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I agree, which is why I have not installed a sub and will not. Bass energy is the most problematic to control because the waves are so long, of course.
Well, the problem is not that the waves are long, but that a small room reflects them creating room modes. The simplest way to control for room modes is to use more than one subwoofer. Here is the relevant segment of Floyd Toole's talk: https://youtu.be/7vn6hQHRgzk?t=1185Scientific research--it works!
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I agree, which is why I have not installed a sub and will not. Bass energy is the most problematic to control because the waves are so long, of course.
Well, the problem is not that the waves are long, but that a small room reflects them creating room modes. The simplest way to control for room modes is to use more than one subwoofer. Here is the relevant segment of Floyd Toole's talk: https://youtu.be/7vn6hQHRgzk?t=1185Scientific research--it works! Ok, it is a problem of long waves in a short room due to the fact that I don’t have an infinite amount of disposable income! If I did, I would build a large dedicated listening room, as many have done, and I would hire Rives to do it, I suppose. Thanks for the link! I don’t think I’ll go down that road but I will think about it. Just for fun, I’ll post the specs of my speakers. I suppose you’ll all say I have too much power but the speakers sound great and are certainly under the tight control of my amplifier.
Last edited by LarryK; 05/19/19 04:37 PM.
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Fortunately it's not that important for piano. There's very little energy at the extreme low end. I wouldn't think of using a sub. This is a piano, not a church organ. Or an electric bass guitar.
If there were need of a sub ... what that really means is that the main speakers are just too small.
I'd rather have a pair of good speakers with no sub ... than a pair of inadequate speakers, and then have to fuss with (and spend on) a sub.
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Just for fun, I’ll post the specs of my speakers. I suppose you’ll all say I have too much power but the speakers sound great and are certainly under the tight control of my amplifier.
For me JBL M2's reflect the "state of the art" in speakers, backed by research. These are too much for me (at $20K USD, heh), but JBL 708p's are supposed to perform _extremely close_ at $4000/pair. I'm eyeing the 708p's because they have active cross overs and power amps built in. Why mess with external amps and such when I trust JBL to build the right amp for me.
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Fortunately it's not that important for piano. There's very little energy at the extreme low end. I don't know about you, but my grand piano's low notes have lots of energy at the extreme low notes, and I love hitting them loudly. It's a different matter for digital instruments of course, but I've heard other forum members mention that adding a subwoofer improved their playing experience.
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Ok, here are the specs for my speakers: [img] https://imgur.com/a/PlZDkXa[/img] I suppose they’re a lot less interesting than the specs for my amplifier. The guiding principle behind this speaker is: All drivers must be in phase at all times at all frequencies. It’s a D’Appolito configuration, two 5 inch Kevlar coated drivers with massive magnet assemblies, look at the power handling capability, cast magnesium basket designed for maximum ventilation between cone and spider, magnetic assembly is vented. The speaker is not ported. Non-ported speakers are generally more accurate than ported speakers. Oil filled linen tweeter so no problems with the break-up modes associated with metal domed tweeters. Massively built, heavy, monocoque construction, meaning each speaker is all one piece. Q controller to match speaker output to size of the room. I suppose I might upgrade the speakers some day. I’ve got the juice to drive just about anything.
Last edited by LarryK; 05/19/19 05:13 PM.
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Actually they do not. I don't know about you, but my grand piano's low notes have lots of energy at the extreme low notes, and I love hitting them loudly. Notes of the lowest octave have only a tiny fraction of the energy found in the overtones. The overtones fool the ear is into "hearing" the almost-absent fundamental. As you said earlier: Scientific research--it works!
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Just noticed, Rives is gone but there are other firms that will design a dedicated listening room.
I don’t have that kind of scratch.
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Just for fun, I’ll post the specs of my speakers. I suppose you’ll all say I have too much power but the speakers sound great and are certainly under the tight control of my amplifier.
For me JBL M2's reflect the "state of the art" in speakers, backed by research. These are too much for me (at $20K USD, heh), but JBL 708p's are supposed to perform _extremely close_ at $4000/pair. I'm eyeing the 708p's because they have active cross overs and power amps built in. Why mess with external amps and such when I trust JBL to build the right amp for me. I want to be able to evolve my components separately, which is what I have done for decades. All manufacturers are under cost pressures and so, I don’t want amplifiers in my speakers, they’d be Class D which I don’t be like, nothing against JBL. A lot of people know how to design good amplifiers.
Last edited by LarryK; 05/19/19 05:34 PM.
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Ok, here are the specs for my speakers: [img] https://imgur.com/a/PlZDkXa[/img] I suppose they’re a lot less interesting than the specs for my amplifier. The guiding principle behind this speaker is: All drivers must be in phase at all times at all frequencies. It’s a D’Appolito configuration, two 5 inch Kevlar coated drivers with massive magnet assemblies, look at the power handling capability, cast magnesium basket designed for maximum ventilation between cone and spider, magnetic assembly is vented. The speaker is not ported. Non-ported speakers are generally more accurate than ported speakers. Oil filled linen tweeter so no problems with the break-up modes associated with metal domed tweeters. Massively built, heavy, monocoque construction, meaning each speaker is all one piece. Q controller to match speaker output to size of the room. I suppose I might upgrade the speakers some day. I’ve got the juice to drive just about anything. I must admit that you got me curious. All of the features you mention are things I have come to appreciate in loudspeakers. What speakers are they?
Schimmel 130 by day, Roland FP-30X & Sennheiser 800s by night
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Actually they do not. I don't know about you, but my grand piano's low notes have lots of energy at the extreme low notes, and I love hitting them loudly. Notes of the lowest octave have only a tiny fraction of the energy found in the overtones. The overtones fool the ear is into "hearing" the almost-absent fundamental. As you said earlier: Scientific research--it works! According to Spectral Analysis of Musical Sounds, the lowest C, C1 has only 1% of energy emited at its fundamental partial. 4% at its second. Then yes, “lots of energy at the extreme low notesâ€, but not at their lowest part of the spectrum.
Last edited by Frédéric L; 05/19/19 06:41 PM.
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Ok, here are the specs for my speakers: [img] https://imgur.com/a/PlZDkXa[/img] I suppose they’re a lot less interesting than the specs for my amplifier. The guiding principle behind this speaker is: All drivers must be in phase at all times at all frequencies. It’s a D’Appolito configuration, two 5 inch Kevlar coated drivers with massive magnet assemblies, look at the power handling capability, cast magnesium basket designed for maximum ventilation between cone and spider, magnetic assembly is vented. The speaker is not ported. Non-ported speakers are generally more accurate than ported speakers. Oil filled linen tweeter so no problems with the break-up modes associated with metal domed tweeters. Massively built, heavy, monocoque construction, meaning each speaker is all one piece. Q controller to match speaker output to size of the room. I suppose I might upgrade the speakers some day. I’ve got the juice to drive just about anything. I must admit that you got me curious. All of the features you mention are things I have come to appreciate in loudspeakers. What speakers are they? After a few more people weigh in, I’ll reveal the speakers, which will also reveal the amp.
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Power consumption idle: Holy Moly yours eats 500W w/o doing squat all... yay Class A heater! Sadly, my manual doesn't specify I'm not sure why the power consumption at idle should matter, I don't let my amp idle without a signal, it is either amplifying music or it is off. I could buy a preamp that talks to the amp and has it drop into standby mode when there is no signal but that is an expensive solution and I can get around the problem by how I use the system. If playing through the Roon + Tidal setup, you can configure something called Roon Radio, which finds related CDs once the ones you've chosen are played. It's a cool way to discover new music based on the music you already have in your library. So, with that enabled, the amp will not burn electricity with no music being played. The advantage of Class A amplification, of course, is that there is no crossover distortion, like in Class AB or Class B amps, because the transistors in a Class A amplifier are always on, so, there is no switching transistors on and off, and therefore no distortion. Voila! The result of Class A amplification is an incredible smoothness in musical presentation. Yes, you pay for it in terms of heat, weight, and electricity, but, I think it is worth dealing with those issues to hear the sound it produces.
Last edited by LarryK; 05/19/19 07:43 PM.
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After a few more people weigh in, I’ll reveal the speakers, which will also reveal the amp.
Based on the specs, the speakers are Gryphon Cantatas. Browsing the manual [1] suggests a 200 hour break in at 'moderate volumes'. This tells me that the sound is expected to change over the life of the speakers. So either these speakers are seriously flawed, or it's snakeoil. At these prices, couldn't they just break in at the factory? [1] https://www.manualslib.com/manual/629088/Gryphon-Cantata.html#manual
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Actually they do not.
Notes of the lowest octave have only a tiny fraction of the energy found in the overtones. The overtones fool the ear is into "hearing" the almost-absent fundamental.
This is completely false. Human ears can hear low as 20Hz and everyone can hear 60Hz AC hum (which has no overtones). Our ears are not very sensitive at these frequencies, so we perceive the overtones more acutely, but that does not mean that most of the sound energy is in the overtones. As you said earlier: Scientific research--it works!
Only if you are reading reliable sources.
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After a few more people weigh in, I’ll reveal the speakers, which will also reveal the amp.
Based on the specs, the speakers are Gryphon Cantatas. Browsing the manual [1] suggests a 200 hour break in at 'moderate volumes'. This tells me that the sound is expected to change over the life of the speakers. So either these speakers are seriously flawed, or it's snakeoil. At these prices, couldn't they just break in at the factory? [1] https://www.manualslib.com/manual/629088/Gryphon-Cantata.html#manualGood work, yes, that's what they are, but how can you conclude that the speakers are seriously flawed because they need a break in period? All speakers go through a break in period because the surround materials and the material in the spider loosens up as the speaker is played. This is completely normal. These speakers are from 2003, I bought them used, so they are well past their 200 hour break in period, and they still sound great, I'm listening to them now. As to why speaker companies don't put 200 hours on each new pair of speakers, well, that should be pretty obvious. Speaker companies are in the business of building and shipping products in order to stay in business, not in delaying shipments to put 200 hours of play on each speaker. . It should be a fairly easy process to identify my amplifier. Again, I bought both used, so don't drop dead at the MSRPs of the these components, but do faint, lol. I don't own a car, my stereo is my car.
Last edited by LarryK; 05/19/19 08:31 PM.
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As for the brains behind the design of the Cantatas, you have to look to the work of the Danish speaker designer, Steen Dueland, who, sadly, passed away a while ago. I feel lucky to own these speakers. They have brought me a lot of joy, even if packing and unpacking them from their shipping crates is a bit of a pain. It's not a one person operation. I honestly don't know if I should upgrade to the ported Mojo S speakers: https://www.soundstageultra.com/ind...ryphon-audio-designs-mojo-s-loudspeakersI've heard them, and they sound good, but it is impossible to know how a speaker will sound in one's own space unless you buy the speakers. Anyway, I'm ok with where I'm at for the time being.
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Reading the Gryphon manual for some more, they describe the difficulty of controlling for room modes. It is true that this is has been a hard problem. But Harman has published papers that describe how to solve them (use multiple subs).
I'm very happy that Harman is publishing these papers. Hopefully more designers read them, and incorporate the ideas. Or refute them with their own research.
Flat earthers are not going to disappear. But at least research refuting them are being published, instead of the blind leading the blind.
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Actually they do not.
Notes of the lowest octave have only a tiny fraction of the energy found in the overtones. The overtones fool the ear is into "hearing" the almost-absent fundamental.
This is completely false. Human ears can hear low as 20Hz and everyone can hear 60Hz AC hum (which has no overtones). Our ears are not very sensitive at these frequencies, so we perceive the overtones more acutely, but that does not mean that most of the sound energy is in the overtones. MacMacMac wasn't talking about how the human ear hears. He was talking about the frequencies produced by the low strings on an acoustic piano. Refer to the post Frederic L. made two hours ago. @LarryK I don't know much about speaker amplifiers, but it doesn't make sense to me that a high-end amp can get away with guaranteeing <1% THD+N at its maximum continuous output, 111dB of dynamic range, and -79dB in unweighted signal to noise ratio when the Benchmark AHB2 guarantees < 0.0003% THD+N at maximum continuous output, 130dB of dynamic range, and -118dB in unweighted signal to noise ratio. Your amplifier has 160W of maximum continuous output whereas the Benchmark AHB2 has only 100W, but the difference in distortion and dynamic range is massive. The Benchmark AHB2 is class AB, not class A, but its crosstalk is <-115dB at 1kHz and <-92dB at 20kHz, which is better than the normal distortion numbers on your amp. Having high maximum peak power output probably couldn't hurt, but isn't it bad practice to play music that can exceed your continuous output, anyway? It seems like exceeding continuous output puts you at risk of linearity deviation. Linearity is the measure of how accurately a device portrays dynamics; e.g. if the input is at -80dBfs, then the output should be -80dBfs as well and not -75dBfs. Isn't it the case that exceeding continuous output means the output level could fall before it's supposed to? I don't mean to diss your amp, I simply don't understand the discrepancies.
Last edited by Philosobyte; 05/19/19 09:48 PM.
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MacMacMac wasn't talking about how the human ear hears. He was talking about the frequencies produced by the low strings on an acoustic piano. Refer to the post Frederic L. made two hours ago.
Yes. I didn't know about the Missing Fundamental ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_fundamental) problem in pianos. Here is a nice PW topic on it: https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/1790387/Re:_The_Missing_Fundamental.html My apologies to MacMacMac and Fredric. Learning new things is fun! and of course: "Science--it _still_ works!"
Last edited by redfish1901; 05/19/19 11:44 PM.
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