We would all find it very frustrating if Dr. Toole left the forum because of some discussion over Genelec. There is so much we can learn from him. So let's show him highest levels of respect. It is not like the Genelec designers are coming over here to teach as much as he is.
As to his book, it is mandatory reading in my book. You can disagree with it if you like but it has more useful information about audio than the combination of every other book I have read.
@amirm , I had no intention of being disrespectful. But I thought
@Floyd Toole was a bit brief when he described Ilpo Martikainen, who founded Genelec 40 years ago to become a successful research-driven audio company out of nothing, despite this being a thread on "Genelec on science". A most respectful obituary from February 2017, written by AES Fellow John Watkinson is pasted below. Watkinson writes about his meeting with Martikainen in 1983:
"My recollections of Ilpo Martikainen go back to 1983, which turned out to be an interesting year. Finding myself once more in Eindhoven, this time for an AES Convention, I mused that the newly announced Compact Disc had shifted the audio quality bottleneck firmly onto the loudspeaker and that something would have to be done. It can be depressing for an acoustician wandering around a trade show looking at loudspeakers where the design flaws are visible from a distance, but suddenly, like finding a Bugatti in a car park full of Model Ts, I was drawn to something special: a loudspeaker carefully shaped to minimise diffraction that didn’t look like a coffin for a monkey. And around the back, instead of terminals, there was a power cable going in. This, I thought, was designed by someone who understands".
Evidently, Martikainen made a very positive and lasting impression on Watkinson who is normally very critical about what happens in audio. Watkinson describes Martikainen as an innovator, who set his ideas into marketable, yet very different products from mainstream. He did something many years ago that people on the internet are still debating in 2018 (active vs passive, diffraction, box material and design etc).
Recollection is a fragile thing and biases are everywhere; we leave something out and take other things in. I remember just recently, on this forum, Floyd wrote about Edgar Choueiri and his Bacch system:
"I think I have a slight. bias because in the early phases of his work, Dr. Chouieiri promoted it as if he had discovered binaural sound and crosstalk cancellation. There was a "gee whiz" quality to the promotions".
Choueiri is a professor of applied physics and aerospace engineering at Princeton University and - in one of his two contributions on ASR - felt the need to come to the fore to underline that it "would be preposterous for anyone since Wheatstone (for photo/video) and Cooper and Bauck (for audio) to claim they invented crosstalk cancellation (or binaural audio). My research team and myself go to great pains describing this history in our XTC-related papers and presentations".
Obviously, Edgar has a different recollection and story on what's happened. That's very natural and human; we are fragile and biased beings. And when we're not talking face to face, discussions may come out the wrong way.
So I was not intentionally disrespectful. However I see how things can get lost in translation.
Now, let's leave the emotional side and get to the audio oriented stuff.
In a previous post I launched the idea of measuring direct sound in room. And after a couple of more posts, Floyd now writes the following:
"As for EQing direct sound, if one was to do it accurately, one will have achieved an improved on-axis/listening window (direct sound) frequency response".
Because Genelec's room calibration system compensates for direct sound, I believe we have a case where both "flat people" and "tilted people" can unite:
(1) In-room measured response of a good speaker that is flat in anechoic chamber will have a tilted response curve in steady-state.
(2) In-room measured response of a good speaker that is flat in anechoic chamber will have a tilted response curve in steady-state, but a direct sound oriented room compensation system may take this anechoically flat speaker to the next level in-room.
A proponent of point (2) is in agreement with point (1), but it seems like a proponent of point (1) may not always be in the know of point (2). That's interesting. And since we now have two in-room curves, one SS curve and one DS curve, one could argue that it makes sense to try and achieve a flat curve in sweet spot listening position - if one talks about the DS curve, that is! SS wise, a flat DS curve will translate into a tilted SS curve.
How could Genelec achieve this DS compensation? Well, they have longer experience than most on active speakers and their professional usage. For example, in 2008, Genelec was represented in more than 2/3 of OB vans (
https://www.genelec.com/sites/defau...enelec story/35th_anniversary_book_130507.pdf). So this is not "cult speakers" as some claimed. And when you about 40 years ago solved all the major speaker problems people still talk about, I believe it was logical to take the next step into the room. Genelec controls everything in the speaker, they control their own DSP software (despite claim previously that Genelec not make, develop their own DSP software), they calibrate in-house every microphone used for measurements, and so on. So if there is one company whose DSP and room compensation I would like to understand, it would be something like Genelec's.
It's interesting when we have episodes of paradox where agreement may be camouflaged as disagreement. I think Floyd is much in agreement with Genelec on audio science, but their usage of words differs; one talks about SS curves and the other talks about DS compensation and flat DS curves as well.
I also think it's enjoyable to see how differences in measurements may camouflage some things and yet discover other things. Say you measure how people react to the sound of different speakers in-room. And say the only difference between two speakers is size; however, the one speaker has a volume which is four times the volume of the second one. When you start measuring how these two speakers sound, one may find that two otherwise identical speakers are scored differently by listeners. Is the one speaker better than the second? Or does the perceived quality depend on the playback situation?
Genelec make a broad range of speakers where size is often the most apparent difference, and every speaker has a stated minimum and critical listening distance to achieve optimal playback conditions. An interesting hypothesis would be that speakers that fall ideally within the window of recommended listening distance will score higher than speakers that are not ideally placed within the listening window. So if one is not very careful to place a speaker based on the speaker's minimum and critical distance, one could conclude that the one speaker is better than the next even if the two speakers are identical on all parameters except size. Such a room of error will still enable us to identify poor speakers, but I wonder if the hunt on ideal speaker characteristics may get complicated if minimum distance and critical distance are not carefully identified.
Another big question of mine is Olive's 2009 article on "room correction" products. It would be very interesting to understand why we have bad room compensation products and why we have good room compensation products. And it would be interesting to know if the tested room compensations products compensated for steady state sound or direct sound.
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John Watkinson Remembers Ilpo Martikainen (1947-2017)
My recollections of Ilpo Martikainen go back to 1983, which turned out to be an interesting year. Finding myself once more in Eindhoven, this time for an AES Convention, I mused that the newly announced Compact Disc had shifted the audio quality bottleneck firmly onto the loudspeaker and that something would have to be done.
It can be depressing for an acoustician wandering around a trade show looking at loudspeakers where the design flaws are visible from a distance, but suddenly, like finding a Bugatti in a car park full of Model Ts, I was drawn to something special: a loudspeaker carefully shaped to minimise diffraction that didn’t look like a coffin for a monkey. And around the back, instead of terminals, there was a power cable going in. This, I thought, was designed by someone who understands.
The bearded Englishman intently studying this miracle was soon joined by another bearded individual who, it transpired, was from Finland and was he who understood. That was how I met Ilpo, and we spent a considerable amount of time discussing loudspeaker technology and putting away schnapps from the
Genelec refrigerator. I staggered off much later than anticipated, thinking that my return to audio after being in the computer industry had not been a mistake and thinking that this gentle Finn and his speakers were going to put a cat amongst the pigeons.
In addition to sharing beards, humour and a love of acoustics, Ilpo and I had more in common. He was also concerned with the environment and took active steps to make the Genelec factory as sustainable as possible. But I was never able to put away as much booze as any Finn. When I teased him about this affinity his reply was “We Finns are not heavy drinkers, we are serious drinkers.”
Genelec had started up in 1978 to meet the opportunity that arose when YLE needed a new generation of monitor speakers. Genelec soon moved to Iisalmi. This was just north of Ilpo’s birthplace, Lapinlahti, and was selected on the grounds that there would be peace and quiet there. As someone who deliberately gets lost in Scandinavia in order to think clearly, I could relate to that. As one who has actually been to Iisalmi, I should explain that it is practically in the centre of Finland and, like many Finnish towns, is wedged between a number of lakes. Development has meant that it’s not as quiet as it used to be, but the scenery still takes some beating.
As is well known, it turned out that the cat did scatter the pigeons. Active loudspeakers with line level crossovers and one amplifier per drive unit had to be the way forward. Stiff enclosures made from a variety of materials, including die cast metal, improved clarity. Careful shaping of the enclosure ensured that the directivity didn’t suddenly change with frequency. True to Ilpo’s ethics, the speakers were designed for a long service life and spare parts would be retained long after production ceased. Genelec deserved to succeed and it did.
And now Ilpo is gone; the much deserved happy retirement (or, knowing him, partial retirement) denied to him. As Spike Milligan said, when Marty Feldman died, “If life is a game of cards, someone is cheating.”
When the immediate shock of his death has dissipated, it will be possible to see further back and appreciate his life and achievements. There are those who succeed by indifference to the harm they cause, and there are those who succeed by doing things well, caring for others and treading lightly on the Earth. I shall always remember Ilpo as one of the latter. Such people are rare and we should treasure them.
Source: https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/...atkinson-remembers-ilpo-martikainen-1947-2017
