I think you are interpreting too much in this statement ?
Room treatment in the bass is difficult, expensive and most likely stationary.
A directional sub woofer excites different modes and to a different degree. The critical distance is greater and hence the D/R ratio, etc. etc. all resulting in a preferable reprensentation over a setup with one or two monopoles (this is what I experience anyway).
If you move, take the speakers with you.
I am not sure if the discussion makes progress stalling. I think right now there are just no better explanations. And then there is perception.
This is why I found this paper interesting and also Elias' work pointing to differences in temporal fidelity. I'll link it here again in case there are some readers not knowing it.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mult...ll-room-battle-continues-wavelets-rescue.html
Then I guess you're stricty speaker about dipoles? For monopoles it should make a great difference how air tight a room is.
Yes it is certainly a room placement issue to some extent. I found some positions where the dipole and cardioid were basically identical between 20 and 100 Hz.
The reason I experimented with this was because of the paper by Backman where he claimed dipoles to be the most sensitive to positioning and cardioids the least. I was surprised by just how sensitive the dipoles were, both to position and orientation. By the time I was done building the CRAW and pushing it all over the room I pretty much came to agree with his analysis. That is not to say you can not get good bass from a dipole woofer. Quite the contrary. They can produce exceptional bass. But the idea that you can plot a dipole woofer down anywhere and get superior bass because it excites fewer modes just doesn't bear out.
Thanks, 'completely agree. And hence the same is true with monopoles being kind of the opposite animal. Both need some thoughts where to drop them.
As a result and from a customer perspective not knowing what exactly is required, a cardio would be (is in your case) the best approach.
I agree that active absorption is more practical but I'm not sure which frequency range you're talking about.
The location of subs is freed from placement of the mains below 80Hz. Several solutions for modal control become feasible.
Then there's the transitional frequency range around the Schröder frequency. The woofers are located where the mains are. There are claims that dipoles would always outperform monopoles but I've yet to see conclusive data.
One advantage of a dipole (and cardoid) is its variable room interaction with rotation. But then again I've never seen a speaker utilizing such an approach.
No. The question was about the NaO Mini which used a sealed box woofer. And the question was, "Did I get any feedback about the tuning." No one who build the Mini ever commented on the woofer tuning so I can not comment on how well it did or did not work in the field. It's not like there are thousands of Mini systems out there. I discontinued the Mini because Peerless stopped making the woofers and there were some QC issues with the 7" Peerless HDS mids at the time.
Sorry but it wasn't clear from your original post that you were talking specifically about the NaO Mini.
Although dipoles outperform monopoles in a small room in most relevant metrics
That's exactly the claims I was talking about...
John - I too completly agree
2Pi - the same is true of monopoles, but not because they are "opposite". Its simply because at LFs the room is the dominate factor and the source does not make that much difference. Everything that is true of one type of source is also true of all the others - room placement matters, the number matters, the LFs have to be EQ'd, etc. It all comes down to the same thing - so just use simple monopoles and be done with it.
Sighted subjective justifications for one type sub just doesn't cut it with me. They are not "data".
Although dipoles outperform monopoles in a small room in most relevant metrics
How so? I found in all my studies that there were no significant differences. What objective metrics do you use?
I was not even talking about active absorption. Just minimizing room interaction by radiation pattern.
When I talk bass then I talk about everything below the Schröder F because you have to consider the whole range with its unique behavior. So bass can go up to 180...250Hz typically.
Right but what about above 80Hz ? I would prefer to just keep on moving with directional behavior.
It is simply not that easy.
I would, however, dare to state the following:
If you have ONE dipole or ONE monopole in a system as sub, then the dipole will be better (assumed that both integrate equally well with the sats, which is another issue and assumed that both can be optimally be placed).
But things can change with more monopoles. Multi sub arrays with 2 or better 4 monopoles can be very good. But this has already to be considered a customized installation. And if that is better than two well placed gradient woofers...would have been nice to read in the cited paper
How's that ? Lots of freedom to rotate
PHOENIX - Open Baffle Loudspeaker
It does when the source is close. It also might matter in a general sense when we look at the very common use case of a free standing speaker. This is the configuration that most people use but I've never seen simulations comparing different radiation patterns, let alone measurements.
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Do you mean the dipole midbass in a multiway system can rotate individually to get optimum angle related to the room?
What's the preferable range of that midbass?
But if you rotate the mid bass then the direct sound diminishes and I am not eve sure that there is a big issue in that range as the source is already directional, hence there is less room interaction.
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