I find this not to be true. There is a significant difference in perception. For example when I switch from a ceiling firing tweeter (very spacious sound) to direct firing tweeter (less spacious sound), I immediately can locate the tweeters as sound sources. In perception they are completely different presentations. It would be impossible to dismiss the difference.
- Elias
Is this also the case when you switch without moving your head (to prevent new localization cues)?
Is all this discussion posited on a purist's no-DSP rule? To my simple mind, it seems as though room 'harnessing' is a problem with N dimensions. Attempting to solve the equation with passive speakers is like trying to do it with a small fraction of N variables, and there may simply be no satisfactory permutation of those variables, or the only result you can get is some arbitrary 'spaciousness effect' that sounds interesting on some recordings and ruins others. Doing it with DSP gives you quite a few more variables to play with, and the ability to modify 'the effect' or turn it on and off. Doing it with multiple speaker units would give you a few more variables to play with.
We could certainly argue if IMP is primarly a direct firing speaker or not
Yes, also with eyes closed same thing happens. Not even a deep meditation could change that perception
Yes, also with eyes closed same thing happens. Not even a deep meditation could change that perception
Very small and subconscious head movements create new localization cues.
How do you switch between configurations? Do other people experience the same with your setup?
Last edited:
Certainly from measurements you can design the horizontal dispersion character off-axis to have an upper-mid lower treble "dip" and achieve enhanced depth while listening off-axis (or nearly off-axis), but that's essentially a flaw in design that sacrifices several aspects of the design to provide depth. (..or just going ahead and putting in a shelving filter with a design that otherwise has a flat response and properly designed off-axis response. Again, a flawed compromise.)
Honestly, if you know - please tell.
I have no idea what the question is, so I can't really answer it. What would "design(ing) the horizontal dispersion character off-axis to have an upper-mid lower treble "dip" " have to do with anything that I am talking about?
I should point out something that Dave Clark did not make a point of in his paper - the results were not really statistically significant. The variance across listeners was as great as the differences heard. In other words the results were a Null result for the group. (But a clear failure to show the superiority of any of the speakers over any other.) I was asked to participate in this study with my speakers, but after evaluating the protocol I declined. I did not see a significant result coming out because of many factors, but mostly the assumption that the "auditory scene" was defined as one where "you are there" in a concert hall. That totally biases the results towards spaciousness and multiple reflections.
Did you read the AES Report? People were encouraged to take their time making assessments.
One would think that based on all the hyperbole surrounding the Orion, and other open baffle dipole designs, that they would have blown away a closed box speaker in the ABX test.
If one can barely tell the difference, or if the difference is marginal at best, why bother with the more expensive design?
No reason at all. For you. Buy (or even build) some . . . inexpensive . . . speakers and be done with it.
You are not going to save the rest of us from our folly . . . quit wasting your time (and ours) trying . . .
There you go again . . . making sense.
The room is part of the loudspeaker. That particular weakness of ORION can indeed be addressed at the room level, rather than at the speaker. Better that it not have to be (LX521, Note) addressed that way, but it can be.
While there are certainly aspects of loudspeaker performance which can be examined in isolation, overall performance (how it sounds) can only be evaluated in the context of the listening environment it is in.
"They sounded different when I got them home"
Well, duh . . .
This is my favourite.
It's a polar of a smaller CBT prototype speaker. A larger and taller CBT will have controlled directivity much lower in freqeuncy then this one.
Vertically the speaker is almost perfect. And you avoid early reflections from floor and ceiling to a large degree. The CBT disperses wide but the response is very uniform. So one can choose between lateral contribution for a spacious soundfield or choose to dampen/redirect them in order to get the sharpest image. You don't see the typical beaming here, hence the power response is more uniform and with less colouration.
It's not necessarily the best speaker in every environment though. Like several has pointed out, the room and treatment always needs to be taken into the account. The CBT can overload a small and naked room with it's dispersion and all it's drivers. It can end up sounding too hot. In those cases a speaker like horn or waveguide with a more narrow ray may be a better choice IMO. Vertically, a horn and waveguide can not compare to the CBT however and the controlled directivity will not go as low unless it's encredible large. So the result will be some beaming and colouration.
It's a polar of a smaller CBT prototype speaker. A larger and taller CBT will have controlled directivity much lower in freqeuncy then this one.
Vertically the speaker is almost perfect. And you avoid early reflections from floor and ceiling to a large degree. The CBT disperses wide but the response is very uniform. So one can choose between lateral contribution for a spacious soundfield or choose to dampen/redirect them in order to get the sharpest image. You don't see the typical beaming here, hence the power response is more uniform and with less colouration.
It's not necessarily the best speaker in every environment though. Like several has pointed out, the room and treatment always needs to be taken into the account. The CBT can overload a small and naked room with it's dispersion and all it's drivers. It can end up sounding too hot. In those cases a speaker like horn or waveguide with a more narrow ray may be a better choice IMO. Vertically, a horn and waveguide can not compare to the CBT however and the controlled directivity will not go as low unless it's encredible large. So the result will be some beaming and colouration.
Attachments
so does music. Different styles of music requires different acoustics, I think we have a lot to learn from hall designs following music's history in the last 1000 years. Is it true, or even possible, that one type of loudspeaker, in one room type will give satisfaction to ANY music, and give total satisfaction?
Halls created to play late romantic works have a higher RT, with a low D/R ratio, but with very high sound "fullness". Opera houses is just the opposite..
What is the best RT to play Bruckner in a room, the best one for Pink Floyd?
Pick your evil! Is everything trully only in the recording?
Well, your cheesier home entertainment amplifiers sometimes have different settings for 'hall', 'large room' etc. and can add artificial reverberation. More technically correct, it is possible to download the impulse responses of the world's best concert halls and recording studios these days. You could take a dry-ish recording and, using DSP, give it the ambience of your choice at the listening position should you so wish. Personally, I'd hate the idea, and I'm similarly sceptical of what can be achieved by dipole speakers and/or other Heath Robinson contraptions I saw recently at an audio show.
Most of it, I think, is . . . or at least can be. I can generally identify (or at least describe) the recording environment by the "sound" of the hall, and there's a clear difference between a "studio" (or even multi-miked) opera recording and one recorded from "in the hall" or just past the pit/proscenium.
But fully reproducing the overall "sound" of a performance, regardless the hall or recording environment, is just not possible with two channel "stereo". The best we can accomplish is to somehow simulate the actual breadth of image by incorporating the acoustics of the listening room (reflections) in a way that "fills the gaps" between and beside our two point-source radiators and lets us "hear through" to the recorded ambience of the performance (whether that is "real" or some simulation produced at the mixing console) and imagine that we are hearing something reasonably close to how it "actually was" (or is intended to be).
For orchestral performances (any "acoustic" music) there is an original, an actual performance, the sound and experience of which we attempt to replicate in "high fidelity" . . . and that generally includes conveying some sense of an actual performance venue. The "standard" is "sounds real". The rock-and-pop folks play to a different standard . . . since there often is no actual performance venue for a "studio" recording the "standard" is "sounds good" (in the reproduction local).
In both cases, though, there are presumptions about the reproduction environment built in to the recording . . . the desire of the artists, sound engineers and producer to make the production sound acceptable to the majority of the intended audience. At that level we just have to live with what they give (sell) us.