Miscellaneous Ramblings

The latter.  I had to stop and help unload 53 cases of bamboo flooring, then back to listening.  I promise to put together some thoughts.  I have a hand held digital recorder that I recorded my impressions into.
 
I was eyeing up some bamboo flooring samples in the local DIY yard the other day which had amp enclosure written all over them!

Go easy with installing the floor its not he best thing to do with a bad back.
 
  I am trying to talk the wife into bamboo flooring for the kitchen. I hate the vinyl that is put down. Tough to clean, with little pockets made for holding dirt. I once saw a solid bamboo that was tempting, but pricey. The kitchen is small so maybe it will all work out.
 
I checked my email this morning and only had two.  Ever get that feeling that your missing something, or everybody else knows something that you dont?
 
Things happen.  My Fluke meter died while checking which wire in a 50 year old lamp was neutral.  The 9V I pulled out of it had 7/1/04 on it.
 
There is an active audio community in Knoxville.  There is a strong trend toward tubes, class A, no feedback and HORN SPEAKERS.  I have no horns.

Recently I have been listening to a number of systems that have large horns in them.  I don't know if it is a psycho-acoustic phenomena but the soundstage is very flat in these systems.  The three I am most familiar with are positioned on the back wall.  There is good imaging left to right but nothing front to back.

Has anyone else experienced depth in soundstage with horn speakers placed on the back wall?
 
Grainger49 said:
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Has anyone else experienced depth in soundstage with horn speakers placed on the back wall?
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Yes! I have rather large  3 way horn speakers very close to the back wall.  The imaging is very good, both width and depth.  What, for me, made the difference in the perception of depth was time aligning the mid & treble horns.  It is tedious, iterative work, but a made  huge difference.  IME, point source speakers offer the best reproduction of soundstage dimensions.  My Gallo Nucleus Solo speakers were champs at imagining. Scary good.  But I had to get real in my expectations of the Sentry's.

The refrigerator sized EV Sentry VI A 3 ways were NEVER going to match what I heard from the Gallo's.  The Sentry's give much better "scale", big sounds big!  Bass slam and impact are tremendous, even though the bass drops off rapidly after about 50Hz, the leading edges of bass transients are impressive.  So that's the trade off.  The horns resemble nothing close to a point source! But, by time aligning and aiming the horn centers to intersect as closely as possible to my seating position I do get a good three dimensional sound stage.

The EV horns soundstage imaging is a bit diffuse, compared to the Gallo's.  More a mid hall presentation than orchestra pit, but for the acoustical music, I prefer,  it is realistic and palpable. The other "benefit" to the EV's soundstaging is that the sweet spot is much larger.  But that is likely due more to constant directivity of the mid and treble horns, than the time alignment.

Cheers,
Geary
 
Interesting, two of the three systems I listen to are time aligned. 

It could be that I don't hear anything behind the rear wall. 
 
Grainger49 said:


Has anyone else experienced depth in soundstage with horn speakers placed on the back wall?
Click to expand...

In the spirit of "miscellaneous ramblings" I ask, "why is the front wall called the back wall?" ;D

There are lots of types of horns that present different wave fronts and image differently. CD, constant directivity horns like my 4 Pis do a better image than most but still need to be pulled out into the room for good depth of soundstage.  That sacrifices some bass response. A worthwhile compromise for me, especially as the JBL 2226s are such low distortion transducers. Orchestral Trumpets and Trombones are way back, French Horns and Bassoons in front of them and behind the Woodwinds.


 
It has always confused me.  The walls behind the speakers are really the front wall.  But they are behind the speakers.  I sometimes default to "Back Wall." 

I guess it should be described as the wall behind the speakers and ignore front and back.

I think it is a psycho-acoustic thing with me.  I hear most of my images right in front of the cabinets that my equipment is in.  Yet, if I relax listening to Fleetwood Mac's Albatross I hear the counterpoint guitar back at the street.  That is about 70 feet back of the stereo cabinets.  See my FaceBook page for the layout.

Lawrence has swapped his speakers to be on the short wall of his living/dining room.  He has also brought them forward of the wall behind them.  I need to give this a listen.
 
I was in need of an extra headshell for my Dual1219.  I found an auction for a non-working, bent arm, incomplete 1219 for $175.

I want the drugs he must be taking.  I wonder what color the sky is in his world.
 
Yeah there is a restored 1218 for $150 in seattle and a 1225 for $75... so yeah good luck for that guy....
 
I'm watching reruns of Grimm today.  I really enjoy this show.  I hope it runs for many more years.

Any other Grimm fans here?
 
If you didn't notice I changed the text under my avatar.  The local audio group now calls me the phase guy because I hear and can demonstrate absolute phase (actually polarity).  I bought a meter/CD to check systems. 
 
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