I know that engineers like to consider themselves as scientists, though they generally behave more like priests, and shouldn't be ashamed of nor have nothing to lose trying to behave as artists too...
Last edited:
Yes diffractions effects are directional ( basically appear mainly on axis ), but calling this "free gain" sounds a bit frightening to me...
You shouldn't be. It happens in any speaker and usually all that is done is EQ the on-axis peak. The difference is we actively used the phenomenon to achieve a certain directivity.
And increasing directivity as a plus, just a fashionable gimmick, opportunist marketing argument for the times being...
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Do you mean that there is no place for speakers with high directivity? If that is your position, I don't agree. There are situations where high directivity is beneficial and there are situations where lower directivity is preferred, but directivity should always be more or less constant, or change only gradually. By the way, the directivity of the 8c is not really all that high.
I couldn't have said it better than Milkshake:
Last edited:
Computer simulations only got us so far. Ultimately you just have to build and test it, especially the waveguide!
Not everyone seems to agree, and that's fine. I used to think differently too, but right now I'm aware that there already is a very solid scientific foundation when it comes to loudspeaker design. When we designed the 8c I really felt like we were standing on shoulders of giants. The design criteria for the 8c were very much in line with the teachings of for instance Floyd Toole.
You spoke with my colleague Koen. He is very tall indeed! This is a photo from a couple of years ago when we took a prototype of some of our bigger speakers to a local hifi club. That was fun!
I'm 1.91 meter tall by the way (about 6 ft 3 in)!
What you call free gain, the on axis boost caused by diffractions, might also be called delayed energy, or very early reflections...
That said, nothing new under the sun, this is a very common way to increase directivity under the xover point, by using a carefully selected baffle width. All 2 ways monitors pretend to achieve this in a more or less gracefull or controlled way: a baffle used as a diffraction waveguide...
That said, nothing new under the sun, this is a very common way to increase directivity under the xover point, by using a carefully selected baffle width. All 2 ways monitors pretend to achieve this in a more or less gracefull or controlled way: a baffle used as a diffraction waveguide...
Excellent job designing those. I'm also intrigued by using a cardoid mid. How did you find the correct size holes for the side openings on cardoid? How about the flow resistor on the inside, just felt? I understand if you don't want to reveal all your secrets, but maybe point me in the general direction
Thanks! Cardioid is a bit of-topic, so please have a look here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/192737-2-waveguide-cardioid-17.html#post5048852
.That's a bit snobbish don't you think?NATDBERG said:
If you like the content of the music enough, then even if the production side is far from optimal for high fidelity, you'll still want to listen to it at it's best, and it may not sound it's best on ruler-flat monitors in sound treated rooms.
It's not just 'mass marketed' music that goes all out on tuning the production and mastering for most common applications. I'm sure a lot of independently produced EDM is designed to sound best on big PA systems, and a lot of small independent producers of rock and metal will be apeing the production techniques of the big names. For better or worse.
(I don't have an audiophile hobby by the way! Right now at least, I'm interested in the information as a means to an end of creating a design which is decidedly non-audiophile grade, because it's so intensely compromised by it's other design parameters it could never be a true audiophile product, but I need to be aware of the principles at least - The last design I dreamt up had a ribbon tweeter with a 110mm flat cylinder faceplate mounted to a truncated sphere and I've been afraid of baffle edge diffraction ever since).
Last edited:
I thought about this a lot. I've heard Sting did an interview on CNN and he said something that might shed some light into this debate. As an artist, he understands that all artists "steal" materials all the time. Only the bad ones get caught.
I think we have to accept that all drivers or speakers are never going to be truthful to the input signal. The right question to ask is which one can "fool" into nirvana the best. If "truthful" is the best then higher order speakers should be the best since they have the most flat frequency response, but we all know higher order can sound dry, sterile, and paltry. On the other hand, lower order speakers may have compromised measurements but sounds musical like having a cake and can actually eat it.
Mastering suites...lovely!
Btw, i much prefer those MTV acoustic concerts available at Youtube, than any of these pretentious recordings sold at HD tracks or Chesky records. Don't care a damn about this stuff: Music first, even on a ghettoblaster!
Chesky - maybe, that's a label that deals in certain things of it's choosing.
HD Tracks - sells tracks in formats higher than 44.1 or 48K /16. I don't see how resolutions of a recording effects the musical content. Afterall, recordings have been made commonly in 96/24 for at least 20 years now, all sorts of music.
Nope. The point of mixing/mastering for MP3 or radio or cheap headphones is to sell to the masses who don't care for good hifi. It says nothing about the music itself, only the sound quality of the final release.
If you're on here discussing edge diffraction and baffle shape, then you are designing your gear to sound good i would guess. You are not then going to be playing this stuff to test your latest design.... you are going to be playing stuff that is well mastered. Nothing snobbish about it, more just a matter of fact, logical.
The rock thing will be just down to taste of those making and engineering that music. For EDM - always confused by that, do you mean all electronic dance music or EDM, the specific genre? - If you read enough of those "how it was made" articles, again they mix to their tastes on systems they enjoy, normally studio monitors of their choice that they think are "transparent" "revealing" etc etc just like all other people enthusiast about sound. To suggest they don't master for things to sound good either by having poor taste or being deliberately cinical could be considered snobbish. I mean... yeah, that might be right for some people! Damaged ears from spending too long in clubs, their passion, taste for very hard treble from compression drivers for that extra snap of each synth sound. Really depends who they are.
Last edited:
It's more of a sliding scale than black and white like you're presenting it though. Some at the extreme polarities you describe but a lot of the best stuff will be somewhere in the middle - sounding great on hifi and great on cheap earbuds/phone speakers. I know a lot of my favourite music does.
But that stuff that hits the sweet spot will often lose something significant if you go too far to either end of the scale.
Erm.. the term EDM confuses me as well I do mean electronic dance music in general, not the genre.
I'm not suggesting people don't master for things to sound good but everyone has their priorities and there's no such thing as uncompromising in audio. There is always, always a compromise of some kind being made. One strength representing a weakness by the tastes or requirements of another. It's considered by some that the major weakness of very high fidelity is the ticket price and need for a treated listening environment, and that probably is the biggest one (you can always EQ to your tastes or extend low end with extra enclosures if you can afford it), but it's also often mentioned how these designs will show up a 'poor mix', but the word 'poor' isn't always appropriate imo. They can make many mixes that are quite suitable for purpose sound inadequate as well.
There was an interesting discussion on Gearslutz about this, with a bloke who 'mastered' a mini mix of old 60's radio classics in a deliberately low fidelity to emulate the way they would sound through a typical 60's car stereo and tape deck, in order to illustrate the mastery of the production techniques of the time to produce more out of less, or rather, to produce what was needed out of what people had. Beatles 1966 - Gearslutz Pro Audio Community
But that stuff that hits the sweet spot will often lose something significant if you go too far to either end of the scale.
Erm.. the term EDM confuses me as well
I do mean electronic dance music in general, not the genre.I'm not suggesting people don't master for things to sound good but everyone has their priorities and there's no such thing as uncompromising in audio. There is always, always a compromise of some kind being made. One strength representing a weakness by the tastes or requirements of another. It's considered by some that the major weakness of very high fidelity is the ticket price and need for a treated listening environment, and that probably is the biggest one (you can always EQ to your tastes or extend low end with extra enclosures if you can afford it), but it's also often mentioned how these designs will show up a 'poor mix', but the word 'poor' isn't always appropriate imo. They can make many mixes that are quite suitable for purpose sound inadequate as well.
There was an interesting discussion on Gearslutz about this, with a bloke who 'mastered' a mini mix of old 60's radio classics in a deliberately low fidelity to emulate the way they would sound through a typical 60's car stereo and tape deck, in order to illustrate the mastery of the production techniques of the time to produce more out of less, or rather, to produce what was needed out of what people had. Beatles 1966 - Gearslutz Pro Audio Community
Last edited:
What i criticize is the current high DF trend/fashion: The more the merrier.
You will of course answer that it is not a fashion, it is science, and if you can atenuate -10dbs at 90º, it's better than -6dbs, which is also better than -3dbs.
Of course 6dbs of full BSC + eq -3/4dbs of diffractions ( free gain...
) will give you aprox those 10dbs, but aiming for this is may be your religion but not my religion, just a politically correct choice to please a given market target who also happens to follow this religion.
In a word all these choices are not about science, but pure ideology, as almost always happens in audio, and all these choices have a sonic signature of their own, for the good and the evil.
Attachments
Last edited:
I completely disagree.
Were not there yet, but as I've said here before: Its just a matter of thorough engineering and time and then we'll have a speaker system that is indistinguishable from the input.
Imo the important reason for getting to that ideal speaker system that is indistinguishable from the input is, that we then have a reference point that everyone can use. Then we know the rules and most importantly, then we also know how to bend these rules to suit individual tastes.
That is not my experience at all, in fact its quite the opposite. I guess tastes vary.
If you look at the research from Toole/Olive on this subject, you'll find that the vast majority of people prefer speakers with flat on and off axis frequency responses.
The major downside of speakers that colour the sound is that everything you play through them is coloured in the same way.
The solution is to use flat speakers (and everything else that is needed for a speaker to be indistinguishable from the input. We don't fully know the details of that yet, but were getting there) and then add user adjustable linear and non linear distortion devices in the signal chain to suit personal preferences. Most 80's punk records do need a lot of eq to sound good, same goes for those old 20-60 jazz records, etc etc. Now ALL end users can have the cake and eat it.
There are so many compromises that have to be made when designing a speaker that one can have 2 totally different sounding designs can be equally valid. Since a speaker tends to dominate the end result — that should not be seen as saying that everything else is unimportant, it is very important — one can find systems that do different things and are equally right.
dave
I am afraid yours is pure and blind faith...
What is that mysterious input you always talking about? Maybe the recording?
In this case the input will only be known when played by a given speaker, and you will only know that the output is truthfull to the input when you can be sure that you are using an ideal speaker system which output is indistinguishable from the input.
In other words, you will never know how this input should sound, because this reasoning is as useless as totally circular...
As said, questions of faith...
Last edited:
I'd be grateful to read everyone's opinion on the ATC SMC100 in the context of baffle diffraction. How does this loudspeaker stand up to scrutiny?
SCM100 | ATC Loudspeakers
SCM100 | ATC Loudspeakers