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Lucio Cadeddu interviewing Dieter Ennemoser.

In my continuing effort to:

1)Find some common ground between Objectivists & Subjectivists, because I believe we are both partially right & wrong in our beliefs.
2)Appease the Objectivists here by doing my own research and/or homework.

I've been looking on the internet for articles of interest. During my search I found this article, wherein Lucio Cadeddu is interviewing Dieter Ennemoser.

Dieter lives in Austria. He's a violinmaker & audio researcher. His first interests were in science (at age fourteen) This was soon followed by music & sound experiences. While studying mechanical engineering, Dieter spent much time building speakers & amplifiers. He also took lessons in playing the piano & the violoncello. At about that time Dieter got that certain and distinct feeling, that some sounds have great appeal and meaning to us. Yet there was not a clue in physics that explained how "these sounds" could be produced or how they could be expressed scientifically. "These sounds" seemed to exist in voices, musical instruments & even in some technical devices, like speaker chassis and tube amps. Yet any time you would try to measure them, they proved to be 100% elusive.

Dieter states he's not talking about the common fallacies:

1)That the musical sound of tubes is produced mainly by second order distortion.
2) That the frequency response curve of pickups is the reason for their musicality.

Dieter continued by in defense of 1 & 2 above by stating for over 30 years everybody has had the opportunity to simulate the 2nd order harmonics on a synthesizer or a keybord, with little results in terms of "musicality". Also to be considered is there are instruments without 2nd order harmonics, yet nevertheless they sound musical. To Dieter it is boring to hear the same baseless arguments repeated for years and years, only because there once existed a "white paper". The same applies to frequency response curves. One can bend the frequency response with an equalizer, but you cannot reproduce "certain properties" of musical instruments. Boring again hearing these over-simplified theories repeated and repeated!

Dieter claims his research was practical. The instruments he made, more than 140 violins, violas and violoncellos, were the object of his acoustical research. Soon Dieter realized that physics, the way it was taught and understood, was not enough to cope with the acoustical tasks of a good violin (or perhaps SET amp and/or other audio components that measure poorly yet sound great -thetubeguy1954)

Dieter furthers by claiming he had to prepare his brain for new challenges and HE HAD TO BE OPEN MINDED FOR NEW THEORIES. Instead of accumulating knowledge from outside sources, Dieter stopped reading scientific articles and audio magazines. For ten years the only things Dieter read have been Donald Duck and Clever & Smart (by F.Ibanez) Comics.

Dieter's companions were the young members of the orchestra of the Music school of Innsbruck, in which he fortunately was allowed to play, instead of physicists and degreed scientists! (I guess he didn't want all the negativity -thetubeguy1954)

I'm sure those final 2 paragraphs will cause 99% of the Objectivists here to claim Dieter is another "crack-pot". But I personally find it refreshing that others are trying to discover reasons why components be they SET amps or instruments without 2nd order harmonics can nevertheless sound musical!

Dieter asks this, What makes a full sound in a violin?

In an effort to answer that question, Dieter dismantled, altered and rebuilt his first two violins some 70X each. In doing so he realized what was not attainable in tone quality with classical mechanics alone. Of course the laws of classical mechanics play an important part; the balance of tone and good response are a result of these natural laws, but the sound character, the tone, the depth and warmth of the sound are determined by other criteria. Dieter had to make dozens of new violins to realize that even tiny differences in wood properties made big differences in sound.

You can read the entire article by clicking on the link provided. Whether you agree or disagree, you have to give Dieter credit for thinking outside the box. In any event it makes an interesting read that I'm sure will cause a stir here on PHP.

Thetubeguy1954

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Topic - Lucio Cadeddu interviewing Dieter Ennemoser. - thetubeguy1954 09:20:59 06/19/06 (131)
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