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SB Acoustics Satori Monitor

Looks like they are continuing their ability for wide range drivers. Maybe a second order crossover is viable after all?

Hope you will be going all out. Nice ladder delay, nice big radius on the baffle (something the old SB designs clearly forgot, diffraction!) With the cost of these, it is worth doing the crossover right.

Really want to try the woofer. Very happy with my Seas reed paper drivers.
 
Yes, i will give my best to design an optimum crossover. Just for reference and because it is well established and popular i will start with a L/R 4. Because the drivers are so wide band, lower order crossovers are possible to and i will try that as an alternative.
I have certain standards of radiation pattern and linearity though. It makes no sense to make the crossover work at one point in space and the power response is all over the place. Tonal balance is the most important issue to solve in speakers and that includes response into 3 dimensional space. Listening in the extreme near field solves some of the problems but it gives an unusual perspective ( where one can get used too after a while ) and does not allow a group session.
When you look at my prior work i am a pioneer of low diffraction design. That some speakers image like crazy and other not struck me since the 70th. I was the first in Germany that made slim speakers with rounded edges and delay compensation. The speakers i owned before i was confident enough to make better ones included both the old and the new Quad ELS, the Ohm F and the original Manger Discus so i know a bit about phase, impulse response, group delay, energy storage and such. Interesting enough the original Pro Ac Tablette did the disappearing act too without being time coherent so there is more to it then simply following some rules and pre conceptions.
When you study the work of Blauert you will learn that tonal aberrations can fool the brain into thinking that the sound comes from various places in the stereo image.
A drop around 2 - 4kHz gives the impression of depth, a rise at around 7kHz gives the impression of height, the so called elevation effect. Where you place the speakers. where you sit plus the room acoustics have a huge influence too. At the end it can only be a well judged compromise and i hope a good one.
 
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You don't know how great it is to hear from someone who understands some AVR-generated, perfectly flat response is not the key to great music. I have heard your name in good company, but do not know your work. I really look forward to this project's outcome.

Blauert. Much thanks. I will look up his work. You have revealed a big key. Many recordings have a bit of a hump at about 4K for that showroom, pop off the shelf sound. ( Either that, or many recording engineers just don't hear that well any more) So, a slight dip in that region could bring things back into proper focus and let out brains fool us into generating the depth of field. Test time. Maybe I should up my bid on that DEQ to play around.

To me, imaging and distortion are paramount. Our brains will make pretty large adjustments to balance tone as long as our eyes don't conflict too much. We seem to remember and self-equalize if a room is bright or dead. Only rooms we have not been in is the difference so obvious. My observations. Others with more scientific testing may disagree.

For any unbelievers out there, it was only after I bought a bigger router and built a table so I could spin a 3/4 inch roundover bit did my speakers make the big step up. 1/2 inch just could not do it. Really, the difference is dramatic.
 
To make a speaker flat or put in some EQ is not an easy decision. On one hand we need a norm and the artist has to decide on the balance on the other hand many recordings have flaws that come out unpleasant if we do not something to make the system musical.
The BBC also did some research about the presence dip and the argument was that reverb on the recording comes out too strong when the speaker is totally flat. I think it is possible to load down the article from the BBC website.
The Blauert volume is worth it.
 
Already have Self's crossover book. Nothing new in circuits but he does a very good job of putting everything in perspective. I also ordered Architectural Acoustics; David Egan.

The psycho side of audio has interested me since college when I noticed music majors had terrible stereo's, but every one had a speed control on their turn table. All us EE's tried to piece together whatever scrap we could afford for quality. My conclusion was that different people need different clues. Pitch was all important to trained musicians. Distortion was to the rest of us.
 
Yes, most musicians hear in a different way. I know only some that also take care about what we hifi nuts think is good sound. I play the guitar quite decent and i came into audio because of music. For me the system has to very good to forget about the technology and listen to the music. I think modern systems even got worse in that regard. Many sound unnatural, threadbare and simply unpleasant. Why that culture got down is a mystery to me.
 
Well from a musicians point of view you can often hear what is necessary even with very low absolute quality. The essence of the players interpretation still comes regardless, although it must be said that you don't lose this when you have a quality system too. My guess is that most musicians probably spend far more time making their own music then listening to others too so their priorities are quite different when it comes to purchasing expensive hifi equipment.
 
Yes, that is the fundament of much popular music. Some systems time really bad though.
I hate a boomy, overblown bass. I appreciate good extension but the quality of the bass is even more important to me. Some mini monitors do a surprising good job into fooling me that there is bass where actually there is not much under 50Hz. Martin Colloms did an interesting article about bass many years ago that inspired me.
 
Yes, that is the fundament of much popular music. Some systems time really bad though.
I hate a boomy, overblown bass. I appreciate good extension but the quality of the bass is even more important to me. Some mini monitors do a surprising good job into fooling me that there is bass where actually there is not much under 50Hz. Martin Colloms did an interesting article about bass many years ago that inspired me.

The King James, Version. Harry James on Sheffield. Two mics, played right through. Yes, there is a difference!