Rational35
AK Subscriber
I have to agree. You haven't lived till you have experienced, Big Altec, JBL or Meyer systems. They can be as focused as small system yet present the sound of a full orchestra, wind band, or Pipe organ as no other system can <snip for brevity> A way to reproduce sound with scale, dynamics and pleasure as the the world spread before us as we travel in style.
Yes Sir! I have seen a divergence in this thread- those who "get it", and those who *think* they "get it". I'm not tryin to pick on anyone; we all form our preferences from experience. It depends on the "scale" we have experienced. As a live sound engineer who has worked a good number of the clubs, theaters, arenas, and stadiums in North America, with many performing artists of different musical genres, I know intimately what @twiiii speaks of. I know what live instruments sound like when I stand way too close to them on stage
But, it wasn't until I brought a big Altec theater system *into my home*, that I really "got it". 4 15"s per side, large-format compression drivers on multicell horns, and JBL baby-cheek tweeters in an active/passive system with solid-state amps on bottom, tubes on top... in a 15' x 25' x 9' room.
We didn't listen to music. We attended concerts.
@WaynerN, Man you've been dancing around this, is SWMBO watching while you type? Please don't take offense, I'm kidding- you clearly get the concept But my take is, if the speakers will fit in the room, and there's room left for a chair, then the speakers are not too big for the room. We have simply made the transition from modal space to pressure-zone.
There are not enough smilies in the library to punctuate this post without it looking stupid. So I'll trust y'all sense o'humor.
<edit> Oh, I meant to mention, "dispersion" is highly over-rated, IMO. More important is a smooth transition of directivity. From omni in the bass (unless you're using a cardioid dipole) , to an 80-90 degree pattern for the top four octaves (with possible dipole advantages here, too). Which is why I like well-designed waveguides with compression drivers, and abhor dome tweeters. This has been covered in depth by Geddes, Parham, and others. (desperately trying to unsqueeze toothpaste back into the tube) :lol:
<edit2> It's not about bass. There must be balance. It's about effortless bass.
It's not about volume or loudness. With the Altecs, I could create the auditory illusion of being at a live concert, but still hold conversation with someone 6 feet away, without raising our voices. The Stage was just far enough away that we could do that.
As freQ(*)Oddio opined in the defining article of this thread, it is about scale. Not volume, loudness, nor bass. Scale. I like that observation.
<edit3> It's about efficiency of energy conversion. Efficient (pro) drivers sound more "alive and real" to me than low-efficiency audiophile drivers which measure better at small-signal tests. I just know that a 82-86dB/1w/1m woofer is going to sound less "alive and real" than a 95-98dB/1w/1m woofer, no matter what the simulations and measurements say, at the same acoustic volume level. One night, just for giggles, I hooked an oscilloscope to the amp outputs feeding the Altecs, from 70Hz up. Cranked the level up to the max anyone was comfortable with- rock concert levels in our basement living room. We hit occasional peak levels of 4 watts per channel.
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