Quote:
The later Altec horn drivers with those damned plastic phase plugs and compression caps have a rep for sounding like crap when compared to the originals.
Walt, have you ever actually heard a tangerine 802?
I get the sense that the answer is "negatory." I also didn't hear the list of horns other than the 511B that you have intimate experience with.
So, you reject the work of specialist PhDs with empirical data in hand, yet you blindly accept the ravings of random goobers on audio forums, most of whom are passing along untested ravings of other random goobers. H'mm...
I have a realistic view of academic experts, having been through a couple Ivy league Universities and PhD programs at Yale and William and Mary. Truly, much of it is hogwash.
I guess if I am an expert in anything it is the field of social construction of knowledge systems, which I have been applying to audio in public discussion for three decades, with demonstrated utility.
Let me share my framework for approaching such analysis in audio settings , which I will call the "Roberts Ladder of Audio Authority"
When faced with the question "How do we know?" in the general sense, I propose the following ranking of evidentiary sources.
--Extensive and long term, multi-contextual
personal experience--Fleeting and/or single context
personal experience--Reports from friends who I know and trust, taken in light of what I know about their tastes, preferences, and levels of experience
--Reports from people who are specialized in a certain area whose actual standards and understandings I cannot evaluate directly but who seem to know their stuff.
--Reports and opinions from people who are experts in other fields besides the one under discussion. Wait...I might be overrating here. Maybe they belong at the bottom.
--Ravings of random goobers on audio forums
--People passing on ravings of random goobers on audio forums
--2016 presidential candidates on any topic whatsoever
For people trying to find their way through the forest of audio opinion and assertions, I think this may prove to be a useful heuristic.