The Advantages of Floor Coupled Up-Firing Speakers

Maybe you want to try as well, same tracks?
-Jarre Oxygen part I & II
-Fareinheit Fair Enough n.1
-Roach Lost Pieces n.2&3
-Ghost in the Shell n.8&9

But yes, placement of the sources was rather wrong and the AS did not build well. They are all heavy processed recordings, I imagine. To check, I use a cheap but full omnidirectionnal small tube FR speaker far from bondaries and in the nearfield. Like a headphone but with correct source placement.
Obviously the most important to me is to get the natural sounding recordings right, but eventually, you want ALL of them to sound right and not be limited.
 
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Lolo,
I compared Steve Roach and Telefon Tel Aviv to your ECM piece (all from YouTube).
The voices in "Mistico Mediterraneo" are well placed but widened by heavy reverb. In contrast your other sources have a much finer defined audio scene regarding both source size and depth structure. It may have occured to you that the voices and the trumpet in Mistico have almost no attac while in the other tracks there are lots of small "ping ding tzings", which get lost in a highly reverberant playback situation.

Just my 2C.
Rudolf
 
Thanks Rudolf, the original ECM recording does have artificial reverb as they all do, but certainly not as much as the live version on youtube which sounds like pure mush. What I maybe needed to add is that sitting the speakers back and angled towards listening point put everything back in order, but then the ECM one lost its magic somewhat. :)
Without concluding anything, this experiment just showed me that some recordings do benefit from added reflexions, some don't. I reached the same point when trying to cut the dipole back wave. Probably nothing new under the sun for you guys! :cool:

which get lost in a highly reverberant playback situation.

At this stage the room has a fairly uniform RT of 0.5s
 
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Yep!

I believe the theory about coupled spaces says:
-the reverb of the reception space adds to the recorded space.
-if the spaces have same reverb, the result is around +20% reverb.
-the drier space will lean towards the longer reverb.

Obviously the ITD is a very important player, that's also why I tried this.
In recordings we deal with reverb from almost nul to well over 2sec. I can't see how we can sort this out without modular acoustics, be it passive or active.. But hey, I am a beginner! :)
It's a fascinating journey though.
 
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Yep!
I believe the theory about coupled spaces says:
-the reverb of the reception space adds to the recorded space.
-if the spaces have same reverb, the result is around +20% reverb.
-the drier space will lean towards the longer reverb.

Have You read the following posts in this thread?

simple dereverberation experiment

Experiment’s conclusion: recorded reverberation is far more audible than live reverberation, at least for a simple recording technique


Obviously the ITD is a very important player, that's also why I tried this.

I think that perhaps having the speaker as close to the floor as possible is also generally benefitial, Snell Type 1 (discussed earlier in this thread) is an extreme example of this approach but check out also Mapleshade Bedrock stands and users opinions on them:
Maple Bedrock-Mapleshade


Only low, on-the-floor mounting can make smallish speakers sound so huge, warm and transparent
...
Surprisingly, the soundstage image floats well above the floor

no sound-heard-as-coming-from-the-floor nonsense


In recordings we deal with reverb from almost nul to well over 2sec. I can't see how we can sort this out without modular acoustics, be it passive or active..

perhaps what is needed is a CD speaker that can be rotated to an up-firing position for one kind of recordings and then rotated back into forward firing position for others? without any need for moving the whole speaker in the room
 
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throw away the diffusors and make the top of the box just a little bit slanted and here You are:

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Direct Acoustics Silent II

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another review here: direct_acoustics

This is an area that many of you will disagree with me, but I think the imaging characteristics of these speakers are not just acceptable, but in their own way, superb. As one would expect from a speaker placed just a few inches from the wall, there is not a lot of image depth. Nor, for that matter, is there the pinpoint, specific location of everything that you get out of small mini monitors (which I think generally make too many instruments sound unnaturally small). However, what you do get, and what I think is very valid, is a massively huge stage, both laterally and vertically, as if the entire wall behind the speakers was now a window (or maybe a movie screen) that has become the stage. Enhancing that effect is the fact that, except for some added sound effect or from very poor recordings, no sounds ever appear to come directly from the speakers. The Silent Speakers do the disappearing act better than pretty much any speaker I have ever reviewed (please note that this is true in my system using the Audio Space Line-2 preamp, but not quite so much when using my PS Audio 4H passive preamp, where the stage is a little smaller).

One example of this is the beginning of the track Wish You Were Here, from Pink Floyd's album of the same name. At the beginning, the guitar is played through (or least made to sound like) a table radio, coming from just one speaker. With the Silent Speakers, this sounds like a real table radio sitting on top of the speaker, as if it was a small table. Then, when the lead guitar starts up (a superb recording of a guitar) it sounds remarkably natural both in tone and in size, floating in space is if the guitarist was standing right there between the speakers.

Last comment image-wise, is that there is no real sweet spot, or maybe it's that the sweet spot is about ten feet wide. I can sit anywhere on the coach in my listening room and the sound doesn't really change. It is a little brighter when I stand up, but that's about it. These are great speakers if you actually move around or do other stuff with music playing!

I don't normally discuss imaging this much in my reviews, but I have been continually taken in by the overall imaging of this system.

similar tall flooders are Compass/Starter and Arc by Shahinian:

AUIOOA-1320163396STARTER.jpg


An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


and Enigma by Heed Audio:

enigma.jpg


199777_1974300194665_1157852898_32510505_1762683_n.jpg


9d93ad259ce47c71df378753.jpg


more: Heed Enigma - Technical info
 
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another review here: direct_acoustics


I'm using something remotely similar in my current test setup ! :)

I have 3 ceiling firing speakers lifted at almost ear height, and they are driven by linear stereo matrix of x=0.5.


Especially this one is true:
direct_acoustics
Last comment image-wise, is that there is no real sweet spot, or maybe it's that the sweet spot is about ten feet wide. I can sit anywhere on the coach in my listening room and the sound doesn't really change. It is a little brighter when I stand up, but that's about it.


I like the effect myself not being restricted into a tiny spot while listening.


- Elias
 
I'm using something remotely similar in my current test setup ! :)

I have 3 ceiling firing speakers lifted at almost ear height, and they are driven by linear stereo matrix of x=0.5.

- Elias

so combination of a tall flooder plus matrix of 0.5

interesting evolution of Your concept!

what sort of speakers You use? how tall? The Direct Acoustics speakers are acoustically ~60 cm tall
 
another example of a flooder that is a (relatively short) speaker that deliberately uses (and increases the level of) the ceiling reflection and avoids (decreases the level of) the floor reflection to get the sound right - the highly acclaimed Gradient 1.5:

gradient.jpg


the flooding driver covers the range of 200-2200 Hz, well the tweeter is also aiming significantly upwards, so it falls under the above definition too

more: Specifications Helsinki
 
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so combination of a tall flooder plus matrix of 0.5

interesting evolution of Your concept!

what sort of speakers You use? how tall? The Direct Acoustics speakers are acoustically ~60 cm tall


Six months ago this was my experimental system: 3 dipoles with FRS8 elements and linear stereo matrix x=0.5

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.




Then a while back I put extra FRS8 in closed tubes and aimed them upwards. I have 3 of them and run them through the matrix. Note that the dipole baffles are still in place but no signal is driven to the dipoles ! I found that the baffles improve the sound of the flooder tubes ! It seems that 2pi radiation is much better than 4pi true omni.

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.



I could say that perhaps good idea would be to place the upwards firing tubes against the front wall. In my room it's a bit hard since my front wall has window and balcony door etc. So I'm using the baffles as virtual walls :)


- Elias
 
Isn't it amazing how small they really are ? :D

I didn't think about them in terms of flooder before (maybe flooder does not sound enough high class for Gradient ;)), but indeed the ceiling reflection has a particular effect on the behaviour of this speaker.

it is and it sounds quite like a flooder :cool: :D:

The Helsinkis' sense of spaciousness was amazing. And it was natural in a way that I found difficult to describe.
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I paused to listen to a Brahms piano concerto, and thrilled to the strangely great way the sound in my room mimicked that of a concert hall, in a spatial sense.
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Instruments had presence in a good flesh-and-blood sense, not in that awful, fussy, typical "high-end audio" manner.
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I can better describe what it is that made the Helsinkis' spaciousness so distinctive: I wasn't hearing an airy artifact, but rather the sounds of instruments and voices opening up naturally before me.
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Some individual sounds grew, spatially, as they opened up, yet the overall sound wasn't the least bit airy per se. Even as they decayed, the sounds of violins and clarinets had texture.

I'd never before heard anything like it.

from: Gradient Helsinki 1.5 loudspeaker Page 2 | Stereophile.com

The specific area in which the Helsinki 1.5s truly excel is the reproduction of spatial information.
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The Helsinki 1.5s not only disappear as sources themselves, they make in effect your listening room disappear from the sonic picture, or at least remarkably close to that.

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it is overwhelming and immediate. Music recorded in a large space sounds enormous. Music recorded close up in smaller spaces sounds to that scale. And everything in between is similarly reproduced as it is in spatial terms.

from: Gradient Helsinki 1.5 Loudspeaker | The Absolute Sound

BTW it's quite a pity (and hilariously funny at the same time, as it frequently happens) to see that the exprienced TAS reviewer is so close-minded that he honestly believes that no significant ceiling reflection contributes to the sound of 1.5s!

the midrange is sent to the ceiling at an angle that makes the reflection arrive behind the listener at an ordinary listening distance, while again the high-frequency driver is too directional to reflect off the ceiling to any extent

Would You believe??? Such pure nonsense! Such idiocy!!! :bigeyes: :bigeyes: :bigeyes: :no: :no: :no: :rofl: :tons: :faint:

sweet Jesus! have mercy upon us!! :bawling:

Imagine how stupid a well educated and an experienced person can be when completely blinded by strong preconceptions! :headbash: :headbash: :headbash:

just UNBELIEVABLE!
 
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Everyone knows the perceptual effect of ceiling reflected sound, when it is done intentionally and correctly.

Phantom source elevation? That's what I get. I found side reflections more important for spaciousness.

The tilted Behringers in the following configuration project center sources at about 2/3 of the wall height. Percussive sounds even higher. The toed-out Nathan's work much better.

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