No, there are a lot of other good reasons. They have been discussed in other threads.
I know. I should have said good reasons
. Seriously,some of this is getting silly. A hundred watt amp at 00000000 whatever distortion weighs 2lbs costs a few bucks. It comes down to people wanting to tweak their gear. Sooner rather than later separate power amps will be obsolete all of that including crossover etc IS going to be in the vast majority of all speakers especially mass market I would say.. Most analog gear will be obsolete imo all of the signal processing stuff alreeady is. I sold all of my analog 1176 and la2a comps etc long before most of them did.. The truth is speakers and rooms are the final frontier. Digital audio has come so far. I noticed it reaching parity with the best analog (at a reasonable price) in around 2005 when the SNR of reasonable adda chips exceeded 114 db. The Emu 1616m being a prime example of this. Since then it has only gotten better. It will soon reach a point where even multiple conversions with reasonably priced ad and da will be inaudible. Some would say now but I feel not quite.
What I find amusing is it still takes these monster horns from basically 40 year old designs to make this audible
. To witt: I learned very little about the true character of reverb algorithms until I put listening through good horn speakers as part of my mastering chain. which brings us back to topic. Since Tom Danley seems in no hurry to get a monitor/reference/hifi version of these speakers to market, plus the fact imho that they *are* the near future and given that active crossovers are the best route to Synergy accuracy and from where I sit Nathan Hansen's extraodinary work/design is about to completely crack this nut, I made a broad point. Now, sorry I will start a new thread.
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Not sure if I'm convinced of that last point.
Having heard the Summas and the SH50s side by side, I think they both have strengths and weaknesses. I think something resembling a Summa, but a three-way, could give an SH50 a real run for it's money.
To me, the magic is in the crossover.
Both designs have an Achilles Heel:
The big two-ways like the Summa have a tight vertical listening window. This isn't a deal breaker, but it likely means that many people who've heard them may not have heard them at their best, unless they were seated at the right height.
The Synergy Horns are pretty epic, but I think the midrange taps are having a negative influence on the treble. You can hear it, and you can see it in the measurements.
So we don't have a case of one design being absolutely superior; a lot will depend on what's important to you, subjectively.
Having heard the Summas and the SH50s side by side, I think they both have strengths and weaknesses. I think something resembling a Summa, but a three-way, could give an SH50 a real run for it's money.
To me, the magic is in the crossover.
Both designs have an Achilles Heel:
The big two-ways like the Summa have a tight vertical listening window. This isn't a deal breaker, but it likely means that many people who've heard them may not have heard them at their best, unless they were seated at the right height.
The Synergy Horns are pretty epic, but I think the midrange taps are having a negative influence on the treble. You can hear it, and you can see it in the measurements.
So we don't have a case of one design being absolutely superior; a lot will depend on what's important to you, subjectively.
I can agree with that! But it has to be a speaker that has some balls too! This very view on things, plus the independence of listening angle, horizontal or vertical made me do what I did. I do not regret that decision. It took a little time though.
Umm should have said main lobe, maybe my head wasn't on straight
Lobotomy?
I guess my confusion comes from Earl saying he had an epiphany, when I don't really see what the big deal is. Perhaps I take these things for granted as I've been using active for loudspeaker designs from the start. Maybe I'm not seeing the same thing.
I think the diffraction from the ports on my Synergy looks pretty small in the horizontal plane, but shows up in the vertical (compounded by mouth diffraction). Some amount of diffraction has to be accepted with this design..........you'll never get around it by putting discontinuities in the wg near the throat. I'd like to see what filling the entire wg with Earl's foam might do to clean it up. Is that diffraction worth the trade off of having a point source? From what little I've heard so far I think it might be. I may have even talked myself into cutting up the waveguides in my main system today and listening to a stereo set of mini-Synergy's by next week
For those of us who may have missed how you made the WG's can you share link? I seem to remember but can't find it now. You use fabric sock suspended by a weight and then add resin then more layers of fiberglass? Or did I dream that up? I think a suspended weight on a sheet forms a cosh function.
I can't personally produce waveguides "just like that" but I would be willing to make the CAD file. Whether you have it printed or machined it will be expensive with the cost rising as the size of the device increases. I'm a machinist but unfortunately we can't use the equipment at work for personal projects.
Basically.....I made an OS throat plug and a jig with the mouth roundover. I stretched fleece over the mouth, pushed the plug into the fleece, then screwed the plug down from the bottom. Lots of trial and error to get the walls to form how I wanted. Here's the link: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/258674-diy-18-elliptical-waveguide.html. If I were to do it again I'd likely build the mouth up with layers of mdf to get a larger roundover.
It took me a little by surprise as well, but I'm not ready to build a synergy yet. I have given it a lot of thought over the years.
Or this may be a far far exaggeration of the size of this issue. Toddler? This thread is a fresh look at a somewhat more mature design.peteleoni said:
Is there something you can do with active that you can't with passive? I'm not sure the concept has sunk in. The pressure/power ratio (D.I.) can be adjusted around the crossover either way.
Yes, you can do arbitrary fixed delays for each driver. And you can do arbitrary phase response with FIR filtering.
If you made a cad file, that would be epic. I guess either stacked mdf or printed. Prob stacked mdf... I haven't printed yet so I'm not sure what the costs are. I'm a genetics student but the guys who run the FabLab in the Architecture building are super cool and always willing to help. That's where I get my stuff done. I'll be working on building a cabinet for the SEOS for the next while in there.
I think getting this out there on cad can have a snowball effect, which would be awesome for the whole community. Curious Nate, you mention in your original post that you know Synergy's are supposed to be square and not elliptical but you were going elliptical anyways. Could you school me a little on the pros and cons of both?
Thanks
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Mindsource - when I said I could do a CAD file it would be for a regular wg......not a Synergy. Out of respect for DSL and the Synergy patent I wouldn't provide that for anyone but my own personal use. If I knew my wg design was going to be used for a Synergy I wouldn't do that either. Sorry. There are other documented designs out there though.
As far as square vs round/elliptical I think of the shape of the wavefront leaving the compression driver. The CD exit is round and afaik we assume it emits a plane wave (though this assumption isn't perfect and doesn't hold for all frequencies) and to my way of thinking a round/elliptical wg will have the least diffraction. There are others here with a much better understanding of this than me and hopefully they will chime in.
As far as square vs round/elliptical I think of the shape of the wavefront leaving the compression driver. The CD exit is round and afaik we assume it emits a plane wave (though this assumption isn't perfect and doesn't hold for all frequencies) and to my way of thinking a round/elliptical wg will have the least diffraction. There are others here with a much better understanding of this than me and hopefully they will chime in.
Unless you are providing specific port locations and flare rates, then in fact all you would be providing is a file for a WG profile designed by you. Just a shape, it could be an interesting hat...
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Three months ago I posted a thread that shows how to make elliptical waveguides using free software:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/279476-3d-modeling-tips-tricks.html#post4443770
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