True, they have to resist and control resonance, not pressure like a gas cylinder. Of course there are pressure nodes, but as you point out they pressures are relatively small. The pressure nodes are more like a wave motion in that only certain molecules are moving faster at a given time, thus a speaker can't blow apart from getting too loud.
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Accuracy is great, and there should be some objectivity. But modern drivers and well built speakers and amplifiers achieve this decently well. Going that extra step toward perfection doesn't necessarily increase our enjoyment, which comes from an internal illusion and experience, not a critical analysis of the sound.
With equalizer APO and some low distortion amps, and low distortion drivers you can literally build a speaker with no audible distortion either linear or non-linear. A great speaker for fatigue free listening but it might not be the epiphany one might expect.
Often times experienced audiophiles aren't as hung up on accuracy as newbs.
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And next blame the recordings, not the speakers if it doesn't sound as expected... 🙄
By those standards I'll gladly consider myself a newbie.
By those standards I'll gladly consider myself a newbie.
Well those darn monoliths you built with the global supply of birch ply would be quite revealing, especially for 80's hair bands.
I think that you may have missed my point. No one is doing this and no one probably ever will. If I can make a speaker with nonlinearity below what is audible then what point is there to a DSP unit that makes it lower? This could have been done ten or twenty years ago, why has it not been done yet if it accomplishes anything?
Pretty sure that Zaph's ZRT is below audible levels of distortion, at least driver distortion. There would still be some cabinet noise and maybe some baffle effects depending on how you build it.
Zaph|Audio - ZRT - Revelator Tower
Never heard em but probably can do a wide variety of music well.
Zaph|Audio - ZRT - Revelator Tower
Never heard em but probably can do a wide variety of music well.
If by "critical analysis of the sound" you mean a conscious analysis of what's being heard then I don't agree. Do you think that internal illusion isn't based on elements within the soundfield & our internal SUBCONSCIOUS processing of those elements? The playback of the sound is the foundation of the illusion - that means that elements within the resultant soundfield created by the playback system are sensed by our auditory perception (which is mostly subconscious) as more believably realistic (meaning more like how the real thing would sound) - these elements in the soundfield, if consistently maintained within the playback, lead to a stable illusion - elements which aren't consistent can break that illusion - they can be the scratch or pop on a vinyl record or something less consciously noticeable
I never said anything about the illusion being based on a "critical analysis of the sound" - I said it was subconscious.
Let me put it another way - when you don 3D glasses, do you think the perceived 3D illusion is because of one's "critical analysis" of the light hitting the eye? No, the illusion is the visual perception processing the light subconsciously & the result of it's processing is what we are conscious of i.e it is more 3D than looking at the same picture without the glasses
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The closer you get to accurate realistic reproduction, a little problem can make the sound seem weird, just like robots modeled to replicate humans.
Do you mean that the more that is 'right' in the reproduced sound, the more obvious the 'wrong' aspects become - not in a specifically conscious identification of something wrong with freq or amplitude but more in a feeling of 'something wrong' but not being able to identify exactly what?
Pretty much it. Normal speakers are a mixture of imperfections, as you gradually reduce them, some individual issues will become noticeably annoying.
As I've already said, accuracy does matter to the illusion, but to ever diminishing returns. Think of it this way. A lot of people don't realize that at a typical distance the eye can't tell a 4k picture from a 1080p on a tv. It just can't tell.
What if the the image itself isn't 4k but only 1280p? It won't matter, or the difference will be tiny. (In terms of resolution of detail, not necessarily other things).
Or how pure does vodka have to be before it all tastes the same?
Going back to audio, some of this depends on what is defined as distortion. Is lack of dynamics or unusual dispersion distortion? Maybe, but probably not.
Is a bipolar sound field distorted. No its just different and a lot of people prefer it. So after a certain point of accuracy its just preference. Some people are willing even to give up accuracy because they like certain other qualities.
So what other things DOES it matter?
Bad analogy - vodkas taste different - it's not the percent proof that is completely responsible for this - watering down drink is seldom noticed in the tasting - it's only the end of night effect that is noticed. 😀
Distortion is anything reproduced that wasn't in the intended soundfield.
I'm not sure we have the same definition of accuracy?
Yes, but the speaker needs to get closer to the performance of electronics for the more detailed electronics improvements are more obviously noticed.
I believe that there is a perceptual difference between electronic distortion & speaker distortion & we perceive them differently & as a result they have a different ground in our perception - a bit like surface noise or room response can be 'heard through' - they form a different perceptual 'ground'
We are usually involved in this hobby in a continual (some would say never-ending) spiral of improvement on both of these aspects, electronics & transducers/room response but some decide to focus on just one aspect as their main area for improvement
I tend to cycle through the different areas, speaker, driver, amplifier, cable. It is some guessing for me to find out what to work on next. For example, a few days ago I found some nice springy washing balls and wondered that since those also will break up standing waves in the enclosure, they are soft so will not create rattling sounds, much cheaper than trying to brace the internal using some matrix structure, and so I put them in the enclosure of a small speaker replacing the original stuffing. In made a hell lot improvement! I then further stuck a rubber bracing between the font and back panels to reduce vibration, that also worked incredibly well. These reduce the enclosure induced sound and really bring out the music.
Eduardo de Lima of Audiopax noted that when phased properly distortion arising from Single Ended amplifiers cancel some of driver distortion yielding better presentation at lower overall distortion. Single ended amplifiers are still being built and selling rather well, mostly used to drive widebanders. Even Nelson Pass produce 0.6% THD at 1W single ended SIT amplifiers for the market. Why the DSP development has not been done somehow eludes me. Equipment makers are aware that even owners of Lowthers, Voxatives, Feastrexes and Supravoxes also listen to digital sources, don't they?