Recent content by JSHamlet234

I would have thought 3-ways priced at $780/pair would have been able to play louder. Disappointing. At the very least, the tweeter should have been padded down some more.

As I look at the measurements of over-ear headphones, I can't help but notice that basically all of them seem to suffer from cone breakup in the mid to upper treble. Am I correct in that presumption, or is the jagged treble perhaps the result of inherent flaws in the measurement process? Has a...

The trouble with building such a dip into the listener's playback equipment is that there is a high likelihood that the fluctuations in sensitivity of human hearing at varying frequencies have already been accounted for by whoever recorded, mixed, and mastered the music. I prefer to let bad...

I usually only bust out the magic orb-on-a-stick during the spring equinox. There was this one time, when I still an orb-on-a-stick newbie, that I used it during a new moon in September. All my tweeters blew that night, and a black cat tried to eat my soul.

In a world where nothing seems to last, and everything becomes obsolete, I find my audio hobby to be a welcome reprieve.

What if someone were to switch out the cables with ones that have a warmer signature? o_O

Fs of the drivers will definitely drop a smidge, and generally very quickly. This has been tested before. It should affect the bass extension in a very small, but positive way, especially since the manufacturer has undoubtedly factored it into the speaker's port tuning. I can't be certain if...

It depends on the application. Very large room, distant listening position, low-sensitivity speakers, reference-level volume, very dynamic material - the 200W should sound less terrible than the 100W (but probably still terrible). However, for near field listening it wouldn't matter at all...

Unfortunately, there is a lot of knuckle-dragging on most car forums. People quote advertised "CFM" numbers without understanding what the spec really means. "This intercooler / muffler / air filter / cylinder head was flow bench tested to 1000CFM!" Yet, they have no idea how much pressure...

Right - The volume of the air passing through the filter is determined by the displacement, RPM, and volumetric efficiency at that said RPM. For example, a 3L engine that achieves peak horsepower at 5750RPM and has 90% volumetric efficiency at that speed, will pull 300CFM through the filter...

Yep. it really comes to down to pressure drop. One ATM is 407 inches of water. A clean paper filter usually results in 1-2 inches of water pressure drop, and that doesn't change until there is a significant dust loading. (at least 5000-10000 miles worth). If the popular aftermarket brands...

I'm pushing 40 and my hearing starts to roll off quickly above 14K and by 15K it's non-existent. When I was 18, those numbers were 19K and 20K. My kids who are 15 and under, can hear up to around 21-22K. I have no idea why so much emphasis is placed on frequencies that only the cat can hear...

The fly in the ointment is road/wind/engine noise. It can be reduced somewhat, but there will always be a lot of it at higher speeds. The bass is the first thing that seems to get drowned out. I don't like having as much bass boost as that Porsche/Bose system - maybe half of that. I usually...

The flip side of course, is the magic of the placebo effect. If a doctor prescribes an antibiotic for condition that won't actually improve from that antibiotic, but patient believes s/he is now taking the cure and should be getting better, that person is more likely to pull themselves up by...

I'm not sure that these experiments tell the whole story. I took one of these tests once, and I couldn't reliably detect distortion in a 15-second sample of a song unless it was -30dB or greater. However, I do notice that over time, when I listen to equipment that has higher distortion, I am...