Pro vs hifi drivers - pros and cons?

[45]

Originally Posted by kevinkr

I'm just not sure that is the entire story, carried to an extreme in my experience this just results in what sounds like a pair of (perhaps good) speakers playing into a room and being overwhelmed by it as opposed to some much larger speakers that just seem able to disappear - generating a much more convincing sounding performance.

I admit I may have missed your point, but I guess I am just a BIB type of guy with those 11 cu ft Onken enclosures with 16" woofers in my modest sized listening room. (JBL horn mids and tweeters - 300B SE power) Sonically they almost disappear on some material and it is scary - like nothing I have ever heard from a more modestly (sanely) sized system.

Can you get a true holographic event? Can you move around the room without loosing the 3D stage? When moving around do you perceive you are moving around persons playing their instruments? Or like when you listen to a live concert first from a center position and then from the far side?

My speakers in my room behave like a perfect infinite baffle although they are relatively small 3-way reflex bookshelves (my avatar), conventionally.....
Their life-like reproduction is so real and strong (in terms of sonic sensation) that you don't really need massive SPL.

Cheers,
45

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by 45

Can you get a true holographic event? Can you move around the room without loosing the 3D stage? When moving around do you perceive you are moving around persons playing their instruments? Or like when you listen to a live concert first from a center position and then from the far side?

My speakers in my room behave like a perfect infinite baffle although they are relatively small 3-way reflex bookshelves (my avatar), conventionally.....
Their life-like reproduction is so real and strong (in terms of sonic sensation) that you don't really need massive SPL.

Cheers,
45

Very dependent on the program material, but basically yes to all of your questions with the caveat obviously that not all or even most program material is able to produce these sorts of effects. I actually wasn't talking about high spl levels - most of my listening is done at levels well below 90dBspl.

Interestingly I have some fairly creepy material that deliberately places phantom images to the sides (effectively almost beyond the room walls) and behind my listening position. I have freaked out more than a few people with this..

[Pano]

Most of the good big horn systems I've heard do this better than anything else. Some of them so much so that walking right up to the speaker is not enough to break the illusion. Quite uncanny.

I've heard smaller, more conventional systems with great imaging, but never with the scale and weight of the big boys. There does seem to be some in between size that does not image well. Maybe that is what leads many to think that big systems don't image well. The very big ones do.

[cbdb]

The thing about a real piano in the room is that the sound comes from the a large 6 or 7 foot wide space, not a point. So my "piano speakers" would be placed no more than 6 feet apart in the center of the room ad be omni-directional. Then just like a real piano a listen could walk in a circle around it. I think this is the only way you'd ever hear a recording that sounds "real".

They do have 12 ft pianos.

Walking around a real piano (or any other instrument) (as well as getting closer to it) changes the sound, even with the lid closed (which it usually isnt). Walking around omni speakers dosnt. This Idea might sorta work if you used 4 or 6 speakers that are each reproducing a different mic placed around the piano but it wont be perfect.

The point is, as soon as you record a sound you change it. Very few people record with flat omni directional mics or blumlien pairs because they understand this. Your reproduced sound is just an illusion of the real thing. Sometimes a very good illusion, but it will never be real and the people that are chasing this "holy grail" will chase there tails forever. If you want real, go to a concert.

Live music is like seeing a play, recorded music is like seeing a movie.

[Pano]

12ft Piano? That's a lot of Piano! Even the big Bösendorfer is "only" 9'6".
Of course there is that crazy Kiwi kid who built an 18'8" piano....
YouTube - TheAlexanderpiano's Channel

Who makes a 12 footer?

[Borat]

pro drivers more easily lend themselves to use in active systems than passive.

this is because if you have a 90db tweeter you probably don't want to pad down a 96db woofer to match it.

but i would certainly rather take an active system using efficient pro drivers than a passive one using inefficient hi-fi drivers.

that said some hi-fi drivers ( like the 92db underhung Accuton midrange ) are quite nice and don't have any prosound analogues.

my dream system would most likely use FIR crossovers and a mix of both prosound and hi-fi drivers.

[Andre Visser]

Originally Posted by cbdb

Your reproduced sound is just an illusion of the real thing. Sometimes a very good illusion, but it will never be real and the people that are chasing this "holy grail" will chase there tails forever. If you want real, go to a concert.

Of course it will never be real but at least one can try to make it sound realistic.

[gedlee]

Originally Posted by Borat

this is because if you have a 90db tweeter you probably don't want to pad down a 96db woofer to match it.

Except that it is the other way arround - you have to pad down the 106 dB compression driver to match the 96 dB woofer - at least at the low end in a CD system, the high end is usually at about the right level. This makes a passive design quite reasonable. In fact in a great many tests of active versus passive crossover implimentations we found that there really wasn't an audible difference. Quite a big cost difference however.

[Pano]

Yep, that's the cool thing with compression drivers /horns. There is almost always enough efficiency in the low end to trade away for proper tonal balance. Works like a charm.
I haven't done the rigorous tests that Earl has, but have found passive to work as well, if not better than active in many cases. It's a great choice.

[cbdb]

Originally Posted by panomaniac

12ft Piano? That's a lot of Piano! Even the big Bösendorfer is "only" 9'6".
Of course there is that crazy Kiwi kid who built an 18'8" piano....
YouTube - TheAlexanderpiano's Channel

Who makes a 12 footer?

Very rare but out there. ( the 9' 6" Bösendorfer would have made my point.)

YouTube - R-371: 12 foot 2 inch Rubenstein Piano - Messiaen