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Aric M L
01-01-2005, 04:39 PM
I'm not an audiophile like many of the people on here. Also like many people on here I want very much to learn more about audio and not just read what you all write, but be able to make competent points of my own. So the question I have is; Aside from reading on here or listening to salesmen, where are good places to go to read about speakers, not just reviews but fundamentals of how they work, what changes the sounds of a speaker. Down to "minutia" like what speaker wire metals make what differences. I love reading here but I would love to learn even more.

jasmit
01-01-2005, 07:12 PM
Try some of the links at www.trueaudio.com or at www.audioholics.com or at www.ambrosia.com/links.htm. Also, most of the audio magazines (Home Theater Magazine, Guide to Home Theater, Sound & Vision, etc.) have websites with links to all sorts of audio babble. Also go to sites like www.crutchfieldadvisor.com and click on their Technology Center links. There's tons of stuff on the internet -- get your mouse moving! GOOGLE!!!!! :rolleyes:

Good luck! :)

Aric M L
01-02-2005, 11:41 PM
Hey Thanks, those seem like useful sites. If anyone has any other suggestions, more information can only be a good thing. That way I can hopefully remedy this uneducated state I'm in and the other people who read the sites due to this post can climb out of that slump too

Mash
01-03-2005, 04:09 AM
Aric M L
99.99% of the sites you will visit, including this one, will have some commercial interest in what you may decide to do, i.e. how you might spend your money. This reality is what "pays the bills." So almost everything you read will be a sales pitch of some kind. I ran into the same issues in an earlier day. Stereophile was mostly unbiased commercially when J Gordon Holt ran it in the 1960's - 1970's, but then Mr Holt sold Stereophile ..... probably because he was not making much money with it. Today Stereophile simply tries to convince you that you really need to buy lots of audio jewelry.

Consumer Reports is the only resource that I can think of that will not try to sell you anything but unbiased information, but CR will also not drool over megabuck amps and wires.....

You may find http://www.roger-russell.com/ very interesting. Mr Russell is the Director of Acoustic Research at McIntosh Laboratory, Inc. and the originator of McIntosh Loudspeakers. FWIW I have NEVER particularly found Mac speakers to be accurate. Still, Mr Russell does provide some very interesting reads..........

shokhead
01-03-2005, 07:38 AM
I'm not an audiophile like many of the people on here. Also like many people on here I want very much to learn more about audio and not just read what you all write, but be able to make competent points of my own. So the question I have is; Aside from reading on here or listening to salesmen, where are good places to go to read about speakers, not just reviews but fundamentals of how they work, what changes the sounds of a speaker. Down to "minutia" like what speaker wire metals make what differences. I love reading here but I would love to learn even more.


Just going to google and typing in what you want to know more about wll bring up some good info sites.

BillB
01-03-2005, 09:33 AM
Try this:

Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0964084961/ref=wl_it_dp/002-2040645-8761612?%5Fencoding=UTF8&coliid=I27ILT5J66F2O8&v=glance&colid=34NJ09ABTWI97)

BillB

RGA
01-03-2005, 12:49 PM
Try and find loudspeaker and acoustics books by L.L. Beranek - he is one of the pre-eminant loudspeaker and opera house designers in the history of the industry - incidentally he is the person responsible for creating the ideal box cabinet shapes for loudspeakers - cabinet shapes which happen to be those of the original Snells and Audio Note speakers which he originated in the 1940's. What do ya know> :D He is heavily referenced for his noise and vibration control work "Performance of Sound and Vibration Instrumentation," Noise Reduction, L. L. Beranek, Ed. (McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, 1960), Chap. 6. Beranek was a professor at MIT.

"Acoustics" by Leo Beranek
ISBN 0-88318-494-X
$45
One of the two definitive works on acoustics and acoustical engineering. Heavy on math and theory, it for the serious sudent rather than the casual bobbyist.

There is a fellow by the name of Harry F. Olson who has the other definitive book and apparently runs even deeper in theory than Beranek's

Also some books by Martim Colloms might be useful - UHF magazine has two books out for layman.

Though you'll find that most every single book on loudspeaker design will reference L.L. Beranek http://www.archinform.net/arch/33812.htm?ID=Uo79aMm6CBT52ylV

Cable writing is a bit more difficult I suspect - if you could read Japanese or could find technical writing from Kondo-San (Chief engineer of Sony in the Seventies and who formed Audio Note Japan - he did a lot of work on microphones and Silver wiring and different capacitor designs.