Sorry, a bit off topic. But I have been following your journey concerning loudspeakers with the upmost interest. But your (partially hidden) music recommendations have been most valuable to me. The album you mentioned in the previous post is currently playing and immediately drew me into it. Relations to Vengeance are clearly audible. If the musical quality will pertain throughout the whole album it will probably run to the very end 
THUMBS UP!
While I'm writing this, track 3 just turned up, a classical halve time head banger ("Kopfnicker" as we call it in German). just WOW. Had to turn up the volume. My 3" PC speakers are hard at work
THUMBS UP!While I'm writing this, track 3 just turned up, a classical halve time head banger ("Kopfnicker" as we call it in German). just WOW. Had to turn up the volume. My 3" PC speakers are hard at work
You've just made my day . That's why I mention the album, it's way too good (and only gets deeper under your skin,, the more you play it) to be relatively unknown. Gems like these need to be shared!
Another great album by Arjen would be: Arjen Lucassen - The New Real. Especially the two songs with that title in it.
. That's why I mention the album, it's way too good (and only gets deeper under your skin,, the more you play it) to be relatively unknown. Gems like these need to be shared!Another great album by Arjen would be: Arjen Lucassen - The New Real. Especially the two songs with that title in it.
WOW. I hear so many references/connections to other musicians and styles, be it Barclay James Harvest, Jethro Tull, ASIA, Dreamtheater, Genesis, Opeth, Riverside, a little bit of Muse, also I hear a litle bit of The Moody Blues, maybe even Queen (the vocal harmonics), ... ... Even the start of track five immediately reminded me of Pink Floyd. Will be at the Australian Pink Floyd show in Munich next year - again after watching them this year. MUST be there again.
Back to the album: All mixed so well, both technically and musically. Astonishing. Please dont't blame me for threadjacking. If you so desire you should start a music/album/gem sharing thread
EDIT: YOU MADE MY DAY!
Back to the album: All mixed so well, both technically and musically. Astonishing. Please dont't blame me for threadjacking. If you so desire you should start a music/album/gem sharing thread
EDIT: YOU MADE MY DAY!
Focused array:
Listener is on this side <---
The CBT array;
Listener is on this side (again) <---
It had me confused the first time I tried these curved arrays in Vituixcad. So the listener actually is on the negative side (see -500 in focused array, "0" is center of baffle at listening height in all cases).
Listener is on this side <---
The CBT array;
Listener is on this side (again) <---
It had me confused the first time I tried these curved arrays in Vituixcad. So the listener actually is on the negative side (see -500 in focused array, "0" is center of baffle at listening height in all cases).
WOW. I hear so many references/connections to other musicians and styles, be it Barclay James Harvest, Jethro Tull, ASIA, Dreamtheater, Genesis, Opeth, Riverside, a little bit of Muse, also I hear a litle bit of The Moody Blues, maybe even Queen (the vocal harmonics), ... ... Even the start of track five immediately reminded me of Pink Floyd. Will be at the Australian Pink Floyd show in Munich next year - again after watching them this year. MUST be there again.
Back to the album: All mixed so well, both technically and musically. Astonishing. Please dont't blame me for threadjacking. If you so desire you should start a music/album/gem sharing thread
EDIT: YOU MADE MY DAY!
Did you find a chance to give this one a spin?
Totally different and yet much of the same influences are still present.
I know I like it, I'll see if I can add the first track too, that's my favorite.
P.S. I was playing these tracks today so I was reminded of them. Also played "Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall (part 1)" as I had changed a few ambience settings. I like the sense of depth in Another Brick part 1, with all of the stuff going on in the background which images behind the music parts.
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Just put on CD1 while I was cooking and preparing (sour) marinated pot roast ("Sauerbraten") for next weekend.
CD1 has it's highs and lows for sure. If CD2 is on the same level (will listen to it soon) then I can draw my preliminary conclusions: It's not a bad album, a good one even. But surely not at the same ingenious level as "Into the Electric Castle".
Btw. regarding Pink Floyd: I think you should give "Meddle" a spin, probably their most underrated album
CD1 has it's highs and lows for sure. If CD2 is on the same level (will listen to it soon) then I can draw my preliminary conclusions: It's not a bad album, a good one even. But surely not at the same ingenious level as "Into the Electric Castle".
Btw. regarding Pink Floyd: I think you should give "Meddle" a spin, probably their most underrated album
True, it is merely good, Electric Castle is a rare gem. I'll admit none of the other Ayreon albums ever did the same for me. There most be a couple I haven't heard yet though.
All things Pink Floyd get a regular play here, my Son has become a big fan (hearing it from me years ago and, at first going: what was that!).
So Meddle, as well as many others are played regularly. Even the old Sid stuff.
These days he's deep into Rainbow, so I tried to make him take notice of two Alcatraz albums, Live Sentence & Disturbing the Peace.
And slowly he's discovering Zappa. Not pushing it, just playing some tracks to make him take notice.
Long shot you're going to like it, but as far as 'music as an art form' goes: Infected Mushroom - converting vegetarians I & II. No. II being a more accessible album from start to finish.
Long ago I was pointed at the song Avratz (of Converting Vegetarians I) as an example of "great imaging". The first album is divided into 2 parts, the mellow part has grown on me over time, the other half still is quite out there. Vegetarians II is all mellow.
Here's a taste:
I'll admit none of the other Ayreon albums ever did the same for me. There most be a couple I haven't heard yet though.All things Pink Floyd get a regular play here, my Son has become a big fan (hearing it from me years ago and, at first going: what was that!
).So Meddle, as well as many others are played regularly.
Even the old Sid stuff.These days he's deep into Rainbow, so I tried to make him take notice of two Alcatraz albums, Live Sentence & Disturbing the Peace.
And slowly he's discovering Zappa. Not pushing it, just playing some tracks to make him take notice.
Long shot you're going to like it, but as far as 'music as an art form' goes: Infected Mushroom - converting vegetarians I & II. No. II being a more accessible album from start to finish.
Long ago I was pointed at the song Avratz (of Converting Vegetarians I) as an example of "great imaging". The first album is divided into 2 parts, the mellow part has grown on me over time, the other half still is quite out there. Vegetarians II is all mellow.
Here's a taste:
As I said I have been following your "disguised" recommendations for quite some time. I listened into several albums of infected mushrooms, "interesting" stuff but nothing I would want to add to my collection. I have to admit that I'm quite the music "nazi" when it comes to deciding what makes it into my collection
Not sure if I could give you any album recommendations that you don't already know about. It's very rare that a complete album makes it into my collection. First there are the usual suspects like all of Pink Floyd, except "Ummagamma" and the latest one which is the trash left over from recording Division Bell, all of Dire Straits, Roger Waters' "Amused To Death", Alan Parsons' "Gaudi" & "The Time Machine", Massive Attack's "Collected", Peter Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive I and II".
Albums that are almost completely on disk are Porupine Tree's live album "Anesthetize" (big recommendation! all the musicians are geniuses but Gavin Harrison's drumming is out of this world. LIVE! there's a low res version of the full concert on youtube here - I put the link onto 21:07 which is a perfect example) and Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Stadium Arcadium".
What might be lesser known: Morcheeba's "The Antidote" and Wayne Kramer's "Dangerous Madness"
And IMHO a real gem: Brooklyn Classical's "Callsical Piano Favourites" which is performed by highly capable and very involved piano player Marnie Laird. Not really into classical music but I could listen to this collection all day!
All the rest of my collection consists of sometimes a few titles per album and a lot of "one hit wonders". Why keep a whole album, when you only play one track of it? Just gets on my nerves requiring sometimes several skips
To all the music lovers
Not sure if I could give you any album recommendations that you don't already know about. It's very rare that a complete album makes it into my collection. First there are the usual suspects like all of Pink Floyd, except "Ummagamma" and the latest one which is the trash left over from recording Division Bell, all of Dire Straits, Roger Waters' "Amused To Death", Alan Parsons' "Gaudi" & "The Time Machine", Massive Attack's "Collected", Peter Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive I and II".
Albums that are almost completely on disk are Porupine Tree's live album "Anesthetize" (big recommendation! all the musicians are geniuses but Gavin Harrison's drumming is out of this world. LIVE! there's a low res version of the full concert on youtube here - I put the link onto 21:07 which is a perfect example) and Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Stadium Arcadium".
What might be lesser known: Morcheeba's "The Antidote" and Wayne Kramer's "Dangerous Madness"
And IMHO a real gem: Brooklyn Classical's "Callsical Piano Favourites" which is performed by highly capable and very involved piano player Marnie Laird. Not really into classical music but I could listen to this collection all day!
All the rest of my collection consists of sometimes a few titles per album and a lot of "one hit wonders". Why keep a whole album, when you only play one track of it? Just gets on my nerves requiring sometimes several skips
To all the music lovers
Forget about the speakers those are some beautiful wide plank wood floors!!!!!After riding along on a few different line array threads I figured this project deserved it's own thread.
I wanted to get new speakers for my living room for a while but could not quite find something I liked.
The speakers I have right now are just too big to use in a proper setup. In a domestic setting with a girlfriend and a 7 year old son there's just not much room to place anything. After surfing the net in search for an answer I stumbled over several line array's.
Now that was something I thought had potential! Way lower floor space needed than my current speakers with 15" woofers.
So the idea was born to build line array's using 25 full range drivers in each array, long enough to somewhat be floor to ceiling.
Next problem, what should it look like? And what materials to use? I remember seeing a DIY thread with a translam construction. That idea was very appealing to me. You can make it any shape you want on the outside and the inner walls can be used to benefit the design.
I started up my favorite 3D program and started sketching. Pretty soon I had some ideas about the outer and inner shape. Here's a much later version to give an idea:
I wanted a round outer shape, round corners to help reduce diffraction. On the inside I choose a wavy shape to hopefully aid in scattering/diffusing the back wave and making the walls uneven in thickness. That last feature should help reduce resonances of the enclosure.
Also obvious are the braces, making it a potentially very stiff enclosure.
The total array design on the left and the final outcome of this project on the right:
(not too far off I presume)
Here's a list of (hopefully) useful shortcuts to different milestones and/or projects done with the arrays:
A memorable moment, first sound!
It took a long time to get there, was it really worth it?
13th December 2014, First sound: A memorable moment!
Measurements begin...
My journey to better sound
14th January 2015, Start of first measurements: Measuring my way to better sound quality
Break trough in processing...
stepping outside of the boundaries of DRC-FIR
16th July 2015, Break trough in processing: Getting time coherency to work
(creating a time coherent correction in my listening room)
Proof of time coherency, at last
12th January 2016, Proof of time coherency at last! Tested with APL_TDA software
Adding Ambience!
Taking control over the room
With installing a virtual Haas Kicker I'm trying to restore some of the energy I "robbed" from the room with my damping panels. I had some clues it might be interesting from my Car Audio days and always wanted to try a proper version in my home. By far one of the most fun tests I have done!
It starts somewhere here... with a later revisit of the theme here! The second part is concentrating on adding reverb to the ambient channels. I can highly recommend playing with this Haas Kicker idea, be it virtual or trough diffusive panels.
Review time!
Printed as is, I hope more will follow
21st January 2016, First official review: Jan Fekkes reviews the Towers
Shuffling the phase, how does that work?
Another interesting, hopefully successful experiment
A thread was started on Fixing the Stereo Phantom Center which inspired me to do some tests with it. Early on it made me do some mid-side EQ, following a paper in that thread. Later on it led to experimenting with a phase only shuffler to brighten up the phantom center. What I think is happening can be read here...
Condensed version of this thread?
For those looking for a more condensed version of this thread, I started a post (a couple actually) on the JRiver forums that's more compact, but it also lacks the detail I put into this thread.
Here's the link: Why I love JRiver, a tale of taming my Line Arrays
Another review, this time by DIYAudio member: Boden
Read it here...
Eelco dropped by for a chat about REW, JRiver and FIR filters and a short listening session. We talked about all things audio and discussed the DSP methods I use in this Monster thread.
Reviews keep on coming in, this time by xrk971
Find his kind words here
We managed to take advantage of a business trip to get both xrk971 and BYRTT together at my home.
It's raining reviews! Another one from BYRTT
You can find it here...
BYRTT was part of the get together. He's the only one to have heard both my lines and the insane effort from B&O, the Beolab 90.
I was very curious about a comparison.
Update! Driver change to Scan Speak 10F
End result here...
In time I'll write more about it after proper DSP has been applied.
I am curious though, will this be the first 25 driver Scan Speak 10F equiped array?
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Line Array Theory, a great read for anyone considering arrays
Infinite line source: analysis by werewolf
An old AES paper on Line Arrays, from speaker dave (David Smith), written at the time he worked at McIntosh:
Constant Beam Width Transducers line arrays
And as long as I'm adding line array papers: This original work of Jim Griffin is worth the read too!
http://www.audioroundtable.com/misc/nflawp.pdf
ISO 226:2003 Equal Loudness Contour:
Interactive link with dB numbers
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Amplifier tests!
The story starts here!
A big special thanks to member koldby and BYRTT. We had a small get together to do some subjective listening.
5 different amplifiers were tested with the arrays.
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A Picture with the new DIY Scan Speak 30W/4558T00 subs added:
The actual subwoofer build is scattered all over the thread, but here are some links:
Still making sawdust
Getting it together...
Did I screw it up?
Waiting for paint
Getting ready to paint...
Paint is on!
More info here: www.vandermill-audio.nl outside link (enough to make your own!)
And the new Fetzilla ambient amplifier that followed shortly after that:
Quite a while I bought a couple of tweeters to play with. I'm still not sure what to do with them. I'd love to play with them as ambience speakers, as an add-on in the front, where they would be delayed/band-limited/attenuated to take over from what I have from behind. But I don't have anywhere to aim them, except put them on top of the arrays and fire them at the ceiling. Heck, i don't even have a spare amplifier to experiment with.
Any suggestions? I was (re)reading the ambience thread from @bwaslo and in all honesty, ever since I first read about ambient tweeters (on some high end speakers), I've been wanting to try some.
Any suggestions? I was (re)reading the ambience thread from @bwaslo and in all honesty, ever since I first read about ambient tweeters (on some high end speakers), I've been wanting to try some.
Since you don't have much space behind your arrays I think the only way to go is using a tweeter with a waveguide pointed up. My thinking is pointing them at some type of ceiling mounted defusers. I don't think you have enough room for hanging defusers. The defusers should be curved to distribute the reflection.
Thanks for the input. I'm not putting anything up on the ceiling though. I can only get away with stuff that can't be seen (lol). It's a wife acceptance factor thing... I can alter what I send to these tweeters, like de-correlation, but I can't have any visual clues.
No hurry, it's just something I'l like to try someday. I could temporarily use one of my old amps, but I could also find some ICE poweramps that I could hide. Just a fun experiment driven by my never ending curiosity. The only thing I worry about is that it will sound so good, I'd want to keep it.
No hurry, it's just something I'l like to try someday. I could temporarily use one of my old amps, but I could also find some ICE poweramps that I could hide. Just a fun experiment driven by my never ending curiosity. The only thing I worry about is that it will sound so good, I'd want to keep it.
How do you connect all of your channels into your setup with the goal of having them time aligned, etc? I've been running a 2x4 Minidsp with Dirac and I'm very much out of channels out. I have the two IRS clones and 5 subwoofers. Two subs are on one output and a second group of three in the back of the room on another channel. I'm trying to keep the subwoofers in each group a similar distance from the listening position to make the time alignment sort if applicable.
I'd like to add more speakers into the stereo setup with active eq, filtering, and time alignment. I'm just not sure a larger MiniDSP is what I'm looking for.
I'd like to add more speakers into the stereo setup with active eq, filtering, and time alignment. I'm just not sure a larger MiniDSP is what I'm looking for.
I run a PC with a soundcard with its surround extension (Asus Xonar Essence ST), giving me 8 channels to play with. But I realise a PC solution isn't everyone's favorite solution. I love it though because with JRiver plus a few plugins I can try whatever I dream of.
There are Pro solutions that offer even more channels.
There are Pro solutions that offer even more channels.