advertisement


How much real original thinking is there in audio design?

TheDecameron

TheDecameron

Unicorns fart glitter.
It's difficult to be uncynical with age. I've been really interested in hifi since I was a boy, so almost 40 yrs and every new speaker, every new amp etc. reviewed was going to be a ground breaking sound quality advance, yet here I am still looking at wooden boxes with paper cones.

Who are the original thinkers, where were the paradigm shifts in sound quality?
 
I'd say some class D amplifier designs fit the criteria such as from Primare
 
TheDecameron said:
It's difficult to be uncynical with age. I've been really interested in hifi since I was a boy, so almost 40 yrs and every new speaker, every new amp etc. reviewed was going to be a ground breaking sound quality advance, yet here I am still looking at wooden boxes with paper cones.

Who are the original thinkers, where were the paradigm shifts in sound quality?
Click to expand...

The reality is paradigm shifts in audio are relatively rare. Audio is a highly mature world and the changes that come are more along the lines of punctuated equilibrium than mighty evolutionary changes. That said, BMR and Class D do represent significant changes to product design, and the move from analogue to digital to file-based digital is the surface element to some significant changes behind the scenes.

If you look at a box loudspeaker today and compare it to one of 40 years ago, there are significant - but on the face of things, minor - changes. Computer modelled cabinets, bracing and ports, the use of constrained layer damping in place of long-haired wool or BAF wadding, changes to the materials used in the construction of the drivers and more. It's now possible for a medium-sized loudspeaker company to deploy measurement technologies that would have been major university projects 40 years ago (such as laser interferometry) if they were available at all (MLSSA).
 
Digital recording was a paradigm shift, cd was a paradigm shift, streaming was a paradigm shift, iTunes was a paradigm shift, mp3/ipod/headphone listening on the street was a paradigm shift, Spotify is a paradigm shift ..
 
When I was a wee lad I read an article about an ionic speaker -- I think the company's name was Ionovac -- and it seemed to be a radical departure from cones and magnets, panels and plates in that it was effectively an inertia-less transducer.

Did anything ever come of that?

Joe
 
Yup, Inovac, HIll plasmatronics, Fane a few DIYers and now Lansche have all had a go at the plasma driver.

Basic fizzics limits its usefulness to the treble range though.
 
Joe P said:
When I was a wee lad I read an article about an ionic speaker -- I think the company's name was Ionovac -- and it seemed to be a radical departure from cones and magnets, panels and plates in that it was effectively an inertia-less transducer.

Did anything ever come of that?

Joe
Click to expand...

Ozone poisoning :D

Andrew
 
The quality of sound from some of these small one unit streamers is just amazing. It's certainly different to the philips mono tape player that I used as a kid, or the 1970s getto blaster. You can now get excellent performance from a shoebox size rather than a radiogram from the 1960s.

the box design is another thing. Surely there must be some room for improvements. I still think the Naim chrome is iconic. Everything on a sled with a nice solid outer cover.
 
Pretty nifty ionic speaker, but it does that farty bass I don't rate.


Joe
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Joe P said:
When I was a wee lad I read an article about an ionic speaker -- I think the company's name was Ionovac -- and it seemed to be a radical departure from cones and magnets, panels and plates in that it was effectively an inertia-less transducer.

Did anything ever come of that?

Joe
Click to expand...

It sounded great but you got lung cancer if you listened for too long?
 
These would have been interesting to be in a room with!

"...about a pair of strange speakers designed
by John Iverson. As I remember it the principle was to modulate
the signal onto a 300kHz carrier frequency, amplify this (using
multi-kW HF amplifiers !!) and then use two parallel vertical
metal bars as the "speaker element". Presumably the carrier
frequencies for the two bars were modulated with the signal
180 deg. out of phase in one case.

The interesting thing about these speakers was that they
bypassed the mechanical system of the ear, since such high
frequencis can only be detected by bone conduction through
the skull. It seems the difference signal, ie. the original signal,
was somehow detected by the nerve centres in the ear.
On the good side, the journalist claimed these to be the best
speakers he had ever listened to - the sound was claimed
fantastic, probably because the mechanical distorsion in the
ear was avoided. Many (but not all) deaf people could hear
such speakers. The drawbacks were very low efficiency and
all the problems with HF amplification, an extremely narrow
radiation angle (moving your head about 10cm to the side
would make the speakers sound silent) and the potential
health hazards...."

AIUI Iverson (and Alan Hill of Plasmatronics fame) were both former NASA people who had to find other things to do when Apollo finished.
 
R&D costs are just to big for the small companies and would the market accept something totally new and off the wall And the man in the street just does not care about high quality audio anymore or just thinks of b & O or bose
 
AndyU said:
Digital recording was a paradigm shift, cd was a paradigm shift, streaming was a paradigm shift, iTunes was a paradigm shift, mp3/ipod/headphone listening on the street was a paradigm shift, Spotify is a paradigm shift ..
Click to expand...

Disagree... Digital certainly was a paradigm shift .. but all the rest are just natural evolutions of the use of digital.
 
GTM said:
Disagree... Digital certainly was a paradigm shift .. but all the rest are just natural evolutions of the use of digital.
Click to expand...

Depends what you mean by paradigm shift.

Thomas Kuhn introduced the phrase in 1962 in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and applied it the sorts of seismic shifts in science caused by men like Newton and Einstein. By that standard I doubt anything in the mickey mouse world of hifi gets remotely close to a paradigm shift! But even Kuhn acknowledges he used the phrase imprecisely - as he points out here commentators have counted at least 22 different uses of the term in his own book, and very clever people have continued to argue about it since, so I honestly don't think there's much mileage in discussing what is and isn't a paradigm shift in hifi. "Big change" is probably less presumptious.
 
I would say Meridian were original thinkers. Their digital active speakers with dsp crossovers, downloadable firmware updates etc. were way ahead of their time. More than just speakers-all you needed was a digital source and off you go.
 
Not sure this counts as original but the Linkwitz Orion combined active amplification and open baffle design to great effect IMO.

In terms of slow shifts within our tiny audiophile world, the word is starting to get out about active loudspeakers. Also there is a growing acceptance that room acoustics are of great importance. Both are signs that pro views are starting to affect the domestic guys.
Darren
 
AndyU said:
Depends what you mean by paradigm shift.

Thomas Kuhn introduced the phrase in 1962 in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" and applied it the sorts of seismic shifts in science caused by men like Newton and Einstein. By that standard I doubt anything in the mickey mouse world of hifi gets remotely close to a paradigm shift! But even Kuhn acknowledges he used the phrase imprecisely - as he points out here commentators have counted at least 22 different uses of the term in his own book, and very clever people have continued to argue about it since, so I honestly don't think there's much mileage in discussing what is and isn't a paradigm shift in hifi. "Big change" is probably less presumptious.
Click to expand...

Fair point.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top