GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: New superlative horn build - ESD acoustic

Post Subject: The Chinese 15 minuts....Posted by Romy the Cat on: 3/31/2019

rowuk wrote:
If this is the best that your engineers have to offer, you need better engineers. Bruce Edgar did far better by himself without those engineers.

Rowuk, you raised two subjects that in my view worth to cover.

First: Bruce Edgar did far better by himself. This is very interesting question. I would say that Bruce did not do “better” by himself and from what I have observed that was the most ambitious commercial project Bruce was involved. This what bring me to some sadness: this Chinese project might be a last public hurrah for Mr. Edgar and it is unfortunately that it is in the hand of idiots who do not care too much to advance horn topology for sound reproduction. However, saying all of it we need very clearly understand what is going on with DSP and what the relation between DSP and Bruce Edgar. DSP asked Bruce to design horns for them and pay him to license his name. They also continue interview Bruce for future marketing as there is a lot of what that guy at the video above says taken directly from Bruce playbook. So, can we consider that DSP as a company is “what Bruce did”. I very much do not think so. In my view Bruce is not a fruit of Mr. Edgar labor. He contributed some consulting time to the project but the final outcome and responsibility for the quality of product are strictly on the shoulders of Chinese guys. It is sad that it is in the hand of that racist Moron who so flamboyantly presented himself during the last few days at this site. I feel I have enough from him and he can go to die with his little pathetic secret.

Second: Is it the best that those engineers have to offer? This is an intricate question. Over the last 20 years that I in one way or another get involved with horns I had 4 people who visited me and liked the result I go with Macondo so much that they decided to replicate it. Knowing who the people were and understanding their relationship with sensory/actions pattern I very much recommended them do not duplicate Macondo. I told them use the Macondo axioms and build you own playback if you wish to but they decided to replica exactly what they had in my room, committing the best illustration of celebrated Cargo Cult that I’ve even seen. They bought the same drivers, the same filters, the same everything, even one guy bout the same turntables. The result was a disaster in all occasions.

You see, horns are very tricky, in a way the whole audio is, and Sound from horns are not the output from drivers and horns but rather a reflection of the system designer/owner will, consciousness, creativity and love to result. It is hard to understand to most of people how little micro-decisions among audio expressive methods in a way act like a dairy of person soil. I can give you many examples all over the audio field how creative awareness of a specific person have overwritten any rules of game with very positive result. There is a tone of opposite examples, like the 4 guys who replicated Macondo, let me give you one more. A few months back there was Josh (martinshorn), a German guy who visited me and did not like himself in my listening room. Josh told me very interesting story that I knew ending very well, understating who Josh was. Many years back Josh visited some kind of fellow who spent many years to build his own very non-orthodox playback. Josh told that it was absolutely the best sound he ever heard in his life, whatever it means. A few years later the guy who made that non-orthodox playback had a catastrophic health event and from what I understood audio stopped to be his interest. Josh then approached the system owner and bought out everything the guy did, the whole system. So, now Josh owns this system for a few years and he never was able to get from it a sonic result that even remotely resembling of what he heard in the room of the original owner/designer. This is exactly how it should be knowing who Josh was. The very same with ESD. Having in this disposal am array of good driver or good horn does not mean that they will be able to get any coherent sound out of them. So, what Herb Reichert wrote in his final Munich report was most likely accurate: $265K of drivers, $370K of horns, $200K of electronics but zero of sonic or musical merit.

What I am sing is any technology in hands of barbarian produce barbarian results. The fact that some Chinese industrialists licensed some horns and drivers does not mean they will be able to capitalize on the driver and horns capacity. Not because they are Chinese as the idiot-Djjjj fears but because they do not look like people who care about result and sound too much. They care to create a veneer of success over this business venture. Good for them but it has nothing to do with what I am interested in audio and in horns. As far as I concern the whole business idea to produce super expensive horn is ridicules. We all know why it is done and let not make secret out of it. They make a big splash with a complex and ambition installation, with irrelevant result and then using it the splash publicity from that “big system” they push retail of crappy “boombox”. This model was run by many companies. They most likely accidental people and certainly in the world of multi-channel complex horn systems. In a few years ESD will be exporting different “items” and the noise will be gone. I would not care too much about them. Their 15 mins of fame is over, at least at my site.

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