Mark Levinson on today’s audio industry

[PeterA]

"But once they’re silent, they’re silent." - I am also quoting.

What is exactly meant by a silent box?

I can't understand how people favoring horns can accept such childish argument. It reduces horns to a mathematical exercise, ignoring decades of expertise with all kind of materials, old and modern.

The people I have spoken to who have chosen horn speakers for their own systems do not seem in general to like horns per se. They like very specific horns designed in a specific way, and ones that can be used with specific types of amplification. Many modern horns cannot be driven by low power SET’s for instance. Many modern horns use different materials and sound completely different from some high efficiency vintage horns. Just like with other speaker typology, it’s very difficult to generalize about horn speakers. Specific end listening results are what seem to matter most.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Just Buy What You Want , lol .
Who cares what somebody else buys .

This is a discussion that cant be won

 

[Al M.]

Just Buy What You Want , lol .
Who cares what somebody else buys .

This is a discussion that cant be won

Yes, but something is objectively best.

Or so some say (or at least insinuate in the strongest terms).

 

[tima]

My problem with much of the Industry is what exactly are their goals? What is the target?

You are part of that industry. Do you think there is any consensus? I'd be surprised.
What are your goals? What is your target?

 

[andromedaaudio]

Yes, but something is objectively best.

Al , this discussion is already going on since " High end audio " exists.
There is no concensus and there will never be a consensus.

Pick your favourite and enjoy

 

[DasguteOhr]

Panzerholtz is also a worthy speaker cabinet material. i know lots of high end products use it in creative ways. Taiko obviously uses it for their Daiza platforms (i use 20 of them in my system to great effect) and inside some of their chassis in particular places for damping. we see turntable plinths made from it or as layers in some plinths.

One of the best loudspeakers consists of 51 layers of oil-soaked panzerholtz. The wood comes from ship hulls and serves to protect against magnetic sea mines.


P.S
An expensive material, a plate with dimensions H 2555 x W 1440 x 30mm thick = 1.3k€, weight 129 Kg.And you need several saw blades when you want build a speaker

 

[Elliot G.]

You are part of that industry. Do you think there is any consensus? I'd be surprised.
What are your goals? What is your target?

No I doubt there is however I only communicate with a small amount of participants seriously. I have listened or listen with my "group" it is part of how I work and do what I do. I have stated my position on this ad nauseum. I am a disciple of Harry Pearson his version before corrupted of the Absolute Sound. If I can can get what I call the small things right then I am on my way . My goal is get those "right" . HP was a very good teacher and very kind to me. I had others that taught me that I respected like Jon Dahlquist , Bill Johnson and Arnie Nudell all had influence on what I learned and how to do things.

This is my secret sauce along with all I have learned and experienced in setting up.
BTW back then there was a consensus and I believe they were all trying to do the same thing , today whole different thing. I had a long internet battle with JV many years back when he decided there were three different targets which IMO mean there was none. This however allowed everything to find a category and therefore not offend or say anything negative about anything. To each his own.

 

[italia]

I had a pair of transmission line loudspeakers in the '80's made by Rauna of Sweden, founded by Bo Hansson, who also founded Opus 3 Records. Rauna cabinets were made of concrete mixed with a binding agent. Quite inert the cabinets were, but the sound was definitely not lifeless. They used SEAS drivers and managed both remarkable dynamics as well as a broad soundstage.
Rauna's slogan was "The worst thing you can build out of six wood pieces is a loudspeaker". I believe they are still in business.

 

[DasguteOhr]

I had a pair of transmission line loudspeakers in the '80's made by Rauna of Sweden, founded by Bo Hansson, who also founded Opus 3 Records. Rauna cabinets were made of concrete mixed with a binding agent. Quite inert, but definitely not lifeless. They used SEAS drivers and managed both remarkable dynamics as well as a broad soundstage.
Rauna's slogan was "The worst thing you can build out of six wood pieces is a loudspeaker". I believe they are still in business.

German Highend AV6 Speaker housing oggi concrete.AMT , 8" midbass , 12" active bass
As the highender says, sounds quite okay.

Lautsprecher Referenz AV6: GERMAN HIGHEND

GERMAN HIGHEND Lautsprecher, State of the Art Lautsprecher, die besten Lautsprecher

german-highend.com

 

[Kingrex]

I had a pair of transmission line loudspeakers in the '80's made by Rauna of Sweden, founded by Bo Hansson, who also founded Opus 3 Records. Rauna cabinets were made of concrete mixed with a binding agent. Quite inert the cabinets were, but the sound was definitely not lifeless. They used SEAS drivers and managed both remarkable dynamics as well as a broad soundstage.
Rauna's slogan was "The worst thing you can build out of six wood pieces is a loudspeaker". I believe they are still in business.

Good speaker. I remember it.

 

[Al M.]

Al , this discussion is already going on since " High end audio " exists.
There is no concensus and there will never be a consensus.

Pick your favourite and enjoy

Of course.

 

[tima]

BTW back then there was a consensus and I believe they were all trying to do the same thing , today whole different thing

Man you have that right.
Lew Johnson was always helpful to me.

 

[JiminGa]

Lyra is a dead speaker, compared to say Stenheim, another cone speaker, both heard with CH

9 vs 10? lol. When you have 2 15 inch woofers extremely high sensitivity, with low grip requirement therefore easy to move, and requiring much less cabinet because the front half is open, then you will have have something to write about

That’s the whole point man. 10 vs 9 is nothing. ALL of the sound difference is due to the cabinet. Listen to the two speakers I mentioned and THEN comment. Yes different topologies create different requirements. This was not a cone vs horn discussion. I fully get why you like what like. BTW my experience with CH on gear I know is quite negative. I wouldn’t judge anything with them but that’s just my subjective opinion.

 

[JiminGa]

I am surprised you mistook me for the person I quoted.

Sorry. My bad

 

[Joe Whip]

When it comes to speakers, there is more than one way to skin a cat. My preference is RV but that is just me.

 

[gleeds]

I agree with a couple of Mark's points. I agree with him that industry magazines tend to feature products from advertisers, not necessarily those with the best value or performance.

I'm also thinking about many cable prices. I'm thinking about the seeming price competition to see who can ask the most money for flagship loudspeakers. But Mark weakens his argument by grossly overgeneralizing. Maybe he's correct about some cable manufacturers.

But I disagree with other of his main points. Does "engineering and craftsmanship in the service of music and reproducing recordings" not accurately describe, without limitation, off the top of my head at 3:50 AM, Absolare, Aesthetix, Acora, ARC, Devore, Songer, VSA, VAC, VTL, United Home Audio, Alsyvox, Clarisys, Diptyque, Magnepan, Thomas Mayer, Rockport, Wave Kinetics, Vintage Audio Specialties, Durand, Sablon, Zesto, Graham, WestminsterLab, and dozens and dozens and dozens of other manufacturers in our industry, and the products of almost every other component manufacturer you have in your home stereo system?

Does "engineering and craftsmanship in the service of music and reproducing recordings" really not describe even the likes of Boulder and Wilson Audio?

I think it's significantly disingenuous in that now that Mark is a small, boutique manufacturer he is just "talking his book." Now, as a small manufacturer, it is convenient for him to rail against the larger manufacturers, of which he used to be one.

I don't know the answer to this question, but I would be curious to know the inflation-adjusted numbers on Mark Levinson product prices from the 1970s and 1980s.

And don't forget the entry-level products of each of the companies whose flagship products seem to have made-up prices.

Carlos and Kedar appear to be missing the irony, because Mark's comments invite them to bang their usual drums.

...a dealer I know told me he had a customer looking for a system, who showed up with a Maria Callas album and told him: I don't care what anything else sounds like. This album has to sound great.

I guess you gotta admire a guy who knows what he likes.

MB, in the early 2000s, I was exhibiting at the Stereophile Show in NYC. Downstairs, in a giant ballroom, was a pair of massive vintage German Klanghorn movie-theater horns driven by a 2-watt tube amplifier. Sitting with me (not by plan) were Peter McGrath, John Atkinson, and one or two other serious men of HiFi of the time. The recording came on, and it was Maria Callas. Each of us sat there in disbelief. Not a lick of highs over 10k or bass below 100 cycles, but Maria was in the room with us! A moment I will never forget.

Elliot Mike Kay always preached that if you get the midrange right, the rest is easy. And Peter A, if you're on this thread, it looks like Vitavox has recently introduced a super speaker we can purchase new today.

 

[PeterA]

Words are words the issue is what they mean. I hear all these words thrown around like nothing . IMO they are generalizatione used to make people sound like they are experts.
Define them and hold them to some standard such that when spoken people actually get the meaning. Audio people don't want that, they say they do but they don't. This discussion about exotic materials is a perfect example. BY doing X it gets more natural. WTF does that mean? I don't have a clue what that means unless I have experience with the person and I know what he is trying to say. Its not just audio its everything . We are destroying language , ON PURPOSE , that is wha tthe internet has done.

here is an example taken from a unnamed website


It fixes nothing. Yet it changes everything

all the metal components of several of our loudspeaker models undergo an in-house, specialized cryogenic treatment, where they are subjected to a cooling process lasting 72 hours. In the wake of this process, the crystal structure of the metal contracts more and more, while the alloying elements are pushed out of the grain structure. Hence, the metal becomes very similar to a monocrystal. These structural changes have a profound effect on the audio properties of the metal, which will cause a significant increase in conductivity. This makes a truly natural and crystal-clear sound – the outstanding feature of our loudspeakers and audio equipment.


Really ? we know that how? Does their natural mean the same as your natural? asking for a friend

I defined what I mean by natural sound in the first page of my system thread.

 

[PeterA]

Yes, but something is objectively best.

Or so some say (or at least insinuate in the strongest terms).

I thought the discussion is about subjective differences in sound, what causes those differences, and why some are preferred over others. I don’t see anyone claiming best.

 

[tima]

What is exactly meant by a silent box?

Maybe it is a speaker box whose own resonance does not alter what its drivers emit?

Check with Vandersteen.

 

[tima]

We are addressing sound reproduction. IMO if we want realism we should go to a concert ... But surely maximizing enjoyment incorporates some aspects of realism, such as freedom of artifacts and accentuation of some real aspects.

Not quite. At least I do not find the words "realism" and "reality" synonymous. If you want the reality of live acoustic music,go to a concert. If you want realism from a stereo system, use the concert experience as your comparator reference.

Reproduction is not reality. And there may be certain 'audiophile virtues' that come with stereo reproduction that you may not experience in the concert hall.