katana1100
04-08-2011, 10:22 AM
Back in '91, my best friend and I went on a saturday field trip to the Harmon speaker works in Northridg, CA. The engineer who gave us this treat, Dr. Fahner Murray was their compression driver engineer. He lived about three houses away from best friend, about 40 houses away from me on the same street, we were in marching band with his son.
His background- he had a phd in electrical/mechanical engineering.He spent most of his career working for Altec Lansing. He told us that once, a society of japanese audio buffs paid for him to visit Japan, lecture and see their systems (these were very rich people!). Their systems all had vintage Altec Lansing speakers, american made tube amps and high turntables- not a CD player to be found. Kind of funny that at the time, most people thought the best audio stuff was from japan, but the japanese who had $ and could get anything they want owned old american equipment. And, he added, all the systems sounded incredible.
At the lab, he explained how compression drivers worked, the pros and cons. At the moment, they were having a hard time keeping up with demand for aluminum enclosured CD's. All those indoor stadiums failed to account for the weight of speakers for concerts, the aluminum ones were in high demand.
JBL was doing research on titanium when the engineer died unexpectedly. They hired Murray away from Altec and here he was. I don't think there were any other engineers working on the CD, just him. He did have a young engineer he was showing the ropes, he said it was his replacement as he would be retiring in the near future.
In the lab, there was a computer and monitor that showed 3d representation of a diaphragm moving really, really slow. He pointed out how some parts were moving back when the rest was moving forward ("That's cancellation"). He said the ideal material for a driver would be rigid as glass and light as a feather. Berylium was out for legal reasons, so they used titanium. He tossed a couple of titanium diaphragsm to use, they flew across the table like airborne nipples.
He admitted that his hearing is not as good as it once was (this happens to everyone he added) so relies on his equipment.
I saw two power amps- a Harmon Kardon on a bottom shelf and a Yamaha on the work bench. For those who debate which is better, hope this answers that question:
Harmon industries owns Harmon Kardon. Every engineer is issued a Harmon Kardon amp. Harmon was asked by Yamaha to make their speakers. As a gift, every engineer was given a Yamaha amp. Well, they tried the amps and they loved them, ran cooler, better qualities, so they used them all the time and they shelved the Harmon Kardon amps. Whenver old man Harmon came for a visit (maybe once every couple of months) they'd hide the yamaha amps and put Harmon Kardon amps on the bench (don't want to upset him with the competitors amps !).
JBL has always been consider the line better than Infinity. Infinity uses crossover made in house, JBL used xovers sourced somewhere. He pick out some xovers and showed us the difference in quality. Flat wire is best for voice coils, but costs a lot more $. So, what JBL does is they buy large spools of regular wire and pass it under an enormous concrete wheel which flattens it. It is not as pretty as the pricey stuff, but performance wise, it was the same.
We passed by a closet with lots of woofer cones of all sizes. He said that paper is actually a pretty good material for woofers, is self damping. Plastic was in the vogue mainly because it helps sells. He said speaker design is 1/3 engineering 1/3 art and 1/3 marketing.
We passed through the loading dock. People bring their JBL monitor's there to be tested and reconed. Some of the speakers we saw were decades old .
"Why don't they just replace them with something new?" I asked. He told us that these speakers are owned by people who mix music and sound for movies, these speakers are their bread and butter. If they replaced them, their sound (of their mixes) will change as well.
We passed pallets of speakers waiting to shipped, passed a few that had "Yamaha" printed on them.
I asked if there were other speakers he liked and surprisingly, rattled off a number of names (Wharfdale, B&W, M&K and Boston) as speakers he thought were pretty good. I then asked "What about Bose?" and his demeaner suddenly a change and he said "Bose is a fraud!" and left it at that.
He said among the speaker companies, there is very little competition,in fact, he meets with some of them (about 60, tight group) once a year, they talk shop, very friendly group.
He said that he felt that the biggest advancement he has seen in speaker design was the use of titanium. Developing the drivers was half the challenge, getting it produced on a large scale was another challenge.He also said it is a mistake to think that newer meant better as old speakers can and do sound excellent. He added that older speakers can have better quality, especially in cabinet design than newer ones.
There are lots of good speakers out there, just pick the ones you want. JBL didn't try to make speakers that sound good; they tried making speakers that were honest, would reproduce source as accurately as possible. His personal speakers in his house were Altec Lansing compression drivers in brick enclosures built into the wall. He said it was probably overkill for his small living room, but he design them and took pride in it,they were his work, so that is what he went with.
I was there on saturday, the only lines working were making SM120's and cheap tv speakers. I saw the giant (maybe 1000 gallons?) steel tank that was filled with white glue to assemble the cabinets. I asked if I could take pictures and he said "That would not be a good idea!". For all I know, they might have shipped production out of country by now.
His office was to the right of the guys that designed infinity and JBL home speakers. If you were to count how many people there actually designed speakers, probably be under 10.
His background- he had a phd in electrical/mechanical engineering.He spent most of his career working for Altec Lansing. He told us that once, a society of japanese audio buffs paid for him to visit Japan, lecture and see their systems (these were very rich people!). Their systems all had vintage Altec Lansing speakers, american made tube amps and high turntables- not a CD player to be found. Kind of funny that at the time, most people thought the best audio stuff was from japan, but the japanese who had $ and could get anything they want owned old american equipment. And, he added, all the systems sounded incredible.
At the lab, he explained how compression drivers worked, the pros and cons. At the moment, they were having a hard time keeping up with demand for aluminum enclosured CD's. All those indoor stadiums failed to account for the weight of speakers for concerts, the aluminum ones were in high demand.
JBL was doing research on titanium when the engineer died unexpectedly. They hired Murray away from Altec and here he was. I don't think there were any other engineers working on the CD, just him. He did have a young engineer he was showing the ropes, he said it was his replacement as he would be retiring in the near future.
In the lab, there was a computer and monitor that showed 3d representation of a diaphragm moving really, really slow. He pointed out how some parts were moving back when the rest was moving forward ("That's cancellation"). He said the ideal material for a driver would be rigid as glass and light as a feather. Berylium was out for legal reasons, so they used titanium. He tossed a couple of titanium diaphragsm to use, they flew across the table like airborne nipples.
He admitted that his hearing is not as good as it once was (this happens to everyone he added) so relies on his equipment.
I saw two power amps- a Harmon Kardon on a bottom shelf and a Yamaha on the work bench. For those who debate which is better, hope this answers that question:
Harmon industries owns Harmon Kardon. Every engineer is issued a Harmon Kardon amp. Harmon was asked by Yamaha to make their speakers. As a gift, every engineer was given a Yamaha amp. Well, they tried the amps and they loved them, ran cooler, better qualities, so they used them all the time and they shelved the Harmon Kardon amps. Whenver old man Harmon came for a visit (maybe once every couple of months) they'd hide the yamaha amps and put Harmon Kardon amps on the bench (don't want to upset him with the competitors amps !).
JBL has always been consider the line better than Infinity. Infinity uses crossover made in house, JBL used xovers sourced somewhere. He pick out some xovers and showed us the difference in quality. Flat wire is best for voice coils, but costs a lot more $. So, what JBL does is they buy large spools of regular wire and pass it under an enormous concrete wheel which flattens it. It is not as pretty as the pricey stuff, but performance wise, it was the same.
We passed by a closet with lots of woofer cones of all sizes. He said that paper is actually a pretty good material for woofers, is self damping. Plastic was in the vogue mainly because it helps sells. He said speaker design is 1/3 engineering 1/3 art and 1/3 marketing.
We passed through the loading dock. People bring their JBL monitor's there to be tested and reconed. Some of the speakers we saw were decades old .
"Why don't they just replace them with something new?" I asked. He told us that these speakers are owned by people who mix music and sound for movies, these speakers are their bread and butter. If they replaced them, their sound (of their mixes) will change as well.
We passed pallets of speakers waiting to shipped, passed a few that had "Yamaha" printed on them.
I asked if there were other speakers he liked and surprisingly, rattled off a number of names (Wharfdale, B&W, M&K and Boston) as speakers he thought were pretty good. I then asked "What about Bose?" and his demeaner suddenly a change and he said "Bose is a fraud!" and left it at that.
He said among the speaker companies, there is very little competition,in fact, he meets with some of them (about 60, tight group) once a year, they talk shop, very friendly group.
He said that he felt that the biggest advancement he has seen in speaker design was the use of titanium. Developing the drivers was half the challenge, getting it produced on a large scale was another challenge.He also said it is a mistake to think that newer meant better as old speakers can and do sound excellent. He added that older speakers can have better quality, especially in cabinet design than newer ones.
There are lots of good speakers out there, just pick the ones you want. JBL didn't try to make speakers that sound good; they tried making speakers that were honest, would reproduce source as accurately as possible. His personal speakers in his house were Altec Lansing compression drivers in brick enclosures built into the wall. He said it was probably overkill for his small living room, but he design them and took pride in it,they were his work, so that is what he went with.
I was there on saturday, the only lines working were making SM120's and cheap tv speakers. I saw the giant (maybe 1000 gallons?) steel tank that was filled with white glue to assemble the cabinets. I asked if I could take pictures and he said "That would not be a good idea!". For all I know, they might have shipped production out of country by now.
His office was to the right of the guys that designed infinity and JBL home speakers. If you were to count how many people there actually designed speakers, probably be under 10.