Essential reading for all audiophiles.

[emgcr]

This link takes us to a well crafted "brief history to current state-of-the-art development" précis surrounding some of the fundamentals and essential knowledge of our interest.

http://oswaldsmillaudio.com/

A friend has just made me aware of this company and I have never had the pleasure of hearing any of their products but would obviously like to do so. There are also some rather controversial statements/ideas which provoke fascinating debate.

Have any of our members experienced the results ?

[De Soto Frank]

Located in Eastern Pennsylvania.... hmmmm.

Those look like five-figure outfits...

[edisonphonoworks]

I got to admit that is some beautiful audio equipment. The horn designs remind me of Edison recording studio horns.

[SteveM]

Located in Eastern Pennsylvania.... hmmmm.

Those look like five-figure outfits...

Yes, I wonder where the mill is? Looks like it could be anywhere here in Chester County. I might never get to experience the equipment, but the products and the entrepreneurial spirit are inspiring to say the least!

[Orchorsol]

Fascinating. I really have to suspend disbelief that straight-throated horns can work well for hi fi reproduction... As you say Graham, a lot of interesting summaries and views in there. I don't think I've found all of the narrative yet - having severe difficulty trying to read most of the web pages, with almost nil contrast between background and text! Probably my version of Internet Explorer. I do dislike it when web providers assume (or require) that one has to be totally up to date IT-wise!

[emgcr]

Sorry you are having difficulty Andy but it is very much worth persevering---amongst many other things, the section on 3D audio being developed at Princeton is riveting.

[Orchorsol]

Sorry you are having difficulty Andy but it is very much worth persevering---amongst many other things, the section on 3D audio being developed at Princeton is riveting.

Will try to! Trouble is, it's not just the narrative text, I can't see the links to each of the pages either! All the writing just disappears into the (mostly) dark greyish tones of the background pictures. I'll try at work and see whether it's more visible on my computer there.

[ImperialGuardsman]

It is a very interesting website and product line indeed (and quite expensive). I am surprised that they do not think that curved or exponential horns produce the best sound. Could it be that they have only dealt with small or poorly designed horns before making their own designs?

[gregbogantz]

In a nutshell, this is just more "golden ear" nonsense. For at least 40 years, there have been audio listeners who just can't believe that audio reproduction got pretty near the end of its development in the early 1970s. Yes, genuine improvements have been made since then, but it's been pretty incremental. Aside from the FACT that CDs are far more accurate than LPs. Digital audio didn't exist in the early 1970s. I was there working in retail at an audio store as the service manager when the first of the golden ears raised this irrational silliness back around 1970. It seems that there were people with way too much money and no sense. The "problem" was that they just couldn't believe that you could buy a fairly ordinary Kenwood solid state receiver, pair it with some reasonably priced speakers from AR or Advent or the like and get about as good reproduction as was possible. There just HAD to be a reason to spend ridiculous amounts of cash to get "better" audio. Maybe going back to tubes (valves) was the way to go. Yeah, that's it - tubes have a "warmer" sound. At least they heat up the room. That has to be better. Transistors were efficient and cold and so their sound was "cold", "sterile", and uninspired.

And blah, blah, blah. NONE of this baloney made any sense then and it makes even less today. Almost none of the golden ear claptrap was based on any sound science (pun intended). And much of it was simply, theoretically, mathematically, provably wrong. True audiophiles who knew fact from fiction set about having listening tests to prove the golden ears were simply full of wax. Which they successfully did and documented it. Knowledgeable listeners were convinced that the golden ears were full of it and moved on. But that didn't stop the willfully delusional. Their cognitive dissonance (it costs more - it must be worth it) took over their little pinheads which caused them to bloviate in magazines and books and make lots of silly tube amplifiers that they charged their similarly-deluded compatriots into taking a second mortgage on their houses to buy.

It's cult audio and it's all nonsense. Take, for example, the above website's contention that conical horns have some magical property that "does not deform the spherical wave of sound". It's crap. No proper speaker designer today worth his engineering degree would make that stupid statement. And you will NEVER find a properly designed sound reinforcement speaker made today that employs a conical horn. Because they are theoretically and audibly bad. And tube amps, of course. They're mostly good for heating up the room. Better than a good solid state design? Nope. Especially the ones with little or none of that "nasty" electrical feedback. The golden ear excuses are pure delusion. And have nothing to do with reality. It has annoyed me for all these 40 years that people continue to fall for these ridiculous proclamations. P.T. Barnum has been laughing in his grave the entire time.

[fran604g]

In a nutshell, this is just more "golden ear" nonsense. For at least 40 years, there have been audio listeners who just can't believe that audio reproduction got pretty near the end of its development in the early 1970s. Yes, genuine improvements have been made since then, but it's been pretty incremental. Aside from the FACT that CDs are far more accurate than LPs. Digital audio didn't exist in the early 1970s. I was there working in retail at an audio store as the service manager when the first of the golden ears raised this irrational silliness back around 1970. It seems that there were people with way too much money and no sense. The "problem" was that they just couldn't believe that you could buy a fairly ordinary Kenwood solid state receiver, pair it with some reasonably priced speakers from AR or Advent or the like and get about as good reproduction as was possible. There just HAD to be a reason to spend ridiculous amounts of cash to get "better" audio. Maybe going back to tubes (valves) was the way to go. Yeah, that's it - tubes have a "warmer" sound. At least they heat up the room. That has to be better. Transistors were efficient and cold and so their sound was "cold", "sterile", and uninspired.

And blah, blah, blah. NONE of this baloney made any sense then and it makes even less today. Almost none of the golden ear claptrap was based on any sound science (pun intended). And much of it was simply, theoretically, mathematically, provably wrong. True audiophiles who knew fact from fiction set about having listening tests to prove the golden ears were simply full of wax. Which they successfully did and documented it. Knowledgeable listeners were convinced that the golden ears were full of it and moved on. But that didn't stop the willfully delusional. Their cognitive dissonance (it costs more - it must be worth it) took over their little pinheads which caused them to bloviate in magazines and books and make lots of silly tube amplifiers that they charged their similarly-deluded compatriots into taking a second mortgage on their houses to buy.

It's cult audio and it's all nonsense. Take, for example, the above website's contention that conical horns have some magical property that "does not deform the spherical wave of sound". It's crap. No proper speaker designer today worth his engineering degree would make that stupid statement. And you will NEVER find a properly designed sound reinforcement speaker made today that employs a conical horn. Because they are theoretically and audibly bad. And tube amps, of course. They're mostly good for heating up the room. Better than a good solid state design? Nope. Especially the ones with little or none of that "nasty" electrical feedback. The golden ear excuses are pure delusion. And have nothing to do with reality. It has annoyed me for all these 40 years that people continue to fall for these ridiculous proclamations. P.T. Barnum has been laughing in his grave the entire time.

Well, that's certainly ONE side of the argument.

We, "Golden Ears" Audiophiles would argue (perpetually) that tubes offer a sound that we find on par with Solid State and in some cases, superior. We love our SET's and "high sensitivity" speakers. I won't get into a theoretical debate over it, if you want to do that, AudioKarma is the place for that. And let's not forget the "tin ears" that will invariably chime in with their opinions, too.

Personally, I find it very gratifying to use parings with both tubes and solid state to speakers matched to them for the sound I like to hear from each particular combination. There are significant differences in the real world.

Best,
Fran