Michael's System

WOW!

Hi Michael!

After the astonishment comes the perplexification....thinks Sonic..

How big is that room-within-a-room? It seems about 14 ft x 10 ft x 8 ft and it can give a soundstage that goes on forever if that is in the recording?

How is the room ventilated? I see no vents or ducts.

The room treatment is assymetrical -- 2 corner tunes and an echotune in front, 1 corner tune in the LH rear corner...why is the TH rear corner not treated?

The cables must be very long running from the outside into the room and the RH speakers appears to be fed by a longer cable. And the cables don't appear to bere the cables bare essesnce?

The door to the room has no knob on the outside -- it is locked/opened from the inside. Wonder what this signifies....

The DRT or PZC in front has a wood piece leaning against it.

There is small rug -- is it special?

The equipment is top tuned with canopies with rods that are not anodized. And no cones or points, ther ends appear ground off. They aren't threaded into the platform are they. The gear looks very simple yet a lot of thought has gone into this.

I keep thinking of that room -- no PZCs, no Shutters, it should be very live but with wood it is hard to tell. Are those M60 speakers? What are the supports under the speakers, amp and CD player?

What CD player is that? Any reason why you have not opted for an external DAC like the Musical Fidelity V-DAC?

It appears resitone rods are used for the top tuning downrod.

What a system! Is this for a client and you are going to dismantle the room and ship it?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

It's my pleasure to report on the "tunable room". The TR has been up for 5 days now after months of wood curing, and voicing. The TR has a total of 6 coats of finish up to this point and has been sanded by 5 different sand paper grits. Watching the ultimate listening machine come together is a thrill that never gets old for me, plus this is the first one built in Vegas (desert cured). This TR is all natural without the use of a dehumidifier so WOW!! is right. How far will it go? we will see. One thing I can say for sure it settles so fast and is taking leaps of sound stage and tonal growth.

Size ID 10' X 12' X 86" (will fit in a 8' tall room)

Air ducts have not been put in yet but (will be using wooden vents)

Room treatment: just starting to play (will have the new PZCs)

Cables are Bare Essence type 1 and Picasso ICs

Door will get a handle later on the outside (maybe), it opens in. It is spring pressure sealed.

I will be making PZCs to replace the floorstander you see

The rug is a bamboo with bottom weave (love bamboo rugs)

A system is not high end until it is top tuned The canopies are free standing with zinc rods and resitone tuning rods (yummy combo for these components). Keeping things simple is the key to great sound

Even though the TR is not acoustically treated to fit yet it is remarkable to hear the explosion of sound (something very special about the 10 X 12 TRs)

The speakers are classic 60s and I'm just starting to play with things to set them on (including my hand made Magic Wood Ply). Harmonic Springs and my wood are under the components. I make and bake my wood pieces custom to the sound I want (again I'm just starting to play)

I'm using a stripped Pioneer SX-3400 and Mag DP100, very simply very good (great sound is revealed in the tools of the tune)

External DAC? Why? Keep it simple and master the tune is the way I roll

The Tunable Room and the rest of the Tuning tools can take us anywhere we want to go. As I find materials like resitone and other pieces that you may see in pics please let me know so I can give you the scoop or make some for you to try. I'm always playing

This system will be going to our own Bill333 in Chicago

Michael,

I remember seeing your TR here in Nashville, but it is noted that the new one is much improved.

By the way, Sonic, the Pioneer SX3400 was produced in 1980 and weighs a mere 12 pounds with 15 watts per channel. Like Michael said, why add a DAC which flavors and often creates problems with the sound. Most upsampling with filtering dacs that I have experienced add a glare that is fatiguing for my long term listening.

I am also enjoying this pictorial.

Hi Garp

What a great piece of advice in the nick of time! Sonic was just about to put some $ down for a V-DAC tomorrow! My gratitude for your insights -- I tried an external DAC and found them exactly as you described them. They have "a sound" just as you say. A glare or a something in every DAC I have tried even very costly ones.

Sonic will reconsider.

Sonic

Hi Guys

Something that I just had a conversation about and I might bring up again. I talked about this on TuneLand before.

Digital is just a language and should not be confused with signal paths. The parts and pieces of any signal path have mechanical sonic signatures that tag on to the performance of the reproduction of the music. Even if the numbers look better in something from a language point of view it may not translate to sounding better because it has to run through parts that are vibrating to work.

At this point in the game I trust that the bigger companies have done their home work in getting the mass production products to read the language of digital fairly correct. If this is an accurate statement than it makes sense that fewer parts with less mass will out perform the extra parts when adding an external DAC. You however are the proof in my pudding as I'm very content with the simplest of setups.

I actually posted a pic of the inside of the DAC so you all could see the extra parts added then I thought "why". I would rather brag about simple than beat up on complicated.

thanks for your insights and ears

Hi Zonees

While I make new PZCs for the TR today I will be doing my "Amused To Death" and Love Over Gold" demos to see how the room is expanding both in dynamic range and staging. I determined it was time for this demo after I put up an Echotune behind me to wittiness the usual snap in focus but because this is a TR the effect was huge as compared to what I normally experience. The side walls in the room completely disappeared and the music flowed way behind my head. After today's demo to see how things are going I think it might be time for classical. In my opinion classical is not classical until the space behind the head is tuned up allowing the flow of the hall (if miked well) to roll over, through, and pass me. Frontal classical is OK but lacks the emotion of the hall that I find breath taking. I have only but once heard full hall classical at a reviewers own room and this was a room we tuned up at Guy Lemcoe's of Stereophile years ago. This was because we used the rear wall as part of the system which most reviewers didn't do.

Rear wall tuning is one of the most important parts of listening and requires a wall that can blend in with the ears' ability to respond to air pressure. This is a crucial pressure zone and once figure out will reveal a new chapter. I will do more tuning on this area of the room when It gets to Bill's place but for now am going to see how the tuning screws around the heard are doing. This also will require that I change the material on the back of my temp chair. Should be fun!

Hi Guys

I will be showing you the new PZCs but thought I would throw this pic in the mix as well since I'm taking photos as I go.

Today,

we were spending time doing some counter sinking on the room walls and for the heck of it I threw up some RT Selects to go with my Deco panels. Not only is it a super sweet match up looks wise but the sound of the combo in the tunable room was fantastic. I think people heading toward a little more fashion with their rooms are going to like this move. Ultimately I'm going with the new PZCs but It's fun playing with some of the other toys as I get ready for the CES/T.H.E. Show.

Here's a little info on the Select

A beautiful week for voicing!! The wind is gone and this has been a dry "almost" spring so far. I'm on my way for more sand paper which is one of the most exciting (music freeing) tweaks there is. There are many tweaks to be involved in but none quite as revealing as the sound of wood "tuned" in a system. Learning about the sound of materials and how they interact combined with the transfer of energy on all 3 levels of audio is something that always keeps me fascinated.

Tonight I got back from a trip to one of the production folk's place and walked in the back door to hear 2 sets of 60s playing (nothing special just getting ready to re-voice them). I walked past the setups to my writing area and kept being haunted by the music playing. I was reading through The Techno-zone a little but had to set down my fingers and go into the room with the 60s. Oh My Lord!! How can I not be in production on these??? I'm sorry but the 60s are not loudspeakers, they are musical instruments. Is there another speaker out there so absent of it's own ego? I truly love the chameleon but Oh my these are something special.

Why do I go through this every time I want to hear the absence of electronics? I'll tell you why, because the 60s let you hear exactly what is before them and after them in the audio chain without adding to any signal blockages that they are creating or adding to the mix. I can sit here and listen to every part of my system , good and bad, and put my finger on it. What a tool to build your system around.

Sound systems do not sound like music, the absence of sound systems do! Give me the fewest parts possible and I will give you a system that will go anywhere. It is easy for us to get side tracked by adding parts thinking they are giving us better performance because they may fix a particular trait that has been bugging us in the sound, but let me tell you the reality of the nature of vibration says less is far more.

We always should be thinking about how much movement is going on in our system when we are tweaking. We have to combine harmonically balancing our parts with the Vp (valued performance) of the parts themselves. It's not a bad idea to pick up our EE books from time to time and look at how much movement is going on. For example the difference between C and RC time wise. Then, open up our musical physics books and study the movement of harmonics. Embrace movement as a good thing.

Let me tell you how & why tuning is so easy for me. I don't get stuck on the Audiophile part of the technology. I spend my time combining the valued performance of the parts (just enough parts) with what the parts are actually doing physically when passing signal. I don't do what so many do before getting into trouble. I don't go after specifics over harmonic balance, but the opposite. Once I have the harmonic balance the specifics are easy and predictable.

Here's a trick I do all the time when listening to someones system to find out if it is in balance or not. I sit on the floor off to the side of the center listening position and see if it has a soundstage. If not "blockage or out of tune" if so "blockage minimal and more in-tune". Meaning, all taste aside, if the soundstage is present when you are off to the side the recording is close to it's original production in the studio harmonically. The 60s are masters at this. They will tell you when you are close to the real deal more than almost any thing I can think of. There's a trick I do with both the 60s and Chameleons that no one else does in their speaker designs that make this happen. No, of course I'm not going to say but you can hear it when you listen. And no, they are not out of phase it has to do with the shape and size.

Speaking of listening, I'm going back in.

Hi Michael,

What's going on with the sixties sounds very exciting. I definitely hope you do start producing them again.

Can you tell us what you're hearing with the new pair of sixties versus the old ones?

Hi Gang

For me, what I listen for is perhaps different than anyone's end result as they shape their system to meet their taste. As much as people talk about "the absolute sound" and after listening with probably thousands if I count all the shows and stores I toured, I would have to say that yes there is a particular general idea of what reproducing sound is like but the individual preferences are vastly varied. For one, most have never heard an unending stage. This is when you can hear both the real size and space of the environment and the engineers choices combined. It's a fascinating sense of realism to be able to describe what the recording situation was without even being there. On the other hand, to be so close to the production as we listen that we are wondering how they did what they did. For myself it's a matter of studying the artist, both the performers and the producers.

In the Audiophile world there was a time of innocence as stereo was becoming the thing. Stereo was the new toy for engineers to spread the music throughout the room by using panning tricks. Quad shorty followed but it seemed like stereo was to be the equation of choice for the engineers to use. When using more than 2 channels it doesn't take long to see how even the most up to date producers start to loose the connection of real. A big part of this is the lack of understanding of the "whole system". To get a real referenced sound you would have to put a tunable room (not talking about my tunable room necessarily) in every ones home as well as everyone's studio and have them record with the same measurement of all the parameters. Now would be a good time to start questioning the absolute sound wouldn't it LOL? BTW I do design speakers in both mono and multichannel. Surprised? If a speaker can not produce a soundstage in mono (true mono) how can it produce a soundstage in stereo or more? And trust me most audiophile speakers can not come close to producing a soundstage in mono. Ask me why? I dare you!

Why bring all this up when talking about the 60s? The 60s represent the purity of audio like few other products made. They are (at this point and time) one of the only products that use just enough to get the job done without being too much.

they have a small profile
they have well balanced mass
they are 2 way
they use simple components
they are floor standing
they are tunable

The 60 gets out of the way of the signal and puts less demands on the amplification over any speaker I know of. In my book efficiency is not putting a huge motor with too much mass on the end of a small signal but a small motor able to be controlled by any size signal. The 60 is a true musical reproducer in it's entirety. It was designed to produce music, not music and then some. It isn't over made. No grill cloth, no extra electrical parts, no deadening materials. The 60 does not make the drivers do all the work but instead becomes a part of the amplification process mechanically and acoustically.

So Michael, what do you listen for again? The entire body of music. Space!!! If you can not create the space there is no way you can select what part of the space you want to listen to. My friends space is "the absolute sound". It has nothing to do with anything but what the performer and producer have handed you after they both are done. A microphone only knows pressure when it is capturing space. They are made to be more or less sensitive (along with other electrical goodies) which is what allows the miking engineer decide which ones to use for what. Believe me they are not thinking of the audiophiles personal taste after everything is done but more they are painting a large picture. A picture that they then sell as a whole. So when I listen it is my job to get the entire picture (without my private choices) to appear in the room. Private choices are cutaways or edits from the whole musical recording process but are not the true recording if you are looking to get the whole production. Most audiophiles go after a part of the whole but not the whole. This is where they usually butt heads on what is right. For me being in the different parts of the business it's easier to define what is the absolute sound of a particular recording (all are different) by focusing on the space and harmonics over personal taste. In a way I think "the big picture" has become my personal taste cause it means I don't have to past judgement on what they were trying to say but instead just listen to what and how they are saying it.

O guru of Good Sound, may Sonic humbly ask why most audiophile loudspeakers can not come close to prducing a soundstage in mono?

Is it true that mono should be focussed down to a point as said by some writers or should we thinkof mono as a miniature soundstage around a point/a single driver with its own width, depth and height?

Hi Sonic

A lot of times I don't know why people talk like they do in our world of listening. So much of the time it sounds like a mythical story of how things might work in their little sphere of theorising but then never happens in real life listening. There are an awful lot of talkers and not walkers in this hobby.

I have found that speakers with much dampening inside have very little chance of producing a bigger soundstage with mono. Point sources as well have a hard time if they are in heavy or thick walled cabinets. Panels produces terrible mono almost right in the speaker the same with arrays unless setup in the corners and then half of the sound is missing. Speakers with grill cloths forget it. Speakers that need a lot of wattage no way. Some horns produce a stage that is about 3 to 4 feet wide and 5 feet tall it seems unless the horn is huge and when I say huge I mean taking up the whole room. Wood horns sound much better when played in mono over other materials. Here's an interesting side note. I use to collect Victrola and Edison and listened to mono a ton. I also had some mono systems but to be honest once I got past the magic of mono's clarity I became very bored with the presentation. Mono sounds much better in open rooms than crowded ones. Mono also plays best setup in a corner. Mono can only have an image that is decent if the room is almost empty with very flat walls. I'm being very nice when I say decent. To be honest it's not even close to stereo done well. However if someone is not able to reproduce stereo and if they can find the recordings I can see why they would fall into this. I have to make one thing very clear though. 2 channel mono is terrible and if you think you are getting mono when you hit mono on your stereo your no where close. Mono is mono and is not stereo mixed down to one channel.

Unfortunately mono hasn't had a fair shake like stereo has. Mono had a short heyday because the ribbon microphone was just becoming refined in the early 30's and stereo was well on it's way in the 50's. Stereo was actually being developed and used during the same time as serious mono but didn't really go public because the cost was so much but since the beginning when they experimented with listening with 2 ears verses 1 with telephones people freaked at the difference. Mono was pretty much doomed from the start. So, the first real audiophile (who thought stereo was nuts) only had a short life of great sound because 1. microphone development 2. speaker development 3. availability 4. public desire for stereo. Mono was pretty much done by 68, and between 56 and 68 on a fast decline.

One thing that was surprising to me, maybe not, was how well the free resonant speakers sounded in mono when set up like mono, and weirdly enough when setup in the room playing mono. At first I thought it was my imagination and designers blind love, but after sending a few other companies speakers through the same mono test it was shocking how bad other speakers really sound. Placement with over dampened speakers is not only tough in stereo but near impossible to get a full range out of in mono. This is because with speakers like the 60s we know that these are to play off of the rooms modes and nodes. With other speakers you only have the driver that is playing signal where as the rest of the mechanical structure is fighting the sound. With the 60s the whole cabinet acted like one speaker and with the others you could hear the sound of a tweeter and woofer as two separate sources. The 60s disappeared in the room where the others stuck out in the room.

Here was another test I did. I setup up the mono speaker in the room playing a mono source and had people point to where the sound was. They were blindfold of course. With other speakers people pointed straight at the speaker's drivers. With the 60s people said it was hard to point directly at but instead "would say" that it was a bigger sound coming from a much bigger area. Keep in mind these were people that we grabbed from the street downtown and had them up to TuneVilla. They didn't know what an audiophile was. When asked to describe the sound they would say something like with the other speakers it sounded like a transistor radio as compared to ours which sounded like a band. Isn't this how people describe the sound of audiophile speakers when they get out of the sweet spot? The speaker thins out and becomes unbalanced or transitory sounding.

If your room sounds like music so will the 60s. They won't fight against the room as other speakers do. They also won't fight against the system. If things sound good they will sound great. If things are out of whack they will let you know that you need to take a look at something in the system or room. Their not built to fight but to get along with.

To Audiophiles

Getting out recent orders has allowed me the room to start taking things to a level that will come to be a funland palace. How far I will be able to take it this time will depend on how long I can keep the room from becoming a warehouse again. Hopefully I will be able to also clear up the back room space to do a setup in there as well.

I have to admit sometimes is does blow my mind a little at some audiophiles' systems. I always push to do my best with everyone's setup but once again keeping it very simple has put my front room system on the fast track to something special. My neighbor was over earlier to borrow something of course (a tool I will never see again I fear). Well, he needed my help so I went to his place to see if I could ruin his ceiling with him (why should he have all the fun). Before I went I had just thrown the canopies on my Mag DVD and Pioneer. As we came back in my rear door he said "woo what's up!" "what do you mean" I replied, as I was heading to the kitchen. "the sound dude?" he said. "oh, I just put the canopies on". I thought I was going to have to get him a pillow cause it look like he had no desire to remove himself from my listening chair for the next few weeks. He told me there was no way I didn't turn up the volume. Of course I didn't. I wanted to know what his untrained ears thought though so I asked if that was all? "No, when I left earlier you had music playing, when I came back the band was in the room". bamm, that's what I'm talking about, every time!

Now listen,

Blockage, blockage, blockage people! If you don't use transfer to the max (top tuning) and clear up those nasty road blocks, you will not get there. Plain and simple. I can not be more definitive about this. If you look back in the TuneLand Archives you will read that everyone who made their system simple and top tuned got a jump in volume and the soundstage became closer to real space.

Sometimes I need to shake a little and say wake up, your having an audiophile nightmare again. How can I sit here with what I have and knock down the doors and here hobbyist go forward and backward moaning and groaning all the way. No way, can't be, it's blockage. Ok let me say it nicely, blockage.

If you do not understand and learn how to remove the blockage, YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE! NEVER! EVER!

People desiring your best sound dreams, I'm sorry but you have to know the truth about this high end audiophile thing. People get bad sound because they choose to use more parts (or the wrong parts) than they should and don't follow the basics for good sound. Michael, take a deep breath and calm down! Ok, but does it make sense that I'm killing the audiophile in good sound with what I'm using? Yes. Why? Because I'm keeping it simple. If your listening out there and your lost it is because you are keeping the signal from producing music. Yes, you are doing it to yourself. The music is there you just have not removed your brain enough to get it. It's not hard. What is hard is what has been put in the brain of the audiophile. The audiophile sits there on a rock and says I'm going to make this technology work even if I have to pretend it sounds good. And believe me you know that's true.

Ok, ok, if your going to play audiophiles I'm just going to have to blow right past you with great sound and wait patiently, and wait, and wait, .................wait. Your never going to make the typical audiophile ways suddenly turn into something it is not no matter how hard you try or how long you try. Materials are materials and they are going to do what they want. I don't care what the technology is. I'm game to try anything like what I will be getting into shortly but I must say that I will hear blockage and will remove the parts that are causing it. That's how I roll. Why play audiophile and add unnecessary parts when we can have fantastic sound. Using too many parts is the single biggest down fall of this hobby. We don't do this in other parts of our lives why would we with listening? What happens if we do this with cooking? Right, so why do we do this with music. It's irresponsible and makes no sense.

I'm not interested in the same ole debate that has been figured out many times before on TuneLand. I am here to deliver the best of sound and that's what I do and stopping shy of that to play toss the audiophile is not fun for me. I ask myself do audiophiles who go off in this never ending quest ever really become listeners?

Audiophiles ask yourselves this question: how can michael beat you up with a mag player, pioneer receiver, and a set of 60s? How? I'll tell ya. One part tuned incorrectly changes the whole formula. This means when we make one change we changed the performance of the whole, yes, everything now sounds different. You can not point your finger until you know what parts do and why they do it harmonically. Fixing one thing to make the rest worse will haunt you and destroy your sound. My stomach flips every time I see someone head down the path of lost audio land. It really does, I want to help but so many times it's an issue with pride and not reality.

In this turned around world of way too much I will listen to simple and love every second.

Well

I'm wrapping up an 8 hour or so listening session. A very relaxing and involving time. The first hour was with the Mag 100 leading the way but then I started thinking and changed to using the FM. To my joy the soundstage was just as big with the FM. This system is doing things very cool and doing them with ease. I can't give credit to the Mag for what the FM is doing obviously so it must be a combo of some great harmonics going on that is letting this happen. The 2 biggest changes I have made recently is going to the 60s that I hand voiced and with my paper drivers, the second being putting the tuning wall panel behind me. It's interesting listening to the FM because every time a different song came on I could hear the production of the engineering change. I always find this to be a great deal of fun. However even though this was going on why didn't I need to re-tune? It sounded great the whole time and I didn't have the urge.

This got me thinking about what has been said recently and many times in the past not only with tuning but any type of setup. Why is there such a big difference in recordings, so much of a difference that a system needs to be radically change to make it nice again or even bearable? I know the answer is blockage, but where and why? Is it possible that the ultra light weight of the 60s paper woofer is doing that much to the music? The other factor is the one pair is the music 60s hand voiced and the other the studio 60s factory voiced. The music 60s are far more light weight than the studios and with the woofers being paper also quite a bit lighter than the polys. I will be diving into both pair so it will be interesting to see how big of a jump the paper drivers are. I know in the past it was no contest but in the past I also chose the Studios over the Musics but that is with them both having paper drivers. The other question is did my hand voicing make that big of a difference between these 2 pair? If so I'm insuring my hands. Whatever my findings are it's nice to have 60s in the house and I know that I'll have to have a custom pair built for me before this is all over.

A question that I have for others and be honest. Do you guys get a soundstage when you walk around the room as well as sitting in the sweet spot? I truly believe that this is a major point and might just be the answer to recordings sounding ok and good vs good and terrible. Over all these years of listening I have noticed that the system is much more forgiving if the speakers can cast a soundstage throughout the whole room instead of just when you get close to the sweet spot. I'm also not saying that it is just the speakers job to cast the stage. Again remembering my visit to Chicago last month, to me anyway, the system with the quads sounded much better when the sound got out of the speakers when I was sitting off to the side and in the middle but fell apart when this did not happen. It would be interesting to see what Bill and Drewster thought. I'm thinking that because the music 60s with the paper and casting a whole room image is a big part of why the system sounds so good right now. But there is much playing to do over the next while and I'm like a little kid ready to have a blast. BTW with using the platforms/canopy setup I did one top tune setting and it was fine through the entire time without any drifting so this is another thing that I recommend people look at doing if you are having a harder time with your rack going out of balance. I'm glad that people bought the smaller tuning racks from me but are they more than a handful for many to handle? It seems maybe if there are not enough shelves on them that it is harder to keep balanced, than again I have seen others tune these babies effortlessly. For my all thumbs though I like doing the platform canopy gig.

So much to talk about, but I feel the system calling me again.

In my tunable room, the Quads cast a good soundstage if you're sitting in the center near the back wall, but it collapses into the nearest speaker anywhere else in the room. This has been a little disappointing for me, because I would like to be able to seat more than one person for listening sessions.

Regarding the tuning rack, mine is definitely more than I'd like to be dealing with. The trouble is I just never know what the thing is doing or why. And when I get it sounding good, it doesn't stay that way for long. Equipment platforms are the way to go.

Michael,

Have you discovered any way to retrofit paper drivers in the older 60s? I have always preferred paper drivers to poly for my personal sonic tastes. It would be neat to retrofit my Music 60s with paper drivers and your personal voicing. I suspect there are many here that would consider this upgrade.

Hey, Mr. Green,

Regarding reproducing a soundstage from any point other than the sweet spot, as it is, with my currently MGD-less system, there's no way that is happening. I have read what I consider miraculous* accounts on The Archives of some who, for instance, can clearly hear a solid phantom center channel image even when sitting off to the side. That would be great! Same for phantom surround channel effects when watching movies.

As it has been, lo all these years, when I have a buddy come over, I let him sit in the sweet spot and I sit off to the right side. Every so often, I get a remark like, "Wow! Did you hear that? How do you get surround effects without surround speakers." And I have to point out that I can't hear those surround effects from where I am sitting.

Mr. Green from The Archives (2004):
When you record, you're picking up the entire space. Even if your using a directional microphone and than play it back, you will be able to hear the specific soundstage placement in a omnifield presentation. Meaning you will not hear the sound jump into the speaker when you slightly move your head from one side to the other, but will hear the sound move in the direction of the movement of your head. Speaking of soundstaging, you should also be able to walk around your room maintaining a sound field that is very life-like just as if people are in the room with you. The more your system is in tune, the more this will take place. When you restrict your source signal, you begin to lose this omnidirectional effect.

Jim Bookhard from the same thread:
Can you stand up at your listening position, slowly rotate your entire body in a circle and have the entire soundstage rotate intact with you, including when you are facing the rear and various angles? If not, your speaker and room are not working together properly and you need to rethink this entire issue of the relationship of the speaker and the room. Once you have experienced this phenomenon of the soundstage rotating with you as you rotate at the listening position, you will know that the speaker is the room and the room is the speaker. They are one in the same.

Today's question: would panel (dipole) speakers be any hindrance to this?

* - I don't dis-believe what I read, just so we are clear on this, otherwise why would I be here at Techno-Zone?

Hi Guys

I'll comment on these as they came in. Fortunately the weather outside is windy today so my hand voicing adventures have to wait and it gives me more time to listen which has been an absolute joy as you can tell by my recent writing.

Can the Quads truly disappear? Well they have a chance to like nowhere else in the world to do so. The Tunable Room is the ultimate end answer to any audio question. If it can't be done in the Tunable Room it can't be done. The paper 60s disappeared so quickly though in my room here that it was like miraculous. This has been the best disappearing act from a speaker that I have heard in a while. It would be a tall order to get the Quads to do this to the degree of what I'm hearing now I would think. At the same time, if the quads were rebuilt with the right wood that got along with the drivers perfectly (which I think is what is happening with these 60s) any thing would be possible if the electronic blockage is not holding them back.

Yes Bill, you and I both are platform people. So much easier!

Hi GARP, good to see you. I'm sure we can find a way to make the fit even if we needed to take them into a shop to do it. Boy, three 60s at one time would make me feel like I'm back at TuneVilla. I really do need to start making these again. Anyone see any of these for sale anywhere? Now would be a great time to buy them up and have them redone in Vegas. I bet many don't no what they have and the prices would be low. I'm pretty sure I could get yours sounding like the ones I have here and better cause I haven't even started the re-voicing yet. I can tell by the markings that I did hand do these back when they were built but re-voicing will bring another chapter to them. I'm totally a paper man too.

Robert yes, there is a magical staging that goes on when the harmonics are that in tune. While writing this I ran out to the room and experienced some of this now. Not the full effect as described in the archives you quoted but certainly the imaging off to the side and when I stand up. Even when I go to the front of the room I get a pretty good stage. Being locked into that audiophile size soundstage doesn't exist in my world.

Can di-pole panels do it? I have to be straight up here and say that I don't think that many speaker companies really have a grip on materials. If they did I think they would let the parts and pieces work together more instead of using so many crossover parts and drivers to do corrective sound. I'm sure there might be freaks out there that can present a real stage that fills a room but you certainly don't hear about them in the rags or forums. Everyone talks about the sweet spot as if it is a good thing but I see it as a distraction. When I'm in the sweet spot I can move my head to one side or the other and the stage follows me but at no time does it collapse into the speaker. In fact when I was just out in the listening room I could put my head almost right up to the speaker and not hear the drivers themselves but a soundstage. I think it was Wes Philips the reviewer that said at one of the shows that the rev series speakers did the best disappearing act at the show when they debuted. A speaker is supposed to energise the room so that the room can tell you what is going on through sound pressure and waves. I think a lot of companies feel they can replace the room by making a point source or directional speaker system fool your ears and room. I don't see this as practical and also think it makes things much harder for the listener or listeners to enjoy the performance. Free resonant speakers are built for just that "to freely resonate" with the room to create a harmonious atmosphere suitable for sound waves to travel. For myself this is so much more practical than fighting the room/system interface.

Over the years if you follow my writing you can tell when I'm listening seriously to my speakers. It's like a lot of the time I'm trying to be polite about other speakers until I'm tweaking with mine and then it's game over. My speakers really did come out of the frustration of being tired of trying to get speakers to work in the room or with electronics. I only made mine so I didn't have to fight anymore and could just tune in the room and system the way I wanted then I could put the other speakers in. I can't tell you how many times I took my speakers into stores to test their acoustics before they were an actual model. I made much more money fixing other's sound than I ever did presenting my own speakers on the market and I'll tell you why. Do you know how many people I ticked off when I setup my speakers in rooms next to $125,000 speakers and the people chose mine hands down? The industry wanted me to be a tweak and acoustician to make their stuff sound good. They didn't want me as a competitor. Who would when you think about it. Here I was in all their show rooms as the tweak boy on call, but when the "tunable speaker" came out well that was another story. Now michael has a speaker that is going in all the places where theirs were. Think about it, do you know how many ads (from other manufactures) would have gotten pulled from the mags if I would have gotten put in their rooms with my acoustical products and racks and cables and speakers and other tweaks? You see we were the only audio company in the world doing everything.

The real question is do you want another speaker in your room or do you want one that will do just about anything you tell it to. I can do a lot of things with other people's speakers and do but I aways say to myself why? I mean if someone could name things that mine won't do that is one thing but because the 60s and the others are so flexible it is very rare that I can not mimic any sound needed. In fact the only times I have ever seen this happen is when the client didn't want to go to the trouble of tuning their system or decided to live with very mediocre sound that they ended up not listening to much anyway.

BTW I started to send you toys to play with but when I opened the pack they were ivory. You said black yes?

I do want to let you guys know in case you are not aware. Robert has bought into my "make it for me program" (I just made that up). Basically it's where he has bought into a system from me for a particular amount and I get to make it from scratch. As you guys know I have gone through my weird proto set of circumstances and have not had the ideal setup to get things the way that I wanted. But, I have had a chance to do some of the pieces to this system and have been listening to them as they have been curing for a while now. I think this will be quite the cool setup when everything is done.

man reading back through this I can tell I'm listening to 60s

I've got a late 60s through late 70s music fest going on here. I love hearing the way the rock engineers back then recorded. Their so soulful and you can dig their amps and stuff playing. Sometime I like draping the mics over the amp with like a sm57 sound or hearing a direct if there is a really good pickup that grabs the body grunge off the guitar. That's something you can't manufacture when going to the digital domain too quick and using the effects there.

Hey, Mr. Green,

Regarding the toys, I did say black, but if you have ivory ready to go, that will be fine. After all, my ceiling panels and floor tiles are white (or near). Thanks for all you do!

Robert

Hi Guys

As part of my spring cleaning I have just completed giving my Pioneer parts (why does he still use that cheap thing?) a quick tuneup. Meaning I have top tuned all of the practical parts on the unit one at a time. A chore done with love of the tune. Remarkable how every time I do this I'm a bit in shock of how each part sounds different when tuned.

As I am doing a study on how much parts really do vibrate as they pass signal (again) it sharpens my listening skills. It's good to do a basic study on how parts work every now and then to give us proper perspective.

I found this while studying

"An electric current flowing in a circuit does not cause vibrations at the physical level (good or bad), unless the circuit is a vibrator, loudspeaker, motor or some other electro-mechanical device. (i.e. components don't vibrate of their own accord unless designed to do so.)"

the writer gives this glossary


Passive: Capable of operating without an external power source.
Typical passive components are resistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes (although the latter are a special case).

Active: Requiring a source of power to operate.
Includes transistors (all types), integrated circuits (all types), TRIACs, SCRs, LEDs, etc.

DC: Direct Current
The electrons flow in one direction only. Current flow is from negative to positive, although it is often more convenient to think of it as from positive to negative. This is sometimes referred to as "conventional" current as opposed to electron flow.

AC: Alternating Current
The electrons flow in both directions in a cyclic manner - first one way, then the other. The rate of change of direction determines the frequency, measured in Hertz (cycles per second).

Frequency: Unit is Hertz, Symbol is Hz, old symbol was cps (cycles per second)
A complete cycle is completed when the AC signal has gone from zero volts to one extreme, back through zero volts to the opposite extreme, and returned to zero. The accepted audio range is from 20Hz to 20,000Hz. The number of times the signal completes a complete cycle in one second is the frequency.

Voltage: Unit is Volts, Symbol is V or U, old symbol was E
Voltage is the "pressure" of electricity, or "electromotive force" (hence the old term E). A 9V battery has a voltage of 9V DC, and may be positive or negative depending on the terminal that is used as the reference. The mains has a voltage of 220, 240 or 110V depending where you live - this is AC, and alternates between positive and negative values. Voltage is also commonly measured in millivolts (mV), and 1,000 mV is 1V. Microvolts (uV) and nanovolts (nV) are also used.

Current: Unit is Amperes (Amps), Symbol is I
Current is the flow of electricity (electrons). No current flows between the terminals of a battery or other voltage supply unless a load is connected. The magnitude of the current is determined by the available voltage, and the resistance (or impedance) of the load and the power source. Current can be AC or DC, positive or negative, depending upon the reference. For electronics, current may also be measured in mA (milliamps) - 1,000 mA is 1A. Nanoamps (nA) are also used in some cases.

Resistance: Unit is Ohms, Symbol is R or Ω
Resistance is a measure of how easily (or with what difficulty) electrons will flow through the device. Copper wire has a very low resistance, so a small voltage will allow a large current to flow. Likewise, the plastic insulation has a very high resistance, and prevents current from flowing from one wire to those adjacent. Resistors have a defined resistance, so the current can be calculated for any voltage. Resistance in passive devices is always positive (i.e. > 0)

Capacitance: Unit is Farads, Symbol is C
Capacitance is a measure of stored charge. Unlike a battery, a capacitor stores a charge electrostatically rather than chemically, and reacts much faster. A capacitor passes AC, but will not pass DC (at least for all practical purposes). The reactance or AC resistance (called impedance) of a capacitor depends on its value and the frequency of the AC signal. Capacitance is always a positive value.

Inductance: Unit is Henrys, Symbol is H or L (depending on context)
Inductance occurs in any piece of conducting material, but is wound into a coil to be useful. An inductor stores a charge magnetically, and presents a low impedance to DC (theoretically zero), and a higher impedance to AC dependent on the value of inductance and the frequency. In this respect it is the electrical opposite of a capacitor. Inductance is always a positive value. The symbol "Hy" is sometimes used in (guess where :-) ... the US. There is no such symbol.

Impedance: Unit is Ohms, Symbol is Ω or Z
Unlike resistance, impedance is a frequency dependent value, and is specified for AC signals. Impedance is made up of a combination of resistance, capacitance, and/ or inductance. In many cases, impedance and resistance are the same (a resistor for example). Impedance is most commonly positive (like resistance), but can be negative with some components or circuit arrangements.

Decibels: Unit is Bel, but because this is large, deci-Bels (1/10th Bel) are used), Symbol is dB
Decibels are used in audio because they are a logarithmic measure of voltage, current or power, and correspond well to the response of the ear. A 3dB change is half or double the power (0.707 or 1.414 times voltage or current respectively). Decibels will be discussed more thoroughly in a separate section.
______________________________________________

"Passive: Capable of operating without an external power source.
Typical passive components are resistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes (although the latter are a special case)."

Do audio engineers believe that passive means Non-movement? Do they believe the circuit design is above the effects of vibration?

Wik:

"A resistor is a two-terminal passive electronic component which implements electrical resistance (movement) as a circuit element. When a voltage (movement) V is applied (movement) across (movement) the terminals of a resistor, a current (movement) I will flow (movement) through the resistor in direct proportion to that voltage. (The reciprocal of the constant of proportionality is known as the resistance) (all movement) R, since, with a given voltage V, a larger value of R further "resists" (movement) the flow (movement) of current (movement) I as given by Ohm's law."

I of course inserted the word movement. But I back this up with a confirmation from Vishay's tech support as I did not want to speak out of ignorance.

How do your passive parts work?

"Our parts run off of voltage, yes electrical current, a flowing signal"

Why are resistors,capacitors and inductors called passive components in electronics?

"Because they don't supply any energy to the circuit or involve any energy from a secondary supply." "They passively react or resist the actions of the circuit."

Do they vibrate when in use?

"Yes, vibration is a part of heat (resistance) and the storage give and take."

A fun time

Hi Tunees

This has been another very exciting week for me as we (Vegasites) are heading into the best time of the year for listening. It's a time when I can feel sound being it's best as I cut wood or sand surfaces. It's extra special because I have been working on the new MGA Spikes & Cones and they not only sound fantastic but are also giving me a chance to hear a wide range of metals transfer energy at their peak performance levels.

YES, MGA Spikes & Cones are being born as we speak.

https://www.michaelgreenaudio.net/cones-and-spikes

Years and years of listening has gone by without the ability to truly express myself in a manor of thought becomes reality. You can only go so far before making compromised decisions when developing products. The Audiopoint was one of those compromises that I can now finally put to bed and say goodbye to.

The Audiopoint actually started with my search for a transfer cone that I could use with my racks which were becoming very popular back around 1990. I was using cones from a German company until I visited a store in Wisconsin where I met a fella with these odd shaped cones. They were not necessarily refined but sounded much better with my early rack design than other cones. As far as I was concerned the search could halt as I co-designed some of the parts I needed together with what Brent had already done. Thus the birth of the Audiopoint. It did not take long at all for the high end industry to embrace Michael Green's Audiopoints into their favorite product listings. But this was not all rosy as there developed 2 little problems. 1. I heard some things in the design that needed to be upgraded. There was a sonic flaw that could be change but would require the shape to vary from it's original course a little. Basically frequencies were getting lost in the transfer while others were being too prominent. The product also had a coating applied to it that caused surface distortion. As the signal made it's way down the transfer pipeline the skin effect was dulled. 2. The second problem was worse. AMD (Audio Machine & Design) didn't want to make the changes and wasn't fond of the idea that everyone was calling them Michael Green Audiopoints instead of AMD Audiopoints. MGA and RoomTune were 2 names that gained the trust of listeners as being accurate music producers always on the look out of ways to keep refining that state of the art of the hobby. I did this with every product and and the cones would not be an exception. Well, those of you who know me a little could guess how this turned out right? LOL

The MTD was born. Mechanical Transfer Devise should have been the next big wave in the tuning line up but I was way to busy tuning the world and designing. I didn't realize that the audio world was about to change going from mom and pop shops to the internet sale. While I was tweaking Recording studios in Nashville a whole new industry was being developed under my nose and I never looked up to see it. Companies started doing knock offs of my products or reping themselves as being the real deal when they were nothing more than unimaginative spin offs that couldn't do the one thing that we the tunees have always been the worlds best at doing, "tuning". After the manager for Tune Manufacturing retired I have wanted to redo the whole MTD process. Take what I have learned from the MTD changes and going even further into the exploration of where one surface meets another. What is it that happens when the energy flows from one mass to the next as it makes it's way to ground and beyond! A MTD must be able to take the content (full range) and transfer it. That means gather, send and (very important) exchange the information.

I listen to everything even the listener's feedback. When something is going on that produces a particular sound there is a counterbalance that must take place to the equation for the audio signal energy to transfer accurately. Never have I been so aware of this till after I moved to the SW United States. The whole humidity chapter of the equation has slapped me in the face and I now can see how much it effects listening everywhere. I am also beginning to understand why things sound so much better when they are hand voiced a certain way under certain conditions as opposed to the wrong set of conditions. The absolute biggest part to this whole hobby and any circuit or wave driven application is "vibration".

For example: as you know I'm closely working with Bill333 on his tunable room and system development. It's exciting for me to work on a system that is so cutting edge and it gives me a chance to explore. Recently Bill has been talking to me about his top tuning transfer. When I was there we had just got to the place where the stage was becoming it's own king and I felt very comfortable letting the room settle and do it's thing along with everything in it. One of the things I did as a quickie while I was there was whip up a top tuning canopy board so Bill could use it while I made up the real toys back here. It was fine as a start to get you there kind of thing, or was it? After I left Bill was telling me that he was not able to get the top tuning to his liking. I thought this strange based on the little listening I did there. HMMM I thought until I received a package containing tuning boards done a while back that he had sent to me 3 weeks ago. These were boards done out east and I could tell were done in the humidity instead of a controlled environment. Interesting, could it be that boards done outside of my guidelines of set production be that far off of right? I mean I do have to admit that every once in a while I like being called the Audio Guru (lol) but anyone can really do what I do if they follow a particular plan. The tuning boards that were sent to me sound awful. It's clear that wood was not taken care of and that before any layering was applied humidity ruined the fibers. What this means is you can't mix high humidity with the process and expect that later you can dry it out to the point of sounding good. The drying has to be happening during the process. Bill333 is sending me a piece of canopy wood that was done at his place (the one you see in his pics that we did there). I'm going to compare this directly against a piece that I have just done here. The one here is done exacting the same way with no extra voicing and any thing I do will be done to both. I'm absolutely positive that the board done here under the drying conditions will blow away the one done there.

I went through a similar process when receiving boards from Michigan years ago. I completely had to strip them down the the raw wood and than some and start from scratch. While I was doing this I weighed the wood and saw that the Michigan wood was still holding at least 30% too much weight. If the wood is not sealed at the right amount of dry there is no way you can dry it after the fact to fix it unless you go down to the virgin wood itself and start again treating the fibers properly. Once the wood is sealed properly it can be shipped where ever and made to sound great. Sometimes I'm surprised at how good great is. For example the speakers I got in to tune here after being in North Carolina and the last time I visited a tunable studio in NY where even though the room was set at 40% for 5 years it was pitch perfect without anyone touching the tuning screws for those 5 years.

I love that fact that I never stop learning about the tuning process and that tuning is something that you can not fake. Nature is going to play the major role and trying to take the spotlight away from reality is never going to happen no matter how much high end hype people choose to throw at our ears. I also love that fact that our systems are musical instruments and that we can voice them into sonic bliss by combining materials together with circuitry.

wood and other materials

I will continue to fine and refine the interaction of the materials that make up our systems. This to me has been my life time quest and it becomes more interesting to me every step I take and every time I hear yet a new layer to the reproduction of recorded music. I have no interest in model changing as some do so they have something new to show but instead love the idea of putting everything on the chopping block so the parts and pieces of the tune speak for themselves and call out to yet other pieces of the puzzle of music reproduction to join in. For this reason we have been doing test on many different types of materials and are hoping to bridge the gap of transfer and signal resistance even better.

The new Spikes & Cones are done in a controlled environment as well with vibratory cleaning applied. This means that the surface of the machined metal is turned at the exact speed that produces perfect pitch and followed with vibration that makes the extra materials float off of the surface of both the cutting tool and the newly formed material. How accurate is the shape and surface? The new MGA Spikes & Cones are inspected by the same tool used to inspected the parts on the Space Shuttle and laser guide systems.



That's pretty accurate!