What about a Bipole in stereo? I'm sure someone has tried this. I built a metronome around an FE206en an my wife scoffed at the lack of bass. The desire to build it in stereo comes from a few different angles, but mainly a one year old who likes to pull out wires and stick them in his ears, so u want to keep everything contained in one box.
I've not been on this thread for quite a while. I've been thinking, building and testing a variant on my original design, from over ten years ago now.
If any of you guys remember that far back, I talked about my original inspirations for the Metronome speaker, being Terry Cain's Abby, the late '60s Danish design, the Larson Pyramid omnidirectional speaker and the Eiffel ToweR.
Domestic acceptabity was also a major concern, and there's no doubt that the Metronome is a highly elegant piece of work, that fits into most homes and I am delighted that the "quirky little obelisk" as an friend called the original has kept going all these years.
Anyway after 11 years I give you The Omni-Met:
Excuse the poor quality picture but basically it is a folded Met inside a pyramid type enclosure.
Not strictly full-range in that it uses a tweeter crossed in with a cap, but I feel it belongs in this thread, as it is part of the Metronome family.
It consists of an up-firing 6" bass/mid driver (Faital Pro 6PR-110) with forward firing SB Acoustics ring tweeter. The main driver is half way along the folded line, which exits via the usual Metronome down-firing mass loading port.
Sounds very nice indeed.
The finished speaker will be veneered and will have proper grilles covering the up-firing unit and the tweeter.
If any of you guys remember that far back, I talked about my original inspirations for the Metronome speaker, being Terry Cain's Abby, the late '60s Danish design, the Larson Pyramid omnidirectional speaker and the Eiffel ToweR.
Domestic acceptabity was also a major concern, and there's no doubt that the Metronome is a highly elegant piece of work, that fits into most homes and I am delighted that the "quirky little obelisk" as an friend called the original has kept going all these years.
Anyway after 11 years I give you The Omni-Met:
Excuse the poor quality picture but basically it is a folded Met inside a pyramid type enclosure.
Not strictly full-range in that it uses a tweeter crossed in with a cap, but I feel it belongs in this thread, as it is part of the Metronome family.
It consists of an up-firing 6" bass/mid driver (Faital Pro 6PR-110) with forward firing SB Acoustics ring tweeter. The main driver is half way along the folded line, which exits via the usual Metronome down-firing mass loading port.
Sounds very nice indeed.
The finished speaker will be veneered and will have proper grilles covering the up-firing unit and the tweeter.
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I was a bit skeptical about omnis but these Mets have a very "live band in the room" type sound. The up-firing main driver gives that widescreen omni presentation, whilst the forward-firing tweeter, helps the localisation within the soundfield and hence the imaging.
I had toyed myself with the idea of a diffuser, but didn't bother in the end.
Couple of questions:
Is the upfiring mid/woofer running full range?
What frequency are you crossing the tweeter at?
I ask those questions because my idea was to keep with the full-range philosophy as much as possible by sticking to one full range driver and a diffuser on top. Practically a full-range omnidirectional speaker.
And as you have already pointed out, having the higher frequencies diffused could have negative implications on localization.
What's your take on it?
Is the upfiring mid/woofer running full range?
What frequency are you crossing the tweeter at?
I ask those questions because my idea was to keep with the full-range philosophy as much as possible by sticking to one full range driver and a diffuser on top. Practically a full-range omnidirectional speaker.
And as you have already pointed out, having the higher frequencies diffused could have negative implications on localization.
What's your take on it?
The midwoofer is running wide open. The tweeter comes in around 9KHz; first-order, via a simple cap filter, so there will be tweeter output below this level on a slow rolloff.
First order seems to provide a nice, uniform handover from the midwoofer wth no discontinuities that I can detect, although I haven't measured the speaker. How the hell you'd go about measuring an omni is another question I'm pondering.
I've heard omnis with diffusers and they sound fine, but I like a more solid image than the full-on omni gives. My folded Mets are more semi-omni. I got the idea of the semi-omni from the late Roy Allison, whose range of speakers caught my imagination in the 80s
They were imported to the UK but didn't do as well as I thought they should have done.
Allisons always sounded a lot more natural to me than the other more "normal" types I encountered them. Alas in the 80s Allisons were out of my price range.
First order seems to provide a nice, uniform handover from the midwoofer wth no discontinuities that I can detect, although I haven't measured the speaker. How the hell you'd go about measuring an omni is another question I'm pondering.
I've heard omnis with diffusers and they sound fine, but I like a more solid image than the full-on omni gives. My folded Mets are more semi-omni. I got the idea of the semi-omni from the late Roy Allison, whose range of speakers caught my imagination in the 80s
They were imported to the UK but didn't do as well as I thought they should have done.
Allisons always sounded a lot more natural to me than the other more "normal" types I encountered them. Alas in the 80s Allisons were out of my price range.
Did a bit of crude measuring yesterday and was very pleasantly surprised at the outcome.
Below is a third octave, pink noise spectrum analysis, of the Omni-Metronomes, taken in-room from the listening position, 3m away.
I couldn't really think of any other way to measure meaningfully, an omni speaker, other than by doing it under real-room conditions. They are not like direct radiator systems and need to be measured with due regard to the environment in which they operate.
The analyser report certainly backs up my listening impressions, that they just get on with playing music, without adding any undue emphasis anywhere.
There's nothing for me to grumble about with that trace.
Below is a third octave, pink noise spectrum analysis, of the Omni-Metronomes, taken in-room from the listening position, 3m away.
I couldn't really think of any other way to measure meaningfully, an omni speaker, other than by doing it under real-room conditions. They are not like direct radiator systems and need to be measured with due regard to the environment in which they operate.
The analyser report certainly backs up my listening impressions, that they just get on with playing music, without adding any undue emphasis anywhere.
There's nothing for me to grumble about with that trace.
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They do lack ultimate low end extension, but an active sub would sort that out to useful effect. In a way, although certainly not the same at all, these speakers hark waaaay back to my original Mets from 2006, in that like them, these omnis were designed for great midrange and top end performance, with the very low end, taken care of by a sub or two.
I designed them on a whim. It was one of those rare ideas that just arrived fully formed, from God only knows where, and when one of these brainstorms arrives what can you do but to go with it and see what happens?
It started when I had a sudden recollection of hearing the magnificent sound of a pair of Bose 901s at an audio show in 1976. This then got mixed up in my mind with Allison 6s, NVA Cubes, Larson Pyramids and quarter wave MLTLs. The resultant mutation from interbreedng this lot, is the Omni-Met.
Crazy....
I designed them on a whim. It was one of those rare ideas that just arrived fully formed, from God only knows where, and when one of these brainstorms arrives what can you do but to go with it and see what happens?
It started when I had a sudden recollection of hearing the magnificent sound of a pair of Bose 901s at an audio show in 1976. This then got mixed up in my mind with Allison 6s, NVA Cubes, Larson Pyramids and quarter wave MLTLs. The resultant mutation from interbreedng this lot, is the Omni-Met.
Crazy....
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Hi John,
No, it's correct. the rear part of the line has to expand outward, looking up through the enclosure, whilst at the same time, the exterior pyramid contracts towards the top, then once the top is passed, the line continues to expand downwards to the port. How to draw it caused a lot of head scratching and I'm still sure there is room for making things clearer. The actual interior of the pyramid has been simplified further, but I haven't gotten around to drawing that up yet. I'll try to work up something to scale, when I have time.
Yes, the Fs of 100Hz doesn't look promising, but the midrange response of that driver is just too good not to have tried to make something of it.
OK, a fall off in the low bass region can be seen on the analysis, but the wall reinforcement has boosted things enough to allow reasonable extension. If desired, the slack can be taken up with a seperate active subwoofer.
I tore myself away from the speakers and dismantled them for finishing.
Veneering is now completed:
They will be left to stand 24 hours, after which the deep mahogany Danish Oil
finish will be applied.
Apologies for the grainy picture, but the crappy camera on my iPad is garbage in artificial light.
It also distorts perectives. The tops of the pyramids are smaller than they appear
and the bases are wider than they appear. IOW these speakers are a lot more "pyramidy" than they look in this pic.
Veneering is now completed:
They will be left to stand 24 hours, after which the deep mahogany Danish Oil
finish will be applied.
Apologies for the grainy picture, but the crappy camera on my iPad is garbage in artificial light.
It also distorts perectives. The tops of the pyramids are smaller than they appear
and the bases are wider than they appear. IOW these speakers are a lot more "pyramidy" than they look in this pic.
Pretty...
I've been thinking about using an old pair of well worn FE206's I have in a Met, with the addition of some series resistance, and a ribbon I picked up... The series resistance will also reduce the sensitivity to match the ribbon ( how convenient... ).
I think, if used in the Semi-Omni fashion, they would be interesting too, but I'd need some sort of diffuser on top....
I'm looking forward to the details on your box implementation...
John
I've been thinking about using an old pair of well worn FE206's I have in a Met, with the addition of some series resistance, and a ribbon I picked up... The series resistance will also reduce the sensitivity to match the ribbon ( how convenient... ).
I think, if used in the Semi-Omni fashion, they would be interesting too, but I'd need some sort of diffuser on top....
I'm looking forward to the details on your box implementation...
John