If thats meant for me, I have not had a chance to do your speaker so I don't know. Sorry.
Forget about your own forum, write it up like Moulton does or use some blogging software. This will work much better.
For me the easiest thing is to write it in Word, make a PDF, post it to my website and link to it everytime the same question comes up. I finally did this for "multiple subs - rational and setup" and it works quite well.
I just want to reiterate that this is a matter of taste, nothing else. The Live End / Dead End debate has gone on for decades and is not about to retire. I'm am in the camp that prefers well designed diffraction behind the speakers, absorption behind the listener. The two camps seem about equally divided.
Absorption is often easier and cheaper to do - just have a look at the price of RPG products, for example. But given the choice of no treatment behind the speakers and absorptive treatment, even I will take the treatment.
A good diffuser is more to my taste.
I just want to reiterate that this is a matter of taste, nothing else. The Live End / Dead End debate has gone on for decades and is not about to retire. I'm am in the camp that prefers well designed diffraction behind the speakers, absorption behind the listener. The two camps seem about equally divided.
Absorption is often easier and cheaper to do - just have a look at the price of RPG products, for example. But given the choice of no treatment behind the speakers and absorptive treatment, even I will take the treatment.
Its the old "sounds good to me!" argument. Everything is subjective, science doesn't matter. Floyd Toole and I both agree on this point, so I would certainly not say that it "equally divided".
Thanks for the compliment.
A good horn system and good room treatment is what works for me. Both of mine have come a very long way since you heard them. Keeping direct reflections off the front and side walls goes a long way in helping the image. It can be done with a combination of absorption and diffused reflection. Anything you can do is better than the typical hard, flat wall that lives behind most speakers. Room treatment is sorely neglected by most audiophiles. Big speakers also work for me. Small speakers always sound small to me and imaging, or a least a sense of scale, usually suffers. No woofer under 12" need apply.
That's a strange statement and I don't really understand it. Isn't sounding good the point? Don't we listen for pleasure? Getting subjectively closer to the sound of the real thing is a common goal and usually considered "better".
How would live end/dead end be tested, anyway? By listening? By finding which gives better directional clues or a sense of space to the listener? Or is there some other metric that does not involve a human listener? If it's listening, then diffusion behind the speakers gives me the best spacial clues. That may not be the case for everyone, but I am not alone in my preferences. Different schools of thought on the matter seem to boil down to a matter of taste. You are likely to believe that your tastes are superior, just as I am, that's human nature.
Both absorption and diffuse reflection behind the speaker work for me, I simply prefer one over the other.
If it is truly a matter of science which technique is objectively better, I'd be interested to see the evidence and the testing methodology. Certainly others would be interested as well. Please post them if you can.
I burnt and tried the hi-passed (and not) correlated (mono) pinknoise while listening to the center phantom image. As long as I sat right in the exact middle, I had a good center image for all but the 6kHZ hi-pass, which got pretty diffuse, and didn't move or change much with some head movement. I didn't notice it ever sounding like it was coming from one of the tweeters unless I moved horizontally several inches, or turned my head. I tried it with and without my slightly varied Carver inter-aural cancellation circuit engaged (the "holographic generator"). It didn't seem to make any real difference.
My speakers are home brew, open baffle, dipoles, triamp'd, active EQ and 4th order Linkwitz crossover. There are four 5 inch drivers in a vertical array on each side, with back to back Seas Millenium domes on each side (like in the Linkwitz Orion). Dipole from, 100HZ on up. The woofers are in separate sealed cubes, and EQ'd to be flat at the listening position to 20HZ. The room is smaller than would be real nice, but on the long wall, it's actually suprisingly decent sounding. My "Aurium Waveguide" speakers can be viewed on my website if interested:
http://www.spiritone.com/~rob_369
I spent a big part of yesterday downloading free "binaural" recordings off the web. Today I got them burned and listened to them with the "holographic generator" (inter-aural cancellation circuit). The "generator" does not do the job perfect, but it sure does thrill me for what it does do. I have about 25 samples of binaural recordings of all types, including some strictly synthetic ones (computer generated cues). They all worked pretty darn good. Yes the listening position is critical. Some lesser men can't handle that. The mp3 compression distortion was nausiating at times. Some recordings had occasional clipping... You get what you pay for. They were all free. One guy made the point that the younger generation uses ear-buds often, and it would therefore make sense to make more binaural recordings. I agree. You sure wouldn't want to be driving a car while listening to binaural sounds through any variation of headphones.
My speakers are home brew, open baffle, dipoles, triamp'd, active EQ and 4th order Linkwitz crossover. There are four 5 inch drivers in a vertical array on each side, with back to back Seas Millenium domes on each side (like in the Linkwitz Orion). Dipole from, 100HZ on up. The woofers are in separate sealed cubes, and EQ'd to be flat at the listening position to 20HZ. The room is smaller than would be real nice, but on the long wall, it's actually suprisingly decent sounding. My "Aurium Waveguide" speakers can be viewed on my website if interested:
http://www.spiritone.com/~rob_369
I spent a big part of yesterday downloading free "binaural" recordings off the web. Today I got them burned and listened to them with the "holographic generator" (inter-aural cancellation circuit). The "generator" does not do the job perfect, but it sure does thrill me for what it does do. I have about 25 samples of binaural recordings of all types, including some strictly synthetic ones (computer generated cues). They all worked pretty darn good. Yes the listening position is critical. Some lesser men can't handle that. The mp3 compression distortion was nausiating at times. Some recordings had occasional clipping... You get what you pay for. They were all free. One guy made the point that the younger generation uses ear-buds often, and it would therefore make sense to make more binaural recordings. I agree. You sure wouldn't want to be driving a car while listening to binaural sounds through any variation of headphones.
In stereo photography, the camera had to pick a distance between the lenses. When they were too close together relative to the end viewers own eyes, the z axis was perceived as slightly compressed. When they were further apart than the viewers actual distance between their eyes, the sense of depth (z axis) was exaggerated. To a point, the exaggeration is fun, but not real. In audio I would expect the same kind of thing, but I doubt if it's particularly noticeable unless way off.
About the pink noise phantoms, I did my best to perform a trustworthy test on 3 other people. They describe separated sources over the 1500 Hz threshold, single under it.
I repeated on myself, but my back stuck to a reflecting boundary : no modification of the results.
I tried with a -45 dB notch centered between 800 and 1500 :more fuzzy but the HF hiss prevails on the sides.
With headphones, no surprise, it's the "in the head" localisation.
I will underline an evidence, but the steeper is the filter slope, the easier the perception. 12 db is not enough, 24 db is a minimum, and it's better with 48 or a FFT made brickwall.
If some people are still interested by the experience, it would be very good to test on other subjects...
We have actually 3 types of reaction (full center phantom, hiss appearing on the sides but with center presence, hiss totally on the sides with very little center presence). If the new subjects don't diverge from the initial results, then this means that the variations are hardware related (and not human perception particularities).
Then, it's the speakers, or the room that makes a difference. Or maybe the CABLES...
I repeated on myself, but my back stuck to a reflecting boundary : no modification of the results.
I tried with a -45 dB notch centered between 800 and 1500 :more fuzzy but the HF hiss prevails on the sides.
With headphones, no surprise, it's the "in the head" localisation.
I will underline an evidence, but the steeper is the filter slope, the easier the perception. 12 db is not enough, 24 db is a minimum, and it's better with 48 or a FFT made brickwall.
If some people are still interested by the experience, it would be very good to test on other subjects...
We have actually 3 types of reaction (full center phantom, hiss appearing on the sides but with center presence, hiss totally on the sides with very little center presence). If the new subjects don't diverge from the initial results, then this means that the variations are hardware related (and not human perception particularities).
Then, it's the speakers, or the room that makes a difference. Or maybe the CABLES...
You are ignoring the fact that listening can be done in a scientifically valid manner. When it is, that's science. When it isn't, it becomes the old "sounds good to me!" argument, which goes "I put a penny on top of the speaker box and listened again and the soundstage just opened up like magic! I won't listen to any criticism because, well because it sounds good to me!"
You don't know me very well, do you?
I have not ignored that at all. Where in my post (or any of my posts) do you see me say that listening tests can not be done in a valid scientific manner? I asked for tests and evidence, did I not? If there is a good study showing that listeners were able to discern spacial clues better with one type of treatment vs the other, I'd be happy to see it. That's why I asked. Can you provide them?
I have not ignored that at all. Where in my post (or any of my posts) do you see me say that listening tests can not be done in a valid scientific manner? I asked for tests and evidence, did I not? If there is a good study showing that listeners were able to discern spacial clues better with one type of treatment vs the other, I'd be happy to see it. That's why I asked. Can you provide them?
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Not dipoles but they are very wide uniform dispersion. I described them a bit earlier and there's also a link to the build thread in my signature.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/195124-what-ideal-directivity-pattern-stereo-speakers-82.html#post2704799
At the moment they are toed out 15 degrees but equalized flat at the sweet spot. The room is untreated and about 4 meters wide. The response under 200Hz is dominated by the room but they have spectacular mids and highs. I will certainly describe the sound as spacious. The stereo image is very big and well defined but I feel it suffers from the room not being wide enough.
I don't know about listening tests, but I would suggest that this one can even be checked with a purely objective measurement. Compare the response of two rooms, one with a wall behind the speakers that is jagged but reflective, another that is absorbent.
I'm thinking about the self-interference from the wall behind the speakers, which usually forms a pretty big null that's clearly audible. It isn't usually a narrow notch - it's usually wide enough that it's obvious, much like a room mode.
I am keenly interested on the reduction of this self-interference notch and of the higher frequency (usually vertical) modes, the stuff that mucks up the 100-200Hz range. It's one of the major strengths of constant directivity cornerhorns that I sometimes go on about. In addition to their constant 90° pattern (all the way from the Schroeder frequency upwards), since they are snuggled into the corners, there's no reflection to create this self-interference. Also, the whole flanking-sub (sometimes called helper woofers) idea that I started championing about eight years ago is also a method to reduce problems in this region when using more traditional speakers.
The reason I say this is one of the things I know about the 100-200Hz region is it's real hard to get any real benefit from absorbent materials. Foam wedges - even large ones - are ineffective this low. But a flanking sub works much the same way as more distant multisubs do. It fills in the holes. And thinking out loud, I would guess if the surface behind the speakers were jagged enough, making the reflections have a lot of phase relationships, essentially provding a lot of different path lengths for the reflections, then this would have a similar effect. I would think that could be made to work quite well.
audibility of front wall reflection and it's effects on sound quality depend - as usual - on a particular loudspeaker design and a particular room characteristics - impossible to generalize
eg. when Linkwitz says "It's the wall, stupid" it is certainly not because He is widely known as subjectivist audiophilist subscribing to the anything goes maxim or is it?
eg. when Linkwitz says "It's the wall, stupid" it is certainly not because He is widely known as subjectivist audiophilist subscribing to the anything goes maxim
or is it?
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