Hi Guys
A DIY version??
I would love to, I started building speakers as a kid and never stopped.
That being said, while the company has my name on it and I design the stuff, it is my partner is who has made the company successful with those designs and has done so in a different way than “normal”.
I have talked to Bill W. about the DIY thing and I hoped that (having someone else do it = minimum hassle) would have been the turning point but it wasn’t or at least hasn’t been yet.
We have our “big fat Geek trade show” next week (Infocomm) which has absorbed everyone’s attention for a good while now at work.
I will talk to Mike about this again at the show because I would love to have people hear them at home, I couldn’t go back to normal speakers now.
The only general thing I would do is put a small tilt in the frequency response like hifi speakers usually have because at the switch to CD’s, recordings got brighter so they could ”sound better” and now often “Flat” sounds too bright in the living room.
Best,
Tom
A DIY version??
I would love to, I started building speakers as a kid and never stopped.
That being said, while the company has my name on it and I design the stuff, it is my partner is who has made the company successful with those designs and has done so in a different way than “normal”.
I have talked to Bill W. about the DIY thing and I hoped that (having someone else do it = minimum hassle) would have been the turning point but it wasn’t or at least hasn’t been yet.
We have our “big fat Geek trade show” next week (Infocomm) which has absorbed everyone’s attention for a good while now at work.
I will talk to Mike about this again at the show because I would love to have people hear them at home, I couldn’t go back to normal speakers now.
The only general thing I would do is put a small tilt in the frequency response like hifi speakers usually have because at the switch to CD’s, recordings got brighter so they could ”sound better” and now often “Flat” sounds too bright in the living room.
Best,
Tom
Please do! I've never had any of my DIY versions sound as good as the SH-46. Most of us can't afford the pro sound prices of the normal Synergy line.
Tom,
If you ever want to make the transition to active digital crossovers, given the "special" nature of your magnitude and phase responses, you might find this technique to be very useful:
IEEE Xplore - Precise Filter Design [DSP Tips & Tricks]
Precise Filter Design - Streamlining Digital Signal Processing: A Tricks of the Trade Guidebook, Second Edition - Berchin - Wiley Online Library
Greg
Greets!
Small tilt?! The ones I briefly auditioned at Gainesville with one of the Spider-Man movies were so bright/harsh they sounded like King Kong was ripping aluminum sheeting in the lightning scenes, which considering my hearing only goes to around 12k solidly these days makes me wonder if just HF attenuation is enough.
Otherwise, the horn speaker system performance I strived for, but never quite achieved. Really close, but no cigar. I've been very close to lightning strikes three times, so figured that if I could replicate at least the 'flavor' of its literally hair raising intensity it could handle any music/movie recordings I was likely to ever own with aplomb, but never quite got the heart attack fast transients quite right.
GM
Here is the Danley Sound Labs Facebook page. Let's post our support for a price friendly home edition Synergy horn.
https://www.facebook.com/#!/DanleySoundLabs?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/#!/DanleySoundLabs?fref=ts
The soundtrack, no; the rest is DSL's demo 'room' with apparently all the high $$$ electronics, test gear one could need for a full blown concert [didn't have a clue what most of it was for] in a curtained off space of a relatively small warehouse, so one would think that any signal processing would be optimized to a fare-thee-well.
I haven't been to a large outdoor concert in over a decade now, so for all I know this is what passes for high SQ concert sound these days and may sound OK in such an app due to air absorption, etc., but for HIFI/HT, I'd need to be near deaf to tolerate it and unfortunately there wasn't time to demo some of the smaller speakers with different drivers for comparison.
GM
I haven't been to a large outdoor concert in over a decade now, so for all I know this is what passes for high SQ concert sound these days and may sound OK in such an app due to air absorption, etc., but for HIFI/HT, I'd need to be near deaf to tolerate it and unfortunately there wasn't time to demo some of the smaller speakers with different drivers for comparison.
GM
I heard the entire DSL line at Infocomm last year, and they all seemed a little bright at medium distances. OK, the subs didn't.* I figured that was an artifact of them being meant for long throw.
When I heard the SH50 again some months later and in another state, it didn't sound as bright. Curiously it was in a smaller space that time. The SH50 was well balanced in that smaller venue. Mostly it was used for live microphone and people speaking, but some music samples were also played. It seemed very well balanced there. I don't have an explanation for the difference.
*The sub demo was funny. The SPL was very high, but didn't seem it. The boxes and drivers were so well behaved that they just didn't sound loud. But everything else in the ballroom was buzzing, rattling and singing like mad. Obviously a prodigious amount of acoustic energy in the room, but no distress or noise from the subs. Impressive.
I figured that was an artifact of them being meant for long throw.When I heard the SH50 again some months later and in another state, it didn't sound as bright. Curiously it was in a smaller space that time. The SH50 was well balanced in that smaller venue. Mostly it was used for live microphone and people speaking, but some music samples were also played. It seemed very well balanced there. I don't have an explanation for the difference.
*The sub demo was funny. The SPL was very high, but didn't seem it. The boxes and drivers were so well behaved that they just didn't sound loud. But everything else in the ballroom was buzzing, rattling and singing like mad. Obviously a prodigious amount of acoustic energy in the room, but no distress or noise from the subs. Impressive.
Yeah some Really are top $
Ahh, OK
I know of HF drivers that achieve quite a lot more output. You "may" have already evaluated them ? But if you'ld like me to pass on the info to you, on the off chance the've slipped past you, just holla
Not just CD horns either !
*
Re SH-50 overly bright
Not straight out da box, looking @ the fr plots etc. It MUST have been bad EQ settings etc. Unfortunately, operators "can" give good products a Bad name
That's what you get with good design
The opposite of "sometimes" being "maybe" initially impressed with a system and/or speakers. But then it doesn't take long for fatigue etc to set in ! I know which i always prefer Hi Guys
GM, you heard what you heard but I can say what is in the rack are a couple multi-channel power amps, a crossover, a matrix switcher and DVD player, nothing special at all. It has been the norm (and usually they mention it) to demo without any eq and using a normal crossover between the subs and higher boxes. Ideally, we would have a proper Synergy horn alignment for each combination but with 24 full range and 18 subwoofers it is impractical (taking all the measurements needed to figure them out).
To the first order, if all the loudspeakers were technically perfect, they would sound exactly the same. Here though some of the speakers at work are for down fill or other fill applications where bass is undesirable or for on stage monitors where brightness is desirable.
Also too, the Synergy horn is a design approach that ideally ends with what looks like one driver, not the model. If I were making one for the home, it would be more like an SH-50 / SM-60F a full range speaker but switching to a sealed LF alignment so I could more easily make a Synergy crossover into a subwoofer below the horn.
I will be back in Gainesville after the trade show, since you’re a horn guy and you’re not that far away as I recall, if you want, I will see if I can talk them into loaning a pair of 50’s or 60’s to you to try. I would be curious what you thought in a room and system you knew intimately. If favorable, maybe that would help getting more interest in this area.
Got to run
Tom
GM, you heard what you heard but I can say what is in the rack are a couple multi-channel power amps, a crossover, a matrix switcher and DVD player, nothing special at all. It has been the norm (and usually they mention it) to demo without any eq and using a normal crossover between the subs and higher boxes. Ideally, we would have a proper Synergy horn alignment for each combination but with 24 full range and 18 subwoofers it is impractical (taking all the measurements needed to figure them out).
To the first order, if all the loudspeakers were technically perfect, they would sound exactly the same. Here though some of the speakers at work are for down fill or other fill applications where bass is undesirable or for on stage monitors where brightness is desirable.
Also too, the Synergy horn is a design approach that ideally ends with what looks like one driver, not the model. If I were making one for the home, it would be more like an SH-50 / SM-60F a full range speaker but switching to a sealed LF alignment so I could more easily make a Synergy crossover into a subwoofer below the horn.
I will be back in Gainesville after the trade show, since you’re a horn guy and you’re not that far away as I recall, if you want, I will see if I can talk them into loaning a pair of 50’s or 60’s to you to try. I would be curious what you thought in a room and system you knew intimately. If favorable, maybe that would help getting more interest in this area.
Got to run
Tom
well here is a question, two actually.
Tom, could you PM me or post the relevant US patent numbers?
Second question, it seems that this is similar to the earlier Unity horn, but with the bass drivers added and a different angle horn? Wondering what the specific differences are?
Third out of two questions, why would this horn be an improvement for home use over the Unity design(s)?
Tom, could you PM me or post the relevant US patent numbers?
Second question, it seems that this is similar to the earlier Unity horn, but with the bass drivers added and a different angle horn? Wondering what the specific differences are?
Third out of two questions, why would this horn be an improvement for home use over the Unity design(s)?
Re SH-50 overly bright
I re-read GM's comments & realised that it was in fact a DSL demo, & NOT an outside contractor etc demo !
Therefore i can't see how/why it should have been overly bright. Unless they had set it up envisaging a Large amount of people would be attending, altering the room response, & had HF compensated ahead of time, no pun intended for a "possible" correction ?
Even so, i would have expected the EQ settings to be switchable etc @ the appropriate juncture.
I re-read GM's comments & realised that it was in fact a DSL demo, & NOT an outside contractor etc demo !
Therefore i can't see how/why it should have been overly bright. Unless they had set it up envisaging a Large amount of people would be attending, altering the room response, & had HF compensated ahead of time, no pun intended
for a "possible" correction ?Even so, i would have expected the EQ settings to be switchable etc @ the appropriate juncture.
Hi Guys
I am packing to leave for the trade show so this has to be short.
Bear, I can’t get to your questions until I get back but the difference between the two was that I was never able to get the “one driver” behavior I was trying to reach. In the Unity horn, the sources combined so for as the radiation pattern (no lobes or nulls or change in pattern) but I couldn’t cancel out the entire crossover phase shift.
Zero, they generally DO NOT apply any eq or do anything special for in house demos (and they normally say that during the demo).
The reason is that most loudspeakers require a great deal of tuning / processing to make sound their best especially in large spaces.
They also do not do in house demos that often, it is MUCH better to go on site and demo side by side with the other options.
If you read through some of the installation artless, one sees they frequently mention how little tuning or eq was required.
Here is an old one I found with google.
Prosound Network: Danley Sound Labs SH-50 Loudspeaker
A Pair of Danley Jericho Horns Herald a New Speaker Model for Church Audio - Lighting&Sound America Online - News
maybe more relevant, a hifi horn guy that had some;
RE: Danley Sound Labs - endust4237 - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum
The reason why Flat is a good place to start in large scale sound;
Calculation method of absorption of sound by atmosphere air damping dissipation absorbtion - Attenuation of sound during propagation outdoors outdoor - sengpielaudio Sengpiel Berlin
Best,
Tom
I am packing to leave for the trade show so this has to be short.
Bear, I can’t get to your questions until I get back but the difference between the two was that I was never able to get the “one driver” behavior I was trying to reach. In the Unity horn, the sources combined so for as the radiation pattern (no lobes or nulls or change in pattern) but I couldn’t cancel out the entire crossover phase shift.
Zero, they generally DO NOT apply any eq or do anything special for in house demos (and they normally say that during the demo).
The reason is that most loudspeakers require a great deal of tuning / processing to make sound their best especially in large spaces.
They also do not do in house demos that often, it is MUCH better to go on site and demo side by side with the other options.
If you read through some of the installation artless, one sees they frequently mention how little tuning or eq was required.
Here is an old one I found with google.
Prosound Network: Danley Sound Labs SH-50 Loudspeaker
A Pair of Danley Jericho Horns Herald a New Speaker Model for Church Audio - Lighting&Sound America Online - News
maybe more relevant, a hifi horn guy that had some;
RE: Danley Sound Labs - endust4237 - High Efficiency Speaker Asylum
The reason why Flat is a good place to start in large scale sound;
Calculation method of absorption of sound by atmosphere air damping dissipation absorbtion - Attenuation of sound during propagation outdoors outdoor - sengpielaudio Sengpiel Berlin
Best,
Tom
A couple of observations:
1) One little appreciated feature of synergy horns is that their listening distance is very close. Due to this, they can work in very small rooms. This is a feature which makes them particularly attractive for home theater and car audio. For instance, if you're using a horn like the econowave, you need to sit about ten feet away from the speaker to escape the nearfield, due to the large CTC spacing. In a Synergy horn the CTC spacing is about one quarter as large, and due to that you can listen at a very short range. A very nice feature if you happen to have limited space.
2) Mini DSP and inexpensive digital amps have allowed the DIYer to make a Synergy horn for far less cost and complexity than was possible five or ten years ago. The passive xover on my second Unity horn probably took a week or two to get 'in the ballpark'. MiniDSP simplifies this in a huge way.
1) One little appreciated feature of synergy horns is that their listening distance is very close. Due to this, they can work in very small rooms. This is a feature which makes them particularly attractive for home theater and car audio. For instance, if you're using a horn like the econowave, you need to sit about ten feet away from the speaker to escape the nearfield, due to the large CTC spacing. In a Synergy horn the CTC spacing is about one quarter as large, and due to that you can listen at a very short range. A very nice feature if you happen to have limited space.
2) Mini DSP and inexpensive digital amps have allowed the DIYer to make a Synergy horn for far less cost and complexity than was possible five or ten years ago. The passive xover on my second Unity horn probably took a week or two to get 'in the ballpark'. MiniDSP simplifies this in a huge way.
I heard the entire DSL line at Infocomm last year, and they all seemed a little bright at medium distances. OK, the subs didn't.*
When I heard the SH50 again some months later and in another state, it didn't sound as bright. Curiously it was in a smaller space that time. The SH50 was well balanced in that smaller venue. Mostly it was used for live microphone and people speaking, but some music samples were also played. It seemed very well balanced there. I don't have an explanation for the difference.
*The sub demo was funny. The SPL was very high, but didn't seem it. The boxes and drivers were so well behaved that they just didn't sound loud. But everything else in the ballroom was buzzing, rattling and singing like mad. Obviously a prodigious amount of acoustic energy in the room, but no distress or noise from the subs. Impressive.
I've built a bunch of Unity horns, heard some of the real ones, and bought Gedlee Summas for myself. Some observations:
1) your observation about being able to listen at very high SPLs without things "seeming" loud are consistent with my experience. For instance, when I'm running my Summas I basically have to shout to make myself heard. But they don't SEEM loud.
2) the main difference I notice between my Summas and my Unity projects is articulation, and an ability to extract details out of a song. IMHO, this has a lot to do with the midrange phase response. For instance, if my Summas play a song where the vocalists voice sits at the xover, then their voice will radiate from two points in space that are fifteen inches apart. (Because the woofer and the tweeter are spaced 15" apart). When I listen to the same song on my Unities, the articulation is improved, and I believe that's because the midrange and tweeter are much much closer. Unfortunately, there's no free lunch, and my Summas do some other things that my Unity projects can't.
Sometimes I've wondered if I could reach a compromise between the two speakers by reducing the CTC spacing by simply using a smaller waveguide. This would 'push' that transition from driver to driver up to 1500 or even 2khz, where it may be less audible. Then again, it might actually sound worse, since we're more sensitive to 2khz than 1khz.
You can just use an asymmetrical waveguide. A good econowave style design can do far better than the 10' distance you mentioned. Not that I'm calling it a synergy substitute by any means. A smaller woofer helps, but then you've got trouble with the waveguide depth. A smaller waveguide could work but the large woofers can't reach it gracefully. Smaller woofer AND waveguide works, but then suddenly you're going 3-way, like those JBL monitors.
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Interesting that people often throw dirt at horns for being 'bright', when all that's really happening is that the distortion artifacts of the preceding chain are being cleanly reproduced. The louder the system is capable of going, the more subjectively obvious are these deficiencies - which a lot of people seem to "solve" by dulling the HF response in various ways.
The real solution is to sort out the problems further back in the system, which will then allow SPLs to be at ear shredding levels without being subjectively disturbing ...
The real solution is to sort out the problems further back in the system, which will then allow SPLs to be at ear shredding levels without being subjectively disturbing ...
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