Green Mountain Audio Europas

[GranteedEV]

Good point, and I think our specs show that.

Perhaps they do. As I stated earlier, I just have a much easier time with interpreting graphs than trying to imagine the "consequences" of written specifications. I do realize that the "unprettyness" of a high resolution graph can be a big risk with marketting but to me it shows engineering confidence more than anything. Now I realize that even some of the industry leaders don't have the most information readily available without a stereophile review, but the very few that do are the companies that I in particular seek out and tell others to seek out. This is not a slight on GMA, as your specifications section did indeed give me much more information than I'm used to. I just think with a few first-party graphs, as theoretically unreliable as they can be, I have an easier time making a judgement not on the sound or quality of the speaker, but on the design principles behind it. For example reading the impedence specification I came out rather impresses as this speaker would be a very easy load for even the most modest of amplifiers, but in all honesty my lazyness would have missed the details on that spec 5 times out of 10, a graph not so much.

Our reviews show that because the reviewers we chose have qualifications and experience far better than most. Our Owners comments mean something as well, if only for their consistency.

Possibly. Although the credibility of magazines which review cables and ilk of that sort, as well similar owners, certainly makes me put diminished stock in them.

 

[JerryLove]

Jerry, as with any Owner, you are welcome to contact me by phone. The magnitude of your peak in the midrange is an artifact, and I'd be happy to discuss what might be going on with the room or setup. Email will not work for this, sorry.

I'm dubious that it can be explained as a room issue. But I did not invest this much money and time because I'm willing to work from assumptions. I'll sort out some time for us to discuss and see what we can make happen.

Green Mountain is a small company, but not tiny. Also we are old, not new. For more than fifteen years we have had consistently wonderful reviews in all of the major US, Canada, and UK magazines, and by Soundstage and sixmoons on the internet.

It's not really accurate to say that all, or even most, review sources have handled your speakers. I don't think 6moons has reviewed anything without making it sound like an ad.

Most reviews are on our website, along with Owner's comments. The reviewers' summations are always similar, concerning clarity and realism, and Owner comments are also consistent for many years now.

Actually the reviewers seem to parrot what the website does. It's odd to see some reviewer who has no reviews complaining of "time smear" to suddenly talk about how great it is that the "time smear is gone".

So I hunted down the Rio. It had one review in a magazine linked. So I went to their page and opened up their speaker reviews and looked at their first two pages (40 reviews).

0-star: 0/40
1-star: 0/40
2-star: 0/40
3-star: 4/40: All from companies I've never heard of (interestingly: the text varies heavily in it's favor / disfavor
4-star: 22/40
4.5-star: 3/40
5-star: 11/40

He doesn't seem to hear much he doesn't love. Listed as a low in that review "Upper midband is rather forward and exposed" which sounds like my experience here.

As to the owner testimonials that show up on a (any, not simply yours) manufacturer's website? I never lend those much credence. Even if not outright faked (which a surprising number often are), it's simple to assume they are cherry-picked.

None of this means these aren't good (or great) speakers (any more than that same site reviewing B&W802's means they are not good speakers), but it does seem less compelling than what is available for some other gear.

We receive many requests for reviews, and look forward to sending out more product.

However, by casting our enclosures, we limit our rate of production, and thus our distribution and reviews, for which I do not apologize. Quality is very important to us, something much easier to control in craftsman-workshop spaces than on a large factory floor (visitors are welcome). And I get to speak with most every Owner, which is great! I always appreciate their feedback and continue to learn from their experiences and their music.

Respectfully: you do seem to be apologizing for it. No need. I can understand that any company not in the mainstream (not a pick: the fact is you are not Harmon Kardon, not Bose, not B&W) would have limited units available for review. Add in the size, cost, and shipping weight of your speakers and I find it understandable.

That's why I just bought a pair.

Unless I have mis-read some of the thrust of this thread, some believe we do not publish measurements. We do indeed, and do so more thoroughly than any competitor, on each speaker's Specs webpage.

You do publish numbers, and you do publish more than many (I don't think "more than any" is actually accurate). That's a good thing and I certainly cast no disparaging remarks your way.

I think there are other measurements some of us here enjoy looking at. Honestly though: I suspect most prefer to get them from a third party anyway. Sadly for us, those measurements are often not available with your line. They just haven't seen the same number of reviews as most other brands we discuss.

As a side note, since room reflections and standing waves interfere with most tests, one could place the speaker on a high post outdoors. But then all tones below ~300Hz will be far weaker than inside a room. Therefore, outdoors, we again can only learn about a limited range of tones.

Actually that's a pretty narrow range to loose on the Europa's, and I do plan on an outdoor test.

Jerry-- call me.

Will do.

Our reviews show that because the reviewers we chose have qualifications and experience far better than most.

Then there are idiots like me who choose themselves. Ahh well, my competency may be questioned: but few will honestly accuse me of an agenda.

 

[majorloser]

In response to the PM's and delete posts...

Rule #2 applies to all those out there that feel like bashing fellow forum members is acceptable. It is not. Everybody is free to express their opinions about products in a civil manner. But that does not mean you can bash a forum member for his opinion on a product that you have an opposite view.

Rule #4 applies to any company and their representatives that wishes to use this forum to help promote their product without seeking support from site administration. So unless I or any other moderator hear from one of those two site administrators that a business or manufacturer is authorized to freely post links to their company website and advertisement materials, I will assume they are in violation of Rule #4.

When it comes to company representatives, there is a thin line between product discussion and product publicity.

Audioholics does allow manufacturers to post and participate. This is quite common in threads related to products reviewed by Audioholics staff.

 

[RoyJ]

MajorLoser,

I apologize if anything I have written seems to have crossed over the line into marketing. If you were to PM me an example, I will certainly look at what you recommend, to do a better job of respecting your rules, thanks. Regardless, I will be more careful.

What surprised me on this site was how anything and most anyone having to do with GMA has been questioned if not downright challenged. With all due respect, in many instances I and others were responding to major misinformation and failure to do one's homework:

In Jerry's first GMA thread of 10-28-2010, someone remarks early on: "Very small company in Green Mountain Falls Colorado west of Colorado Springs." No. We are not very small, and have not been in Green Mountain Falls since 1978. This info is on our site and easy to locate.

In that same thread, Jerry remarks about poor measurements in the 1994 Stereophile review, and so I took a lot of time to write a clear response about the technical issues with their measurement techniques. No one bothered to comment on my response.

Instead, I saw fun being made of the manufacturer whose wire we use inside, even though on our website we say why we like this wire, and why what we hear through it makes sense from the physics of how AC currents and magnetic fields behave in and around it. Since this site seems to be dedicated to technical understandings of what is going on, I thought that our website's information would be useful to anyone from here who read it. But again, no comment on those facts I presented about conduction that come from the physics of electricity passing through real wires...

I could unfortunately continue, but it sure seems a lot of selective reading of our website and reviews is going on, if any of it is being read at all. I would point out that at even the start of this thread, Jerry remarked he did not know his tweeter and woofer size, nor how you position the speaker when it's 'just two feet from my head.' All of that is in the Owner's Guide he had already received. Thanks again for trying Europas, Jerry, and I look forward to your call. Leave me a message if I am out, anytime.


Onto something else--

Jerry, with regard to reviews performed by major publications, please have a look at each speaker's webpage for them, including our retired models, since listing them here would comprise marketing.

"From 300Hz on down" is where the heart of music lives, Jerry. It is not an insignificant or minor part of the tone range, as you would find in the long run.

In that review, the 'exposed upper midband' can be one impression of a time-coherent speaker, since many speakers are so out-of-time in that range. But there was no comment about any irritation, for it is not a distortion, nor a rise in frequency response responsible for that impression. Remember, when your own left and right speakers are accidently wired out-of-phase with each other (one being polarity inverted, that is), you always hear a vague center image. That 'lack of directness' to the center image is entirely analogous to a woofer and tweeter being 180 or 360 degrees out-of-phase. So we shoot for Zero degrees and the sound is more direct.


Some words about Reviews and Reviewers-
All of us know most product reviews tend to be good. Many feel that this is because of advertising pressure, which certainly is a reasonable assumption. However, my long-term experience along with that of many other designers and manufacturers is that a reviewer asks for something to review, with his editor's permission, because he heard it somewhere and liked it, or he's liked that company's other products, and/or a friend or the editor recommended it to him. Regardless, no reviewer ever chooses anything that will 'waste his time.' Therefore, no poorly-performing product gets reviewed. And thus we all get to read a majority of 'good' reviews. I am not sure if there is a solution, except by way of forums that challenge those BS results, as this one does.

That's why I mentioned what we look for in reviewers, in the hope that would help you be more selective about what reviewers you bother to read. Here's a fun fact: I have seen a lot of the most well-known reviewers' rooms and was totally surprised at how acoustically compromised many of their setups are. Plus, few reviewers ever call a manufacturer to discuss a problem or even ask a question, and even fewer read and follow an Owner's Guide (egos at work I am sure).

I apologize if that sounds like a bashing or a jaded attitude, but I am nowhere near alone in knowing this is how that side of the industry works, and thought you should know.


I offer to all of you here a discussion of the physics about speakers in general and not about GMA speakers (to burst any balloons of suspicion ahead of time).

I know that most questions about measurements versus sound quality come from not knowing the physics behind the device and thus what would be an appropriate measurement process to prove or disprove a claim. The physics is not known, not because it cannot be understood by laymen, but because it cannot be easily found. And that is because it is not understood by many 'designers', which anyone can see in their writings via their claims of better sound supported only by technical mumbo-jumbo, or perhaps not at all. Not on our website, thank you.

Thus, it is of little surprise to me when their products are deemed of dubious value. I know I do.

The physics behind any particular device can be understood by most anyone, which leads to more meaningful measurements. Since I am one of the few physicists who designs speakers, that's why I strive to present the physics in a clear and logical manner, with little math and no marketing fluff.

You may want simple graphs instead, but physics combined with psychoacoustics does show us the way through the clutter of the marketplace.

Magazines and other manufacturers seldom present any physics concepts and give us instead the simplest measurements, ones based on the simplest equations any two-year electrical tech learns. While that's impressive enough to the non-tech person (and just fine with the magazines), it's less than helpful to those seeking why things don't sound like they measure, or to those who claim measurements reveal all (sure--- if we knew how to measure all of what we hear- which we don't).

I only wish to enlighten, as I know it would have made my own audio-evolution easier and faster if someone had told me those things 30 years ago...

So, I would like to be done with defending senseless attacks on our technology from those who have not done their homework via reading through our website. I do remain available for questions about speakers, and about our speakers, and I look forward to those opportunities, as again, there is far too much misinformation out there about how speakers work and how we interpret what sounds they produce.

Best regards,
Roy

 

[GranteedEV]

What surprised me on this site was how anything and most anyone having to do with GMA has been questioned if not downright challenged. With all due respect, in many instances I and others were responding to major misinformation and failure to do one's homework:

Let's be fair here... the failure to do one's homework has a bit to do with the magazines we associate with "reviewrtising" being the few sources of information. It's only human nature to be skeptical.

In Jerry's first GMA thread of 10-28-2010, someone remarks early on: "Very small company in Green Mountain Falls Colorado west of Colorado Springs." No. We are not very small, and have not been in Green Mountain Falls since 1978. This info is on our site and easy to locate.

In that same thread, Jerry remarks about poor measurements in the 1994 Stereophile review, and so I took a lot of time to write a clear response about the technical issues with their measurement techniques. No one bothered to comment on my response.

Instead, I saw fun being made of the manufacturer whose wire we use inside, even though on our website we say why we like this wire, and why what we hear through it makes sense from the physics of how AC currents and magnetic fields behave in and around it. Since this site seems to be dedicated to technical understandings of what is going on, I thought that our website's information would be useful to anyone from here who read it. But again, no comment on those facts I presented about conduction that come from the physics of electricity passing through real wires...

Now I don't particularily recall much participation or even attention paid on my behalf with that particular thread but I do see how easily the choice of overpriced wire raises huge question marks as to the credibility of any company. I won't ask you to repeat what you may have said in the previous thread as I could probably dig it up myself but I strongly doubt there's anything peculiar about your wire choice which can't be replicated at a far more sensible cost than what I recall that wire costing.

All of us know most product reviews tend to be good. Many feel that this is because of advertising pressure, which certainly is a reasonable assumption. However, my long-term experience along with that of many other designers and manufacturers is that a reviewer asks for something to review, with his editor's permission, because he heard it somewhere and liked it, or he's liked that company's other products, and/or a friend or the editor recommended it to him.

You're more optimistic than I... If they review cables, it pretty much shows their agenda. I don't mean this as a slight to GMA, but the 6moons guy who reviewed your speakers used fire hose as speaker cable. That to me is not even a review worth reading. It could be the most honest and accurate review in the world, but it's still written by a retard with fire hose in his house thinking it makes things sound better.

 

[RoyJ]

Hi GranteedEV,

We are both up to late, as I am in the same time zone... and waiting for glue to dry on a project. Exciting stuff... I hope you are having a fun evening.

Listen, I appreciate your viewpoint and welcome it. I have no agenda to convince someone, but to present you the facts and science as I have come to learn them. I know they are not misleading, but so what? Maybe I am blowing more complicated smoke... On the other hand, I do think I go out of my way to always say why we hear something- again via the physics. So maybe I do have something for you to anchor to...

Regardless, for anyone not a physicist, would you agree with the following?

The proof of any speaker design can only be in its hearing, specifically by listening for artifacts recurring on any music and any recordings, even ones you never liked nor will play again, on any amp or cable, etc.

I would add that one must be respectful about the acoustic space nearest the speakers, to give their initial wavefronts the best send-off. Then you get to hear most easily what the studios produce, which is at best close to reality (until you hear actually hear reality by being on stage or in the studio live, with no mics. Then recorded sound is almost a bummer, but still, we need and love our music, so CDs it is!).

There are defects in speakers, as you likely suspect, that create unique sounds which cannot be caused by studios, by microphones or tape decks, compressors and limiters, by digital or analog transmission, by amps, cd players and cables.

There are speaker-type distortions of the image, the clarity, the dynamics, the tonality, the textures, the harmonic structures, of the rhythm, and of the emotional content of the music, regardless of amp, cable, recording, etc.

You probably know that each type of speaker distortion not only will measure in a certain way, but likely be audible in a certain way as well. To me that meant a lot of variables to go through, precisely as Jerry has suggested I think in another thread??

And it also means that if a speaker designer (and the perfect reviewer and the perfect retailer!!) wants to listen for speaker-only distortions, it is invaluable if he or she has some recording and live-sound experience, to have a good idea of what is even going into the speakers or amp or CD player.

Makes complete sense to me, but we all know that's too much to expect customers to have, so I explain what I know of recording, acoustics and so forth on our site. I apologize for that statement feeling too much like marketing, but I assure you that info is presented with no reference to GMA-- just info I never saw sensibly gathered together on the internet, and I knew it would reduce the amount of questions I was answering.

Now I ... do see how easily the choice of overpriced wire raises huge question marks as to the credibility of any company... I strongly doubt there's anything peculiar about your wire choice which can't be replicated at a far more sensible cost than what I recall that wire costing.

I understand your position, as I feel most of the expensive raw parts, wires included, from which I can choose are overpriced and from less-than-technically-credible/experienced suppliers.

So, to find the best-value parts, I have used what I know physics says about that type of product, about the effect its construction will have on the signal, and then choose among what seems to be the best, by making the same judgment calls that anyone would in their system, by changing that one 'wire-variable', and listening. I would prefer something more expensive would not be better, as to my bias. Acute listening easily betters DBT testing in my experience, as long as one puts expectations aside, which gets easier the more experience we have. I digress, sorry.

But it is wrong to think this particular wire can be duplicated economically. Well, by China in mass quantities, but that's not going to happen.

I am sure he produces only a few thousand-foot rolls at a time (in the USA), and that does cost a lot when you look at the wire's delicate construction, which again, makes absolutely complete sense to avoid most everything advanced physics says about 'what goes wrong in wires'. Which was part of my graduate studies.

My thoughts on what goes wrong in wires are on our website-- and I'd be happy to clarify anything there, since I wrote this a few years back, and I'm not a very good writer.

I think the types of folks on this forum would quite enjoy discussing the implications of those concepts-- not mine in any way, but again, come from physics texts and experiments on electricity and magnetics. The best textbooks on physics and on acoustics I know of are listed on our site.

You're more optimistic than I... If they review cables, it pretty much shows their agenda.

Sorry, what agenda I would ask?

Perhaps we should not read any reviews-- sorry you feel that way, and believe me, I do understand. I have heard many reviewers' systems, and I too wonder at what the heck they are hearing because it seems easy for me to hear only their gross problems, such as the room's poor acoustics and frequency response, a poorly-designed tube amp that muddies the bass, or poor speaker or listener placement...

But I don't know what we should expect to gain by the reviewer using any old cable. Your thoughts on that? If you were a reviewer, how would you approach that issue?

What I think is that we are all done a disservice when any speakers are not also tried on cables and amps that are truly affordable, like a 1980 Onkyo A-7 amp from eBay, that anyone can hear kicks the pants off any current amp selling for the same $200-300 price-- using $1/foot Monster Cable speaker wires and an old pair of Signet (Audio Technica) OFC interconnects that sold for $50 the early 90's. That's how our workbenches are setup, and I'd leave you to judge the results. Certainly many visitors have.

Have a great weekend! Again, your thoughts are welcome.

Best,
Roy

 

[RoyJ]

I overlooked this and it needs a response, thanks:

I don't mean this as a slight to GMA, but the 6moons guy who reviewed your speakers used fire hose as speaker cable. That to me is not even a review worth reading. It could be the most honest and accurate review in the world, but it's still written by a retard with fire hose in his house thinking it makes things sound better.

Wow-- it seems you have no faith in anyone, and that would be too bad. I do know he went on to try many other wires, even affordable ones, but I don't think he wrote much on that... Now, I too disagree with the 'fire hose' concept-- wrong on more technical levels I can begin to describe.

But then again, if that's the best cables he has heard, why not use them for the review (and then try the cheaper stuff)? I know I hear what our reviewers have heard, and at our factory have had several of them hear what we hear, along with all sorts of other visitors. Regardless, I think you are out of line to call someone, anyone a retard. Perhaps you did not mean it as badly as it came across.

Best wishes,
Roy

 

[GO-NAD!]

Acute listening easily betters DBT testing in my experience, as long as one puts expectations aside, which gets easier the more experience we have.

Roy, I'm not a physicist, but I have a mechanical background - diesel engines, hydraulics, HVAC, HP Air systems, etc - and I have a fair understanding of electricity as a consequence.

Perhaps it's more complicated than I think, but I would consider the influence of the internal wiring construction, i.e. gauge and strand orientation, to have very subtle - if any - effect on the "sound" coming from that speaker.

I find it incredible that a scientist, such as yourself, would not rely on DBT to distinguish the difference between two speakers having different wire installed. I have been led to believe that aural memory is extremely short, no matter what degree of listening experience one has. I know mine is! If you are indeed capable of distinguishing such differences, I'd be quite impressed!

As for "putting expectations aside", it has been well-established, that the human psyche is incapable of doing just that. That's why controlled testing, such as DBT, was developed. I'm certainly not trying to be argumentative - perhaps I misunderstand what you're saying.

I had never even heard of GMA until I started reading this thread. Therefore, I have no opinion of the speakers whatsoever, other than to say that from the photos, they are quite attractive. I'd like to hear a pair someday. In the meantime, I look forward to reading about Jerry's experience.

 

[Shakeydeal]

What I find amusing is that many here are quick to dismiss ANY reviewer or magazine that reviews cables. But one such magazine prints a graph of dubious performance of a loudspeaker and they don't mind quoting THAT. Either the magazine has credibility or it doesn't.

Shakey

 

[InTheIndustry]

Although the credibility of magazines which review cables and ilk of that sort, as well similar owners, certainly makes me put diminished stock in them.

You mean..... Ones like THIS ?!?!?!?!?!?

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/cables/

 

[Shakeydeal]

You mean..... Ones like THIS ?!?!?!?!?!?

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/cables/

Touche'


Shakey

 

[Dr. Parthipan]

In that review, the 'exposed upper midband' can be one impression of a time-coherent speaker, since many speakers are so out-of-time in that range. But there was no comment about any irritation, for it is not a distortion, nor a rise in frequency response responsible for that impression.

I have two comments in response to this. Firstly Jerry took his own measurements of the Europa and discovered a rise in frequency response precisely in the range which prior to the measurement, perceived a rise.
This is not consistent with your claim and hence calls for an explanation. Secondly it is often said that the use of first order crossovers makes the frequency response difficult to correct and control, which suggests a possible explanation for the rise that Jerry heard?

 

[JerryLove]

In that same thread, Jerry remarks about poor measurements in the 1994 Stereophile review, and so I took a lot of time to write a clear response about the technical issues with their measurement techniques. No one bothered to comment on my response.

Actually I believe that myseld, swerd, and some others responded by asking about how to resolve the problems you described and get good measurements.

We were, and are, generally open to accepting that even a normally accepted methodology might not accurately reflect what will be the subjective experience; but then look for what testing methodology *will* work.

As I said, I'll call and work with you on getting the best arrangement possible. I intend to describe both my ears and my mic. I'm more than happy to try whatever configuration of mic you think will best reflect the actual sound of your speakers (as I am with ears).

 

[swspiers]

That's not science.

I would submit that you don't know if your speakers are time and phase aligned or not. In fact they won't be, as with spaced drivers theory works out far from perfectly.

As far as I'm aware there is only one almost phase and time perfect speaker in the world, that is FRED the Quad ESL 63.

It is easy to tell if a speaker is time aligned and that is with an impulse and a square wave. The only speaker EVER documented to produce a passable semblance of a square wave is the ESL 63. In fact two out of phase will cancel a square wave in free space. I know because Peter Walker personally demonstrated it to me.

Here is the Quad ESL impulse response.

Now that is time aligned!

Here is a Quad ESL reproducing a square wave.

Now I challenge Green Mountain to do the same. I can guarantee their impulse and square wave response won't be anything like that, because of the separation of the drivers.

If you really think time alignment has to be very close to perfect, then buy Quad ESLs.

Good catch! I had forgotten about the Quads and the square wave. As far as I know, the only other speakers to pull this off are the original Ohm A and Ohm F, along with the HHR TLS-I and TLS-II.

I don't have graphs- please don't shoot me

 

[highfigh]

Roy Johnson cannot communicate the things which would give the competition an advantage, neither is it appropriate to give the math details because it is fair to assume that most audiophiles are music lovers and they wouldn't be qualified to understand it. So given these conditions you end up with 'flowery' descriptions or what some call marketing. It is surely the responsibility of the reader to brush up on his math to understand the details instead of criticise it as being flowery or too technical no?

You have never been in the consumer electronics industry, have you? You would be amazed by the questions asked by customers who have only read the popular A/V magazines and thought they had the knowledge needed to ask the most technical questions but even when the answers weren't terribly in-depth their eyes glaze over. There are some people who like to go into a store and lord their "knowledge" of audio/video over the salespeople because they think there's no way they could possible know enough to answer the simplest questions by these would be "experts". Marketing is what gets people to buy things based on emotions, rarely logic.

If you're a medical doctor, ask your colleagues if they're interested in audio. If they are, ask how deeply. If you're a medical doctor, I know you have had a lot of math & science training, which means that you understand a good amount of the information. OTOH, there are literally millions of engineers, scientists and hobbyists who have as much, or more, math & science training and happen to be interested or directly involved in audio/video.

If you want to be a Roy Johnson fan, great. Everyone needs fans when that person is trying to add a product to the mix and if there's real merit to the designer's claims, even better. However, lacking the actual information, a marketing blurb is a poor substitute for facts or a good listening test.

Specs are a tool, no more or less. If someone wants to use only specs to make their decision, they should be allowed to but a huge gap or hump in a speaker's response curve means that it usually won't sound very good for many listeners and in many rooms. If the anomaly fits a person's hearing or some rooms, great. It has been known, for a long time, that boosting certain frequencies makes the sound stage wider and boosting others makes it higher, more forward, etc. That information is used by speaker designers and manufacturers to produce speakers that make a customer say "WOW!" when they listen and while it's great to be wowed at first, it's the long-term listening that makes or breaks the experience. It's completely impractical to make speakers that perfectly match a person's hearing because the rest of the listeners won't like the sound unless it's by coincidence. Headphones are another story. If I had a dollar for every time I told a customer to listen to the music and stop reading the specs/listening to the equipment, I could have retired long ago but great speakers make a huge difference and many of the problems in bad ones are immediately audible.

 

[highfigh]

I know I will sound like a GMA fanboy, but I'm gonna say this anyway. How many other speaker manufacturers welcome calls from someone who bought their (least expensive model) speakers on the used market?Shakey

Large corporations are rarely staffed by people who are passionate about what they make and, from 'Citizen Kane', "Making money is easy, if all you want to do is make money" (Klipsch is a good example, in light of their buying so many companies who had the CE mark and then closing many of them or eliminating the people who had made those companies what they were, like Jamo). Calls like the ones from buyers of used speakers are usually seen as an annoyance and it may be from not being able to answer the questions than anything else. How many speaker companies that are now part of a large corporation even have any of the original designers working for them? Almost none and if anyone knows anything about how or why something was done a certain way, it's here-say, not first-hand info.

 

[majorloser]

MajorLoser,

I apologize if anything I have written seems to have crossed over the line into marketing. If you were to PM me an example, I will certainly look at what you recommend, to do a better job of respecting your rules, thanks. Regardless, I will be more careful.

What surprised me on this site was how anything and most anyone having to do with GMA has been questioned if not downright challenged. With all due respect, in many instances I and others were responding to major misinformation and failure to do one's homework............

I don't believe PM's are appropriate for items that belong out in public. For some reason PM's always end up being brought out in public anyway.

It's very simple, you have clearly come to the Audioholics Forum as a representative for your company. You have also continued to provide links to your company site. Some would say, myself included, this could be considered promoting a company or product.

I would highly recommend you contact Gene DellaSala, the founder of this site if you need to discuss matters further.

http://www.audioholics.com/Members/Gene/biography-1

 

[RoyJ]

Perhaps it's more complicated than I think, but I would consider the influence of the internal wiring construction, i.e. gauge and strand orientation, to have very subtle - if any - effect on the "sound" coming from that speaker.

For a long time, I agreed with you and used wire that was built 'well enough' with pure copper and a teflon insulation. And other wires showed only minimal gains (or losses) in clarity and dynamics until I finally eliminated or minimized a lot of the other distortions common to speakers, such as cabinet-surface reflections, poor crossover parts (not very clear or dynamic), and made the speakers time-coherent with a very simple crossover (less parts count = more clarity). Then it became pretty easy to hear if there was a worthwhile difference between one high-quality wire and another. We were certainly shocked when we heard the difference this new wire made inside the speakers.

I find it incredible that a scientist, such as yourself, would not rely on DBT to distinguish the difference between two speakers having different wire installed. I have been led to believe that aural memory is extremely short, no matter what degree of listening experience one has. I know mine is! If you are indeed capable of distinguishing such differences, I'd be quite impressed!

I did not say that I did not rely on DBT tests, only that I no longer have to rely on them at this stage of my career. I did use DBTs for a long, long time until they confirmed I was hearing true sonic differences, and without bias. That's a necessary part of my job description and it took a couple of decades of DBT and SBT experience to get there. I would not expect most people to go through that effort, so it remains uncommon to be able to listen without bias.

One's aural memory only seems short when trying to remember 'everything' about a recording-- not likely unless you were the original artist or producer who lived and breathed that song ad infinitum.

What we do remember are sounds that have come to be familiar, such as the way someone sings, like Sinatra or Sting, or Joni Mitchell. We remember their intonations, the way they shape words and phrases, holding onto or letting go of certain notes. So we should never shortchange our abilities, but realize that any of us are frustrated by trying to remember 'it all'. That's not going to happen, but after becoming very familiar with certain songs and performances, we always come to know how something should sound.

One secret to success in getting away from DBTs was to familiarize myself for years with a lot of different recordings to use during the tests, not just a few favorites. While that gave me a wider range of sounds to test with, to rely upon, it certainly is one of the best exercises to improving one's aural memory, which we do have for familiar sounds, otherwise we would not know our mother's voice with just one word from her. The important word is 'familiar'.

I highly recommend the book "This is Your Brain on Music". It answered a lot of the questions I'd always had about how we learn to hear anything and then remember 'that sound'. It also covers how we perceive music and what we appreciate about it.

In this book, countless research and innovative experiments are cited, performed by the leading minds in this particular branch of neuroscience. To me, other interesting results were our extreme sensitivity to the timings between individual sonic events and our ability to sense most of the sound of an instrument by the sound of its initial transient, before it evolves into the steady-state note that then fades away. When we cannot hear that initial transient, but only its aftermath (the 'real note' being played), by literally editing that initial attack out, researchers found that anyone became confused on what instrument created that note. This is one reason I went for time coherence- to best preserve that initial attack.

Another secret to success at my outgrowing the need for DBTs was in not limiting the amount of time I spent listening before switching during all those DBTs. My reasoning was, if there were differences to be heard, they could be sounds not heard before were coming from familiar recordings. Now, that takes a while to 'discover' any new sounds, for there is so much to listen for in each song. But after that difference is heard, it becomes easy to hear 'it' over and over again, and on many other, less-familiar recordings.

One lesson was that, given the right stimulus, anyone can hear the differences I have found- such as "In this piece, listen to the saxophone, thanks". I do not see how that sort of guidance invalidates a DBT.

Even my UPS driver has heard the difference in switching the brand of the single capacitor used on the way to our tweeter. What we played for him was the beginning of the "Jazz at the Pawnshop" CD, which he had never heard. Nor had he spent more than a few minutes ever with our speakers, even though he had been our driver for many years. I knew he did not own any sort of decent stereo, nor was music a large part of his life (age- late 30's, married with children FYI). I asked him to listen to the quietly played tambourine shaking at the beginning of that CD-- with one brand of capacitor, it totally disappeared.

Now, my UPS fellow did not know what variable was being changed, we told him only that we were going to change one thing about the speaker (singular) and to listen to the tambourine. And it was played at a modest volume in a quiet room- on one speaker, not in 'mono' but just the left channel. This single-speaker listening during my R&D helped focus my attention a lot by the way, as L-R stereo only added the lateral dimension, but not clarity nor depth (ambiance).

As for "putting expectations aside", it has been well-established that the human psyche is incapable of doing just that. That's why controlled testing, such as DBT, was developed. I'm certainly not trying to be argumentative - perhaps I misunderstand what you're saying.

Our expectations are difficult to get away from certainly, and I still must remain on guard. Do consider that in my position as a manufacturer, I must have been quite happy with the parts we used to go ahead with production and distribution, and I have little reason to change a variable, a part such as wire, in any speaker in production. After all, my retailers and customers were happy, and it would mean dealing with yet another supplier, changing all blueprints and documents, re-training someone in assembly on how best to strip and solder some new type of wire, and adjusting the budget if that part cost a lot more (or a lot less).

Undoubtably those are many very good reasons for me not wanting to hear or expecting to hear any big differences. But I did with this wire when it was run from the crossover to our drivers. And so has everyone else, especially since we offer two versions of the same speaker, where the wire is the only major change, as I explain on our site. It had never happened to me before with internal-wire, after thirty years of design and experimentation.

However, expectations do drive our interpretations of music, and that I cannot get away from and so use it to my advantage. We expect the guitar solo to enter at a certain point; we discover different guitars have different sounds, let alone the differences made by those who play them. We therefore come to expect 'that sound' from our favorite guitarist.

Research has firmly established what makes music such a satisfying experience and is presented over and over in that book I mentioned above. The research also showed that violating or satisfying our expectations about where a melody is heading or how rhythms change affect our emotions, our response to the piece. Yet, how could we have expectations if we did not have acute aural memories? There are many examples given of the common person being able to sing a familiar song automatically in the same key, with the same rhythm, with the same 'contour' (the rise and fall in pitch, such as the upward shift we give to words to indicate a questions). Memory has to be involved, and in great detail.

One aspect of a great song is that it somehow violates our expectations. One example was the pause after the famous first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth. Da da da daaa. On first listening we think, "What is going to happen next?" Then suddenly the same sequence is played again and again without pause at different tempos and using different notes, and continue to vary throughout the piece. Different conductors have different interpretations of how long that initial pause should be and the subsequent pace(s) afterwards. Any conductor, along with everyone in the orchestra and audience will have already heard many variations, and formed their own preferences on how the Fifth should be performed. All of their sonic experiences would mean nothing without excellent aural memories of numerous past performances, live and recorded.

I hope this clarifies some of the mystery about how we hear, and how to more effectively use DBTs but really, there is so much in that book, I cannot begin to quote it. Good questions, thanks!

Best regards,
Roy

 

[RoyJ]

You have also continued to provide links to your company site. Some would say, myself included, this could be considered promoting a company or product.

Thank you for the clarification-- no more links will be given. Makes sense. Please accept my apology.

Best regards,
Roy

 

[JerryLove]

For a long time, I agreed with you and used wire that was built 'well enough' with pure copper and a teflon insulation. And other wires showed only minimal gains (or losses) in clarity and dynamics until I finally eliminated or minimized a lot of the other distortions common to speakers, such as cabinet-surface reflections, poor crossover parts (not very clear or dynamic), and made the speakers time-coherent with a very simple crossover (less parts count = more clarity). Then it became pretty easy to hear if there was a worthwhile difference between one high-quality wire and another. We were certainly shocked when we heard the difference this new wire made inside the speakers.

You may not be interested in the dollar prizes some have offered, but for the sake of the audio world you should really prove that in a third-party controlled experiment.

I did not say that I did not rely on DBT tests, only that I no longer have to rely on them at this stage of my career. I did use DBTs for a long, long time until they confirmed I was hearing true sonic differences, and without bias. That's a necessary part of my job description and it took a couple of decades of DBT and SBT experience to get there. I would not expect most people to go through that effort, so it remains uncommon to be able to listen without bias.

So you are now immune to the power of suggestion and no longer have any influence from what you see or expect?

That's a pretty amazing claim.