I guess this depends on the sound material and crossover point. How about for vocal and most musical instruments, at a typical crossover point of 3kHz.
I am under the impression that most perceived detail or texture of music comes from about 5k to 10k Hz. If so does it mean that we should put more money on tweeter when building a speaker if detail is the priority?
I am under the impression that most perceived detail or texture of music comes from about 5k to 10k Hz. If so does it mean that we should put more money on tweeter when building a speaker if detail is the priority?
I'm thinking Scott was more suggesting that natively flat-ish FR of the drivers not requiring excessive EQ - not to mention crossover networks not getting in the way - would be more of a design objective.
Out of curiosity, have you heard any $100,000 speaker systems that you'd sell a kidney for?
Out of curiosity, have you heard any $100,000 speaker systems that you'd sell a kidney for?
Detail comes from all the drivers ability to reproduce small detail… i use Allen Wright's term DDR (Downward Dynamic Range) to describe this. It needs to be in the tweeter and the mid bass (or FR or other drivers). A cross-over is likely to remove detail — or at least stir up the timing of its arrival. FR as we measure it is like the surface of a body of water… clarity at the bottom is where the detail resides.
dave
dave
You might find this thread interesting, the discussion morphs into one examining how much can be achieved by EQ Who makes the lowest distortion speaker drivers
I am fortunate enough to have heard a pair of Kondo horn speakers that the owner said cost about 80k Euro, which work out to be about 100k USD. Previously I have not known this level of realism, sound stage and impact is possible.
I don't know what model, I tried googling can't find it either. I have no idea how much the rest of the system cost.
I have to say both. It's hard to say which one is more important. A good woofer is not complete without a good tweeter and vice versa. Like Ying and Yang - they are both sides of the same coin. Neither one can exists without the other.
You might have missed the OP. As stated IMO 5k to 10k Hz range is most responsible. But this is from a layman perspective.
Disconnecting a woofer and putting a cheap woofer are far from the same thing.
For bass driver, IMO an expensive driver and a cheap one would make little difference in most cases. Very little musical information reside in that frequncy range and our ears are not that sensitive at that frequencies anyway.
Now between bass and upper midrange, this is not so clear to me.
I agree.
Just that I sort of suspected, between say a $100 woofer/$200 tweeter combo, and $200 woofer/$100 tweeter combo, assuming both are properly designed, the former might be perceived more detailed. But I have zero experience in this sort of stuff. Of course personal preference and material come into play.
But the pro like Planet10 does not seem to think this is the case. This is what I am interested to know.
I won't comment what the pro said since I am not his. But if your budget can only allow for either one good woofer or one good tweeter, then, at least for me, I would go for a good woofer and whatever left on my budget would be for the tweeter. I guess what I am saying is a good woofer probably has more say on the final sound than the tweeter. Also if you plan to cross at a high frequency such as 3khz, the imprints of the tweeter on the sound is not as much vs. crossing very low at say 2khz. Woofer all the way, fb.
I think reading up on Dave Griesinger's presentations will answer your questions. I believe he said something like 500-4000 Hz is the key frequency band for human aural acuity and perception of clarity.
But the answer to the question "why is that so?" is much more illuminating, and Griesinger is pretty good at providing those kind of answers. I've learned a great deal from him that applies to the subject of minimum phase re-EQing of recordings to "demaster" them from the effects of mastering EQ. I find that demastered recordings oftentimes get more sensitive to very small changes in EQ once their inverse EQ curves are applied to get back to as "as-mixed" states. Griesinger's presentation on "What is Clarity?" answers a bunch of questions on the subject of "why is that so?". Highly recommended.
Chris
In my experience price is a very poor indicator of quality, particularly regarding tweeters. There is no reason to assume that a $200 tweeter is better at retrieving detail than a $40-80 one.
The objectively best tweeter Zaph ever measured was a $30 Vifa.
That's my 2 pence...
Thank you, a valid argument.
Thanks, looks like a lot of good info there, will take some time to digest them.
That is true. Expensive material does not equal good design.
Also it takes more material to make a woofer than a tweeter. So assuming the same caliber of construction and profit margin, a woofer should cost more.
I think it's important to distinguish what audiophiles call "details" vs. what you said about "clarity". For example you can take a signal that has lost a lot of "details", then apply "EQ" in the 400hz - 4000 hz band to add more clarity, now the signal has more "clarity" but it does not mean the same as having "details". You can have a cheap woofer and cheap tweeter and you can design a speaker that has a lot of clarity but it won't have a lot of "details".
On the other hands, a signal may have a lot of "details", but it does not necessarily have a lot of "clarity".
A signal may have both - details and clarity. But my point is they are two entirely different things.
To me, audiophile "details" is resolution which is a more precise meaning and I think that is what the OP was getting at.
Most of the time, expensive often turns out to be good. The human race wouldn't work if it's the other way around.
The fundamental frequencies produced by natural musical instruments rarely extend beyond 3kHz, the most notable exceptions being the pipe organ and the piano. The majority of this range is covered by the bass/midrange driver in many two-way loudspeaker systems.
The musical instruments also produce noise and harmonics reaching up to 20kHz and beyond which greatly affect tone quality. These are the frequencies covered by the tweeter.
It follows that both the bass/midrange driver and the tweeter are equally essential in reproducing the full detail in the sound of an orchestra.
The musical instruments also produce noise and harmonics reaching up to 20kHz and beyond which greatly affect tone quality. These are the frequencies covered by the tweeter.
It follows that both the bass/midrange driver and the tweeter are equally essential in reproducing the full detail in the sound of an orchestra.
As Andy2 explained, listener's perceived detail/clarity, and actual information, are not necessarily the same thing. If we examine the sound wave of the recording, low frequency would make up most of the waveform. Yet if our speakers can only do down to 50Hz as opposed to 20Hz, we will not perceive it as a lost of detail or clarity. IMO perceived detail or texture is the accompanying subtle changes in the sound pressure or waveform as opposed to the main information.
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