Dick Burwen's 20,000 Watt Home Hi-Fi System
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BURWEN BOBCAT products derived from AUDIO SPLENDOR work with the Windows Media Player. Listen to our
WEB DEMONSTRATION at www.burwenbobcat.com. Sorry, AUDIO SPLENDOR and BURWEN BOBCAT
products are no longer available for downloading. Learn more at www.burwenbobcat.com.
For PROFESSIONAL MASTERING, project studios, live performance, and skilled audiophiles The daddy of BURWEN BOBCAT AUDIO SPLENDOR Software tone controls and ambiance generation in 1 to 7.1 channels Burwen Recorder-Player, NO SCREECH, and advanced BURWEN BOBCAT
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How is it used?
Using 12 of the sliders above, on the screen of a notebook PC, you balance to your taste the tone and ambiance of
any 1 to 8 channel program source played through all your speakers. Then you save the settings in a library. The
next time you click on that program name, it automatically recalls your entire system setup and tone control positions
to produce the same sound. Clicking a track in the Windows Media Player that has a corresponding Subtitle will also
recall the system sound.
The software is designed to work in stereo with the computer's sound card, or in multi-channel with an added
external MOTU 828MK3 Hybrid Audio Interface. A number of networked notebook PCs can act as wireless remote
controllers, enabling you to perfect the sound at your listening position.
For re-mastering it DirectX plugs into 32-bit editing software The Burwen Recorder-Player records what you hear
and provides high speed file conversion to processed stereo and multichannel formats.
What else does it do?
AUDIO SPLENDOR can store individual speaker equalization that adds as much as an octave to low frequency
response. It can store source compensation, for example to flatten phono response or match CD. You can boost
low frequencies up to 80 dB with accuracy and steps of only 0.1 dB. When you select the number of input channels
it automatically configures the mix of direct signal and ambiance to all your speakers - and you can change it all any
way you like.
How does it clarify sound?
Adding reflections of extreme high frequency sound, not available from any other reverberation system or real room,
and balancing the tone makes recordings sound fuller, smoother, more musical, and much cleaner without sounding
hollow. Brasses become brassier. Stereo CDs play through multi-channel speakers with subtle ambiance and,
exceed unprocessed SACDs and analog recordings. When watching movies voices become easier to understand
and gun shots and crashes have real impact. The ambiance generation greatly reduces high frequency irritants that
contribute to listening fatigue, whether originating from the recording or transmission process, studio mixing, original
music instruments, or dry acoustics at recording or playback.
Why is AUDIO SPLENDOR essential?
All audio systems and program sources need tone controls that can precisely balance the sound you hear. Frequency
response is the most important characteristic of a sound system, and your ears are far more sensitive to the general
trend of the response than commonly expected. As little as 0.1 dB becomes important when the tonal balance is
near optimum. No acoustic measurement or automatic equalization system is anywhere near accurate enough.
Thousands of ripples in the frequency response produced by our unique high frequency reverberation bring back the
feeling of music and reduce imperfections. AUDIO SPLENDOR is not just for turning an explosion into an
earthquake. For the perfectionist who wants to accurately match the original acoustic sound it provides the high
resolution in 0.1 db steps needed for small adjustments in tonal balance that make a significant improvement in
naturalness and imaging. In professional use it is an essential tool for making 5-channel SACDs or DVDs from older
two-channel program material by adding subtle ambiance in all the channels.
Dick Burwen - Burwen Audio 2012
For 70 years I have been trying to produce the most entertaining sound in my own hi-fi systems. My "20,000 Watt
Home Hi-Fi System"* was pictured on the cover of AUDIO, April 1976. You can print or read my article "20,000
Watt Home Hi-Fi Gets Digital EQ"* from Audio, April 1995 describing the two-channel predecessor of AUDIO
SPLENDOR. Altogether I spent 12 man-years developing AUDIO SPLENDOR and a companion ambiance
generation application for my own sound system. This program places subtle artificial reverberation in each
speaker channel that makes brasses brassier and violins sweeter in a way that no acoustic space can produce. On
low-reverberant program material such as my own older jazz recordings I can completely change the sound.
AUDIO SPLENDOR includes push buttons for my best outputs. The sound is better than I dreamed and it was
worth every minute.
I have been privileged to record many classical symphony concerts in what I think is the best hall in the world –
Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory, Boston, Massachusetts. Only two omnidirectional microphones,
about 7 feet apart and aimed at the ceiling, captured both the orchestra and the hall. Now, for my own sound
system, I am remastering some of my 35 years of recordings so I can hear them sounding better balanced, more
musical, and in 5 channels.
At Jordan Hall, which holds only 1000 people, I have three favorite seats – the middle of the 4th row for intimate
details, the 12th row for glorious surround, and the 4th row in the balcony for brilliance. With AUDIO SPLENDOR’s
precise tone controls and selection of 313 different high frequency reverberations I can combine all three attributes
and even select which row I seem to be sitting in. The sound is not the same as in Jordan Hall, but it is at least as
enjoyable.
Consumer Products
BURWEN BOBCAT TR and BOBCAT MOBILE (built into some LG cell phones a few years ago) use fixed outputs
from AUDIO SPLENDOR. BURWEN BOBCAT TONE BALANCER is the essence of AUDIO SPLENDOR.
WEB DEMONSTRATION
Visit our WEB DEMONSTRATION of BURWEN BOBCAT TONE BALANCER for one example of how AUDIO
SPLENDOR works.
*This file is in Adobe .pdf format If you do not have the Adobe Reader installed, you can download it for free from
Adobe Reader XI.
PATENT NOTICE
United States Patent No. US8041045
AUDIO SPLENDOR Tone Controls
High resolution recordings
The current outpouring of high resolution versions of old recordings now gives you perfect copies of mediocre source
material. Some are so unbalanced and screechy that they make loud listening intolerable, only slightly better than
prior CDs. Use AUDIO SPLENDOR, with its precise wide range shelf and peaking tone controls, together with its
high frequency reverberation and NO SCREECH dynamic filter, to make new musical sound that is easy listening.
BURWEN PRODUCTS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE
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March 20, 2021
My home in Lexington, Massachusetts is designed around my 20,000 watt,169 speaker audio system. After 80 years as an
audio enthusiast and 58 years as a professional circuit design consultant, I find I am mostly retired to listening to recordings,
remastering my own, still learning how to make ever better sound with my Audio Splendor software, and trying to
understand basic information about modern technological developments. My wonderful wife Barbara and I have been
married nearly 65 years.
Read about my 20,000 watt home audio system in these two websites, and 170 tweets with pictures at both Twitter and
LinkedIn. Search Google for twitter.com - RBurwen or linkedin.com - Richard Burwen.
In my very gratifying electronics career I designed circuits for numerous medical instruments, industrial controls, laboratory
test instruments, power amplifiers, power supplies, aircraft instruments, and analog integrated circuits. Among my three most
difficult and satisfying projects was my Noise Eliminator system that increased the dynamic range of an analog tape recorder
from 60 dB to 110 dB. Another was a magnetometer that for several years measured the magnetic field of the moon from
orbit. Last is my Audio Splendor software that adds extreme high frequency reverberation for a big improvement in my own
unique audio system. It required 1,400,000 mathematic equations, each up to 150 characters long, and 8 years at 60 hours
per week.
Dick Burwen
Richard S. Burwen
Burwen Technology
12 Holmes Rd
Lexington, MA 02420-1917