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Horn-Loaded Speakers
Topic: The NXTization of speakers.

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-28-2007

During the 2002 CES, late at night, a friend of mine demonstrate me something that was tying to address for a few years. It was a very different “tone” form a loudspeaker or I would rather say a different relationship between reproduced and auditable tone. I intentionally do not mention the brand and specifics as I do not what to create a wave of the typical audio-idiots who after hearing about a “pitched model” will run to Hi-Fi store and brainlessly buy their new stupid “Messiah”…

So, under the influence of that 2002 CES event after years of thinking and experimenting I have developed an observation that there is ”another” way to teach loudspeakers to sound, let me to explain.

We use to pursue a loudspeaker as a machine that with higher possible fidelity reflect the fluctuation of voltages and frequencies in respect to input signal. There is nothing wrong with it. We pursue the best resonance-free box, the most submissive voice-coil and the most dictatorial amplifier - sure it is a good way to go. However, the voltage stream that an amplifier sends to speaker has little relation to sound. Amplifier does not handle Reality. The “Really” via microphones is converted into a stream of transverse waves and then processed according to the transverse algorithms.  Whatever we do in electric audio we do not deal with Sound in its original shape (Sound is a longitudinal wave) but we deal with mathematical equivalent of Sound (electricity is transverse wave). It is like stroking your Cat not with your hand but with remote controlled robotic arms… So, I was always wandering if it is possible to make audio methods to “talk” using the original language of Sound.

As some of you know a few years ago I “patented within my perception” my “The Beach Effect”. Many who heard it for me do not understand how important it is but I still feel that the derivations form the “The Beach Effect” is the key. The combination between “The Beach Effect”, between that 2002 CES demonstration, between my desire to teach audio to “speak Sound”, between some of my recent experiments and between few other factors made me to think there is “another way” to make loudspeaker to sing…

Sound is a vibration of subjects in air. Loudspeaker is a machine that produces pneumatic waves… so, why do not make a loudspeaker to vibrate in air? Oops!!! Think about it deeper: this Oops was a “giant leap for mankind” in term of audio. Everything that we know today about audio is not compatibles with this “Oops”. We believe that a perfect signal means a perfect result but it is not necessary true under umbrella of the “Oops”. In the world of “Oops” artificial mechanical subject resonate in open air and the perfect signal would not be a sign that mathematically reflect the source but rather the signal that being consumed by a “resonating object” would produce the “equitable infliction to listening awareness, that is very identical to the infliction of original sonic event” (according to “The Beach Effect”).

I know: for many it would be difficult to grasp what I am trying to say - let me to simplify the subjects a little.  In simplification what I am trying to say is not as revolutionary as I would like to present it as some of the “Oops” techniques were used in past. It might a subject of debate if the “Oops” techniques of past were used intestinally or accidentals (I insist that it was accidental) but some of the loudspeakers of 30s-60s were made with insultingly resonating enclosures. They were so flimsy and so resonating in term of today’s standards that it is not even funny. it is not secret that people “thoughtfully” trash them. Sure many of those crappy-made and super-resonating enclosures were junk but at the same time they were a phenomenal playground to learn something about the ways to use the “Oops” principles.

A last week I was trying to pitch something among those lines to the guys at Yahoo’s Tannoy Group:

”Still, I hardly view the Tannoy boxes (and when I say Tannoys I mean the sub 70s Tannoys as anything they did later is crap) as a "loudspeaker solution" but rather a "freakish musical instrument" that made upon very different principles, different then you and I have accustomed nowadays (after the bass-reflex-school of thinking become dominating). Sure, the resonances are bad but not for a deck of cello or for the deck of dibble bass that are made to create, magnify and to mange resonances instead of killing them. Interesting that "allowing resonances" was a common for many loudspeakers of 50s and 60s (some Tannoy, Vitavox, EV, Klangs and others…), it is not that those loudspeakers were necessary "better" (I do not like them personally) but they had own merit and own means to create sound. I spent quite a time running a generator against a very resonant vintage Tannoy box. It is so "ringy" that is even laughable. Then I just for a sake of experiment took a tension bar (and some other tools) and begin to remove a resonance by resonance. Sure the enclosure begun to response WAY more civilized but… the entire loudspeaker was becoming (with removing of each resonance) to sound WAY less musical.”

Unfortunately that Group is not the place where people try to understand what others are trying to say. They have there a dozen or so local ever-presented idiots who pile up the new drivers into dead boxes, power them with mass-market consumer electronics behind the condoms of digitalis crossovers and being comfortably numbed that ready to insult anyone who will not blow this horn of brand devotion. As far as I concerned they are perfectly dead for my audio interest, but they are very much not alone – thier state of audio-thinning is very unfortunately common – why do you think I exercise for years the Presumption of Moronity (“Moron unless proved otherwise”) toward to audio people?

Anyhow, making loudspeakers as “active resonators” is out of mind not only for Morons. For instance a few weeks ago many of your read the thread about RAAL tweeter:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/LatestPosts.aspx?ThreadID=3766

The RAAL’s Alexander is very much not a Moron.He contemplating to make a dedicated MF ribbon that according to him will defeat any compression driver and he claim that he has an idea how it might be done (he allege also that no one ever did it in the way how it should be done). Well, the problem that I see in it is that a ribbon is too neutral and too colorless transducer. While Alexander was talking about the toneless tweeters it was OK but as soon we dive into the freakish world of MF then we deal with the damn tone on the radars. I hardly believe that anyone in audio know where “tone” comes from. So, I proposed to Alex to consider an idea of MF driver where in the back side ribbon will be an artificial, large, wood-made (?), resonating chamber. I meant to imitate guitar, or cello or a violin where strings will be substituted with ribbon. Alex poo-poo this idea and am sure he was laughing but I was very much serious as I feel that this thinking is very much affinity with my view of the “Oops” techniques where the “real and natural things to do natural activities to produce natural results”.

So, the readers open your mind a little and do you home work. There ARE very inconsequential movements in France and in Japan to make loudspeakers with incredibly resonant baffles.  It is very-very complex. It is also requires to BE SOMETHING INSTEAD OF TO KNOW SOMETHING as the results from naturally resonating “Oops” techniques  more reflects the master’s internal reference points  and intrans resonances.  A loudspeaker is not a machine after all but a musical instrument and all and you want a machine then buy BMW…..So, do you homework and try to learn how to make the speaker’s box to ring in a correct tonality  - it is what I call the “Deck with Crack” effects. Please report to this thread if you get any success as I would like to learn myself about mastering of these “Oops” techniques. Over the years I made a collection of the quite a number of different drivers that have material of their cone, suspensions  and some other characteristics very intriguingly cooperating with the driver ability ” to do tone”  in  resonant environment, so I would like to learn  more how I can USE my drivers....

During that 2002 CES it was not juts good “Deck with Crack” effects but it was so good that I still do remember that sound. I would tell you even more: I am experimenting now with Macondo applying some “Oops” techniques to its upper bass horn. I will report whet I get more conclusive results, so I hope you do.

Rgs,
Romy the caT

Posted by op.9 on 02-28-2007
Yes, yes. This ooops thing is important.
For many years I happily listened to PHY KM30 fullrange in crazy thin-plywood semi-open baffle boxes. And - apart from loud piano music - they are really quite terrific. Very communicative and easy to get on with. I was only when i started messing around stiffening the cabinet that I gave up on them. In the official sand-filled baffle they sound quite uncomfortable. I'm thinking of remaking them with help from a luthier friend and really listening to the cabinets as one would when making an instrument. (- but this time with a raal ribbon on top?)
As a violin and viola player its very clear that the greatest instruments are those which have the most wonderful and interesting range of irregularities. Then you can really play with the instrument as part of musical expression. I've always been very sceptical when people praise an instrument for being 'even'.
Very intrigued what you are doing to your upperbass horn . .
best
james

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-28-2007

Somebody “manuelgarcia66” wrote in the Yahoo Tannoy Group. I think it was the ONLY reply on SUBJECT among others that proposed that I was in ignorant troll who should not bother the forum:

"Iґve come to tannoys from different speakers-enclosures: Merlin, Quad, ESL, Magnepan, Coincident, Audio Note, etc
Each speaker-manufacturer-fashion has its owen flavour and its own  compromises

Modern fashion is highly resolving speakers, flat response, extension on both ends, etc. and I went that way.

My point on this changed when I bought a pair of Audio Note AN-Es. These speakers are resonant on the mid-upper bass Also they must be placed on the corners, or they sound dead and dull. They use the reverberant moods of the room to create a lively sound, loading it. You notice it specially in the left keys of the piano, acoustic double bass, cello, even in "thick" strings of the violin

The resonant way sure makes the speaker less accurate in the modern sense, but also more enjoyable for me
After all, my home is not a studio, I just listen to music for simple pleasure

I understand the point of the speaker (and the room interactions) as a musical instrument, more than another link in the chain If you consider the software as the player, electronics are the strings and the speaker-room is the soundboard

By the way, I like and love all kind of music, but I tend to choose the system listening to classical, small and big scale.

And I love SETs and hi-efficiency speakers"

Posted by Michaelz on 02-28-2007
Very interesting topic!

I read from Neuhaus that piano is the most abstract instrument but at same time good at "imitating" orchestra or an instrument with big personality such as a cello.  I wonder if the wood for piano sound board is a good candidate for the type of oops speaker enclosure.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-28-2007

‘Michaelz’, I would like to know the answer myself but how to get those answers without spending a LOT of time and a LOT of money? I do not know…. I have quite plenty of phenomenal drivers that I would like to try but…  to try in what? I have no expertise on the subject and I feel that the people who might have the expertise would be out of audio universe.

‘Op.9’, here is a lead for your further thinking about your open baffles. Obviously they are not my type of speakers but some of the thinking of this French guy I find is in a progressive direction:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/ocellia/calliope.html

I can not say anything further as I never heard those speakers.

Rgs, The Cat

Posted by Bud on 02-28-2007
I wonder if you could hang a secondary driver in a dead box, without baffle, or perhaps more usefully, with a shaped baffle and use it to provide the "resonance" effect of many vibrating panals of tuned length and specificshaped  radiating areas. Having the electrical signal to this "inner" driver corrupted in frequency, amplitude, time and phase, through use of various tone shaping networks, might allow a person to narrow down the frequency range and time space that mean the most to the ear / correlator.

Just think, a lap box with the face panal filled with adjustable knobs, allowing you to twiddle till death in search of the perfect tones. Endless charts with complicated frequency / phase / amplitudetraces of the signal fed to the resonator, with many tiny notations written in the margins, to confuse the minds of those finding your dead body. Just imagine the sort of flap this would create in the world of Morons for Sonic Reproduction.

Would the inner resonating chamber of the venerable Ohm F, tall cone speaker be considered suitable for resonence experiments, within large boxes, using added vibratory control panals? Would adding internal vibrators of specific shape, thickness etc. be usefull? Endless vistas  come to mind....

Bud

Posted by Michaelz on 02-28-2007
I know that piano sound board is very expensive.  How ever, one can get brken old upright pianos for free, or for very little (except you need to have a truck to move them.  No clue for lack of time though:^)

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-28-2007

 Michaelz wrote:
I know that piano sound board is very expensive.  How ever, one can get brken old upright pianos for free, or for very little (except you need to have a truck to move them.  No clue for lack of time though:^)
Michaelz, I do not think that it makes sense to dive into mystifications or cult worshiping of musical instruments. Sure if one built an “light” resonating enclosure then everything in this enclosure, walls attachment methods, glue if is was used, type of wood, propagation of thicknesses, driver mounting methods, dehydration of the enclosure and many other variables would affect the sound of this box.  I do not think that at this point anyone who actually never did anything in this direction should be spreading hypnotizes should about type of wood would or would not be beneficial, if fact the best sounding enclosures from the past were made form the wood and by the methods that are revoltingly primitive. 

Anyhow, for the rest, I would divulge (partially) what I’m dong now.  People who know me personally know that I have developed a freakish sensitively to bass reflex speakers. I would avoid saying at this thread anything negative about them I just would tell you that it can hear them a mile away. Put in front of me 100 speakers and I blindly will, even for another room, tell you (if electricity is good) that it was a sound of a vented box. (I have to admit that I have seen some better vents boxes that did “almost” good). So, somewhere in the mid of 2002 I suddenly turned my playback on and realized that I hear that “ported harmonics”. Surly, I did not have ported bass and I was much pissed as that “tone” enjoyed me tremendously. I spent a few days trying to figure out what in my playback made it, even change the tubes in my amps and changed the diet for my Cat. The “ported” nose was there and I had no idea what was it. Then one day it gone… and I changed nothing in my playback. I was pissed even more and I felt that somebody has trespasses my little backwards… and as you all know we Cats are very territorial creatures….

How big was my surprise when I learned what it was! It was my guitar, a regular acoustic guitar that when is it was left next to my sealed woofer towers inspected into my listening space those “ported harmonics”. OK, let consider the guitar as a secondary source of sound. In this case the “guitar” is not different then the walls of a light sealed box that is made to resonate. If so, then why I could not inject into the  sound my “perfect upper bass hors” (for instance) a “guitar” that would be tubes to produce the necessary to me “secondary resonances” only this time they will be very specific in the very targets direction?

It is all amazingly interesting but I wish I have in my disposal someone who could of explain me what the hell I am doing because to use the  knowledge of a sale-guy from Home Depot is not the best help to built an Audio Strad.

The caT

Posted by Michaelz on 02-28-2007
{I do not think that it makes sense to dive into mystifications or cult worshiping of musical instruments. }

Where does this come from? 

{Sure if one built an “light” resonating enclosure then everything in this enclosure, walls attachment methods, glue if is was used, type of wood, propagation of thicknesses, driver mounting methods, dehydration of the enclosure and many other variables would affect the sound of this box.}

I was not thinking of light wall resonating enclosure.  I was thinking of some sort of semi open baffle encased in a frame or a conic horn. 

{I do not think that at this point anyone who actually never did anything in this direction should be spreading hypnotizes should about type of wood would or would not be beneficial, if fact the best sounding enclosures from the past were made form the wood and by the methods that are revoltingly primitive. }
 
One has to make some hypothesis or at least have some expection before one does something.

Posted by Michaelz on 02-28-2007

{How big was my surprise when I learned what it was! It was my guitar, a regular acoustic guitar that when is it was left next to my sealed woofer towers inspected into my listening space those “ported harmonics”. }

This reminds of something.  I wonder if the reason that recently my speakers make music more enjoyable is that there is now GuZheng placed in the middle of their front.


Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-28-2007

 Michaelz wrote:
Where does this come from?
It coming from a danger that we all under what we think about those things. With all our desire to equate loudspeaker with a musical instrument this comparing might be juts figurative as a musical instrument deal with primary source of vibration but a loudspeaker deals with mathematical approximation of vibrations or with something that I call “event support”.
 Michaelz wrote:
This reminds of something.  I wonder if the reason that recently my speakers make music more enjoyable is that there is now GuZheng placed in the middle of their front.
Isn’t it a good evidence that the secondary acoustic resonators might work beneficially? BTW I might be going into a dangers territory but … might I predict that you use an opened baffle loudspeakers?

Rgs, the Cat

Posted by Paul S on 02-28-2007
Romy, does it not seem that the things you hear with ported bass would only be magnified/multiplied if you added significant enclosure resonance up the frequency range?  I am the same way with horns, in the sense that I hear the damn horn itself at any frequency that it manifests itself.  I have always thought that speaker building was pretty much choosing which problems - including resonances - you can live with.  So I am wondering whether you imagine some sort of vario "tuning", like Horning's big guns, for example.  While I agree that the sound we get from hi-fi is in any case severally conditioned and compromised, including resonances added and lost, still I see only an endless labyrinth ahead for those trying to tune a "musical"" speaker cabinet, apart from adjusting for ~ incidental resonance.

Perhaps if one began by wading in, as in your case of adding adjustable braces to a sloppy box.  We used to do this many years ago with our A-7 bins, and we used any number of screw-type "jacks" to "tune" the boxes.  Even then opinions raged back and forth over the "dead/neutral" versus "live/instrumental" approaches to speaker building.  Most of the heavy hitters back then unabashedly built "musical instruments", and if memory serves me these speakers were not only quite "colored" but, perhaps more important here, they lent the same "colors" to everything they "played", meaning this type of speaker tends very much to "favor" a given instrument at the considerable expense of others.  I should say add that I also consider the "dead/neutral" approach (like the AR) to be pretty much of a bust, as well.

Please do not think from my observations that I eschew this idea.  In fact I the whole notion is so romantic that it pulls me like gravity.  I also find this interesting in terms of resonance "controll" through "tuning".  But I worked with this idea for several years in my youth, and I have heard lots of tenders along these lines, and I have not yet heard any version of this concept that brought me more/better music, per se, albeit I did in times gone by just relax and let the "musically-conditioned" sound wash over me.  Probably better than Bose.

Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-28-2007


Yes, Paul, I got your points and I find them valid. It is hard to explain what I’m interested in. When I try to convey those ideas then to people are under faulty presumption that I looking for some custom coloration, like SPU or Tannoys form 50s had. Their romanticism and Dean Reed rubber-chewing voice are nice but it not what I an after, in fact it is what I do not like. I believe I know all those games and I know what kind pitfalls are possible in there. If to drop all BS and call the things with real names then I am after the very same things I always was after after: the Absolute Tone
 
I have written about the Absolute Tone in loudspeakers many times for instance here:

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=2784

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=1249

I wrote:

The “absolute tone” is the absolute maximum of tonal complexity that a playback is cable to reproduce. It is like a violin. If we take for instance both Amatis, Stradivaris or Guarneris then they might indicate a quality of “absolute tone”. It does not necessary mean that they under all conditions have better tone than some other best violins but under good conditions they are capable to throw insultingly high (or interesting) tonal quality that might not be reached by “other” violins (particularly in ambient conditions). This absolute maximin amplitude of the “tonal sophistication” is not reachable by some "other" instruments, no mater what you do to them and how skillful players might be. The very same is with loudspeakers. They all have their “absolute tone” limitations. The audio people mostly do not consider them because the 99% of loudspeakers are “absolute tone” impotent. We do not really know where the “absolute tone capacity” derives from and audio engineers never cared to answer this question. Perhaps it is in materials or in design principles but I feel it rather in a sense of recognition and assessing of results – something that never was research seriously in audio.

So, what I feel now that secondary managed resonances might be one of the ways to push a system’s Absolute Tone further then it capable being driven by electricity. I do not know if I am right and I have very limited experience to research the subject. This why I push others think about it. It is difficult to explain the subject of Absolute Tone to people who never experience Real Noble Absolute Tone from a playback installation. The contemporary speakers do not have any tonal nobility at all and to find a tastefully and properly build installation with appropriately used selected vintage drivers is EXTREMELY difficult. If I did not head it at CES 2002 (that system was not demonstrate for punlic) then I would hardly know that it is ever possible. It is like you and horns: if you do not know how it might be then you do not know where to go... Sure there is a ‘live” sound but it different thing that relates to Audio only in a specified context…

Posted by Paul S on 02-28-2007
Maybe no other hi-fi group has thought more about the cabinet's contribution to sound than the single-driver crowd.  Many of them like the "immediacy", "integrity"  and "purity" of the single driver sound so much that they endlessly hunt for ways to mitigate the single driver's limitations with enclosures that are meant to contribute to the sound they hear.  Not just horns, but Helmholtz boxes, etc., and you may also have heard of the Japanese Broadcating Diatone "double" enclosure.  I am sure you know of the many British "BBC" speakers that "use" their boxes, but maybe all these ideas warrant another look in this new context you are trying to fill in, having already framed it.

I don't know if you have heard the (British) Harbeth 40 "monitor", but this is actually a pretty good speaker.  This speaker might be a good example to study because it is very "accurate" over its range in terms of "voicing", despite/because it also employs a "cabinet factor".  In other words, the Harbeth 40 is interesting in the context of this discussion because it is somehow "more accurate" than other "cabinet colored" speakers.  Of course efficiency is fairly low, but still perhaps worthy of further investigation.

Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by op.9 on 03-01-2007
Here's a thought experiment...

pick up a couple of chinese orange crate cellos - for example ..
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Good-student-cello-nylon-bag-bow-ready-to-play_W0QQitemZ190084840261QQihZ009QQcategoryZ10178QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

lossily mount the PHYs just under the F holes but supported from the magnet by a steel pole where the spike was. (I've often had nightmares about applying my power tools to my instruments! This might be a cure?)
Tweaks to try..
restring the cello! and tune strings to add sympathetic resonances. Much like a Viola d'amrore.
add an extra 'sound post' to couple the cone somehow to the belly of the cello.
apply luthiers wood treatment tricks (ozone - ultra violet box - retifying (baking quickly in a pizza oven))
and apply fine varnish with really bright and stiff ground layer

and if it sounds poor - charge a LOT of money and sell them on!

or how about a utilising a carbon fibre cello case? Comes with adjustable loading depending from sealed box to open baffle.. .

Posted by RonyWeissman on 03-01-2007
I heard the Audio Note AN-Es, they were pushed back into the cornes in specially prepared room and they wer very interesting. Dynamics were world class, cellos were extremely hairy, piano left hand was tremendous, everything you said. Still, the electronics are not the strings (apologies to Duchamp) . You have to hear through the electronics , and these speakers highlighted the electronics for me. 

I have heard another attempt, recent Bosendorfer loudspeakers. Designer there spent 19-years (!) studying cabinet resonances before coming to market, too bad these speakers have major flaws.

Funny that I have heard certain analog set-ups that can 'inject' into an otherwise neutral system this resonanting cabinet type of sound. But that is another topic.

R Weissman


Posted by guy sergeant on 03-01-2007
Last week I listened to some small back loaded speakers using Fostex drivers where the cabinets had deliberately been made to replicate some of the qualities of a double bass or cello. Apparently very thin cabinet walls etc.

While I have some reservations about the whole single driver approach, these speakers did definitely bring something attractive to the party.



http://www.lovingtonhorn.co.uk/pages/specsheet.html

Posted by Michaelz on 03-01-2007
 Romy the Cat wrote:

 Michaelz wrote:
Where does this come from?
It coming from a danger that we all under what we think about those things. With all our desire to equate loudspeaker with a musical instrument this comparing might be juts figurative as a musical instrument deal with primary source of vibration but a loudspeaker deals with mathematical approximation of vibrations or with something that I call “event support”.
 Michaelz wrote:
This reminds of something.  I wonder if the reason that recently my speakers make music more enjoyable is that there is now GuZheng placed in the middle of their front.
Isn’t it a good evidence that the secondary acoustic resonators might work beneficially? BTW I might be going into a dangers territory but … might I predict that you use an opened baffle loudspeakers?

Rgs, the Cat


Say a grand piano with 2 different lids, one made of real wood, the other with mdf. When played with the lid closed, the tone of the piano can be very different with different lid.  If something has to resonate, then why would not we use something that would make it pleasant to our ears?  Besides, the spruce made sound board is very beautiful to behold and to touch, it is extremely light, very soft, yet very strong, it is used in piano, cello, guitare, and a number of other instruments, and can be used to make airplane.  It is a very faithfull resonator in that any two good different pianists can create different tones with it(I am talking of the piano, but sound board is at the heart of the thing)(But I am not sure how this would relate to it being used as speaker panel). If one can use pine for loudspeaker cabinet, why not try spruce? 

I had some blh with fostex 4" drivers in the piano room.  I am not 100% sure if the sound getting more interesting has to do with the presence of GuZhang, could be electricity or maybe the recording is very good (it's Marston Records Godowsky volume 3, much better than Godowsky volume from Great Pianists of 20th Century).

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-01-2007

Well, since I made my Absolute Tone pitch I think people got a slightly wrong impression about I am looking for in THIS jornes and I think the readers of my site “get” the idea of “Absolute Tone” too one-dimensional. Let me to peal one layer down from the subject of Absolute Tone in Audio and illustrate what I meant by mentioning Absolute Tone in context the subjects of the given thread: how  USE of “Oops resonances”.

If to dissect Absolute Tone on the methodologically handle-able ingrates then it will be many components in that salad.  In context of this thread I would mention juts two of the ingredients: vowelness and bubbleness (welcome to my language). The definitions that I use very far from conventional - get use to. They are unconventional because I did not learn/read about them but invented them and they reflect to how it understand and how hear the things….

Vowelness describes harmonic infliction to a note and has a lot to do with a parabola with which a tone rolls to its pitch. Why “vowelness”? Because vowelness is about injection of different vowels into other vowels.  The vowels themselves are “pure tones” and they are characterized by open configuration of vocal tract, so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the glottis. A person with healthy breathing has a perfect inner-references and a clear cognitive recognition of vowels. Any coloration of vowels is a coloration! I had many people were pissed on me because I did not like their bass-horns or subwoofers juts after a few seconds of listening. They accused be for not spending enough time and rush with my negative judgment. What those people do not get is that I know (in most cases) what I’m listening while I listen. I care less how “fast” those subwoofers were and the very first thing I need in LF section is to be able to render vowels without colorations (Ironically the “vowelness” has practically no relation to room response and it is almost exclusively the topology of LF topology). What I mean that “e” should not have “o” in it any “u” should not have “opened a” in it. Russians even more lucky as then have an amassing vowel “ы”, which it superbly useful to assess the LF sections…. Anyhow, I think you got the picture… and what you GOT IS NOT WHAT I AM PROPOSING to deal with the “Oops Techniques”. Sure what I describe in this paragraph is a large part of “Absolute Tone” but it is NOT what I am after in CONTEXT OF THIS THREAD. What I am after is the Absolute Tone’s bubbleability.

The bubbleness of sound is an ability of Absolute Tone demonstrates a high rate of bubbleability. Let I give you an association. Pretend you put a pot with a gallon on water on over and the water begin to boil. As you see the small bubbles of air begin to build up under the bottom of the pot and they run up to surface. Then, while the water is boiling, you increase the temperature of heaters and you see now that the bubbles begun more intensely and more aggressively rash to the surface. The very same is with Sound. The Tone is a Tone but beside the Tone there are those bubbles that are popping up at surface of Sound and burst like microscopic explosives. These bubbly explosives do not affect Tone but they affect the Radioactivity of Sound ™ of the force with which Sound injects itself into listener’s skin and mind.  This bubbleness is what I am targeting with the notions of “Oops techniques” or as Rony Weissman brilliantly descried: “cellos were extremely hairy”. (BTW, the bubbleness is where the S2 is uncontestable emperor)

So, the direction I a looking is slightly opposite then juts use the wood of musical instilments. I formulated VERY EXACTLY and I know VERY PRECISELY what kind “noise” I need to overlay over Sound in odder to get that feeling of bubbleness. I juts have no idea what would be able to produced that “noise” in context of horns. So, what I would be interested would be most likely very far for what musical instilments do and is more aligned with the affords of the folks who record noises for cinema films ….

To be continue…
The caT

Posted by Paul S on 03-01-2007
I am just reminded of the long-since-superceded (naturally...) 10" Tannoy "mid-field"  "pro" monitor.  I think it was the TM10, which also used it's cabinet to very good effect, at least in terms of voicing.  You want "bubbles", I want pitch accuracy.  I have for some time loosely held on to the notion that a 10" driver is "easier" to voice to/with an enclosure, mainly due to its inherent ability to "pitch" itself better than other closeted direct radiator wide-range drivers.  I find most (OK, all) commercial speakers in all price ranges to be energy-deficient or very screwed up in relative lower-MF/upper-bass.  Even those speakers often described as "warm" seem to me generally to have at least an apparent "suck-out" in lower-MF.  This Tannoy I mention may also be deficient in this area, but at least it generally respects voices and instruments within a quite FR, which is more than most of the "tuned-type" enclosures can do, in my experience.

As I run through my mental catalog of speakers germane to this discusion I am reminded of very few (OK, none) that actually meet your criteria; but I can mention these few that are perhaps worthy of consideration in terms of "effective" limited use of cabinet resonances.

While continuing to reminisce about my cabinet "bracing" experiments, I remembered that the brace not only damped/modified the "targeted" resonance but it also actually introduced a whole new set of resonances because 1) it divided the panel it was attached into new resonant "zones"; 2) the jack/brace itself served as a "hot spot", or a sort of acoustic path or lens to/at the surface for another pretty much unpredictable resonance that in some cases became more apparent than the frequency I had set out to tame.

Best regards,
Paul S

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