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Not A Correct Assumption...

Posted by thetubeguy1954 (A) on February 15, 2008 at 07:11:45

In Reply to: So tubeguy do we now understand that the whole purpose of this post about Linkwitz... posted by morricab on February 15, 2008 at 03:47:42:

Hello My Friend,

You asked me if the whole purpose of this post about Linkwitz is really a rant against AJinFLA? The honest truth is that it wasn't intended to be directed at AJinFLA either specifically or via implication. Although due to the fact that AJinFLA owns and raves about the Orions as being THE speaker to beat, I suppose he'll see it that way. To be quite honest after reading all his nonsense --- on the rare occasions he actually posts about something audio --- and the venom he spews at anyone who doesn't embrace his beliefs entirely, I'm estatic that The Bored has ceased all direct communications between us.

What actually prompted this post was the unwillingness of the more extreme objectivists here on PHP --- as witnessed in the thread "Class D designer speaks" --- to admit that measurements & specs do not , in and of themselves, provide sufficient enough information to know which audio component (amp, speaker, preamp, CD Player etc) will replicate the sound of live, unamplified music the most realistically. Rather than simply address the question of how do measurements & specs specifically correlate with an audio components "sound" these extremeists go off on a myriad of tangents such as:

1) Subjectivists think all measurements & specs are useless.
2) Unless you were there when the music was recorded you don't know what's really on the CD/LP/Tape.
3) Sound refers to acoustics which is irrelevant when discussing an audio component's measurements & specs.
4) You cannot describe the sound of an specific audio component, only the system it's in ---which is typically a preamp & amp (or integrated amp), CD player (or other source), speakers and the room itself.

Sometimes the extremeists bring up all 4 of these points at once. Other times they'll use 1 or 2 of them in defense why they won't answer the question: How do measurements & specs specifically correlate with an audio components "sound"? In any event at one time or another I've shown the error of all 4 of these responses as a defense to the question above. I'm bringing them up only in reference as to what caused me to write this post.

I decided to check if the audio idiot (Peter Aczel) had anything new to say that I might use and BINGO as I perused his website I saw this statement "...my immediate reason for getting involved with the AT6012 was to power my newly upgraded Orion++ speaker system with a single amplifier." So now I knew Dr Linkwitz had upgraded what was "supposed" to be a "world-class" speaker. I knew from previous posts here on PHP that the Orion was a very measurement & spec designed speaker. A speaker that "supposedly" had taken virtually every speaker issue into account, addressed those issues and made whatever changes to the Orion that were required to make them a non-issue! so I wanted to see what improvement was made and how it was determined that an improvement was even needed.

Lo and behold as I read through Dr Linkwitz's very excited dialogue I read were Dr Linkwitz said: I felt almost embarrassed that so much less costly drivers could give such outstanding performance, when I had labored over testing and searching for the absolute best. There even was something about human voice that made me question the correctness of the ORION in comparison to PLUTO+. Yes morricab my friend Dr Linkwitz readily admitted that even though (he) had labored over testing and searching for the absolute best it was by listening and not measuring that the original Orion's shortcomings were revealed to him!

I know the extremeists here will never admit the truth, but Dr Linkwitz, a very staunch objectivist did! It appears that the measurements & specs Dr Linkwitz used to create the best speaker he could, weren't sufficient enough in and of themselves! What appeared to be as close to a "perfect" speaker as Dr Linkwitz could create on paper was revealed to have significant shortcomings when actually listened to. The human ear/brain detected flaws, that the good doctor's measurements & specs didn't reveal.

As I've stated numerous times in the past the audio "Holy Grail" lies somewhere dead center of objectivist and subjectivist beliefs. All subjectivist audiophiles/music lovers need to embrace objective measurements and specs. Science and engineering is what enabled & created these incredible audio components we have today. However all objective audiophiles/music lovers also need to embrace subjective listening as well. Because sometimes, like Dr Linkwitz discovered for himself, the human ear/brain will detect flaws that the measurements and specs used to create the audio component missed. That's the very reason why I'm always stating that measurements & specs do not , in and of themselves, provide sufficient enough information to know which audio component (amp, speaker, preamp, CD Player etc) will replicate the sound of live, unamplified music the most realistically.

As for the Carvers I love them! I owned them many, many years ago and I remembered them to be one of the best speakers I ever heard. They were definitely extremely under-rated and didn't receive the recognition they deserved. People didn't realize or believe this $2000 speaker could honestly compete with other speakers up to $20K! There were all sorts of untrue statments about them. For example they required huge amounts of power. The reality was they could handle huge amounts of power, but I used mine with a B&K ST140 (which had 105W/ch and 1dB of headroom) when my OCM 200 was on loan to a friend and they sounded awesome. I'm still trying to find out what their FREQ vs IMPED chart looks like. If anyone here knows please email me at thetubeguy1954(at)yahoo.com Unfortunately one of the ribbons needs to be repaired or replaced as it buzzes. Thankfully Dave Sauter here in Florida has offered to repair the ribbon at a very reasonable price.

Thetubeguy1954

A Rational Subjectivist

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Kimber Kable

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