Sure, if that's not done in the crossover it's still possible to do it in the "DRC" - it's the same thing after all.
It is a waste of time if comparing horns is what you want to do. It's not a total waste of time as it can reveal possible serious flaws in the system (perhaps including the room). It can serve as a quick final check that everything is in the ballpark but it won't tell you if the horn is good or not.
Detailed anechoic response including the radiation pattern is the downright essential requirement for any serious loudspeaker design. It's quite a shame we have to even discuss it here.
Detailed anechoic response including the radiation pattern is the downright essential requirement for any serious loudspeaker design. It's quite a shame we have to even discuss it here.
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Do those comparisons of waveguides outside if possible. 🙂
I don't quite agree with all the points made here, as the way I look at this is that we, as DIY people can look at the room we have to find the solution we need. If making the perfect speaker, yes, by all means optimize it's anechoic performance, create CD behavior to suit most conditions. But where we can make a difference, is to look at the room we have, see what we can or cannot do with regards to that room and design the speaker/waveguide for that specific situation/room. Make it work with these conditions.
We don't have to cater for a lot of differing situations, so take the advantage and cater it to your specific needs. Which might mean needing some different parameters than that perfect horn, for instance a narrower vertical/wider horizontal coverage pattern would make perfect sense to me.
I don't quite agree with all the points made here, as the way I look at this is that we, as DIY people can look at the room we have to find the solution we need. If making the perfect speaker, yes, by all means optimize it's anechoic performance, create CD behavior to suit most conditions. But where we can make a difference, is to look at the room we have, see what we can or cannot do with regards to that room and design the speaker/waveguide for that specific situation/room. Make it work with these conditions.
We don't have to cater for a lot of differing situations, so take the advantage and cater it to your specific needs. Which might mean needing some different parameters than that perfect horn, for instance a narrower vertical/wider horizontal coverage pattern would make perfect sense to me.
Quite a few people have expressed their desire for an asymmetrical horn.
Pattern flip is a consequence, unless one would resort to a huge asymmetrical height/width ratio, or a slot.
In this video Jörgen Strauss explains some basic considerations in the design of studio monitors. He touches on DI and some technical aspects of drivers.
The example of Dynaudio speakers is spot on.
Pattern flip is a consequence, unless one would resort to a huge asymmetrical height/width ratio, or a slot.
In this video Jörgen Strauss explains some basic considerations in the design of studio monitors. He touches on DI and some technical aspects of drivers.
The example of Dynaudio speakers is spot on.
Yet very few seem to understand how would such a horn have to look like (and that they would probably not like it).
For example, what Strauss (and JBL) calls 90° horizontal, 40° vertical is in fact NOT 40° almost anywhere - it's an outright lie.
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With this explanation of constant directivity, agree. Originally I had interpreted same level and frequency response over a specific angle range. But if the level is allowed to fall while maintaining a relatively constant frequency response over an angle range, I tend to support this idea.
The horn looks beautiful! But I had read in a site many years ago in comparison of different horn materials, glossy surface of the same horn resulted in most favorable listening experience.
Do you remember whether it was done blind? If it was, I would be very surprised. If not, I wouldn't 🙂
From aerodynamics aspect, I can understand it. I am sure it would be measurable given the data processing capability today. For me, it is easier to have glossy surface done than to talk ourselves to death on the blind listening issue. I am not a fan of blind listening and I never do it. Experienced people conducting auditions are much more productive. But I can see the value for school studies using the blind listening approach, and also when you are aiming for the widest market possible.
When I developed my interconnects, I just send them to an audiophile not telling him anything, just give me his impression on the two designs. His feedback was “this pair has better fidelity, but I like the other pair better”. This told me that he heard what I heard. Finally I decided to go with the high fidelity design, and continuously improve on that. At an audio show in ChengDu China where a friend happened to be demonstrating his Quad speakers with customized film. I asked to swap out his interconnects with mine and listen. A third person in the room listened and correctly identified the source of specific sonic quality as well as a deficiency due to a design trade off which was made without looking at any data.
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According to my experience, if you know what you are looking for and find a correlation between listening and measurement data, it is much more scientific and reliable than blind listening tests when you are aiming for improved fidelity.
Again, if you are aiming to please the masses, then yes, blind listening tests might be more representative of acceptance.
Again, if you are aiming to please the masses, then yes, blind listening tests might be more representative of acceptance.
I do this all the time but I would never claim that a glossy surface leads to the most favorable listening experience without a proper study. That's already over the top for me. Even the measured differences will be miniscule in this case, I guess - there's probably not much aerodynamics in horns.
And don't get me wrong, I like glossy surfaces on horns and I'm sure it would make a favorable listening experience as well 🙂
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My own process is that I will look at data and do listening internally, then ask someone with experience to identify what they thought was a deficiency, then I will go back and look at data to see if anything can be identified, or conduct new measurement. Almost all the time these people can identify changes on things we missed or ignored such as change in power supply component source, speaker internal cable source, etc. This things quite often are found unexpectedly rather than with intentional comparison in mind. So in effect, they actually work better than blind testing.
I can imagine that someone would say this in an interview for a hifi magazine but I don't believe this actually works (in a sense that it would be repeatable in a controlled experiment), sorry.
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People like Mabat and Geddes and Docali and David J mcBean and Martin King and the list continues....are a blessing to DIY...many of these guys could be consultants to whatever manufacturer of loudspeakers you might suggest...that should be recognized first and foremost (im not sure it would help since most manufacturers are in the business of ripping people off)....its sort of a waste of time to come to their table and argue sound quality without reaching a level to argue on their level of knowledge...some people act like the scientific approach to sound quality is completely foreign...if thats the case...then one should educate themselves on the topic before debating here...maybe start with the Floyde toole video, I dunno....
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Constant directivity in my eyes is a sacrifice of horn loading for a wider dispersion of the HF ( I guess that makes the jbl 2380a or similar the bastard child of both?? The new B&c Horn? Now I see why someone told me that the two camps should join force and design the ultimate loading, constant directivity horn (via the 2021 dispersion slot?))....the off axis roll off qualities of a good wave guide is identical to a good horn..with the exception that the change (the low passing of HF and a tilt of the FR) going from on axis to off axis, happens significantly faster or more dramatically with the traditional horn
Those qualities -> smooth transition from on axis to off axis.....on axis, void of peaks and nulls....off axis, response void of peaks and nulls...
Those qualities -> smooth transition from on axis to off axis.....on axis, void of peaks and nulls....off axis, response void of peaks and nulls...
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I can very well envision a WG designed for a specific location and with a certain behaviour that compared to, say, the small sand horn, freestanding, would seem less ideal but in the end, in the intended room integrated into the system, would perform better than said sand horn - in the listening position.
I suppose we design for the listening position as anything else would be just technical show off.
An "ideal" horn is only ideal in the situation it was designed for but not necessarily for all situations.
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I suppose we design for the listening position as anything else would be just technical show off.
An "ideal" horn is only ideal in the situation it was designed for but not necessarily for all situations.
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