Zero Distortion: Tango Time

Ovenmitt

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Nov 21, 2017
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Vibration gel. My english is no good. You mean gel for vibrator?

This is one of the best replies I’ve ever seen on here.... hilarious Tang! Like x 1000.
 
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cjfrbw

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Apr 20, 2010
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Vibration gel. My english is no good. You mean gel for vibrator?
Yes, that too. Never stand in the way of pragmatism.
 

Tango

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Mar 12, 2017
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Dear friends,

With the bass horns that I have now, when I switch off my main speakers and play just the bass horns, I hear so very little going on. One time I had to go into the mouth to hear if they were working. Even my dealer friend who sold me the Cessaro system laughed and teased me why bother added them. But when play together with the main speakers, the difference is another level of realism. The question to ask you is why do these bass horn when played alone can be heard so little but once played together with main speakers result such increase in musical presence and fool you real listening experience. Some theoretical explanation would be nice.

kind regards,
Tang
 

howiebrou

Well-Known Member
Jun 29, 2012
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Dear friends,

With the bass horns that I have now, when I switch off my main speakers and play just the bass horns, I hear so very little going on. One time I had to go into the mouth to hear if they were working. Even my dealer friend who sold me the Cessaro system laughed and teased me why bother added them. But when play together with the main speakers, the difference is another level of realism. The question to ask you is why do these bass horn when played alone can be heard so little but once played together with main speakers result such increase in musical presence and fool you real listening experience. Some theoretical explanation would be nice.

kind regards,
Tang
You shouldn't hear bass, you should feel bass.
 
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Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Dear friends,

With the bass horns that I have now, when I switch off my main speakers and play just the bass horns, I hear so very little going on. One time I had to go into the mouth to hear if they were working. Even my dealer friend who sold me the Cessaro system laughed and teased me why bother added them. But when play together with the main speakers, the difference is another level of realism. The question to ask you is why do these bass horn when played alone can be heard so little but once played together with main speakers result such increase in musical presence and fool you real listening experience. Some theoretical explanation would be nice.

kind regards,
Tang

bass should be sneaky. it should be like in life. it's just 'there' subtly in the background, doing it's thing. like ambience. part of 'real'. but when there is thunder, it's figgin THUNDER!!!!!!

bass that is not sneaky becomes a mid bass coloration which could be attractive at first listen.......but it's get's in the way of musical agility and lively-ness. overhang......is overhang. you don't want a 'i got bass' sign always sitting there.

when i was spending 6 weeks tuning my bass towers after i solved my 10db suckout at 30hz which threw off all the settings my speaker designer had done, my approach was to keep turning the bass towers off, to make sure the music sounded better with them on. in essence, the bass should never make the music less real and just be 'bass'.....it is just part of real music.

and once i got my bass close to correct, i noticed how much more balanced the sound was and how much better my highs were, and this is a bass tower only going up to 35hz. all the overtones suddenly filled in naturally,
 
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bonzo75

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Tang's bass horn comes in from 80, not sub 30.
 

Folsom

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Oct 25, 2015
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Dear friends,

With the bass horns that I have now, when I switch off my main speakers and play just the bass horns, I hear so very little going on. One time I had to go into the mouth to hear if they were working. Even my dealer friend who sold me the Cessaro system laughed and teased me why bother added them. But when play together with the main speakers, the difference is another level of realism. The question to ask you is why do these bass horn when played alone can be heard so little but once played together with main speakers result such increase in musical presence and fool you real listening experience. Some theoretical explanation would be nice.

kind regards,
Tang

Because all the ques for the bass are in the higher registers. You're informed you're hearing/feeling it by things that happen in higher frequencies. This is why so much of the "time alignment" etc for low frequency talk is just rubbish.

Ever try playing just your tweeter? You'll have a similar result.
 
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spiritofmusic

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Jun 13, 2013
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Tang, like you I've solved the subs conundrum...less bass is more bass.
Or, more accurately, less smear is more substance.
For me, the key that unlocked 7 years of subs integration hell was blocking a totally rogue bass node in my room.
£50 of acoustic Rockwool, and this issue was both exposed and solved in one go.
Which then enabled me to take my Zus subs settings way down (60Hz 6/10 level in London, to 50Hz 5/10 in the new room, now 39Hz 1.5/10 with the node sorted).
For me, this has been the biggest learning curve as to how poor setup or room acoustics anomalies can hobble a sound.
After a few days of being sure that I wasn't going to like this, the realisation dawned that my Zu full range drivers were just that, full range, and I had been suffering from way more smear into lower mids than was ideal in any way.
And areas I thought the Zus were poor on ie transparency on classical and jazz lps, was not the Zus, but my cack handed misuse of subs settings and my room acoustics previously forcing me this way.
 

heebrog

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May 12, 2018
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Perth, WA
when i was spending 6 weeks tuning my bass towers after i solved my 10db suckout at 30hz which threw off all the settings my speaker designer had done, my approach was to keep turning the bass towers off, to make sure the music sounded better with them on. in essence, the bass should never make the music less real and just be 'bass'.....it is just part of real music.

Hi Mike,

Was this 10dB "suck-out" in your custom built room?
If so, how did you solve it?

Geoff
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Hi Mike,

Was this 10dB "suck-out" in your custom built room?
If so, how did you solve it?

Geoff

yes; it was in the current room; solved in 2015 or 2016 as i recall.

i wrote some pretty involved posts about it a few years back. later when i get the chance to locate them i will post a link.
 

Mike Lavigne

Member Sponsor & WBF Founding Member
Apr 25, 2010
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Hi Mike,

Was this 10dB "suck-out" in your custom built room?
If so, how did you solve it?

Geoff

here is a link to a 2015 thread about the repair of that suck-out.

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/suck-out-fixed-i-think.18116/

and here is more background of room tuning work i did earlier in 2015. i tried to find some other threads from that same year but could not. if you want to discuss any of this let's open a new thread and not 'soil' Tang's/Bonzo's.:cool:

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/almost-free-and-4-inches-the-final-1.17389/
 
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Lagonda

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Feb 3, 2014
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Because all the ques for the bass are in the higher registers. You're informed you're hearing/feeling it by things that happen in higher frequencies. This is why so much of the "time alignment" etc for low frequency talk is just rubbish.

Ever try playing just your tweeter? You'll have a similar result.
Yes Folsom on some systems and with some ears time alignment and phase is just rubbish ;)
 
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bonzo75

Member Sponsor
Feb 26, 2014
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Dear friends,

With the bass horns that I have now, when I switch off my main speakers and play just the bass horns, I hear so very little going on. One time I had to go into the mouth to hear if they were working. Even my dealer friend who sold me the Cessaro system laughed and teased me why bother added them. But when play together with the main speakers, the difference is another level of realism. The question to ask you is why do these bass horn when played alone can be heard so little but once played together with main speakers result such increase in musical presence and fool you real listening experience. Some theoretical explanation would be nice.

kind regards,
Tang

Do @audioquattr and Vlad have the same experience with their bass horns?
 

ddk

Well-Known Member
May 18, 2013
6,261
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Utah
Dear friends,

With the bass horns that I have now, when I switch off my main speakers and play just the bass horns, I hear so very little going on. One time I had to go into the mouth to hear if they were working. Even my dealer friend who sold me the Cessaro system laughed and teased me why bother added them. But when play together with the main speakers, the difference is another level of realism. The question to ask you is why do these bass horn when played alone can be heard so little but once played together with main speakers result such increase in musical presence and fool you real listening experience. Some theoretical explanation would be nice.

kind regards,
Tang

That's exactly the role of the sub, you don't really hear it but you it feel like the an underlying invisible foundation.

david
 

VladB

Well-Known Member
Sep 14, 2015
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248
Can you find that folk one on discogs? I'm not sure which it is.

I can’t find the exact link to the Melodia pressing that I have (C20-10557), but this:

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Russian-Folk-Musical-Instruments/release/10009091

and this

https://www.discogs.com/Ossipov-Sta...tra-Russian-Folk-Instruments/release/11393627

might give you a nice tasting of how they sound..

I heard somewhere that balalaika (a Russian folk string instrument) is one of the most difficult instruments both to record and to reproduce in a system, so you can use it as part of a system evaluation method))
 

VladB

Well-Known Member
Sep 14, 2015
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248
Thank you Vlad. I didn't think you do vinyl. I understand 5 languages. Unfortunately Russian isn't one of them. This folk instruments are contemporary?

Hi Tang!

I have a fairly simple (actually, two - one in the city and the other in the countryside) vinyl rig, with a Brinkmann Oasis/Graham Phantom Supreme/Dynavector XV-1s as the main workhorse in the Gamma system, and a Kuzma/Kuzma 4-point/Lyra Etna in the city (SF Aida) system.

As vinyl for me is more about quality content rather than method of delivery, and at this point in time life is a bit hectic to spend much time on hunting for good records, I am not pushing hard into this area of system development now.

I have just about 500 records in the LP “playlist” so far, that is a rather small library.

On folk instruments - yes, these are recordings from around 1970~75, the instruments themselves might be older, though these are not Guarneri violins, so hard to say about their origins..

The Soviets had a very strong folk music education tradition and a very professional approach to performance recordings, so despite the “folk” part this is really academic music at its Soviet times peak.
 
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Tango

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Mar 12, 2017
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Bangkok
Hi Tang!

I have a fairly simple (actually, two - one in the city and the other in the countryside) vinyl rig, with a Brinkmann Oasis/Graham Phantom Supreme/Dynavector XV-1s as the main workhorse in the Gamma system, and a Kuzma/Kuzma 4-point/Lyra Etna in the city (SF Aida) system.

As vinyl for me is more about quality content rather than method of delivery, and at this point in time life is a bit hectic to spend much time on hunting for good records, I am not pushing hard into this area of system development now.

I have just about 500 records in the LP “playlist” so far, that is a rather small library.

On folk instruments - yes, these are recordings from around 1970~75, the instruments themselves might be older, though these are not Guarneri violins, so hard to say about their origins..

Soviets had a very strong folk music education tradition and a very professional approach to performance recordings, so despite the “folk” part this is really academic music at its Soviet times peak.
Just bought both LPs. Buying LP is like opening a gift box. Like or not but always exciting when opening. :)

Balalaika sounds somewhat like Asian Ruan.
 
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VladB

Well-Known Member
Sep 14, 2015
39
33
248
Just bought both LPs. Buying LP is like opening a gift box. Like or not but always exciting when opening. :)

Balalaika sounds somewhat like Asian Ruan.

It does indeed - there is surely a great common history and theme behind even the simplest of musical instruments.

Here is a nice modern performance - I like that the young kids still keep the flame burning, even if with a modern twist:


And, of course, the “Kalinka”:

 
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VladB

Well-Known Member
Sep 14, 2015
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248
Here is a small sample while your LPs are being shipped ;)

 
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