Finally thought of a drawback as I was listening last night.
And if you think I'm being ultra picky....you're right.
(And no, it's not the common "If the recording is bad they really show it to you"...That's entirely true, but not what I'm about to say.
In my room I can't get them up as high as I want to without blocking part of my screen. The physical size would prevent me, so the sound appears to come a bit lower than I'm used to. Tweeter height off the floor is only ~19 inches in my room.
For a studio situation...that size which you need to maintain directivity my become a drawback.
There. I said it. There is a problem with them.
And if you think I'm being ultra picky....you're right.
(And no, it's not the common "If the recording is bad they really show it to you"...That's entirely true, but not what I'm about to say.
In my room I can't get them up as high as I want to without blocking part of my screen. The physical size would prevent me, so the sound appears to come a bit lower than I'm used to. Tweeter height off the floor is only ~19 inches in my room.
For a studio situation...that size which you need to maintain directivity my become a drawback.
There. I said it. There is a problem with them.
What is even more frightening is I've been paid for that. No wonder no one RTFMs.!@!
I'm about 75% sure that I'm going to change my current Synergy horn project*, due to a couple problems I've had with my horns:
1) With my Unity horn projects, I've had an issue where the soundstage is basically bounded by the horn. (Note that all of my Unity horns have been in my car.) Andy Wehmeyer, formerly of JBL, described the sound of Mark Eldridge's 4Runner like this**, and my car had the same problem:
"The least reflective car I've ever heard was Mark's 4-runner. The only glass remaining in the car was the windshield and the door glass. Everything else had been covered with thick panels with grille material covering thick insulating and absorbing materials. The speakers were mounted in the bottom of the car and in some giant horn thingys under the dash. All of that minimized reflections from the front glass.
The sound? It as very accurate sounding--like a pair of great headphones but phones in which the sound comes from in front of you rather than from inside your head. It was cool, but definitely missed the sense of space required for me to find the sound interesting. It played loud and was really dynamic without any vibration."
My Unity horns had this same issue. The soundstage stretched from one horn to the other. And the articulation gave me goosebumps; the ability to hear into the recording was exceptional. But there was very little ambience.
I think that this gets into a much bigger discussion - the question of whether we want our stereos to sound accurate or whether we want them to sound euphonic.
In my situation, I already have a set of Summas, so I think I'll do something a little bit different for the living room.
Here's a polar measurement I did of a SAW lens, the thingie that's in the beolab speakers. In the measurement, you'll notice that the sound is consistent in a 180 degree arc in FRONT of the speakers, but that there's significant rejection to the back.
I think this polar response sounds quite good in the room. I guess this is pretty close to cardioid?
I've tried dipoles, but after a few days listening, the cardioid response of the SAW lens seems to offer a nice compromise between the imaging of the dipoles and the accuracy of the Summas. (IE, my Summas really allow you to 'see' into a recording, but dipoles have that lovely ambience that sounds so nice. The SAW lens is somewhere in between.)
A few years back I ran my Summas as a mono bipole; I also found that sound preferable, but it required an absurd amount of space, since you had to pull the speakers away from the backwall.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
If you look at how the Beolab lens is shaped, you'll see how it offers some of the benefits of bipole and some of the benefits of monopole. Basically the sound 'wraps around' the low diffraction baffle, and so low frequencies are radiated backwards while high frequencies are mostly radiated forward.
* http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/243030-pretty-pink.html
** Controlling reflections.... your thoughts please... - Page 2 - Car Audio | DiyMobileAudio.com | Car Stereo Forum
I should have stated with respect to *horizontal* compression.
Note that the "Saw lens" has some nasty vertical diffraction. Also, the horizontal diffraction is likely substantial as well, BUT it's at the widest +/- 90 degrees AND the resulting source-width profile is comparatively small.
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The Summas disappear pretty good. I think the main reason I can perceive their size is that I can see them. If there was a way to hide them in my home, like Geddes does with his Summas and like Cowan does with his Unities, that would likely improve the imaging. (I believe there's a large visual component to imaging; your brain sees the speakers and tips your ears off. This is something that's very odd about the under dash car horns; I think a big part of their good imaging is that you're simply not staring at them.)
The Summas don't have the ambience of a dipole or a bipole though; and for good reason, they're not firing sound against the back wall.
With the SAW lens, the sound seems to 'float' above the speakers, which is a neat trick. The perception of speaker size is basically nil.
Something just occurred to me.
Perhaps there's another way to improve the imaging of the Synergy horns.
If you think about it, you want wide horizontal coverage and narrow vertical coverage. This is hard to do in a horn, because horns tend to work better when they're symmetrical or close. For instance, a 60x40 horn works well, but a 135x20 degree horn does not.
One solution that might work for a Synergy would be to use a dramatic backwards tilt.
For instance, with a 15" waveguide like the Summa, one issue you're going to have is that the size of the sound will seem like it's 15" or thereabouts.
But if you tilt it back - A LOT - you reduce the vertical height of the image.
This isn't super practical for a conventional speaker, because you'll screw up the pathlength from tweeter to midrange. But it would work with a Synergy horn because the tweeter and the midrange are on the same horn.
The Summas don't have the ambience of a dipole or a bipole though; and for good reason, they're not firing sound against the back wall.
With the SAW lens, the sound seems to 'float' above the speakers, which is a neat trick. The perception of speaker size is basically nil.
Something just occurred to me.
Perhaps there's another way to improve the imaging of the Synergy horns.
If you think about it, you want wide horizontal coverage and narrow vertical coverage. This is hard to do in a horn, because horns tend to work better when they're symmetrical or close. For instance, a 60x40 horn works well, but a 135x20 degree horn does not.
One solution that might work for a Synergy would be to use a dramatic backwards tilt.
For instance, with a 15" waveguide like the Summa, one issue you're going to have is that the size of the sound will seem like it's 15" or thereabouts.
But if you tilt it back - A LOT - you reduce the vertical height of the image.
This isn't super practical for a conventional speaker, because you'll screw up the pathlength from tweeter to midrange. But it would work with a Synergy horn because the tweeter and the midrange are on the same horn.
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that would be a good reason
but no, I don't buy it
one reason 2ways are good is their small size, usually
so my guess is that its simply too big for a 2way
if it were a 3way it would have a smaller midrange crossed lower
and basicly be like a small 2way, with a woofer
and if done right they sound like one driver, with no size at all
meaning, you don't hear it like a speaker playing
but more like standing outside the concert room, listening to live musicians through the door
If you are referencing venue effects and "ambiance", indeed there is:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/200539-diy-synergy-horn.html
Hawaiian: "Eh Aho Laula":
"Wider is better".
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In my HT I am able to turn off the lights (for almost total darkness) and listen to the SM60Fs. Not being able to see the walls is even more impressive to me than not being able to see the size of the speakers.
Whoa! I should have thought a lot more about what E.G. said here days ago, but the truth is it doesn't matter how long you use a tool , you only think about how well it works, the physics behind it are another matter. Speakers being a bit more delicate than hammers. (-;
So... OK I get it (I think). Ripple caused by diffraction is going to be extremely complex, so the real question then is is this "diffraction" ripple a real and very audible side effect? Is it (yes that) kind of distortion? Is ripple important outside of VHF bands? or is it already vastly tamed or excluded by the very nature of this "mechanical crossover"?
I guess I will know when and if I hear one. One thing for sure the curves/plots/numbers do not seem to show this unless I'm interpreting them incorrectly??
I meant is diffraction ripple significant inside a horn like this outside of "tweeter" range?.
My thoughts?
Don't control reflections from a great speaker like that at all! For listening purposes? Instead create them! Go with your Synergy/headphone type design don't change a thing. Do this: Get another tiny set of full range speakers, (i.e minimus 7 et al) bandpass the living crap ( yes a very steep hump all middle) out of them and place them *behind* your Synergies facing into into the walls. Drive them (through separate cheap amp) with same signal or digital room sim and mix them in at only a few percent to taste.
Think I'm kidding? I'm not. Surround sound "reverb" sounds goofy as hell because of where it originates, this does not sound goofy at all, vastly natural in fact.
In fact, it is an improvement of what we already do in the studio, only we have to do it in the same dimension (same speakers) and you would be amazed at how much band passing is actually needed, I'm not even going to tell you, because a guy with your 'skillz" will figure it out very, very fast. the bose 901 crap had it backwards, the reverb tanks from decades past had it wrong, surround sound has it wrong now. I'm not guessing this I know it.
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Synergy horns are still on my list of things I'd like to try building. I've found a few threads around the 'butts, but if anyone has any specific recommendations, that'd be awesome.
I would love to own enough SH-50s to cover all the channels in my theater, but they're just not in the budget, unless Tom has a sudden stroke of philanthropy
Thread's been a great read so far.
I would love to own enough SH-50s to cover all the channels in my theater, but they're just not in the budget, unless Tom has a sudden stroke of philanthropy
Thread's been a great read so far.
That and it is a three dimensional problem so it cannot be corrected at all by a one dimensional solution like EQ in a global sense.
It can take a very high resolution polar map to see diffraction effects - smoothing can obliterate them completely.
This is very good.
One thing more, add a delay of about 12ms. to the reverb speakers.
Its the simplicity in the speaker, and without the muck from a recording chain. Mind you try some really dynamic stuff with mid treble transients.
The Behringer speakers score for the same reason but at home listening to at least the Behringers I did not like the sound. Rebuilt with better tweeter mid and suddenly pleasant to listen to. I dont know how good the Summas are but opinion is that they are very good with their selected drivers wave guide etc
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That design (Geddes, compression, big horn,) has no choice but to sound good unless the filters were messed up, and I highly doubt it (-:
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I have heard some system with a big horn and big woofer that were simply awful, so I don't think that one can assume that combination will always be great.
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