Paul's Posts — 05 September 2012
By Paul McGowan
We’re ending our series on separates with a bit of a summary and a cautionary note.
We’ve seen that when you set out to design a separate, whether its purpose is one of added functionality or improved performance, that separate must stand on its own in a world of unknown connections and situations – thus making the job of the designer not only difficult but very different from that of the integrated system designer.
The integrated system designer has a very different task than that of the separates designer: building a holistic product with a single purpose in mind – which means the parts of the system need only be excellent enough to work together, not necessarily stand on their own. The end results can be all over the map depending on how the project is approached, what tools the designers have to work with and who the end customer is going to be.
One example of this can be shared in my experience as a consumer. I wanted an all-in-one small speaker for my office. Always curious what happens when I go out into the world as a simple retail customer, I travelled to Best Buy and asked to be shown their offerings of a self amplified loudspeaker I could use in my office. Most of what I was shown was pure drek that sounded nothing like music when powered by my selection on the iPhone.
The salesman quickly realized I was after something that sounded like music (go figure). He marched me over to the B and W area and showed me the Zepplin Mini – as the Zepplin itself was out of my price range. Oh my gosh, it was hideous – much worse than some of the other stuff I had heard. I was pretty shocked that B and W would put their badge on this extremely unmusical speaker. But then he stepped me up to the B and W MM-1 which was only another $100 or so. Wow. Music came out and to my surprise, really good music. I bought the MM-1 and have been happy ever since.
A little investigating at what was inside each of these led me to realize there isn’t a lot of difference yet the performance of one was total crap, the other marvelous. I can only conclude there must have been different teams working on each because one got it right, the other totally wrong.
And this is the cautionary note. It hasn’t escaped me or many of my fellow manufacturers who care about how things sound that there are two ways to build a product: by figuring out the least you can do within your constraints to make something good enough, or the most you can do within your constraints to make something excellent. My B and W experience covers both extremes.
When we keep in mind the end goal of making music, we do not have to restrict ourselves to many boxes to achieve our goal. In fact, as long as we’re willing to be open to change and different paradigms of how we recreate music in our homes, I am convinced we can have fewer boxes and better sound.
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Soundminded
Paul, are you copying my postings? That’s what I said yesterday
I think it’s time to mention good and bad engineering or maybe engineering and what’s not engineering. Engineers define a problem in specific terms and then set out to solve it at the lowest cost, most reliably, and without creating any significant new problems. Obsessed amateurs get a bee in their bonnet and will go to any extreme no matter how absurd to achieve it. For example, consider speaker cabinet resonance. An engineer might say the cabinet will not resonate at an amplitude of more than .0002 inches at any frequency between 20hz and 20 khz and at any output level up to 100 db at one meter. He might try many different schemes including making the cabinet from granite used in counter tops, sandwiching different materials, nesting enclosures with something like sand between them (Wharfedale did just that in the 1960s.) OTOH, if he is not an engineer but gets a brainy idea like this one, the manufacturer might try building an atomic speaker box from machined aluminum (I don’t know that these people are not engineers and their products are highly regarded among the best speakers in the world of the month in the hobbyist magazines so it’s just my opinion.) Does this seem like an ludicrous way to build a speaker box? I suppose it depends on your point of view. Clearly it doesn’t to the guy who makes and sell them for $100,000 for a pair of speakers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqi9asi5rWc&feature=player_embedded
Paul McGowan
We are many times on the same track but the post was written a day ahead of your comment.
Soundminded
Great minds think alike
Soundminded
BTW, here’s how the cones are manufactured and the enclosures are finished. Isn’t there a better way or at least one just as good that doesn’t go to these extremes? Clearly the manufacturer doesn’t think so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZAp0Efnr0s&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVfoAE-SAWY&feature=player_embedded
OTOH, this is relatively cheap compared to Peter Qvortrup’s TOTL speaker where Qvortrup went out to corner the market for Russian birch to build his cabinets and the sliver market to manufacture his wires and capacitors. His best effor costs over $1 million.
YG would probably be a good place to go if they ever need a replacement for the mirror for the Mount Palomar telescope. Unfortunately, the largest parts they can machine just now might be a little too small for a 200″ mirror. Perhaps if They are convinced they need to scale up the size of their speaker design…..
oliver T. Finch
It is true that it is good to keep an open mind but everything new is not always better or an improvement perfect sound for ever is a good example. The proof of the pudding is in the eating so when an integrated will better separates then it will automatically be universally accepted. Till then it is simple speculation.It all boils down to “SHOW ME”. Regards.
Tom Devey
Designing an integrated which performs as well as separates will be a difficult design task. While the interfaces may be better defined in terms of electrical specifications, the benefits provided by physical separation of audio equipment (separate power supplies, reduced chances of EM interference between stages) will have to be designed into a single enclosure. Paul already documented some of the difficulties encountered in the first version of the Perfectwave DAC which needed to be corrected in version II. To provide the equivalent to separates a lot of the same design philosophy will have to be applied – and it won’t necessarily provide any cost savings.
ARCAM with their FMJ series of AV receivers and processors is noted for achieving a higher degree of sonic performance through rigorous application of “Noise reduction techniques in electronic systems” (after H. Ott), in producing products with a similar degree of integration as envisaged by Paul. If you are going to compete in the high end then this level of performance will likely be required as a minimum.
PS Audio will need to get their design staff and resources fully up on Signal Integrity and EMC issues to provide an integrated with comparable sound quality to that of high end separates. Looking forward to the results.