Hi-Fi mythology

[Geoff.R.G]

Many years ago, when I was first buying Hi-Fi dealers were saying that there should only be one set of transducers (speakers) in the demo room because another pair of speakers would affect the sound. Well obviously that just isn't possible in a domestic environment as we all had a TV in the same room and possibly a portable radio so Ladies and Gents, what do we think of that?

[Fretless]

Ideally there should also be no human beings in the room - Big lumpy things that really mess up a nice acoustic.

[alfer]

Speakers of a similar size or greater would possibly affect sound, smaller less likely.

[SteveTheShadow]

IMO it was ever more bullshit started by the Flat Earth. Initially I think it was a reasonable reaction by the smaller dealerships against the wall of speakers and comparator switch box that was prevalent in places like Lasky's. But as usual it got hijacked by the Linn/Naim mob, corrupted and twisted out of all recognition, such that even the tiny speaker in a Casio watch was bigged up as a contributor to poor sound from a Linn speaker setup. Absolute

I must have said this a thousand times, and every attempt was made to shout me down by Jez on AOS, (sod the arrogant prat) but here goes again...If a system can't produce a good sound in a normally equipped domestic room, occupied by normal people, then it's no use...period. I design my own speakers to work in a normal room, next to a wall, the Doc designed his cubes to work in normal environments, merely looking at a cube ought to tell you that, before you have even heard it FFS. The old guys designed corner speakers for the same reasons. Those wide, shallow large speakers from the 60s and 70s, bookshelf speakers need I go on?
Then came the 80s - the death of decent sound in the UK

[Classicrock]

I think the single speaker thing was more about demoing as they would be in a normal room. Getting all other speakers out of the room is hardly going to make much difference but at one time demos were conducted listening to a line of models up against a wall with more above on shelves. That was pretty useless.

[SteveTheShadow]

I think the single speaker thing was more about demoing as they would be in a normal room. Getting all other speakers out of the room is hardly going to make much difference but at one time demos were conducted listening to a line of models up against a wall with more above on shelves. That was pretty useless.

Yep thats what I thought I had said. It was a reaction to wall of speakers comparator thing, that got completely out of hand. I remember Jimmy Hughes coming to the same conclusion years ago and getting a heap of condemnation in the letters pages of hi-fi answers for daring to suggest that perhaps single speaker dem rooms in Linn dealers, that didn't allow digital watches were perhaps a step too far?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

(EDIT - not having seen previous posts) Per usual as with all things flat earth it was created by Linn. It was a story and brainwash in order to create a marketing advantage. And this is great achievement of Linn and genius of Ivor, to hi-jack virtually a whole industry with bullshit and get them to accept it as fact.

Most dealers even up to the 90's had a wall of sound. A wall of speakers wired up via a comparator so the salesman could switch between them to show different speakers to give the customer choice. The problem was so many speakers in close proximity all acting as passive radiators for the speaker that was playing. Also the comparator with all the switch contacts and wiring interfered considerably with fidelity. Some manufacturers notably Mission learned to use the wall to their advantage, they created squark boxes that shouted above the others and so sounded more impressive and instant in this situation, so they sold, but sounded strange when taken home. Bad system that was just convenient to the slurper (dealer) involved. Ivor rightly showed this as a load of bollocks and insisted his dealers used dem room and not comparitors, good for the customer. But Ivor being Ivor he took it too far and looked at how use it to maximise Linn sales. First he insisted his dealers always had a Linn system wired up to go, but there were other alternatives in the room easily wired up that could mean he loses a sale, so how to ban those speakers (and other gear) from the dem room. Ivor pronounces the single speaker testament from on high and all the dealers emptied their dem rooms. So now it was an effort to change equipment from the Linn incumbent, marketing purpose achieved, bad for the customer.

And what happens, it becomes just another hi-fi folk law that I have a laugh at and try to put right.

[antonio66]

No one mentions this now, a/v systems being all the rage.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

All those speakers are being driven, so no problem, it is unused speakers acting as passive radiators that cause problems. But in reality they have to grouped around each other to have much effect.

[Neonknight]

Ah I am a member of a board where it is the norm to collect a lot of audio gear. Much of it from the 60/70/80's and so on. Its not uncommon to see photos of rooms where there are four or 5 pair of speakers in a room. Some of them quite large, some serving as speaker stands for others, and so on and so forth. Personally I have never understood collections of that magnitude. 4 or 5 systems in a home, and back up gear to the back up system. So in those instances I could see where excess gear and speakers could compromise the sound.

Never heard this bit about speakers in digital watches being banned from listening rooms due to their negative effect on the system sound. Does common sense ever come into play? Amazing how we can get caught up in the arcane minutia of the hobby, and lose sight of the idea that its supposed to be fun.