QUOTE from Navyblue: "IMO perceived detail or texture is the accompanying subtle changes in the sound pressure or waveform as opposed to the main information."
According to my dictionary, a change in the natural waveform is called distortion.
Obviously distortion is no contributor to detail or clarity when listening to music!
According to my dictionary, a change in the natural waveform is called distortion.
Obviously distortion is no contributor to detail or clarity when listening to music!
You can certainly do what you like but I'd recommend that you first consider what Griesinger said in his presentations before proclaiming they're "different things". From my understanding after reading--and listening--to his examples, they are the same thing. I do believe that you're making definitions which do not correspond to Griesinger's definition "clarity".
Chris
If there is no changes in sound pressure, you will hear nothing. If there is no change in waveform, you will hear a constant sound. Only by changing sound pressure and waveform you can hear something that resembles music. That said I have no interest in being a vocabulary police.
As for distortion, some we can hear, some we can't, some we mistake it as something else, like details, or liveliness, or sweetness.
I suppose my definition of "clarity" may be different from his (I have not read his presentation). Maybe to be clear, I should say that "resolution" and "clarity" are not the same thing. To me "resolution" is intrinsic whereas "clarity" is a manipulation.
I wish things were so simple. They're really not.
I think that there are competing performance measures, including freedom from phase distortion and freedom from FM distortion (i.e., Doppler distortion). If you're talking about direct radiating drivers, then I might agree with the idea of 3-ways or even 4-ways (like Dunlavy did with his flat-phase "MTM" designs and first order crossover filters that have no phase rotation). But once you horn load the drivers to remove the bulk of the FM distortion, two ways make a lot more sense in order to eliminate one or more crossover filters to keep the phase distortions to a minimum. The reason why this is important--well read the Griesinger presentation on "What is Clarity". You'll begin to see why flat frequency response is important, along with minimum phase concepts in order to achieve near zero phase distortion
Another relevant issue is controlled coverage...but this area is much less obvious to many. Non-constant early reflections with frequency distort phase in-room, so this affects clarity. Clarity...preserving local peaks in the reproduced sound...is a system-level phenomenon that includes not only the loudspeaker, its drivers, and the driving electronics, but also the room and the state of the source music in preserving phase information.
All this is to say that focusing only on individual drivers or specific frequency ranges is really not enough to find your holy grail of "hi-fi sound", unfortunately.
Chris
I think that there are competing performance measures, including freedom from phase distortion and freedom from FM distortion (i.e., Doppler distortion). If you're talking about direct radiating drivers, then I might agree with the idea of 3-ways or even 4-ways (like Dunlavy did with his flat-phase "MTM" designs and first order crossover filters that have no phase rotation). But once you horn load the drivers to remove the bulk of the FM distortion, two ways make a lot more sense in order to eliminate one or more crossover filters to keep the phase distortions to a minimum. The reason why this is important--well read the Griesinger presentation on "What is Clarity". You'll begin to see why flat frequency response is important, along with minimum phase concepts in order to achieve near zero phase distortion
Another relevant issue is controlled coverage...but this area is much less obvious to many. Non-constant early reflections with frequency distort phase in-room, so this affects clarity. Clarity...preserving local peaks in the reproduced sound...is a system-level phenomenon that includes not only the loudspeaker, its drivers, and the driving electronics, but also the room and the state of the source music in preserving phase information.
All this is to say that focusing only on individual drivers or specific frequency ranges is really not enough to find your holy grail of "hi-fi sound", unfortunately.
Chris
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The presence controls that scottjoplin mentions were used to boost or suppress the presence range around 2 to 5kHz. Their purpose was to increase the clarity of music reproduction over the frequency range where the ear is most sensitive.
A way to enhance the clarity or intelligibility of speech is to limit the frequency response to 600 - 4,000Hz. Reducing the bass response sacrifices naturalness for articulation. I often tailor my TV sound in such a way in an attempt to follow the mumbles of actors in modern dramas!
A way to enhance the clarity or intelligibility of speech is to limit the frequency response to 600 - 4,000Hz. Reducing the bass response sacrifices naturalness for articulation. I often tailor my TV sound in such a way in an attempt to follow the mumbles of actors in modern dramas!
"tweeter or woofer".. "detail"? This got my attention because I recently finished the lower half of my speakers (15" and 12") and I was shocked at how much really good bass/low-mid can reveal. This might sound cliché but I was hearing more things I previously didn't know were there. Not just bass but details (people talking, creaks, even the air you would attribute to the top only but no). Also I hear a much bigger difference between albums. I lived without serious bass for a long time with a 6"+1" the so-called detail is fine, chasing the ether, but I'll take full sound over a "detailed sound" now that I think of it it sounds like what a reviewer would say if they were straining to find something good to say about a speaker with lousy bass.
The accurate reproduction of detail by a loudspeaker system depends greatly on the transient response of the system.
A transient is a sound pulse where intensity changes over a wide range in a very short time e.g. as produced by percussion instruments.
A woofer or a tweeter with a perfect transient response would alter neither the initial attack of a transient pulse nor its termination, so would preserve the detailed shape of the pulse.
An expensive driver is more likely to have a good transient response than a cheap one due to its more powerful magnet system. A high flux density has a good damping effect on the movement of the voice coil which helps to improve transient response.
Cone/dome and surround materials probably affect transient response more than any other factor. Expensive drivers which employ quality cone and surround materials are more likely to have a good transient response.
Factors such as the above can affect detail retrieval significantly.
A transient is a sound pulse where intensity changes over a wide range in a very short time e.g. as produced by percussion instruments.
A woofer or a tweeter with a perfect transient response would alter neither the initial attack of a transient pulse nor its termination, so would preserve the detailed shape of the pulse.
An expensive driver is more likely to have a good transient response than a cheap one due to its more powerful magnet system. A high flux density has a good damping effect on the movement of the voice coil which helps to improve transient response.
Cone/dome and surround materials probably affect transient response more than any other factor. Expensive drivers which employ quality cone and surround materials are more likely to have a good transient response.
Factors such as the above can affect detail retrieval significantly.
Incorrect...if you select excelent tweeter, but you compromise on poor midbass, which excesively distorts, your tweeter signal will be overlayed with upper harmonics from lower quality midbass.
Similarly, in 3-way, say you have invested in great tweeter and mid, but you decided to skip on quality woofer...in the end, the distortion of the woofer will overlap with signals from mid and tweeter.
Distortion is generation of unwanted signals not present in original music. No one wants that.
Speaker design is a series of compromises, but what you suggest is terrible compromise.
Midrange is where we live, midrange is where most of the music happens, midrange is the most critical part of speaker. If you do not get this 300-3000 Hz right, rest does not matter.
Close, most perceived detail [definition] is in the ~6-10 kHz BW, so add a little sibilance to 'sharpen up' a 'flat'/'dull'/'involving' speaker: Interactive Frequency Chart - Independent Recording Network
It won't turn $1000 speakers into $100000 ones, but it can often turn a dirt cheap POS PA driver into an entertaining wide range/'FR' one. Re [super] tweeters, audition ribbon Vs cone/dome Vs compression horn to find your personal level of perceived detail excellence......
GM
I humbly suggest that if you can hear it, it matters.
@ OP-
Cabinet/speaker resonances, time/phase alignment, crossover implementation, build/test/listen/rebuild iteratively - all have the potential to swamp the importance of driver selection when it comes to hearing detail. IMHO, that is.
If you're trying to decide where to spend your 2-way driver budget, look carefully at how many (out of ten or so) octaves of overlap you'll have where both drivers are affecting what your hear. Both drivers need to continue to perform well in this range, even if they're 40dB down, if you want to maximize detail. Again, IMHO.
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