Semi Omni v Point and Squirt

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I hope so, but as long as we are forced to only talk about them here and comparisons in Bake-Offs and Bake-Off shows are denied me by the arses and eeediots it will stay our secret. I hope the arses and eeediots see they are blocking their own pursuit of hi-fi, or at a minimum additional knowledge and experience with this treatment of NVA and morph into normal people, but I am not holding my breath.

[CN211276]

A major problem is that the vested financial/ego interests own three major forums and in the case of Wamspam the financial interest has gone to the extreme. The increase in NVA business is an indication that some are seeing through the bullshit. The fact that the forum's referred to would like to close HFS down shows that vested interests are feeling threatened in the context of the declining UK market.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

That is part of it, but mostly they want to shut us down because we talk about them and point fingers - they hate it - they want to play their ego or industry slurping games in private which is why they operate a censorship cartel between each other. We expose them for what they are. They try to use NVA to shut us up, as in the famous case from Marco at AoS with the offer to normalise relationships with NVA if I bin the AoS thread and don't make any future comments. I am sure both Petfoodpete and TonyL would offer the same deal. Too bad, it wont happen, it is a type of manipulation that would be stamped upon in a larger part of society by the media. It is restrictive trading practices which are supposed to be illegal, but there aren't any policemen just US!

[savvypaul]

The 'eeediots and arses' are dug in. If you want wider recognition now, and they are not listening or learning, go around them instead. Bake offs should be part of the answer but you can't make others participate. Demonstrate NVA on its own in people's homes or in hotel rooms or village halls. Invite enthusiasts to bring their own kit to compare. Start a direct selling hifi website where others can offer their own designs, without dealer margins, and club together for support and learning. I'm thinking out loud, obviously, just throwing out ideas. Or, nothing wrong with carrying on exactly as now. Plenty of intelligent enthusiasts will be very happy with that...

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It is a bit of a quandary, I am not looking for more business as I have said in the other thread. I am looking for acceptance and appreciation of concepts and for people to understand where things have gone wrong in the industry (and DIY hobby), we need more people like Steve (the shadow) who understands and will make them. If it makes sense I want them heard and talked about more than purchased. I want ignorant people with wrong heads to see the alternative, most will then understand and it will take on its own momentum.

At the moment my ideas and designs are largely derided, but that is just a mass of closed minds. Interestingly Allison had similar problems. Semi omni is seen as some sort of peculiar anomaly for people with daft ears, not the *real* way music is propagated in an acoustic. Point and squirt musically is the odd peculiar one. Pin you against the wall home PA systems are not reality either (Marco!).

[Simon Hickie]

I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the whole P&S vs semi-omni vs open baffle thing. The big argument that P&S proponents put forward centres around the fact that recording engineers use P&S speakers for monitoring and that only a P&S speaker can replicate what the engineer hears and masters. Allison's point is that pinpoint imaging (as promoted by P&Sers) is largely an artificial construct, only relevant to limited genres and does not equate to what we actually experience in a performance. Classical music is a case in point. In a concert, ambience and huge soundstage are what matters. Isolating the precise seat where a particular player sits is not what it's about. My next speakers have to do classical well which means either semi-omni or open baffle.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

In terms of musical benefit for me, and I am sure there would be other opinion, it is the Cubes, of what ever ilk, like the amps they get better as they get bigger but it is the initial change that is the wow moment. You have to have the nva in front of them to do most of it though (synergy), but it is the moment it all makes complete sense.

[Simon Hickie]

This, from the usual online encyclopedia sums things up nicely:

"Galileo complained that some of the philosophers who opposed his discoveries had refused even to look through a telescope:

My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth."

[savvypaul]

It is a bit of a quandary, I am not looking for more business as I have said in the other thread. I am looking for acceptance and appreciation of concepts and for people to understand where things have gone wrong in the industry (and DIY hobby), we need more people like Steve (the shadow) who understands and will make them. If it makes sense I want them heard and talked about more than purchased. I want ignorant people with wrong heads to see the alternative, most will then understand and it will take on its own momentum.

At the moment my ideas and designs are largely derided, but that is just a mass of closed minds. Interestingly Allison had similar problems. Semi omni is seen as some sort of peculiar anomaly for people with daft ears, not the *real* way music is propagated in an acoustic. Point and squirt musically is the odd peculiar one. Pin you against the wall home PA systems are not reality either (Marco!).

Again, think out loud...a few more ideas, may lead to other ideas:

There are a couple of articles on the nvahifi.co.uk site about amplifier design philosophy but not much about the Cubes. Lots here, of course, but not everyone has time or inclination to go through the forum archive.

Members here get together to demonstrate NVA system(s) at Scalford / Harrogate.

Write a book or create a website of articles - hifi truth & myth.

Restart the NVA Challenge

[Geoff.R.G]

One of the things I have come to appreciate over the last 25 years is that, contrary to many Hi-Fi "experts", musical instruments are neither point sources nor directional. Most instruments are omnidirectional radiators or at least bidirectional radiators. Just how a directional speaker is supposed to accurately reproduce the ambience of an omnidirectional source I am not sure about.

Live music is very different from recorded music, for the majority of us, in that we use more than just our ears to locate a sound source. Our eyes are important too. With recorded music we don't have the visual aspect but some still want the pinpoint precision they think they experience with live music. I will exclude the mess often created with amplified music, I was at a festival recently and most of the sound was unsympathetic to the performers, with one notable exception.

Interestingly, in some circumstances we aren't actually interested in the direction from which the instruments are coming, and we can't see them, that is the musical theatre, ballet or opera. We don't even notice that we can't pinpoint an instrument because the visual aspect takes precedence.

Go and listen to live, acoustic, music and then tell me/us that you can pinpoint an instrument with your eyes closed. That is what P&S speakers are trying to provide and it just isn't what happens in reality.

One day I will get a pair of Omnis or Semi-omnis.