a
monster peak at about 9 kHz and little above that. Hardly neutral,
hardly what competent mastering engineers would call a true monitoring
and verification tool. It may have been all they had at the time, but
that's no excuse for today.

You are right, I didn't rebut your technical arguments because you
probably have the numbers completely right-I could look them up, I
trust your citations-although I don't really have enough speaker
design background to intelligently deal with this.


But, you DID hold forth on the topic as if you DID.

Yes, I'm ignorant of some things.


Indeed. I would respectfully point out you are ignorant of the vast
majority of imformation about the last 60 years of loudspeaker
research and technology, and you allowed what was left be colored by
a preference for what is one of the poorer examples of loudspeaker
design in the last half century, taken in any reasonably modern context.

My rant was, and is, not against modern speaker design
per se but more against the corporate behavior of those who gave the
604 the Nembutal enema. Good or not, people wanted it,


No, SOME people wanted. Not anywhere near enough to justify keeping
an inefficient, difficult-to-manage and money-losing manufacturing
line going. If you think there was ANY prayer ofthe product generating
a product, do you think ANY bean counter would kill it?

They're not going to keep making them to do some tiny handful of people
a favor.

just as WE
willfully farted in the face of the Japanese who worship the 300B
triode and were willing to pay ridiculous sums for them.


As well we should. Have you any clue what the total annualized sales
of SE triode amplifiers are world-wide? Frankly, that fart is far more
substantial.