The web page looks the way the $200,000 speakers sounded. In fairness, they weren't really the worst sound at the show; overloaded ribbons and way-too-loud (sub)woofers, with music-server sources, got that prize.
There is a lot to be said for 2-way systems with well-designed subwoofer assist. This shouldn't be rocket science. Keeping in mind Hoffman's Iron Laws, the only way to get to 20 Hz bass in anything like a realistic enclosure size is accept low efficiency and throw a lot of power at it.
Still not a fan of transistor amps (for full-range use). If the room had transistor amps, I generally left in less than a minute. Very few digital front ends were listenable; I was surprised when returning home that I preferred my modest $1200 Monarchy DAC to just about anything I heard at the show. DSD128fs (double-DSD) source material flattered any system, but in direct comparison, LP's and tape still sounded better ... and exactly how many DSD128fs downloads are there, anyway?
The main effect of the show was to encourage me to get my phonograph up and running, although the temptation to buy an Audio-GD SA-2 DAC is still there. I really like the sound of the Burr-Brown/TI PCM-1704 converter, and nobody at the show was using them, as far as I could tell.
There is a lot to be said for 2-way systems with well-designed subwoofer assist. This shouldn't be rocket science. Keeping in mind Hoffman's Iron Laws, the only way to get to 20 Hz bass in anything like a realistic enclosure size is accept low efficiency and throw a lot of power at it.
Still not a fan of transistor amps (for full-range use). If the room had transistor amps, I generally left in less than a minute. Very few digital front ends were listenable; I was surprised when returning home that I preferred my modest $1200 Monarchy DAC to just about anything I heard at the show. DSD128fs (double-DSD) source material flattered any system, but in direct comparison, LP's and tape still sounded better ... and exactly how many DSD128fs downloads are there, anyway?
The main effect of the show was to encourage me to get my phonograph up and running, although the temptation to buy an Audio-GD SA-2 DAC is still there. I really like the sound of the Burr-Brown/TI PCM-1704 converter, and nobody at the show was using them, as far as I could tell.
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You have the benefit of the insight and the physics placing you out in front with horn theory and practical achievability. If the horn represents the best reproduction for lets say all music and vocal repro then, It has to be the way to go, (qualified) for the ardent domestic listener. That includes many gifted performers of classical and reallyu all other genre who want to hear their stuff at home. I read a quote in the major UK paper of a piano virtuoso who could not buy a system that conveyed back to him the level of subtle detail he knew should be there.
The best speaker is probably really 1 speaker with 1 driver which for a solo flute clarinet guitar etc probably sounds best in a suitable listening environment room whatever. The sound of the specific construction materials of the musical instrument must be reproduced with all the other little micro details.
For the present driver technology I agree with Lynn on the 2 way idea. We have not yet used the best modern materials that will make a near perfect single full range driver. From my aero materials days I know it is just a matter of time for this. If you think it is here now please tell me. I hope Lynns project can save me a lot of time, in getting me closer to realism.(my driver and goal)
I am thankful that software has really brought the horn capabilities to where it has. And maybe with the Klippel and other specially developed software as prev stated, we are at the beginning of the end goal being achieved realism with the new materials.
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Personally, I managed to get to the 'good place' with transistors and CDs nearly 30 years ago - so ever since then I've known exactly what the target was ... and every exposure to other 'good' systems since confirmed how hopeless the majority were, the exceptions were quite rare.
A well sorted out, personal system is almost guaranteed to always beat an expensive, 'show off' setup - it's not 'synergy' that's the answer, it's the fact that it's bug-free ... yes, just like computer software,
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Agreed! Awful webpage - someone knows nothing about images for the web. I'm going to have to contact them. Lot's of huge file sizes and wrong photo formats. Completely unnecessary.
Yes, true. I tend to be an optimist here because good horn systems came into my life at an early age. But in an honest overview of the horns on the market and currently working, yeah - the majority are bad.
I think that a lot of that has to do with bad crossovers. My favorite driver maker - Altec - was guilty of building mostly poorly implemented crossovers. They just didn't seem to get it. Given the same drivers, same horns, same boxes, they can be made soooo much better with a good crossover. JBL, EV and others can be about as messed up.
And like most of us, I've heard some awful horn systems at shows. Horn systems that use all the right stuff, but in a bad way. Sad. No wonder horns get a bad reputation.
Hello Earl
There is no software out there to do horn crossovers with?? Measurement software has improved greatly over the years as far as accessibility and cost hasn't crossover simulation software improved as well??
Rob
The measurement software improvements have been great (i.e. HolmImpulse), but the crossover design stuff all uses a single point for their design which is a serious flaw, especially for horns. You have to look at the crossover map over the entire field of polar responses not just one angle. Then there is the issue of component quantization. When doing a crossover to 1 or 2 dB the selection of the best "available" component values is critical, especially when you have inductor resistances to worry about. Tenths of ohms can be a big difference.
No software that I know of would do all of this.
DSP makes the component issue easier, but there is still the single point problem.
It's almost cheating when they have 15 ips master tape dubs as a source (assuming the speakers are decent, mediocre digital will just ruin them further). I didn't attend this RMAF, but at another large audio show in NY a few years ago I felt most tape sourced rooms were pretty good. On the flip side I think the vendors of these rooms also take greater care in setting up the room acoustics. I wish there were more DIY tape head preamp designs. I decided to take the plunge into tape with a Studer and Tape Project tapes a few months ago.
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Tape is pretty much cheating, it sounds so good. I can think of one room where they were using a pair of really horrible speakers with 4" Chinese drivers, a compact ribbon tweeter and an Ampex MR-70 as the source. The speakers were worse than the sound in my 2008 Prius with "Premium JBL sound system". (Not a fan of expensive autosound. With ambient noise at 60+ dB, motor growl, boom and rumble from road noise, and a steel-and-glass cage as a listening environment, there's not much chance for high fidelity.)
Returning to quality sound, tape is the ideal signal conditioner. No chance of slewing, since that's limited by the tape head/tape/tape head interface. Truly random, non-correlated dither at the -85 dB, perceptually just right. The best limiting and compression possible, so even pretty big mistakes on the recording end still sound pretty good.
The entire audio signal fits into an amplitude/frequency box that is limited on the high and low end of the frequency spectrum and dynamically as well. This is why mediocre playback electronics sound perfectly good with tape decks ... and the favor is extended to power amps, as well, since slewing or excessive HF is no longer a concern.
Looking at tape head playback electronics, you'll be surprised at how primitive the electronics are for famous decks like the Ampex 350, Revox, and even Studer. Transistor circuits are at the level of the Dynaco PAT-4, and tube electronics akin to a generic receiver in the late Fifties. Well below modern RIAA designs in sophistication and distortion level.
LP playback from moving-coil cartridges, or digital playback with not-so-great converters, is another story entirely. Plenty of correlated debris at extreme high frequencies, which taxes all downstream electronics, along with some really nasty high-order IM distortion.
This is why I find audiophile demos at shows kind of annoying. Yes, I like to hear great sound, but the same few tracks of minimally recorded "audiophile blues" (and I like blues) will drive me out of the room in less than a minute.
Some of the best recordings of the century are only available on 78rpm, 33rpm, or Compact Disc. We might, over time, get downloads of studio-quality analog tape masters in 192/24 PCM or DSD128fs, but the selection is going to be fairly narrow, since so much depends on a combination of mass appeal and a zillion clearances from all the artists and record companies involved.
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Jeff Bagby's PCD software allows moving the mic around, driver placement, and component ESR. It doesn't let you look at multiple angles simultaneously, however, which would be a big plus. Still, pretty darned powerful and tracks from simulation to measurement perfectly in my experience.
But you see this is precisely what is required - its not optional. And it has to work with real components and all their parasitic aspects. The resolution is also a factor and this requires some serious work so as not to do too much smoothing.
LSPCad is one of the best tools for passive as well as active XO design and emulation I know of, and not overly expensive. Especially the realtime features are extemely helpful, change a component or parameter and immediately listen to the effect while the music (or measurement, for double-checking) is running.
EDIT: it really reduced our prototyping cycles and costs to zero (except building the cabinets and initial in-situ driver measuring)
EDIT: it really reduced our prototyping cycles and costs to zero (except building the cabinets and initial in-situ driver measuring)
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To this day the best digital (non-high "rez") I've ever heard was from the original Theta gen. III.. about 20 years ago.
I forget which DAC it used, but remember that it was a 20 bit current dac from either BB or AD. The analog out was also excellent. The only thing it really needed was a better power supply for each portion of the DAC, and a better input structure and timing. (..it was still a bit "thin" and noisy sounding - or not quite "analog" enough, which I *think* was mostly a product of the power supply.)
For almost a decade after reading about all the "new and improved" DAC's to come along, I'd go down to take a listen at the various "hi fi huts" - and it *always* left me wondering where the "improvement" was, (most of the time being substantially worse) - and it even included Theta's own "new and improved" models and the majority of high "rez" format/players.
I couldn't afford the thing at the time it came out new.. but it was available later for less than half of the near 4k original price on the used market about a decade later, but I was "sure" that something better would be available. I'm not "sure" at all now, but I can only hope that the memory of it is simply an over-inflated one.
Oh well, it's not like this sort of lament doesn't happen in other areas of life as well (..and often with far more meaningful consequences).
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Yes, the only "only the fly" crossover-loudspeaker design & implementation software packages that I know of are LSPCad and Soundeasy.
If for this one particular feature alone they are worth their cost many times over.
I believe that Leap 5 can provide this.
As to the quality of the simulation - don't know.
I agree, keeping common concepts, cone materials, sensitivity, energy radiation and loading techniques as similar as possible in your speakers puts the icing on the cake You can have live in the room reality at any volume level. These drivers work well to mate a bass horn to a small format compression driver when loaded in a good midrange horn. These have a six inch aluminum diaphragm
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Yes, I concur with this. A system should be designed to deliver for domestic purposes to give the softest to the loudest level required with appropriate headroom at a very high quality of reproduction.
PA is different. Whatever anyone says, PA cannot reveal the subtlest repro. of the best small systems, but it will give the slam and pretty good quality to boot. It cannot deal with the low level repro because it cannot cover the wide range at highest quality over the widest dynamic range say 140dB. where it does all the loudstuff to the best it is capable of.
Surely 2 different sectors.
Does not a very large OS horn driven from a DHT surely set the gold standard at the present for a domestic system.
That can be argued to infinitum.
The little yellow guy on the posting would be on the 300B horn system.
Yeah, an ongoing debate, and as it should be as the science pushes out further, and maybe changing horses as new designs can be made around new materials.
I think as many do, that we do need at leadt two systems as a basic requirement.
As you say we could go on debating which is our considered best. But other than a few, all the less biased types of designer seem to be changing as the new stuff comes out. This becomes an issue of whether the car has to be below the sound system in order of priorities.
Personally, I do believe that it is possible to achieve, say, 120dB peaks in the home in a completely effortless way, subjectively - which is more than enough for more than 99.9999% of the time. This will be an intensity of sound that will do everything that is needed to recreate the emotional impact of a musical event, in a totally satisfying way - no PA systems need apply, ...
For those who say this can't happen, I heard this being done at the recent hifi show, using off the shelf gear - if one straightforward system can achieve it, then nothing to stop others getting there as well ...
...For those who say this can't happen, I heard this being done at the recent hifi show, using off the shelf gear - if one straightforward system can achieve it, then nothing to stop others getting there as well ...