sonddek
Trade: SUPATRAC
A friend of mine works for Funktion One (http://www.funktion-one.com/). He usually smirks when he hears my weedy hifi, and asks where the frequency extremes have gone. On Monday I went to hear his dem rig at a trade show:
When they turned the 221's up the whole building was moving, not just my bowels and trousers. He also demonstrated a pair of 101's which were really very good, and amazingly loud for a small 2/3 range speaker. As soon as he switched on the sub the bass went massive, thumpy, ill-defined, tuneless and completely incapable of reproducing the sound of a double bass, which sounded the size of a cardboard bus. He said that he thought the room was pretty neutral. At one point he put a dance track on and gradually turned up the volume on the 221-based stacks in the corners, which felt like physical assault and triggered my flight instinct. I really wanted to get out, fast. As the volume got higher, quite suddenly you could hear the lights and the roof and the gantry rattling like an epileptic maraca-player. Impressive, and utterly pointless if enjoyable music reproduction is your goal.
The 21 inch drivers were awfully tuneless.
In the end, it was a relief to sit down in front of my system at home and remember that acoustic recordings can deliver some semblance of realism. It was a great reminder that to me, deep bass has practically nothing to do with enjoyment of music, and that a room never fails to react to deep/excessive bass and completely mess it up. Public address sound systems are a very different kettle of fish to domestic hifi, with completely different priorities. Maybe that's one of the reasons I often enjoy studio albums more than live music. The venue and sound system are usually a long long way from accurate.
It's great gear for making non-acoustic loud noises though.
When they turned the 221's up the whole building was moving, not just my bowels and trousers. He also demonstrated a pair of 101's which were really very good, and amazingly loud for a small 2/3 range speaker. As soon as he switched on the sub the bass went massive, thumpy, ill-defined, tuneless and completely incapable of reproducing the sound of a double bass, which sounded the size of a cardboard bus. He said that he thought the room was pretty neutral. At one point he put a dance track on and gradually turned up the volume on the 221-based stacks in the corners, which felt like physical assault and triggered my flight instinct. I really wanted to get out, fast. As the volume got higher, quite suddenly you could hear the lights and the roof and the gantry rattling like an epileptic maraca-player. Impressive, and utterly pointless if enjoyable music reproduction is your goal.
The 21 inch drivers were awfully tuneless.
In the end, it was a relief to sit down in front of my system at home and remember that acoustic recordings can deliver some semblance of realism. It was a great reminder that to me, deep bass has practically nothing to do with enjoyment of music, and that a room never fails to react to deep/excessive bass and completely mess it up. Public address sound systems are a very different kettle of fish to domestic hifi, with completely different priorities. Maybe that's one of the reasons I often enjoy studio albums more than live music. The venue and sound system are usually a long long way from accurate.
It's great gear for making non-acoustic loud noises though.
