Putting Curtains in the Man-Cave

"What the world needs is a good 5W amp" - Paul Klipsch (c 1950) The Klipschorn - the horn speaker that put Klipsch on the map.  It's secret?  You put it in the corner and the room becomes part of the speaker! These days a typical system put together by an audiophile usually involves 60-600W per channel, and speakers that have a 4-6 Ohm minimum load with a sensitivity of 87dB from 1w at 1m.  Such sensitivity is considered "average" - but rewind about 50 years, and it is anything but average, since in the age of tubes, 60W per channel, considered by many to be a minimal output in the world of solid state is a reasonably large tube amplifier.  A modern "average" speaker would be a "pig" by those standards. Tannoy Westminster SE's -- 99dB efficient, but you can see from this picture, they are not small at ALL.  Size = Efficiency But the main push to lower efficiency speakers and bigger power was due to the blinking SIZE of ...

Vivid Audio Giya ... Horton hears a Who ... or just some fantastic sounding speakers? We both are suckers for unusual design, and organic shapes.  As we continue our tortuous path towards new speakers, this desire keeps cropping up again and again.  We find in recent years, while manufacturing improvements have allowed more curving shapes, most speaker designs are still quite conservative, sometimes even a bit phallic - and it does not have to be so!  In fact, we think audio manufacturers have become less adventurous as volumes sank and prices rose - making solid looking speakers, but perhaps a shade or two more boring looking than they would have to be... but of course, not all of them! Shahinian Acoustics founded in the 1970s' - still made today, but a different more adventurous approach to sound dispersion than a regular box - using the walls and ceiling to recreate the feel of a concert hall - the midrange and tweeters are all angled towards the ceiling!...

I think it is something audiophiles everywhere know, but few outside this tiny community really understand. Audiophile components, in order to get them to give you the realism we're all after, are like a beautiful but high maintenance spouse.  It takes a lot, I mean a lot to see their good side.  Treat them like the princesses they feel they are, and you will have the best one ever.  But one false move, and you are in the doghouse. Let me illustrate audiophile versions with a couple of examples: YOU are the starting motor ... There is a turntable from a British firm called Nottingham Analogue Studios called the "Ace Space Deck."  You see, the designers felt that the biggest barrier to superlative performance was a motor that was too powerful to run the platter causing degrading sonics.  To this end they made the motor barely strong enough to turn the platter once it was set into motion by its owners hand.  Seriously, it will sit there all day, g...

Duevel speakers are not the first, and certainly won't be the last omnidirectional speakers ever designed.  But they just may be the prettiest.  You can read about them here. The are currently distributed by a Canadian company, Duevel having dropped their US distributor and consolidated in Canada under the umbrella of the very interesting and self described "Zendo" as company Mutine . Look!  That's how they do it! Omnidirectional speakers tend to be radially symmetrical - which isn't surprising.  And the first popular success was the Ohm Walsh F.  Bose (yes that Bose) spent a lot of the 1960's trying to figure out how to do one - and eventually settled on the Bose 901's as a poly-directional speaker - 9 drivers firing to the rear, and 1 towards the listener.  I have to say, as an owner of a pair, you will not find a bigger illusion of a soundstage (but diffuse) and a convincing illusion of being at a rock concert when playing live music loudly any...

Psst ... I have a problem .  I suffer from a condition called audiophilia nervosa which has me checking out various and assorted gear, and dreaming.  As an engineer, though, it just can't be "pretty" it has to be technologically interesting in some way to catch my eye.  It also has to be unusual in some way.  My budget rarely allows me to indulge in them, but I end up annoying people around me playing "what if"  Kathy tells me this is 100% accurate - because she regularly gets annoyed by this.  And she is refusing to a comment directly since it just might feed this a bit too much. So, here goes with one that has piqued my interest: The Quad ESL The Quad ESL was the first electrostatic speaker commercially produced (the technology was a lab curiosity since about 1930).  Read about the general principles here , and about the ESL itself here . Released in 1957, it was a mono speaker made for the mono era.  It was difficult to drive ...