The B.A.S. Speaker
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THE B.A.S. SPEAKER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Brad Meyer Subscriptions & Membership Information COORDINATING EDITOR: Peter W. Mitchell THE BOSTON AUDIO SOCIETY P.O. BOX 7 STAFF: Robert Borden, Alvin Foster, John Schlafer, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02215 Jack Stevens VOLUME 8, NUMBER 10 PUBLISHER: Peter W. Mitchell, President, BAS JULY 1980 THE BOSTON AUDIO SOCIETY DOES NOT ENDORSE OR CRITICIZE PRODUCTS, DEALERS, OR SERVICES. OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THEIR AUTHORS AND ARE FOR THE INFORMA- TION OF THE MEMBERS. REPRODUCTION OF ANY PORTION OF THIS NEWSLETTER FOR ANY PURPOSE WHATSOEVER WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. In This Issue In response to numerous requests this issue also includes comprehensive This issue is part of our big subscription information on most of the catch-up effort: the second of English-language audio publications three issues to go to press within which we abstract in the IN THE LIT about six weeks. Its contents in- column and recommend that you read. clude two BAS meeting reports, a double dose of IN THE LITERATURE, This issue is also an experiment and a collection of three reports in typography. We have occasionally on interesting things seen and heard wondered whether setting the SPEAKER at the Consumer Electronics Show in in double columns, rather than one June. long line of type running the full width of the page, would make it The regular June meeting featured easier to read. Let us know what Tony Federici of Scheiber Sonics you think. and an old Boston boy, Daniel Queen, with an interesting exploration of On the other hand, circumstances acoustics and imaging. A special dictated that this issue be produced bonus June meeting featured some on an IBM Selectric, whose letters guests from Japan: Mr. Naotake Hayashi, are aligned vertically as well as President of Stax, with some sweet- horizontally. This tends to make sounding equipment designs, and Mr. large blocks of type more difficult Saburou Egawa, reviewer and consultant, to read. So, whether single column with some startling ideas and pro- or double, we definitely intend to vocative demonstrations. Perhaps revert to our previous typeface (with the latter will provoke not only a proportional spacing of letters) in lot of discussion but also some in- the next issue. formative experiments. The B.A.S. Speaker (ISSN 0195-0908) is published monthly by The Boston Audio Society, Trapelo Road, Lincoln, MA 01773. Subscriptions are available to members of the Society. Membership dues are $12 per year, October 1 through September 30 ($25 U.S. currency overseas, including air mail). $11.45 of the dues are a subscription to The B.A.S. Speaker including all issues of the applicable membership year. For further information and application form, write to The Boston Audio Society, P.O. Box 7, Kenmore Square Station, Boston, MA 02215. Second-class postage paid at Boston, MA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: The B.A.S. Speaker, P.O. Box 7, Boston, MA 02215. Copyright ® 1980 The Boston Audio Society Vol. 8, Num. 10 July, 1980 The BAS Speaker OCRed from printed copy - errors possible. Used Equipment Broker The newsletter is to be published monthly and distributed nationally via first-class mail. Over the years my interest in audio The goal of the NEEE is to help has led to the purchase of used equip- develop a larger and more efficient ment from various sources. In the market for used audio equipment. Ad- Boston area the Phoenix, Want ADver- ditionally, readers of the newsletter tiser, and Boston Globe, as well as will be advised of industry news -- the odd poster nailed on neighborhood technical developments and business trees, all offer used audio equipment successes (or setbacks) that may affect for sale. As with any other aspiring the market value of audio equipment. local buyer I may respond to the ad, A subscription to the newletter will visit the seller, examine the item in be priced at $12.00. question, and may use anything from a The advice and experience of B.A.S. deft kick to a portable oscilloscope to members is urgently solicited, to make complete my notion of analysis of the this a useful service to the interested products condition. audiophile. Members are invited to call When the ad is in a national pub- or write for a free sample copy. lication (Audio, Audiomart, B.A.S. New England Electronics Exchange Speaker) rather than a local one, the Box 82, Harvard Square audiophile does not enjoy the same op- Cambridge MA 02138 portunity of inspection. Of course, a satisfactory transaction will instill 617/491-3000 (Sun-Thur , 6<l0 pm EDT) confidence in the rare situation where We anticipate publishing the first issue one has future dealings with the same on or about October 1, 1980. seller. The majority of the people with whom I have dealt over the past -- Jay Honeycutt (Massachusetts) ten years have been reasonably honest in describing their equipment, and my reliance in their good faith has been well placed. However, some have been Patent News coy or misleading about a units his- tory and condition and others alarmingly In recent years audio magazine has tardy in paying for equipment delivered established an annual tradition of includ- to them. It is due to the latter elegy ing in each April issue an imaginative ment that a certain anxiety accompanies review of a product credited to a de- ones more typical dealing with a new signer with the retrograde name "I.LIRPA." and distant voice. One of the best examples, in the April 1978 My effort to deal with the situa- issue, was the I. Lirpa VDRS Vehicular tion described above is called the New Disc Reproduction System, a universally England Electronics Exchange. In ef- useful "direct drive" record playing fect, I will serve as broker between system. Its operation was based upon buyer and seller. A monthly newsletter the stationary disc/moving cartridge will be distributed which will list e- principle. The record was played while quipment offered for sale by individuals lying on a table. The record playing Each listing will include a description system was a cartridge body to which an of the unit offered, using grading axle, wheels, and a drive system had scales developed for this purpose. For been added so that the cartridge would a 10% service fee (to be deducted from drive itself around the record in a the sales price) I will receive payment spiral path (not to be confused with from the buyer on the sellers behalf, car stereo, of course!). instruct the seller where the unit is You may have thought the VDRS was to be shipped, and release the payment purely a joke. The editors of Audio may to the seller once the buyer has had have thought the VDRS was purely a joke. an opportunity to inspect the unit. But Ira Leonard has found, in the Patent In this transaction the element of Review column of the March 1980 Journal uncertainty is to be resolved for the of the Acoustical Society of America benefit of both buyer and seller. The (Vol.67 No.3, p.1099) a description of seller is guaranteed that he will re- U.S. Patent No. 4,166,624, granted to ceive full and prompt payment for the Y. Mori, S. Tamura, S. Hoshimi, and S. equipment shipped. The buyer is guar- Yasuda, who have assigned their rights anteed that the equipment received will in the patent to Sony Corporation. The be as described; if not he is free to patent was applied for on May 23. 1978 return the unit and his money will be and was granted by the U.S. Patent Office refunded in full by the Exchange. on Sept. 4, 1979. 2 What is the invention described But as luck would have it, during in U.S. Patent 4,166,624? It is a the past year my work as consultant record player, described in the JASA has involved a number of tests of summary as follows --"a little bus prototype headphones for clients, so which scoots about the record using I have been exposed to a number of the groove for its tracks. The outer different headphone models of vary- rear wheel, 4b, is larger in diameter ing quality and type. And I have than the inner rear wheel, 4a, so developed a procedure for measuring that the little vehicle tends to move the frequency response of headphones in a circular path." The tiny van body which appears to correlate fairly contains a battery, drive circuitry well with the gross subjective dif- for the wheels, an amplifier, and a ferences I hear. ("Gross" is an ap- little speaker. Trailing the van, propriate word here, as the frequency and connected to it via a universal response aberrations and colorations joint, is a stubby tone arm, head- of many headphones from reputable shell, and cartridge. The illustra- manufacturers are indeed gross, far tion below is reproduced from Sonys larger than the response errors among patent. todays better loudspeakers. Response deviations of ± 10dB are common and ± 20 dB not unheard of.) The key to the measurement is a "coupler" which, while unorthodox in construction, mimics fairly well the acoustic absorption properties of the human head and provides a surface on which the headphone is mounted, plus a hole in which the microphone of the Ivie IE-30A spectrum analyzer is Do you suppose Sonys engineers installed to measure the headphones read Audio? The examiners at the U.S. output. (No attempt is made to re- Patent Office obviously dont, since produce in the coupler the convolu- I.