I listened to them at Melbourne HiFi show last week. Really superb sounding speakers. They demonstrated how the directivity can be adjusted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3iipu0q1gc
I really like how Bang and Olufsen does not beat around the bush and brute-forced the implementation. 18 individually controlled drivers and all. I suppose have enough drivers and you can make any directivity you want!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6XV18vmv0
A$110k a pair. How would a DIYer respond to this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3iipu0q1gc
I really like how Bang and Olufsen does not beat around the bush and brute-forced the implementation. 18 individually controlled drivers and all. I suppose have enough drivers and you can make any directivity you want!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6XV18vmv0
A$110k a pair. How would a DIYer respond to this
I cannot help feeling that the amount of manufacturing prowess and time spent designing and building such a pair of speakers is just plain ludicrous. Very impressive in the conventional sense of interest in audio but........really! The law of diminishing returns surely renders the value for money to be extremely low.
How does a DIYer respond to this ? Simply by using about one thenth of the amount for really cool drivers and and build a box that doesn't look like a Tiki. ;-)
Don't get me wrong: Those scan speak drivers that are used are for sure very good ones but for USD10k you can get into TAD territory or similar.
Regards
Charles
Don't get me wrong: Those scan speak drivers that are used are for sure very good ones but for USD10k you can get into TAD territory or similar.
Regards
Charles
This is a flagship product. As such, it's mainly meant as a research project/technology demonstrator. The product itself is not meant to generate a surplus.
It's primary intention is to generate sales further down in the product lineup, while at the same time those few they sell helps pay a part of the development costs.
The real benefit will come when the technology tricles down into the more mainstream products.
DSP is already with us in mainstream products, and will probably fuel a lot of the consumer market. Sound bars, bluetooth speakers and small surround packages wouldn't be really sellable without some degree sound processing.
Johan-Kr
It's primary intention is to generate sales further down in the product lineup, while at the same time those few they sell helps pay a part of the development costs.
The real benefit will come when the technology tricles down into the more mainstream products.
DSP is already with us in mainstream products, and will probably fuel a lot of the consumer market. Sound bars, bluetooth speakers and small surround packages wouldn't be really sellable without some degree sound processing.
Johan-Kr
When they changed from narrow to omni to narrow again, it's clear that my preference is narrow directivity. If as they claim it's directional/cardioid to very low frequencies then we might need to move forward from 4-way barrier towards 6 or 8 way speakers. Like Kii Audio 3.
It is pretty achievable to build a full-range cardioid with 6 DSP & amps. Lower than that then compromises need to be made perhaps at lower frequency being omni.
I'm just happy and impressed that things like these are being developed by companies and they're not out to sell traditional speakers only.
It is pretty achievable to build a full-range cardioid with 6 DSP & amps. Lower than that then compromises need to be made perhaps at lower frequency being omni.
I'm just happy and impressed that things like these are being developed by companies and they're not out to sell traditional speakers only.
BTW: this speaker has already been discussed in detail in another thread:http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/280779-b-o-beolab-90-adjustable-directivity-dsp.html
Any diyer who is enterprising and savvy enough can uniformly control horizontal radiation pattern (to first order), passively, in ways that go well beyond conventional, even constant, narrowing-as-frequency-increases.
It just (just, he said) takes iterative very detailed measurements of horizontal radpat and considerable coding expertise to crunch the data and produce the complex crossover.
B&O do it way more efficiently and precisely with DSP.
But Mark Davis at dbx in the early 1980s produced a whole line of broadband-beamformed loudspeakers and wrote up the results accepted for publication in the AESJ, paper 8199, available at AES E-Library Loudspeaker Systems with Optimized Wide-Listening-Area Imaging.
It contains actual radpat measurements down to as few as 4 drivers (from 14), also amplitude and phase transfer function graphs, to show how the phased-array blending was achieved without audible interference.
Presumably it would be possible to achieve horizontal radpats different from the broadband oval that was the goal with that dbx (Soundfield) line.
It just (just, he said) takes iterative very detailed measurements of horizontal radpat and considerable coding expertise to crunch the data and produce the complex crossover.
B&O do it way more efficiently and precisely with DSP.
But Mark Davis at dbx in the early 1980s produced a whole line of broadband-beamformed loudspeakers and wrote up the results accepted for publication in the AESJ, paper 8199, available at AES E-Library Loudspeaker Systems with Optimized Wide-Listening-Area Imaging.
It contains actual radpat measurements down to as few as 4 drivers (from 14), also amplitude and phase transfer function graphs, to show how the phased-array blending was achieved without audible interference.
Presumably it would be possible to achieve horizontal radpats different from the broadband oval that was the goal with that dbx (Soundfield) line.
I listened to them at Melbourne HiFi show last week. Really superb sounding speakers. They demonstrated how the directivity can be adjusted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3iipu0q1gc
I really like how Bang and Olufsen does not beat around the bush and brute-forced the implementation. 18 individually controlled drivers and all. I suppose have enough drivers and you can make any directivity you want!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6XV18vmv0
A$110k a pair. How would a DIYer respond to this
Beolab 90 is a mind-bending speaker. I don't think I've heard a better speaker.
I really like the sound of Quads, that ability to make the room disappear, they sound like a big set of headphones. But Quads don't get loud, they have no impact
Danley SH-50s take that a step further, they have real impact, and there's no limit to how loud they get. But the treble is kinda rough. It's not terrible, but if you look at a response curve, from the manufacturer themselves, the treble response isn't in the same league as a plain ol' dome tweeter.
Beolab 90s combine both of these attributes; the midrange and treble purity that you get with an array of $$$ ScanSpeak drivers, along with the directivity control of a Quad or Synergy Horn.
At $110K, it's a steal.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mult...adjustable-directivity-dsp-4.html#post4576682
As far as DIY'ing it?
The answer to that is easy:
If you're willing to sacrifice variable directivity control, you can use a LOT less drivers. You could probably achieve similar results with about six to ten drivers, if you were to do it like this:
1) waveguide for the tweeter
2) a midrange matched to the tweeter, a la Geddes
3) a cardioid array for the bass
Basically a three way loudspeaker, where the high frequency directivity control is via waveguides, and the low frequency control is via an array
Isn't some company in Germany doing this already?
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no surprise as one should keep in mind that Beolab 90's "omni" mode is rather a "total mess" mode than regular omni
still it is nowhere near as easy as a regular omni (and Beolab 90's "omni" is not an omni really)
Omni isn't really my thing.
I listened to one of B&O's older speakers, which are close to omni in the horizontal plane, right after the Beolab 90.
It was embarassing, the new speaker just makes the old one sound like a clock radio.
BTW, this is one of the reasons I stopped posting about SAW lenses. I learned how to make them before I listened to one, and now that I've heard the 'real' thing, I realize they're kinda flawed really
I have to say, B&O really needs to setup their Beolab 90's in their stores properly. I went to two different B&O stores in two different countries to listen to them, and in both stores they did not sound nearly as good as everyone claims them to be. In one store it sounded downright wrong. Usually I'd just say this speaker is just overhyped, but the drivers and the technology do make for an exceptional sounding design. However, patience is wearing thin now.
the old one wasn't the flagship Beolab 5 in the same room?
... now that I've heard the 'real' thing, I realize they're kinda flawed really
OTOH the disappointing sound could be as well attributed to the problem brought up by bcodemz above.
Because many people reported through the years, on diyaudio as well, the problem of Beolab 5's being improperly set up in B&O own showrooms.
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