Pro vs hifi drivers - pros and cons?

[panomaniac]

Well - this is great! We have completely solved the question of Pro vs Hifi drivers and now can move on to more important things like CD vs Vinyl and HT vs Stereo, etc.
Swell.

[/sarcasm]

[cbdb]

In an analogue recording the time sequence is not manipulated.

It sure is, its called wow and flutter

[thoriated]

Yes but Thoriated, perhaps I am missing the point - but we can't hear frequencies that high. Is extension to 45 kHz an advantage?

Excerpted from FA Everest, 'Master Handbook of Acoustics':

This experiment, suggested by Craig Stark,16 can be performed easily
with your home high-fidelity system and two audio oscillators. Plug one
oscillator into the left channel and the other into the right channel, and
adjust both channels for an equal and comfortable level at some midband
frequency. Set one oscillator to 24 kHz and the other to 23 kHz without
changing the level settings. With either oscillator alone, nothing is heard
because the signal is outside the range of the ear. (He notes here, however,
that the dog might leave the room in disgust!) When both oscillators
are feeding their respective channels, one at 24 kHz and the other at 23
kHz, a distinct 1,000-Hz tone is heard if the tweeters are good enough
and you are standing in the right place.
The 1,000-Hz tone is the difference between 24,000 and 23,000 Hz.
The sum, or 47,000 Hz, which even the dog may not hear even if it
were radiated, is another sideband. Such sum and difference sidebands
are generated whenever two pure tones are mixed in a nonlinear
element. The nonlinear element in the above experiment is the
middle and inner ear. In addition to the intermodulation products discussed
earlier, the nonlinearity of the ear generates new harmonics
that are not present in the sound falling on the eardrum.

So, it seems that extension beyond 22khz is definitely an advantage for a high quality audio source; perhaps not so important at much higher frequencies with the caveat that the transient response of the rolloff not be underdamped.

[Andre Visser]

Originally Posted by panomaniac

Well - this is great! We have completely solved the question of Pro vs Hifi drivers and now can move on to more important things like CD vs Vinyl and HT vs Stereo, etc.
Swell.

[/sarcasm]

I guess we must first decide whether hi-fi and HT is the same or not, before the speaker discussion will make sense.

[markus76]

Yes of course. After all sound reproduction is the most important thing, right?

[Robh3606]

I guess we must first decide whether hi-fi and HT is the same or not, before the speaker discussion will make sense.

Take a look at the bandwidth 20-20K. What is so different?? I know that sounds simplistic but that's really the bottom line. The directivity is a system design issue not a driver one. I thought we were talking about drivers not speaker systems. I would even argue, even at the system level, that asside from directivity they are essentially the same requirements. So I guess Nathans can't do both music and HT??

Rob

[Andre Visser]

Originally Posted by 45

No. It's just theory. In practice I can't see a device that can work without dithering and/or noise shaping i.e. artificial modification of the time sequence of the samples (because you cannot know what kind information you are removing a priori).
This is by far the worst limitation of digital devices. In principle 44.1 KHz could be enough in practice they are not. At least until they don't sort out the above problem.
In an analogue recording the time sequence is not manipulated. In the worst case you can talk about phase but, remaining time continuous, you have the tools to deal with it.

I don't believe the problem is with digital, even 44.1Khz sampling can produce excellent results if the recording is done well on high quality equipment and played back on a good system. Most of the problems are created by inferior circuitry around the ADC's and DAC's, as well as poor recordings, not even to mention compression.

[45]

Originally Posted by Andre Visser

I don't believe the problem is with digital, even 44.1Khz sampling can produce excellent results if the recording is done well on high quality equipment and played back on a good system. Most of the problems are created by inferior circuitry around the ADC's and DAC's, as well as poor recordings, not even to mention compression.

It's the present AD/DA process to be limited and in the end it is the final product that matters for us. If the audiophile community has nearly zero impact on the whole market do you think I should be optimistic?
I can just see al lot of speculation about the future and few real advances until now. Hope for the best but until then I stick with my vinyls.

[markus76]

Originally Posted by thoriated

Excerpted from FA Everest, 'Master Handbook of Acoustics':

This experiment, suggested by Craig Stark...

Obviously my middle and inner ear does not show these nonlinearities. I don't hear a 1kHz tone.

Best, Markus

[Andre Visser]

Originally Posted by Robh3606

Take a look at the bandwidth 20-20K. What is so different?? I know that sounds simplistic but that's really the bottom line. The directivity is a system design issue not a driver one. I thought we were talking about drivers not speaker systems. I would even argue, even at the system level, that asside from directivity they are essentially the same requirements. So I guess Nathans can't do both music and HT??

Rob

To me bandwidth is about the only thing they have in common.

I don't think the issue is whether one speaker can do both but rather if you want the optimum speaker for it's particular use, the design goals may be quite different. (For some at least. ) For that, I don't think it is reasonable to claim one driver is superior to the other, it may depend on application and also personal taste / expectance.