Last week I spent a day at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show
and came away feeling pretty smug. I spent the morning talking to
computer manufacturers regarding stuff for my business. Got that
done by mid-day and had the rest of the day to play over at the
Alexis Park hotel where the hi-end audio was being shown.

I have to say that in an afternoon, you can only see about 1/3rd
of what was there, so I did miss quite a bit. Of what I heard,
there were three systems that stood out among the rest. The
first was from Aurum Acoustics.

http://www.aurumacoustics.com/home.html

They had a very interesting and somewhat daring approach. Their
flagship product is an integrated tri-amplified loudspeaker. The
electronics all come on one large chassis. It contains:

- Tube (6SN7) based driver and active crossover stage
- Four channels of 300B driven power amplification
- Two 100 watt Bryston solid state amplifier modules

The 300B amp channels drove the tweeter and mid-range
drivers, and the 100 watt Bryston modules drove the
12" Vifa bass drivers. The tweeter is a Seas Excell
driver and the mid-range is 6" treated paper cone from
B&C Components.

Good imaging, good tonal balance, solid deep powerful
bass. I liked the way they sounded and felt it was a
real work of art. $27,000 for the full system.

Next up was a Danish manufacturer, whose name I forgot.
Can't pronounce it anyway. But they had their line of
humoungous power amps, preamps, CD player, yadda, yadda,
all driving Avalon Acoustics Eidolon loudspeakers. Like
the Aurum system, it had all the things you want. It
especially excelled at giving you that 3-D quality to
the image. Lovely! Total system cost at about $100,000.

Next up was the MBL of Germany system.

http://www.mbl-germany.de/english/start.html

They were playing their full reference line of equipment.
Enormous mono power amps and other components to match.
Cables big enough to beat a rhino to death. And some of
the planet's most bizarre looking loudspeakers. Damn if
they didn't sound good! Equal to either of the previous
two systems mentioned above. Total tab at about $165,000.

So why am I feeling smug?

None of them sounded better than the Linkwitz Orion based
system I have at home. My electronics are pretty pedestrian
compared to the stuff I was listening to, but if you accept
the possibility that all decent CD players really can sound
alike, then the real difference is in the loudspeakers.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion_challenge.htm

You can purchase a fully built set of Orion Loudspeakers,
with active crossover and amplification for about $7,000
total. If you're willing to do some work, you can do it
all for less. If you are a DIY guy who can roll his own
8 channel solid state amp, build the crossover (with the
supplied Linkwitz PC board), and build the speaker enclosure,
you could probably do the whole thing for as little as
$2500.

The Orions have the same 3-D imaging that the very best
cost-no-object systems I heard at CES. They have a wonderful
warmth and naturalness that is a real pleasure. And they
have all the dynamic range and power you could ask for.
I drive them with four Hafler pro-grade P1000 power amps
at 50 wpc and I have yet to drive them into clipping with
any material. I play symphonic works, big band jazz and
even let friends play rock and roll on 'em. Plenty of
head room!

My preamp is a 12 year old NAD 1700 because I wanted to
rack mount everything. That's also why I got the Haflers
as well as for their MOSFET sound. My CD player is just
a Tascam rackmounted unit. Nothing sonically special
about that.

Oh. And my speaker wire is 14 gague zip cord from
Parts Express with standard steel lugs at the ends.
The speakers have standard screw terminal strips.

The best part of my front end is my Linn LP12 table
on a Target wall mount.

I've loved hi-end audio since before Nixon did his stupidness
at Watergate. I've seen and heard a lot of great hi-end stuff
over the decades. My previous system was based upon a full-range
curved diaphram electrostatic loudspeaker from X-Static. I know
something about good hi-end.

Now I have to admit that the standard Orion has a styling I'm not
crazy about. If anything it's Danish Modern. Siegfried doesn't
do anything that doesn't have some sort of sonic impact, and that
includes the shape of the side panels. I live in a Craftsman
bunalow and wanted something that had a Mission furniture look
to it, so you can see what I ended up with he

http://www.button.com/family/photos/russ/orion/

Siegfried himself came over to the house and said that my modifications
to his design had minimal impact on the sonics and he thought they
sounded as they should. I didn't do the cabinetry myself. That
was done by Jason Daniels of Oakland, CA. He's willing to take
commissions for a reasonable fee.

Siegfried Linkwitz has done something truly remarkable. If you
go to his web site, he lists a number of people willing to let
you come listen. If one of them is in your area, I recommend you
take the time to pay them a visit. The very finest cost-no-object
sound in hi-end audio is within reach of many more of us than you
might think

Russ Button

Russ Button wrote:
Last week I spent a day at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show
and came away feeling pretty smug.

[snip - reviews of Aurum, MBL, & some Danish high end company]

So why am I feeling smug?

None of them sounded better than the Linkwitz Orion based
system I have at home.


That might be more a condemnation of hotel suite room acoustics than
anything else!

I spent a good deal of time at the EgglestonWorks suite (Andra II's),
the dcs suite (where they had Verity Parsifals), the Lipinski Audio
suite (L-707's) & the Naim suite down the road at the ST.Tropez T.H.E.
show (where they had Harbeth Monitor 30's) ...and I came away feeling
that none of them sounded *significantly* better than the Tannoy System
800's I have in my living room! Now, I'm not foolish enough to believe
my $1000/pair Tannoys can go toe-to-toe with these esteemed speakers
that cost 5x that. But I'll happily put my living room up against any
of those hotel suites as a critical listening room.

Buster Mudd wrote:
Russ Button wrote:

Last week I spent a day at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show

None of them sounded better than the Linkwitz Orion based
system I have at home.



That might be more a condemnation of hotel suite room acoustics than
anything else!

We've all heard how room acoustics are an important factor in
system performance. And we can purchase room treatment gizmos
such as Tube Traps and the like. I don't know how it is for
everyone else, but it always seems to me that when I move into
a place, you walk around and there's really only one place you
can put stuff due to considerations that the rest of the family
has to live there too.

I can't turn my living room into a giant set of headphones totally
dedicated to audio. Not and stay married I can't. I'm sure a lot
of other audiophiles have similar situations.

In my current room, there just isn't any place to put room acoustic
treatments anyway. I've experimented with speaker placement in my
room and what's optimal acoustically isn't optimal with regards to
furniture and where things are. I can pull 'em out on those
occaisions when I want to do some serious listening or when I have
my audio buddies over, but I can't just leave 'em there.

You can complain about hotel room acoustics, but really they're
no worse than the rooms many, if not most of us, have to put
our audio gear in. My living room is about 14' wide and 17' long.
Not a tiny space but not expansive either. And given the layout,
the speakers have to sit at one end and just wouldn't work anywhere
else.

I think a commercial loudspeaker needs to be able to sound good
most anywhere you put it. Certainly you can try to be cognizant
of room acoustics and do what you can, but I'd think that many,
if not most, audiophiles have a limited ability to do much
about the acoustics of the room they find themselves in.

I remember liking the big Apogee loudspeakers years ago. But
they were always shown in a very large room with plenty of
space about them, and sitting at least 6 feet from the back
wall. That would take up 1/3rd of my living room and just
isn't practical.

I spent a good deal of time at the EgglestonWorks suite (Andra II's),
the dcs suite (where they had Verity Parsifals), the Lipinski Audio
suite (L-707's) & the Naim suite down the road at the ST.Tropez T.H.E.
show (where they had Harbeth Monitor 30's) ...and I came away feeling
that none of them sounded *significantly* better than the Tannoy System
800's I have in my living room! Now, I'm not foolish enough to believe
my $1000/pair Tannoys can go toe-to-toe with these esteemed speakers
that cost 5x that. But I'll happily put my living room up against any
of those hotel suites as a critical listening room.

I wish I could have had an extra couple of days to get around to see
everything. I was listening for several qualities.

- tonal balance and naturalness of the mid-range
- tonal balance of the low end
- dynamic range and transient response
- 3D imaging

The material I used for listening was:

"A Slow Hot Wind" from "The Voice That Is!" - Johnny Hartman

Hartman's voice is very revealing of mid-range anomalies.
I actually prefer "You Are Too Beautiful", from the alblum
John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, but I didn't have it with
me.

"That's All", from "Scott Hamilton is a Good Wind Who Is
Blowing Us No Ill"

This alblum is great for overall tonal balance and 3D
imaging. What's even more interesting about this recording
is to compare the CD version with the vinyl version. Do
that once and you'll NEVER think about dumping your vinyl.
But even at that, the CD sounds pretty good and is quite
useful for evaluations.

"Cuba Te Liama" from "Night of the Living Mambo" - Mamborama.

This recording is good for dynamics and 3D imaging.

"Dream of the Witches' Sabbath", movement #5 from the
Symphonie Fantastique, Hector Berlioz, on the Telarc
label.

This is a great recording of a large symphonic work
with extraordinary dynamic range, 3D imaging, and a
variety of tonal colors.

Buster, your Tannoys are likely quite natural sounding
and musical within their limitations. But when you want
to have:

- good naturalness of tonal balance and timbre
- full extension at both ends of the audio spectrum
- and a dynamic range capable of the most extreme recordings `
- 3D imaging that lets the speakers "disappear"

.....then it just gets expensive. And that's where the very
inexpensive loudspeaker systems show their limitations.

Given a choice, I'd opt for a natural and fair tonal balance
any day. Especially on voices.

I remember hearing the Rega loudspeakers a couple of years ago.
They were pretty small and didn't have much low end extension
or great dynamic range. But they sounded so natural on voices!
Not the best loudspeaker at the show that day, but certainly
were the best at the show at their price point!

And that's kind of what I was getting at with my first post
on the CES. The cost-no-object gear, setup correctly, can
sound truly wonderful. But as good as it is, there's a much
less costly alternative that matches up in every way, and that's
the Linkwitz Orion system.

Today while my wife was out of the house, I put on a couple of
Maynard Fergusen alblums I used to listen to back in the 70's
and cranked 'em up just to remember what they were like.
I had 'em up far louder than I normally listen and probably
far louder than anyone would want to hear them at. Didn't
strain the system a bit. Full throttle power at both ends
of the audio spectrum, great imaging, and they still sounded
natural. You try standing 5 feet in front of a good lead
trumpet player playing G above high C at double forte and
tell me if you think any $1000 speaker could safely do that.

The Orions can, just as could any of the three systems I
wrote about earlier. It's just that you can do it for a
LOT less $$$ with the Orions than you could with any of
the other great systems seen at CES.

Coolness.

Russ

"
So why am I feeling smug?

None of them sounded better than the Linkwitz Orion based
system I have at home. My electronics are pretty pedestrian
compared to the stuff I was listening to, but if you accept
the possibility that all decent CD players really can sound
alike, then the real difference is in the loudspeakers.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion_challenge.htm


The Orions have the same 3-D imaging that the very best
cost-no-object systems I heard at CES. They have a wonderful
warmth and naturalness that is a real pleasure.

You may be feeling smug and your speakers will do some weird imaging things
that you may like - but they are utterly incapable of recreating the sound
of a real acoustic source as it would sound if it was in the same room. (Yes
I have a friend who has a pair so I know them well).

They have a power response that has severe and extreme discontinuities, a
midrange driver that literally rings like a bell with breakup modes well
above the passband response level, bass drivers that are slow and muddy
(probably due to severe hysteresis in the roll surrounds) and the mixed
order crossovers alter the quality of the sound too as they are incapable of
reconstructing the time domain response of the input signal even if the
speakers were taken out of the equation!

I am glad you enjoy your system, but that does not equate to accuracy or
correctness or even my definition of high fidelity let alone high end - just
because it plays some things well or sounds nice to you.

John Matheson

"You may be feeling smug and your speakers will do some weird imaging
things
that you may like - but they are utterly incapable of recreating the sound
of a real acoustic source as it would sound if it was in the same room.
(Yes
I have a friend who has a pair so I know them well).

They have a power response that has severe and extreme discontinuities, a
midrange driver that literally rings like a bell with breakup modes well
above the passband response level, bass drivers that are slow and muddy
(probably due to severe hysteresis in the roll surrounds) and the mixed
order crossovers alter the quality of the sound too as they are incapable
of
reconstructing the time domain response of the input signal even if the
speakers were taken out of the equation!

I am glad you enjoy your system, but that does not equate to accuracy or
correctness or even my definition of high fidelity let alone high end -
just
because it plays some things well or sounds nice to you."

Gosh, feeling a bit touchy are we that one need not toss 100 k or 10 k or
even 2 k to get a superior system? Exactly which 100 k system did you
select? How do you know those technical details about the speakers?
There is technical detail on the pages of the designer which don't match
your notions. Slow bass is an urban myth. But of course when it comes to
speakers none can recreate the signal on the cd as heard in the recording
control room without being in that control room with that gear, even your
100 k choices. One suspects that your real objection is that the more it
costs the better it is school of audio is these days under sever attack,
what with cd sources and amps and wire all being in the category of
commodities now with little if any difference in sound, the last refuge
has always been speakers and now some guy has put that into question also.

John Matheson wrote:

You may be feeling smug and your speakers will do some weird imaging things
that you may like - but they are utterly incapable of recreating the sound
of a real acoustic source as it would sound if it was in the same room. (Yes
I have a friend who has a pair so I know them well).

Well that's why they say this is a free country.

You're free to have your own opinion and I'm free to have mine. I've
made my judgements based upon what I'm listening to.

They have a power response that has severe and extreme discontinuities, a
midrange driver that literally rings like a bell with breakup modes well
above the passband response level, bass drivers that are slow and muddy
(probably due to severe hysteresis in the roll surrounds) and the mixed
order crossovers alter the quality of the sound too as they are incapable of
reconstructing the time domain response of the input signal even if the
speakers were taken out of the equation!

Hmpfff... Obviously you and Linkwitz are of different opinions. Not that
this is any kind of surprise really. Audio Engineering still has a lot of
art in it, as much as people would like to think that it's all scientific.
If engineering were as clearly defined as we'd like to think, then there
wouldn't be so many different attempts at producing hi-end audio. We'd
all know what worked and what didn't.

Since you think the Orions are such inaccurate loudspeakers, perhaps
you'd like to share with us your own design of what an accurate
loudspeaker would be?

I am glad you enjoy your system, but that does not equate to accuracy or
correctness or even my definition of high fidelity let alone high end - just
because it plays some things well or sounds nice to you.

I thought that was the criteria that we each use in making a purchase.
We each listen to equipment and choose what seems to us to be what
we want. I've listened to a *LOT* of gear over the years and have a
pretty good idea of what sounds natural and accurate to me.

And it's not just from listening to records either. I've been playing
trumpet for over 40 years, in just about any kind of ensemble or group
you could imagine. Everything from orchestral to brass ensemble to
big band swing to Chinese funeral band. My wife is a professional
violinist who plays both modern and baroque violin. She's recorded
with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchesta and San Francisco Bach Soloists.
I listen to her practice both instruments all the time and know what
sounds like what.

I think I know something about what natural sound is.

So you don't like the Linkwitz Orions, and I presume you've told
your friend his aren't accurate or correct either. What was his
response? Is he planning to sell them now that you've told him
they didn't measure up? And then one might ask why he didn't
ask you first before wasting his money on them?!

Russ

Well that's why they say this is a free country.

You're free to have your own opinion and I'm free to have mine. I've
made my judgements based upon what I'm listening to.


I said I was glad you liked them.


Hmpfff... Obviously you and Linkwitz are of different opinions. Not that
this is any kind of surprise really.

Linkwitz is entititled to his opinion and to publishing it - having it and
publishing it just doesn't make those opinions any righter.

Audio Engineering still has a lot of
art in it, as much as people would like to think that it's all scientific.
If engineering were as clearly defined as we'd like to think, then there
wouldn't be so many different attempts at producing hi-end audio. We'd
all know what worked and what didn't.

Sure there is art in audio engineering - the art of applying good
engineering. Unfortunately far too many "audio engineers" know far too
little to apply good engineering. Competent speaker design requires an
understanding of physics, acoustics, physcoacoustics, electrical, mechnical,
chemical and materials engineering to name but a few. It is way beyond the
capabilities of one person to be an expert in all these fields. Simple
computer models seem to encourage poor application of the "art" too.

Since you think the Orions are such inaccurate loudspeakers, perhaps
you'd like to share with us your own design of what an accurate
loudspeaker would be?

I am far too humble to think I could design an accurate loudspeaker. Floyd
Toole, Sean Olive and others through the NRC in Canada and Harman
International have conducted many decades of comprehesive research into what
are the important charateristics for speakers and I don't think that the
Orions would stack up well by the scientifically established criterion. But
nor would many so call High End designs irrespective of price. I'm also a
reader of the papers of David Griesinger who I feel knows close to as much
as the rest of the world put together about the physcoacoustics of spacial
sound reproduction and perception. His papers give a physcoacoustical basis
to the empirical findings of Toole et al.

I am glad you enjoy your system, but that does not equate to accuracy or
correctness or even my definition of high fidelity let alone high end -
just because it plays some things well or sounds nice to you.

I thought that was the criteria that we each use in making a purchase.
We each listen to equipment and choose what seems to us to be what
we want.

Of course people are free to make whatever choices they like for whatever
reason. It gets up my nose (as you can no doubt tell) when someone becomes
evangelistical about a personal experience. I find the notion of "like the
sound of" and "don't like the sound of" in audio engineering sailing just a
bit too close to the fashion industry - but I guess that is what high
fidelity industry has become - fashion.

I've listened to a *LOT* of gear over the years and have a
pretty good idea of what sounds natural and accurate to me.

And it's not just from listening to records either. I've been playing
trumpet for over 40 years, in just about any kind of ensemble or group
you could imagine. Everything from orchestral to brass ensemble to
big band swing to Chinese funeral band. My wife is a professional
violinist who plays both modern and baroque violin. She's recorded
with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchesta and San Francisco Bach Soloists.
I listen to her practice both instruments all the time and know what
sounds like what.

I think I know something about what natural sound is.

Well, I have a little experience too. I have conducted research into speaker
design with John Dunlavey (independently using his facilities - not as an
employee); I've run a performing arts centre sound department managing a
staff of up to 25 audio engineers at times; I've been involved in my local
section of the Audio Engineering Society for more than 20 years and have
presented many meetings on the various facets of audio engineering including
speaker design criteria for "accuracy" in reproduction and blind evaluations
of professional speakers which left some proponents of particular brands
decidedly red faced; I've been a technical writer for a national journal in
professional sound engineering; I designed quite a few professional and
consumer loudspeakers; I have designed sound reinforcement systems for
dozens of local and national touring musicals and opera; I've worked as a
sound designer with many symphony orchestras and opera companies; and I have
worked as a consulting engineer in electo-acoustics for a national
acoustical consultancy. Over a couple of decades I have collected scores of
letters and published reviews praising the quality of sound of my designs -
many for operas - and never had a bad review published to my knowledge. I've
collected about 40 reviews on just one show published in papers and journals
on three continents - all praising the quality of sound (it was an opera
with 80% of the audience from overseas - so I think it had a critical
audience too). So I too feel I have an incling about natural sound.

All of my experience has lead to believe that the human auditory experience
is incredibly fickle, hence the "so many different attempts at producing
hi-end audio". That and misguided beliefs and just plain financial greed.

I can also claim to be part of the germination of the choice of methodology
behind the recent extensive double blind evaluation of dozens of
professional monitors by the BBC in London recently. This is probably the
single most extensive and bias controlled evaluation of speaker
"naturalness" ever undertaken anywhere. The results of that evaluation was
the recommendation across the board to use an appropriate sized model of
Dynaudio speakers for all monitoring applications at BBC Radio and BBC
Music. I assure you that Dynaudio are a brand of speakers which do rate well
against the aforementioned criteria and the outcome of the BBC's research
just reinforces my opinions. By the way I am not saying that any model of
Dynaudio is the "best speaker in the world" as there are far too many
criteria to measure "best" by.

So you don't like the Linkwitz Orions, and I presume you've told
your friend his aren't accurate or correct either. What was his
response? Is he planning to sell them now that you've told him
they didn't measure up? And then one might ask why he didn't
ask you first before wasting his money on them?!

My colleague who has built the Orisons is also a member of the local Audio
Engineering Society too. He gets a lot of enjoyment form playing around as
an amateur engineer, but he hasn't had the benefit of the kind of experience
I have had. If he had talked to me before undertaking the project, he most
likely wouldn't have. But he didn't - just as I don't consult with him on
everything I intend to do. To be honest I am disheartened that so much
effort goes into producing such (to my ear) blatantly unrealistic results.
We have had an extensive string of "tinkerengineering" speaker projects
presented at AES meetings over the years. In almost every case the owner of
the project thinks he is on the cusp of the next best speaker in the world.
One gets a bit jaded after a while. Some of these projects have produced
enchanting results on certain pieces of music if you are in the right
position etc, etc. That just doesn't make them right - just pleasant to some
ears under some conditions.

You posted a reply to my admittedly churlish reply to your original post,
but are you interested in the basis of the four claims I made about the
Orions performance? I think the four claims are (relatively) easily
demonstrable and irrefutable (excepting for an over-riding bias on the part
of the reader - truth like beauty may be in the eye, or ear, of the
beholder), but since you did not ask I have not attempted to address them
here.

Kind regards,

John Matheson

Russ Button wrote:

I think a commercial loudspeaker needs to be able to sound good
most anywhere you put it.


Well, we can dream, can't we?

Unfortunately, we can't circumvent the laws of physics.




Today while my wife was out of the house, I put on a couple of
Maynard Fergusen alblums I used to listen to back in the 70's
and cranked 'em up just to remember what they were like.
I had 'em up far louder than I normally listen and probably
far louder than anyone would want to hear them at. Didn't
strain the system a bit. Full throttle power at both ends
of the audio spectrum, great imaging, and they still sounded
natural. You try standing 5 feet in front of a good lead
trumpet player playing G above high C at double forte and
tell me if you think any $1000 speaker could safely do that.



Having spent the past 30 years working as a musician, and 27 of them as
a professional recording engineer, I've spent enough time 5 feet from a
good lead trumpet player (and even more time in front of a bad lead
trumpet player!) to know that not only can't a $1000/pair of speakers
reproduce that "naturally", but that neither can any
speaker...including yours.

Now, you want to talk about speakers that can reproduce that musical
experience "convincingly" or "satisfyingly" or "accurately enough to
allow the momentary suspension of disbelief", then there might be some
contenders.
I will certainly concede that achieving the peak SPL of the
aforementioned trumpet player while simultaneously maintaining a
modicum of fidelity is probably beyond the capability of most
$1000/speakers. But I will also strongly opine that sheer SPL is the
least difficult part of reproducing an acoustic instrument "naturally".

John Matheson wrote:
You may be feeling smug and your speakers will do some weird
imaging things that you may like - but they are utterly
incapable of recreating the sound of a real acoustic source
as it would sound if it was in the same room.

Gee, that sound like the basic problem with stereo itself, as was
well established by some pretty smart people based on first
principles some 70 years ago.

They have a power response that has severe and extreme
discontinuities,

A property that EVERY musical instrument in existance shares to
degrees FAR worse than loudspeakers do. Ever seen the frequency
dependent radiation patterns or power response of a violin, a
trumpet, a flute, timpani, pipe organ, piano, guitar? By your
implicit criteria, they'd sound perfectly awful in a room.

But they don't. If you think that a speaker with perfect power
response and non-frequency dependent radiation pattern will
accurately recreate the sound of a real acoustic source such as
the examples above, then you need to seriously rethink your
assertion. If a real acoustic source has a highly non-uniform
power repsonse and radiation pattern, how will reproducing the
sound of such from one or two points that have a completely
different radiation pattern sound the same (hint: it won't because
it can't)?

I am glad you enjoy your system, but that does not equate to
accuracy or correctness or even my definition of high fidelity

YOUR definition of high-fidelity? Who asked you? Who cares but you?
If your definition is based on wrong assumptions such as you make
above, then we'd be better of not asking.

because it plays some things well or sounds nice to you.

And that is EXACTLY the criterion the speaker need to meet, for
him. In that context, the speaker are perfect. As yours are for
you.

Buster Mudd wrote:

I will certainly concede that achieving the peak SPL of the
aforementioned trumpet player while simultaneously maintaining a
modicum of fidelity is probably beyond the capability of most
$1000/speakers. But I will also strongly opine that sheer SPL is the
least difficult part of reproducing an acoustic instrument "naturally".

Ah, Do you remember the motto of Cerwin Vega?

"Loud is beautiful if it's clean."

We may all go deaf, but at least it wasn't distorted while
we were going deaf.

Didn't they go into the automobile sound business?

Russ

"John Matheson" wrote in message
...
"
So why am I feeling smug?

None of them sounded better than the Linkwitz Orion based
system I have at home. My electronics are pretty pedestrian
compared to the stuff I was listening to, but if you accept
the possibility that all decent CD players really can sound
alike, then the real difference is in the loudspeakers.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion_challenge.htm


The Orions have the same 3-D imaging that the very best
cost-no-object systems I heard at CES. They have a wonderful
warmth and naturalness that is a real pleasure.

You may be feeling smug and your speakers will do some weird imaging
things
that you may like - but they are utterly incapable of recreating the sound
of a real acoustic source as it would sound if it was in the same room.

What speakers do you believe will do that?

(Yes
I have a friend who has a pair so I know them well).


Did he build the cabinets or have them shipped completed?

They have a power response that has severe and extreme discontinuities, a
midrange driver that literally rings like a bell with breakup modes well
above the passband response level, bass drivers that are slow and muddy
(probably due to severe hysteresis in the roll surrounds) and the mixed
order crossovers alter the quality of the sound too as they are incapable
of
reconstructing the time domain response of the input signal even if the
speakers were taken out of the equation!


Is this your opinion or do you have measured data that backs it up?

I am glad you enjoy your system, but that does not equate to accuracy or
correctness or even my definition of high fidelity let alone high end -
just
because it plays some things well or sounds nice to you.

This seems like some needlessly snobby criticism, especially if it is not
based on measured performance. Linkwitz has designed a truly high quality
speaker that has gotten many favorable reviews. He is also highly regarded
expert in the field, so if you can provide reliable measured data, I would
truly love to hear about it.

There is always a chance that what you heard might be the result of other
factors, such as defective or abused drivers, improperly wired xover, or
other builder related problems.

wrote in message
...
John Matheson wrote:
You may be feeling smug and your speakers will do some weird
imaging things that you may like - but they are utterly
incapable of recreating the sound of a real acoustic source
as it would sound if it was in the same room.

Gee, that sound like the basic problem with stereo itself, as was
well established by some pretty smart people based on first
principles some 70 years ago.

They have a power response that has severe and extreme
discontinuities,

A property that EVERY musical instrument in existance shares to
degrees FAR worse than loudspeakers do. Ever seen the frequency
dependent radiation patterns or power response of a violin, a
trumpet, a flute, timpani, pipe organ, piano, guitar? By your
implicit criteria, they'd sound perfectly awful in a room.

But they don't. If you think that a speaker with perfect power
response and non-frequency dependent radiation pattern will
accurately recreate the sound of a real acoustic source such as
the examples above, then you need to seriously rethink your
assertion. If a real acoustic source has a highly non-uniform
power repsonse and radiation pattern, how will reproducing the
sound of such from one or two points that have a completely
different radiation pattern sound the same (hint: it won't because
it can't)?


Dick, I don't disagree with most of what you say above. But I also can't see
why it contraindicates what I said either. You do seem to be implying that a
loudspeaker with a severely discontinuous power response should be
acceptable because all real acoustic sources are like that. I can't agree
that mitigates the need for a smooth power response in a speaker intended to
replay a variety of types of recorded sounds.

On a slightly unrelated matter, given that: 1. noise induced hearing loss is
a V-notch centred around 4kHz; 2. nearly all conventionally designed
speakers have a power response hole in this region due to driver and
crossover design; 3. sibilance is important to intelligibility and 4; the
human auditory system integrates the first few tens of milliseconds of
energy as far as speech intelligibility is concerned, it is no wonder that
many older people (particularly men who tend to get more exposure to noise)
have real problems understanding dialog, for example lyrics in songs or
dialogue in movies, when played through real speakers in real rooms.

I find supplying speakers with ones that don't suffer such a deep power
response hole is a very personally rewarding occupation for me because of
the very real joy it brings to so many of my clients' lives. That joy comes
from the ability to hear and understand dialogue at normal speaking volumes
in real rooms without strain. The same property makes music reproduction
better too - all other things being equal (which I accept they never are).

John Matheson wrote:
wrote in message
...

Dick, I don't disagree with most of what you say above.
But I also can't see why it contraindicates what I said
either. You do seem to be implying that a loudspeaker with
a severely discontinuous power response should be acceptable
because all real acoustic sources are like that.

I WOULD seem to be saying that only if you did not read what
I wrote.

I can't agree that mitigates the need for a smooth power
response in a speaker intended to replay a variety of types
of recorded sounds.

I never said it did. I was basically challenging YOUR assertion
that a speaker without a smooth power response was incapable
of reproducing the sound of a real musical instrument in
that same space. Specifrically, in one VERY constrained context,
you're right, but only because in the broader context, NO speaker
is capable of faithfully replicating the sound of the instrument
it is attempting to produce in that same space.

On a slightly unrelated matter, given that: 1. noise induced
hearing loss is a V-notch centred around 4kHz; 2. nearly all
conventionally designed speakers have a power response hole
in this region due to driver and crossover design;

I would instantly challenge you to support this assertion: that
"nearly all" conventionally designed speakers suffer form this
problem. Having seen a LOT of conventionally designed speakers,
the mere statistics of your claim are rather easy tp test. Have
you, in fact, done so, or is this simply assuming this to be
axiomatic without once challenging the assumption?

I find supplying speakers with ones that don't suffer such a deep
power
response hole is a very personally rewarding occupation for me
because of
the very real joy it brings to so many of my clients' lives. That joy
comes
from the ability to hear and understand dialogue at normal speaking
volumes
in real rooms without strain. The same property makes music
reproduction
better too - all other things being equal (which I accept they never
are).

Having actually measured it at one point, I find that my copy
of an 18th century fenhc double haprsichord has some pretty
serious holes in the power response at a number of frequencies.

Why have the last 5 centuries of harpsichord makers not experienced
the joy of filling in these serious defects? What's wrong with them?

I'm not being in the least facetious: You basically assert that
an even power response is requisite to the proper enjoyment of
music. I counterassert that such a view is extremely narrow and
overly constrained to the point where it ignore some of the most
fundamental drawbacks at the level of first principles in terms
of recreating a realistic sound field of a musical event. No
doubt even power response is a great specification to crow about,
and one that, really, is not all that hard to achieve. But in doing
so, precisely WHAT problem have you fixed?

Back to the original question: Why is a speaker with a perfect power
response, with a uniform, frequency-independent radiation pattern,
requisite to the production of a realistic sound field of an
instrument in the same venue?

If you say the uniform directivity and power response is good, then
you are also asserting that the lack of such in a real instrument
is bad. If you are saying that the radiation pattern of the instrument
is good, then maybe what you are saying is that uniform power response
and radiation pattern is not necessarily bad, but maybe irrelevant.

In article ,
wrote:

They have a power response that has severe and extreme
discontinuities,

A property that EVERY musical instrument in existance shares to
degrees FAR worse than loudspeakers do.

Your response is strange to say the least. The point is to
capture the instrument's strange and discontinuous power response
accurately.

"John Matheson" wrote in message
...

Linkwitz is entititled to his opinion and to publishing it - having it and
publishing it just doesn't make those opinions any righter.

What, if anything makes them wrong?

Sure there is art in audio engineering - the art of applying good
engineering. Unfortunately far too many "audio engineers" know far too
little to apply good engineering.

And you've done a survey of audio engineeers and therefore know they can't
properly apply good engineering, or is this just an unsupported assertion.

Competent speaker design requires an
understanding of physics, acoustics, physcoacoustics, electrical,
mechnical,
chemical and materials engineering to name but a few. It is way beyond the
capabilities of one person to be an expert in all these fields.

And you're positive that Linkwitz has not consulted other experts in those
fields or is unable to benefit from their teachings, or is this an
unsupported assertion.

Simple
computer models seem to encourage poor application of the "art" too.

Did Linkwitz rely on simple computer models?

I am far too humble to think I could design an accurate loudspeaker.

Then it seems you might not be qualified to critique them, unless you have
some actual measurements on the Orions.

Floyd
Toole, Sean Olive and others through the NRC in Canada and Harman
International have conducted many decades of comprehesive research into
what
are the important charateristics for speakers and I don't think that the
Orions would stack up well by the scientifically established criterion.

Based on what?

But
nor would many so call High End designs irrespective of price. I'm also a
reader of the papers of David Griesinger who I feel knows close to as much
as the rest of the world put together about the physcoacoustics of spacial
sound reproduction and perception. His papers give a physcoacoustical
basis
to the empirical findings of Toole et al.


Is it perhaps possible, that Linkwitz is familiar with them as well?

I am glad you enjoy your system, but that does not equate to accuracy or
correctness or even my definition of high fidelity let alone high end -
just because it plays some things well or sounds nice to you.

Then what criteria should one use? Do you pick ones that don't sound nice
on what you like to listen too?


I thought that was the criteria that we each use in making a purchase.
We each listen to equipment and choose what seems to us to be what
we want.

Of course people are free to make whatever choices they like for whatever
reason. It gets up my nose (as you can no doubt tell) when someone becomes
evangelistical about a personal experience.

With all do respect, you seem to be doing that same thing.


I find the notion of "like the
sound of" and "don't like the sound of" in audio engineering sailing just
a
bit too close to the fashion industry - but I guess that is what high
fidelity industry has become - fashion.

Bingo. How else do you explain things like the Silver Rock Signature Knob
$480.00



I have conducted research into speaker
design with John Dunlavey (independently using his facilities - not as an
employee); I've run a performing arts centre sound department managing a
staff of up to 25 audio engineers at times; I've been involved in my local
section of the Audio Engineering Society for more than 20 years and have
presented many meetings on the various facets of audio engineering
including
speaker design criteria for "accuracy" in reproduction and blind
evaluations
of professional speakers which left some proponents of particular brands
decidedly red faced;

I'd keep that quiet if I were you, the whole DBT thing is kinda touchy
around here. :-)

I've been a technical writer for a national journal in
professional sound engineering; I designed quite a few professional and
consumer loudspeakers; I have designed sound reinforcement systems for
dozens of local and national touring musicals and opera; I've worked as a
sound designer with many symphony orchestras and opera companies; and I
have
worked as a consulting engineer in electo-acoustics for a national
acoustical consultancy. Over a couple of decades I have collected scores
of
letters and published reviews praising the quality of sound of my
designs -
many for operas - and never had a bad review published to my knowledge.
I've
collected about 40 reviews on just one show published in papers and
journals
on three continents - all praising the quality of sound (it was an opera
with 80% of the audience from overseas - so I think it had a critical
audience too). So I too feel I have an incling about natural sound.

All of my experience has lead to believe that the human auditory
experience
is incredibly fickle, hence the "so many different attempts at producing
hi-end audio". That and misguided beliefs and just plain financial greed.

The idea of what Hi-Fi is all about seems to have gotten lost a long time
ago.
Faithfullness to the original master. These days people want to design
signature sounding gear of all kind. If there's a lot of different
signatures, I'm betting a lot of the concept of faithfulness to the orignial
master is lost.


I can also claim to be part of the germination of the choice of
methodology
behind the recent extensive double blind evaluation of dozens of
professional monitors by the BBC in London recently. This is probably the
single most extensive and bias controlled evaluation of speaker
"naturalness" ever undertaken anywhere.

Again with the DBT talk! You must have a death wish. :-)

The results of that evaluation was
the recommendation across the board to use an appropriate sized model of
Dynaudio speakers for all monitoring applications at BBC Radio and BBC
Music. I assure you that Dynaudio are a brand of speakers which do rate
well
against the aforementioned criteria and the outcome of the BBC's research
just reinforces my opinions. By the way I am not saying that any model of
Dynaudio is the "best speaker in the world" as there are far too many
criteria to measure "best" by.

Well, the Evidence Temtation might be a contender.


My colleague who has built the Orisons is also a member of the local Audio
Engineering Society too. He gets a lot of enjoyment form playing around as
an amateur engineer, but he hasn't had the benefit of the kind of
experience
I have had. If he had talked to me before undertaking the project, he most
likely wouldn't have. But he didn't - just as I don't consult with him on
everything I intend to do. To be honest I am disheartened that so much
effort goes into producing such (to my ear) blatantly unrealistic results.
We have had an extensive string of "tinkerengineering" speaker projects
presented at AES meetings over the years. In almost every case the owner
of
the project thinks he is on the cusp of the next best speaker in the
world.
One gets a bit jaded after a while.

Welcome to the HIGH end.

Some of these projects have produced
enchanting results on certain pieces of music if you are in the right
position etc, etc. That just doesn't make them right - just pleasant to
some
ears under some conditions.

Are there any kits or DIY projects that you believe to be accurate?

You posted a reply to my admittedly churlish reply to your original post,
but are you interested in the basis of the four claims I made about the
Orions performance? I think the four claims are (relatively) easily
demonstrable and irrefutable (excepting for an over-riding bias on the
part
of the reader - truth like beauty may be in the eye, or ear, of the
beholder), but since you did not ask I have not attempted to address them
here.

Can you support your assertions with any sort of measured data?
Since you are the only person I've heard criticize them, I'd be interested
in what data you use to prove your case.

I have heard what I think are some very good DIY kits from Dynaudio,
designed by Joe D'Appolito and from SEAS also designed by him.

They sounded very accurate to my ears and gave a very good performance of
any kind of music I threw at them.

John Matheson wrote:


I can also claim to be part of the germination of the choice of
methodology
behind the recent extensive double blind evaluation of dozens of
professional monitors by the BBC in London recently. This is probably
the
single most extensive and bias controlled evaluation of speaker
"naturalness" ever undertaken anywhere. The results of that
evaluation was
the recommendation across the board to use an appropriate sized model
of
Dynaudio speakers for all monitoring applications at BBC Radio and
BBC
Music. I assure you that Dynaudio are a brand of speakers which do
rate well
against the aforementioned criteria and the outcome of the BBC's
research
just reinforces my opinions.

John,

I would love to know more details about this BBC monitor search and
their evaluation methods, criteria, results, etc. ANywhere I can read
up on this? Thanks.

Roscoe East

"Roscoe East" wrote in message
...
John Matheson wrote:


I can also claim to be part of the germination of the choice of
methodology
behind the recent extensive double blind evaluation of dozens of
professional monitors by the BBC in London recently. This is probably
the
single most extensive and bias controlled evaluation of speaker
"naturalness" ever undertaken anywhere. The results of that
evaluation was
the recommendation across the board to use an appropriate sized model
of
Dynaudio speakers for all monitoring applications at BBC Radio and
BBC
Music. I assure you that Dynaudio are a brand of speakers which do
rate well
against the aforementioned criteria and the outcome of the BBC's
research
just reinforces my opinions.

John,

I would love to know more details about this BBC monitor search and
their evaluation methods, criteria, results, etc. ANywhere I can read
up on this? Thanks.

Roscoe East

There is a sanitised marketing department version of it on Dynaudio's
international web site - but it reveals no real details of the methodology.
(http://www.dynaudio.com/) I happen to know a bit of the methodology
anecdotally because of personal connections. I think the BBC would like to
keep quiet about it to avoid severely upsetting a lot of manufacturers, many
British too.

John Matheson

wrote in message
...
John Matheson wrote:

On a slightly unrelated matter, given that: 1. noise induced
hearing loss is a V-notch centred around 4kHz; 2. nearly all
conventionally designed speakers have a power response hole
in this region due to driver and crossover design;

I would instantly challenge you to support this assertion: that
"nearly all" conventionally designed speakers suffer form this
problem. Having seen a LOT of conventionally designed speakers,
the mere statistics of your claim are rather easy tp test. Have
you, in fact, done so, or is this simply assuming this to be
axiomatic without once challenging the assumption?


It is easy to test and I have tested it hundreds of times. But even if I
hadn't:

1. It is a consequence of the laws of physics (which all manufacturers
share - none get exemption) of conventional cone mid-range drivers &
high-order crossover design;
2. There is a gazillion published polar plots and off axis frequency
responses in the public domain that prove the assertion.


Having actually measured it at one point, I find that my copy
of an 18th century fenhc double haprsichord has some pretty
serious holes in the power response at a number of frequencies.

Why have the last 5 centuries of harpsichord makers not experienced
the joy of filling in these serious defects? What's wrong with them?


It doesn't need fixing - it's clearly part of the character of the sound of
the harpsichord. It does mean that the room the harpsichord is in has a huge
bearing on how the harpsichord sounds - but that should not be news to
anyone.

I'm not being in the least facetious: You basically assert that
an even power response is requisite to the proper enjoyment of
music.

I am not sure how you drew the conclusion that I asserted any such thing.

I counterassert that such a view is extremely narrow and
overly constrained to the point where it ignore some of the most
fundamental drawbacks at the level of first principles in terms
of recreating a realistic sound field of a musical event. No
doubt even power response is a great specification to crow about,
and one that, really, is not all that hard to achieve. But in doing
so, precisely WHAT problem have you fixed?

The problem that is fixed is better described by some of the references I've
made in other posts than I could do justice to here. Basically it's about
perceived sound quality. I think it is a sufficiently well scientifically
established to be accepted for good practice in speaker design.

Back to the original question: Why is a speaker with a perfect power
response, with a uniform, frequency-independent radiation pattern,
requisite to the production of a realistic sound field of an
instrument in the same venue?

I have not suggested such a speaker system. I suggest now that it needs a
flat(ish) on axis response and a declining power response (that is a
frequency-dependent radiation pattern). Why a declining power response?
Because nearly all real acoustic sources that we want to listen to have
declining power responses, where by power response I mean total radiated
energy versus frequency. I accept that doesn't mean the speaker is capable
of replicating the sound of any individual source in that space. To do that,
clearly it would have to have the SAME power response (and much more
importantly) the SAME directional response as the original source. Clearly
that is impractical for a hi-fi.

If you say the uniform directivity and power response is good, then
you are also asserting that the lack of such in a real instrument
is bad. If you are saying that the radiation pattern of the instrument
is good, then maybe what you are saying is that uniform power response
and radiation pattern is not necessarily bad, but maybe irrelevant.

If I said it - well I didn't! I had not until this post made any comments
about the power response of real sound sources. Of course that causes a
dilemma in recording real sources - where do you put the microphones. I
maintain that the best option for a speaker is a power response that is free
of major discontinuities and I think that should be fairly self evident from
your own essay. After all why would you want a speaker to overlay IT'S power
response irregularities on top of your recordings? The challenge is to find
a reasonable average power response that mimics sources such as, say
orchestra and voice. Funnily enough (or maybe not) the power response (not
directional response) requirement for these two disparate sources is not
dissimilar.

John Matheson wrote:

Linkwitz is entititled to his opinion and to publishing it - having it and
publishing it just doesn't make those opinions any righter.

Have you ever considered writing to Linkwitz with your concerns?
His website lists his e-mail address and he does respond to
questions. Perhaps if you were to discuss his choice of drivers
with him, you might discern why he made the choices he did.
Together you might also come up with possible improvements
or even a completely new design.

I am far too humble to think I could design an accurate loudspeaker.

But you're not too humble to speak harshly of what I, and many other
people consider to be a very good sounding design. But since you've
made the point of dumping all over the Orions, you should tell us
what it is you listen to at home.

Tell us about the room you have your system in. Do you
use acoustic room treatments such as tube traps?

Is your own system one you consider to be "accurate"?

How much money do you have invested in your system?

Why did you choose the components you have?

Are you someone with budgetary restrictions?

How did they play into your choices?

You posted a reply to my admittedly churlish reply to your original post,
but are you interested in the basis of the four claims I made about the
Orions performance? I think the four claims are (relatively) easily
demonstrable and irrefutable (excepting for an over-riding bias on the
part of the reader - truth like beauty may be in the eye, or ear, of the
beholder), but since you did not ask I have not attempted to address them
here.

There is never a need to be "churlish" in a discussion. Certainly not
when you are first introducing yourself. First impressions are typically
lasting ones. Acting "churlish" never helps to bring credibility to your
claims.

One of the reasons I made my original post was to suggest that the Orions
sounded as good as the best systems I'd heard at CES. I admit that I
saw only a fraction of what was there, but it was still a pretty good
sample. The Orions are a real bargin compared to the very fine systems
I heard at CES. I have about $4000 invested in the package consisting
of the Orion drivers, speaker enclosures, crossover and power amplification.
Compared to $27,000, $100,000 or $165,000, the prices for the three
systems I referenced, $4000 looks pretty good.

Audio engineering, like so many other types of engineering, is often about
designing within constraints and/or making compromises. The most visible
constraint for most of us is budget. I'd like to suggest that whatever
sound system design you present, that costs be part of that description.

I wouldn't be reading this forum if I weren't interested in learning
more. So please enlighten us.

Russ Button

Ross, I didn't mean my post to be churlish - it just came out that way -
sorry. Maybe I had indigestion at the time. However criticism is what drives
improvement and I am not ashamed to play a part. I wasn't at CES so I can't
comment on your findings other than to say it doesn't surprise me. I haven't
had any reason to talk to Linkwitz - he is one of a thousand speaker DIY'ers
with and internet site. He is obviously a knowledgeable person, but I do not
concur with his views and I doubt that I can change his or he mine.

I currently don't have a system at home at the moment - I'm rarely here
anyway. But I own a hi-if shop so I get to listen to a variety of speakers
there. There are speakers around that I could live with for $5,000 or so,
and plenty that I could not live with at many times the price.

I have bought and sold hundreds of speakers over the years from dozens of
manufacturers, a fair proportion of which I have tested in one way or
another. I used to have access to a large indoor void in which I could get
first reflections out to 50mS or so in half space or 25mS in free space
allowing me to do gated measurements with accuracy to quite low frequencies.
I've used gated software based measurement systems including Clio, IMP and
MLSSA as well as real time analysers and sweep testers from Ivie, Neutrik,
and dual FFT from Bruel & Kjaer. And I've used LEAP (loudspeaker design
program) and LMS (loudspeaker measurement program) and CATT (acoustical
symulation program).

I concur with Floyd Toole's findings that a speaker needs a smooth power
response declining with rising frequency for naturalness in sound
reproduction in a general sense. In his papers he gives a very thorough
dissertation on what is important to get right and what doesn't matter in
speaker design and although I haven't read his papers for some time I
remember feeling that my experiences were in line with his findings. I am
not a fan of the dipole / bipole school. I believe in most instances a
monopole with flattish on axis frequency response, smoothly declining power
response and relatively free of colouration (or self-signature) is an easier
speaker to live with for most people, given the variability of recordings
and people's listening rooms. Linkwitz's claims on the dipole behaviour of
speakers does not bear too close scrutiny - acoustic behaviour in real rooms
is much more complex than his arguments assume.

After 20 years in professional audio engineering (my career prior to buying
the hi-fi shop), I feel I have developed an ability to identify what I call
a speaker's "signature" fairly rapidly, even if I am unfamiliar with the
source material played through it. A lot of this ability is through being
able to have a useful conceptual model of what the speaker does. In other
words, the ability is a learned one but the conceptual model was an
important tool in the learning. I will attempt to describe it here - at the
risk of other posters finding holes in it, because it is not an engineering
model, but a layman's model. Those holes are certainly there to be found,
but they do not invalidate the tool.

A speaker system is a collection of mass/spring/damper systems - hundreds or
thousands of subsystems such as the obvious ones like cabinet sides, but
also individual bits of cone and even the speaker basket, etc . Each
subsystem has its natural resonance(s) and Q. Even the electrical parameters
of the drivers and crossovers are implicated here. When all of these
sub-systems are excited by a transient (something that happens frequently in
music, speech or any real sounds) each resonant subsystem rings to a greater
or lessor degree depending on the nature of the transient and the level of
excitation it provides to that subsystem. This ringing generates noise (or
musical notes if you like - it's essentially how musical instruments work)
and as a result that noise is added to the reproduced signal. That is the
speaker's "signature" and it is there on every drum beat, on every hammer
striking a piano string, on every vocal implosive, even on the raspy edge of
a trumpet or reed instrument's note.

So how do I hear the signature? It's become relatively easy after I arrived
at the conceptual model above. You can change the music but the speaker's
signature doesn't change! Sure it will manifest differently but its
character is there to be heard all of the time on every source.

The speaker's signature is all "noise and distortion" because it isn't in
the original signal. Even if a speaker sounds good or musical it is STILL
WRONG if it is generating its own contribution to the sound. Of course a
perfect speaker does not exist so there is colour in all real speakers to a
greater or lessor degree. Naturally I like the one's at the lessor end of
the scale.

I find this to be a remarkable conceptual tool that to a great extent
circumvents unknown source material in speaker evaluation and even odd
acoustics in an unknown listening environment (because odd acoustics do
different things to sound quite unlike the kind of things the speaker's
resonant subsystems do). I can draw conclusions very rapidly and there is
little room for error. In other words a second and third listening, even
under different circumstances, won't normally change my conclusions or
convictions. By the way I am not suggesting this as a method of
scientifically ranking speakers - it's just an evaluation tool that is
remarkably handy in coming to a rapid conclusion that passes the test of
time. The ability to make a quick and reliable assessment was something I
had previously struggled with, as have pretty much all of the other audio
professionals and music buffs I know. It doesn't take into account frequency
response or power response necessarily either, so it is not a complete
picture.

If you want to experiment with this concept I suggest these. Take the rubber
mat off a midrange turntable and rap the platter with you knuckles- it will
ring "like a bell". Replace the mat and play a record. Unless you have an
exceptional turntable, you will hear the note platter produced buried in the
music. This may not be easy to hear at first, unless you have a particularly
bad turntable of course. You will be easily able to hear individual panels
resonating in a poorly implemented speaker design once you have identified
what they sound like by tapping them. Try tapping the dust cap on a speaker
with a rigid dust cap. Bingo - that will be audible in music too. I
sometimes use a stethoscope to track down the source of a particular
coloration.

Now take a magnesium cone loudspeaker - it's a great "hash" generator. Many
people mistake the hash for "detail" and conclude that some recordings that
are made unlistennable on these speakers (strident female vocals, saxophone,
complex choral works, etc.) are bad. Well it ain't true - they're just bad
speakers and incapable of producing natural sounding music as far as I am
concerned. Regarding the driver used as a midrange drive in the Orions, you
can see Seas's own data he http://www.seas.no/excel_line/excel/E0022.pdf
It shows cone break-up modes (i.e. resonances) more than 20dB higher in
level than the passband response!!!! I've measured these speakers and if you
want to be truly horrified, you should see what they do to a step waveform,
which by the way is a good way of understanding what they will do when
excited by transients.

Even though the crossover attempts to remove this part of the speaker's
response, the hash these modes generate is blatantly obvious in music
reproduced by them - once you are able to identify it. (Linkwitz's crossover
attempts to suppress the first ring mode by 50 dB or so but they are still
starting from 20dB up. At 50 - 20 = 30dB below the music, the ring modes are
clearly audible in the Orions and a serious enough defect for give the
speaker a "fail" in my opinion.) Why is that important even if the speaker
sounds "nice"? Well it makes the speaker fussy about what you can play on it
and I suggest it makes the speaker fatiguing to listen to as well.

I do not understand how Linkwitz can claim the Orion speakers to have a
"nearly flat power response" unless he has some special laws of physics he
gets to use exclusively (and if they DID it wouldn't be good either!). A
power response hole is clearly evident in the published data for the drivers
(and is in line with what the laws of physics I am familiar with would
expect me to exist).

The Peerless XLS bass drivers are another driver that I can not like, though
I don't know exactly why in a technical sense. It has been put to me by
another loudspeaker design engineer that the hysteresis in the roll
surrounds is probably the cause of their "sound". I can't exactly say what
it is about them that I don't like (except to say I really don't like the
sound of their reproduction which I find quite unnatural). I have
constructed four different alignments of the four variants of these
drivers - two sealed alignments and two passive radiator alignments. In the
frequency domain they measure as they should - but they have a peculiar
sound that is not to my liking because they can't, for example, reproduce
drum sound like any drums I have ever heard. My employer at the time did end
up using the 12 inch XLS drivers in a sealed alignment with equalisation to
be -1dB at 20Hz in a consumer product with two drivers in each speaker
system and an amplifier for each one. They were impressive to listen to but
not for the naturalness of bass reproduction.

I was absolutely gobsmacked when I heard these drivers in an open baffle
arrangement in the Orions. The bass sound had the SAME character I disliked
in the four alignments I had prototyped. So the drivers can only be
implicated here. I don't understand people's obsession with these XLS
drivers given what they sound like. I suspect that Peerless specifically
engineered them to produce "a good set of numbers" for computer programs
that model bass alignments. Unfortunately the Thiele Small alignment model
and it's derivatives are just that - models - that have fundamental
limitations. They can't predict the real world sound of systems - yet I have
known many speaker designers that put more faith in the modelling than their
own ears! Last time I talked to Neville Thiele (of Thiele Small fame) he
expressed some exasperation about how the models are taken too seriously, or
at least extrapolated way beyond meaning.

Another poster on this news group once suggested his means of evaluating
speaker quality (in another thread). He said he moved away to find how far
he could get whilst the speakers still sounded reasonable. At first sight,
this seems a little naff. But there is method in this madness. What he was
doing was moving from the near field where we tend to listen to speakers
into the reverberent (far) field - where the room is integrating the total
radation behavior of the speaker. (This is how we tend to listen the live
performances and a key to why instuments sound the way they do - hint: they
sound different close up where we tend to put microphones - doh.) A speaker
that performs well on my power response criteria maintains its sound quality
in the far field and stands up better to poor acoustic environments. Another
reason for my preferences.

Anyway I have probably written enough for now. Congratulations if you've
read this far!

John Matheson



"Russ Button" wrote in message
...
John Matheson wrote:

Linkwitz is entititled to his opinion and to publishing it - having it
and publishing it just doesn't make those opinions any righter.

Have you ever considered writing to Linkwitz with your concerns?
His website lists his e-mail address and he does respond to
questions. Perhaps if you were to discuss his choice of drivers
with him, you might discern why he made the choices he did.
Together you might also come up with possible improvements
or even a completely new design.

I am far too humble to think I could design an accurate loudspeaker.

But you're not too humble to speak harshly of what I, and many other
people consider to be a very good sounding design. But since you've
made the point of dumping all over the Orions, you should tell us
what it is you listen to at home.

Tell us about the room you have your system in. Do you
use acoustic room treatments such as tube traps?

Is your own system one you consider to be "accurate"?

How much money do you have invested in your system?

Why did you choose the components you have?

Are you someone with budgetary restrictions?

How did they play into your choices?

You posted a reply to my admittedly churlish reply to your original
post,
but are you interested in the basis of the four claims I made about the
Orions performance? I think the four claims are (relatively) easily
demonstrable and irrefutable (excepting for an over-riding bias on the
part of the reader - truth like beauty may be in the eye, or ear, of the
beholder), but since you did not ask I have not attempted to address
them
here.

There is never a need to be "churlish" in a discussion. Certainly not
when you are first introducing yourself. First impressions are typically
lasting ones. Acting "churlish" never helps to bring credibility to your
claims.

One of the reasons I made my original post was to suggest that the Orions
sounded as good as the best systems I'd heard at CES. I admit that I
saw only a fraction of what was there, but it was still a pretty good
sample. The Orions are a real bargin compared to the very fine systems
I heard at CES. I have about $4000 invested in the package consisting
of the Orion drivers, speaker enclosures, crossover and power
amplification.
Compared to $27,000, $100,000 or $165,000, the prices for the three
systems I referenced, $4000 looks pretty good.

Audio engineering, like so many other types of engineering, is often about
designing within constraints and/or making compromises. The most visible
constraint for most of us is budget. I'd like to suggest that whatever
sound system design you present, that costs be part of that description.

I wouldn't be reading this forum if I weren't interested in learning
more. So please enlighten us.

Russ Button

John Matheson wrote:

Ross, I didn't mean my post to be churlish - it just came out that way -
sorry. Maybe I had indigestion at the time. However criticism is what drives
improvement and I am not ashamed to play a part. I wasn't at CES so I can't
comment on your findings other than to say it doesn't surprise me. I haven't
had any reason to talk to Linkwitz - he is one of a thousand speaker DIY'ers
with and internet site.

er..he's rather a bit more than *that*, actually.

from
http://stereophile.com/interviews/503/

//
Siegfried Linkwitz was born in Germany in 1935. He received his
electrical engineering degree from Darmstadt Technical University
prior to moving to California in 1961 to work for
Hewlett-Packard. During his early years in the USA, he did
postgraduate work at Stanford University. For over 30 years Mr.
Linkwitz has developed electronic test equipment ranging from
signal generators, to network and spectrum analyzers, to
microwave sweepers and instrumentation for evaluating
electromagnetic compatibility.

He has also had a long and distinguished second career as an
audio engineering visionary. Along with Russ Riley he developed
the famed, and widely used, Linkwitz-Riley crossover filter in
the mid-1970s. Since then, he has contributed several important
technical papers covering a variety of measurement and speaker
issues to such publications as the Journal of the Audio
Engineering Society, Electronics (Wireless) World, and Speaker
Builder.
//

On 1/23/05 10:35 AM, in article , "John
Matheson" wrote:

I concur with Floyd Toole's findings that a speaker needs a smooth power
response declining with rising frequency for naturalness in sound
reproduction in a general sense. In his papers he gives a very thorough
dissertation on what is important to get right and what doesn't matter in
speaker design and although I haven't read his papers for some time I
remember feeling that my experiences were in line with his findings. I am
not a fan of the dipole / bipole school. I believe in most instances a
monopole with flattish on axis frequency response, smoothly declining power
response and relatively free of colouration (or self-signature) is an easier
speaker to live with for most people, given the variability of recordings
and people's listening rooms. Linkwitz's claims on the dipole behaviour of
speakers does not bear too close scrutiny - acoustic behaviour in real rooms
is much more complex than his arguments assume.

Interesting then that nearly all the speaker divisions Floyd oversees at
Harman make extensive use of high order crossover networks and metal cone
drivers. This includes Infinity, Revel, and JBL.In fact, if you look at the
top of the line Revel products you see 4th order networks, titanium midrange
cones, and aluminum dome tweeters. Yet the spec sheets and product
descriptions make strong claims of extremely smooth on and off axis response
and very low distortion. What's going on here? Does Floyd not understand
that such claims are simply impossible? How can he allow such "hash
generators" to be released into the market?

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
John Matheson wrote:



- he is one of a thousand speaker DIY'ers
with and internet site.

er..he's rather a bit more than *that*, actually.


Oops, Steven, I'll re-order the words and add back in the context you
deleted:

....he has one of a thousand speaker DIY internet sites. He is obviously a
knowledgeable person...

John Matheson wrote:
I haven't had any reason to talk to Linkwitz - he is one of a
thousand speaker DIY'ers with and internet site.

Perhaps with your extensive knowledge of who does and does not
have an internet site, you might consider one internet site,
www.aes.org, on which you will find that the good Mr. Linkwitz
has some association, to wit:

Linkwitz, S. H., "Active Crossover Networks for Noncoincident
Drivers," J. Audio Eng. Soc., Volume 24 Number 1 pp. 2-8;
January/February 1976

Linkwitz, S. H., "Passive Crossover Networks for Noncoincident
Drivers," J. Audio Eng. Soc., Volume 26 Number 3 pp. 149-150;
March 1978

Linkwitz, S. H., "Shaped Tone-Burst Testing," J. Audio Eng.
Soc., Volume 28 Number 4 pp. 250-258; April 1980

Linkwitz, S. H., "Why Is Bass Reproduction from a Dipole Woofer
in a Living Room Often Subjectively More Accurate Than from
a Monopole Woofer?" J. Audio Eng. Soc., Volume 51 Number 11
pp. 1062-1063; November 2003

It might be worth noting that Mr. Linkwitz, who, according to you,
is a simple "DIY'er with a website," also happens to be the same
author of the aforementioned AES articles cited by the likes of
D'Appolito in his articles on crossovers, among others.

So, then, who is the authority on this topic? A "DIY'er with a
website who just HAPPENS to have a number of technical articles
on the topic puplished in a peer-reviewed technical journal? Or
a person who:

"currently doesn't have a system at home at the moment",

Someone who:

"owns a hi-if shop"

who

"bought and sold hundreds of speakers over the years"

and who

"used to have access to a large indoor void"

and

"used gated software based measurement systems ... and LEAP..."

???

John Matheson wrote:
"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...
John Matheson wrote:



- he is one of a thousand speaker DIY'ers
with and internet site.

er..he's rather a bit more than *that*, actually.


Oops, Steven, I'll re-order the words and add back in the context you
deleted:

...he has one of a thousand speaker DIY internet sites. He is obviously a
knowledgeable person...


And yet you still don't seem to realize, he's not just a knowledgeable
person with a 'speaker DIY website'. He's a famous figure in the speaker
design field, dating from before there *was* a WWW.

John,

I would love to know more details about this BBC monitor search and
their evaluation methods, criteria, results, etc. ANywhere I can read
up on this? Thanks.

Roscoe East

Roscoe,
Michael McKelvy

alludes to it in his post:

For those who Like the BBC LS3/5A (long)

I couldn't find it there but found it he

http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/docs/freedo..._Selection.htm

John Matheson

On 1/23/05 10:35 AM, in article , "John
Matheson" wrote:

Now take a magnesium cone loudspeaker - it's a great "hash" generator. Many
people mistake the hash for "detail" and conclude that some recordings that
are made unlistennable on these speakers (strident female vocals, saxophone,
complex choral works, etc.) are bad. Well it ain't true - they're just bad
speakers and incapable of producing natural sounding music as far as I am
concerned.

So you're saying Joe D'Appolito, Vance Dickason, Siegfried Linkwitz, Jack
Hidley at NHT, and so many others have no ability to discern a good driver?
All this time we all thought the magnesium cones' orders of magnitude
reduction of harmonic and IM components were responsible for the clean sound
they heard from those drivers. But according to you, they're all wrong.
They're just hearing hash. By your count these guys must just be plain deaf.

Regarding the driver used as a midrange drive in the Orions, you
can see Seas's own data he http://www.seas.no/excel_line/excel/E0022.pdf
It shows cone break-up modes (i.e. resonances) more than 20dB higher in
level than the passband response!!!!

In my world, and that of every speaker designer I know, you reference the
peak magnitude to the average sensitivity of the driver's pass band, not to
a response dip. Given that the data sheet clearly places the average SPL at
about 88dB (normalized to 2 pi radiation), and the peak at a bit over 100dB,
that would give you a 12-13dB peak, not the 20dB!!!!!! you so dramatically
quote. And that well defined peak is easily suppressed using a simple notch
filter, leaving a very clean pass band to work with. That's the whole idea
behind the design.

I've measured these speakers and if you
want to be truly horrified, you should see what they do to a step waveform,
which by the way is a good way of understanding what they will do when
excited by transients.

Forgive me if I don't quite grasp this. You put a step waveform into a
transducer that is, by definition, bandwidth limited with a defined out of
band resonance. Then, you're "horrified" to see that the resultant waveform
is not a step and has the out of band resonance superimposed because your
step signal excited it? Just exactly what have you learned from this
exercise that you could not have just as easily figured out by simply
examining the frequency response curve on the data sheet?

Now, since you're so easily horrified by tests, you might drop dead when you
see a laser holography scan of virtually any soft or composite cone (paper,
poly, aerogel, glass fiber, kevlar,etc). What you see is utter chaos-one
part of the cone moving in while the other moves out-sometimes in violent
fashion and constantly changing with frequency. Compare that with a scan of
a magnesium cone below breakup where all you see is pistonic motion.
You can hypothesize all you want that all of this mechanical chaos somehow
is rendered audibly insignificant because of "self damping", and that the
resultant output emerges undistorted. But it doesn't take exotic
measurements to prove this isn't true.
Prior to introducing the Excel Magnesium cone drivers we introduced an 8"
woofer with a paper cone.
This is a highly regarded Kurt Mueller paper cone, chosen for low distortion
and excellent damping properties, and used by many high end driver
manufacturers. You can see a data sheet at:
http://seas.no/excel_line/excel/E004.PDF. The only acoustic variable between
this and the W22EX001 is the cone. The motor and suspension are virtually
the same between the two. Compare the distortion graphs between the paper
and magnesium versions and look at you'll see how much higher the second and
third order in band products are with the paper cone. And, trust me, this
distortion is not confined to lower order harmonics. A simple sine sweep of
this paper driver clearly reveals audible resonances in the pass band while
a sweep of the magnesium cone unit under the same conditions sounds much
cleaner. The paper cone drive would probably look better in your step
response test. But that's more an indication of the uselessness of such a
test than the quality of the driver itself.
Would it be nice not to have the break-up mode? Sure, but it is not the
fatal flaw you make it out to be, nor is it responsible for some kind of
"false detail" as you claim. There are plenty of diverging opinions about
what constitutes "the best driver" This is the reason why we and many other
manufacturers make them available with different materials. If there was one
perfect way to do it, there would be very few drivers in our line. As it
stands today, we have hundreds.

Even though the crossover attempts to remove this part of the speaker's
response, the hash these modes generate is blatantly obvious in music
reproduced by them - once you are able to identify it. (Linkwitz's crossover
attempts to suppress the first ring mode by 50 dB or so but they are still
starting from 20dB up. At 50 - 20 = 30dB below the music, the ring modes are
clearly audible in the Orions and a serious enough defect for give the
speaker a "fail" in my opinion.)

The "ring mode" is at 5kHz. The midrange crossover network attenuates output
at 5Khz near 50dB on its own. You seem not to take into account the active
notch filter centered at 5kHz that adds an additional 16dB attenuation over
and above the crossover's 4th order slope. Taken together, this adds up to
approx 65dB signal attenuation from the pass band level. If you take the
corrected calculation of the driver's peak magnitude, you end up with the
level of that peak suppressed at least 20 dB (100x) more than your 30dB
claim. I verified this in conversation with Dr. Linkwitz.

The Peerless XLS bass drivers are another driver that I can not like, though
I don't know exactly why in a technical sense. It has been put to me by
another loudspeaker design engineer that the hysteresis in the roll
surrounds is probably the cause of their "sound".

I doubt it. We have done extensive Klippel analysis of these drivers and the
hysteresis issue is no better or worse than any other 10" long throw bass
driver we have tested. These drivers use high quality natural rubber
surrounds that keep hysteresis to a minimum. Besides, hysteresis effects are
most pronounced at small excursions. Given that the Orion woofers are
equalized for dipole radiation, their excursion is far greater for a given
spl than would be the case in an enclosure application. If anything ,this
would minimize the hysteresis effect. Linkwitz also wisely mounts the
drivers in "push pull" (one pointing in, the other pointing out) and this
serves to balance out some of the even order products generated by the
modulation of the surround roll.

Unfortunately the Thiele Small alignment model
and it's derivatives are just that - models - that have fundamental
limitations. They can't predict the real world sound of systems - yet I have
known many speaker designers that put more faith in the modelling than their
own ears!

Well isn't that what you are doing here? You say the midrange can't be good,
not just because you don't like the sound, but because you see an out of
band breakup mode on the data sheet. Then you turn around and say you don't
like the bass, but you admit to having no technical reason for doing so. It
just seems to me that your dislike of this speaker is based as much on
preconceived notions as it is upon what you are hearing. And I strongly
suspect that one influences the other.

John Stone
SEAS USA

John Matheson" wrote:


Unfortunately the Thiele Small alignment model
and it's derivatives are just that - models - that have fundamental
limitations. They can't predict the real world sound of systems - yet I
have
known many speaker designers that put more faith in the modelling than
their
own ears!


John Stone wrote:


Well isn't that what you are doing here? You say the midrange can't be
good,
not just because you don't like the sound, but because you see an out of
band breakup mode on the data sheet. Then you turn around and say you
don't
like the bass, but you admit to having no technical reason for doing so. It
just seems to me that your dislike of this speaker is based as much on
preconceived notions as it is upon what you are hearing. And I strongly
suspect that one influences the other.


I'm just a home brew audiophile, but as I've mentioned a number
of times before, I've listened to a lot of systems over the past
30+ years I've enjoyed hi-end audio.

I'm not an electrical engineer, but I know enough to get myself in
trouble. I certainly don't have access to speaker driver test equipment,
let alone know how to use it. Like so many of us, a lot of what I take
an interest in begins with reputation. A piece of equipment or a
loudspeaker gets favorable comment from a variety of sources and
then I go take a look-see for myself.

I'm not a member of the "Component of the Month Club". I typically
own and operate a set system configuration for several years at a
time. My previous system was in operation for about 10 years
before I decided to move to the Linkwitz Orion. I've never spent
that much ($4000) at once on an audio system. That's a lot of
money to me. Not to you perhaps, but it is to me.

I respect anyone's reputation, but the real test comes from when
I listen. I didn't look at any driver documentation or test
results. I just listened.

Frankly I wasn't unhappy with the sound of my old system. I had
moved to a smaller home and it was just too big for the room it was
in. My previous loudspeakers were X-Static, full-range, curved
diaphram electrostatics. They did wonders with voices and
acoustic instruments. I augmented them with a pair of Thiel
aligned sub-woofers I'd built some years ago that were powered
by a separate amp/Marchand active crossover. A wonderful system.
So I know what I'm listening to.

There was only one dynamic loudspeaker I'd ever heard that
compared to my 'stats, and that was what I heard from Avalon
Acoustics. Great stuff but waaaaaaaaay out of my price range.

And then I heard the Linkwitz Orion.

You can engineer and design all you want, but in the end,
the point of all this is that it all comes down to listening.
John Stone is correct in that you can come to an audition
with pre-conceived notions based upon what you've read on
the spec sheet. It's all about expectation really.

Like so much of life, you don't always get what you want,
but you always get what you expect.

It had been my expectation that I'd never find a dyanmic
loudspeaker that sounded as good on voices as my old 'stats.
With the exception of the Avalon line, that had always been
true until I heard the Orion. A friend whom I respect a
great deal told me about them and so I went and listened.
I was skeptical on the way over, but in the first 5 seconds
knew they were for real. It took another hour or so of
critical listening to be sure, but it was clear from the
start that these were extraordinary.

I looked at the mid-range driver and just sort of shook
my head because it went against everything I'd read about
mid-range drivers over the years. But heck. What do I
know? The listening told me that I didn't know as much
as I thought I did, and that's the point here.

You go listen and you make your choice.

More than once, I asked John Matheson to tell us what he
liked, if he didn't like the Linkwitz Orion. What did
he have at home? Why did he choose that? What loudspeakers
did he like? Why?

He never answered any of those questions, instead preferring
to say he had nothing at home and listened to a lot of things
at his hi-fi shop. When then, what was it he was selling
that he did like?

You obviously have a lot of good professional experience John
Matheson, but when you criticize something, you have to back
it up with alternatives to educate us. Tell us you like this
or that and give us pointers to go listen. Without that,
there's nothing for us to reference your perspective against,
and thus you have little credibility.

Russ Button