Nearfield? What's the distance from the speakers, speakers separation and listening position height?
Mmm, it seems to depend on the recording. I found with the speakers higher I was losing top end. More central images are higher, hard panned they drop towards the floor
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Yes, that's how it seems to be. On dry recordings. In the nearfield.
Outside the nearfield it happens less often, even with single mono loudspeaker, unless the recordings is very dry. But it happens as well.
a kind of summary
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It's interesting, I haven't read through the whole of this thread, thanks for the link. What design did you settle on if any?
try to move closer, or increase the loudspeakers separation, one way or the other widen the angle of the stereo triangle, I think it should make a diference
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read from this one on
besides last couple of years were very busy for me, not much time or space for audio
But now I am thinking about something new.
I've moved the speakers towards the walls, I can't get them very close though, about a foot away, it doesn't seem to have made a difference. I'll try something very reflective against them, I'm losing a bit of top end again due to being more off axis.
I've put pieces of 10mm glass against the sides, they're only 18" square but have helped the treble. I'm only getting the image collapsing to the floor with very hard panned instruments, it's interesting how as soon as they're panned even slightly away the image comes back up to a normal level. I haven't noticed the effect yet with any live recordings.
yeah, for live recordings, including real height cues, the FCUFS works great
same can be said about another non-standard setup that is Stereolith-like, where any closely miked sound source, with no recorded distance cues, collapses into the loudspeaker position, that in that case is the center - in this case sufficiently strong lateral reflections help pull it back to the side, so to speak
Perhaps similar principle works for FCUFS at greater listening distances - reflections, in particular sufficiently strong ceiling reflection can pull the hard-panned sound source up, especially when the loudspeaker is increasingly directional in the highs:
obviously most of the energy of the 1<4 kHz frequency band reaches the listener via the ceiling reflection - so the ceiling reflection effectively becomes a virtual ceiling tweeter - a virtual one because it generates no its own early 1st order floor reflection
the frequency of the "crossover" between the floor coupled "midwoofer" and the "virtual tweeter" is determined by listener's distance, ceiling height and the angle at which the fullrange unit fires upwards
same can be said about another non-standard setup that is Stereolith-like, where any closely miked sound source, with no recorded distance cues, collapses into the loudspeaker position, that in that case is the center - in this case sufficiently strong lateral reflections help pull it back to the side, so to speak
Perhaps similar principle works for FCUFS at greater listening distances - reflections, in particular sufficiently strong ceiling reflection can pull the hard-panned sound source up, especially when the loudspeaker is increasingly directional in the highs:
obviously most of the energy of the 1<4 kHz frequency band reaches the listener via the ceiling reflection - so the ceiling reflection effectively becomes a virtual ceiling tweeter - a virtual one because it generates no its own early 1st order floor reflection
the frequency of the "crossover" between the floor coupled "midwoofer" and the "virtual tweeter" is determined by listener's distance, ceiling height and the angle at which the fullrange unit fires upwards
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Now I am thinking about matching a FCUFS midbass with a long array tweeter or midtweeter. Something along suggestions of Mr Croft but in a way that avoids getting back to the floor reflection issues
When I built my VTL's I made the backs removable so I could see how they sounded in OB and have that option. They worked to a degree and I liked the effect but, of course, being full range speakers they didn't make good dipoles. Experimenting with them on the floor firing upwards I'm getting that ambience back, the sound is more balanced and obviously the bass is much better, so much so that I'm listening to them without the subs for the first time in a while. I've moved them away from the walls again.........
That's UF part of FCUFS - there is a body of research suggesting that ceiling reflection contributes to spaciousness, eg: Effect of early reflections from upside on auditory envelopment
That's FC part of FCUFS - floor coupling
And the degree of constant directivity (not perfect) would help the reflections not screw up the imaging? I'd like to experiment with omni, using some kind of deflector cone. I still can't get used to the fact that the sound isn't coming from the floor 🙂 Have you ever heard ceiling speakers?
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yes, I believe so, and time coherence of the single FR driver
not for serious listening, have You?
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It just occurred to me that I have two pair of "ceiling coupled down firing speakers."
They are 6.5" coax JBL ceiling speakers. 😀 Maybe they could work well in going the opposite direction. Worth a try, right?
They are 6.5" coax JBL ceiling speakers. 😀 Maybe they could work well in going the opposite direction. Worth a try, right?
No I haven't. My father was going to install some in the house he built, made decent cabinets between the joists but never finished them, I don't know where he got the idea, whether it was a new concept for the time, he was into that kind of thing. I always imagined they would sound weird but now I'm not sure.