Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

I never used to like The Police Synchronicity album that much. Now I love it :dance: Playing it right now for about the tenth time this week. Critics described it as an album reeking of a band in it's death throws. Who cares it sounds bloody marvellous. Sting's bass guitar sounds real fruity - delicious.

Played the Foo Fighters One by One, The colour and the shape, There is nothing left to lose this morning. With my Avondale amps and B&W P4's they had a tendency to sound like a massive mush of sound in the louder busy parts. Not any more the individual parts all easily picked out and the interplay is amazing. The quiet parts sound lush with the instrument and voice taking me off to other places.

Audiofoolia :lol: It's dying out in this house thankfully.
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

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royj151 posts
07-26-2014 7:39am
Good questions.

I do agree with what Bombaywalla just posted- knowledge and experience in many different areas is required. I know of no way out of that, to simplify a home-designer's life.

Driver selection is by far the most important factor. If all we care about is making the best sound, instead of spending money on the newest technology (usually inferior, I find), then here are the important questions to ask before selecting any drivers:

- How far away will I be from the speakers?
- What kinds of music will I play most?
- How loud will I play, even if only on occasion?
- How large is my room?
- How low in the bass do I want the speakers to go? Here, it is best to use 'body feel' as your guide. If you want to shake the house and your lower pants legs on electric bass, then the speakers need to have good output to 40Hz, but not any lower.

Listening at ten feet away in a room that is not entirely open into the rest of the home, this amount of low-bass output requires a low-distortion eight-inch woofer with a large-diameter bass port tuned to ~40 Hz, or a sealed-box ten-inch woofer, flat to 40Hz (good luck finding that in today's marketplace), at the minimum. There is no reason to use multiple 8 or 10-inch woofers per cabinet.

Which means this will be a three-way design to be able to use a first-order crossover, since no 8 or 10-inch woofer can meet a tweeter.

On the top end, choose ~1" dome tweeter, not one made of metal nor of 'ring radiator' design. That means ~3kHz crossover point. The eight or ten inch woofer means ~300Hz crossover point, or slightly higher. And that means using a 4 to 5-inch mid driver showing no cone breakup nor the HF resonance of metal-cone drivers.

All these drivers need very flat frequency responses. Avoid drivers with impedance-curve wiggles, as those indicate resonances and cone breakups. Avoid molded plastic cones and metal cones.

Sorry- got carried away. I cannot put out my version of the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook here.

Do know that, by careful manipulation of the Zobel parts in my passive crossovers, I can fine-tune the time-coherence between drivers (their individual phase responses), for a better blend. This cannot be achieved digitally without custom programming and the consequent extra signal processing (assuming the right measurements can be made, which is not likely).

But you can always listen to your adjustments, and for that process, I recommend you listen to only your left speaker, but not in mono. Start with getting that speaker's voice range right, such as on a older Diana Krall recording. And get rid of cabinet reflections with wool felt for at least the tweeter, or you are screwed from the beginning.

For a home designer, the results with a simple passive crossover with Zobels or with a digital first-order crossover/EQ/time delay setup will be satisfying on most music. However, the sound would still 'not be quite right' on enough other music to make you think there's something wrong with your source or room or cables or amplifiers.

That turns out to be the residual phase shift of the speakers, which is what I finally fixed .

I will continue to think about questions Bfwynne and Lewinskih01 posed and get back to you.

Best,
Roy
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

I'm putting all these quotes here for future reference as I might not find them again. Some may find them useful for their own light bulb moment too. Unfortunately the Green Mountain Audio website has disappeared since Roy's passing. I remember reading it though a couple of years ago. Maybe the wayback machine can help.

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royj151 posts
07-24-2014 10:10pm
Here are my answers to important questions posed earlier, and some clarifications.

To the OP: Psag, you originally asked if a sloped baffle is important. Speaker designs that avoid this are instead using the phase shifts of their crossovers to make sure there are no cancellations/suckouts in frequency response. That is about all their designers look for/measure during the design phase, since they do not make any measurements in the time domain.

I think those designers would have an easier time developing their high-order crossovers if their drivers were first stepped back from each other, as on a sloped baffle, and they got rid of the sonic reflections off their front surfaces.

===

Bifwynne, at the beginning, you asked "perhaps someone could explain in layman's terms what causes speaker to operate out of phase. Does it have something to do with the use of caps and chokes in the x-over? Or perhaps the attribute of a dynamic speaker creating its own back EMF by reason of the voice coil moving in a magnetic field??

Incidentally, do all these electrical dynamics operating in tandem cause the electrical phase shifting that gives most amps a headache? "

Let us begin with the phase definition. If a speaker's woofer and tweeter were out of phase more than 'a bit', they would show a dip or even a complete suckout in frequency response, at or near their crossover point, with the microphone placed where your ear would be. As we see from Stereophile's tests, most speakers do not have this issue. So all of those must be "in phase", "phase coherent", "phase linear", or "phased aligned" As I explained earlier, that does not mean they are time-coherent speakers. As a reminder, the opposite IS true: time-coherent speakers are always phase coherent.

What makes the phase go weird?
-- In the speaker cabinet, it is from the drivers' locations/no stepped baffle, and having too many drivers per frequency range.
-- Any crossover circuit's inductors and capacitors delay the signal or advance it, respectively. Resistors do neither. A simple first-order crossover circuit has an inductor going to the woofer, and a capacitor on the way to its tweeter. At their crossover point AND ALL other frequencies, the time-delay created by the woofer's inductor is precisely offset by the time-advance created by the tweeter's capacitor. This is not possible with higher-order crossovers, because the values of their more-numerous inductors and capacitors cannot offset each other.
-- The back-emf from any driver is also a contributor to time-delay in its lower-range, whether woofer or tweeter. Thank you for pointing this out. I should have mentioned this earlier. That back-emf situation is altered by the type and size of the cabinet behind a woofer, and the size of any rear-chamber on a tweeter, and from ferrofluid in its magnet gap.
-- Any cone or dome breakups change the arrival-time as we go up the scale, but mostly we would hear ringing, sibilance, maybe 'dirt' being added to the music. Regardless, the best cones will not show a loud ringing at some frequency (as with most metal cones available in 2014) nor have a ragged frequency response in their upper ranges.
-- And yes, all these phase shifts will talk back to the amp. However, the crossover circuit's design is the primary cause of large swings in a speaker's impedance curve, above 100Hz. Those variations are 'electrical phase shifts' only. These swings in impedance do not reflect the acoustic phase at one's ear- no direct correlation.
The amp gets a headache because large swings in impedance means its output voltage (the pressure it puts on its electrons) is no longer sync'd up with WHEN those electrons are allowed to move by the crossover parts (inductors and capacitors). When the values of those caps and inductors do not offset each other, the result is exactly like pushing a child on a swing at the WRONG time.

===

Bifwynne, on the first page, you speculated on the effects of mics, of recording and mastering, processing, playback, etc.

Each of those areas has unique problems, which do not sound like phase shift from a speaker. Each process produces a time delay in the highs and sometimes the lows, but only a speaker can put phase shifts (plural) across the main tone range. Also, whatever that signal is, I see no reason for home- and studio-speaker designs to distort it more.

On that same page you asked
"How are small speaker manufacturers able to design speakers without the benefit of the R&D budget, engineers, and testing facilities that some of the larger manufacturers have at their disposal?"

For me, it's been knowledge, education, and longer, much wider experience. My talent seems to have been expressed as an ability to make the cognitive leap between seemingly unrelated factors, which then made one more link to hearing vs. measurement. All of this has led to me not needing an anechoic chamber (I can always go outdoors for that). I also found the fancy digital test gear gave misleading and often incorrect numbers, compared to analog test gear.

When a designer does not really understand the fundamental physics of how and why drivers move and respond as they do, nor how crossovers delay the signals, then their only recourse TO IMPRESS their board of directors, is the anechoic chamber/digital route, for that is what the AES and any university would also advise those board members responsible for hiring 'a great designer'. Such a designer then blames the sonic differences between his and other speakers as 'we all hear differently'. His board of directors and all reviewers and editors gladly go along with that bullcrap.

We all certainly listen for different things. But here we have found, that as a speaker is made more and more time-coherent, everyone AGREES on the sounds heard in each and every tome range. They all hear 'the bass' in the same way, etc.

===

Ohlala, on page one, the possibilities of off-axis cancellations you mention turn out to be non-issues on music, especially when the cabinet is not large, and has little sonic reflections from its surface.

===

Timlub, on page one, your speaker design is only phase coherent at its crossover point, not time coherent, as you may know. Your electrical crossover slopes work well because they are combining with the phase shifts of your particular woofer and tweeter, which I am sure you suspect. Thank you for sharing your experiences! Appreciated.

===

Bifwynne, you ask too many (good) questions! On page one you ask,

"here the ultimate Q. How can one tell whether a speaker is time and phase coherent? Critical listening? Reviewer comments? Bench test?

If critical listening is that important, the real challenge for us is, as many have written, that it is not easy to meaningfully audition speakers. So what's a person to do?

I'll ask again, how important is time and phase coherence? FWIW, ... really more as an FYI, ... Paradigm's web site states that its 'speakers have phase coherent crossovers designed so that the summed output of the drivers is completely and accurately rejoined.' Is that hype? It is true at all frequencies?"

On my website, I have suggestions on how to audition speakers. I know these work. They are simple, taking only time and effort. The time-coherence part of the audition sounds like clarity and depth, and when time-coherent speakers are designed with the best parts, the musicality is greatly improved.
With the very best, you find yourself never, ever thinking about 'the sound of the bass' or 'the highs'. Instead, you subconsciously always focus on the music and how it is being played, and its emotional and physical connection to you.
When a speaker is time-INcoherent, the music is fragmented, leaving you to hear only 'the details' and 'the soundstage' or 'the air', or 'the impact'. Right now, I see only Green Mountain Audio, certain models from Thiel, and Vandersteeen as making time-coherent speakers. The Audio Machina company is part-way there. With any others claiming time-coherence, I've seen no proof on their websites, or in Stereophile tests.

===

Ivan_nosnibor, I appreciated your thoughts, thanks. However, the time delays in your digital crossover circuits are fixed time delays for each driver, when the real problem is the amount of time delays are different at each frequency. You remark on hearing perhaps the highs 'imaging closer to you' on non-time-coherenet speakers, with the mids 'not projecting as far into the room', and so on.

I have found instead it is about the lack of depth in the highs, caused by the smearing of a late-arriving mid, and so on down the musical scale. WHEN the highs arrive is not WHEN you hear the image, but only a portion of that image. One example is hearing the esses and tees of the singer's voice arrive from the tweeter's location above the mid, not from the mid driver's location, where the main part of her voice comes from, listening with eyes closed. That is one sound of a tweeter arriving too soon. It can also sound like the band is leaning forward, for want of a better word. It can sound like the rhythm section is behind the beat (as they would be in those speakers).

===
Almarg,

Your described a square wave as "the summation of an infinite number of sine waves, one being at its 'fundamental frequency"' (the frequency with which its pulses repeat), plus others at every odd multiple of that frequency (i.e., the 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc. harmonics). The amplitude of each harmonic decreasing as its order (i.e., its frequency) increases." This is all true, but only of an ongoing series of square waves. The analysis is somewhat different when we examine just the first up-cycle, without even the first down-cycle following it. Just an FYI, seemingly never mentioned on the internet nor in textbooks.

===

Mofimadness, the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook is generally excellent, but all previous issues got the concepts of phase time-coherence somewhat wrong. It has been awhile since I looked over a copy, so I can't remember where the problems showed up. I advise to take its advice with a modicum of salt.

===

Bfwynne, the Revel 2 and Magico have oodles of phase shift, mostly from their crossovers. What you are seeing in the Stereophile tests is just as John Atkinson says- the mid and woofer take longer for their sounds to arrive. What is not readily apparent is how the phase (time delay) is changing at EVERY frequency. Otherwise, one could fix the Magico and Revel 'problems' by moving their tweeters back, etc. Actually, Almarg gave you a very excellent answer.

===

Usermanual, you ask about us proving we are time-coherent.
1) This would not change our sales.
2) It cannot be done in a singular graph or 'scope image useful to a layman, by anyone including us. This is not a case of sour grapes- please read my letter to sixmoons regarding the issues with measurements. Note some of my graphs do not line up correctly with my text on their website.

In the 1994 Stereophile test on our Diamante three-way, remember JA always measures at 50 inches, right in front of a speaker's tweeter. That makes ANYONE'S mid and woofer too far away, relative to the tweeter.

JA then moved his mic straight down, to get farther from our tweeter, closer to the mid and woofer, looking for our claim of time coherence. You see our step response get sharper, more compact. But our frequency response goes to heck because he is now going VERY far off-axis of both mid and tweeter. Again, this test was done in 1994. In the intervening twenty years, every aspect of our sound, and of any measured performance, has improved.

Above all, trust your ears more than measurements and reviewers. My letter to sixmoons shows why this has to be so.

===

This covers page one, I think. Perhaps page two will be much, much shorter.

Best,
roy
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

Here is Roy having a bit of a go at the soundwest site which for diyers is often just taken as gospel. Happens too much I think.


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royj151 posts
07-22-2014 7:05am
Ngjockey,

I have looked at this site for very many years. The Soundwest site has enough errors to mislead someone relying upon it for 'basic information' and a bit of the math.

Specifically:
In its Section one, the author does not understand a tweeter is still not time coherent when its wires are flipped over to invert its polarity (paragraph 3). He goes on to mis-represent the amount and degree of cancellations between mid and tweeter when the tweeter is not in the right position (below Fig. 5). What he presents instead is a graph showing TWO IDENTICAL, PERFECT, FULL-RANGE DRIVERS interfering, not a graph of one mid crossing over to one tweeter.

In its Section two, the information in the paragraph below Fig. 10, about phase shift and its audibility on square waves, is just plain wrong (even stating we can't hear it, then giving real examples of how we can hear it).

In Section four, on the audibility of phase distortion, not only is he wrong about its audibility, but he goes on to present an argument based on sound coming from live instruments.
He does not get it that we want to PRESERVE whatever phase relationships exist in the music, no matter where we sat, no matter where the recording microphones were placed. Can you spot the big flaw in his argument based on hearing live music? I have seen this exact bad-logic presented on many other forums as the main reason not to bother with making speakers time coherent.

In his Conclusions, he claims the room acoustics and bad recordings will hide much of what should be gained from making the speakers time coherent. To me, that makes it obvious he's never lived with time-coherent speakers for any length of time.
He mentions how a little pair of speakers in his workshop will reproduce a square wave at one frequency if he holds the mic in just the right place. I can see he does not recognize those speakers likely still have a phase shift of 360 degrees at some frequency, and how that will make a CONTINUOUS square-wave signal still appear square.
He does not remember that 360 degrees of shift at some frequency means the previous square-cycle is then projecting/delaying some of its frequency-components INTO THE NEXT CYCLE, and so on. He should have been examining only the first half of the very first square-wave cycle-- its first up-and-down only, to figure out what a speaker is doing.

===

His are the answers I find quite common on the web, but not in most of the professionally-reviewed papers published by the AES. Their important papers on speaker design can be purchased by anyone as their three Audio Anthologies books. There are still errors in too many of those, but one must know calculus and physics quite well to find them.


I think the general public should not take a writer's claims about audio design for granted, unless the writer also presents the scientific concepts and logic behind those concepts, and WHY those have to be correct. Which is what I've endeavored to do.

Best regards,
Roy
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

WMTMW is the way drivers are laid out on a baffle (W= woofer M=mid T=tweeter)

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royj151 posts
07-19-2014 10:55am
Hi Unsound,

Thank you for your thoughts. The use of multiple subs does smooth out standing-wave issues. The math used for the theory behind that is formed from adding together the simple sinewave/wavelength equations for standing waves you have seen for bass tones and room modes before.

That is fine for long-running test tones, for movie sound effects, and certainly for a pipe organ. The test tones used to adjust those multiple subs are long-running, and not found in music.

When the time-arrivals at the ear between multiple subs are 'excessively different', you would think we'd hear stumbling or mumbling on string bass, drum kits and perhaps even cello. But if those subs are not allowed to go above ~40Hz, those issues are bypassed.

===

WMTMW bass problems arise from both woofers being close to the bottom and top surfaces of our room. This is a 'very symmetrical' situation, which always produces the strongest standing waves. Another 'very symmetrical' layout would be subs placed in every corner.

Have a look at this drawing: Reflections

Also, do note that WMTMW woofers operate to 150 or even up to 300Hz, which is above middle 'C' on the piano. In these upper ranges, changes are very audible standing vs. sitting vs. walking into the kitchen.

===

You ask about the over/under head effect of an image jumping when hearing live sound from vertically-large concert speakers. Good question. I can say I've never heard that problem, including from long line-source speakers. Remember, most concert sound systems are mixed close to mono, so everyone hears everything. And in most live situations, sound from a tall concert speaker comes to you from a narrower vertical angle than when at home listening to a six-foot tall speaker ten feet away.

Also, I probably did not make it clear enough before that the over/under head leakage of sound to the opposite ear is caused by the WMTMW use of double mids, not double woofers, because of those shorter wavelengths vs. the size of our skulls.

===

We get reflections off any hard surface-- it matters little that a Thiel's mid surface might be flat or corrugated around its coax tweeter. This is because any 1" tweeter, without a several-inch deep horn around it, is omnidirectional below 5kHz. That means it pushes waves between ~1kHz and ~5kHz across the face of the cabinet, since they cannot escape to the rear.
So those pressures escape to the front as they move across the face of the cabinet.
Hence, reflections.

===

Putting the measuring mic for DEQX up close to a speaker is pointless (except for fixing up a subwoofer), as what the mic would then be hearing is coming from drivers at much different path-length-differences to the mic compared to the path-lengths to an ear ten feet away. We all know how walking up to a speaker changes everything we hear. Perhaps they are suggesting this for fixing one driver at a time. That has problems too, because any driver's tone balance is different at ten feet away vs. ten inches away.

===

Horn speakers can be made time coherent, but our best technology leads to that speaker being at least a four-way if not a five-way design, to stay far enough away from horn cutoff points on the low-end of each driver, and the high-frequency breakups which come from running a large mid high into the upper voice range, and a compression driver with a 4-inch diaphragm into the high treble. Also, with 4 to 5 horns stacked up, their vertical height would make for very strong changes as one stood up or even just sat higher.

The nicest sound I ever achieved on horns was to use the lowest order of electronic crossover possible (12dB/octave, 'second-order') on a three-way horn system. The tweeter horn was moved far back on top of the mid's horn, and mid horn `way back on top of the woofer's folded horn, to equalize the driver-to-ear distances for people twenty+ feet away. This describes a system I put together for Taj Mahal. I had to add a small amount of EQ to smooth the mids, boost the ultra-highs, and for flat output to 40Hz. Of course I had to reverse the polarity on the mid horn because 12dB/oct. crossovers need that to avoid cancellations at the crossover points.

Since everyone was 20 to 70 feet away from either the left or right speaker (mixed to mono), everyone heard a smooth blend from a speaker whether seated of standing. Sure there was phase shift from those speakers, but it was far less severe than any higher-order crossovers would have been. I received very many compliments on the ease and clarity of the sound.

===

I hope everyone sees my answers are lengthy because I include WHY something is audible or will measure a certain way, so you finally get a proper technical perspective on the VARIABLES that must be considered, and also HOW they must be considered. Magazines and reviews leave out all these variables-- make of that what you will.

Best,
Roy
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

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royj151 posts
04-11-2019 10:44pm
The OP's title question is answered by millercarbon and mijostyn, and blindjim is not wrong either.

I would add:
Different speaker designs exist because their designers saw different goals, and had different budgets and timelines, educations and hearing abilities.
It is easy to be impressed with the technical details in a design and the dedication of its designer. Of course, this does not validate the science behind the design. Those with the requisite education know quite well the simple math ignored in so many designs, math also not known by reviewers or editors. Those designs turn out to be ones difficult to set up, and those that cannot play certain types of music.

To keep research grounded in reality, one must state the desired goal and then always ask the right questions (and many wrong questions and figuring that out!).
When designing a new speaker, we can agree the main goal is to get that complex waveform seen on a computer to be how our eardrums move in and out. Of course, that motion will be overlaid (not obscured) with room reflections and echoes, so we pull our speakers out and make our rooms 'not lively'

To reach this goal, a good designer must describe his average listener--
How far away?
Across what range of angles?
In what size of room?
Can the speakers be pulled out and positioned?
What music is played, and how loud (soft)?
How much power in the amp?
How conventional must be the speaker's cabinet?
Budget
Then it's off to the races! The good designer would then determine which types of designs best achieve that one goal above, for that average listener. The good designer would also learn the limitations of each design, since no designs are perfect.
Of course, consumers must rely on listening, which means also training their ears to listen for details important to the music. Go to live, intimate musical events of top-notch performers. Go often as possible to help train your ears. While we all have different abilities to hear into the music, we all benefit from conscious efforts to actively listen.

Best regards,
Roy
Green Mountain Audio
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

You want more ? Ok you got it but I want a credit for steering you in the right direction when your speakers are finished :lol:

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royj151 posts
07-11-2018 3:05am
It helps to hear, literally, what is going on, by listening to the cabinet’s walls through a stethoscope, playing music and test tones. You find two things:
Flexing of the cabinet walls allows low bass to come through. Out in your room, this adds in phase to the direct sounds coming from your woofer, making the overall presentation warmer, and adding bass ’ambience’ below 80 Hz. The bass is less tight, less defined, of course. Probably makes the hifi sound ’better’ at soft volumes.

For low-bass flexing, braces help, granite helps, thick materials help, thin plywoods do not. Thin carbon fiber does not. Solid hardwood will split given time. Think here about maximizing panel ’stiffness’ or rigidity, not its ’strength’. Cement, concrete? Sure! FYI, paint the inside of wood cabinets with thinned-out wood glue-- as the surfaces of MDF and plywoods are porous, absorbing bass pressure whenever the woofer fires off.

The other stethoscope discovery is that a cabinet lets voice range sounds, in the 200 to 300 Hz range, come right through. This makes for ’scratchy’ sounds in wood boxes and for ringing sounds in granite and metal. These vibrations do not come from the SPL inside the cabinet (unless there is a large, undamped (loud) standing wave inside). Those 200-300Hz vibrations come from the direct excitation of the cabinet material via the screws mounting ’that’ driver. When you loosen all its screws, all of a sudden, the walls go silent!

One fix is to use rubber-mounted screws, but this makes bass impacts ’rubbery’. KEF and others tried this in the 80’s, giving it up after sales tanked from all that loose bass. The driver could be mounted to a regular inner cabinet with a vibration-isolated cabinet wrapped around it. Unfortunately, this leaves those inner-cabinet vibrations undamped, which get back to the driver, making its cone vibrate (= noise).

When these tones get into the cabinet material via those screws, there is no way to damp them, and no way to brace against them, because they travel inside the cabinet material, not on the surface. If those screws cannot be rubber-isolated, the cabinet material needs to have ’high internal damping’, which is not a property of metal, cement, nor most woods. Cabinet thickness does not matter here, at least for making something to fit in a home.

For a home constructor, I recommend 3/4" Baltic birch plywood cabinets, or at least for its front panel, with braces inlaid 6-8 inches apart, center-to-center. But BB plywood is such a tough wood to work with and to make pretty! Two 1/2" BB layers glued up with Elmer’s Carpenter’s Glue made a front panel that was a bit more dead to those midrange tones getting into it from the screws, but not enough to justify the extra work. It made far more difference to put 1/4" wool felt on the front baffle to suck up the tweeter’s reflections before getting on with designing the tweeter’s crossover.

Roy Johnson
Green Mountain Audio

Just glue your drivers in like Doc used to = one of these problems solved :dance:
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

More wisdom from Roy. This man is god.

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royj151 posts
03-31-2018 4:20am
Thank you joc3021-- good points above with which I agree!
Your first one was about someone being in the mood, etc.
The second was walking into the confirming-biases trap.

To get out of that trap, the following has helped me:

Whenever a change is made in the system or gear, I listen always for increased nuance in HOW each and any note is being expressed, being phrased, being sung.
No matter the music, no matter the recording's quality, and relying on many recordings I've come to know really well, of one-in-a-million artist(s), often recorded live.

Then I ask if someone right there could hear 'that' when I pointed 'it' out? Not a judgment call.

As I was not at the original event, my reasoning is based on the following:

A one-in-a-million artist has included many nuances I have yet to hear.
Artists know most of us can hear these nuances, because when they are practicing, the results are visible in all the nearby faces listening up close and personal- just as recording mics will be placed.
Artists put in these nuances because whenever we do hear 'them', that helps us 'feel' whatever the artists are bringing forth.
So I think improving a system must include getting it to resolve more nuance, no matter the music or recording. It will be a more 'musical' system. 'Things', expressions, flow along better, which is a time-domain issue, not a tonal-domain issue for designers.

You wish these nuances to be obvious, to get your attention quickly, because this leads to feeling better soon, even when you're in a dour mood.

Thank you for following along. See any flaws in this logic? Let me know your thoughts.

Y'all have a great weekend
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karatestu
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

If you are bored reading this stuff then I politely request you buzz off somewhere else :grin: He's not the messiah I hear you say. Well he is the messiah and I should know I've followed a few :lol: Well seeing as RD is no longer here (Roy neither :cry: ) I haven't found too many people to take any notice of. And what Roy has said rings many many many bells.

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royj151 posts
03-26-2018 2:03am
It is certainly wonderful to feel happy and satisfied from a listening session. It’s understandable to expect higher levels, greater versions of those events.

Now, we experience ’things’ whenever we can name them.
Perhaps here we seek the experience itself.
This would make ’being happy’ a thing experienced.
What then is ’the experience’?

Every artist says, "It’s something beyond words, but here are some ideas."
I get some of ’that experience’ hearing artists up close and live, and when playing music myself. I am never thinking ’I’m happy’ until it’s over.

This would mean always
A: Seek deeper experiences, not greater satisfaction.
B: Expect to simply recognize an experience when ’it’ happens.
C: ’It’ can happen with one change in a system, unexpectedly,
D: and most ’deeply’ while playing the best artists, who commune with the deepest places.

It has helped to remember
I’ve no idea what the best artists wish me to experience.
Poor gear reduces the artistry and mastery of the best artists, blocking deeper connection.
Someone right next to me may not be wired to make the connection.
Perhaps he or she is not really into the arts, beyond "I like that."
I am glad they are happy!
The world is a better place right then and there anyway!

Does not the above seem right to keep in mind while striving to make systems better?
Granted, it’s deep and hard to discuss, but that’s music! Or any art.

Does this fit with anything you’ve been thinking about?

Roy
Green Mountain Audio
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karatestu
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Re: Doc modding Marantz imperial 7

Unread post by karatestu »

If you think the following post by Roy is bollox then I must assume that you don't actually understand music. :shock:

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royj151 posts
03-22-2018 9:56pm
Thanks for your comments- I’ll keep this brief.

There are two types of listening:
Analytic-- looking for defects, tone balance, image, special effects, distortions, ... a very long list. This is the style of listening used by studio engineers, stereo store proprietors, reviewers, editors, designers, and most home enthusiasts to ’make better sound’. A left-brain process, with no doubt.

Subjective-- for enjoyment, for where the music takes you, what it makes you feel, think. Which is important for all of us listed above to be able to do.
After spending much time listening analytically, it can be difficult to switch that off, to kick back and enjoy whatever the music brings us, where it takes us. For listeners most impaired, the British remark, "They have ears of cloth."

I wrote my (and others) observation that a musical system makes its mark on a right-brained listener when playing any good music. From the top artists, we have:
Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is. Miles Davis

Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe. Douglas Adams

There’s music in the sighing of a reed; there’s music in the gushing of a rill; there’s music in all things, if men had ears. Their earth is but an echo of the spheres. Lord Byron

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. Gustav Mahler

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. Henry David Thoreau

Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same. John Denver

Music - The one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. Kahil Gabran

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. Plato


Best regards,
Roy
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