Well I suppose the shallow vs. steep argument will just go on and on

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If you have that much time, be my guest. I was wondering what would happen to the world if every person takes weeks/months to make a simple decision like buying a pair of speakers. After awhile, we would start talking about basic competency.

Most people will buy on reputation, looks, price and an on-line review. They also tend to follow the crowd rather than buy something off the beaten track. And most are not buying hi-end, so I'm not sure how your concern applies to every person in the world.

Measurements are hard to correlate with listening pleasure (in real rooms) and many speakers are not measured over a wide range of parameters and conditions.
 
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Do you mean to imply that the filters are not linear?

I think I can answer here as I know where Steve is coming from. The answer is no.

It is a case of with shallower slopes (especially with a low crossover point when considering the tweeter) then the extra bass energy that gets through to the tweeter can cause more (I assume IM) distortion.

Additionally with shallow slopes any breakup in the low frequency driver will be more likely to be contributing to the combined FR, this will obviously be more of a problem with higher crossover frequencies.

Tony.
 
About listening periods, small deviations take longer to be noticed. Alas some defaults are more annoying than others. Third, we are discussing te differences between basically very good (hifi) speakers, right?

In high end, Magico, Vivid and Revel use steep filters but Dunlavy and Marten shallow. Both get mostly good reviews and measure well. Wilson Alexx has 2nd LM and 4th MH
Wilson Audio Specialties Alexx loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
 
I think I can answer here as I know where Steve is coming from. The answer is no.

It is a case of with shallower slopes (especially with a low crossover point when considering the tweeter) then the extra bass energy that gets through to the tweeter can cause more (I assume IM) distortion.

Additionally with shallow slopes any breakup in the low frequency driver will be more likely to be contributing to the combined FR, this will obviously be more of a problem with higher crossover frequencies.

Tony.

That is how I interpreted Steve's post too.

However I think with shallow slopes the tweeter is just simply being overloaded reaching its thermal and excursion limits rather than suffering increased IM.
 
Wouldn't it all depend on what drivers you start with? This is way to generalizing and with specific 2 way's in mind if you ask me.

There are so many ways to build a speaker. Many choices on with drivers one could pick for the job. All design factors play a role in how one decides to build it. Shallow filters don't distort. Drivers might if they are not chosen wisely. It would all depend on the combinations used. The popular fast might react very different from the 6.5" plus 1" tweeter or the 15" plus compression driver top. All would be called a two way.

I'll probably be regarded as stupid as I don't even have any crossovers at all.
 
What about all the other options available? If one was to be determined to use shallow crossovers would it not make sense to choose the components that fit? I don't think Earl quoted the post thinking of dome tweeters, but took notice because of the sentence it was used in:

Shallow filters are great, but they distort with high level, especially in two ways.

Like I said, the filters would not be the problem. One does not have to pick a dome tweeter because it is a popular choice.
 
What two way model did I suggest? I'm not aware I suggested any...

All I said is there are many ways to design a speaker. When going for shallow slopes one should choose it's components wisely.

Would 5 way be better? Or 4? Do we need horns? Arrays? AMT, planar? Way to many options for any blank statements.

When shooting for shallow slopes, maybe it would be wise to choose more than a 2 way.
However it would still depend on too many factors to make these generalisations in a discussion about steep vs shallow filter topologies.
 
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When shooting for shallow slopes, maybe it would be wise to choose more than a 2 way.
However it would still depend on too many factors to make these generalisations in a discussion about steep vs shallow filter topologies.

The one shallow sloped (6dB) speaker I enjoyed was the huge Dynaudio thing (Consequence?) which was a 5way.
Although I am certain similar could be achieved with a steeper sloped 3way.
 
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That is how I interpreted Steve's post too.

However I think with shallow slopes the tweeter is just simply being overloaded reaching its thermal and excursion limits rather than suffering increased IM.

Possibly. I'm looking at this from a dome perspective, and always figured that low frequencies that were never intended to be reproduced could cause weird (pysical) distortions of the dome, which would then cause IM. No evidence to back this up, just a thought :)

Again anecdotally, my attempt at a 2nd order with Morel DMS37 tweeters which theoretically should handle quite low crossover and high power, was at 2.8Khz, not a low crossover point. They fell apart with dense music at medium levels and sounded awful. changing to 4th order (acoustic) at 2.8 Khz was a massive improvement. However I always assumed it was the tweeter that was the issue, and it may well have been breakup on the midbass, and a lower crossover point may actually have worked better... I probably should experiment with that at some point.

Tony.
 
I think I can answer here as I know where Steve is coming from. The answer is no.

It is a case of with shallower slopes (especially with a low crossover point when considering the tweeter) then the extra bass energy that gets through to the tweeter can cause more (I assume IM) distortion.

Additionally with shallow slopes any breakup in the low frequency driver will be more likely to be contributing to the combined FR, this will obviously be more of a problem with higher crossover frequencies.

Tony.

The first case is of no importance if one uses a driver capable of the excursion (which is NOT a dome tweeter.) The second case is a true issue for most woofers. Hence, I use a shallow slope on the tweeter 6 dB/oct and a stepper one on the woofer 18dB/oct . Works just fine for me.
 
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