Mark Levinson on today’s audio industry

[Mike Lavigne]

I think there are speaker manufacturers who target things other than realism.

agree factors 'in addition to' realism are in play. but intentionally avoiding realism i have not seen.

 

[Al M.]

I believe your current speakers, which I think are fantastic, would be just as successful with MDF.

The designer of my speakers, who also uses Baltic Birch, will probably disagree on substitution with MDF. I can ask him.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I believe your current speakers, which I think are fantastic, would be just as successful with MDF.

maybe HDF might be hard to differentiate from layers of Baltic Birch assuming the mass was similar. MDF less so. but it would come down to listening.

I will have to leave this hard question to Mike ...

with such a heavy 600+ pound cabinet maybe material is not so critical. mass and internal shape/acoustical coupling more important.

 

[jeff1225]

The designer of my speakers, who also uses Baltic Birch, will probably disagree on substitution with MDF. I can ask him.

I’d love to know his opinion as your speakers were my favorite of the show that year.

 

[bonzo75]

Baltic birch is not an exotic material.

No. But it’s sufficient and not resonating away like some people on this forum who have no experience with the Lansing speakers community make readers assume

 

[Al M.]

I’d love to know his opinion as your speakers were my favorite of the show that year.

I'll let you know.

 

[JiminGa]

“So we see today heroic, I mean, just unbelievable amounts of money spent on cabinets, the speaker cabinets. But once they’re silent, they’re silent. There’s no need to throw any more money at them.” he said.
“It isn’t going to make the speaker any better. It’s just going to make it more expensive. It might make it prettier, but it’s not going to make it perform better.” RV

Maybe he'll start a trend. As designers come closer to retirement they do a 'tell-all' interview in an e-zine. I suppose an earbud and headphone site felt comfortable with such an article from a major speaker manufacturer -- not likely to offend their other advertisers.

I am surprised to see you say that. Of course everything is subject to diminishing returns including cabinets but they matter. A lot. You are not just trying to remove cabinet noise but lowering the noise floor allows you to hear the drivers leading and trailing edges which would otherwise be obscured. You will hear this as better resolution. This concept is fundamental to isolation, grounding, power strategies. Footers matter. Grounding matters. Power matters. You want to minimize all these factors but in the largest source of error (by far) the speakers you dont want to eliminate a major cause of it? Do this: go listen to a Rockport Atria 2 and then go listen to a lynx. The only difference is a 10vs 9 inch woofer and the cabinet. It’s not close! Yes it comes at quite a cost (more than double) and many with limited budgets would put the money elsewhere but this is “what’s BEST forum” and there is zero question which is better. There is not yet a “ silent” cabinet. I love my Orions but you can hear that the Lyras cabinet is quieter if you listen carefully. I wish what you said was true but I hear the differences everyday when I listen to speakers and I listen every day.

 

[PeterA]

No, never heard them do well in blues and rock. They are dynamically quite flat.

Agreed. Get a pair of Altecs for rock. Also string quartet. I associate dynamics with effortlessness. I don’t usually hear that from big cone speakers with inert cabinets. They give you a nice controlled audio file sound that presents a lot of the glossary of terms.

 

[Kingrex]

MDF is soft, prone to water damage and cracks at seams easily. Any high quality plywood of many thin layers is much stronger. And the ones with waterproof glue are pretty bullet proof as well as extremely stable as far as warping. That stability will assist in keeping the finish from cracking. Another reason resins and metals are popular.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

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.

 

[microstrip]

(...) with such a heavy 600+ pound cabinet maybe material is not so critical. mass and internal shape/acoustical coupling more important.

My perspective is different - the more material you have in it, the more critical the box becomes. It is extremely easy to overdamp a speaker box. Great designs do not happen by hazard ...

Well known speaker designers have addressed with detail such aspects for long. The provocative comment of skeptical speaker designer is surely welcome but will not change my mind.

 

[PeterA]

Exotic Cabinet materials are a gimmick. Some of the worst speaker systems I’ve heard use the most exotic and expensive materials.

I’m not sure exotic materials are a gimmick. In my admittedly limited experience, extremely inert cabinets tend to sound lifeless. They don’t convey the energy of real instruments or voices in my opinion. It might be a combination of the amplification or cables or set up, but they have a very specific sound that to me is not very natural. I do appreciate that these types of cabinets are held in high regard by some in the hobby.

 

[PeterA]

I just picked off the top of my head designers who could choose to make wood cabinets like almost everybody else, but who choose for their own reasons to make cabinets out of a material other than wood. In the middle of the night I forgot to include Val Cora, so I'm going to go back and add him to my original post.

That’s interesting that your list is simply non-wood cabinets. Eggleston is another. I identify those specific brands not as non-wood but primarily, and more importantly, as inert. One could make non wood cabinets that are not inert and utilize inherent resonances for a specific end result.

 

[tima]

I am surprised to see you say that.

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

 

[PeterA]

this requires the giant assumption of what the goals are or should be. Assuming that everyone actually has a goal or that their goal is one you like is a huge leap of fate.
My problem with much of the Industry is what exactly are their goals? What is the target? How can High End Magazines have multiple reference systems from multiple reviewers and not defined goal other than vague words like Organic, Musical, Natural and realism and yet no one agrees what they mean.
Searching for mysteries without any clues....thanks Mr. Seger

What would you suggest Elliot would be a less vague term to describe a potential goal?

 

[PeterA]

The interesting question to me is this: many, many people over the decades think Magnepan loudspeakers with their wood frames sound good. How do we know a heroically heavy metal frame wouldn't alter the sound in a deleterious way? The wood frame affects the sound differently than a metal frame would affect the sound.

There's just no way to know which sound each one of us would prefer. Perhaps it is partly the wood frame itself which gives Magnepan its characteristically natural and slightly warm-balanced sound?

The wood frame, which is far less expensive than a metal frame, might very well be the frame material that sounds better on this particular loudspeaker.

We know the answer to your first question, simply by listening.

There is a way to know what sound each of us prefers, and that is also by listening and asking the listener which he prefers.

The frame material certainly matters because it both affects the sound and the cost. We would have to ask the designer and manufacturer why they make the choices they make.

 

[PeterA]

perhaps , however much of what's out there sounds nothing the same or IMO even resembles the sound of realism. But alas this is the stickler..what is realism?
Is the goal live music? is the goal the mic feed? is the goal whatever I like, is the goal a rock show in a football stadium, is the goal a solo violin at Carnegie Hall? is the goal a night club? No one ever seems to ask these questions and so it's become "whatever" so if it is whatever then why should anyone care what's "organic, natural etc"

Are we satisfied with say Frozen Pizza? it is Pizza afterall. I'm sure the company was trying to make Pizza!

Elliott, I think people ask this question all the time. I agree that not everyone has a target, but many people do and they go about choosing gear and doing their set up in an attempt to meet that target. Ron even started an entire thread discussing what goals are. This is a discussed topic among many of us.

I would ask you what kind of experience are you trying to deliver to your customer by choosing the brands you sell and then set up in their homes? Have you asked your manufacturers what their target is? As a dealer, what is your target?

 

[Elliot G.]

What would you suggest Elliot would be a less vague term to describe a potential goal?

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

 

[Elliot G.]

I would ask you what kind of experience are you trying to deliver to your customer by choosing the brands you sell and then set up in their homes? Have you asked your manufacturers what their target is? As a dealer, where is your target?

yes Petter, and I have stated how I do what I do many times. BTW I have listened with almost all the vendors I do business with and discussed their gear before I write a check . I have made errors and have moved on. I make less and less however since I don't do the willy nilly stuff and collect brands like many places do

 

[bonzo75]

I am surprised to see you say that. Of course everything is subject to diminishing returns including cabinets but they matter. A lot. You are not just trying to remove cabinet noise but lowering the noise floor allows you to hear the drivers leading and trailing edges which would otherwise be obscured. You will hear this as better resolution. This concept is fundamental to isolation, grounding, power strategies. Footers matter. Grounding matters. Power matters. You want to minimize all these factors but in the largest source of error (by far) the speakers you dont want to eliminate a major cause of it? Do this: go listen to a Rockport Atria 2 and then go listen to a lynx. The only difference is a 10vs 9 inch woofer and the cabinet. It’s not close! Yes it comes at quite a cost (more than double) and many with limited budgets would put the money elsewhere but this is “what’s BEST forum” and there is zero question which is better. There is not yet a “ silent” cabinet. I love my Orions but you can hear that the Lyras cabinet is quieter if you listen carefully. I wish what you said was true but I hear the differences everyday when I listen to speakers and I listen every day.

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