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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!herbie
From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Newsgroups: net.audio
Subject: Re: speakers and cables i have known
Message-ID: <1404@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 23-May-85 11:59:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1404
Posted: Thu May 23 11:59:16 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 04:37:24 EDT
References: <1368@watdcsu.UUCP> <358@olivee.UUCP>
Reply-To: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo
Lines: 87
Summary: 

In article <358@olivee.UUCP> greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley) writes:

 talking about Vandersteen 2C's...

>In fact, the width
>of the field in which a good listening perspective can be had from
>these speakers is one of their points of superiority to some of the
>better British speakers (notably Kef and B&W), which suffer from a
>very narrow listening window.

i should point out that outside the listening window, imaging and detail
are not bad with british speakers, just that they are not as good as some
others such as the vandersteens.  within the window, it is much better
than outside.  this is a deliberate design decision in order to reduce the
effects of reflected sound energy from the walls in the midrange.

>I certainly don't mean to dismiss the B&W's - they are excellent
>speakers and it took me a long time and a number of extended listening
>sessions to come to these conclusions.   There will be people who
>want to hear more detail when listening at home than they would in
>a concert hall, who may well prefer the B&W.  I would maintain, though,
>that the Vandersteens offer a greater neutrality of sound and are,
>therefore, suitable for a wider range of musical applications.

as i have mentioned here and there in my previous postings, what Greg
describes is certainly true of stock DM7's, but i don't have stock
DM7's.  much of the problems that Greg describes vis a vis the B&W
speakers are due to the thin wire that is inside them (22 Ga).  when I
bought my DM7's, i knew that this was going to be a problem.  i have
a friend who used to own a pair and he said that i would have to work
on my speakers before they would sound their best.  so, i did a few
things like rewiring mine with Fulton Brown, a 10 Ga silver-copper
alloy wire and replacing the input connectors for better contacts.
bass efficiency was considerably increased and the tonal balance
improved.  i keep telling myself that midrange detail is improved too,
but it's probably psychological.  

the rewiring was done by myself, but at an authorized B&W dealer.  this
means that my warrantee is still valid (most important).  right after
we finished and checked out the phasing and stuff, we ABed my DM7's
with another unmodified pair in the store.  the speakers were
positioned as close together as possible for each channel and the
listening room was big enough to reduce bass resonance and cancellation
effects to very low frequencies.  the difference was staggering, to put
it mildly.  bass extension was much further, although i wasn't able to
measure how much.  imaging and other things were not materially
affected.  the test record i used was my Dark Side of the Moon UHQR.
turntable was a Linn Sondek LP12 with Linn Itock LV15 arm, Linn Asak
cartridge, and MacIntosh pre and power amps (i forget which models).
the simulated heartbeat squeezed you and shook things all over the
store without sounding exaggerated.  so bass was longer a problem in a
reasonable room placement.  unfortunately, i don't have that at home 8-(.

anyway, those are the DM7's that i compared with Vandersteens.  i know
what my DM7's are capable of in terms of bass response, but i'm not getting
it because of room effects.  because of the improvement in bass, the
overall tonal balance improved because the midrange and highs are less
dominating.  by comparison, stock DM7's sound a little strident.
i still hold to my opinion that my DM7's are better than the Vandersteens
under the conditions that i listened to.

the "hole-in-the-middle" effect is something that i have heard between
amplifiers and i can't offer any explanations other than that it is
most audible on material that shows superior imaging characteristics
(such as Sheffield Labs "Growing Up in Hollywood Town") and can be best
described as having sounds appearing to come from directly in the
middle and the two speakers, with a space between where it's not
possible to localise a sound.  i attribute it to an amplifier effect
because i have an amplifier that switches from pure Class A operation
to Class AB operation via a front-panel switch.  it stays in the mode
of operation selected until the position of the switch is changed.
about the only noticeable sonic effect between the two positions of the
switch is the filling in of those areas between the speakers and the
center.  it is a repeatable and verifiable sonic effect but whether it
is due to subtle frequency response differences, noise changes, or even
phase responses is completely unknown.  i have heard this in ABing
other power amplifiers.  interchannel cross-talk could even be the
cause.

Herb Chong...

I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

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