[net.audio] various ramblings

rzdz@fluke.UUCP (Rick Chinn) (04/30/85)

Ok, Ok, Ok, I can remain silent no longer! In response to various
discussions going on at this time:

re: foil strips for speaker cable

Here at Fluke, we have a large open-plan office. When our group expanded,
the facilities guys pulled up the carpet squares and installed a surface
mounted (and you design guys thought you had the market cornered on surface
mount technology!) AC power distribution system. 

The system consisted of 3 conductor flat cable with solid conductors
equivalent to 10 guage wire. The earth ground was carried on a large sheet
of metal (material forgotten) that went between the carpet and the foil
conductors, serving both as the saftey ground and as a protective barrier
for the foil conductors. The foil conductors were laminated in some
high-tech plastic material. The system we have was made by AMP and they have
all the interconnect hardware to make it easy to use. It adds no appreciable
thickness to the carpet (you barely feel it when you walk over it). I don't
know about the inductance problem, but the guage is certainly big enough for
speakers. 

On the surface (no pun intended) it seemed like it might be the solution for
someone who wants gargantuan speaker cable, but doesn't like a 3/4 o.d.
lump running down the length of their living room carpet. Esthetically, I'm
sure that it beats a 8 ohm air transmission line running the length of your
ceiling. (send me no flames...) As to it's HF characteristics, or any other
ascribed magical qualities...I don't know, I haven't tried it. Me: I use
14-4 stranded cable, right off the spool, no pedigree, just good heavy wire.

re: monitor speakers are excessively bright...

They don't tend to be excessively bright...if they were, recordings that you
buy would be dull, because of the inverse relationship between the response
of the monitor speaker and the perceived spectral balance of the recorded
product that was monitored on them. If a monitor speaker seems bright, it's
only because the recording engineers tend to mix that way, so the recording
has adaquate HF content when listened on a more "average" speaker system.

One last thing, many times, the manufacturer's stated "laboratory-standard"
position on the HF and/or MF level controls is anything but flat. Or maybe,
it is flat, but flat is definitely *not* what you want for a monitor
speaker. (unless you can guarantee that your listeners *all* listen on the
same speaker). At any rate, if you listen to most contemporary (popular)
recordings on a flat system, they will sound **bright**, since they're mixed
for speakers with significant HF rolloff built in.

re: nagra recorders (Les Dittert, vaxwaller!les)

I don't know which machine you used for film work, but the 4S stereo machine
truly is a recording studio you can sling on your shoulder and lug around. I
would put it up against *any* contemporary machine (Studer, Ampex, MCI) for
sound quality in *any* listening environment. If hanging the machine on your
shoulder isn't in the cards, then I suggest you try the Nagra T, which is
sonically superior to the 4S, but not quite as *portable*. I've used 'em
both, as well as a Sony PCM F1, and the DBX digital system. 

I suspect the machine you might have used was the Nagra 3, which was loaded
with germanium transistors and is less than the state-of-the-art.

Nagra's are truly godly.

---------------
Well, I've run out of gas, time to do some *real* work. As usual, these are
my opinions. I welcome friendly discussion, via the net, or via email, but
please direct your flames to /dev/null.

Rick Chinn
John Fluke Mfg. Co MS 232E
PO Box C9090 Everett WA 98206

{ihnp4!uw-beaver, ucbvax!lbl-csam, microsoft, allegra, ssc-vax}!fluke!rzdz
(206) 356-5232
<---------------------------- listen to the music --------------------------->