well, You seem to make some "claims" so...
but ok, perhaps it's just an impression
And, TBH, how is the Gryphon Cantata (since you bring it up) NOT true to some of his ideas? Am I missing something?
I don't know, You are clearly missing the fact that it was You who wrote: "the Gryphon designs can only be said to be based around his ideas", not me
I don't think I have claimed anything except that Steen Duelund is very much worth reading. Articles by Mr. Steen Aa. Duelund – Duelund Coherent Audio
Gryphon's problem is that Steen Duelund is no longer with us. So can only hope to follow his path:
If I look at that Gryphon Cantata, I see a time-aligned MTM nearfield monitor. It is what it is. I'd guess it has a Duelund filter too. We might expect to find some internal construction and components along his lines.
Of course there are other ways to do things, which is why there are a variety of designs, and not all along Duelund lines. I really don't know what he would think of my non time-aligned BW3 efforts.
Interestingly, Michael Chua can do Duelund filters: Vifa PL18 Crossover Network
With LR2 and Duelund-style LR4, you take a beating on power response and best time-align. With BBC-style BW3, you don't need time-alignment and power response and impedance works better but you throw away phase alignment. Seems the Universe always knows what we are doing, and never gives us everything. It's built into the mathematics. As for room and cabinet acoustics, well, that's another can of worms!
Gryphon's problem is that Steen Duelund is no longer with us. So can only hope to follow his path:
If I look at that Gryphon Cantata, I see a time-aligned MTM nearfield monitor. It is what it is. I'd guess it has a Duelund filter too. We might expect to find some internal construction and components along his lines.
Of course there are other ways to do things, which is why there are a variety of designs, and not all along Duelund lines. I really don't know what he would think of my non time-aligned BW3 efforts.
Interestingly, Michael Chua can do Duelund filters: Vifa PL18 Crossover Network
With LR2 and Duelund-style LR4, you take a beating on power response and best time-align. With BBC-style BW3, you don't need time-alignment and power response and impedance works better but you throw away phase alignment. Seems the Universe always knows what we are doing, and never gives us everything. It's built into the mathematics. As for room and cabinet acoustics, well, that's another can of worms!
I'd like to respond in particular to the part about what you purport Dutch & Dutch claim. Actually, we try to stick to the science and I think the research done by Toole, Olive and others is quite conclusive: most listeners really do prefer to have their stereo recordings augmented by early reflections.
This points in the direction of wide-dispersion speakers placed far out into the room, which ensures sufficiently delayed yet relatively strong early lateral reflections and no significant boundary-effects. However, few people have the luxury of being able to place their speakers like that. In practice, early reflections often come too early and boundary-effects cause audible coloration.
The 8c's are designed to bring the performance of a wide-dispersion free-standing loudspeaker to rooms people actually work or live in. If you wish to hear predominantly direct sound, simply sit closer to them and use a little more toe-in. The 8c’s directivity is only slightly higher than that of conventional cone and dome loudspeakers, it's just a lot more constant with frequency. They're designed to be placed close to the front-wall and they are less affected by close proximity to side-walls.
Some listeners do indeed prefer to have no, or a minimum of early reflections. These tend to be more experienced listeners, who seem to have acquired a taste for a dominance of direct sound. Probably through training they have become more sensitive to early reflections. Early reflections cause Apparent Source Widening (ASW) and in my experience this does indeed make imaging less pin-point accurate. Also, the absence of early reflections seems to ‘unmask’ particular details in the recording, whereas somewhat counterintuitively, some sounds actually become more audible in the presence of early reflections (sometimes called the multiple-looks hypothesis).
A couple of years ago my main system was very much along the lines of what Earl Geddes prescribes (no early reflections, relatively strong lateral reflections after about 20 ms and relatively high reverberation time). I really loved it at the time - and I still enjoy listening to such systems - but in the end I do prefer to hear some early reflections for the casual enjoyment of music. Neither an abundance or an absence of early reflections is more correct than the other extreme per se and in my view you can get great sound basically anywhere on the spectrum.
Hi Keyser, thank you so much for responding to my comment! Very interesting and illuminating. Apologies for misrepresenting the philosophy of Dutch & Dutch. Your comments regarding early reflections seem to me to reflect the state of research, and also align very much with my own listening experiences so far.
It so happens, actually, that I have just ordered a pair of 8Cs. I’m a strong objectivist when it comes to audio, and I dont think I have ever seen polar and frequency plots as good as yours. The 8Cs also ticked the boxes of some of my other «beliefs» in audio, such as a comparatively low crossover point, a larger woofer with good excursion for the midrange, oversized amps, cabinet construction which avoids resonances, etc. The few initial listening impressions I read online seemed to confirm that these are excellent speakers. Plus, I’m a sucker for natural wood. So, I did something I have never done before, and ordered a pair without having heard them!
I dont think I will regret it
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I have a different take on this issue. To me it comes down to ones taste in musical genre more than a listening taste. "Field" recordings will definitely benefit from the added spaciousness of very early reflections (VER), but studio work will definitely not. In studio work a great deal of attention is paid to the imaging on the recording and there is no real room acoustic since studio go out of there way to minimize this. So VER will degrade this image creating a less than ideal playback experience. Field recordings do not place a strong emphasis on image as there isn't a strong image to a large orchestra.
We'd like to think that good speakers are good for all recordings, but I no longer think that is true. Some approaches are better for some genres than others. My tastes are for studio work and hardly any Field recordings, so naturally I tend to minimizing VER in both the room design and the speaker design. Floyd, for example, is only interested in Field recordings and hence he tends to the spaciousness approach. I have discussed this with Floyd before and he tends to agree that one-size does not necessarily fit all. Floyd suggests room modification on-the-fly, but to me that is a band-aid and I prefer the ideal for my genre of choice. As my adviser used to say (he hated all-purpose-rooms) "All Purpose rooms are good for nothing."
I now truly believe that you have to make a choice to achieve the optimum. Of course one may choose to live with a compromise for both situations, that's a personal decision. But just be aware of the fact that a manufacturer is never going to say that they optimize for one situation or the other. That would not be good marketing.
We'd like to think that good speakers are good for all recordings, but I no longer think that is true. Some approaches are better for some genres than others. My tastes are for studio work and hardly any Field recordings, so naturally I tend to minimizing VER in both the room design and the speaker design. Floyd, for example, is only interested in Field recordings and hence he tends to the spaciousness approach. I have discussed this with Floyd before and he tends to agree that one-size does not necessarily fit all. Floyd suggests room modification on-the-fly, but to me that is a band-aid and I prefer the ideal for my genre of choice. As my adviser used to say (he hated all-purpose-rooms) "All Purpose rooms are good for nothing."
I now truly believe that you have to make a choice to achieve the optimum. Of course one may choose to live with a compromise for both situations, that's a personal decision. But just be aware of the fact that a manufacturer is never going to say that they optimize for one situation or the other. That would not be good marketing.
That is clearly the future and it has been far too long in coming. Good speaker design can be proven by good measurements and they don't need to be heard for one to know that they are good.
Or do like me: Point source omni for the living room, and now Dutch&Dutch for the basement, which I plan to toe in quite a lot. Exactly because I find that I like both kinds of setups, even though they are diametrically opposed in terms of reflections, and tend to prefer them for different kinds of music and different kinds of listening moods. The economic price to pay for spending this amount of money on sound reproduction is that I choose to live without a car, and never fly abroad on vacation. But music is more important. First things first!
(knowing that my choices are climate friendly is an extra bonus, of course)
Well, my wife travels quite a bit abroad with her job, so she gets her travelling needs covered that way. As for accepting two stereo setups, I bribe her with significant amounts of flowers and chocolate.
In principle, I agree. But having listened to the Beolab 90s three times, my subjective listening impressions is that they only sound really good in narrow mode. I don't know what why that is, because I very much enjoy some other "wide" speakers. My hunch is that:
1) the dispersion of the 90s is not really even with frequency in wide mode, only in narrow
2) the summing of all the different drivers may not be perfect (in narrow mode the extra drivers are only used to cancel out sound to the sides etc)
Two different B&O dealers. Large rooms, positioning way out in the room, but not symmetrical with regards to room boundaries.
Wide vs narrow directivity and musical genre.
Earl, thanks for this. This thread has become one of the most interesting I've seen on the forum. But I am a little confused, what I previously read a lot was that wide directivity speakers excited the acoustic signature of the room giving the 'they are here' phenomenon. It was narrow directivity that was required to fool you into the 'you are there' effect irrespective of musical genre - and this is the one you want for field recordings.
I listen to both classical and rock, but I woud rather compromise the system on rock so that I get the best sound for piano, chamber, orchestra etc. As my listening room isn't huge (~12 by 18ft) it sounds like a candidate for trying omni...
Earl, thanks for this. This thread has become one of the most interesting I've seen on the forum. But I am a little confused, what I previously read a lot was that wide directivity speakers excited the acoustic signature of the room giving the 'they are here' phenomenon. It was narrow directivity that was required to fool you into the 'you are there' effect irrespective of musical genre - and this is the one you want for field recordings.
I listen to both classical and rock, but I woud rather compromise the system on rock so that I get the best sound for piano, chamber, orchestra etc. As my listening room isn't huge (~12 by 18ft) it sounds like a candidate for trying omni...
Ian
I would have to say that my experience is the exact opposite of what you are stating. To get the "you are there" feeling ones needs a lot of spaciousness to create the illusion of being in a space. The "they are here: illusion requires that the room be minimized so that the imaging on the recording can come through.
Just another example of the total lack of any consensus on how audio works. Kind of like "We demand guaranteed, rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
I would have to say that my experience is the exact opposite of what you are stating. To get the "you are there" feeling ones needs a lot of spaciousness to create the illusion of being in a space. The "they are here: illusion requires that the room be minimized so that the imaging on the recording can come through.
Just another example of the total lack of any consensus on how audio works. Kind of like "We demand guaranteed, rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
are we gonna pretend Toole, Olive, are the only reference in room acoustic? should we throw away all the other experts claiming all the same thing: early reflection must be absorbed. Toole studies on the subject is a bit of a controversy and most acoustician ive seen mention Toole about the subject seem to be strongly against that idea.
personally, I cannot stand untreated rooms. when I remove my back wall adn side wall early reflections panels, the imaging collapse dramatically, the sound harden, channel separation and details are greatly diminushed. its to me such a net detriment to the SQ that really I cannot disagree more vehemently to Toole weird conclusions. btw, almost every other acoustian dealing with small rooms all suggest early reflection to be absorbed and bring back the secondary reflections. early refletion are detrimental, not secondary. early reflections= all reflections that are not -10/15db within 20ms at the LP. how can you acheive that without treatment?
measurements at the LP of early reflection absorbed vs not absorbed all correlate a very obvious improvement especial the waterfall plots but also the FR.
early reflections (not secondary) are detrimental
Toole studies are out to lunch in my experience
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professionally experienced, professionally biased
the width of a sound source is a requirement of realism
the only real sound source that is pin-point is a triangle perhaps
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For early reflections to be beneficial, the studies Toole relies on suggest that you need to have speakers with a very even dispersion with frequency. I’m not sure whether your speakers qualify in that regard? Regarding what Toole states, I really think you should read chapter 7 in the most recent edition of his book. His claims are based on many different studies, not only his own. You might disagree of course, but his claims are based on thorough experimental studies.
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