No it's a bass reflex. I originally wanted to make a TL, but after reading peoples' opinions about it and not wanting very big speakers, I decided against this.
Good, I'm glad to read this. I don't want to be one of those crazy audiophiles that swears I hear a difference when there is none
Oh I'd love to be one of those crazy audiophiles but no one takes me seriously anyway so who'd listen?
Mp3/FLAC/APE
MP3 is worse then FLAC, for the simple fact that mp3 steals away the range outside of what you can hear. IE when a sound is played loud next close in frequency range to another sound that is lower in loudness that sound will be filtered out. The ranges outside the human hearing is left out as well.
There are a few drawbacks to this: The sound is compressed, it depends on the compression on whether this is done good or bad. This is what people tend to hear in difference between mp3 (compressed) and uncompressed/lossless.
But the range outside of the human hearing is important to the sound as well; 10hz can be felt, even if it can't be heard. Harmonics in sound is another thing, the harminocs of certain sounds left out of the mp3 music is important: one other sound close to a frequency that is played louder is important to the harmonic build-up in sound and sound-nodes. The sound (sorry for the fuzziness of words in the next line) sound unnatural and can sound harsh...
So you can hear the difference, but only if you're trained and have a good sound-system... Sometimes I can hear a big difference, and sometimes I don't. Most of the time I do think it is because the filtering/converting music:
CD can be dirty, CD-player to rip with is degrading sound (error correction, even electrical influances). Then it is converted by a series of systems and filters... Even when you want to burn it, you'd be going through the whole series of unfiltering, all the way up to the quality of the burned CD and eventually your CD-player...
So to recapp; I do think it has influance (I can swear that the violins and cello's are more natural or more clearly spaced on original CD's) but most of the time it would be the converting to blame. But then again there is even a difference in the CD's you by, even if you'd buy the same, some prints of CD's are better then others (had bought two of the same by accident).
This is just my opinion, I am a bit of an audiophile if I would say so myself... So maybe I'm prejudice or even a bit crazy... Maybe I'll go and test some converting myself, It'll be a nice test for my ears and my system.
By the way, I use FLAC because I've read (yep... not tested, I know) that the decompressing the FLAC is easier and less fault-sensitive than APE... Anyone knows something about this (has proof?)
Sorry for some bad choices in words; I'm still just a Dutch-guy
MP3 is worse then FLAC, for the simple fact that mp3 steals away the range outside of what you can hear. IE when a sound is played loud next close in frequency range to another sound that is lower in loudness that sound will be filtered out. The ranges outside the human hearing is left out as well.
There are a few drawbacks to this: The sound is compressed, it depends on the compression on whether this is done good or bad. This is what people tend to hear in difference between mp3 (compressed) and uncompressed/lossless.
But the range outside of the human hearing is important to the sound as well; 10hz can be felt, even if it can't be heard. Harmonics in sound is another thing, the harminocs of certain sounds left out of the mp3 music is important: one other sound close to a frequency that is played louder is important to the harmonic build-up in sound and sound-nodes. The sound (sorry for the fuzziness of words in the next line) sound unnatural and can sound harsh...
So you can hear the difference, but only if you're trained and have a good sound-system... Sometimes I can hear a big difference, and sometimes I don't. Most of the time I do think it is because the filtering/converting music:
CD can be dirty, CD-player to rip with is degrading sound (error correction, even electrical influances). Then it is converted by a series of systems and filters... Even when you want to burn it, you'd be going through the whole series of unfiltering, all the way up to the quality of the burned CD and eventually your CD-player...
So to recapp; I do think it has influance (I can swear that the violins and cello's are more natural or more clearly spaced on original CD's) but most of the time it would be the converting to blame. But then again there is even a difference in the CD's you by, even if you'd buy the same, some prints of CD's are better then others (had bought two of the same by accident).
This is just my opinion, I am a bit of an audiophile if I would say so myself... So maybe I'm prejudice or even a bit crazy... Maybe I'll go and test some converting myself, It'll be a nice test for my ears and my system.
By the way, I use FLAC because I've read (yep... not tested, I know) that the decompressing the FLAC is easier and less fault-sensitive than APE... Anyone knows something about this (has proof?)
Sorry for some bad choices in words; I'm still just a Dutch-guy
About compression
The major advantage of FLAC (besides being open source) is the decompression algorithm, it is rather simple so it uses less processing power than other audio codecs. That's why it's perfect for portable devices.
I've compared it with APE as someone stated it was superior and CPU power was indeed up when playing APE files. As for the compressed size there was little difference.
Fault sensitive is a moot point, it's all done in the digital space of computers where 0's stay 0's and 1's stay 1's.
As for myself, when I store music uncompressed I go for FLAC, when I want to save not only some diskspace, but also the quality I go for OGG Vorbis quality 10 and one special setting.
I've listened to several of the best cd's and various compressed versions and only OGG q10 showed no difference in sound (no differences in spectrum either in Audacity). The best thing; it's still only one-third the size of the original cd.
There's much more to say on compression, but then it better be done in a seperate thread.
(to be on topic: my description and history of my current stereo setup is here: high end audio rant)
The major advantage of FLAC (besides being open source) is the decompression algorithm, it is rather simple so it uses less processing power than other audio codecs. That's why it's perfect for portable devices.
I've compared it with APE as someone stated it was superior and CPU power was indeed up when playing APE files. As for the compressed size there was little difference.
Fault sensitive is a moot point, it's all done in the digital space of computers where 0's stay 0's and 1's stay 1's.
As for myself, when I store music uncompressed I go for FLAC, when I want to save not only some diskspace, but also the quality I go for OGG Vorbis quality 10 and one special setting.
I've listened to several of the best cd's and various compressed versions and only OGG q10 showed no difference in sound (no differences in spectrum either in Audacity). The best thing; it's still only one-third the size of the original cd.
There's much more to say on compression, but then it better be done in a seperate thread.
(to be on topic: my description and history of my current stereo setup is here: high end audio rant)
Flac
FLAC is lossless, that's the 'l' in FLAC. Lossless means it is the EXACT SAME as the WAV data on an original CD. It IS compressed (that's the 'C') but like Zip files, is lossless compression.
This means that it contains the same amount of data a WAV, but takes less space. Approximately one third is correct.
I use FLAC for my CD collection on my system because it is digitally identical to the source CDs, but takes up less HDD space. There is no sonic compromise.
Frequency response, btw, is related to sample rate. 44.1k sampling will always extend to around 22k per Nyquist sampling theorem (which itself isn't PERFECTLY applicable to sound, but good enough).
Loss and compression are two different things. Lossy compression saves space by throwing away data using an algorithm derived from basic psychoacoustics (Haas effect (precedence), etc.). Lossless compression doesn't throw away any data and is exactly identical to the source, like Zip files.
cheers,
-Tal
As for myself, when I store music uncompressed I go for FLAC, when I want to save not only some diskspace, but also the quality I go for OGG Vorbis quality 10 and one special setting.
I've listened to several of the best cd's and various compressed versions and only OGG q10 showed no difference in sound (no differences in spectrum either in Audacity). The best thing; it's still only one-third the size of the original cd.
FLAC is lossless, that's the 'l' in FLAC. Lossless means it is the EXACT SAME as the WAV data on an original CD. It IS compressed (that's the 'C') but like Zip files, is lossless compression.
This means that it contains the same amount of data a WAV, but takes less space. Approximately one third is correct.
I use FLAC for my CD collection on my system because it is digitally identical to the source CDs, but takes up less HDD space. There is no sonic compromise.
Frequency response, btw, is related to sample rate. 44.1k sampling will always extend to around 22k per Nyquist sampling theorem (which itself isn't PERFECTLY applicable to sound, but good enough).
Loss and compression are two different things. Lossy compression saves space by throwing away data using an algorithm derived from basic psychoacoustics (Haas effect (precedence), etc.). Lossless compression doesn't throw away any data and is exactly identical to the source, like Zip files.
cheers,
-Tal
As for myself, when I store music uncompressed I go for FLAC, when I want to save not only some diskspace, but also the quality I go for OGG Vorbis quality 10 and one special setting.
I've listened to several of the best cd's and various compressed versions and only OGG q10 showed no difference in sound (no differences in spectrum either in Audacity). The best thing; it's still only one-third the size of the original cd.
I agree, ogg is to my ears by far the best of the lossy formats.
Here's a pic of my system. Speakers are MJK open baffles.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Presenting The Gate
Picked up my camera today so I can finally present my own humble creation in its current raw form (and prove my level of insanity):
Mains: 3.5 way WWMT/TMWW, 190x28x28 cm, part H, part (shallow) U frame,
2x G 20 SC, 2x TI 100, 4x W 200 S, crossover points (LR 4th) 2300, 243 Hz with top and bottom woofer rolled off 30 dB at 243 Hz/12 dB slope.
Subs: 190x35x35 cm H frame, 6x W 300 connected per 3 in parallel, crossoverpoint (LR 4th) 50 Hz between mains and subs when in use, otherwise the mains run full range.
TV: Philips 42" plasma (used only for watching (ripped) movies/series, cable content holds nothing of interest for me)
Source: VIA Eden Mini-ITX based mediaserver with Terratec Aureon 5.1 soundcard; OS: FreeBSD 7; player: good ol' XMMS and Xine. The Yamaha GT-CD1 (one of the very few original 220V versions) needs a replacement drivebelt for the lens transport first, then I'll look into getting a nice pre-amplifier.
Processing: Behringer DEQ2496 for room equalizing, connected with digital out to 2 DCX2496'. Outputs are configured for sub, sub, low, low/low-mid, mid, high and time aligned.
Power amps: (per side) 1x Behringer EP4000 in stereo for sub, 2x Behringer EP2000 for main (all with combined silent fan and resistor mods).
Planned finishing: all edges rounded, front and inside behind mid/tweeters white felt, complete frames white high gloss paint.
Sound: Depending on the quality of the recording a deep and wide soundstage, very realistic and detailed (often up to the point where I suddenly hear more faint noises in the recorded background), tight and deep open baffle bass not fazed by the cannons from Overture 1812.
Picked up my camera today so I can finally present my own humble creation in its current raw form (and prove my level of insanity):
Mains: 3.5 way WWMT/TMWW, 190x28x28 cm, part H, part (shallow) U frame,
2x G 20 SC, 2x TI 100, 4x W 200 S, crossover points (LR 4th) 2300, 243 Hz with top and bottom woofer rolled off 30 dB at 243 Hz/12 dB slope.
Subs: 190x35x35 cm H frame, 6x W 300 connected per 3 in parallel, crossoverpoint (LR 4th) 50 Hz between mains and subs when in use, otherwise the mains run full range.
TV: Philips 42" plasma (used only for watching (ripped) movies/series, cable content holds nothing of interest for me)
Source: VIA Eden Mini-ITX based mediaserver with Terratec Aureon 5.1 soundcard; OS: FreeBSD 7; player: good ol' XMMS and Xine. The Yamaha GT-CD1 (one of the very few original 220V versions) needs a replacement drivebelt for the lens transport first, then I'll look into getting a nice pre-amplifier.
Processing: Behringer DEQ2496 for room equalizing, connected with digital out to 2 DCX2496'. Outputs are configured for sub, sub, low, low/low-mid, mid, high and time aligned.
Power amps: (per side) 1x Behringer EP4000 in stereo for sub, 2x Behringer EP2000 for main (all with combined silent fan and resistor mods).
Planned finishing: all edges rounded, front and inside behind mid/tweeters white felt, complete frames white high gloss paint.
Sound: Depending on the quality of the recording a deep and wide soundstage, very realistic and detailed (often up to the point where I suddenly hear more faint noises in the recorded background), tight and deep open baffle bass not fazed by the cannons from Overture 1812
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Sometimes people are just left speechless.
(happens more often with me, but usually there's mention of straightjackets soon after
)Thanks!
Btw, if you spot seismic activity in the south of the Netherlands, my apologies. I'll turn the volume down.
Not really. Whilst they might be what Simon and others might wish to build, they are not to my (and I assume many others') personal tastes.
I did enjoy looking at it though and will be interested to see how it looks when they're finished and I almost always find at least one aspect of other peoples builds that gives me ideas for mine, or a future design. The 4 box design reminds me of one of my first builds, except those were more reminiscent of the Infinity IRS and not much shorter than yours, but wider (main panel) and deeper (LF section).
I honestly hope you enjoyed building them, and listening to them. Pity you're on the other side of the world, because I'd enjoy the chance to hear them for myself; maybe they'd change my (so far) not very positive opinion about OB's.
Shhhh.., don't spoil my 15 minutes of delusion.
It's a good thing there are different tastes out there. No matter how good these sound, they still are one of the largest speakers in the world (excluding the couple of extreme systems). Some people prefer speakers as small as possible but as my priority is full range sound quality so the size up to medium towers wouldn't do.
Although I have a design of two slim (sealed) columns in mind (calculated width/depth of 18x18 cm) which might work as a medium tower as well.
Interesting. Pictures, tech info?
Actually, I was more happy that I was done glueing, screwing and wiring after two days. Not to mention I could finally throw out all the cardboard boxes and clean up the livingroom.
But then again it was worth it to make my own design reality.
While building I was already thinking what others would think of the sound and if I'd ever load up the whole system for a meeting around here (I definitely would like to hear them in a large room).
I'd like to have taken that challenge of changing your opinion on OB.
You'll get the chance for payback later when I post mine. I know I am beholden to Beranek's Law.Shhhh.., don't spoil my 15 minutes of delusion.
I am waiting on some money to get the timber cut, but my new mains will be 200 h, 60 w and 40 d, a pair of AE TD15X (sealed W-U-W) and a Unity per channel. This project, as well as the sides/rears and subs is progressing even slower than usual for me and is beginning to make a glacier look speedy in comparison.
Still a bit 'petite', no?
Small = no bass, no dynamic range and typical constipated sound - meh.
They were 25 years ago, so no photos. Basically 4 10" Australian made pro drivers in a huge ported cab (circa 300L net) each side, tuned to around 30Hz. Mains were 9 Foster wideranges and 9 Philips tweeters in a line source. Looked just like the IRS or the Genesis physically, just uglier. Xovers were 200 and 5k IIRC 18dB/oct passive.
It is nice for stuff to just get completed and it would have been interesting to hear your OB's. I personally don't give a tuppence worth of care what someone else thinks of my designs, as tastes are very personal. For example I just don't get single drivers; every single system I have heard has sounded dire, so I would not expect someone who like that set of compromises to really dig my stuff.While building I was already thinking what others would think of the sound and if I'd ever load up the whole system for a meeting around here (I definitely would like to hear them in a large room).
I'd like to have taken that challenge of changing your opinion on OB.
I'm looking forward to seeing those (in my old age eventually?
).That's the thing that I'm curious about. Without giving too much details yet, the medium towers would have 21 (yes, I said 21) drivers in total per side and I think the construction could provide both bass and dynamics.
(the full size columns would have 66 drivers in total, told ya I'm certified
)Impressive, especially at that time I'd say.