Does that mean you’re a little devil?

Yet another reason I'm happy to no longer be a habitual 'early adopter'
I’m THRILLED I jumped in, - 6 months of fun already…. that’s half a year! It interesting to note that most posters with or without (the hiss) …have ENJOYED the heck out of their 950, complimented it, and did not want or change to the alternatives.

Lena:

You have to admit that all the posting about hiss ultimately resulted in a better product for us, _and_ Outlaw

The horns mean that I'm horn..... oh, never mind!

Something involving squeaks, wheels and grease comes to mind...

Also - the 200 has a much nicer logo - not coincidence I bet.

Personally, I much prefer calm cool quiet private dialogue when attempting to squeak. And if that doesn’t work I break out the new outfit. (where is a 'wicked' grin smiley's when you need one) I find only mice tend to have squeaking down to a pleasant art, although I have been known to scream…but only momentarily to prevent someone from stepping in front of a car.

Admit? Admit what? Hasn’t your wife ever lent you her operating manual. We never ‘admit’ to anything, as it is frequently counterproductive. If we ‘admit’ you can be assured that some where the ensuing sentence will contain a ‘But, Still or Nonetheless’. It’s,…..It’s just….. one of the rules.

Ex: It is interesting to note that Outlaw has further lowered the noise floor of a product that was irregardless already a highly recommended and very satisfactory addition for those looking to upgrade their current pre/pro or making the break into separates. Exponentially increasing the already noticeable gap between the 950 and its competition.

Lena:

All I can say is that sometimes it pays to speak your mind when something isn't right, otherwise things have a tendency to not get resolved. Suffering in silence just ain't my style.

CH

It seems that SH was going along with the irrelevancy of efficiency - and we got it back to directivity of horns.

If you could re-state it with the above discussion taken into account, it would be appreciated (the repeating of the efficiency position - not necessarily the position .

SH:

The horns were made of lathed aluminum in a batch of 500 and because the non-horn version of the speaker was usually excellent enough in the small rooms where the speakers were sold - it was uneconomical to make another batch. A commerciaal calculation - not a technical one.

I was not sounding off on horns as I have no preejudice against them - just own experience (including selling god awful EV PA horns) has made me cautious of any one word/two word solutions. I had to put up with people running around claiming direct drive tt's were better than belt per se, moving coil better than moving magnet, closed better than reflex, etc. - without anyone questioning whether the ACTUAL technology was better that I approach such things with great caution. Horns - as almost anything else - can be good - IF they are good

John:

You've no doubt seen the Avant Garde horns from Germany? They are pretty hard-core looking. I heard them at a Stereophile show and wasn't impressed particularly. How about you? I am particularly sensitive to the traditional tendency of horns to sound 'honky' for lack of a better word. The Avant Gardes sounded honky to me. Actually, _most_ horn designs I've heard sound not so good, at least to my ears. It's taken about 50 pounds of "Aquaplas" on my high frequency horn (they're a couple feet wide at the mouth) to get them to sound right. The result _was_ worth it though.

I've also found that horns almost demand to be driven by tube amps, and single ended triode tube amps are even better.

Sure! I was hoping you wouldn't take that wrong and become angry. Good. My understanding of it in a nutshell:

If a signal chain is generating a noise output that is fixed verses signal output then a sensitive speaker will cause the noise to be more audible. For instance a set of 106 db/w speakers would make the noise 16db louder than a 90 db/w pair since the listener adjusts the signal volume to be equal with the preamp volume knob.

Thus the effective noise floor is raised.

The 'new' 950 raises and lowers the 'hiss' with the volume. The old one did not, although the (non-variable) noise was low enough not to be an issue for most.

Can you explain in "audio for dummies" terms why this is better? I had a "hissy" 950 that I returned to Outlaw, two of them actually. Though I'm not likely to risk trying another one, I'm curious to know why a hiss that tracks the volume setting on the preamp would be better or rather, less objectionable, than a hiss that was constant.

[This message has been edited by Ellen (edited November 27, 2002).]

If the hiss is constant regardless of gain, then hiss will be very noticeable at lower volume settings because there is little signal to mask it. If you have very efficient speakers, you will use the 950 at a lower gain (volume) setting. With the lower setting, the hiss is greater in proportion to the actual signal, but the amplifier sends both the noisy hiss and the lower signal to the speakers, causing the hiss to be very audible along with the signal.

Conversely, if the hiss level changes with gain level, it will be less at lower gain settings, keeping the hiss quieter when listening at low levels or with very efficient speakers.

Add to this the lower noise floor AND the greater gain that Soundhound measured, and you come up with a much quieter unit. (one that is about 40% as hissy as the old units at normal listening, but should be extremely quiet at lower listening levels!)