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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2018 9:08:47 GMT
I used to follow the herd years ago. It must be good because everyone says it is. Bollocks to that. Forums can be bad for this, full of shills, manufacturers and dealers in disguise, fanboys, ego maniacs, willy wavers. Before forums sheep followed what ever was written in the mags, manufacturer advertising swayed what ever was recommended usually. I am glad I have broken free of this. The first step was reading up about diy audio (for me at pfm) and then getting the courage to have a mess around. Confidence grows, knowledge and soldering improves and before you know it you are hacking a cd player to bits for fun  A real eye opener was joining a forum with subjectivist in the title. Once I had heard the first nva product then my whole audio world turned on its head. Fast forward a year and a half and I no longer take much notice of what is written on hifi forums. Its mostly bollocks. You learn who to trust and who's opinion to value. The anal technical objectivism can take a running jump as far as i'm concerned. I am no longer interested in the so called best way to do things, especially as regards flat frequency response and the view that this super dooper regulator kills noise all the way down to DC. Trust your own ears not somebody else's, try things that others may laugh at making no difference or what they think is completely wrong. Just do it, sit down and listen to the results. Don't like it?.........then have the balls to say so and either go back to what you had before or try something else. You can only know by trying it for yourself and listening with your own ears in your own room with your own gear. It was my speaker project which really hammered this home. Rebating drivers......bollocks, diffraction from sharp cabinet corners.......mostly bollocks, must get a table top flat frequency response.......bollocks, it has to look good to sound good...........BOLLOCKS, doping drivers and using no crossover can not work.......BBOLLLOCKS, semi Omni is crap........complete bollocks, there will be standing waves from a cabinet with no wadding.....bollocks. When I was planning my doc mod semi Omni project I started a thread on pfm about it (I only wanted advice on baffle design) and it quickly descended in to an ego, willy waving W#nk fest from the resident guru "experts". All the naysayers were very quick to jump in and say how it would not work and would sound awful. I remember one comment that it would work if I was making a party speaker but for serious listening I had to really study speaker and crossover design for it to be any good  . I quickly decided that pfm and the other mainstream forums were not really a place to be discussing things and kept my thoughts to the forum with subjectivist in the title. Well, the naysayers and armchair guru experts were all wrong. Being a drummer of 30 years with lots of experience at listening and playing music in countless bands over the years has made me well acquainted with how REAL music sounds and moves me emotionally. These speakers I made look like crap, were banged up out of old bits of ikea furniture and had little regard to frequency response plots (I have never measured them and have no inclination to do so) and yet they sound fantastic to me in my room with my gear and ears. They are so full of life, detail and dynamics, the emotion of the musicians playing together is conveyed like I have never heard before. The only thing I really took any notice of when building was cabinet volume and that only came about after realising that the Marantz cabs I initially used were too small and bass performance was suffering. All worked out through trying something, listening to the MUSIC and having the balls to say it is not right and moving on to something different. Will I be taking these speakers to countless bake offs ......NO. Will I be shouting from the roof tops about them on every forum I can think of....NO. Will I be demanding respect and my place in the guru hall of fame.....FFFING NO. As a thank you to RD for helping me along the way (and to help any others who wish to tread a similar path) I have written some bits and bobs about them on other forum boards but it will remain mostly at the forum with subjectivist in the title. The time will soon come to consolidate all my learning and tinkering in to a final build of all my components (speakers, amps, power supplies) and settle down for the rest of my life to enjoy listening to the great music collection I already have and the new finds that I make. I will add stuff to the forum with subjectivist in the title and here in due course but only if any one is interested. Talking to myself is not much fun.  |
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 25, 2018 9:30:38 GMT
Great post, Stu and I hope we get lots of people reading it. I'm not technically clued up (yet ) but I have had a chance to have a go at a semi omni build and also to experience other "non direct" speakers. Every time they have been better to me. Now I readily accept they won't be for everyone because hardly anything in hifi ever is. That said, I also feel that the only reason we have ended up with conventional speakers is because they are cheaper and easier for people to make money out of selling. Also they are more domestically acceptable (boring). I've also heard so much utter bollocks talked about subwoofers being bad too. Well I have heard the opposite. I'm sure there will be bad and good ones, as well as bad and good speaker/room matches, but if the best sound out of the thousands of combos I've ever had was using a sub, then they cannot be intrinsically bad. Again I think this a bit of hifi snobbery going on, as well as repeated "wisdom" based on little or no personal experience. Great to see a shout out for the DIY threads at PFM too. It's a good forum and a decent resource of all for DIY and clasifieds. Tony's a real gent too. That said I wish it had attracted a few less objectivists but we all have our crosses to bear. I hope others get to hear your speakers one day and I'd personally love you to take the prototypes out in public, even just once. Hearing great sounds coming from something that doesn't look like it's had ten grands worth of industrial design put into its looks would be the talk of any show. It might also open more eyes as well as ears. Might not do your back much good though! |
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Post by antonio on May 25, 2018 9:35:18 GMT
Still waiting for the finished product Stu. I will say you're doing good work, and although I don't understand most of what you do, you threads have always been interesting. |
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2018 9:59:42 GMT
Great post, Stu and I hope we get lots of people reading it. I'm not technically clued up (yet ) but I have had a chance to have a go at a semi omni build and also to experience other "non direct" speakers. Every time they have been better to me. Now I readily accept they won't be for everyone because hardly anything in hifi ever is. That said, I also feel that the only reason we have ended up with conventional speakers is because they are cheaper and easier for people to make money out of selling. Also they are more domestically acceptable (boring). I've also heard so much utter bollocks talked about subwoofers being bad too. Well I have heard the opposite. I'm sure there will be bad and good ones, as well as bad and good speaker/room matches, but if the best sound out of the thousands of combos I've ever had was using a sub, then they cannot be intrinsically bad. Again I think this a bit of hifi snobbery going on, as well as repeated "wisdom" based on little or no personal experience. Great to see a shout out for the DIY threads at PFM too. It's a good forum and a decent resource of all for DIY and clasifieds. Tony's a real gent too. That said I wish it had attracted a few less objectivists but we all have our crosses to bear. I hope others get to hear your speakers one day and I'd personally love you to take the prototypes out in public, even just once. Hearing great sounds coming from something that doesn't look like it's had ten grands worth of industrial design put into its looks would be the talk of any show. It might also open more eyes as well as ears. Might not do your back much good though! Hi Andrew, I agree with your points about mass market designed by bean counters for modern living speakers (don't forget the waf!). Not had any dealings with subwoofers so cant comment there but if they have crossovers and are sited remotely from the main speakers then for me they may be a problem. I think it would be better to design subwoofers specifically for use with other main speakers in a way that they can be attached together - like my little cabs on top of the bass cubes. PFM is a mine of information for diy if you like their style of doing things and is great to learn the basics from (if starting from scratch). I don't think my speakers will ever be going any where but I agree that they may ruffle a few feathers and on the other hand may be considered absolute crap. The point being I don't care anymore, that was the purpose of starting this thread. Doing your own thing is the way forward IMO and you should not be swayed by other internet personalities. Personal friends who you see in the flesh is probably slightly different. I would listen to what they have to say.....and then dismiss it I did not start this thread to spam my nva inspired speakers though. It is a losing battle unfortunately as some will say that is my intent. They were just used as an example to back up my point about doing the unconventional and being happy if it sounds good to you. Feck everybody else. Myself and Steve the shadow seem to have come to the same conclusions......spooky. |
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2018 10:08:30 GMT
Still waiting for the finished product Stu. I will say you're doing good work, and although I don't understand most of what you do, you threads have always been interesting. You will have to wait a good deal longer I'm afraid. Work is not allowing me much time at the moment. Its pissing it down now which is why I am here and I cant be arsed with the diy audio much at the moment. Had a bit of a burn out where it got too much. Took over my life to the detriment of other things. Like any addiction it needs to be addressed - suppose I am in the right place (audioaddicts ). I'm not bored with it, quite the opposite really. But when I start doing it again I will be refreshed. The final build is quite a scary prospect to be honest. Having to make things with aesthetics in mind will be quite different from what I have thrown together so far. If it wasn't for having to take all this stuff in to the family home I would just leave it all as is. Suppose I have been very lucky to have the farm to build and listen to all this stuff, not to mention all the tools already here and the materials just lying about the place. You don't have to understand it, not sure I do sometimes when at full throttle. Glad you have enjoyed them though, gives me a reason to carry on documenting it. But, I don't want to come across as some wannabe guru, shill or willy waver. Regards. |
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 25, 2018 11:40:52 GMT
I'd really hope the spamming and shilling debate never enters here. I think it's gotten plain silly when you can't talk about stuff you like without all this nonsense. That's why i have even made it fine to promote your products here as long as it's not so OTT that it is everywhere. The sort of maker/seller who posts on a small forum would have to be crazy to think it's going to make him more money than spending time on other promotion. Such people come to forums to talk about stuff they love and care about. It's OK to be enthusiastic about your own product. I'd worry if someone wasn't. Of course, that isn't you. You share ideas and open minds as well as saving folk money by sharing them. It's particularly daft for anyone to complain about spamming "ideas" because the product isn't even available commercially. The ideas themselves aren't even new as they appear in Roy Allison and Joe Ackroyds speakers and probably others too. Nobody is making a bean from your speakers, but even if they were, I think it's time to say "so what?". As long as we are talking about the gear then I am interested and enjoying it, whoever the maker, seller or poster is |
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2018 12:12:02 GMT
Yeah, I suppose if you cant talk about things you like then the audio fora would be very quiet.
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Post by dsjr on May 25, 2018 19:06:14 GMT
I do honestly think you need a balanced view where technical design is coming from and it's my experience that not *all* commercial boxes, even cheap ones, are heavily compromised down to a price.
I can't even begin to comment on DIY speaker builds as I can't cut wood, let alone finish it properly.
I don't think anyone said doping drivers doesn't work. My geriatric Spendors have heavily doped bass drivers to make the Bextrene behave itself and even when Spendor went over to polypropylene, the early SP1's had doping painted on the backs of the cones as well. The extra weight actually causes problems in the BC1 driver as the suspension sags with age and the coil goes off centre.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2018 19:15:24 GMT
I can tell you now Dave some of the posts on my thread on pfm said that the doped driver approach could not work. Usual suspects were on it in a flash as soon as they worked out who was behind the design principles.
You should let us all know of the speakers that were not built down to a price. Seriously i would like to know.....?searching ebay right now .
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Post by dsjr on May 25, 2018 20:02:00 GMT
I don't think proper top end speakers are priced up until they're finished and this is certainly how ATC's used to be - absolutelt NO cost cutting there and they use doped midrange and tweeter units too...
My Spendors weren't and modern ones aren't either I feel, and certainly not in the bits that really matter. Harbeths the same (both are probably priced up these days to enable distributor margins (Harbeth) and high dealer margins as well (Spendor), but cost cutting isn't part of their thinking I assure you). The Epos ES14 models circa the original Chesham era were priced too low rather than the products built down to that level and profit on each pair was low, same with Musical Technology, where the speakers were designed to do the job and prices worked out later..
I can't comment on the heavily doped drivers except to say the ones the Doc personally prepares are very good indeed and made up over several days carefully adding layers here and there, not just randomly sploshed all over the front of the cone. I'm not sure anyone else is trained up to do this job the same way as well as he does though - and that's the main downside I feel.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 25, 2018 20:53:43 GMT
Now this is just me and I'm making no assumptions beyond my current experience, but I don't tend to like doped drivers vs undoped or even significantly less doped ones. To put this into context, I should really explain what my experience has been. Joe Akroyd was famous for his doping. I've used a few Royds and the worst ones are always the heaviest doped. Minstrel is a little shitbag of a speaker in stock form and its driver is covered in the stuff. Ditch the doped driver and replace with an identical undoped one and it's a different speaker with no comparative downsides I can hear. I've done this twice now and both experiments have been ludicrously better.
My other experjence relates to my DIY Cubette inspired build. I liked the Cubettes when I got them and I half expected to make something that sounded different but a little worse. I did things a little differently in terms of cabinet damping, but the biggest difference was the bass unit treatment. A much smaller ring of Bison Kit at the centre and no plastidip. Comparative listening left the NVAs sounding dull, slow and thuddy. It was very similar (in fact near identical) to my Royd experience. The extra weight of the doping has some very clear downsides to my ears. It has to affect efficiency and that seemed to be supported by my subjective experience. It also seemed to affect speed. I love the way Snells play and I know their design philiosophy was to store as little energy as possible. All that extra doping seems to be storing energy to my ears.
I'd be willing accept that doing away with as much of a crossover as you can in most cases helps the music. I just feel that replacing it with a mechanical filter that weighs down the driver is a downside I haven't been able to live with so far, unless it's very minimal.
Edit: I did want to add that at least with the doping approach, you can add incrementally until you feel you're going backwards or at least not improving matters. I bought the plastidip and more Bison Kit than I needed. The sweet spot for me was after two rings of Kit were applied to the centre. A small third application didn't bring anything new and I already had the finished Cubettes to show me what more kit and Plastidip would bring. I decided that the only way I was heading by applying more was down. But at least this allowed me to adjust to taste.
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Post by dsjr on May 26, 2018 10:22:22 GMT
Mintrel Se's were some of the best Royds I ever heard! They just didn't go very loud! Just a touch of ever present tinsel up top is the only thing I thought could be better at the time..
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 26, 2018 10:52:09 GMT
I've never heard the SE but I think the stand is the only difference? To me the mInstrels sound like somebody drowned the bass unit in gunk, which is rather apt. I'm not sure why they don't go loud but you're right in that it is a weakness. Oddly it's a far bigger weakness in the Minstrel than the other Royds like Eden, Sapphire and Sintra. They appear to have the same cabinet volume and bass driver though, so maybe the gunk, port, or narrow cabinet to blame?
Another pet hate about the minstrel is image height. It's far less compromised with an undoped driver, but it's still a factor. I think of the Minstrel as Joe's "sellout" design. Tamed with lashings of gunk and utilising the 7 litre cabinet in a WAF friendly way that wrecks the sonics. I also think they look a bit ridiculous too, because they are too short. Even when modded, I wouldn't use them for more than TV/AV duties because they just aren't near good enough. But that's just me, I saw Colin enjoying a pair recently and more power to him.
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Post by dsjr on May 26, 2018 14:46:33 GMT
SSSSSSSintra's had the tweeter set 5db or so above the midrange (as did Kudos I remember) and it's great if you use vinyl with a dull cartridge as we used to. The mass loaded box was excellent though and bass to mids was very good I recall.
Bass should be there and maybe some iffy speakers could be improved with better amp choice? I don't know...
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2018 15:13:53 GMT
Have one of you guys met Mr Akroyd? According to RD years ago, he's a miserable old git.
S.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 27, 2018 7:52:05 GMT
Nope, but I did hear tales of him bringing his latest speakers into shops and being full of praise for them, only to get a bit of feedback and take them away to tinker, that's as much as I've heard.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2018 13:22:32 GMT
Have one of you guys met Mr Akroyd? According to RD years ago, he's a miserable old git. S. I'm surprised Royd have such a cult status today. They weren't that well thought of in their day. Minstrels were a success because of their diddiness and WAF but I thought they were terrible. Edens were better than Kans is some setups but all Royds use small drivers and most use small cabinets. There are limits to what they can do. |
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 27, 2018 14:48:48 GMT
Have one of you guys met Mr Akroyd? According to RD years ago, he's a miserable old git. S. I'm surprised Royd have such a cult status today. They weren't that well thought of in their day. Minstrels were a success because of their diddiness and WAF but I thought they were terrible. Edens were better than Kans is some setups but all Royds use small drivers and most use small cabinets. There are limits to what they can do. Edens and Sapphires are good and I'd agree they are better tahnnKans in many setups. I haven't heard many of the others but I do like Elas so I will probably like Apex too. I'd agree with you that they are a bit over-hyped on forums but their sale value is still low. They are probably a bit too quirky to have mass appeal. |
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Post by dsjr on May 27, 2018 17:25:28 GMT
The ELA was better (less boxy) than the Apex and the big Abbots were a bit vague sounding and not in full control *at the time.* I last heard a pair in the early noughties in a largish room and they were a bit underwhelming to be honest.
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Bigman80
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Post by Bigman80 on May 28, 2018 2:18:39 GMT
That's interesting. I always wanted to try the Apex just so id know. I like the Ela and could live with a pair. I agree with Audionut that Royds are a bit over hyped by people on forums. Joe Ackroyd seems to me to have have a good bass unit and clever use of steel damping. Beyond that, not much else of note.
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A real eye opener was joining a forum with subjectivist in the title. Once I had heard the first nva product then my whole audio world turned on its head.
