The diffraction occurs at the edge of the saucers. Perhaps of the saucers were like LeCleach horn lips.....
The rounded edges on the lens reduce diffraction.
My reference speakers (Gedlee Summas) have a lot of features designed to reduce diffraction. I've heard the Beolab 5, and although they sound very different than my reference, they are very good and very competitive
Yes, they have a different sound, pleasant for background music. Not for those into serious listening and tweaking.
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Have you read the patent?
Have you listened to the speaker?
Your comments imply that you do not understand what the lens is doing.
This is a cutaway of a $2000 compression driver from TAD. (I took this pic at their booth at CES.) If you look at the cutaway, you'll see that there are dozens of places where diffraction can occur, right near the diaphragm, where the intensity of the output is high.
If I applied your logic to the TAD, I would come to the conclusion that the Tad was 'unsuitable for serious listening.'
I have listened to the speakers many years ago. I have also studied the patent long before it's announcement on the Beolab's. The problem with the patent that there are many other boundary conditions required to make it work that is not mentioned in the patent.
Your response tells me that you only look at the lens in it's infinite length form and not the effects of the termination which the LeCleach horn takes care to control.
Please don't confuse compression driver lens with the lens usee on the BeoLab 5.
I heard the B&O Beolab 5 recently after running between hifi stores in Oslo.
The seller said they used an 8" subwoofer driver which sounded boomy and loud.
The 3" dome midrange sounded muffled and harsh compared to the ATC 3" dome midrange speaker I have heard in other hifi stores in Oslo.
The tweeter did not reveal anything interesting. HF details were lost.
They would be great at a party, since they are loud and look spaced out. I believe their purpose is to sell the cool design to people who want to show off that they have money but not much wisdom in Hifi.
The sound experience was nothing special. The offerings of the Hifiklubben stores with unimpressive brands like Dali beat the Beolab 5 easily.
Bottom line: The design look nice and they are expensive. Overall sound is muffled with loudness. An equal amount of money can be spent on speakers from Burmeister, ATC, Avantgarde Acoustics with greater results and even cooler design.
PS. Automatic digital room correction is BS. DS.
The seller said they used an 8" subwoofer driver which sounded boomy and loud.
The 3" dome midrange sounded muffled and harsh compared to the ATC 3" dome midrange speaker I have heard in other hifi stores in Oslo.
The tweeter did not reveal anything interesting. HF details were lost.
They would be great at a party, since they are loud and look spaced out. I believe their purpose is to sell the cool design to people who want to show off that they have money but not much wisdom in Hifi.
The sound experience was nothing special. The offerings of the Hifiklubben stores with unimpressive brands like Dali beat the Beolab 5 easily.
Bottom line: The design look nice and they are expensive. Overall sound is muffled with loudness. An equal amount of money can be spent on speakers from Burmeister, ATC, Avantgarde Acoustics with greater results and even cooler design.
PS. Automatic digital room correction is BS. DS.
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B&O Beolab 5, does not use an 8", but have a 15" woofer from Foster in the bottom. It's a 4 way system, with a 6,5" (Peerless I think) and the two domes on top.
I have heard them a couple of times, and the bass is actually what has impressed me the most ... thet 15" can really move some air. But the room of course has to be large enough for it to sound good, and you need to run the bass setup program implemented in the speaker "Adaptive Bass Control (ABC)".
I have heard them a couple of times, and the bass is actually what has impressed me the most ... thet 15" can really move some air. But the room of course has to be large enough for it to sound good, and you need to run the bass setup program implemented in the speaker "Adaptive Bass Control (ABC)".
That wouldn't surprise me as she salesman did not seem very knowledgeable. I was surprised at how loud an 8" could be, and I did actually ask him again if it really could be an 8 inch under there. He insisted! xD
The bass was pretty cool, and I would choose them for a party where sound quality was not as necessary. They hid anything unpleasant in the mix, but at the same time a lot of detail in the music was lost. Again nothing anyone at a party would mind. Fun speakers with a cool design!
The bass was pretty cool, and I would choose them for a party where sound quality was not as necessary. They hid anything unpleasant in the mix, but at the same time a lot of detail in the music was lost. Again nothing anyone at a party would mind. Fun speakers with a cool design!
Constant directivity horns sound a bit 'dull' at first. This is due to the polar response. Basically conventional tweeters have greater output ON axis, so CD horns are perceived to be a bit dull.
There's a couple solutions to this. The first one is to increase the level of the tweeter. I've tried this, but I generally fall back on the second solution. Which is to give it time and let my brain adjust.
I really enjoyed the sound of the Beolab V. But they DO sound different, and take some time to get used to. Many will prefer a sound that's different.
Have you heard any of the big Avantgarde rigs?
I love horns, and have been listening and building to them for nearly twenty years, but I've found it's REALLY hard to get a three way to work, much less a five way.
About the only exception to this rule, that I've heard personally, are the coaxial horns, like the Danley, SPL and TAD horns.
Basically when the center to center spacing from all the drivers gets too large, it just turns into an acoustic mess. Or at least that's been my experience.
One 'neat' thing about the Beolab 5 is that it basically behaves like a radial horn, which affords very tight spacing from top to bottom.
The downside to the Beolab 5 is that the radiation pattern is asymmetric; whether this is audible is open to debate, but there's something very 'pure' and unoffensive about the symmetrical horns, such as the waveguide in my Gedlee Summa and most of the Danley horns
The Trio, yes. I have never heard the real one, yet I have a pretty good idea of how it sounds like. 
I don't see how a two way could work properly, since every driver should work in the range they are best at. Anything else would be a compromise, and we can't have that!
I think the downside of Beolab 5 is that it is so 90's. The 1930's was a much more exciting decade for audio!
The 2000's introduced "room correction", which sounds like a digital effects plugin. As a musician I have experimented a lot with digital effects plugins called VST. VST plugins like EQ, especially in the bass region, will drastically lower the amount of bits you end up hearing and that is not very hifi.
I am also curious of coaxials. Avantgarde has one but I wonder what happens to the midbass notes when they are obstructed by the smaller horn. Midbass need to reach the listener directly, I think. They are not like 100 Hz bass notes that reach you wherever you place the speaker.
I don't see how a two way could work properly, since every driver should work in the range they are best at. Anything else would be a compromise, and we can't have that!
I think the downside of Beolab 5 is that it is so 90's. The 1930's was a much more exciting decade for audio!
The 2000's introduced "room correction", which sounds like a digital effects plugin. As a musician I have experimented a lot with digital effects plugins called VST. VST plugins like EQ, especially in the bass region, will drastically lower the amount of bits you end up hearing and that is not very hifi.
I am also curious of coaxials. Avantgarde has one but I wonder what happens to the midbass notes when they are obstructed by the smaller horn. Midbass need to reach the listener directly, I think. They are not like 100 Hz bass notes that reach you wherever you place the speaker.
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I misread your previous post. The Avantgarde Duos have some space between the horns and bass drivers, and I did not think they were messy. They lacked a good midrange and ATC's top model with their 3" dome was superior. But for midbass and HF the Duos were superior, thanks to the horns and a better tweeter. The Duos sub are driven questionably high, but that is another topic.
Soft domes are so boring sounding to me. The Beolab 5 had a soft dome and a 3" soft dome that was not perfoming as well as the similar ATC drivers. So in that comparison the Beolabs were far behind. I never thought of the Beolabs as horn speakers, because they did not sound like the horns I am used to.
I have tried to put a tractrix horns on 1" soft domes before with bad results. There is just nothing interesting about soft domes to magnify with a horn. I just hear the soft dullness slightly louder and distorted.
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