sound practices reading club /20

A final stab at speakers. To close off our current topic—speakers (first stabs)—we turn to sound practices issue 9 for Varying Degrees of Commitment by Don Garber. This sweet, little one-pager is built around a simple idea: Don discusses the four (or was that five?) speaker systems he had at the time. Within that unambitious scope and short column length he comes up with some valuable insights.

teaser quote: ‘If you’re listening to music you want to listen to, a plastic boombox is fine. But yes, there is something better. And it does make a difference. Is there a contradiction here? I don’t think so. But I don’t consider myself an “audiophile”.’

a gift from Joe Roberts, SP editor: from the sound practices CD, here is the original article.

my take

A guy owning four(+) speakers systems and describing them in an article as an answer to ‘what speaks to use?’ should be a recipe for disaster, right? Wall–to–wall bragging is pre-programmed, no? Well, I only came up with that pitfall today, thinking about the form of the article. In fact, I have always liked this article for being unpretentious, relativising the issue and delivering deeper insights at the same time. Exactly the right article to close this topic off with.

Reading the ‘whole’ thing, I am struck by the role immediacy plays for Don. That pushes my buttons too, now that I think about it. Got to measure things along that axis, instead of efficiency or dynamics, next time we are evaluating a system.

The ‘shop’ Don talks about is of course Fi, which had a brief cameo before. These days, Don is still too relaxed to have a website, but there are some nice articles, with nice pics, over on 6moons.

bonus tracks

You can read more about the Pipe Dream speaker in sound practices issue 5, In Search of an Efficient Speaker. Don’s ‘manufacturers’ comments’ there contains some must-read insights. There are five more stabs at speakers in there, too.

We are taking a break from speakers for while. Next week we will move on to a new class of components: line amps.

Now go and read the article, see you next week.