Hi,
The issue is that speakers have many problems.
When I see the "generic HiFi Speaker" with it's 1" Dome mounted protruding to a flat baffle and it's 5.25-6.25 Inch "Mid-Bass" Driver I see such a profusion of fundamental problems (or "faulty by design" features) that I can only conclude that the design is not intended to offer anything approaching any kind of fidelity or resemblance to what was mastered in the studio.
Now if people actually REALLY liked the sound these speakers make this would be okay. Yet the compulsive Amp/Preamp/DAC swappers attempt to compensate for fundamental gross failings of their Speakers and are unwilling to let go of their kind of speaker because they have somehow gotten the impression that this how HiFi Speakers SHOULD be like; when in fact these "HiFi" Speakers are more interior design than acoustic design and closer to gear by a maker who'se name is the abbreviation of "Buy Other Sound Equipment" than they'd care to admit.
So they are perenially unhappy, perenially getting new gear and keep a whole industry in business to sell them acoustic treatment, Preamp's, DAC's and Amplifiers all of which fail (predictably) to solve the fundamental acoustic problems...
Ciao T
Phooey! Before the ******* contest about speaker compression I said,
.....
Probably both the woofer and tweeter will deliver break up modes (and maybe have thermal compression problems as well). Too small. Got dome. Inefficient. 90dB 1 W 1m? Ha!
The issue is that speakers have many problems.
When I see the "generic HiFi Speaker" with it's 1" Dome mounted protruding to a flat baffle and it's 5.25-6.25 Inch "Mid-Bass" Driver I see such a profusion of fundamental problems (or "faulty by design" features) that I can only conclude that the design is not intended to offer anything approaching any kind of fidelity or resemblance to what was mastered in the studio.
Now if people actually REALLY liked the sound these speakers make this would be okay. Yet the compulsive Amp/Preamp/DAC swappers attempt to compensate for fundamental gross failings of their Speakers and are unwilling to let go of their kind of speaker because they have somehow gotten the impression that this how HiFi Speakers SHOULD be like; when in fact these "HiFi" Speakers are more interior design than acoustic design and closer to gear by a maker who'se name is the abbreviation of "Buy Other Sound Equipment" than they'd care to admit.
So they are perenially unhappy, perenially getting new gear and keep a whole industry in business to sell them acoustic treatment, Preamp's, DAC's and Amplifiers all of which fail (predictably) to solve the fundamental acoustic problems...
Ciao T
Thorsten, I think you are being a little too hard on audiophools.
While not disputing what you said above, I would like to point out that the industry had VERY MUCH to do with this. I am not going to name names, because that would ultimately make me nationalistc, since looking back, I note that this mad fad of "small is beautiful (and sounds better, too)" came from mostly one country.
In the early 70ies, when audio REALLY took off, they had a loudspeaker industry all ripped up into small companies, each promoting its own ideas (which is good) even when they had no ideas. In a sense, they were copying USA, while forgetting that the US market was at least 10 times the size of theirs.
So everybody had an 8" bass as their top offering, and only a few had anything bigger than that. These drive units were stiffened up with compounds like Bextrene, which did make them stiffer and moved their break-up point further up, but it also made them heavier. Since nobody wanted to invest in bigger magnets, heavier also meant less efficient.
As a result, we had loudspeakers rated at say 84 dB/2.83V/1m, with a maximum power handling of 50 Watts. A ridiculous situation. Now, sticking an 8" bass in a large box would make them look kind of stupid, so they invented the passive bass radiator. It conveniently filled up the space, extended bass response a bit, and allowed for considerably bigger prices.
And their press went to work - hard. It told us, its readers, that small boxes allowed for more convenient locating (which is true in purely physical terms, but acoustically?), that less efficient was better for detailing (no kidding? so let's make 'em do just 10 dB/2.83V/1m for super detailing), and that because of lower refraction area, small boxes had better imaging. And of course, they poked at the American habit of havibg exactly the opposite kind of speakers, but conveniently "forgetting" details like the fact tha US manufacturers were heavily involved in new magnet type research (such as ALNICO family of magnets, etc).
JBL for example was poked fun at as being "disco type speakers", and the fact that in the 70ies, around 70% of all studios half worth their salt actually used those speakers for their monitors, and implying that musicians and recording engineers didn't know whaat the REAL sound was, was cynical at the very best.
All they had working in their favor were the magazines. They may not have had the goods, but they had all the hype they could wish for, which dutifully went to work. And, in say 10 years' time, an entire "school" was started up, proclaiming that only small speakers were truly Hi Fi.
Yet, oddly (???) enough, those same companies' top models all to the one had bass drivers from 10" upwards, and all but one were floorstanders, far removed from small and convenient.
And since their magazines had much greater clout internationally than US magazines, they imposed, almost imprinted the idea all around.
Not much different today, the only real change being that these days they peddle slim but tall, and add another 6.5" driver to the original one, to augment bass response.
Oh, did I forget to mention that a very fair share of their reviewers had their own companies manufacturing just such speakers, or were "consultants" (a polite word for silent partners) in such companies? Elsewhere, that would have been a conflict of interest, but hey, all is fair in love and war.
Now, I am not saying a small speaker cannot sound good, but you have to be aware of the trade-off, a small box will always deliver a small sound, for a big sound, you have to have a big box. A concept which has only recently emerged once again, very shyly, but it is there. To me, remove the bottom octave and you have a seriously debalanced sound, it lacks body and weight, no two ways about it.
@FrankWW
It seems that "WW" stands for "World War" on domes. What do you have against domes, Frank?
They are simply components, ranging in price from next to nothing to rather expensive. As any component, they can be used in a multitude of ways, from assaulting our ears with extreme prejudice, to sounding very good indeed. It all depends which one you use and how you use it.
I've seen some very cheap models acquit themselves better that I'd ever expect of them, and I've heard some very expensive models (mis)used way below their actual capabilities.
I say the same about ribbons - it all goes back to the designer's competence and hearing. Know your stuff, and it will do well, use it just because it's "in" and you are likely to fail.
NOTHING is good or bad by default.
Thorsten, the way this is formulated makes it more a statement of personal opinion rather than one substantiated by fact. If there is such a profusion of fundamental problems with this design, perhaps you could explain what are the, let's say four, most obnoxious flaws you have identified?
Hi,
UK.
Really a World War? Where do I sign up? Can't be a good 'un without Germany!
Dome tweeters where invented to solve one particular problem. Let me add that facing them towards the listener was not part of the plan. I very rarely see them used as intended and if I do I walk out as I do not like omni's...
Ciao T
UK.
Really a World War? Where do I sign up? Can't be a good 'un without Germany!
Dome tweeters where invented to solve one particular problem. Let me add that facing them towards the listener was not part of the plan. I very rarely see them used as intended and if I do I walk out as I do not like omni's...
Ciao T
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Hi,
1) Inadequate Dynamic Range for Music (maximum SPL insufficient for THX or any funloving standard)
2) Inadequate Directivity Control (actually, non whatsoever, rather the opposite is true)
3) Excessive Distortion at normal listening levels
4) Complete absence of actual Bass, even middle bass
The above are in a technical sense.
Ciao T
1) Inadequate Dynamic Range for Music (maximum SPL insufficient for THX or any funloving standard)
2) Inadequate Directivity Control (actually, non whatsoever, rather the opposite is true)
3) Excessive Distortion at normal listening levels
4) Complete absence of actual Bass, even middle bass
The above are in a technical sense.
Ciao T
Correct answer! You have won a hot water boiler! Will you play on?
Oh, not again, liebling! Why Germany lost WW2:
The Americans took WW2 to be game of American footbal; Patton charged, burned up all his fuel 200 miles behind German lines, and they had to send quarterbacks (Air Force) in to drop him a few thousand barrels.
The British took WW2 to be a game of croquet. Hit the ball a little here, a little there, and after a time you end up at the master gate and get all your balls in.
The Russians took WW2 to be a game of chess - you sacrifice the queen, but you win the game.
Only the Germans took WW2 seriously and that's why they lost it.
Oh, come now, Thorsten, surely not as simple as that. The dome tweeter's prime function was to improve the directivity (or lack of dispertion) of classic cone speakers, but also to have a smaller mass and a wider frequency response.
All of which it achieved, although of course, not all with equal success.
As ever, there is nothing automatic about them - just because a driver is a dome one doesn't mean it's ideal straight off, most are junk, some are solid, and a few are great. Just like all other drivers.
Tell me all Canton, Heco, Quadral or Klein & Hummel dome implementaions were poor, especially Canton's, as they used to have 38 and 40 mm dome midrange drivers as well.
And some of their products were damn good.
Dejan,
Oh my gosh - a Kettle. Really? I'm SO HAPPY.
Well, maybe I'll ask the Audience?
First, dome tweeters do not improve directivity, they disimprove it.
Secondly, they where intended upwards radiating in Omni's by their inventor.
I have yet to see any dome tweeter that has lower moving mass than a Ribbon or wider bandwidth (especially at the lower end) than a cone tweeter. Or better dynamic range than a Compression Driver, for that.
Let me see, it made directivity worse, did not have particularly low moving mass or particularly wide bandwidth. So I am not sure what it achieved, outside of marketing.
BUT it did have key advantage. It was dirt cheap. Compare a good Cone tweeter, or (heaven forbid) an EV T-35 or a JBL Slot Radiator and they are way more expensive to make.
That is what it achieved. Low cost.
The concept of "good" or "bad" implementation does not as such apply, some are less compromised than others, but Domes are domes are domes.
The best way to solve all the problems of a dome is to make it much larger with a large magnet and load it into a phaseplug (this structure is usually called a compression driver) and mate it with a waveguide (often falsely called horn).
Again, I am not sure if we have remotely comparable or compatible points of reference. In my view what you mention (be they german brands) are not ones I'd care to have.
One of the first "serious" Speakers I build had a Tesla (CSSR) 20cm Plastic Cone Woofer and Videoton (Hungary) 5cm Midrange Dome and 2.5cm Tweeter. Crossover I think around 1KHz/5KHz, it was based on a Videoton Kit but with the higher grade Tesla Woofer, around 25 liter or so box, sealed.
What shocked me most was just how much worse it sounded than my old Speakers, which where based on 8" Dual Cone "Full Range" Drivers salvaged from old Tube TV's with Alnico Magnets and matching 10cm "tweeters", build into huge plywood reflex boxes build from plans in an old Radio Book.
Whereas my old system rocked seriously driven by a 5W per channel chip amp (TDA810 Clone), the new speakers sounded muffled and had my newly build "50W" discrete Transistor Amp (something that looked a lot like Naim's schematic's) constantly run out of steam.
I eventually replaced the woofer with an "35W" 20cm Paper Cone Woofer and the Mid/Treble with an dedicated oval paper cone tweeter that found their way into many of East Germany's HiFi Speakers and used the crossover that came for these.
Sound improved massively, as did efficiency.
After that I owned a number of "Semi-Pro" speakers including for a while a pair of Coral BX-1200 5-Way's.
My next forray into dome tweeters ended equally ignomiously, when I replaced the east german 25mm Plastic Domes with Motorola Piezo Horns (with proper crossovers of course) and never looked back.
Later, after I escaped to the West I never got all the hype about these jokes of speakers of the "Cone-Dome" variety either, I was looking to buy either JBL Everest's or ACR/Fostex Klipschorns (after catching nasty looks when I was laughing out loud during the demo of Bose 901's which where heavily hyped), when the fall of the Wall redirected my energies and finances...
Ciao T
Correct answer! You have won a hot water boiler! Will you play on?
Oh my gosh - a Kettle. Really? I'm SO HAPPY.
Well, maybe I'll ask the Audience?
First, dome tweeters do not improve directivity, they disimprove it.
Secondly, they where intended upwards radiating in Omni's by their inventor.
I have yet to see any dome tweeter that has lower moving mass than a Ribbon or wider bandwidth (especially at the lower end) than a cone tweeter. Or better dynamic range than a Compression Driver, for that.
Let me see, it made directivity worse, did not have particularly low moving mass or particularly wide bandwidth. So I am not sure what it achieved, outside of marketing.
BUT it did have key advantage. It was dirt cheap. Compare a good Cone tweeter, or (heaven forbid) an EV T-35 or a JBL Slot Radiator and they are way more expensive to make.
That is what it achieved. Low cost.
The concept of "good" or "bad" implementation does not as such apply, some are less compromised than others, but Domes are domes are domes.
The best way to solve all the problems of a dome is to make it much larger with a large magnet and load it into a phaseplug (this structure is usually called a compression driver) and mate it with a waveguide (often falsely called horn).
Again, I am not sure if we have remotely comparable or compatible points of reference. In my view what you mention (be they german brands) are not ones I'd care to have.
One of the first "serious" Speakers I build had a Tesla (CSSR) 20cm Plastic Cone Woofer and Videoton (Hungary) 5cm Midrange Dome and 2.5cm Tweeter. Crossover I think around 1KHz/5KHz, it was based on a Videoton Kit but with the higher grade Tesla Woofer, around 25 liter or so box, sealed.
What shocked me most was just how much worse it sounded than my old Speakers, which where based on 8" Dual Cone "Full Range" Drivers salvaged from old Tube TV's with Alnico Magnets and matching 10cm "tweeters", build into huge plywood reflex boxes build from plans in an old Radio Book.
Whereas my old system rocked seriously driven by a 5W per channel chip amp (TDA810 Clone), the new speakers sounded muffled and had my newly build "50W" discrete Transistor Amp (something that looked a lot like Naim's schematic's) constantly run out of steam.
I eventually replaced the woofer with an "35W" 20cm Paper Cone Woofer and the Mid/Treble with an dedicated oval paper cone tweeter that found their way into many of East Germany's HiFi Speakers and used the crossover that came for these.
Sound improved massively, as did efficiency.
After that I owned a number of "Semi-Pro" speakers including for a while a pair of Coral BX-1200 5-Way's.
My next forray into dome tweeters ended equally ignomiously, when I replaced the east german 25mm Plastic Domes with Motorola Piezo Horns (with proper crossovers of course) and never looked back.
Later, after I escaped to the West I never got all the hype about these jokes of speakers of the "Cone-Dome" variety either, I was looking to buy either JBL Everest's or ACR/Fostex Klipschorns (after catching nasty looks when I was laughing out loud during the demo of Bose 901's which where heavily hyped), when the fall of the Wall redirected my energies and finances...
Ciao T
Thanks for being more explicit, so now we can have an informed discussion.
1) It all depends. Small speakers in a small room will play adequately loud.
2) I agree for 2-ways without a wave guide on the tweeter, but you don't see many of those any longer.
3) Some good progress has been made in the design of drivers -better cones, better magnet motors, better spiders and surrounds, better magnets - which have pushed the boundaries considerably. Lower distortion in smaller packages is the outcome.
4) Really, no problem with bass per se, but horses for courses. The size of the room matters.
Let me finish with a brief word on dome tweeters. In a good implementation, they still have to be beat by the alternatives, cones or ribbons. But, with domes mounted flat on a baffle, there are issues with diffraction on two scales. On the level of the size of the tweeter surround and its mounting in the face plate, irregulatities in the FR may start to show up above 8KHz or so. At a larger scale, in the crossover region, which typically is well inside the piston band of the midwoofer, and outside that of the tweeter, there is a mismatch between the directivity pattern of midwoofer and tweeter. This means that there is a very small angle in which the loudspeaker can be tuned to have a flat FR. Waveguide to the rescue.
vac
Hi,
This is strictly personal opinion, and totally meaningless without defining " adequately loud" and "small room".
I have previously suggested 103dB per channel at listening position.
Are you suggesting that all small speakers match this in a "small room" (in my definition that would appx 25m^2 BTW)?
Have you been at a HiFi Show in recent years?
More weaselword woffle. No data.
Lower distortion? Okay, how much distortion at 103dB/100Hz at the listening position is "Lower Distortion"? Is it 0.1%? 1%? 10%?
So you have a 5" equipped monitor that does "really no problem bass" (say it reaches AT LEAST down to the lowest Note on a Piano Grand without significant attenuation?
This is a matter of opinion and what you are stating is a personal opinion, not fact. You may find that there are many who will not share your enthusiasm.
If you want to suggest that "A beats B" for establishment as a fact you would have to illustrate that "A" is superior in more areas of performance than "B" than it is inferior, ideally it would be superior in all of them.
From where I stand Dome tweeters are at a considerable disadvantage to all the other technologies I mentioned, when executed and implemented well, except on price, where Dome Tweeters remain the cheapest solution.
Ciao T
This is strictly personal opinion, and totally meaningless without defining " adequately loud" and "small room".
I have previously suggested 103dB per channel at listening position.
Are you suggesting that all small speakers match this in a "small room" (in my definition that would appx 25m^2 BTW)?
Have you been at a HiFi Show in recent years?
More weaselword woffle. No data.
Lower distortion? Okay, how much distortion at 103dB/100Hz at the listening position is "Lower Distortion"? Is it 0.1%? 1%? 10%?
So you have a 5" equipped monitor that does "really no problem bass" (say it reaches AT LEAST down to the lowest Note on a Piano Grand without significant attenuation?
This is a matter of opinion and what you are stating is a personal opinion, not fact. You may find that there are many who will not share your enthusiasm.
If you want to suggest that "A beats B" for establishment as a fact you would have to illustrate that "A" is superior in more areas of performance than "B" than it is inferior, ideally it would be superior in all of them.
From where I stand Dome tweeters are at a considerable disadvantage to all the other technologies I mentioned, when executed and implemented well, except on price, where Dome Tweeters remain the cheapest solution.
Ciao T
Hi,
Peak, for music with 20dB crestfactor? Absolutely. Probably more, actually...
I did not claim low distortion, Vac did. I just want an idea what he considers "low distortion".
This basically the same as the call for an SPL number.
If we just bandy weasel words around we have nothing to talk about and cannot have an informed discussion.
As for THD or HD in general, Speakers for example approach levels where things become interesting.
Ciao T
Peak, for music with 20dB crestfactor? Absolutely. Probably more, actually...
I did not claim low distortion, Vac did. I just want an idea what he considers "low distortion".
This basically the same as the call for an SPL number.
If we just bandy weasel words around we have nothing to talk about and cannot have an informed discussion.
As for THD or HD in general, Speakers for example approach levels where things become interesting.
Ciao T
Dome tweeters have one really big advantage: They are what is expected in the market, so they benefit from the research and development funding. ESL, Ribbon, E-D planer, Heil and so on are all low volume niche markets. I suspect any of them could have been developed to be competitive, but a $50 retail dome from Seas or SB is far superior in all reproduction aspects than a similar cost alternative, or from what I have heard at ten times the cost. At $5 retail, the gap is far wider. Who knows what might have happened if the Panasonic piezo films had been developed?
a.
I would not say distortion means nothing. Single THD numbers out of context mean very little. How's that?
Thor,
I am guessing you have preference for compression drivers? Unfortunately, the only ones I know were executed for PA use and not suitable for high fidelity. Execution is everything so I have to reserve judgement. I have not heard any ribbon I liked, but again, it could be execution. I have heard ES I liked very much. My own corona effect did produce sound and copious amounts of ozone, but that was all. All horn loaded drivers I have herd I did not like. All of these place different requirements on the amplifier, so the superiority of one against another has to consider the rest of the system doe it not? If anyone has recommendations on alternative tweeters that can be bought for only money ( let's set something like $200 US each as a starting limit) and that fit the form factor of a small monitor, ( so that excluded E.G.'s compression drivers), I am game. Something with break-up modes so far above music that they can be completely avoided.
a.
I would not say distortion means nothing. Single THD numbers out of context mean very little. How's that?
Thor,
I am guessing you have preference for compression drivers? Unfortunately, the only ones I know were executed for PA use and not suitable for high fidelity. Execution is everything so I have to reserve judgement. I have not heard any ribbon I liked, but again, it could be execution. I have heard ES I liked very much. My own corona effect did produce sound and copious amounts of ozone, but that was all. All horn loaded drivers I have herd I did not like. All of these place different requirements on the amplifier, so the superiority of one against another has to consider the rest of the system doe it not? If anyone has recommendations on alternative tweeters that can be bought for only money ( let's set something like $200 US each as a starting limit) and that fit the form factor of a small monitor, ( so that excluded E.G.'s compression drivers), I am game. Something with break-up modes so far above music that they can be completely avoided.
Regarding what? Who is "who1" and "who2"?
If you clarify, I'll do my best to try to answer.
I'm beginning to see a pattern here with Thorsten, a pattern I have already seen with some friends of mine previously.
Somehow, most vacuum tube lovers/designers/users eventually get to the point where they start advocating what the rest of us consider to be circus tent sound reinforcement. Ultra high effciency drivers, MUST be horn loaded (more effciciency), ditto for bass, etc.
I think it must be their small wee-wee power output that makes them go for this kind of fidelity. If they don't have it, they start to run out of steam, despite Thorsten's argument that tube gear in fact goes way above its specifications, with a bit o' distortion at 10% and above.
Us transistor folk, who do have power if we require it, are much more free to choose the loudspeakers we want simply because we are less limited in power delivery.
Somehow, most vacuum tube lovers/designers/users eventually get to the point where they start advocating what the rest of us consider to be circus tent sound reinforcement. Ultra high effciency drivers, MUST be horn loaded (more effciciency), ditto for bass, etc.
I think it must be their small wee-wee power output that makes them go for this kind of fidelity. If they don't have it, they start to run out of steam, despite Thorsten's argument that tube gear in fact goes way above its specifications, with a bit o' distortion at 10% and above.
Us transistor folk, who do have power if we require it, are much more free to choose the loudspeakers we want simply because we are less limited in power delivery.
Hi,
That is true.
They get the funding. I am unsure if I would consider that they actually have benefited from it.
The relatively inexpensive 34mm Audax Dome that was used extensively by the BBC is one of the best of the genre and it is essentially unchanged since the early 70's.
Not neccesarily so. You might say I have an aversion to most domes.
First, give up the "small monitor form factor", or you will not move past where you are now. See my comments above.
I believe current Manger Schallwandlers are too expensive for your criteria, though they do rather well and are more of a "limited LF Fullrange" driver.
An MSW can be made into a "acoustic means only" cardiodid and can be coupled with an active cardiodid LF system with around 150Hz crossover. Such a system can be fairly compact.
An alternative with the low LF crossover could be a servo controlled traditional LF section and a boxed up MSW... It would still be bigger than a "small monitor" though.
Isoplanars (e.g. magnetostats) fit this as do smaller ESL's.
200 USD buys some pretty good Isoplanar ones. There are a few challenges (such as different rate of falloff and radiation pattern when pairing them with cone drivers)...
Ciao T
That is true.
They get the funding. I am unsure if I would consider that they actually have benefited from it.
The relatively inexpensive 34mm Audax Dome that was used extensively by the BBC is one of the best of the genre and it is essentially unchanged since the early 70's.
Not neccesarily so. You might say I have an aversion to most domes.
First, give up the "small monitor form factor", or you will not move past where you are now. See my comments above.
I believe current Manger Schallwandlers are too expensive for your criteria, though they do rather well and are more of a "limited LF Fullrange" driver.
An MSW can be made into a "acoustic means only" cardiodid and can be coupled with an active cardiodid LF system with around 150Hz crossover. Such a system can be fairly compact.
An alternative with the low LF crossover could be a servo controlled traditional LF section and a boxed up MSW... It would still be bigger than a "small monitor" though.
Isoplanars (e.g. magnetostats) fit this as do smaller ESL's.
200 USD buys some pretty good Isoplanar ones. There are a few challenges (such as different rate of falloff and radiation pattern when pairing them with cone drivers)...
Ciao T
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