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Positive Feedback ISSUE 79
Our readers respond…we respond right back!
Send your comments to either [email protected] or [email protected]
Hi Malcolm, But all closed box designs (also known as infinite baffle) are not air suspension. That is only true when the driver is so floppy that it needs the air in a closed box to help the spider return the driver to its null position. The Morel drivers aren't designed this way. This in no way reflects on what I otherwise found to be a good read of a product that has proven itself time and time again over many years. But this misunderstanding comes up almost every time there is a review of a closed design. And it's time for reviewers to learn the difference. For all practical purposes air suspension is commercially kaput, at least until someone designs their own custom drivers and brings acoustic suspension back. And I think it would be interesting to hear a modern AR3a type design. Allen Edelstein Dear Allen, When I called the Black Magic TSM an air suspension design, I was paying tribute to Edgar Villchur and Henry Kloss who designed it and put this work into production as Acoustic Research. I am proud to use their design and although my work is not exactly what they envisioned, it holds so many similarities that I thought it more fair to call it air suspension (which again gives them credit) than just a sealed enclosure. In my mind, a good working definition of air suspension is a speaker that uses a loosely sprung woofer in a sealed enclosure, which offers the cone/voice coil assembly back pressure for recovery to neutral or linear drive. As I said earlier, even a tiny air leak will affect recovery and cause excessive excursion on loud transients. This is exactly how the TSM works and why I call it an air suspension design. It is not identical but extremely similar and, let's say tuned, to more modern times and considerations. Thank you for your comments about my work. Bobby A. Palkovich President of Merlin Music Systems, Inc.
Thank you Roger Skoff, The hoots and hollers, the ganging up of those I called "wall pluggers" mostly just spurred me on, and only added more fuel to my fire. I even offered free upgraded fuses to the folks who said they could not make any difference. Guess what? No takers. What always puzzled me was why the "show me the science" types never wanted to do any scientific experiments of their own. Even more perplexing when they were offered a freebie. That never made any sense to me. Yet these were the same folks who would have you believe they had all the sense and all I had was nonsense. I could understand if any of the tweaks like the fuse issue, were harmful, or could not be reversed once installed. I couldn't understand why tube rolling was "allowed" but fuse rolling wasn't allowed. If a fuse is just a fuse, then why isn't a tube just a tube? Why are some things OK and others are Voodoo? I never could figure out the psychology about this. You have made some assumptions. My gut feeling was that some folks are just too comfortable with the way things are in their little universe, and they don't want someone to challenge their beliefs, because that would mean change and change isn't in their vocabulary. It's not about what something costs that holds these folks back either, although that excuse is used a lot. It's about someone or something challenging their belief system. Chuck Lee [Roger Skoff responded:] Hello Chuck Lee, Thank you very much for your kind and insightful response to my article. While I appreciated all of what you had to say, the point that got me most was your observation about "tube rolling." In fact, that IS perfectly acceptable to even the most devout attackers of other kinds of tweakery. Why it should be that tubes and, to a lesser extent, capacitors (but not cables or fuses), are exempt from the old mantra of "It's all (and only) R, L, and C" makes no sense to me. Of course, the basic and overt "mean-spiritedness" of those people makes no sense to me, either. Maybe they DO want their millisecond of celebrity, and hope to gain it by belittling others, but, if that's the case, why don't they write in their own names? Or, better yet, why play the Troll at all? Wouldn't positive notice and happy cries of "Thank you" or "Hail fellow, well met" turn them on even more? They really should become Blue Fairies; it would be so much more satisfying and they could even do it openly. Maybe you're right, though, maybe change doesn't appeal to them – even change for the better! Roger Skoff The Higher End About the "expectation of privacy" and those emails to Positive Feedback Online… Ye Olde Editor We do like hearing from you, our readers. It adds a great deal fun to what we do, encourages our editors and writers, provides information we may have missed, and correction that we may need. This is all to the good. Your communication with us these days is almost always via the highly rational path of email. And we do read it, responding to the constructive correspondence—which is most of it, really—as quickly as possible. (The destructive stuff is routed directly to the bit bucket. Didn't yo' mama teach you better than that?!) Dave Clark and I are generally pretty rapid in getting back to you if a response is needed from us, or in re-directing inquiries to the appropriate person at PFO if it needs to go to an editor or writer. By the way: please understand that the writers and editors at PFO are helpful folks, eager to assist their fellow audio/music lovers, or they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Nevertheless, PFO is not an audio consulting service. Please do not clog the gears with complex requests for assistance with the sourcing of audio gear in your personal setting. Remember too that PFO is not, and has never been, an audio ombudsman. If you are having problems with a particular vendor, company, or dealer, please avail yourself of the normal channels for such resolution; no audio publication has the time or resources to take on such a responsibility for consumers. Enough said. With an increasing flow of emails to Positive Feedback Online, and upon evidence of some recent confusion on the part of our email correspondents, it's become necessary to re-state the ground rules by which we operate here. So gather round the campfire, friends… Any time an email, or an exchange of emails, is both constructive and of potential wider interest, we exercise the reserved right to publish it in "Reverberations," the letters section of PFO. This is, after all, a publication, a "journal for the audio arts." We are seeking to further educate and entertain our readership in our common love for fine audio, and contributions in the form of emails/letters from our readers are one way that we accomplish this goal. When you write to any of us… our essayists and reviewers included… we assume that you are aware of our nature as a publication, and that you write to us in the light of that knowledge. This means that—unless you request confidentiality explicitly in your email or letter—there is no expectation of privacy here at Positive Feedback Online. To put it another way: Any email or letter sent to this journal will be considered fair game for publication, unless you state in the document itself that the contents are private/confidential. So… our default is PUBLISH. The reverse is also true: the editors do reserve the right not to publish an email or letter. We are not obligated to publish your letter or comments simply because they are submitted. And hostile, negative, sarcastic, destructive emails or letters are never published. So…sometimes we DON'T PUBLISH. Finally, our subtitle for "Reverberations"—"Our readers respond—we respond right back!" is not a guarantee that we will always respond to an email or letter that is published. Often we do; sometimes we don't… usually when we don't, it's a case of res ipsa loquitur. So finally… sometimes we PUBLISH WITHOUT RESPONSE. I think that makes things clear. Having said all of this in the name of clarity, keep those cards and letters coming in! All the best, David W. Robinson Editor-in-Chief
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