Hi Ben,
Your assumption of my sensory description is correct. Dipole speakers bass to treble balance seems reduced during peaks of songs that have lots of dynamic range compression. More so than with monopole speakers.... That's the crux of what I'm trying to understand.
With a 2 yo, 3 yo and a budding career it's hard to find time to read books for my hobby. I have read Sound engineers handbook and a book on psychoacoustics in addition to speaker design books but I have a lot to learn yet! I've been doing speaker design for around 10 years and only recently started getting interested in having psychoacoustic principals drive the design instead of SPL and F3.... I guess it took a long time for me to get even somewhat decent at designing crossovers that sounded good
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I think you need to be careful not to pre-condition yourself about the what and why when comparing dipole and monopole bass. Both excite room modes. Dipoles do not excite room modes "less" (apart from the inability to pressurize the room at the lowest frequencies) than monopoles. A more correct statement might be that dipoles excite the room modes in a different way than a monopole. Keep in mind that a dipole has twice the sources, and they are distributed in space (e.g. the front and back "source" of the dipole). Just like the composite response will be different at the listening position if you move a subwoofer around (even by 1 foot) the dipole and monopole are just putting energy into the room differently. When you also take into account multiple reflections around the room from walls, floor, ceiling, etc. it becomes difficult to make clear statements about how room modes are excited from dipole sources.
I have also experiences something similar to what you report when listening with my own DIY dipole system. A poorly mixed and balanced recording, or one with lots of compression, sounds much worse on the dipole than on a closed box speaker. This probably can't be attributed to one thing alone like "directivity" or "room modes".
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Yes. If you took your speakers outside and EQed them would there be much difference from a monopole?
They each balance on the same metaphorical circle. Pressure differences create velocity and vice versa. An EE you say? It's Ohms law with different labels.
The room keeps the bass energy in, and some of it is unfairly influenced by resonances related to the room dimensions. These resonances have a spatial configuration regarding the pressure and velocity nodes. Eg pressure builds at the walls. Driving these resonances entails putting the right driving phase in the right location, just as kicking on a swing is dependent on position as to whether it will be additive or subtractive.
I have been trying to find the magic of dipoles too. My AINOs are monopole up to 100Hz, transitioning to dipole through cardioid 100-250Hz, true dipole 250-4000Hz and "poor dipole" up from there. A friend of mine has dipole bass and midrange, but his room is different too. I haven't heard Magnepans or similar panel speakers.
There is anyway a drastic difference how these sound in a typical smallish room compared to typical 2-3-ways or horns.
Bass is perhaps mostly about modes (spl jumps and ringing) A dipole doesn't excite lateral (side and vertical) room modes as strongly as monopoles. Mode region is typically 40-300Hz. But a dipole is worse in respect to front-back modes. How this realizes is also dependent on positioning and room geomerty.
Upper bass to upper midrange is very important for sound signature, this is the major playfield for dipoles. Dipole radiation attenuates off-axis first reflections and ceiling bounce very well. This gives better stereo imaging and resolution. Backwave arrives much later and at least twice reflected, but still with same tonal balance as direct sound. This gives more spatial widening and 3D spatial illusion, "natural spaciousness".
There is anyway a drastic difference how these sound in a typical smallish room compared to typical 2-3-ways or horns.
Bass is perhaps mostly about modes (spl jumps and ringing) A dipole doesn't excite lateral (side and vertical) room modes as strongly as monopoles. Mode region is typically 40-300Hz. But a dipole is worse in respect to front-back modes. How this realizes is also dependent on positioning and room geomerty.
Upper bass to upper midrange is very important for sound signature, this is the major playfield for dipoles. Dipole radiation attenuates off-axis first reflections and ceiling bounce very well. This gives better stereo imaging and resolution. Backwave arrives much later and at least twice reflected, but still with same tonal balance as direct sound. This gives more spatial widening and 3D spatial illusion, "natural spaciousness".
^Yes as far as I can hear and tell. I have no idea if this is universal. If room RT60 is high, high sound levels start to get irritating anyway.
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I have another hifi set in another room too. There RT is below 0.2 and I use coaxial monopoles near corners and also HT 5.1. I like that too and the sound is totally different from my living room/AINOgradient set. Previously I had conventional 2-way stand speakers and a sub (5.1) in same living room for 8 years, so I remember that quite well too. I have also naturally heard several types of speakers in several different rooms occasionally. I believe that most of us can easily identify dipole speakers from others in any typical room.
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And almost forgot to say, that I haven't found a inroom-measurement that would tell the difference of a dipole!
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I have another hifi set in another room too. There RT is below 0.2 and I use coaxial monopoles near corners and also HT 5.1. I like that too and the sound is totally different from my living room/AINOgradient set. Previously I had conventional 2-way stand speakers and a sub (5.1) in same living room for 8 years, so I remember that quite well too. I have also naturally heard several types of speakers in several different rooms occasionally. I believe that most of us can easily identify dipole speakers from others in any typical room.
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And almost forgot to say, that I haven't found a inroom-measurement that would tell the difference of a dipole!
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Sorry juhazi,my question was meant for jf4828, but could be relevant to your observations as well. I'm just trying to see if there can be other causes than the directivity or room modes and triggering of these that makes the dipoles sound harsher than monopoles with compressed music material.
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A couple of comments. Speakers are not directional below 100hz unless there large horns for the woofer, and even then you probably need a large room. ( ~5x the longest wavelength). Low freqs don't bounce around off the walls, they work as modes. The room is a speaker enclosure. The walls make a difference. Some drywall walls are a sieve at below 50hz and let a lot of the energy out of the room. Brick, not so much. And speaker damping may be the difference.
Ok, I also forgot to say that I haven't noticed any clues that compressed or modern monotonic up-dB mastered music would sound different with dipoles.
One possible reason for these "feelings" could be that usually dipole speakers are leaner in bass than monopoles. They also often have higher distortion in bass.
But frequency response is the king!
One possible reason for these "feelings" could be that usually dipole speakers are leaner in bass than monopoles. They also often have higher distortion in bass.
But frequency response is the king!
I also agree with your observation re bass and dipoles. Also, I have as a plan to add sealed subs under 50 Hz (or so) and it was good to hear that it seem to work well - encouraging.
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Dipole bass in general suffer from poor capacity. Using L26RO4Y as an example in a dipole system with its dipole peak at e.g. 300Hz, max SPL (anechoic) would be less than 90dB at the driver's xmax at 30Hz. Combining the reduced capacity with the driver's BL(x)/K(x) nonlinearity (introduces compression) and the low dynamic range on the recorded material could make compressed music sound even more strained/compressed compared to a monopole at moderate to high SPL. The louder the listening level the more pronounced the compression will become. Just a thought...
This is a very valid and obvious point that I should have realized already. I'll have to test power compression of woofers. I have a special test routine for that already although I hate to torture them as they are expensive woofers
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This makes a lot of sense to me. When I tried to get dipole bass to sound right in my system I always thought the best sound was from eight high QTS 10's a side - pretty low compression and they didn't need eq
Can you please share information about the routine?This is a very valid and obvious point that I should have realized already. I'll have to test power compression of woofers. I have a special test routine for that already although I hate to torture them as they are expensive woofers
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"Compression", like "beaming" isn't something you hear. It is something you logically deduce after a few intervening steps of auditory perception
and memory. I have no idea what "compression" introduced by my speakers (as opposed to introduced by the engineers who muck up the recording) sounds like except by way of a long chain of experience leading back to some earlier hearing of the same music on a different system......
Compression due to heating of woofer voice coils probably has as little real-world importance as "room gain".
Ben
and memory. I have no idea what "compression" introduced by my speakers (as opposed to introduced by the engineers who muck up the recording) sounds like except by way of a long chain of experience leading back to some earlier hearing of the same music on a different system......
Compression due to heating of woofer voice coils probably has as little real-world importance as "room gain".
Ben
This is quite correct.
When I first heard an Orion dipole system the thing that struck me was how good it's bass was. However, that said, it was still no better than the bass that I get from multiple largish subs spaced about the room. The sound (at LFs) was quite comparable except that my monopoles could go many DB higher in level without "loosing it". This may or may not be a factor to everyone, but it is to me. I am very sensitive to bass that is not clean and solid and this always gets lost when one nears a drivers excursion limits as it most always will with a dipole.
True, one acts on the signals envelope and the other on the signal itself. Compression in a studio is virtually always on the envelope, not the actual signal. In physics parlance, one is linear and the other nonlinear.
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