fas42

The story of the "stripped to the bare bones" method of achieving accuracy, in the devices made by ECdesigns, provides good material to comment on - the latest , So, No-one really goes into any great depth as to what is happening here, in the general world of audio - yes, the electronics are "new", and need to stabilise; so more obvious, audible distortion. But some rigs never get past the "not being able to cope with complex orchestral passages and stridency" phase! Why? Well, engineering is the short answer ... the equipment, as combined in a certain configuration, always remains operating at a sub-standard level - you could say the break in time is infinite, ... the remaining issues are never resolved, and the listener has to live with whatever number out of 10 the system manages to get to, say "when all the stars align", now and again. Yes. An analogy that easily springs to mind, when a system "gets it right". Not a good sign. If the source waveform has to be fiddled with, to get "coherence", "natural" and "the soundstage becomes fully detached from the speakers" presentation, then more cleaning of that window is needed, . Also negatives. The optical cable should make zero difference, IF the interface is fully sorted, to cope with variations in the nature of the signal feed. Worse, the SQ is quite dependent on the clocking of the source of the waveform - this is a disappointment. It falls in exactly the same category as my cheap as chips DVD player impacting what I hear on my active speakers, if the inserted CD has not loaded "as nicely" as it could. Good engineering will mean that the outcome is not dependent on the user 'fussing' to optimise an earlier stage - failing that, we're back to the same quagmire that has dogged the audio world, since forever. Overall, a hmmm ...

The answer is that just about any type of sound event capturing mechanism can get all the important boxes ticked, if enough effort is made to sort out the various, 'natural' shortcomings. Usually the best devices come out just before the particular medium dies - and the latter occurs because there's a "new kid on the block"; everybody gets excited about the newness, so manufacturers quietly retire the efforts made on the previous format, and exploit the enthusiasm for the latest and greatest - even if their models of the new stuff fall well short in key areas of performance, as compared to their best in the previous generation format ... there's always a learning curve.

No point in continuing posting in that speaker thread - once the shutters come down, in people's heads, nothing more will be gained by attempting to have a rational discussion, . Why is audio land such a strange quagmire? Now and again I ponder this - and the answer is pretty clear: it's largely driven by ego, and that means he who has the most 'badass' rig wins. Automatically. Unfortunately, the most butch looking, in your face ostentatious, laboratory microscope is not going to be one ounce better for looking closely at specimens on the slide, than the boring, ugly, utilitarian model which has been put together with just one thought in mind - to see what's on the glass as clearly as possible. How has this industry got away with the bizarro mindset for so long? Largely, because decently accurately replay chains are so rare that they are considered outliers; not really part of where the "exciting" action is. And that is, tailoring the sound of a recording to the listeners' tastes, rather than being true to the contents of a track - yes, things are very, very slowly getting better; but you need to pay close attention to what's been said on some of the less travelled paths. We're still nowhere near where what I said in my last post here, with regard to walking up to an unknown setup, and finding that The eccentricities, the foibles of the equipment used are nearly always screaming at you - and can't be ignored ... you're squinting like crazy through the eyepiece of the very expensive microscope, and struggling to work out what is in that blurred mess of detail, which is never "quite in focus" ... (but everybody said it was the best on the market!!!)

The point seems to be that really heavy things can "ring like a bell" - which is just nonsense. When there are enormous amounts of energy in the picture, or something is specifically made to vibrate strongly when heavily struck, yes, movement occurs. But grabbing onto the very uncommon or essentially irrelevant instances does nothing to increase understanding of the general situation. I have always worked on the practical. If I read some theory of how things work, and it reeks completely of BS, I ignore it. If something makes a smidgen of sense, even though heavily coated in snake oil rhetoric, I investigate. Not by buying the absurdly expensive instance, but by constructing a very low cost alternative, which should mimic what I see is the value of the purchasable idea. That's how I've progressed for decades now - the plus is that I get highly satisfying SQ, for minimal outlay,.

Unless you live in the Shaky Isles - New Zealand - or immediately adjacent to an urban rail line, your chances of having whatever your speakers are strongly coupled to rattling away, regularly, are so minuscule, I would discount it. Personally, I would never move to an area where this was an issue - comfort in other aspects of life are too important! For me, it was all based on experimentation. The original quite decent bookshelves just sounded like other typical speakers of that size before doing anything to stabilise them - small, cheerful presentation; but forget about pushing the volume! The more I did to tie them down, the 'bigger' the sound became, the more authoritative, the better the bass line was resolved as a distinctive element. And they could go loud, without distress! This, for example, allowed me to clearly hear how the Big Mutha amplifier used was starting to distort in the treble, on a 'difficult' rock track, at a very specific volume. Which led me to do major mods on that amplifier's power supply - issue resolved!

Another way of looking at it, is to consider the thought experiment of having a huge rock face hollowed out to form a cavity that matches the interior space of a speaker cabinet, with openings for the drivers; and the drivers are then securely bonded to those rock face 'holes' - the earth itself has become the speaker cabinet. When the drivers operate, the tightly coupled basket or frame attempts to move that rock face back and forth. Which for most rocks, won't happen ; there is essentially 100% damping of the reaction energy from the moving driver surfaces. What I attempt to do is to approach that scenario as closely as possible, without getting too silly about it, . Which for me, has always worked.

I'm always amused by people worrying about loooow bass ... the most intense sensations I've felt to date, in this area of the spectrum, have been my 'tiny' actives, where on some tracks, at decent volumes, I almost feel nauseous ... it's, too much. To put it into context, I didn't come across a single rig at the recent audio show that did anything like this - some blubbering, distorted bass; but nothing that matched what live music produces. The closest was the quite decent home theater demo, which was pumping out 120dB sort of levels - here, more the shuddering, "the bogeyman is coming to get you!", type of thing, .

Do audiophiles always like "more accurate" sound? IME, no, and this review is a good example of such, https://darko.audio/2024/01/dutch-dutch-8c-bacch-plugin-review/. To sum up, he didn't like the "raw" sound of the D&Ds - and the BACCH plug-in made it more acceptable. Now, there is always the possibility that these speakers were under performing - which is always a misgiving I have; there are always going to be circumstances where a rig doesn't show at its best, for a huge variety of reasons - say, some interference in the room to which these speakers are susceptible. Then again, he wants "a bit more textural elasticity and flow" ... whatever that means. IME, accuracy delivers texture and flow to the same standard as live music - so, if you're a person who feels the need to juice up the latter, then indeed extra 'seasoning' might be called for, . So, horses for courses. There is no single answer to the question, "What is best sound?" - but where I stand is that if a system can have any, I repeat, any recording put on, and you immediately enter the world of the music being played, and have close to zero sense of the mechanism being used to create this experience, then this is a pretty good place ... .

The obvious, large scale movement is not so much a problem; what you are trying to do is minimise "micro level" vibration - that which is at the same level as the movement of the speaker driver surfaces when reproducing say the ambient information in a recording. That said, lots of high level back and forth motion which is not controlled is never a good thing - if you go past a car which has a dud shock absorber, yes, damper, the now and again ferocious bouncing of the wheel is almost comical, . So damping is a good thing. Either turn the kinetic energy into heat, or transfer it to a high mass body, where it is swamped - that's why you don't feel the earth move, most times .

For a very 'bouncy' floor, I would always go with creating as heavy, and 'dead' platform on the floor surface as I could get away with; have it spread outwards rather than upward, make it a low height stage for the speaker, in effect. To prevent marking to the floor, use some neutral material, say heavy cloth, as underlay to the platform.

If you're happy with the sound, then that's what matters! My only experience with Vivids was at the last Sydney show, and the combination with the particular electronics just showed too many issues - a fairly typical result; was reasonable enough with unchallenging recordings, but anything beyond that wasn't worth listening to. So, some level of system tweaking most likely would always be needed, if I had them to play with. Simple, everyday stuff allows one to try out ideas - some people could only live with the ultra-expensive, 'audiophile' version of some optimising idea ... which may, now and again, do a better job than the ready to hand, low cost alternative, .

The principle, to me, when I first tried it, was transferring the energy of the vibrating cabinet to a much, much heavier object; which lowers the frequency and amplitude - was a concrete slab floor, with spikes on heavy concrete pillars going through the carpet and underlay; speakers coupled at the corners to the pillar with generous blobs of Blu-Tack. The assembly was so solid that if you pushed really hard sideways on the top of the speaker, it would lift a spike from the slab. And note it's damping we want ... the idea is not, Wet Wet Wet speakers, . Less extreme these days. Of course, if the speakers are really heavily built this is a big step in the right direction - with the Vivids, what I would try is something like assembling a very heavy, flat base, with say, stacked and bonded concrete pavers, and tie the speaker cabinet solidly to that by some means - a principle I've used a few times. With the ultra light Tannoys the friend up the road uses, those car tie down straps which you can wrench up to any tension were used to lock the speaker to the stands - was dramatic in how much the presentation would change, depending upon exactly how the strapping was done ...

This is part of the journey for getting best sound reproduction - I went through the full process of experimenting with how things could be done, many decades ago, so that I understood the factors involved, . What mass loading, well done, with spikes, etc, does is improve the accuracy of what comes out of the speakers. "Technically interesting" means that more detail is now evident, but "musically uninvolving" means that part of that extra detail is distortion, more clearly delineated. And disturbing. Where does that distortion come from? Well, the other parts of the replay chain, not working to an optimum standard. Solutions? Let the speaker cabinet "bounce around a bit", which blurs everything, especially that unpleasant, originating from the electronics, distortion - in the visual field this was called the Doris Day lens; smearing Vaseline on the camera glass to 'soften' what the senses pick up. Or instead, use the extra precision the speakers now give you to locate where the rest of the chain is not working at its best; and introduce 'fixes' where needed. The advantage of the latter approach is that done to a high standard this gives you the best of all worlds: interesting detail, and musically involving, .

And another one, in the vein of "Atmos", "music" and "sense", Listened properly to this one ... and I agree with what he says. People don't "take music seriously" these days, when it's not a visual story as well, the home theatre thing ... I'm in that group of people, that he speaks of, who don't lock themselves in a highly specific listening position for long periods of time - it's 'background', so to speak, for my life. Which is not the same thing as putting up with mediocre SQ, - if you have a get together, a party, some social occasion; and hire some, yes, live musicians, to "entertain everyone" - and they're lousy at doing this, play badly, etc .... you would be really, really pissed off!! And so it goes for my home system - it has to sound spot on when I stand smack bang in the proverbial sweet spot - and everywhere else as well ; the sense of what I'm hearing should remain the same while I'm in earshot of the rig playing, no matter how focused I am, and whatever I may be doing. A reliable rule of thumb: if you have to make excuses for the system not sounding good, then it isn't! Good, that is ... For those, OTOH, who take the business of listening to albums very seriously, , it seems that a lot of money and effort is needed to get a proper return on the immersive mix thing - will the average bloke on the street ever be tempted ... hmmm ...

Comment here about "natural", versus "neutral", Neutral, meaning dead flat frequency response, is of little use in the face of excess audible distortion, the lack of which makes the presentation, 'natural'. Exercises with the DEQX DSP unit to get "perfect", flat curves demonstrate that the distortion signature doesn't go away. So if you don't like the sound of a rig, then playing with, typically, the treble just "hides it under the carpet"; it's the same way you deal with a cheap radio, using a basic tone control to cut the disturbing, because they're distorting, higher frequencies. Recordings' true nature is to sound, real. Take that in for a second, or a minute, or however long ... that's a fundamental in this field; and that's why I have zero tolerance for ambitious, expensive setups that "make a mess" of a high percentage of musical captures ... .