Making drivers is an item in my (rather large) bucket list. I even have access to a metal lathe and mill. The problem is the more I read, the more I know I'll never approach the quality of commercially made drivers.
But at least measuring drivers is easier than making them, especially with the computer power to generate and analyze audio.
That would help, but still you can do a lot of measurements without one.
I read somewhere way back when, an article almost certainly in Audio Amateur or Speaker Builder, a description of holding a midrange driver to the ear sideways such that when driven with a sine wave the fundamental would audibly cancel out, and one could hear the harmonics generated by the driver. This was used as a measure of quality.
And not only this. Think about room higher modes
Room modes calculator calculate 3 modes rectangular room control room apps eigenmodes eigenfrequencies formula frequency standing waves room acoustic node equation - sengpielaudio Sengpiel Berlin
This makes response and amplitude of distortion components in a modal range totally messed and is prevented by windowing of impulse response to the 1st reflection, which cuts low frequencies below some 300Hz in a standard room. So, distortion of speakers can be measured only on higher frequencies, in a room, or by a near field measurement and then assemble both. Similar as if you measure frequency response split in near field measurement + windowed far field measurement.
So, what kind of ballpark distortion do we have on the audio arriving on the ears for a high fidelity system? -40 to -50 dB? Yet people still perceive -90dB amp distortion. Our ears are simply stunning. 🙂
What did I just write about yesterday ... different 'kinds of distortion' sound different and have different amounts of audibility. You can hear one type through a device that creates a lot of another type.
Speaking of distortion cancellations.......is there anything like that going on when you go from one tweeter to two on the same baffle? I know combing effect is there but is there anything that would result in a cancellation of distortion.....because it sure does seem that way.
Awhile go I blew one of my 8ohm tweeters (6.7 measured) and i tried my 4 ohm (3.9) spare tweeters and the xo shift was too drastic, so having four of the 4ohms I tried wiring two per side in series just to ‘see’.
The results of combing is evident but just enough to add dimension to the sound stage....rather nice. But the big thing is the sound is now smoother and clearer?
And the thing is these tweeters were of lesser sound quality than their predecessors (when crossed appropriately) in single use.
I did end up having to chase the phase around a bit and ended up having to turn my sub xo down from 60hz to 40hz.
Jury is still out whether or not this is a good thing?
Any ideas? Here’s a pic.
Awhile go I blew one of my 8ohm tweeters (6.7 measured) and i tried my 4 ohm (3.9) spare tweeters and the xo shift was too drastic, so having four of the 4ohms I tried wiring two per side in series just to ‘see’.
The results of combing is evident but just enough to add dimension to the sound stage....rather nice. But the big thing is the sound is now smoother and clearer?
And the thing is these tweeters were of lesser sound quality than their predecessors (when crossed appropriately) in single use.
I did end up having to chase the phase around a bit and ended up having to turn my sub xo down from 60hz to 40hz.
Jury is still out whether or not this is a good thing?
Any ideas? Here’s a pic.
Attachments
Generally, people have poor understanding of mental health. Mental health is taken for granted.
Unfortunately, people only start taking mental health more seriously only when somebody they know or love starts suffering from mental health problems.
Best wishes to your son and you.
Thank you, I have become aware just how widespread it is, just scary.
Let's resume normal audio hostilities. 🙂
Nice point to point wiring, genius class and the most pure sound that you are ever going to get, nice.....(no brass, nickel, lead). Two tweeters/half travel makes for lower distortion, and maybe the new tweeters are not so bad after all ?.
I was measuring the power response or off axis response for my measurment microphones' random incidence response.
----------
as for using any room to measure in, windowing works well.... too bad our ears cant do that.
THx-RNMarsh
Local irregular HF instability, that may transform into uneven irregular distortion in audio band.
I've seen poorly designed loudspeaker crossovers - saturating inductors and the like.
One of many reasons why bi or tri-amping is best. Much better filters and only dealing with signal at low level.
Impedance at line level is easier to control and allows for smaller sized and better quality components. Multi amping should allow better reproduction.
Yes never thought about the half travel......good point.
I’ve been called a lot of things but genius isn’t one of them 😀
I tried soldering the same setup and it was quite dull sounding, I couldn’t figure out why and asking on another forum resulted in the typical bs or ‘it must be wrong’......wire nuts are easier than soldering anyhow!
Imagine how bright it would sound if you went through the whole system replacing soldered joints with something better, have you considered that?
First thing I ever build was a crystal radio on a piece of wood with the components held in place and connected with wood screws and cup washers, sounded fantastic
A bark edge plank of sinker cypress tube amp wired ptp would be cool.
It would match the table I made from it......counted the rings and got to 475 before I went cross eyed, then it sat on the bottom of the Apalachicola river for 100+ yrs (some sank as they floated the logs down river) .....now it’s dived up and sawed into some of the most beautiful lumber I’ve ever seen.
It would match the table I made from it......counted the rings and got to 475 before I went cross eyed, then it sat on the bottom of the Apalachicola river for 100+ yrs (some sank as they floated the logs down river) .....now it’s dived up and sawed into some of the most beautiful lumber I’ve ever seen.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.