[time-nuts] OT: Audiophoolery

Brooke Clarke brooke at pacific.net
Fri Apr 20 18:49:14 EDT 2007


Hi John:

Many years ago after installing a new component Hi-Fi system into my house you 
could hear noise coming out of the speakers that was objectionable.  I took the 
Scott power amp back to the high end audio store where I purchased it and 
complained.  It was meeting specs.  The problem was the speakers.  Rather than 
degrade the speakers the Scott was returned and replaced with McIntosh 
equipment and that solved the problem.

The speakers were Voice of the Theater.  A 15' woofer set back so it's voice 
coil is in the same vertical plane as the voice coil in the horn.  The gap 
between the woofer and the front of the box was filled in with an exponential 
horn.  This construction kept the phase of the sound at the crossover frequency 
(500 Hz) in phase.

With 1 mw drive you could hear a 1 kHz tone from across the room and the noise 
level on the Scott amp was some big number of dB down from max output.  After 
calculating the noise level it turned out to be maybe 10 dB above 1 mw.

So I'd say that excellent speakers may or may not make everything else unimportant.

Have Fun,

Brooke Clarke
w/Java http://www.PRC68.com
w/o Java http://www.pacificsites.com/~brooke/PRC68COM.shtml
http://www.precisionclock.com



Neon John wrote:

> 
> I feel yer pain buddy!  My real Klipsches didn't survive a fire.  Gawd
> I miss those horns.  Those proved that excellent speakers make
> everything else in the system relatively unimportant.
> 
> John, did you copy the folded horn design or just the looks.  I've
> pondered trying to build another set but I think that degree of
> woodworking skill is just beyond my capabilities.
> 
> John
> ---
> John De Armond
> 



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