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Background
Historical backgroundA small presentation by me - a hi-fi enthusiast who has become more of a music enthusiast with time. Who also is - closest to the heart - a speaker designer. But I have mainly run the Hi-Fi shop Tonläget of Gothenburg since 1986. Hi-Fi furniture probably has more in common with speakers than you might think! It deals with various mechanical parts each with its own mass, and more or less linear springs and dampers, and their interaction. The same is true for acoustic musical instruments!The reason I started testing different shelf constructions was partly because I had the feeling that the furniture we come in contact with was not quite optimal - also manufacturers of Hi-Fi furniture tended to change importers now and then, which meant that sometimes we could not continue selling the same shelf... But the need for sensible furniture in the store has also been a driving force! The better the furniture - the clearer the distinction between different devices! When we had our first musical evening with the Linn CD12-player, I felt dissatisfied with the rack we had in the listening room. I decided to remove them, and put in the old Ikea lacquer tables and the difference was much greater than I thought. I bought new sleek lacquer tables and they sounded almost as good as the old. But we only had room for four components in the room. When I stacked and glued together several tables it was no longer musically so great. Now there was no turning back. After about half a year of testing the first version of the Harmoni rack was ready. The goal initially was to obtain the same performance as Ikea Paint tables but without the same space as four tables. Then I worked to make the shelf better and better. You could say that the basis for the Harmoni shelf is experience from home visits and installations during the 25 years I have worked with Hi-Fi installation. A single home visit may not lead to any direct conclusions, but over time you get a bit of a feel for what sounds good. The modified Ikea Lack tables were very light, and at the beginning I had the idea that it must be light to get good sound. Heavy, cheap furniture usually sounded bad, but it turned out that the large heavy antique furniture sometimes sounded great. I began to suspect the material used was significant. What is heavy or light must also be seen in relation to the equipment weight and mass of the floor. The weight must be what it must be, but not any heavier! Anders Simonsson General theories and "ideas"Basic Ideas of the Harmoni shelf
What makes music? - and what is the ear most susceptible to?A very complex issue, and perhaps not so important because we know the answer within us. You could say that music is an artistic pattern of sound. The actual sounds are of course mostly from instruments that humans have honed through the centuries to create a tool that as clearly as possible conveys a rhythm or melody. Reasonably most instruments, and music as a whole, are adapted from what our hearing is most sensitive to. We are most sensitive to frequency changes that occur four times per second, which is close to the duration of syllables and sounds in the spoken language, and is also consistent with "normal" rate elements of music.The actual audio signal, which is the carrier* of the musical information, is between 20 and 20,000 cycles per second (or Hz). But the frequency of the musical information or frequency of "pattern music" (the modulations of level) is something completely different. The basic pulse of the music is often located around 1 Hz (1 / s) - verses have a much lower frequency, while a fast drum roll may be able to come up in the range of 100Hz? In music it is essential that there is information well below 20Hz! It has also been shown that we are sensitive to very rapid irregular frequency modulations called jitter. So the real fact is that the area of music reproduction has to cover is much greater than 20-20,000 Hz. The higher rates will not go into the furniture. In contrast, the furniture is of great importance for the lower frequencies where we are sensitive to frequency modulation - (in other words, low frequency disturbances in pitch). Musical information*The audio signal is not only a carrier of the musical information, as the tune has its own inherent harmony and meaning so an important part of the musical information is to be found within the audio spectrum!This part - is to some degree - theories - not 100% confirmed! What is the musical information is not straightforward, and it is really not the same as the actual music pattern, or modulations, which we may call it - for example if we have a constant rhythm of a drum machine, then of course any rate is completely predictable, and that means that a new rate does not really contain any new information - information is not needed until there is a disagreement with predictable, i.e. the small timing errors a real drummer uses to create inertia, feeling and interaction with the other musicians. The melody itself is the tones, the most unexpected of which contain the most information - for example if you have three equal tones followed by another different note, this is certainly more interesting. The more complex the mathematical relationship between the new and the previous tone, the more dramatic and informative it becomes. But this is to digress a little too far... |
 Big picture
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In the diagram above, which is only roughly in principle, and probably partially inaccurate, I illustrate how wide the frequency range of music is of concern when we take account of the musical events (modulation levels in music).
How can some hi-fi furniture sound nice but boring?A piece of furniture which suppresses vibrational disturbances within 20-20000Hz, but has not taken account for the low frequency interference that both Hi-Fi equipment and our MUSICAL EAR are sensitive to. The music can then sound clean and nice but mechanical, and the music becomes difficult to absorb.How can some hi-fi furniture sound catchy but monotonous?Not far from clear - and I myself have ended up here with some prototypes - probably too much optimization of the "frequency range for the rhythm information ", but more interference in other areas? |