I remember reading one of Dr. Amar Bose’s original papers about sound reproduction. His thesis was that the ideal radiator (of sound waves) is a spherical oscillator. This would be a speaker, where the cone would be replaced by a sphere (which would move -expand and comntract-and reproduce the music). He tested this thesis by digiatlly processing 15 minutes of music, and palying it through a conventional speaker–and determined that the spherical speaker wouldindeed be optimal.
My question is: now that digital signal processing is cheap (there are dedicated chip sets that do it), do you NEED expensive speakers any more? A DSP=processed signal should be abl;e to make a cheap set of speakers sound like amillion bucks…or am I wrong.
By the way, can you buy “flame” speakers (these reproduce sound by modulation of a plasma in a flame…I recall they sounded pretty good.
BOSE receivers sound damn good to me-why do audio purists sneer at them?
Screwing with an audio signal is risky business. Sort of like plasic surgery, a little bit here or there can be an improvement, but you go a little too far and you wind up with Michael Jackson.
Crappy speakers can only do so much. Their work is 100% physical, moving air. If their components are not up to the task, no amount of processing will fix it.
WRT Bose, remember, audiophiles are a different breed. They are not listening for the same things the average person does, sort of like how wine conoisseurs taste for different things than you or I might. Bose is generally fine for your average guy who wants good sound, and a $15 bottle of wine is fine for people who just want good wine. But, when you’re looking for the very subtle attributes, those things just don’t cut it.
I remember seeing these demonstrated on the BBC science magazine programme Tomorrow’s World, waaaay back in the early 80s (maybe before that, even); obviously they weren’t able to show the viewers how good they sounded, because the sound was still coming out of the little speaker in the viewer’s TV sets. The presenters did say (words to the effect that) it was like realising you’ve never really heard recorded music properly before.
I’ve never seen them offered for retail sale since that demo.
I’m not an audiophile or speaker expert. However, I recently bought a new sound system, and did a fair amount of internet research before buying it. The impression I got from audiophile message boards was not that Bose equipment is bad, but that it’s overhyped and overpriced. I don’t claim to know that personally, but that seems to be a widely-held view. I eventually concluded (hopefully correctly) that I could get comparable speakers for a lot less money by buying a less-famous brand (Bose seems to be the one high-end audio company that everyone has heard of).
Absolutely. My impression of Bose is that they’re overpriced crap that’s managed to convince people that somehow running sound through some wierd maze-thingy will improve the sound. When I first heard about it, I was interested, but after actually auditioning it, it just doesn’t sound very good. Paying $300 for a CD/Clock radio is insane.
I’ve been much happier with my 1990 Proton 50 watt CD system that I got used from some guy for $50.
Some audio purists have a serious problem with how Bose tries to manipulate both sound signals and sound waves. They hate the world famous bose 901 Direct/Reflecting speakers because those speakers rely on their dedicated signal processor in order to sound good. “Any decent speaker will sound good without having to tweak the incoming signal,” they might cry. They also hate the way some Bose systems (like their Acoustic Wave Machine) use acoustic baffles to get deeper bass out of a smaller speaker. They claim that you can’t possibly get the same quality of bass from a 6" driver that you can out of a 15" driver, no matter how hard you try. I don’t know, though - every speak manufacturer in the world relies on the acoustic design of the speaker’s cabinet to affect the final sound quality - Bose is just taking things to a higher level. But in answer to your question, it is Bose’s manipulation of sound that really gets under some purists’s skin.
Personally, I like some of Bose’s stuff. But good for your for finding a sound you like at a better price.
I have no audio expertise, and so, I’m not defending or attacking anyone, but…
Don’t tubas and sousaphones rely on all that baffling and shape of instrument to get a full, loud bass sound out of vibrating one’s lips? I think that would tend to support Bose’s contention.
BTW, just how large and powerful would one’s lips and airflow need to be to produce a tuba sound without a tuba?
Peace.
The problem with baffles and tuned ducts is that you often end up with a system that has a very uneven frequency response. It will generate a loud bass tone at the resonant frequency of the duct, but the farther you are from that frequency, the poorer the response. That’s why brass instruments have all those valves to change the effective length of the resonant tube.
Let’s unhijack this thread and get back to the OP.
First and foremost: forget any and all things about DSP and speaker quality. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other. The signal that leaves your stereo and heads to the speaker is analog. Whatever the source, it’s always analog when it gets sent to the speaker.
So the issue on speaker differences is: Given the same analog signal being fed to two different models of speakers, when one sounds the best?
Note that DSP etc. doesn’t enter into the previous question at all. (And therefore “Digital ready” speakers/headphones is pure nonsense.)
Crappy speakers will sound crappy, good speakers will sound good.
Note that as technology improves, the quality of the source improves and might require better (not worse) speakers to hear the improved quality.
I’d have to disagree. If you can model the deficiencies of the speaker, you can compensate for some of them with a DSP. This improves the sound quality of the system. The DSP can also be used to compensate for the defects of the listening environment.