Quick question: which supertweeter did you settle on? I'm considering the Fostex T500A, but I know there are other candidates as well. I'm curious what you found to be a good match sonically and tonally.
Nice HF damping technique, by the way.
Also, good point about using an existing non-inverting solid-state amplifier as "gain block" in a Sallen & Key active filter.
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At a certain distance, (and not sitting at poor angle relative to a cell's diffraction) the big multi-cells can do this.
BUT,
the thing is: a well-crafted "small" speaker properly placed laterally in the near-field (or almost within the near-field),
-can also do this.
Of course what the later never seems to have is quite the dynamic's or the "dynamic ease" that the larger speaker has. (..what some refer to as "efortlessness".) 😱
PS. That is not the "compression ratio". The compression ratio is the ratio of the diaphragm area to the area of the phase plug entrance. A low gap can extend the highs but at the sake of excursion capability. It's a tradeoff.
The compression drivers I have measured had a 10 to 1 ratio of diaphragm to phase plug entrance. That seems to be the common ratio from what I have looked at. Definitely not a low ratio of diaphragm to compression. To large an area between the diaphragm and the phase plug just creates a low pass filter.
I think that for the last couple of pages what I'm reading is nostalgic pleading for old timey horn honk cleaned up a tiny bit. Understandable, since though inaccurate, it's an exciting sound for lots of folk.
......................................................
I've spent fifty years listening to ordinary and world class singers and those same folk live and recorded. Most of the time, but not all the time, they don't sound the same played back through speakers as they do live - their voices are recognizable but the timbre is changed a bit, (usually "darker").
An awful lot - no, most - speaker systems make a hash of reproducing human voice either due to FR anomalies, or due to time domain artifacts they produce themselves or in interaction with the room. The voice's upper partials are modified. This effect can manifest to horrifying extent in playback of ensemble singing.
I've heard cd/waveguide, cd/horn implementation in which this anomaly does not occur.🙄
So, wassup?
.
Yes. No. Maybe.. 😱 😀
It depends on the effect.
Though because of the octave grouping most of what we are talking about is around the crossover. (..top octave "clarity" is obviously not.)
With the cone-mid in a waveguide - yes, but not necessarily a vertical null problem (..but this isn't to say that there isn't also a problem with that as well, rather - that would be another issue).
I've got problems with hearing two issues with that cone-mid/waveguide solution:
1. Poor-loading or potential reflections at higher freq.s, basically running the cone-mid up to high in freq..
2. Diffraction in relation to the waveguide exit and "baffle" - it often "turns" the relatively smaller mid into a more detailed (lower mass driver) version of a larger diameter driver - and unfortunately does so with an inherent non-linear response that needs to be corrected. This "wide-sound" upper midrange reproduction isn't necessarily a problem depending on the distance you listen to the speakers, (..at closer proximity it gets increasingly worse), BUT it can be a problem with integration to the diffraction signature of the treble section. 😱 Still, that "wide-sound" err, sound - is a problem with closer listening, and not having that capability usually reduces how believable the stereo effect is.
BTW, I've heard a few studio/sound reinforcement speakers with the waveguide cone-mid.: Genlec and I think a QSC product (..could be wrong - pro stuff looks pretty generic to me).
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My guess:
It's a stereo combing issue for you - your gray-cell processing is somewhat lacking.
Try putting a pillow in front of your face. 😀
No, seriously - as an added "shading" head-block with a "normal" pair of speakers: to see if that's what it is (..or mostly is).
My guess:
It's a stereo combing issue for you - your gray-cell processing is somewhat lacking.
Try putting a pillow in front of your face. 😀
No, seriously - as an added "shading" head-block with a "normal" pair of speakers: to see if that's what it is (..or mostly is).
Huh! What the hell you talking about?
It's a guess that you prefer greater apparent channel separation - less left channel output reaching the right ear and combing with the right channel (and of course less right channel output reaching the left ear and combing with the left channel output) - particularly at higher freq.s where greater head-shading occurs.
Correct. As my system and room got better and better I began to notice that the center phantom image was of a "darker" tone than pure left or right. So I began to look for a way to EQ the phantom center. Not easy!
What I found and implemented in software was a phase shuffler. It eliminated the comb filtering suffered by the phantom center, without any overall FR differences.
What I found and implemented in software was a phase shuffler. It eliminated the comb filtering suffered by the phantom center, without any overall FR differences.
Hmm, maybe your hearing is getting worse and worse (in this context)? 😱
It may well be an age-related "processing" issue. That might be an interesting grouping of studies for a doctoral thesis (or three).
I don't think so. It's something that has bothered me for years in other well balanced systems. A sort of midrange dip in the tonal balance of the phantom center. Most systems and rooms are such a mess that there are plenty of other things to distract me.
Actually, that's just the sort of response I would expect with a problem doing this sort of processing.
If you start hearing more of the "room" your brain isn't doing its job properly.
Of course it could be just the "opposite": you could have learned to place greater emphasis on hearing these effects.
(..I often think that high freq. loss in many older folks isn't a physical loss (which you would think would be compensated for when considering how the brain processes audio), but rather a learned response to ignore what's irritating - and it's usually males, not females.)
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Once I eliminated a lot of problems with the room - so not hearing it as much - the imbalance became more noticeable.
Some of my older friends who are quite hard of hearing prefer it that way. They don't have to hear everything the wife says. 😛
Some of my older friends who are quite hard of hearing prefer it that way. They don't have to hear everything the wife says. 😛
That makes sense, it's no longer a "competing" condition.
(..and that phrase might well work with your second/third sentences - the competing condition being a more tranquil state of existence.) 😀
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I don't want to have to think so hard. Besides, where opposite wall reflections can be loud with toed in speakers, and ceilings stand out for other reasons, the point is that these were never intended reflections and are probably best just treated.
-but that's just it:
you think less "hard" when doing this sort of processing.
It's like breathing, you don't think about your breathing normally - it's an autonomic condition.
When you actually start to think about it - it starts becoming "hard". 😉