the 2018 CES Unexpected Get Together.

[1audiohack]

Well CES 2018 has come and gone. A couple of my guys have left the shop here to go help load out the show.

Did anyone here attend?

I didn't go this year, the crowds, parking and traffic,, it's just hard for me to really want to.

I was fortunate to have some interesting guests come over to the casa for various audio reasons however.

No names but I had a boutique horn designer, a couple of recording engineers, a boutique microphone manufacturer and one of his engineers and an exotic materials compression driver parts engineer come by.

We ran several sound systems and the one that everyone was really attracted to was the Community Light and Sound all horn loaded four way system on the patio. Whooda thunk?

We ran the JBL 4365's powered by Techron 7560's. They were liked.

Danley SH50's and eight TH Mini sub clones save the use of 2206J's in them powered by Crown I-Tech 5000HD's, they were also liked.


And the afore mentioned Community stack that is 11 feet wide, five feet tall, five feet deep and weighing in at over a thousand pounds I swear.

It has four 2240H's in Boxer Bass horns, four 2220J's in Leviathan bass horns, two 2482's driving BRH90 radial horns and two 2425's driving SRH90 radial horns.

It is currently powered by what's was lying around, two CE4000,s a D75 and a D45 with a pair of dbx260's doing the DSP for eight channels, and an IPod source direct into the 260's. And this of all things, was the system everyone seemed to love, much to their suprise I really think.

One guy said, "It looks like something you have to throw raw meat to and keep the children away from,,, but it plays so nice!" That made me laugh.

Another said "I think that's the best bass I have ever heard, just spectacular." He didn't say it to me, I overheard him.

It was really funny, 10-20 minutes with the 2365' and about the same with the SH50's and sometimes hours with the Communities. The weather sucked, it was cold and rainy so it wasn't the most comfortable spot at the ranch out there but people who didn't plan to stay, did.

I know I am not alone, true full range clarity and huge dynamics are still something many desire. I guess I'll have to keep that rig together out there.

CES was fun this year, I didn't even have to go!

I will get a picture of it this weekend if anyones interested.

Barry.

[RedCoat23]

Would love to see a pic of the 'animal'

[pos]

One guy said, "It looks like something you have to throw raw meat to and keep the children away from,,, but it plays so nice!" That made me laugh.

Would love to see a pic of the 'animal'

found it:


Fascinating systems you have Barry!

What about the 4355-inspired system ?

[RedCoat23]

found it:


Fascinating systems you have Barry!

What about the 4355-inspired system ?

Nice POS, Nice Guess I deserved that

[pos]

Nice POS, Nice Guess I deserved that

There was no direct pun intended
It is the metaphorical representation I had in mind of Barry's patio system: an animal with long teeth and a pair of drumsticks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8aGlOj2VFo

[1audiohack]

That is a good representation of it Thomas.

I left my real camera at the shop over the weekend. I tried with the iPhone camera but these things being big and jet black just don’t show up well.

I will get some this week.

Barry.

[pos]

The second part of my post went unnoticed below Animal:

Fascinating systems you have Barry!

What about the 4355-inspired system ?

[1audiohack]

It's not a thing of beauty, to the eyes anyway.

Barry.

[pos]

Wow, those Leviathans sure look nice...
Thanks for sharing!
What are the acoustcial crossover points and slopes of the whole system?

[Earl K]

It's not a thing of beauty, to the eyes anyway.

Barry.

Barry,

It's great to see this stuff still in action / I imagine some of the senior "men-about-audio" when they're in town for something like CES want to come by just to get a taste from someone still "keeping it real" ( so to speak ).

Those top radials have really wide even dispersion ( not in the same way that a constant directivity horn spreads > just consistent output across the full horizontal axis ).

Here's a study of traces for the smaller SRH90 radial :



My study supports the claims made in this old CLS blurb.

I gather this type of radial design was a direct descendant of RCAs 120deg radial horn, as used in the LC-9A ( outlined in the thread behind this clickable pic ).




It seems to me that JBL used a version of this radial in their S(M)9500 statement speaker.

[Mr. Widget]

What is the low end extension of these beasts in the near field? ...and beasts really seems appropriate here.

Also, what is your typical listening distance?


Widget

[1audiohack]

I realized that I had left that question unaddressed, and then forgot to come back to it.

Nearly everyone looked at the 4350’s and said either “I had a pair of those” or “I have heard those”.

Understandably people want to hear what they have not yet heard. Being guests, I just let them choose.

My experience with people who work in live sound is that they have a very different value set than the typical audiophile. Many have their own references that were recorded or engineered by them and it seems like a large format studio monitor is just something to warm up with.

It’s not necessarily about crazy loud, it’s more about dynamics and integration and it has to really jump when you give it some gas.

Many people just don’t seem to know or remember how loud a sax, trumpet, trombone or a drum set is and most home systems, even large ones will not convincingly reproduce these instruments at or near live levels.

The Danley Sound Labs website has some fantastic recordings you can download of things you know what they sound like. Like a Harley running up and down the street but the best, is a very dynamic recording of fireworks. It’s easiest to just Google them and download them.

Here’s a challenge to anyone reading. Download these, and carefully, (read sneak up on it, be careful not to break you speakers) attempt to play the fireworks back at realistic levels. You might say that has nothing to do with reproducing music and while that might be true in a sense, it might surprise you to see how far off the dynamic mark your system is. The crack of the big ones should startle you. Be prepared to be dissapointed.

My 4365’s with 770 Watt monoblock amps don’t even get close. The 4350’s do a little better but honestly even they are unsatisfying. The Danley SH50’s with 1600 Watts per with eight subs driven with 10000 Watts of Crown power are getting there but a blindfolded person would never believe they were at a firework show. The front loaded Community/JBL/Crown system will bring out the neighbors, and they don’t look at me, they search the sky. It’s not great, but it’s getting there.

I am not trying to showboat, at all. Anyone who knows me well knows that’s not my personality. What I have discovered is even my 4365’s are, while great at reproducing studio music, not as dynamic as I would sometimes like them to be. Live has an edge to it that gets engineered out of it nearly all the time. Hell listen to the Dave Matthews Band live in Central Park. The percussion is amazing but listen closely, snares don’t sound like that in real life. It’s direct mic’d with a compressor and a gate to minimize cymbal bleed and it sounds more like a click.

I get that this is the nature of recording something that can be engineered for audio and video playback but that’s not what it sounds like in person. Also I get in a setting like that if you had a stereo pair hung above and a mic on the kick, you would never hear the hi-hat or anything else not played loud. It the current nature of recording I guess.

I am not a recording engineer and I don’t play one on TV so I may be wrong about a lot of things in the above ramblings but the patio rig really gets it for me and the folks who do this for a living, they actually stay and play. There must be some audio truth in it.

It’s funny, and kind of sad that I rarely turn up anything in the house anymore. Oh I listen plenty, but I work around the limitation. It’s just not that satisfying. The patio rig doesn’t have to be loud at all to sound live. This audio journey is a real trip and I often wonder where it might end for me. One thing for sure, it won’t be small!

All the best,
Barry.

[Mr. Widget]

My experience with people who work in live sound is that they have a very different value set than the typical audiophile. Many have their own references that were recorded or engineered by them and it seems like a large format studio monitor is just something to warm up with.

It’s not necessarily about crazy loud, it’s more about dynamics and integration and it has to really jump when you give it some gas.

Amen!

Large vintage Altecs and Klipsch speakers all have more than their share of issues, but have large followings due primarily to their ability to bring life to music with excellent dynamics. They may not be as dynamic as your “monsters” but compared to the typical “audiophile” speakers with all that they offer, the audiophile speakers just can’t compete in this area.

For me this is why I prefer my Everests to so many other fine speakers. As we’ve said so many times, every speaker is a compromise. We need to find the speaker that checks the most boxes important to us and will fit our rooms and budgets.

Back on topic, I gotta get down to Vegas and give your Monsters a serious listen.


Widget

[Mitchco]

I am not a recording engineer and I don’t play one on TV so I may be wrong about a lot of things in the above ramblings but the patio rig really gets it for me and the folks who do this for a living, they actually stay and play. There must be some audio truth in it.

All the best,
Barry.

Ex live sound and studio recording engineer here... and agree 100% I have an acoustic drum kit in the same room as my playback system, and after many toy speakers, my current JBL 4722's (with JBL 2453h-SL replacing the stock 2432's) and pair of subs, digitally triamped with some watts behind it, is just able to keep up with the dynamics playing along with the drum kit. Like you say it is not the sheer sound pressure level, it is the clean dynamics that is the juice.

Pic of a smaller Community sound system at a club in Vancouver many 420's ago (that's not me in the pic, but the club owner and can't remember if the bass bins are Community tho). When turned up that M4 midrange horn would make you blink every time the snare hit and the kick coming through those bass bins felt concussive to the chest. Sure miss that sound... Would love to see (and hear!!) your patio rig.

All the best, Mitch

[1audiohack]

Hi Thomas;
The crossover points are 250Hz 24dB LR, 850Hz 24dB Bessel on the Levi's and 24dB LR on the 2482, and 5.3kHz 24dB LR. The 2482's just roll off with no LP on top. There is some PEQ trimming most everywhere but not much for EQ.
I find these good split point compromises on big systems for minimally dividing sounds I find important like voice, bass guitar and snare. I work to get them right and follow up with piano.
I also usually keep crossover points at or near one third octave EQ points. I have no solid reason for this but being able to boost and cut points at crossover centers while listening helps me get them dialed in faster. Being able to run TEF under the music for measurement makes the measuring much easier to endure.

Hi Earl;
This old Community stuff really sounds good in my opinion. It doesn't array so easily and I get why it's time in live sound has passed. The new big Danley offerings are flat amazing.
Community Bruce was a very early adopter of TEF and took the time to measure everyone else's stuff and embarked on a journey to create horns that measured and sounded great.
One things that amazes me it the internal finish of Community horns. Where the radial horn pinches down like the references you posted show, the transitions are absolutely undetectable. They are absolutely gorgeous inside and while I have met Bruce several times I never thought to ask him how they do that. This year at INFOCOMM I will.
The (slightly varied) radials like the 9500, 4338, and 4365 do squeeze like the RCA/Community's. The JBL's are obviously shorter and side walls are very slightly curved as well. Just the fallout of a rapid flare rate I suppose.
I have heard the Ocean Way version of the LC-9A and they got them pretty right in my book!

Hi Mr. Widget;
Flat to 40Hz.
Anywhere about 15 feet or more is pretty well integrated. I did a lot of work on the crossovers to get it as seamless as I could.
I bought a BSS 160 and once I get it in the system I hope to get it better yet.
I don't have a super cool house for entertaining (small ranch house) but anyone who gets out this way is more than welcome to come for a listen. Be glad to see ya.
Barry.