Acoustic reflectors and piston drivers

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Varied the distance of the reflector from the driver. Here's data from around the listening axis.

70°, 80°, 90° without reflector:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


70°, 80°, 90° with reflector:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


70°, 80°, 90° with reflector, increased distance by 10mm:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


70°, 80°, 90° with reflector, decreased distance so the reflector tip is about 5mm from the driver's cone:

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


Last graph shows the lowest variation. Not too shabby.
 
The Soundsphere suffers from the same problem that the B&O / Sausalito lens has, wide horizontal dispersion, but extremely narrow vertical dispersion.

Of course, David Moulton seems to think that problem is a virtue 🙄.

I would agree that narrow vertical directivity is a virtue if well controlled, but a wide horizontal directivity is a disaster IMO. So its the width thats a problem in my mind, not the vertical height.
 
Eh? Are we talking about the same thing? B&O bought the Patent(s) and split the Rights of usage; its been instrumental in turning Bang & Olufsen's fortunes around.

B&O took out a limited time exclusive license on this. They didn't buy it. When it ran out they did not renew and no one else has taken it up. As to its commercial success for B&O, thats kind of beside the point even if it is true.
 
B&O took out a limited time exclusive license on this. They didn't buy it. When it ran out they did not renew and no one else has taken it up. As to its commercial success for B&O, thats kind of beside the point even if it is true.


Fact- ALT has made Bang & Olufsen a highly profitable company through a recession. Its specced in many top brand cars. SAW sold the ALT patents to Bang & Olufsen and Sausalito Audio retained the rights to develop certain products with ALT. A huge success story, but I guess thats beside the point, right?
 
Earl, could you please elaborate on this ? What is the problem with wide dispersion in your opinion ?

Oliver

I think Marcus handled this one to my satisfaction.

Yes sure but what is the downside if the listening window and the power response is smooth.

Diuffraction in and of itself is a negative thing regardless of the listening window and power response. Diffraction in nonminimum phase and always audible at some SPL level, completely independent of the response of the system in any other regard. Very often the diffraction effects are so small in the frequency domain as to be hardly even noticable, but that does not imply that they are not audible, because it is primarily a time domain aberation. My obsession with minimizing diffraction in all its forms has paid me back big dividends in sound quality. However, there is only scant published supporting data in this regard (basically all our own), but no data that says that its not true.
 
Diuffraction in and of itself is a negative thing regardless of the listening window and power response. Diffraction in nonminimum phase and always audible at some SPL level, completely independent of the response of the system in any other regard. Very often the diffraction effects are so small in the frequency domain as to be hardly even noticable, but that does not imply that they are not audible, because it is primarily a time domain aberation. My obsession with minimizing diffraction in all its forms has paid me back big dividends in sound quality. However, there is only scant published supporting data in this regard (basically all our own), but no data that says that its not true.

To keep things on topic: is there a preferable design for such a reflector that minimizes time domain aberrations (at least for the listening window)?
 

Now consider the situation shown in Figure (2) at the left where an omnidirectional source and a directional source (with a 90° coverage pattern) are placed at the same location in a typical small room. (Only a two dimensional example is considered here - in three dimensions the example would be even worse!). The omni-directional sound rays are shown as dotted lines while the solid lines represent the directional sources sound rays. It is easy to see that the higher directivity gives a far clearer - less cluttered – pattern of early reflections.

see Markus - there is the answer to Your question:

unanswered: "What does a reflection pattern (level, angle, number, spectrum, delay) have to look like to generate a plausible sound perception from a 2 channel recording?"

so the philosophical answer given by Doctor of Philosophy Himself is: "the pattern of early reflections should be clearer" 😉

there are certainly some blauertian papers corroborating this, You can surely easily find them 😉
 
This whole concept was ill-conceived and fell flat in the marketplace. ... We always say "time will tell!" - it did.

If it had been successful they certainly would have.

As to its commercial success for B&O, thats kind of beside the point even if it is true.


so "facts are beside the point"? impressively philosophical approach to facts, quite Hegelian I would say, but what are the facts?
 
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