From an Austrian guy which is experimenting with cardioid plus waveguide:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Assuming that the rearwave cannot be suppressed totally in practice as shown in the Mic picture posted by Juhazi, I would try to benefit from the slightly higher DI of the two. That's all.
For reproduced images the problem is that loss in pressure over a wider bandwidth. It typically set's things a bit back (or recesses them).
Eq. within the crossover (for a flatter response) is usually done to some extent, but it's best accomplished when you've got one source that is high enough off of the floor so that it is in a true reflection "zone" with respect to freq., and one or more additional lower freq. sources closer to the floor that don't present that "clipped" wave-form or mitigate it and any resulting "dip" - all with a suitable crossover between the two. This sort of design is typically "lumped in" with baffle-step compensation for typical forward-facing lower-mid and lower freq. drivers - and it's usually best accomplished with multiple drivers at different heights (for a result that's easier to eq. in the crossover and that's more uniform at varying distances from the loudspeaker). When done this way it's usually only 300 Hz to 400 Hz (narrow "Q") that you'll encounter any "dip" at most distances and usually with a lower magnitude of pressure loss within that bandwidth.
Ex.
Boston Acoustics M350 loudspeaker | Stereophile.com
Measurements (Fig. 6 represents in-room response):
Boston Acoustics M350 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
Ideally the upper mid should have been crossed a little lower (relative to the height of the midrange) and particularly with a higher order high-pass filter. Additionally the lower line of woofers should have been moved down a bit further on the baffle, but the low-pass filter is correct for rejecting an extended bandwidth higher in frequency. Also, I'd like to see the baffle with at least 5 degrees of "tilt-back" (or "slant").
Of course that woofer line is effectively omni.
In the context of a radial design you'd ditch the forward firing mid and tweeter for an upward firing design with waveguide like Morrison Audio, BUT you'd keep the height of the mid-tweeter driver's higher like the Boston Acoustic speaker.
The alternative is much more simple though: just eq. for your listening position at the source.
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That's actually wider in dispersion (as displayed). ..and frankly it's near ideal for this sort of design.
I should note though that the color range of red (db) is far to "broad" - so it's more than a little deceptive with about 4 db of unknown potential pressure variance.
-where is the link?
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We don't see many 360¤ or even 180¤ measurements with full spectrum. It is very difficult to make a microphone let alone a speaker that behaves "by book" as omni/cardioid/dipole fullrange. I would say that it is a "mission impossible"
So I think it is rather rude to say that this or that speaker is not true omni or not true dipole.
However, when some critical range of output behaves like that, we will get a substantially different speaker. We have good examples of such and listening tests in small rooms are telling that there really are differencies. Those "Orion vs. Behringer" tests were done in a hall, not a "room" like we have at home! We have seen testimonies here that some omnis really do sound differnet! (Fantastic or really messing the image...)
Here is Stereophile test of Gradient Revolution, low end is dipole, mid is cardioid, treble is mono Gradient Revolution loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
So I think it is rather rude to say that this or that speaker is not true omni or not true dipole.
However, when some critical range of output behaves like that, we will get a substantially different speaker. We have good examples of such and listening tests in small rooms are telling that there really are differencies. Those "Orion vs. Behringer" tests were done in a hall, not a "room" like we have at home! We have seen testimonies here that some omnis really do sound differnet! (Fantastic or really messing the image...)
Here is Stereophile test of Gradient Revolution, low end is dipole, mid is cardioid, treble is mono Gradient Revolution loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
Here is overlay view of 30 frequency response measurements from listening position of 12 driver radial array; each measurement was made with random rotation of speaker 360 degrees about vertical axis:
As I've previously posted, no audible comb effects, fantastic image clarity, width, depth. Room reflections and early wall reflections make no difference with highly omnidirectional speaker.
Graaf;
I've done many investigations inspired by your unceasing questions that clearly demonstrate the stretched out, highly unstable imaging and generally spacey sound of ceiling firing speaker concept. Simplest one is using 2" full range driver mounted in 12" long PVC pipe that is well filled with damping material as used with my Pluto Clones. These were detached from Pluto Clone, and are easily held in hand like a big flashlight. Crossover was set up to run them above 200Hz. Pink noise and music signals were used to study room reflections and speaker orientations for perception of direction of sound, and imaging.
With this setup it is very easy to demonstrate how high frequency reflections determine perception of source location, despite reflection delays of up to 30ms: Standing at various distance from wall, speaker is held in each hand at about arm length from side. Pointing speakers at head is like headphones. Pointing speakers at ceiling, sound is perceived as though coming from ceiling, when speaker is pointed at wall it is perceived as coming from wall, regardless of distance to wall. This works with noise, and music signals.
When speaker is held out in front of body standing about five feet from wall and speaker is pointing up, and slowly from waist height using pink noise, sound shifts from being perceived as coming entirely from speaker to cloud of sound perceived as blob of lower frequency noise in front of face with continuous cloud of noise of increasing frequency reaching upward toward ceiling. This is while looking forward. When head is tilted slightly back to look at junction of wall and ceiling, sound mostly is perceived as coming from boundary junction. Tilting head and looking at ceiling shift perception to sound mostly coming from ceiling. All this works with stereo music too. Truly spacey, unstable, and very unappealing.
No measurement tools required; no complex squirming of the brain trying to grasp concepts of acoustics, just a nice simple demonstration that is easy to do with any small speaker.
I had lots of fun doing this with music, holding speakers at various distances and pointing them every which way, and looking about, up and down, moving about room, standing on chair; all very revealing how directional even little drivers are.
Also set up Pluto Clone woofers, placed well from walls, mono sub in between, and tweeters held one in each hand. Normal crossover setup was used; 60Hz and 1kHz. Pluto woofer are 39" above floor pointing up at ceiling, and are extremely omnidirectional up to 1kHz crossover point. I stood on sub in between them and had a real blast, facing different directions, and hold tweeters out beside me, below me, above me, pointing upwards, outwards, and every which way in between. Some of the imaging with was very interesting indeed.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
As I've previously posted, no audible comb effects, fantastic image clarity, width, depth. Room reflections and early wall reflections make no difference with highly omnidirectional speaker.
Graaf;
I've done many investigations inspired by your unceasing questions that clearly demonstrate the stretched out, highly unstable imaging and generally spacey sound of ceiling firing speaker concept. Simplest one is using 2" full range driver mounted in 12" long PVC pipe that is well filled with damping material as used with my Pluto Clones. These were detached from Pluto Clone, and are easily held in hand like a big flashlight. Crossover was set up to run them above 200Hz. Pink noise and music signals were used to study room reflections and speaker orientations for perception of direction of sound, and imaging.
With this setup it is very easy to demonstrate how high frequency reflections determine perception of source location, despite reflection delays of up to 30ms: Standing at various distance from wall, speaker is held in each hand at about arm length from side. Pointing speakers at head is like headphones. Pointing speakers at ceiling, sound is perceived as though coming from ceiling, when speaker is pointed at wall it is perceived as coming from wall, regardless of distance to wall. This works with noise, and music signals.
When speaker is held out in front of body standing about five feet from wall and speaker is pointing up, and slowly from waist height using pink noise, sound shifts from being perceived as coming entirely from speaker to cloud of sound perceived as blob of lower frequency noise in front of face with continuous cloud of noise of increasing frequency reaching upward toward ceiling. This is while looking forward. When head is tilted slightly back to look at junction of wall and ceiling, sound mostly is perceived as coming from boundary junction. Tilting head and looking at ceiling shift perception to sound mostly coming from ceiling. All this works with stereo music too. Truly spacey, unstable, and very unappealing.
No measurement tools required; no complex squirming of the brain trying to grasp concepts of acoustics, just a nice simple demonstration that is easy to do with any small speaker.
I had lots of fun doing this with music, holding speakers at various distances and pointing them every which way, and looking about, up and down, moving about room, standing on chair; all very revealing how directional even little drivers are.
Also set up Pluto Clone woofers, placed well from walls, mono sub in between, and tweeters held one in each hand. Normal crossover setup was used; 60Hz and 1kHz. Pluto woofer are 39" above floor pointing up at ceiling, and are extremely omnidirectional up to 1kHz crossover point. I stood on sub in between them and had a real blast, facing different directions, and hold tweeters out beside me, below me, above me, pointing upwards, outwards, and every which way in between. Some of the imaging with was very interesting indeed.
Here is the new Morrison Audio "waveguide"/"eggs" with much less diffraction.
..if only the little black "eggs" had "pink stars falling".
(..high-pass it around 400 Hz with a mid-bass driver line below that similar to the Boston Acoustic loudspeaker already mentioned.)
Attachments
but what's the point really??
Oh yes, very nice ...but what such a setup has in common with any normal listening setup???
Besides I recommmend an 8 incher, not a 2 incher.
And still I don't know what You mean by "spacey".
Here is the new Morrison Audio "waveguide"/"eggs" with much less diffraction.
..if only the little black "eggs" had "pink stars falling".
(..high-pass it around 400 Hz with a mid-bass driver line below that similar to the Boston Acoustic loudspeaker already mentioned.)
What's the point of those those waveguides/eggs?
What is the frequency band these are effective for?
-what you'd expect: improve horizontal dispersion where the driver's naturally start to become increasingly directive.
Probably in the range of 2-3 kHz for the mid-bass and around 8 to 10 kHz for the tweeter. (..I wouldn't be at all surprised if the mid-bass had no electrical low-pass filter - using some of that directivity/pressure loss as a "filter".)
It probably took a lot of designs/prototypes to get the freq. response he wanted for each driver.
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But he didn't necessarily come to the same conclusions as Barleywater. Nevertheless, having an idea of how something works is one thing, properly testing the idea is another.
HighEmotion Audio
Brevity isn't always an option when you've become obsessed with figuring something out, as in my case. Perhaps I'm in good company on this forum? At some point in this thread, I think someone mentioned a design by HighEmotion Audio (HEA) @ Link. I'll comment on these loudspeakers because 1) they are omnis, 2) I'm obsessed with them, and 3) I have experience with them.
I've been on a quest to design a loudspeaker capable of reproducing this specific listening experience but to no avail. I'm currently considering a Pluto 2.1 however I'm concerned with the overall efficiency and ability to create "startling" transients from the perspective of ETC and combined phase/amplitude response. My journey into loudspeaker design started nearly two years ago--still much to learn and by no means am I claiming to be an expert at anything but how my brain interprets and experiences the effects of air vibrating upon my ear drums.
I am consulting this body of expertise to inquire if you think I've experienced something truly unique, or if you think most people generally have a similar experience with an omni-type loudspeaker that is superbly designed and properly implemented with the highest of quality drivers and low-distortion optimizing techniques (and decent sources and recordings)
These HEA designs have the Lineaum-like tweeter excepting its upgraded and optimized to the max with no apparent on or off-axis nulls. The material is some kind of mylar or actually, I think its Ultem PEI (polyetherimide).
I have personally heard these and was quite impressed with the omni-like performance. Actually, I was at RMAF several years back and heard everything--still, I was drawn back into the HighEmotion Audio room. I could be biased because I know the guy who makes these and I've been trying to get my hands on a pair yet they are currently in limited production. I may be nearing a point where this nice fellow lets me build out my own set using a list of supplier parts, instructions, and reference measurements. We'll see.
Speaking of measurements, I didn't have a concept of loudspeaker measuring when I had the opportunity to demo these loudspeakers--its really too bad, because if I had a complete set of measurements, it would be much easier to reproduce the measurements in one of my own designs or compare to similar types of designs, and thus reproduce the overall listening experience.
Let me describe this speaker's behavior as best I can. I hesitate to describe a subjective experience, however I'm a trained classical musician and orchestra conductor, so I have some point of reference when it comes to listening for (and sending?) "real and authentic" auditory cues in real time with a discriminating ear.
-Near omni radiation pattern, or super/hyper cardioid
-Midrange and vocals were as clear and "present" as I've ever experienced
-Transients (or my concept of them) were as fast and "authentic" as I've ever heard from a box loudspeaker. For instance, during a movie, the sound of a door being knocked on caused me to literally turn around and see if someone was at the door. My brain was totally fooled.
-Constant sound power across the bandwidth in vertical and horizontal planes
-Highly efficient and capable of "live sound" dynamics
-Every surface of the room seemed to be "energized" with sound
-An "addictive" listening experience, as the website claims, "a continuous source of first-impressions...". This may be the most dramatic aspect. When these loudspeakers were playing, it was nearly impossible to take my focus and attention away from the sound--not just music, whatever sonic information was coming out, voices, nature sounds, test tones, electronic sounds, etc.
These things convinced my ears and brain I was hearing the impossible--Bach Cello Suites sounding so apparent and undeniable, when I closed my eyes, I could imagine the resin particles flying off the bow hairs and hear the personality of the performer through the richness of the music. The cello wasn't just playing in the room, it transformed the room. Subjective descriptions, yes I understand the limitations.
I'm asking you to help me understand how and why, in the material, physical, acoustic measurements world, this experience was possible with this design, and not the many others out there that I've heard?
I've been in front of some amazing orchestras on the podium as a conductor--its the ultimate near-field listening experience. These loudspeakers helped me reconnect to what it feels like to be back on the podium. I'm obsessed with re-creating this experience in my own listening room. If I cannot build these exact loudspeakers, I want to build something that comes very close.
Are these subjective experiences I've had with this loudspeaker common to any well-designed omni-polar dispersion loudspeaker (that meets similar design criteria) or given what can be learned from my generally non-technical description, do you think there is something special about the HEA loudspeakers?
Cheers...
Brevity isn't always an option when you've become obsessed with figuring something out, as in my case. Perhaps I'm in good company on this forum? At some point in this thread, I think someone mentioned a design by HighEmotion Audio (HEA) @ Link. I'll comment on these loudspeakers because 1) they are omnis, 2) I'm obsessed with them, and 3) I have experience with them.
I've been on a quest to design a loudspeaker capable of reproducing this specific listening experience but to no avail. I'm currently considering a Pluto 2.1 however I'm concerned with the overall efficiency and ability to create "startling" transients from the perspective of ETC and combined phase/amplitude response. My journey into loudspeaker design started nearly two years ago--still much to learn and by no means am I claiming to be an expert at anything but how my brain interprets and experiences the effects of air vibrating upon my ear drums.
I am consulting this body of expertise to inquire if you think I've experienced something truly unique, or if you think most people generally have a similar experience with an omni-type loudspeaker that is superbly designed and properly implemented with the highest of quality drivers and low-distortion optimizing techniques (and decent sources and recordings)
These HEA designs have the Lineaum-like tweeter excepting its upgraded and optimized to the max with no apparent on or off-axis nulls. The material is some kind of mylar or actually, I think its Ultem PEI (polyetherimide).
I have personally heard these and was quite impressed with the omni-like performance. Actually, I was at RMAF several years back and heard everything--still, I was drawn back into the HighEmotion Audio room. I could be biased because I know the guy who makes these and I've been trying to get my hands on a pair yet they are currently in limited production. I may be nearing a point where this nice fellow lets me build out my own set using a list of supplier parts, instructions, and reference measurements. We'll see.
Speaking of measurements, I didn't have a concept of loudspeaker measuring when I had the opportunity to demo these loudspeakers--its really too bad, because if I had a complete set of measurements, it would be much easier to reproduce the measurements in one of my own designs or compare to similar types of designs, and thus reproduce the overall listening experience.
Let me describe this speaker's behavior as best I can. I hesitate to describe a subjective experience, however I'm a trained classical musician and orchestra conductor, so I have some point of reference when it comes to listening for (and sending?) "real and authentic" auditory cues in real time with a discriminating ear.
-Near omni radiation pattern, or super/hyper cardioid
-Midrange and vocals were as clear and "present" as I've ever experienced
-Transients (or my concept of them) were as fast and "authentic" as I've ever heard from a box loudspeaker. For instance, during a movie, the sound of a door being knocked on caused me to literally turn around and see if someone was at the door. My brain was totally fooled.
-Constant sound power across the bandwidth in vertical and horizontal planes
-Highly efficient and capable of "live sound" dynamics
-Every surface of the room seemed to be "energized" with sound
-An "addictive" listening experience, as the website claims, "a continuous source of first-impressions...". This may be the most dramatic aspect. When these loudspeakers were playing, it was nearly impossible to take my focus and attention away from the sound--not just music, whatever sonic information was coming out, voices, nature sounds, test tones, electronic sounds, etc.
These things convinced my ears and brain I was hearing the impossible--Bach Cello Suites sounding so apparent and undeniable, when I closed my eyes, I could imagine the resin particles flying off the bow hairs and hear the personality of the performer through the richness of the music. The cello wasn't just playing in the room, it transformed the room. Subjective descriptions, yes I understand the limitations.
I'm asking you to help me understand how and why, in the material, physical, acoustic measurements world, this experience was possible with this design, and not the many others out there that I've heard?
I've been in front of some amazing orchestras on the podium as a conductor--its the ultimate near-field listening experience. These loudspeakers helped me reconnect to what it feels like to be back on the podium. I'm obsessed with re-creating this experience in my own listening room. If I cannot build these exact loudspeakers, I want to build something that comes very close.
Are these subjective experiences I've had with this loudspeaker common to any well-designed omni-polar dispersion loudspeaker (that meets similar design criteria) or given what can be learned from my generally non-technical description, do you think there is something special about the HEA loudspeakers?
Cheers...