Altecs are Hip

[DavidF]

BTW I am being tongue in cheek when associating Hipsters and Yuppies. There's no scientific studies proving my point. ;-)
Today's hipsters might even be the offsprings of yesterday's yuppies. Overachieving parents producing underachieving kids.

One thing though. The installation and positioning of the Altecs in that coffee shop, in the worst manner possible, shows that they were picked not for their sound quality but just for the looks... ;-)

Looks is everything with this spot. The old building is an eye-catcher from another era. Once a truck dealership owned by Wendell Morse. Not much for hand crafted coffee shops but good on these folks for giving life to a nice piece of architecture in a part of the city needing to hold on to some of these types of buildings.


By the way, I thought these were Altec systems. My bad according to the "audiophile and Blue Bottle owner James Freeman" these are JBL Voice Of The Theater. A misquote, no doubt.

Looking around the interior there may be no place you can sit and not hear these system's sound bounce around.


http://sprudge.com/first-look-blue-b...ing-52079.html

[JeffW]

Something tells me they are there to provide background ambience, not for critical listening. It's like griping that elevators don't have D66000s mounted in the ceiling.

[1audiohack]

I think the whole deal is cool. No gripe intended.

What I meant about them being exactly what you don't want in a space like that is, the VOT systems were designed for speech intelligibility. In a reverberant speak easy space those will fill the telephone band of the audio spectrum. Even if not playing loud, you have to work to talk and listen over that.

In my experience a system with the exact opposite frequency response is called for. If the bass is full and the top end sparkle is there you run the midrange down to where people have song and lyric recognition but not much more. It is suprising how loud you can have the music and still hold a casual conversation with this employed.

All the best,
Barry.

[Lee in Montreal]

I think the whole deal is cool. No gripe intended.

What I meant about them being exactly what you don't want in a space like that is, the VOT systems were designed for speech intelligibility. In a reverberant speak easy space those will fill the telephone band of the audio spectrum. Even if not playing loud, you have to work to talk and listen over that.

In my experience a system with the exact opposite frequency response is called for. If the bass is full and the top end sparkle is there you run the midrange down to where people have song and lyric recognition but not much more. It is suprising how loud you can have the music and still hold a casual conversation with this employed.

All the best,
Barry.

Right on. You want the ambient sound system to work on a frequency range outside of the speech range si that there's no competition.

[NickH]

Lee that reply post to mine is hilarious. I guess I give a tiny bit more credit to some hipsters as opposed to the yuppies of the 80's. Not much though.


But knocking the microbrews is hitting below the belt don't you think? I'm good beer is nothing to poo poo over, lol. And there's a lot more choices in beer these days as opposed to 20 years ago. Even though I wasn't of drinking age back then is was darn near impossible to find black larger back then. Now its made by quite a few notable brew houses.


But all that aside they are easy targets for ridicule.


But I do think vintage speakers are also coming into retro trendyness, the chipotle down the street from my house actually has klipsch hersey's on the walls.



Nick

[Ed Kreamer]

Colleagues, there is a ray of hope here. Perhaps the hipsters after viewing and hearing the big and misused Altecs, will lace up the converse shoes, and after obtaining a $5 latte/frap (no sugar and extra bohemian cream) and wonder off to a real HI-FI store and discover what we discovered so many years ago. There must be a real Hi-Fi store not too far from there. Then remove the ear buds and start another audio revolution. Some times a new start can begin in a most unusual place.
As an addendum, I am a retired beer and wine salesman (Wholesale). The snobbery found in craft beer and wine does not exist in the growers and makers of the various products. As a fellow salesman once said in dealing with a difficult client, For goodness sake Ann, It's only Grape Juice! I had to beat a hasty exit where I could laugh my ass off.

[NickH]

Except it could make the high prices go ever higher, lol.


Sorry if I came off sounding like a beer snob Ed, I'm not. I just believe those famous words of Ben Franklin " beer is proof that god wanted man to be happy". His words.

well that's not exactly true, I do have a preference for German beers. My absolute favorite is lowenbrau but I can't find it here in Texas

Funny you mentioned the grapefruit. I hate grapefruit but shiner here in Texas makes a beer called ruby red bird beer, I love it. Its an awesome beer in the summer. I like it more then Sam Adams summer ale. That being said I do like to support local small companies over the big inbev guys.

Nick

[JeffW]

One can only guess what Ben Franklin would think of grapefruit beer.

I have a Lowenbrau bar sign/clock around here someplace. Seems like the clock got noisy.

[SEAWOLF97]

Sorry if I came off sounding like a beer snob Ed, I'm not. I just believe those famous words of Ben Franklin " beer is proof that god wanted man to be happy". His words.

well that's not exactly true, I do have a preference for German beers. My absolute favorite is lowenbrau but I can't find it here in Texas

Nick

Back in my Canoe Club/WesPac days (Dr. Electron will remember, Loach71 too) , it was 33 or Tiger or San Miguel (PI & HK) - The PI version was slightly green. Figured that if I ever got a serious cut, not sure if blood or San Miguel would come out.

In my time in Hawaii it was PRIMO beer. What rotgut. But after the first one, the second was much better.

THE "IN CAREER" in Portland is microbrewer. We might have more of them than actual drinkers ?

Anyway, the Asian beers (with lower carbonation) and the German ones appeal to me most. havn't even tried the local products. used to be able to drink all night, now ..1 is the limit.

[Ed Kreamer]

Hmmmm. Audio and Alcohol.
I mentioned beer and wine because of Lee's Hipster post. Tastes in beverage's ( and speakers) are what you make of them, and I have no problem with any ones tastes. It was the pretense I was trying to get at in my own clumsey way.
Being in that business I encountered a lot of snobbery particularly in wine. Oh the tales I could tell, but i won't. At least not here. So no Nick, I don't think that you are a beer snob. I like Lowenbrau, Bud, as well as Sam Adams. My favorite beer is Widmer Drop Top, but if someone hands me a Coors, I won't turn up my nose (unless it's light). Same with wine unless it's the sweet stuff my Wife likes. If you can find it, try Ninkasi Lager. It's terrific stuff and is brewed with a German yeast strain.
I said in my previous post Juice, not fruit. But as you know, adding fruit to beer has long been a tradition in Europe, so adding grapefruit to beer is really a variation on a theme.

Same with speakers. I have no problem with those who prefer B&W's ( or any other ) I have just always found I prefer my 4410's better, even though I get tired of the "oh, JBL, well they are just big and loud."

Peace and Prosperity

[NickH]

Touche.