Get better sound

[audio amateur]

http://www.getbettersound.com/

It seems to me there was a thread on this a while ago. I was wondering if anyone had much to say about it and what kind of topics it covers. Any good?

[dakatabg]

I have no idea!

[audio amateur]

Hmmm... Doesn't seem like the others do either. Anyone?

[JoeE SP9]

The best book I know of in this area is Good Sound By Laura Dearborn. It's available at Amazon and other places. I used to keep a couple of copies around to lend to people who expressed an interest in decent sound.

[audio amateur]

The best book I know of in this area is Good Sound By Laura Dearborn. It's available at Amazon and other places. I used to keep a couple of copies around to lend to people who expressed an interest in decent sound.
Laura? You sure it's Laura? :p

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

A few things I gather from this website and advertisement.

I would guess his technique is to avoid "exciting" room modes and nodes are his secret(or at least one of them). One of the biggest advantages to having an exceptionally large speaker setup is its ability to move air. If your speaker setup can still move a lot of air when placed well away from the side walls, or having the speaker even "see" them in the mids and treble(can't avoid it in the bass region), then it has the ability to sound transparent(depending on the other aspects of the signal chain) because the system's first wave is essentially a clean first wave, free of a lot of complex reflections that prevent clarity and articulation. How bass sounds in a room is highly dependent on how it moves around the room. This gentleman strongly(or seems to) believe speaker and listener positioning in a room is number one, as there is no mention of any special acoustical treatment in any of the testimonials.

Not all horn loaded(or hybrids) are created equal. Some do a much better job of ridding themselves of the horn resonance coloration(a round horn goes a long way, and a constant directivity does as well) than others. A well designed horn/hybrid system can have all of the tight snap(excellent transient response) as an electrostatic panel, and the dynamic slam of a conventional box system without sounding boxy, or compressing at high levels. The hardest thing with the hybrid design is to get the mid and treble horns to seamlessly mate with the cone drivers of the bass section. That is where good driver selection and good design play a key role.Horns do an excellent job of focusing its energy at the listener instead of the walls and ceiling.(the floor cannot be avoided, and probably shouldn't be anyway). This contributes to the wide open sound of a good design. One thing about horn loaded designs is that GOOD EQ is required for the system, as no horn system is going to sound good without it. Horns hybrids must be EQ'ed to their environment to get the best sound, and that is not a drawback because most system should be as well. The horn section IMO should not be EQ'ed, and in most cases(good design) won't need it, but the bass section most definitely will.

His alignment tools are standard, but his EQ IMO is a bit dated. 1/3 octave analysis(not EQ) works better in the mids and treble(treatment should be used for that region, not EQ) than it does in the bass region. The bass region requires a higher resolution analysis than the remaining frequencies because those frequencies are the most audibly active in listening rooms. Anything lower in resolution than 1/6 is pretty useless, and 1/24 or 1/30 is ideal.

I would say learning anything about equipment and room setup is a plus, even if it costs $44 dollars. Considering what some folks spend our their systems(me included), that is a reasonably small price to pay to get the extra last bit of resolution and refinement from your system.

[JoeE SP9]

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/b0/76/06b4a2c008a06fb1109da010.L._SL500_AA240_.jpg

I'm certain it's Laura. This picture is from Amazon.

[audio amateur]

I'm certain it's Laura. This picture is from Amazon.
I believe you Joe, but it suprised me that it's from a woman! :D

[audio amateur]

A few things I gather from this website and advertisement.

...

I would say learning anything about equipment and room setup is a plus, even if it costs $44 dollars. Considering what some folks spend our their systems(me included), that is a reasonably small price to pay to get the extra last bit of resolution and refinement from your system.
Thanks for the insight Terrence. I'd like to have some kind of library of books on audio. The fact is I don't read much so if anything is going to make me read this will! I'm also looking at DIY books such as the loudspeaker design cookbook so I'm trying to prioritize. I found Joe's book for cheap so I might look at the too.

[nightflier]

Ahem, AA, I read somewhere that women have better hearing than men.

P.S., The used price for Get Better Sound is holding up fairly well: Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Get-Better-Sound-Jim-Smith/dp/0982080700)

[Auricauricle]

Is it better hearing or better attentiveness...?

(Um...nothing Honey...Just talking to The Guys...ouch!)

[nightflier]

While Auric is recovering from that pimp-slap...

I had some money left in my Amazon account so I went ahead and ordered both books. There's a few others I'm still working through, so give me a little while to get to them, but I'll report back when I've read them.

Ahem $45 for Jim's book is a little steep, though - will it be twice as good as Laura's? Should I even be asking this? It must be getting late in the day...

[audio amateur]

Guys, I have just bought Designing, building and testing your own speaker system by David Weems (4th edition). I've had a quick look and it appears to be complete. I look forward to reading it and I've no doubt I will learn quite a bit. I'll report back when I've read some.

NF, if you ordered the books then it'd be nice if you reported back. Thanks!

I do want to buy the Cookbook but it's pretty expensive here, so I'll probaby wait a little.

[Feanor]

Guys, I have just bought Designing, building and testing your own speaker system by David Weems (4th edition). I've had a quick look and it appears to be complete. I look forward to reading it and I've no doubt I will learn quite a bit. I'll report back when I've read some.

NF, if you ordered the books then it'd be nice if you reported back. Thanks!

I do want to buy the Cookbook but it's pretty expensive here, so I'll probaby wait a little.
Start with the Weems before going to Dickason. The former is easier going for the novice.

[nightflier]

I'm reading the books now. The Dearborn book is rather opinionated, it seems, and quite a lifter too at some 400+ pages. On the plus side, it only cost me $12, used. I wasn't able to get a very good deal on the Get Better Sound from the msrp, so it had better be a more pleasant read, lol. So far, the best way to differentiate between the two is that the Dearborn is more prose-focussed while the Smith book is more scientifically oriented with more bullet points and such (kind of reads like a PowerPoint presentation).

[audio amateur]

Start with the Weems before going to Dickason. The former is easier going for the novice.
Which is what I'm going to do :)

[audio amateur]

I'm reading the books now. The Dearborn book is rather opinionated, it seems, and quite a lifter too at some 400+ pages. On the plus side, it only cost me $12, used. I wasn't able to get a very good deal on the Get Better Sound from the msrp, so it had better be a more pleasant read, lol. So far, the best way to differentiate between the two is that the Dearborn is more prose-focussed while the Smith book is more scientifically oriented with more bullet points and such (kind of reads like a PowerPoint presentation).
Cool. Sorry you had to pay full msrp... but hopefully you'll learn a few things from it.

[hifitommy]

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/isbn=9780688064242/search=book-Good+Sound+By+Laura+Dearborn/st=query

like audio equip.

[nightflier]

Yes, Good Sound is easy to find discounted, but Get Better Sound, isn't.

By the way, I wouldn't say that the subtitle "An Uncomplicated Guide to Choosing and Using Audio Equipment" is exactly accurate. Uncomplicated it isn't, and I also wouldn't say it is well written, either. It's OK, but could have been edited much better. I just finished the Turntables and Tape Decks section, and while I can understand it fairly easily because I've been doing this for a while, I can't imagine that a newby would have such an "uncomplicated" time of it. There is lots of redundancy, strangely worded repetition, and odd-ball analogies that don't help. I've read online descriptions that are much more approachable.

Another oddity is that the section describing turntables is 50 pages, while the section on CDs is just 4 pages. The author makes no excuses for being biassed in favor of turtables and so am I, but that's a bit extreme, IMO. There are several sections on setup later on in the book, that I haven't gotten to yet, so this may even out, but it's certainly a bit lop-sided.

[audio amateur]

I'm a quarter way through 'Designing, building and testing your own speaker system' and although I'm enjoying it, it's moslty reinforcing what I already know. I'm hoping to learn a little in the crossovers chapter. If the Cookbook is more complex, then this is probably a good introduction to it. Still, it's a good read.