jeff@tesla.UUCP (07/01/83)
Is this a subject as exciting as moving coil vs moving magnet cartridges? ANyway, cartridges are obsolete now, speakers aren`t. I use two Advents (Big ones, latest generation - 1) on each channel and can`t hear any boom. I`m talking about CD`s now, guys. CD`s do seem to make these speakers sound cleaner in the bass than do LP`s, which should tell us all something about how LP`s are mixed, equalized, etc.--ormaybe I`ve got a tone arm resonance or something. ANyway, I`ve never been able to fault the Advents on their bass, but I`d sure like to find an elegant and inexpensive mid-to-high conversion. Of course, that brings problems in crossover network design. A professor at the University of Colorado published a paper in the J. of the SMPTE (I think) about 1970 in which he calculated the optimum size of bass driver for an infinite baffle of given size; for a box the size of the large Advent`s the "right answer" was about 8", which is just what the Advent has. And so also had the AR-1 and AR-2. There are a few simple physical facts about loudspeaker design that derive from the velocity of sound (and hence wavelengths) in air; these dictate that ported enclosures (like the Klipschorn or ALtec Voice of the Theatre) be big; and, along with some loudspeaker parameters like cone edge-damping, that an infinite baffle has an optimum driver size. Given this, it seems quite reasonable that good bass loudspeakers can be quite cheap--vide the original ARs and the Advents. Now, mid/high and crossover design is a little more open to creativity. Has anybody out there ever heard Quad electrostatics? Just about the cleanest sound around--but you do need several square feet to place them in. JF