BYRTT seems to be always lurking around like a Sherlock Holmes with magnifying glasses – spotting things others would have missed and helping to solve mysteries. Thank you BYRTT – you did a great job with overlaying those graphs.
The solution is elementary my dear Watson – combine plywood and EPS into one panel. I know gatorboard seems close to such a combination, but it is still not the ultimate DML material it seems.
I have been listening to my XPS DML's for over a week now and have a good sense of their capability. I switched back to my 10F/RS225 FAST speakers tonight and have to say, I like the pinpoint imaging and spectral clarity of my more conventional box speakers better. Although the 10F/RS225 FAST have been my refererence speakers for almost 4 years now and for good reason - they are exceptioanally good.
I have not given up though - will try to make a framed DML with damping on the edges next. I do admit that the DMLs sound very good for the low level of effort put into them and the low cost.
I have not given up though - will try to make a framed DML with damping on the edges next. I do admit that the DMLs sound very good for the low level of effort put into them and the low cost.
I resemble that remark! I'll be interested to see how that PS/Balsa panel works out. What size will it be? I assume you are talking about Balsa sheets (which I have never seen wider than 12 inches) and not end grain balsa, right?
Eric
I'd think traditional cone speakers will always perform better at imaging. DML should excel at wide dispersion.
I'm not exactly sure how we localize sound but Linkwitz used near-ish field speakers to enhance his audio scene. If someone uses DMLs for home theater but wants to add imaging in a seat position the Linkwitz Watson method might be good.
WATSON-Stereo_Expansion_Loudspeakers
I look at it a bit differently. I want my speakers to reproduce the recorded sound field exactly as it was recorded. I know how a live acoustic concert sounds. The venue usually has a very wide dispersion yet I can clearly hear the left instruments on the left side and the right instruments on the right side and a blending of the center. And no matter where I stand/sit I can clearly hear these delineations. I'm not a "golden ear" but I do know what I hear. And what I don't hear in a live acoustic event is the strong beaming of imaging that I hear from cones. It maybe that we get used to the beaming imaging because that's mostly what we all listen too. But to me it ain't real at all. Now I'm talking about un-amplified music, recorded from a distance that might represent what you hear from your standard listening position in an audience. A wide, full breadth spaciousness of image. A sound field that stretches across the front of you that lets me hear what I physically see from the musicians playing. Yes to a great extent that sound is the sound of the hall/venue, but its still a natural sound field. What I hate is the close up miking techniques to capture a particular instrument and then all the "engineering" that goes on to make that focused beam sound reintegrate into the sound field as a whole to try to make it sound more "natural".
To me a DML just presents a natural rendition of the recorded sound field. Not an exaggerated, beaming, localized sounds that were put their by the recording engineer. To my ears, cones just don't do that very faithfully and never will without some elaborate processing to overcome their natural beaming sound.
I want to hear a natural, unprocessed, un-beamed sound field. If the speaker can deliver that, then great...and to my ears that's what DML's do in spades over cones. If a recording sounds like a processed mess, because that's what it is, then that's exactly what I want to hear...the truth...not some semblance of the truth, even if it sounds "better". I don't want my speakers coloring the sound to try to make a bad recording sound better...it almost always doesn't...I'm not about tolerable sound...I just want to hear the music the way it is naturally.
I'm sure I didn't explain myself very well, but to me, DML's just sound more natural. Now none of what I said above pertains to amplified music that's been recorded. Or music that is electronically created...those sound fields will be artificial and no amount of speaker design is going to make me think otherwise nor would I want it too.
Quite simply, just give me what was recorded...not some engineered semblence of what someone wanted me to hear. Ok, so I'm difficult to please, what can I say?
Interesting debate with value on both sides. My personal experience has been that once I moved to OB speakers I can’t go back to boxes. OB speakers led me into four ESL’s of various descriptions. I found with ESL’s that if you sit in the sweet spot the soundstage is holographic, but the moment you move away from the sweet spot that collapses. The interesting thing about my personal DML revelation was that I got a soundstage as good as the ESL’s, but I got it everywhere and you can literally step into it. I described that a few posts back.
Having said that you need to check out xrk971’s speakers because they have some excellent features. A very low mass cabinet which, a bit like Celestion’s aerolam experiment with the SL600’s stores very little energy and releases it very quickly. He also uses a near full range transducer that has got a strong following due to its reproduction quality, and he uses first order crossovers which I also liked to use because they don’t mess up the phase response. They are not your average speakers by a long way.
Having said that I don’t find the DML’s soundstage to be lacking at all and also think it’s more natural but each to their own and all that really counts is do you love the music you get from yours.
Having said that you need to check out xrk971’s speakers because they have some excellent features. A very low mass cabinet which, a bit like Celestion’s aerolam experiment with the SL600’s stores very little energy and releases it very quickly. He also uses a near full range transducer that has got a strong following due to its reproduction quality, and he uses first order crossovers which I also liked to use because they don’t mess up the phase response. They are not your average speakers by a long way.
Having said that I don’t find the DML’s soundstage to be lacking at all and also think it’s more natural but each to their own and all that really counts is do you love the music you get from yours.
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Hi BC,
Thanks. Those 10F/RS225 FAST speakers do sound pretty good and you are right, they are not your ordinary speakers. I have gone to high end audio boutiques and listened to $12k speakers and did not think they sound better than these. I switched to wood cabinets a while back, so not exactly light weight - but still sounds great. Here was the lab around the time I made the switch to wood. This was before the flood...
Thanks. Those 10F/RS225 FAST speakers do sound pretty good and you are right, they are not your ordinary speakers. I have gone to high end audio boutiques and listened to $12k speakers and did not think they sound better than these. I switched to wood cabinets a while back, so not exactly light weight - but still sounds great. Here was the lab around the time I made the switch to wood. This was before the flood...
Plus intelligibility. Great for home theater and great rooms where you move around.
I like the Linkwitz idea of near field sources to improve stereo imaging. Floyd Toole suggested near field sources to improve low frequencies (overcome low frequency modal problems in small rooms.)
However, I don't understand how localization works. For example, do certain frequency ranges, e.g. 500Hz to 1Khz, dominate human localization perception? If so, that's how you design your Linkwitz-Watson satellites.
The trick would be getting them to descend from the ceiling when you told Alexa you wanted to listen to small ensemble music.
Found this today. I had not seen this before. The "Soundwall" apparently uses an aluminum panel.
It seems to be more about the art on the panel than the sound, but still interesting.
Soundwall Art Speaker
It seems to be more about the art on the panel than the sound, but still interesting.
Soundwall Art Speaker
I was looking at this old Audio Circle thread and it appears that except for the original post by "zygadr" all the rest of his posts are missing. Is that true and if so why? I just joined Audio Circle but can't yet do searches, apparently.
Eric
NXT.......rubbish??....THINK AGAIN!
Eric
NXT.......rubbish??....THINK AGAIN!
DEJAVU???? LOL Zygadr style of (aggressive) writing is similar to mine as we don't beat around the bush sugar coating shizits so some people got offended and confronted him with the mods so zygadr stopped posting for a while then eventually came back for a little while then he was gone. I believe some post he erased himself and some deleted by mods.
If I remember correctly that SW been around for a couple of years now. The price is ridiculous. I guess the cost is in the art and not the sound. I also wonder if the price is for a pair of panels or each.
Oh well I don't want to offend anyone with my aggressive style of writing so I will continue to just Lurk. You man now return to your regularly scheduled programming. LOL
Ziggy had a rather volatile personality and at one point was upset at his failure to create a decent sounding frame for his free panels. So he basically said he gave up and then deleted a good many of his earlier posts. But then he came back, apologized for his rashness and continued on in the thread till he passed away (rip Zig!). So yeah there are a lot of early posts that may be missing...However, I haven't gone back and looked through that thread in a couple months so not sure if more have been deleted recently. However, most of his early posts were about his discovery of Gatorboard and the revelation it was to him as being even better than his DIY Horns...from that point on it was all about trying to improve the obvious HF issues of the gatorfoam, trying to figure out a frame for it and continuing to look for better panel materials and exciters. After his falling out with Gatorboard, he moved on to plain cardboard with shellac and HD EPS uncoated. He would go back and forth between the two, finally settling on the HD EPS and trying out the latest higher powered Dayton exciters which he was really excited about, but then he passed suddenly and we never did find out if he had another revelation...and he never did find a frame arrangement that he felt was better than his free standing panels. Of course he was also an advocate of large panels 5-6' in height. In the early days he was basically trying to copy the Podium design using multiple exciters up the middle of the panel. If I remember correctly he slowly moved to using less exciters but more powerful ones but still in the style of the Podium's.
geo
Brain Food..
My contribution to the quest of experimentation with DML's..
This is the best design that I've worked on to this point! Mid/Highs are very nice and plenty of bass. I added sticks from the circle towards the lower corner for s&g's but I believe the bass response was better without them!
The wooden circle provides plenty of sound for the mid/highs. The canvas creates smooth bass. Just make sure the wood items are securely glued to the canvas. I used spray adhesive used in car interior repairs for headliners. I ran a bead of hot glue around all edges just to be sure..
Here's some pics.. Enjoy!
ImageShack - Canvas Speakers
My contribution to the quest of experimentation with DML's..
This is the best design that I've worked on to this point! Mid/Highs are very nice and plenty of bass. I added sticks from the circle towards the lower corner for s&g's but I believe the bass response was better without them!
The wooden circle provides plenty of sound for the mid/highs. The canvas creates smooth bass. Just make sure the wood items are securely glued to the canvas. I used spray adhesive used in car interior repairs for headliners. I ran a bead of hot glue around all edges just to be sure..
Here's some pics.. Enjoy!
ImageShack - Canvas Speakers
Neat idea to use canvas art frames. I wonder if the membranes are acting more pistonic now vs as a DML. DML requires some solidness to vibrate like a solid body - which is how the distributed modes are generated. What the canvas frame and exciter resemble, to me, is like a large membrane condenser mic (but with dynamic transfixed vs capacitive).