Talk but not walk?

@michaelgreenaudio thank you for initiating this thread.

You raise the very same issue I often wonder when reading so many the threads these days. People with no actual experience with something, and even blatantly say they will not try, spend inordinate amounts of time writing posts about how something works or sounds. Or, more usually, how something CANNOT work or sound.

One of my earliest and best lessons I learned in audio was that drinking by the label absolutely presents a losing recipe.

In all honesty, I have never understood the rancor some have towards folks who found something they enjoy. Some here evidently have a god / hero / policeman complex where they try to save the world, and spend more time writing parking tickets than something that would actually benefit the rest of the community, or even their own existences. But they obviously feel gallant in their own minds as they labor to save the world from spending money on something they don’t like, disagree with, or doesn’t make any logical sense to them. The irony lies in that the more these folks rail against these things, the more the other side wins the air time to tout what the antagonists despise so deeply.

Though I’ll also put out that if the protagonists simply refrained from answering their foes, they’d also be a lot happier as it’s patently obvious so many who carry on these arguments do it for the attention it brings them. Ignore them, and they’ll go away from your discussion threads. By that I mean, if you want to talk about the happiness X brought to you, instead of going tit for tat day after day, week after week, month after month with these other people, just overlook their posts, and focus on your conversations. They’ll stamp their feet a bit, and go a bit more extreme in trying to get a reaction, but watch how they die off, and find some other bowl of corn flakes to try to urinate in.

As for me, I’m in this hobby for my own personal enjoyment. And I’ve made some great friends along the way. If I don’t like or want a [piece of music / component / person / wire / tweak / fuse / whatever], going on a crusade tilting against windmilss seems like a colossal waste of my time and my life. Live and let live

@mapman "Take it from one with much experience. Don’t bother responding to Geoffkait if you want to actually get anywhere. Everything is a joke to him. He is like the pied piper of Audiogon. You will get nowhere with him. He might humor you from time to time if he feels cornered but that’s about it. He is clever like a fox though. He will gladly take your money should you decide to try one of his comical useless products. The ultimate troll! He should write a book. All talk, no walk."

This guy has punked you for years now. You’re both pretty local to each other...any reason you don’t show up at CAF, stick your finger in his face, and reset the relationship?

@mapman "It was very touching  how gk pined for me when I was not posting for awhile.   He can't be all bad."

Well then, why not still meet him at CAF, and break bread?

I don’t see how we can put Michael Green into the same category as Roger Paul.
As a result of the aforementioned thread where Roger went back and forth with several folks here, claiming to have created an amplifier exponentially better and different from anything else available, and ready to ascend to unquestionable supremacy I offered to pay him a visit to assess his claim. This past November, I spent a half day with Roger, allowing him to demo his amplifier for me. Without going into detail in this post, I predict the next 10 years for Roger will look like the past 10 to 20.

Likewise, I would neither lump Michael Green in with a self-proclaimed industry insider / expert and sage without peer on every technology directly or indirectly related to audio offering nothing beyond 24 / 7 Audiogon insulting postings and re-marketed household items infused with whatever required shamanism that renders them crucial in a HEA system without explanation.

No, Michael Green has developed, manufactured, and marketed actual products, and sold hundreds of thousands or more of them that even the most dyed in the wool objectivist would consider logical and effective. You can find his products in all manner of settings outside the lunatic fringe HEA circles. Not that he has a corner on the market or anything like it, as every recording studio, auditorium, movie theater, etc. uses acoustic room treatment.

As for myself, after remodeling my second system’s room including removing the fabric wallpaper about 15 years ago, I noticed the now exposed hard walls became a dominant factor in the sound, and precluded hearing the effects of many of the component upgrades and changes I made. This is why when folks tell me they tried component X in their system, and heard no difference, I believe them, as I found myself in that very place.

Over time, I noticed many friends and local dealers using Michael Green RoomTunes, and it occurred to me I might find benefit in them. Now in all honesty, I didn’t find the $200 - $400 price particularly friendly at that juncture of my life. I also felt I could implement a better version due not feeling the covering would adequately absorb (maybe the intent is reflection as opposed to absorption) and their overall (1/2"?) thinness. From my experience with Fried Transmission Line loading, long hair carded wool was considered to have the best acoustic properties of the most commonly used (foam, fiberglass, polyester batting) materials, and seeing that natural (not a synthetic fiber) burlap held a night and day advantage in terms of fabric open area seemed to offer the best container I could think of at the time for the stuffing. With about $30 in material and a couple of hours of my oldest daughter’s sewing , I had my own 3" - 4" versions in the room’s corners and also above them where they met the ceiling. Upon installing them in the room, and listening, the acoustic treatment provided me with an extremely low-cost, attractive, and effective solution. And with that, my thanks and respect to Michael Green

I find it funny when @geoffkait accuses people he routinely refers to as "pseudo skeptics" of name calling

@grannyring "06-03-2018 8:39pm@mapman I just realized you have over 15,000 posts! Oh my goodness you deserve the trophy!"

Is that why katie incessantly bullies and stalks him, jealousy? Honestly, I found the number more than surprising when you posted it. Maybe because mapman’s posts seem rational, well-informed, and kind explains why they never struck me as excessive or overly ubiquitous

@geoffkait "Yes, I’m the one staliking him

Honestly, I found the number more than surprising when you posted it. Maybe because mapman’s posts seem rational, well-informed, and kind explains why they never struck me as excessive or overly ubiquitous.

>>>>Yeah, right. You two must be in the same wavelength."

Oh, I’m sorry, Katie. It must burn you up watching the person you endlessly chase around bullying receive the compliments you pine for, but I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings

@geoffkait "trollja, I’m filing your post under WHATEVER."

Sorry Katie, you've put so much into that WHATEVER folder it's become too difficult for an elderly guy like you to pull things out when you need them later.  Please create a new folder labeled, "GREEN With Envy Over @mapman "

You can thank me later

@michaelgreenaudio "Guys buying $10,000.00-$250,000.00 speakers and (get a load of this, this will kill ya) and putting them in a living room, against the wall with (I’m not joking, I swear to God I'm serious lol) with a huge equipment rack in between them."

Sadly, that's always been how a lot of folks set up their loudspeakers.  That's also why every one of us have heard modest systems easily and surely outperform much more expensive ones.  Unless we invest in good setup, we lose out on so much the investment we make in our equipment

@glupson @michaelgreenaudio thank you for your perspectives, I appreciate it.  Yes, life trumps audio.  We need to adhere to the constraints, demands, and desires of both our listening environment and other members of the household.

Still, I want to stress the criticality of loudspeaker positioning, if nothing more than to provide a target, and keep in the back of the mind in case one someday has the opportunity to realize it.  With that, below is what I consider one of the most important treatises I've encountered along my audio journey, a translation of the Dead Points of Live Sound, by A. Polakov.  The only thing I add to it is to make the analogy of loudspeaker positioning with focusing the lens of a camera.  In proper focus, EVERY thing becomes exponentially more right and better.  And outside of that incredibly small point of focus, EVERY thing else is not right
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is know that there are many ingredients responsible for “quality” of audio inhalation. Unquestionably one of the most important is the listening room’s reaction to the installed loudspeakers. There are countless solutions how to work with listening rooms and the cost of this “working” in many cases might exceed the cost of the playback components.

Yes, the performance of loudspeakers might be very dramatically changed by the rooms and most of those improvements would be centered to find a correct positioning for the acoustic system in a listening room. Everyone knows that the positioning loudspeakers have an impact on Sound. However, with the REAL depth and imperativeness of this impact very few are familiar. It is pointless to perform any actions targeted to improve performance of playback, including the change of the component of the playback chain or the room acoustic treatment, unit the correct positioning of the loudspeakers in a given room would be found. There are no formulas, programs of any methodology that would simplify this process and the only “tool” that might be use is subjective perception of the audible result. The rules, circulations, abstraction, approximations and the entire practice of position of loudspeakers according to minimization of stay-waves are a juts very rudimental and primitive approach. After the optimum stay-waves location was found it might be considered only a very beginning.

An optimum location of loudspeakers might be called an “optimum zone” beyond which the subjective characteristics of the loudspeaker’s performance degrade very rapidly and very aggressively. For a typical “box” loudspeaker and within an average 400-700 sq feet room the dimension of the “optimum zone” usually within .5-1 inch and the deviation form the towing-in usually within 2-3 degree. Some audio people (approximately 15% of them) were able to determine the correct “optimum zone”. Whoever did not do it was not able to utilize a full potential capacity of thier playback systems. However, practically no one, even among those lucky 15%, knows anything about the “dead points of live sound”. When an acoustic system is placed into those “dead points” than all improvements that comes with placing the loudspeakers into the “optimum zone” really jump over the roof. The “performance yield”, when loudspeakers hit the “dead points”, is much higher then when the loudspeakers are juts placed inside the “optimum zone”. To describe what the “dead points of live sound” I would say that inside of the “optimum zone” there is one smaller zone. The dimensions of this smaller zone are within the scale of 1/16” –1/32” and therefore this zone might be called - a single point in space, or the “dead point of live sound” (or the DPoLS further on)

This effect was found purely accidental within context of one installation. Then the DPoLS was found within others installations, which suggests that this effect is a typical. In all occasions the gain of sound’s quality took place very aggressively and the gain of quality disappeared when the loudspeakers were removed out from the DPoLS. This suggests that the DPoLS might be discovered if one is intentionally searching for it. The probability that the DPoLS will be hit accidentally is practically equal to nothing. There are no publications or methodologies on the subject. Therefore, below are listed some subjective characteristics that an acoustic system do when the loudspeakers are placed into the DPoLS:

1) When the loudspeakers are placed into the DPoLS then all characteristics of sound improving very strongly: imaging, space localization, transient, dynamic range, space presentation, tonal contrast and many other. Even the tonal imperfections of reproduction become way less notable and less prominent. What is characteristic that the improving takes abruptly, very expeditiously and swiftly.

2) The strongest improvement takes place in the subjective domain, reflecting the emotion and spiritual content of recording. The DPoLS highlights the energy of performance; boosts the ethical load of the musical content, highlight the intonations and the timbre connections of the musical phrases. Starting with a certain level of capacity of the rest reproduction chain it is possible to talk about not “reproduction” but about the reinstating and resurrection of the “original energy of live”.

3) A conversion from a regula-audio sound to the “alive sound” takes place very rapidly when the speakers enter the DPoLS. This conversion is greatly catalyzed by an ability of a playback to handle LF.

4) DPoLS exist for mono and stereo installations. In case of stereo the DPoLS is a correlation of both DPoLS for each channel. The DPoLS spots for the individual left and right channel might not have the same location when the system operates in stereo mode.

5) The relation between the towing-in and excursion the loudspeaker into the room, when the loudspeaker is located in DPoLS, is very high. In DPoLS this relation is way higher when in a satiation when the loudspeakers are juts positioned on the “optimum zone” of a given listening room.

6) The correction of “quietly of Sound” by moving loudspeaker within DPoLS is imposable. Any deviation from the DPoLS is worsening sound. Since the loudspeaker is in the DPoLS then the room/system operate in its absolute maximum capacity.

7) When the loudspeakers are in the DPoLS then the “sweat spot” increase very dramatically and in many cases it might spread across the entire room. If the output from one loudspeaker would be even blocked then it be less significantly impact sound compare to the impact if the loudspeaker were not in the DPoLS.

8) The sensitively of loudspeakers from the minute arrangements made in playback system become very high. The loudspeakers begin to act as a very strong magnifying glass that highlights everything. However, this emphasize, if it emphasizes the negative properties do not necessary have a negative impact to the listening experience. I would say that that if you system slightly off the mark after the “highlight” then the subjective affect of this emphasize would be very different then if the loudspeakers would be not in the DPoLS.

9) When the loudspeakers are installed into the DPoLS (disregarding the cost and typology of the loudspeakers) then listener is far sooner get “hypnotized” by sound. The playback become to sound “significant”, “important”, demonstrating the “playback pomposity” and some pretentious. The process of listening perceived by a listener at the very different level and it is practically imposable to do the “casual listening”. The carelessness and the inattentiveness of listening become practically imposable. Sound become not juts a “Sound in the room” but an absolute dominating and demanding force in the room

10) The sensitively of the loudspeakers installed into the DPoLS to the effect of Absolute Phase become incredibly strong. Flipping the Absolute Phase in the DPoLS does not just change the structure of bass removes the fog from the lower midrange and settle down the HF but kind of turn the entire room upside down. To discover the DPoLS is imposable if the system is not set in the correct acoustical and electrical Absolute Phase.

Upon the said it is possible to make following conclusion: a major obstacle in building a high performing playback installation is unawareness of audio people about the DPoLS. The audio and listening benefits that might be received from placing the acoustic systems in the DPoLS are huge, order of magnitude exceeding any changes of loudspeakers of components. A lack of any structured methodologies and guideness that would enable the audio people to discover the DPoLS is a very severe impediment in order the knowledge about the “dead points of live sound” became a common practice among the audiophiles

@geoffkait "In the unfortunate event that emoji doesn’t show up on all computers it’s a vomit emoji"

Those seeing the baby you-know-what green stuff coming out of the emoji have their devices displaying correctly. For everyone else, it’s simply the color of the typical crap Katie spews

@glupson, "Why do you think that the devil is a "he"?"

Although the movie uses the Baudelaire quote, if you're a Believer, you know the Devil is a he because Jesus said so

@geoffkait "You can not (rpt not) tell anything about the sound from a picture."

The statement is false.

Forget about taking it literally and the use of the word "any" which opens up a hole big enough to send an aircraft carrier through, a picture is worth a million words.  Not to repeat @grannyring but within a second or three, the room, how the system and everything else is sited in it, and the components (provided one has previously experienced them) themselves should let the viewer understand the sound with a pretty high degree of accuracy. Provide a few more specifics such as cabling, cartridge, isolation devices, and tweaks one may not make out from the photo, and the focus becomes all the more clear