Peter Aczel's Audio Legacy

[JJB70]

The threads on truth in accuracy and what does this do made me think of the sadly departed Peter Aczel. I guess there will be plenty for whom the name means little, but for many years he was an articulate and intelligent critic of music and audio equipment and one of the more prominent objectivists. While he could be quite pugnacious and sometimes gave the impression of being one of those guys who could start a fight in an empty room if he wanted to I loved his writing and never found him anything less than interesting, and I always thought most of the people he had a go at with his more intemperate remarks were guilty of worse themselves and probably brought his acerbic comments upon themselves. Anyway, I'm rambling, near the end of his life he penned what he called his audio legacy, it can be read here:

http://www.biline.ca/audio_critic/audio_critic_web1.htm#acl

Even today I am not aware of any article that sums up the hobby quite as well, it is like a short piece of common sense that just summarises audio and music reproduction to near perfection. I found when I was a lot younger I took issue with much of what Peter Aczel said (I'll admit, I went through a phase where I really bought into all the audiophoolery nonsense when I was younger) then found myself appreciating his writing more and more. Of course he wasn't perfect (nobody is) and the episode where he "forgot" to declare his interest in a speaker he reviewed was unfortunate to say the least but for all that I really think this site is very much in the spirit of much of his writing.

 

[Thomas savage]

That was a brilliant read, thanks so much for posting it mate.

 

[amirm]

Good read indeed. The unfortunate part is this:

Everyday the voodoo in audio is getting more and more accepted. We as the folks on the other side of the line clearly are not as capable of fending it off as they are in promoting it.

 

[Thomas savage]

Good read indeed. The unfortunate part is this:

View attachment 16263

Everyday the voodoo in audio is getting more and more accepted. We as the folks on the other side of the line clearly are not as capable of fending it off as they are in promoting it.

We have a harder job in this post modernist world where we fight against ignorance and egotism. I personally think we ( you and our members, I just hang about ) are making a difference, to the audio landscape anyway.

 

[Sal1950]

Yes Peter was normally one of the shining lights of truth in audio. I was a subscriber to Audio Critic pretty much for it's entire life.
The Legacy column is a fav or mine, this line pretty much covers my feelings.

"How is it possible, how did it ever happen, that they trust fairy-tale purveyors and mystic gurus more than reliable sources of scientific information?"

 

[cjfrbw]

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, rich and superstitious!

 

[Ron Texas]

I am in agreement with what he says, except the bit about monkey coffins.

"In any case, one thing I am fairly sure of: No breakthrough in sound quality will be heard from “monkey coffins” (1970s trade lingo), i.e. rectangular boxes with forward-firing drivers. I’ll go even further: Even if the box is not rectangular but some incredibly fancy shape, even if it’s huge, even if it costs more than a luxury car, if it’s sealed or vented and the drivers are all in front, it’s a monkey coffin and will sound like a monkey coffin—boxy and, to varying degrees, not quite open and transparent."

Does this mean we need planar or open baffle speakers or does having a rear firing driver or two fix everything?

 

[Thomas savage]

My speakers don’t sound boxy , it’s why I like them but most do to my ears.

 

[amirm]

I am in agreement with what he says, except the bit about monkey coffins.

Yeh, I cringed on that one too....

 

[Swtoby]

I credit The Audio Critic as playing a role in changing my own thinking from subjective (superstitious) to more objective (scientific), at first in audio and then gradually the world in general. I first picked up a copy when I was really influenced by the reviews in Stereophile and The Absolute Sound not to mention visits to my local dealer. In the years since I've come to feel the audiophile phenomena Peter Aczel described and his frustration with subjective reviewing could be expanded to encompass a lot of areas of human nature, like religion and politics. If what we think we hear isn't actually true who's to say what we've been told isn't true either? For example, not all religious points of view can be right, but they can all be wrong.

 

[mansr]

Everyday the voodoo in audio is getting more and more accepted. We as the folks on the other side of the line clearly are not as capable of fending it off as they are in promoting it.

There is an obvious reason for this. They can make stuff up till the cows come home, while we are constrained to the truth.

 

[amirm]

There is an obvious reason for this. They can make stuff up till the cows come home, while we are constrained to the truth.

You can say that again...

 

[amirm]

And are you the @mansr from CA forum? If so, warm welcome to the forum.

 

[Sal1950]

My speakers don’t sound boxy , it’s why I like them but most do to my ears.

The ultimate example of visual expectation bias.
They look like a note so they sound like music?

 

[Sal1950]

There is an obvious reason for this. They can make stuff up till the cows come home, while we are constrained to the truth.

Welcome buddy, good to see you here.

 

[oivavoi]

The ultimate example of visual expectation bias.
They look like a note so they sound like music?

I would say that they look like somewhat plump extraterrestrial women, so they probably sound like the whale-song of plump extraterrestrial women.
(having auditioned them once though and been greatly impressed, I can't seem to remember that I went away with that impression)

 

[Burning Sounds]

I am in agreement with what he says, except the bit about monkey coffins.

"In any case, one thing I am fairly sure of: No breakthrough in sound quality will be heard from “monkey coffins” (1970s trade lingo), i.e. rectangular boxes with forward-firing drivers. I’ll go even further: Even if the box is not rectangular but some incredibly fancy shape, even if it’s huge, even if it costs more than a luxury car, if it’s sealed or vented and the drivers are all in front, it’s a monkey coffin and will sound like a monkey coffin—boxy and, to varying degrees, not quite open and transparent."

Does this mean we need planar or open baffle speakers or does having a rear firing driver or two fix everything?

Peter Aczel could be quite acerbic in his writing and I suspect may have alienated quite a few people using the term "monkey coffin" given that most speakers out there use forward firing drivers in a box of one sort or another. IIRC he had Linkwitz Orions and later the LX521 so he was a dipole user. I think he would have been a fan of the new generation of active DSP speakers also.

Like @Swtoby, Aczel got me off the audiophile bandwagon and on to the straight and narrow - and yes, in many ways I think ASR is carrying on his work.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I wonder, does anyone have any info on why he was against “monkey coffins”? Would be interesting to understand his reasoning.

 

[Wombat]

I wonder, does anyone have any info on why he was against “monkey coffins”? Would be interesting to understand his reasoning.

I would surmise that it had something to do with the sound from the rear of the driver reacting with the box volume
/dimensions passing back through the loudspeaker cone.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I wonder, does anyone have any info on why he was against “monkey coffins”? Would be interesting to understand his reasoning.

As a panel speaker aficionado myself, it is quite simple. Monkey coffins sound like a box. Get rid of the box and no boxy sound. And for a long time few indeed were the speakers that you couldn't make that claim against that used cones and boxes.

In some DIY speakers, it was amazing what improvements could be had by putting an angled baffle behind cones, and making the front panel (and more so the whole box) super thick and stiff. For a period of time after thiele-small parameters were 'discovered' by the industry you had the twin ills of ported woofers combined with hard metal dome tweeters. Not just that, they were in a BOX. An audible BOX!!!! Yuck! Just say NOOOOO!!!!

How ironic then, this critic of the monkey coffin would end up making exactly such a box to sell. (well he did go with a soft dome tweeter)

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/20/arts/sound-a-purist-devises-a-loudspeaker.html

https://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/384four/index.html