EnABL Processes

[planet10]

Originally posted by bigwill
If the frequency response remains untouched, how are peaks reduced / removed?

Any part of the peaks (side effects of the peaks) that are exacerbated by what i am now calling the "hall-of-mirrors" effect are reduced by EnABL.

As many know, we have been working extensively on the FE127 and FE126, which show a couple marked peaks. For about a year we have been shipping a modded driver where the audible effects of these peaks was reduced.

Bud kindly EnABLed a stock FE127e. Overall it was better than our driver. It was very hard to determine, but our old driver still had a few places where they had an edge. We embarked on an R&D program to determine how much of our existing treatment could be put under the EnABLE treatment to get the best results. Both variations with all or part of our 1st gen treatment were less coloured (not by much mind you) than the driver that was just EnABLEd by otherwise similar.

My conclusion based on that sole experience (ie tread softly) is that if there is anything you can do to fix the inherent issues with a driver before EnABLing you will be ahead of a driver that is just EnABLed, but that the EnABL by itself is capable of overwhelming the fix by itself.

dave

[BudP]

bigwill,

In addition to Ed's summation comments, which as usual are spot on, I should point out that the frequency response graphs that you are allowed to see from the usual suspects are averaged....., even the raw data you pull from a microphone is averaged.

The peaks of energy that would represent ringing are only going to be a small part of that average, until you hit the systemic standing wave, where very dramatic events occur.

You may have missed my noise about our hearing and what it really is. We hear, and see and taste and smell and touch with an extremely refined threat assessment system. This threat assessment system has a semi autonomous correlator sitting on it, with a specific task. Look for known, genetically encoded threats and look for anomalies.

In the case of hearing, the drill is, the threat assessment correlator alerts you, the conscious part that was busy doping off, that something is "not right". You are forced to pay attention until you make a judgment as to potential threat. If you acknowledge the sound as safe, the correlator literally tunes it out, so that other sounds being masked by this particular one can be assessed.

This is just for the small noises, that might be snake scales slipping over a door jamb, or a scorpion scratching across rocks. The big unknown sounds have you in motion long before the conscious you has been notified. Same with genetically known threats.

So, your 5 or 6 million year old hearing is really good at listening for small irritating noises and pointing them out to you.

Based upon this analysis, I strive for audio that puts this correlator to sleep and leaves me with a sense of bliss. This does not mean that music is boring, or soft, or dull. Just that all of the sounds fall within the "natural" boundaries set by that incredibly ruthlessly selected threat assessment system.

It's asleep. I'm safe, and the music plays on.



Dave,

Hall of mirrors indeed. I commend you for looking beyond your own pea patch and incorporating something new into your own thoughts, to the betterment of both. Thank you.

Bud

[t-head]

planet_10,

Bravo for the 'hall of mirrors' analogy. It is 'spot on'.

BudP

Kudos to you - The reflections, diffractions, and driver specific resonance seem to be ameliorated by this EnABL process/treatment. Now, if driver manufacturers can think out of the box and accept the concept, we may eventually be able to easily obtain drivers that fall under the 'radar' of our finely tuned 'threat assessment correlator'. The outcome would be audio bliss - is not that what we all seek? My EnaBLed drivers seem to bear out this simple fact...

tea

[Lynn Olson]

Literally, in the case of the conventional measurements. In the simplest case, linear (FFT freq response, CSD decay) and nonlinear (harmonic & IM distortion) measurements are usually shown separately, but are directly perceived as a single, unified experience. Distortion from electronics that are completely flat can easily mimic tweeter resonances; they sound similar, but from the perspective of conventional measurements, are occurring in complete separate domains.

This is merely a 1-D representation, as picked up by a microphone diaphragm no more than 1/2" across, then funneled down an electronic pipe to the FFT system. In reality, a speaker diaphragm radiates into 3D space, and if you measure carefully enough, you discover that all of the industry-standard measurements mentioned above change when you move the microphone - sometimes just an inch or so, which is a tiny angular distance at 1 or 2 meters.

There is no good way to display or "map" the existing sets of standard measurements (FR+CSD+IM+HD) into 3 dimensions. Nobody's figured how to create this kind of multidimensional display, or perform the complete set of measurements. Perceptually, we experience all of this at once, fitting the first-arrival wavefront (from both ears, thus spatially discriminated) into one time-slot, then the succession of arrivals from all over the room into another time-slot (with much more spatial discrimination), then unifying all of it into what sounds like a single perception, but with many different subjective qualities that don't map into English all that well.

What words are there for the feelings you experience listening to a symphony, feeling the rain on your face, making footprints in the first snows of winter, or sharing a sunset with somebody you love? Words are grossly inadequate - and as a professional writer, I know that from firsthand experience. We just fake it as best we can, using clever rhetorical tricks to induce similar emotions in the reader.

Numeric measurements map even less well to the complexities of subjective experience, and even more is lost in translation. Even calling this "translation" is an inappropriate choice of words, since all human languages share the common interior subjective experiences of humankind (life, death, love, hate, beauty, ugliness), while mathematics is a precision tool for quantifying aspects of "objective" reality.

All we know at the current primitive state of the art is that certain types of standard measurements point to trouble - CSD resonances where we don't want them, areas of nonlinear distortion that indicate regions of unwanted cone motion. But no driver using any known technology comes remotely close to measured perfection - the whole concept is even further away than the famed but nonexistent "distortionless amplifier".

With the amplifier, at least we have the option of a direct-bypass test, comparing the input and output. With a loudspeaker, there's no way to directly audition the electrical signal, since standard methods to make this signal audible are going to involve an electromechanical transducer - and existing methods of RF or microwave induction directly into the brain bypass the entire auditory system, and are unlikely to mimic everyday acoustic perception.

Since all of the methods of electrical-to-perception involve (many) conversion steps of unknown accuracy, I'm not too sure a word like "accuracy" is even applicable - where do you start, except with a large set of assumptions about what constitutes "good" loudspeaker design? In that case, "accuracy" merely means conformance to a set of existing engineering standards (Toole et al), and says very little about how it may sound to you personally.

[BudP]

Since all of the methods of electrical-to-perception involve (many) conversion steps of unknown accuracy, I'm not too sure a word like "accuracy" is even applicable - where do you start, except with a large set of assumptions about what constitutes "good" loudspeaker design? In that case, "accuracy" merely means conformance to a set of existing engineering standards (Toole et al), and says very little about how it may sound to you personally.

How depressing!

Bud

[Zen Mod]

Originally posted by BudP


How depressing!

Bud

luckily , as last solution , we still have - ears .........

[OzMikeH]

Originally posted by Lynn Olson


What words are there for the feelings you experience listening to a symphony, feeling the rain on your face, making footprints in the first snows of winter, or sharing a sunset with somebody you love? Words are grossly inadequate - and as a professional writer, I know that from firsthand experience. We just fake it as best we can, using clever rhetorical tricks to induce similar emotions in the reader.

Numeric measurements map even less well to the complexities of subjective experience, and even more is lost in translation. Even calling this "translation" is an inappropriate choice of words, since all human languages share the common interior subjective experiences of humankind (life, death, love, hate, beauty, ugliness), while mathematics is a precision tool for quantifying aspects of "objective" reality.

Lynn: This is off topic but I think you would enjoy the book "The Memory of Whiteness" by Kim Stanley Robinson, He explores mathematics, music and human perception in the story.

[BudP]

LOWTHER A45

This driver is a treat to listen to, before EnABL gets put on. Very smooth and orderly in it's presentation, with a slightly rising frequency response.

EnABL treatment roughly doubles the small signal detail expression and uncovers a truly glorious midrange. Without question, the clearest, sweetest, most solid and natural mid range I have ever encountered. High frequency extension is very good, but my preamp is dying and it's death song is a 7 to 8 kHz odd order distortion, that tracks the output signal and this was interfering with the A45 high frequencies. So, I really do not know how sweet they are, just that they are extraordinarily detailed and expressive.

The Process:

You will notice, on the attached PDF, that the conic section has radial lines printed. These lines are to be used as a pen guide, allowing you to place the pen tip properly while applying the lower main cone pattern. This is needed because the lower cone pattern is under the whizzer cone, so you will be using the conic section lower edge as your pattern guide.

I have posted pictures of the fully trussed up driver here.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hpurvine/LowtherA45

Lowther America asked that the pattern be kept invisible and it very nearly is. You will have to look very closely to see the blocks. This is what the recommended Clear Flat Poly S acrylic paint, under the Micro Scale gloss coat, looks like... or, doesn't look like.

The pattern application is straight forward, except for the lower cone rings. I used an A-4 pen for the main cone and appropriately sized Rapidiograph pen points for the whizzer and phase plug patterns. I suspect you can get away with using an A-5 calligraphy pen tip here also.

The Gloss coat is a bit different. I used a 50% water solution and painted down into the V between both whizzer cone and main cone high frequency fingers, using a fine point sable brush. I allowed no Gloss coat on either set of fingers. You have to look very carefully to see the fingers under the whizzer, on the main cone.

After that careful application, the whizzer received a single coat of 50 % solution, applied with radial strokes from the lower to upper pattern rings, as I had painted up into the lower rings when painting the between finger areas.

The main cone received a radial application of 50 % gloss/water solution. Then another using circumferential brush strokes and more than modest drain tamping of the loaded brush. Finally a circular brush stroke applied, third coating.

The second and third coats covered wide areas with each brush dip, as each dipping allowed about 1/4 of the area to be covered. Again this was from lower main cone ring to the outer surround. So, three coatings of 50% material in all, but effectively probably less than a full 100% gloss coat, and much smoother than a single coat would have been.

I also applied an outer frame area ring pattern, out past the glue surface for the surround. The pattern is included in the PDF but not shown in the pics. This is a truncated pattern, with the lower ring on the vertical wall of the trim ring molded into the frame, and the outer ring on the horizontal, mostly, top of the trim ring. A single coat of gloss was applied over this outer surface and over the surround. Both were well tamp drained brush loads.

The net effect of doing this is to make the driver omni directional when sitting in open air. The usual null area extends about an inch from the outer edge and disappears audibly beyond that. Only a small change in high frequency propagation, from front to back sides, so, an open baffle usage should be just sensational for this driver.

The phase plug received two sets of pattern rings, as shown by the PDF patterns, and the usual six block sets in two rings, around a 3mm dot of clear flat, with a nipple of PVA on top of that. The gloss coating was one full strength coat from upper rings to center dot and another coating from lower rings to center dot. These are both full strength coats and I was sorely tempted to apply a third full coating,. All in honor of slowing this super fast and hard surface down, to the same speed of expression found from the whizzer. Without these two coats you will get IM distortion, in the mid range, especially on alto female voices, between whizzer and phase plug.

I will warn you that the whizzer is going to look a bit rumpled from the Gloss coat application. That comes from the water dilution of the Gloss coat material. I think I would recommend that you leave the Gloss coating on the Whizzer for last and listen to the otherwise finished driver for a while, before putting the final and only Gloss coat on the whizzer.

Truly, if you can use this small driver in your system do so. It is hard to find words that don't sound idiotic in trying to describe the sound that comes from the A45, when treated. I suppose, a clear, clean, unflavored drink of cold rushing water, on a hot and dusty morning, might come close.

Bud

[BudP]

In other areas,

Anything written by Kim Stanley Robinson is worth the time needed to read slowly, to contemplate the words and the thoughts, behind those words.

RMAF ATTENDEES

Remember to be in the Lowther America room Friday night to hear an A/B comparison of treated and untreated PM6A drivers, put on by Jon Ver Halen himself. This is in suite 1128.

Thom Makris is just down the hall in suite 1130 and he will have the just finished A45 drivers in hand and may well have them in the Le Cleach flare Azura horns for you to listen to. Certainly will be another take on EnABL, on lively drivers, being horny and strutting their stuff.

All of you who are fortunate enough to get to the show should enjoy all of the show you can, but please attend these two rooms.

Bud

[Pano]

And speaking of EnABL'd drivers at RMAF, please stop by room 1021 where Audiomagus will have a set of EnABL'd Hemp FR8c.

They will be playing in a set of cabinets designed by Planet 10 - Dave. The Demetri. Made of bamboo, no less!