Lynne,
I have never measured a 15" that was completely flat (without quite a bit of smoothing) in any portion of it's passband, and two different types of 15" would have greatly differing response in the crossover region if the same passive 3rd-order lowpass filter were used.
A picture is worth a thousand words, could you please post the response curves you measured, with and without the HF horn added, so we could see what you heard?
Contrary to others beliefs and opinions of JBL 2226 I have a few (new) and they really have a bite to them above 400 cycles. The older 2225's sound much better above 400. All the Altec 416's i have are the older alnico and to be honest the 2225 walks all over them too I also much prefer the ceramic 515 over the alnico 416 and 515 - I'd guess the 2226 has an abnormally high ratio of odd harmonic distortion compared to the 2225 or Lyn's GPA copy driver. It would be interesting to measure for that.
Hi Lynn,
Thanks.
A very general consideration.
Considering a preamp based on single triode stage. Would you say that the best approach is to choose as linear tube as practical and to operate it at its’ most linear point – thus, THD will be minimized and following that, IMD will also be minimized – thus ensuring best subjective sound?
This thread is getting very long but a few months back (October?) there was a discussion on the factors that might drive the "dullness" of the JBL2226 (compared to the GPA/Altec). Other candidates were also discussed.
It was noted that low Qms (all other things being equal) was correlated with poorer apparent performance. A number of mechanisms which might lead to this were proposed but I do not recall anyone reporting a smoking gun.
The real confusing part of talking about listening impressions on line is that people interpret some words differently based on their past experience. I always have to site down with a person to get a feeling how to correlate their expression with what I hear. Generally lots of people make judgement based on the limited types of music they listen to. I need to get involved with listening to as many variety of music to know what is going on. Then it need to see a correlation with either theory or measurements, work on these to see if we,pinned it or not.
In the length of thread there is enough information to make a guarded chioce from a selection of interesting options ans even to go in other directions. However, with this level of information the decision process if not already taken is possibly the dominant phase right now.
It would be pleasing if there were more actual builders of Beyond Ariel putting their experiences into the blog. With Ariel this has already happened to good effect.
Lynn did not start the thread with the intention of horn from what I have read. Does he need to review the basic concept or is Ariel finally reaching the mature DIY project for domestic or secondly small PA /sound reinforcement. For domestic purposes Ariel became the culmination of the project if that is a reasonable statement.
The massive cost if the Be were the basis pushes the level of the project to where you could start looking at other more costly what ifs. We already have suggestions of 4 Be CD 2 i.e for each mid and treble, RAAL and huge dual woofers.
Lynn is one of very few who can put all these things together and we thank him generously for that.
It is not easy to develop a satisfactory audio system. Lots of DIYers are here because they hope to have a better system minimizing the cost and risk of trail and error. The real difficulty is to avoid going circles. One person asked me, what kind of system I use as a reference, but my philosophy is that if I use a single system as a reference, then my thoughts are limited by that reference. Rather, it is more useful to find desirable qualities in various systems then sort out the why. Design the next system from what is learned and go with it. Up to now, it seems to me that there are many too many unknowns. From all the discussion going on through the years, it seems the design is just recently converging, but yet there seems to be some dissatisfaction which cannot be allocated to specific technical issues. Yet, listening impressions are so vaguely described such that it is not possible to even guess where the problem might be.
For example, I had experienced one design configuration that an auditor would swear that is it. I sat beside him and understood what he was listening for, but I felt something was wrong, and we would go over specific pieces of performances to exchange ideas what we each find good and lacking. The same configuration was auditioned with another auditor, and he would explain what seemed good, but was not the true nature of the instrument and performance. It turned out that one had a good feeling what a small system limitation should be, and one enjoyed certain aspects that seemed aritificially created beyond the limits of a small system. I listened in both these sessions, and from that determined that certain methods of implementation effected the interaction between the amplifier and DAC.
The basic idea behind this kind of working integration came from the days when I worked on flight control systems and was also trained to be an engineering pilot to bridge the communication gap between engineering and pilot. I also first experienced engineering communication gap when I was watching serior engineers tune a stability augmentation system. The stability engineer told the electronics engineer to increase the gain, the electronics engineer increased a gain in the circuit and the stability engineer wondered, why is the gain getting smaller? Well, I looked and the schematics and the electronics guy was increasing gain in the feedback loop resulting in lower total loop gain. So what really matters is how does one find the real place causing the problem?
One local audiophile would sometimes invite us over to listen to his newly tweaked system, he would pull out his violin and play for us as well. To tell the truth, I heard a lot less detail in his playing that I normally hear in audio systems or other live performances. This seems to relate with what position you play in the group. There are lots more different skills involved whe you have to play solo.
For example, I had experienced one design configuration that an auditor would swear that is it. I sat beside him and understood what he was listening for, but I felt something was wrong, and we would go over specific pieces of performances to exchange ideas what we each find good and lacking. The same configuration was auditioned with another auditor, and he would explain what seemed good, but was not the true nature of the instrument and performance. It turned out that one had a good feeling what a small system limitation should be, and one enjoyed certain aspects that seemed aritificially created beyond the limits of a small system. I listened in both these sessions, and from that determined that certain methods of implementation effected the interaction between the amplifier and DAC.
The basic idea behind this kind of working integration came from the days when I worked on flight control systems and was also trained to be an engineering pilot to bridge the communication gap between engineering and pilot. I also first experienced engineering communication gap when I was watching serior engineers tune a stability augmentation system. The stability engineer told the electronics engineer to increase the gain, the electronics engineer increased a gain in the circuit and the stability engineer wondered, why is the gain getting smaller? Well, I looked and the schematics and the electronics guy was increasing gain in the feedback loop resulting in lower total loop gain. So what really matters is how does one find the real place causing the problem?
One local audiophile would sometimes invite us over to listen to his newly tweaked system, he would pull out his violin and play for us as well. To tell the truth, I heard a lot less detail in his playing that I normally hear in audio systems or other live performances. This seems to relate with what position you play in the group. There are lots more different skills involved whe you have to play solo.
Dear Soongsc
We can all get up some sort of decent sytem. And the choices now are greater than ever whether its direct drivers, horns, DHT, Class A Transistors. digital or analogue.
There are many mansions and we dont all like the same thing. We may many of us marvel at the sound of a Strad playing a Bach Partita. But we may marvel at different aspects of the thing. When you can find common ground with a thread and postings you can make great strides but in the end you have to either work all the major choices until you are satisfied or actually hear some of the kits people have. This is possible for some of us and it makes a huge difference.
You can't even download this playback even if you can download the same recording and play back on your own system.
It is a pity there are not more clubs around that enable comparison. Maybe there aren't the worldly guys in the audiophile world doing this, but there certainly are in the world of PA and music repro. This latter world at least is not lubricated with snake oil and that is really good. But they are not usually looking for the last word in fidelity.They are very different.
So to look for inspiration in both worlds and the ones in between, complicates our venture for the best reproduction. The grass is always greener somewhere else or maybe its really brown.
At least if you goal is fidelity you can work on that or if it is emotional highs or someting else, then go for that. If it to impress the neighbours dont waste your money. Please yourself.
We can all get up some sort of decent sytem. And the choices now are greater than ever whether its direct drivers, horns, DHT, Class A Transistors. digital or analogue.
There are many mansions and we dont all like the same thing. We may many of us marvel at the sound of a Strad playing a Bach Partita. But we may marvel at different aspects of the thing. When you can find common ground with a thread and postings you can make great strides but in the end you have to either work all the major choices until you are satisfied or actually hear some of the kits people have. This is possible for some of us and it makes a huge difference.
You can't even download this playback even if you can download the same recording and play back on your own system.
It is a pity there are not more clubs around that enable comparison. Maybe there aren't the worldly guys in the audiophile world doing this, but there certainly are in the world of PA and music repro. This latter world at least is not lubricated with snake oil and that is really good. But they are not usually looking for the last word in fidelity.They are very different.
So to look for inspiration in both worlds and the ones in between, complicates our venture for the best reproduction. The grass is always greener somewhere else or maybe its really brown.
At least if you goal is fidelity you can work on that or if it is emotional highs or someting else, then go for that. If it to impress the neighbours dont waste your money. Please yourself.
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I am just curious, other than using a horn now, it seems there is little progress. From all the description of listening going on, it seems that it is still far from a more satisfactory design after all these years. I had taken interest in lots of the discussion going on, truly lots of inspiration gained from here. But it is still not clear what design change made what kind of improvement over the Arial, and no information on what decreased in performance if there ever was any.
Hello Soongsc
I use an all active 4 way set-up as my primary reference. I have had the system for over 10 years and it has been upgraded over that time. It's not perfect by any means but I know it so well that comparisons to other systems are easy. I have ended up cloning systems that are better in some ways but not all. It seems that they are all compromises just have to figure out which ones fit your own personal nirvana.
Rob
I like your thinking, soongsc. I do feel rather fortunate in that my goals are very clear, very well defined - and have been so for a long time. And this is that one can put on all the 'worst' recordings one has, with the volume wound up to realistic levels - and each time this will be a thoroughly engaging, convincing, musical event, the hearing is a totally satisfying experience, one has no quibbles about any aspect of it.
As you say, it's the "unknowns" that lead to the playback being less than that - I have not found the issues that are discussed over and over again in threads like this to have very much to do with achieving my goal ...
Horn systems are purely wild animals in your home and take years of taming (refining) AFTER they have been built and AFTER you've been through all the mistakes. The "beyond the ariel" is what that is all about.. and is still in the bulding stage, wait until the mistakes start to bite ya
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I have tried to make sense of the sonic changes described, but they are the same type of description that would appear in audiophile magazines. No reference music was involved so it is hard to know whether it is the type of performance or some personal aspects. For example, out of interest, I listened to two different recordings of Vivadi Four Seasons, and they sounded totally different in tone balance and sonic quality. I have been to a few high priced systems demonstrations, sometimes I hear music that seem very usefull in finding system problems and try to get them into my own collection. But it seems that nobody here cares about this kind of detail.What?Are you sure you've been reading?
I have done many different profiles not using a compression driver. Pretty hard to get them to meet certain technical criteria I am looking for. The reason I do not use compression drivers is that I do not think they provided near the kind of wave front assumed in horn analysis. Both the compression side and expansion side need to be analyzed together to get the right solution.
Snake oil! Heh, I should try that some time.
I think lots of things work under certain conditions that are unknown to either the developer or user. I have talked about how some products sounded different when assemble by a factory in a trail in my blog. Whole bunch of things including one different mains line filer X cap, stuffing distribution, and driver tuning. This led me to think about power line strips, power cables, and power connectors. Yes, at times they do make a difference, and if one really wanted to dig into the problem, it is possible to find out why. The primary issue is the capacitance and how it interacts with the device power supply. I remember once while trying out a class D amp, some guy wanted to stick in an exotic power cable, he took it out in about one minute. Is it snake oil? It is to people who have not discovered the whys and why nots. The good side is, if it works, and there is technical data explaining why it works, then it is really an improvement.
I think lots of things work under certain conditions that are unknown to either the developer or user. I have talked about how some products sounded different when assemble by a factory in a trail in my blog. Whole bunch of things including one different mains line filer X cap, stuffing distribution, and driver tuning. This led me to think about power line strips, power cables, and power connectors. Yes, at times they do make a difference, and if one really wanted to dig into the problem, it is possible to find out why. The primary issue is the capacitance and how it interacts with the device power supply. I remember once while trying out a class D amp, some guy wanted to stick in an exotic power cable, he took it out in about one minute. Is it snake oil? It is to people who have not discovered the whys and why nots. The good side is, if it works, and there is technical data explaining why it works, then it is really an improvement.
Yeah. That is the way it is withhorns and other types of loudspeaker. Direct drivers can look the same on CSD pulse and step yet produce a different sound. Sometimes very different. Beryllium as a point looks good if used correctly but it is not perfect by any means. We are too simplistic about the science.
We are near the bottom of the technical ladder as DIYers and most equipment manufacturers ar no where near the top. MIT could desing and produce for example tweeters that woujld put the current designers and manufacturers to shame
Lynn said recently that the real top DAC's and ADC's used in the most demanding applications are way superior to wht we can afford and use properly. Just knocking out Be dome drivers is just a small step up the ladder to a good up to date new driver. Andthere are huge possibilities for much cheaper materials used intelligently. Dont buy any of these things as an investment.
There is alwayssomething new that can restart the process of upgrading. We are never satisfied.
I never warmed up to BE drivers (they can sound spectacular though) and find a few properly loaded and integrated compression drivers from the 70's sound just perfect, better than the new "be" - I am satisfied for now because I keep going back to the same horns and drivers (I have a room full of different horns some homemade) I tamed and integrated a couple years ago. I have improved the 200 to 600 range with a new 6" from B&C but otherwise it is just perfect for me. It only tool 20 years of messing with horns