What differences are there between portable loud speakers and home units?

[javadog]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

Work on your room acoustics...it’s more fun to make cheap speakers sound great. Nailing the soundstage is a hoot. You sit in that perfect window and with two speakers you can pick out the location of each instrument in the room...and they’re not always located between the two speakers.

+1

All speakers and all rooms benefit from proper speaker placement and some time devoted to playing with altering the reflections and absorptions that occur in every room. It's more about that than the electronics you use.

At our age, none of us can hear worth a crap, so if it sounds good to you, listen to it and enjoy it. Don't get hung up on too much technical crap, just play with it until it sounds good to your ears and revisit the music of your past.

There's something interesting about almost all music (I exclude rap, hip-hop and a lot of the crap that millennials listen to) and one thing I've enjoyed is learning about how certain recordings of the past were put onto vinyl. There's a bunch of stuff on the internet now that gets into that in whatever detail suits your interest and it can make you listen to old favorites in a different way. It might inspire you to spend more time in front of your stereo.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Sooner or later

It was Carver that tried the technology in an amp.

I was told McIntosh, but Carver certainly fits the innovative profile better.

I've never bothered to research it, just going off of word of mouth.

Maybe they both dipped their toe into the center stage pool?

[Sooner or later]

I wouldn't be surprised if McIntosh tried it. I just remember Carver.

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by javadog

+1

All speakers and all rooms benefit from proper speaker placement and some time devoted to playing with altering the reflections and absorptions that occur in every room. It's more about that than the electronics you use.

At our age, none of us can hear worth a crap, so if it sounds good to you, listen to it and enjoy it. Don't get hung up on too much technical crap, just play with it until it sounds good to your ears and revisit the music of your past.

There's something interesting about almost all music (I exclude rap, hip-hop and a lot of the crap that millennials listen to) and one thing I've enjoyed is learning about how certain recordings of the past were put onto vinyl. There's a bunch of stuff on the internet now that gets into that in whatever detail suits your interest and it can make you listen to old favorites in a different way. It might inspire you to spend more time in front of your stereo.

The good old days of the ritual of Discwasher. My buddy had a Discwasher gizmo that you pointed at the platter and zapped it with a pull of the trigger. I never went that far.

[KFC911]

Vintage Polk SDAs driven by Carvers (mono - 1k watts) each

If you've ever heard them....you'd remember

[KFC911]

None of my Carvers are sound processors....just amps.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by javadog

+1

All speakers and all rooms benefit from proper speaker placement and some time devoted to playing with altering the reflections and absorptions that occur in every room. It's more about that than the electronics you use.

At our age, none of us can hear worth a crap, so if it sounds good to you, listen to it and enjoy it. Don't get hung up on too much technical crap, just play with it until it sounds good to your ears and revisit the music of your past.

There's something interesting about almost all music (I exclude rap, hip-hop and a lot of the crap that millennials listen to) and one thing I've enjoyed is learning about how certain recordings of the past were put onto vinyl. There's a bunch of stuff on the internet now that gets into that in whatever detail suits your interest and it can make you listen to old favorites in a different way. It might inspire you to spend more time in front of your stereo.

I wonder if you could expand on that a little. At least search terms you have used. TIA

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by Zeke

I wonder if you could expand on that a little. At least search terms you have used. TIA

I think it is due to compression issues on the digital stuff. Supposed airiness of the vinyl. Some folks swear by tube amps. I can't say that i personally could tell a difference.

[javadog]

Sure. There are a million rabbit holes you can travel down on sites like Youtube.

For instance, there's a whole series of videos where Walter Becker and Donald Fagen discuss the recordings of various tracks from their Aja album. Like, for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfS5zCCZGWI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waIBA6_0GQc

Then there are guys like Rick Beato, that dissect individual songs by a variety of artists. He has a channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJquYOG5EL82sKTfH9aMA9Q

And the videos are part of his series "What makes this song great?"

Watch enough of these and Youtube will populate your suggestions with similar stuff.

It's interesting to me to listen to isolated tracks from songs I know, to show me how much more is in every recording, if I spend the time listening for it.

Have fun,
JR

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by KC911

None of my Carvers are sound processors....just amps.

Thinkijg about it the process was in the Carver pre amp. Called it sound holography or something like that.

[Sooner or later]

Any horn fans? Anybody run Klipsch? A had some horn Altec Lansing that were loud. Not the best sound overall.

[javadog]

I have some Klipsch speakers for my home theater set-up. I had a longtime friend that was knee-deep in theater design and construction and worked with Klipsch, among others, for his many theater projects. He got these speakers for me and, while they are not my first choice for two channel stereo playback, they sound pretty good in the theater environment.

[RKDinOKC]

Yep, sound systems depend so much on not only the environment the sound is reproduced in, but also the source materials.

So much today is mixed in a studio I did not put my system together for reproduction of music, though it does make you feel like you are in the room with the band (well, the sound engineer's idea of what the band should sound like if you were in the room with them). Instead my sound system is for movies and replicates that environment with surround like the sound engineers design the soundtracks for.

I worked for the recordist of our local symphony. He recorded from two microphone placed to get the sound in that venue. To play his recordings his speakers were the closest to reproducing the sound from two single points, ie the two microphones. He used some special Altec Lansing speakers designed to do the reverse of recording using a microphone. That is what the audiophiles that listened to orchestra recordings preferred. Said it was most like siting in the audience of the performance. They liked my surround system shaping the stereo source right up until I changed the simulation from music hall to other venues. Then they felt cheated. I thought it was hilarious. It was like the surround sound too over the room to make it sound like other venues with the same source music.

Another way to go for absolute accuracy is Binural. The microphones are headphones that mimic the shape of the ear and and density of a head between them. The recordings are designed for playback specifically using headphones. The "head" is placed where you would want the sit listening to the original music and that is exactly what you hear on the headphones.

Right after replacing the old preamp for my sound system with one that did surround attended an early demo of surround. As everyone was coming into the room there was really great music plsying in the background. First thing the presenter did was flip a switch. The music when flat and the crowd immediately made and aww sound. He said what you just went awww to, the stereo you are listening to right now costs $80K. You went aww because I turned off $300 dollars of surround processor and cheap rear speakers. He turned it back on a showed the beginning of the western movie Draw. The title sequence is a horseback chase. It starts out and goes thru all the innovations in both picture and sound from silent movies to today's hi-def color and thx audio. Very cool demo.

[Norm K]

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Sooner or later

Thinkijg about it the process was in the Carver pre amp. Called it sound holography or something like that.

I remember hearing about that...Rusty would know

[Cajundaddy]

Originally Posted by Sooner or later

Any horn fans? Anybody run Klipsch? A had some horn Altec Lansing that were loud. Not the best sound overall.

My brother had a pair of Klipsch Hereseys. They were 12" w horn and very efficient. They were also very sensitive to room placement. Get them in the right spot and they were pretty nice. In the wrong spot they were harsh and unforgiving.

My Altec were the A7 Voice Of The Theater models from the late 70s, first designed in 1936 and used in most Fox Theaters across the country. They were upgraded with onboard Altec biamps for 90% pro sound and live music. In a large room or outdoors they sounded as good as any PA system I have ever heard even today with useable bass that would reach down to 35hz. They needed a large room for the sound to fully develop so they were never great in the average living room. They also weighed about 200lbs each.
https://goo.gl/images/5KLe3e

[Ayles]

Originally Posted by Sooner or later

Any horn fans? Anybody run Klipsch? A had some horn Altec Lansing that were loud. Not the best sound overall.

I have an old set of Klipsch KG4s. I swap them in occasionally. Definitely enjoy them, I have replaced one horn tweeter and understand that the internal crossovers can be improved on. Just haven’t messed with them yet.

[Mike Billings]

Also the PA speakers tend to be directional where the home speakers can better cover a smaller room.

I'm still using 4550's at home!

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Mike Billings

Also the PA speakers tend to be directional where the home speakers can better cover a smaller room.

Good point, PA systems need to beam/project to the back of the room or across an open field.

Confining that energy to a narrower dispersion zone is one way to do that.

[Zeke]

Hey guys, I'm pretty sure I don't have PA speakers. The only horns are some very small rectangular tweeters that are less than 5" across and maybe 1.5" high.

I had another thought as well: the average person walking into a Radio Shack no matter what year, the 70's, 80's 90's, whatever, was probably not looking for a set of speakers that had mono jacks, carry handles and metal corner protectors. I mean these that I have are not good looking by any means AFA home decor.

So, RS either had a catalog before online sales, or a special store here and there that sold more than the typical franchise store in the local neighborhood. I never really saw much in the way of mics and stands, amps and such in the retail store, if any. I wasn't looking for that stuff either, so what do I know?

If I had to guess, my speakers are like a starter set for a garage band. Enough to do a small gig at a party and so on. They might even be tailored to guitar rather than a full spectrum. I could be wrong, but an amp and speaker set up for a guitar doesn't need to pick up and play the sound of the high hat.

As I've said, and as I know now because of this thread, I need to remove the backs and see what the hell is in there. Either that, or put another vinyl on and forget about the details.

I appreciate all the comments. In particular, there has been discussion about placement. That has to be a big issue and yet I suspect ultimate placement is little understood and a lot of rooms aren't laid out in a way that would allow the best placement. Furniture, traffic flow, doorways, etc are all pretty important before one goes to lay out acoustics demanding a total room make over.

I put my stacks in the corners with hard walls to the back and side. I didn't angle them toward the center of the room. Frankly, they are just about in the only place there is for this room w/o a total make over and that ain't happening.

This sound business gets complicated to the point that it's not fun anymore. I'm not that serious.

Again, thanks a bunch. Carry on.