Danny at GR getting bad Talk Back from many of his viewers

[GM3]

For the record, when Danny had the chance to prove whether his snake oil power cables make an audible difference, he chose to compare 16 AWG speaker wire to his 8 AWG wire instead. And this occurred right in the middle of the ASR power cable review 'controversy'. And he never participated in a controlled DBT or BT for his power cables either. He sure claims that he did, multiple times, but 'strangely' there's no official record about it anywhere. So you'll just have to believe his claims.

Sometimes, but not inherently.

A €300 10uF Mundorf MCap® SUPREME Classic SilverGold.Oil is +/-2%. That's a bit better than what you normally get from cheap film caps.

But then again, you can find non-audiophile caps with +/-1% ratings at a tiny fraction of that cost.

Some more knowledgeable in crossovers than me might correct me, but I think the tolerances may or may not matter though. We are talking of quite small numbers, and since crossovers induce slopes, if the components vary by 1 or 2%, the end difference might not be perceivable.

You can also just measure and match them yourself, that way you can get amazing tolerances for low cost. A +/- 2% might have one which is +2% and the other -2%, resulting in 4% difference between the two, whereas if you measure and match 2 yourself, you might get a 0.3% difference. In other words, more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better.

And again, to go back to Danny, I don't think he's ever demonstrated that he can truly hear the difference between his snake oil binding post tubes, or even crossovers for that matter. That would be an interesting test. 2 external crossovers, 1 using regular components, similar to what an enthusiast might build for a budget/normal build, matched or not, and same crossovers with his overpriced caps, inductors, wire, etc.. I'd bet a couple hundred bucks he would fail such a BT or DBT test.

 

[MAB]

I cant help but think the T25CF001 is not the closest model to what is used in that old speaker. There was a previous T25 tweeter model that did rolloff a bit on the topend, and they stopped selling that one over 10 years ago and replaced with the CF version. I know Jeff B had a set in his original version of his Davids towers, and was never fully pleased with it. The only thing on the web i find close to this former version is on Dave Ralph's Speaker Pages with wool modifications. Comparing to the CF seems to me to be a misguided vector here.

Seas has never made a tweeter (to my knowledge) that when working properly rolls off at 10kHz like the one Danny measured.
This Jamo actually used a modified Seas tweeter and woofer made for them by Seas, the tweeter is custom with silver wire.

Danny at GR getting bad Talk Back from many of his viewers

Danny may be an experienced designer but his experience is from decades ago and he has not progressed to keep up with technology. He preaches about taking your sound to the “next level” but seems more like an excuse for not taking his own game to the next level. He continues to use old...

www.audiosciencereview.com

While we don't know the exact characteristics of the tweeter, I think we can assume Seas didn't source silver wire tweeters that roll off at 10kHz and also assume Jamo didn't voice them 6dB down in the tweeter.

Seas made lots of tweeters that now have dried out ferrofluid that causes them to sound bad. Danny measured and modified one of those speakers rather than fixing it.

 

[fpitas]

When Danny mentions time smearing caused by “cheesy parts” is there a known mechanism he is referring to? Is there something that could be measured to show this?

I tried cheddar capacitors once. I don't know about time smearing, but they start to smell bad in time.

 

[mhardy6647]

I tried cheddar capacitors once. I don't know about time smearing, but they start to smell bad in time.

Did they also smell bad in the frequency domain?
(this is my idea of erudite humor... but it is Saturday and I have had a lot of coffee...)

 

[fpitas]

Did they also smell bad in the frequency domain?
(this is my idea of erudite humor... but it is Saturday and I have had a lot of coffee...)

We should be less sarcastic. Time smearing is serious business!

 

[RickS]

We should be less sarcastic. Time smearing is serious business!

yes, I have seen it on the Loki series and it looks like it really hurts!

 

[Purité Audio]

Does Loki have to now sit there forever, must be a bit boring.
Keith

 

[RickS]

Am starting to think there may be more similarities between Danny and the god of mischief!

 

[mhardy6647]

Time...
“One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is no problem with changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.

Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later editions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
(quoted at https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/369785-one-of-the-major-problems-encountered-in-time-travel-is

 

[egellings]

Great link, thank you. I do wonder about this statement (especially given they sell ferrofluid):

"My tweeters do not have ferrofluid, will they profit from ferrofluid?
Yes, applying ferrofluid will increase the power handling of your tweeters as well as improve the sound quality, as long as you apply the correct amount of ferrofluid and the correct quality."

Is it really so straightforward?

If a home stereo type speaker is competently designed using a tweeter that does not have ferrofluid in it, I would not want to alter the design by adding it. That, and the sound would need to be very loud in a living room situation to require it in order to prevent the tweeter's voice coil from being fried. Maybe in public address applications, it might be a good idea to use it. Using it for damping could work well. My only worry there is that the fluid's viscosity would change (get gooier, stiffer) over time as it dries out, which could upset the design goal of the tweeter.

 

[RickS]

If you were expecting the promised “resolution” for these Jamos, Danny’s next post is a Wilson upgrade.

Guessing anyone who could afford Wilsons gets some priority at GR!

 

[Matt_Holland]

If you were expecting the promised “resolution” for these Jamos, Danny’s next post is a Wilson upgrade.

Guessing anyone who could afford Wilsons gets some priority!

The WA video is really interesting. Danny, in a moment of sheer hypocritical irony, outs WA as purveyors of snake oil cable antics.

Looks like a did a pretty good job on fixing the terrible frequency response though. What a joke WA’s Duette is for $12000

 

[RickS]

Really? You need to keep in mind his zoomed in SPL scale, but while not stellar for the money, eq would flatten even better. He also declares victory on the impedance curve when there is still something pretty funky about it. Soundstage measured these in 2008 and did not have this problem.

As usual, in failing to check for a baseline, Danny really cannot tell what sort of ”defect” he may be “fixing”.

 

[Matt_Holland]

Really? You need to keep in mind his zoomed in SPL scale, but while not stellar for the money, eq would flatten even better. He also declares victory on the impedance curve when there is still something pretty funky about it. Soundstage measured these in 2008 and did not have this problem.

As usual, in failing to check for a baseline, Danny really cannot tell what sort of defect he may be “fixing”.

He compared the frequency response to the Sounstage one and it looked similar.

I said “pretty good” job.
A baseline would be impossible to get as I guess this would need to get manufacturer approval from a keep-sample?
Or multiple owner samples?

We all know what Danny does is dubious by good engineering standards. I still enjoy watching though. Its a guilty pleasure

 

[RickS]

He compared the frequency response to the Soundstage one and it looked similar.

Oops missed that, but he just conveniently ignored the impedance curve though?

I said “pretty good” job.
A baseline would be impossible to get as I guess this would need to get manufacturer approval from a keep-sample?
Or multiple owner samples?

We all know what Danny does is dubious by good engineering standards. I still enjoy watching though. Its a guilty pleasure

You might guess that I may not get the same guilty pleasure as I only sample the video. I like to avoid a Danny overdose.

The sample size problem is the same with any reviewer. Next best thing you have are other reviews. Even better if he followed more current industry standards so they could be readily compared.

 

[JSmith]

Its a guilty pleasure

I'd have to be paid to watch his drivel.


JSmith

 

[Vineeth Kumar V]

The problem with Danny is that he doesn't hold back when it comes to criticizing competing products (and sometimes he's even right), but at the same time he praises his own products to the skies.

The fact that Danny presents himself as a "truth teller", as you say yourself, means that consumers with little experience in the field of loudspeaker reviews tend to trust him and lose their critical distance to GR research products.

As a small example of this, let's take a look at the flagship speakers NX-treme and NX-otica. Danny writes about these speakers on his website:

This is completely normal marketing blah blah from a manufacturer and, as we will see in a moment, on the opposite side of "truth".
Because Danny can establish himself as a "truth teller", his customers trust him in particular and even defend his products against criticism - every manufacturer's dream.

Unfortunately, I have to elaborate a little on what special characteristic an open baffle (OB) has, as many people don't have the basics at hand.
First we need to establish what characterizes an OB loudspeaker? Its special radiation - cardioid radiation.

This is characterized by the fact that the lateral radiation of the loudspeaker, even in the low frequency range, has a reduced sound pressure level.
In contrast to "normal" loudspeaker designs that radiate omnidirectional towards lower frequencies.

View attachment 324134 View attachment 324143
The frequency response (FR) of a woofer without crossover in a flat baffle (a typical OB design) would look as follows with optimally flat on-axis FR (normalized to on-axis FR). For comparison on the right side the typical radiation of a "normal boxed" speaker (by varying the width and depth of the cabinet, the radiation can be improved, especially in the 400-600Hz range.):
View attachment 324144 View attachment 324167
Up to around 1kHz (this would be the highest crossover frequency to the midrange or tweeter), this OB speaker example exhibits a typical cardioid radiation pattern with strongest sound extinction at 90°. SPL increases again at listening angles >90°.
In a typical OB design, the lateral reflections (usually 40°-60° FR) are even and significantly reduced in SPL - this is particularly advantageous in "unfavorable" listening rooms.

Now let's take a look at the measurements Danny has published for the NX-Otica. In the following I assume that the measurements show the 0°, 10°, 20°, 30°, 40° FR (Danny unfortunately never specifies at which angle the shown FR are).
View attachment 324148
I think you can recognize without experience that there is something wrong with the expected cardioid radiation. To be able to better compare the measurements of the "pinnacle of open baffle loudspeaker design" with the typical radiation of an OB speaker shown above, we take Danny's measurements and normalize them to the on-axis FR as well (same scaling as above).
View attachment 324150
In this diagram you can easily see that this loudspeaker does not show any cardioid radiation at all - it's a disaster. In fact, the radiation is much more uneven than with a "normal boxed" speaker. The lateral reflections that reach the ear are not only extremely uneven, but are also significantly increased in the SPL in the range of the resonances (compared to the on-axis FR).

In the 200-400Hz range, the NX-Otica already shows a higher SPL at 40° than on axis. This is pretty much the opposite of what a cardioid radiating speaker should do.
The V-frame shaped baffle of the NX-Otica speaker causes resonances which completely mess up the radiation up to 1.3kHz (when the tweeter gradually takes over) with a couple of resonances caused by the woofers and mid-woofers resonating with the V-frame baffle.
If Danny were to publish full measurements, the problems would be even clearer, as they become more pronounced as the angle of radiation increases.

Don't get me wrong, the speaker can sound quite good under certain conditions (and the hearing is able to adapt to unusual situations), but in terms of an OB speaker with cardioid radiation, it is a bad design and not the "pinnacle of open baffle loudspeaker designs" - more details about "Open baffle speaker pitfalls" is here.

Sorry, I had to go into a little more detail to explain the problem with Danny's "truth teller" narrative with arguments (LS design is a bit complex, but I wanted to show real facts not only opinion). The situation is similar with statements about "cable sound", capacitors, binding posts,....
Someone who is beating up his competitors, even if sometimes rightly so, is not automatically trustworthy when it comes to his own products (that is why independent assessments are so important). Quite a few people seem to forget that.

Thanks for the nice explanation.
Unless I am wrong, it seems like a typo has crept in at multiple places w.r.t open baffle speaker radiation pattern. Also dont know if this has been pointed out in this thread earlier.
I think all "cardioid" words have to replaced by "dipole".

 

[ctrl]

Unless I am wrong, it seems like a typo has crept in at multiple places w.r.t open baffle speaker radiation pattern. Also dont know if this has been pointed out in this thread earlier.
I think all "cardioid" words have to replaced by "dipole".

Thank you for pointing out the mistake!

This is the second time that I have confused cardioid dipole with dipole cardioid (also in the OB pitfall thread).
I'm probably at the age now where I need a counselor to take away my keyboard when I write such nonsense.

 

[egellings]

I tried cheddar capacitors once. I don't know about time smearing, but they start to smell bad in time.

My limburger ones did the same, and they smelled bad, too.

 

[amirm]

Thank you for pointing out the mistake!

This is the second time that I have confused cardioid dipole with dipole cardioid (also in the OB pitfall thread).
I'm probably at the age now where I need a counselor to take away my keyboard when I write such nonsense.

You know so much about the topic that any mistake is completely forgotten.