Amp rack eindelijk helemaal klaar

Frank76 schreef:

Je praat dan ook niet meer over muziek

Frank76 schreef:

Je praat dan ook niet meer over muziek

VrijeVogel schreef:

Oh ja dat is een van de reden waarom Stage Accompany ten onder gegaan is toch?

Vergeet nooit weer de dag dat ik mijn setje los liet in een boerenschuur, normaal praten konden we niet, bloed kroop net niet uit de oren, de kopjes rammelden in de keuken, maar hard nee dat was het niet....

Webbie schreef:

The sound of the M57's is really addicting, but can be also very frustrating.
Songs that you loved before to hear thru your home HiFi loudspeaker system (because you liked the sound, song and lyrics) can be very disappointed hearing them thru the M57's (taking the joy away because your favourit songs sounding like crap (reason: simply because they're badly recorded/mastered ;-)).
At this level of monitoring bad recordings (and/or heavily compressed) sound really really bad, and perfect recordings (with dynamics) sound really awesome and breathtaking.

It's a pitty a lot of youngsters like the sound of a heavily compressed song which leaves no room for dynamics.
The only thing they care about is how hard the song will blast out of their mobile devices!

One of the reasons some people dislike a ribbon driver is that they're missing something in the sound the ribbon produces.
And that's correct, they're missing the harshness and distortion of the compression driver ;-)

The other reason why people don't like the ribbon sound is that they think the output of the ribbon driver is far less then that of a compression driver.
A system with lots of distortion in the mids and highs gives you the idea that that system is producing far more dB's (and in that believ sounding better)!
A ribbon equiped system stays free of distortion even at very loud levels and gives the listener the idea that the set isn't playing loud (until you grap your dB-meter and start measuring).
That's why you can listening for hours and hours to a SA ribbon loaded cabinet (without the distortion) without going to feel tired after awhile (what is the main reason of my ribbon-addiction).

Because of the above mentioned reasons a SA ribbon loaded cabinet sounds "how music should sound", without distortion and with dynamics.

Alactronics schreef:

The SA Ribbons are true ribbon architecture, decendents from the highly regarded Phillips RS series. They are able to reproduce audio with orders of magnitude less distortion, and at higher SPL's than any other type of transducer. That's why you see everyone like B&K using them as reference transducers. They have had this technology for 30 years that I know of. That same committment is apparent in everything they do. So, that makes it difficult to compare SA products to almost anything else being made today. These guys simply (1) do not compromise and (2) constantly push the envelope to the limits. It's like trying to compare what you and everyone you know drives around in to the very finest automobiles avaliable. And, unless you've driven one of those fine automobiles, you won't have a clue. It sounds like Webbie knows and his posts here are dead-on accurate.

I have had an on and off relationship with SA for aver 20 years. The off periods being due to their having to close after trying to penetrate the US market. The Americans do not like clean audio folks, sad to say. As a result, they got their a**es kicked and went out of business for a while. The key people scattered and a few formed Alcons Audio which is represented in the US. They have continued the tradition of pushing the technology, big time. Similarly, SA has reformed and is also represented in the US. Both companies continue to slowly infiltrate the market here with superior products. The cost is not for the faint of heart and don't even bother going to this accuracy of monitoring unless your room and audio chain are up to it.

As Webbie and garysjo have posted here, it takes time to adjust to not hearing all of the colorations that other monitors add to the audio. Unfortunately, a lot of these colorations are not by accident as manufacturers labor to introduce the right amount of colorations here and there so the monitor sells easily into the US market. It's an ART as much science. Believe me, I have lots of stories. Why do most people love the sound of tubes, transformers, underdamped speakers, LP's, analog tape? It's what we're all used to, it's our normal, it's what all of that great music has been filtered through for all of our lives. Take those colorations out and it doesn't sound right. But it is a much more accurate representation of the audio.

During the period of time after SA went down and before Alcons was formed, I was in a panic because one of the main things I do for a living is design high accuracy listening environments and ribbons are an essential part of the formula. Fortunately I found SLS which is a US based company and at the time they were building boxes with the SA ribbons. When the ribbons dried up they had to find a replacement and they ended up designing and manufacturing their own. They developed a ribbon type driver that is on par with the SA's for a lot less cost, weight and by it's design, more efficent and it has no external magnetic field, a big problem if you ever get an SA ribbon within ten feet of a CRT, never mind the credit cards in your wallet. This led to a much more affordable product line for SR, Cinema and Studio starting with the very affordable passive S8-R or the powered version, PS8-R. Then if you need more power they have the 1065 and the 1266. I've used all of them with great success. Because of their affordability I've been using a lot of the SLS products lately but would certainly not hesitate to use SA or Alcons in the right circumstance.

So, ultimately it get's down to personal choice. My philosophy is that if you're involved with the production of music, do whatever you want to get the sounds you love. Tape, mic choice, position, processing, tubes, transformers, etc . . . but that should all stop at the monitoring. There you want it to be as truthful as possible. And why not make use of the best technology for that? Would you want a 40" plasma that had a red film over it all the time? Also, from a design perspective, I know how to design great rooms with great monitoring, it's a simple formula, you just go for the most accuracy possible, at every level. Then verify with measurement and listening. My engineering training sort of dictates a certain path in this regard.

That's a simple formula to get a great monitoring environment. Ask me to make it a warmer sounding room or have more or less of whatever and I'm lost. Now we're talking subjectivly right? What exactly do you want? Ask ten people and you'll get ten different answers but pursuing accuracy of reproduction is not subjective. Personal choice. That's where you have to decide where you want to be on this topic. I know a lot of great audio engineers and producers that have done amazing work with the most primitave of monitoring. Listen to some of the recording made in the 50's and 60's. Grossly inaccurate monitoring didn't prevent them from creating masterpieces even by, (maybe in contrast to), today's standards. And a lot of great work continues to be done today on an almost infinite number of inferior speakers choices under infinitely varying room conditions. So, do we advance the ART or hold on to the past?

If you've read this whole post, wow. I'll just add that if anyone is burning with the desire, I have a pair of never used M57's in road cases. Let me know.