1 loud -I'd say this depends on environment, it can be noisy where I work so sometimes I'll stick on my ( MASSIVE ) ear defenders and crank up the volume on the radio to compensate, but when at home I've tried to make a system that sounds good at low volume.
2 bass hits you in the chest - a few months ago I made a pair of tiny speakers that I'm currently using with a cheep computer set up - with a bandpass sub. Despite being a VERY modest system feed with poor quality DAB it sounds really enjoyable - mainly because of the bass, and also the tiny speakers reproduce the timbre of instruments surprising well, ( demonstrated by, err, classical /jass/acoustic ) although vocals ( particularly of radio presenters ) sound sibilant. Most people want a bit of bass boost ( mainly because most people don't have bass that hits you in the chest, I think I might like a little Distortion in the bass.
3 vocals that sound natural - possibly the easiest objective to accomplish on a budget.
2 bass hits you in the chest - a few months ago I made a pair of tiny speakers that I'm currently using with a cheep computer set up - with a bandpass sub. Despite being a VERY modest system feed with poor quality DAB it sounds really enjoyable - mainly because of the bass, and also the tiny speakers reproduce the timbre of instruments surprising well, ( demonstrated by, err, classical /jass/acoustic ) although vocals ( particularly of radio presenters ) sound sibilant. Most people want a bit of bass boost ( mainly because most people don't have bass that hits you in the chest, I think I might like a little Distortion in the bass.
3 vocals that sound natural - possibly the easiest objective to accomplish on a budget.
Finally, a spot
These distortion measurements are disappointing to you, but to me, it sounds very clear and nuetral, can you explain the difference in our experiences? You have used the Axi before and experienced and measured said Distortion? Can you show us how low the distortion should be in comparison to what the Axi is doing above? How low should distortion be.....these are taken at the horn mouth for intimacy of signal.
Heres my 1 meter 1 watt....How low should we keep 3rd and 5th and how bad is mine!?! Can you feel my sarcasm yet?
Also, what is the story on the Axi2050 being someones thesis? I read that the Axi was the result of 10years of research.
Heres a horn that has the same flare rate as the next horn I am about to use, which is twice as big and should allow the driver to play its full intended bandwidth.
These distortion measurements are disappointing to you, but to me, it sounds very clear and nuetral, can you explain the difference in our experiences? You have used the Axi before and experienced and measured said Distortion? Can you show us how low the distortion should be in comparison to what the Axi is doing above? How low should distortion be.....these are taken at the horn mouth for intimacy of signal.
Heres my 1 meter 1 watt....How low should we keep 3rd and 5th and how bad is mine!?! Can you feel my sarcasm yet?
Also, what is the story on the Axi2050 being someones thesis? I read that the Axi was the result of 10years of research.
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trying to think of something positive to say ... the interface of this forum runs really smooth, attachments upload really fast.
let's see how long i can keep this positivity up.
indeed pattern control dictates that acoustical source must be taller than it is wide, which is a criteria that arrays meet but your MEH does not.
distortion is obviously a function not only of frequency but input power as well ...
since we don't actually need anywhere near the rated power of a big compression driver at home we can get low distortion out of them by running them at less than 1% of their power as you are in your measurements ...
also as i mentioned higher surface area results in lower distortion and AxiPeriodic driver has the highest surface area of any compression driver on the market except possibly BMS 4599 which i would like to use ...
if i wanted to cover 300 hz to 20 khz with one driver i would get that AxiPeriodic but i simply do not feel any desire to cover more than 2 octaves with one driver in any frequency band ...
when i saw that driver i knew right away it will be a failure in the prosound market but audiophiles will love it ...
it's not that the driver is bad it's that it weighs 16 pounds and costs $1,000 and from prosound perspective that makes it about 50% more expensive and 2 times heavier than a B&C coaxial that accomplishes the same thing, but with a crossover.
but from audiophile perspective heavy and expensive are not vices while crossovers are so Axi wins.
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I don't think that is true at all.
Pattern control is a largely a function of size vs wavelength, be it baffle, horn/waveguide, or line. Size in both the horizontal plane, and in the vertical plane.
I've made several MEH's that have same pattern control H vs V....as ugh, all it takes is the same mouth width and height.
Btw, what horizontal control are you aiming for? Down to what frequency? Vertical?
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Supposedly the ills of XO's exposed in the off axis. The people around here who build large 2 ways have no care about where the xo lands, in regards to human ear......For me, my endeavor, involved having a good amount of source come from a singular radiation area....same agenda as the Synergy style builds I think....
I'm interested in 5 and 6 ways, to see what they are doing well that the large 3 way is not.....I'm building, a very large 3 channel system meant for close monitoring, I've seen next to a large two with horn/waveguide + 15" woofer.
My theory is that the woofer cannot be at 2 places at one time, and that lesser amount of bandwidth, going to a single driver, results in better SQ, but with Large 2-3 way design, or any build focusing on limiting excursion to miniscule amounts, I am not sure how much gain there would be, when spreading out the bandwidth to separate driver.
Crude 1 meter sims for the a 150hz horn...
Sims for the mod/basswoofer section matching spl.
And for the lower channel, Not teh finaly voicing showed so, look at 30hz, the highest cutoff desired...though it can be lowered....
They are sims, so trust what you will, but ballpark is the idea at sim level, and you can see that the general trend is extremely low excursion.
How can a 5-6way compete....in particular if the excursion cannot be made as low? I think 5-6 way can compete, and that it (can) achieve very low excursion as well...but I haven't modelled or attempted to design one to see what the route looks like...It would be interesting to see what type of accumulated Sd these 5 and 6 way systems are achieving per channel.....
ps- shift+windows key+S key = very quick visuals for post....Ty admin for updating the forum tools, the resize ability is great to have!
I'm interested in 5 and 6 ways, to see what they are doing well that the large 3 way is not.....I'm building, a very large 3 channel system meant for close monitoring, I've seen next to a large two with horn/waveguide + 15" woofer.
My theory is that the woofer cannot be at 2 places at one time, and that lesser amount of bandwidth, going to a single driver, results in better SQ, but with Large 2-3 way design, or any build focusing on limiting excursion to miniscule amounts, I am not sure how much gain there would be, when spreading out the bandwidth to separate driver.
Crude 1 meter sims for the a 150hz horn...
Sims for the mod/basswoofer section matching spl.
And for the lower channel, Not teh finaly voicing showed so, look at 30hz, the highest cutoff desired...though it can be lowered....
They are sims, so trust what you will, but ballpark is the idea at sim level, and you can see that the general trend is extremely low excursion.
How can a 5-6way compete....in particular if the excursion cannot be made as low? I think 5-6 way can compete, and that it (can) achieve very low excursion as well...but I haven't modelled or attempted to design one to see what the route looks like...It would be interesting to see what type of accumulated Sd these 5 and 6 way systems are achieving per channel.....
ps- shift+windows key+S key = very quick visuals for post....Ty admin for updating the forum tools, the resize ability is great to have!
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if you have let's say a 60 vertically x 90 horizontally horn that is 6 inches tall and 9 inches wide it will lose directivity control in the vertical plane before it does so in the horizontal plane ...
it would have to be 9 inches tall and 6 inches wide instead to lose control at the same frequency horizontally and vertically
your MEHs look like they're maybe about 30 inches tall so they would lose vertical directivity control at around 500 hz ...
Digital Audio Broadcasting ( if I remember correctly - a digital radio format that uses MP2 codec and much maligned by the hi-fi press in the UK ( apparently the UK has a particularly bad implication of the technology ). I use cheep portable DAB radios ( connected via the headphone socket to a decent amp ) to listen to planet rock at work and scala at home. It's possible this is a sorce of sibilance that I'm often plagued with.
Ok, going back to the post i disagreed with......
If you had said, "for equal horizonal and vertical pattern control, indeed pattern control dictates that acoustical source must be taller than it is wide,"
i would agree.
Like i said, i've made MEH's with symmetrical pattern control. Here's a rather recent 60x60.
I prefer the sound of asymmetrical patterns,...... 80 to 90 degrees H , with 50-60 degrees V.
From the first post. https://www.axiomaudio.com/blog/dis...tortion at levels,the masking effect of music.
That result is wrong and its just a stupid test. They are not testing (harmonic) distortion they are testing MASKING and calling it distortion. They did not add distortion (as in harmonic, the kind we all think of when someone says distortion) they added test tones to music and asked at what level these tones could be heard. So no surprise people can't hear a 40hz tone under music which has most of its energy under 200hz. And equating that to not hearing low freq. distortion is ridiculous and the truth is probably the opposite. Distortion of a 40hz tone cause 80, 120, 160hz tones which are a lot easier to hear than the 40hz (from Fletcher-Munson) and the distortion of a 10khz tone is 20khz which very few people hear. There graph follows the power distribution in pop music because its about masking.
This kind of psuedo science really bugs me. They don't even know what distortion is.
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I wouldn't be so quick to discard that data. It might not be 100% rigorous, but you'll notice that the frequencies they picked are actually multiples of the 20 / 40 Hz. So you can make some pretty interesting inferences...
Example 1) if you are playing 20 Hz and you want to know the approximate level of audibility for the HD4 coming from that tone (assuming that tone is just loud enough to be noticed through the music), you'll see that you can't exceed -20 dB or about 10% HD4 (80 Hz).
Example 2) if you are playing 120 Hz and you want to know the approximate level of audibility for the HD2 coming from that tone (assuming that tone is just loud enough to be noticed through the music), you'll see that the threshold for the tone equivalent to HD2 (240 Hz) is actually at the same level ... so, 100% ?!?!
This is definitely not a comprehensive dataset. For example, this is applicable only to harmonic distortion, there's no data for fundamentals that are contributing significantly to the musical output - as opposed to "just being heard as something wrong", the "HD" is pure tones as opposed to the complex HD output from real music playback, etc. But there are some useful tidbits that could be extrapolated from this IMO.
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i doubt the sibilance is from the internet radio.
announcers are often processed ( especially in Germany it seems ) with extra boost in the highs to help with intelligibility. this may be interplaying with some kind of breakup in your transducers.
you don't seem to understand what i'm saying.
there are two separate issues here - coverage and directivity control. you can name them something else if you prefer. but coverage basically means horizontal and vertical angle. directivity control means the lowest frequency to which this angle of radiation is maintained.
coverage will be a function of physical angles used in the horn but directivity control will be a function of dimensions of the horn. unfortunately they are in reverse relationship in that as you narrow the angle it tightens the coverage but loosens directivity control because you need BIGGER dimension for greater directivity control but SMALLER angle for tighter coverage.
what this means in practice is that such waveguides will not be effective in vertical directivity control below a certain frequency which as i said will be about 500 hz for the size of horns you're building. energy below 500 hz will leak around the horn and hit the floor, the ceiling, the back wall etc ...
by contrast if you were to build an array spanning entirely from floor to ceiling there would be ZERO reflection from either floor or ceiling ...
the problem is if you were to try to build it our of ribbons you would have to take out another mortgage but the good news is that your existing horns already maintain directivity control above 500 hz so you only need that array to work below 500 hz ...
in my case i have a sideways sloped ceiling so i can only use an array that touches the floor, but not the ceiling.
you could also do something like an MTM but instead of the two Ms it would be an array and instead of the T it would be a MEH ... this would extend directivity control of your system to lower frequencies potentially cleaning up some muddiness in midbass
why don't you open a real music file with a popular dance track in a software that shows FFT analysis and find the fundamental of bass notes which is usually between 30 and 50 hz ... once you found that let's say 40 hz fundamental look at 80 hz, 120 hz, 160 hz and 200 hz ... surprise surprise ALL the harmonics are present at amplitude almost equal to the fundamental.
if they used real harmonics in the test the subjects would not be able to hear them at all.
forgot to mention one crucial point about the original topic of this thread ... high frequencies contain more information than low frequencies.
this is regardless of the ear-brain mechanism and what information it can extract from music - i'm talking about purely about the mathematical information content of the signal.
if you study wireless telecommunications you will learn that to transmit more information the frequency has to go up. this is why wireless telecommunications went from KHZ range for AM radio to MHZ range for FM radio to GHZ range for cell phones
it is the same for audio signals - higher frequencies contain more information, which is why MP3 compression sometimes cuts off everything above 16 khz to save on bitrate ... which at first may seem odd since the sampling rate remains at 44 khz yet the information above 16 khz is discarded because there is simply too much of it ... ( or am i wrong and it doesn't work this way ? correct me if i'm wrong )
from some of the charts i posted it is clear that the ear-brain can also extract more information from higher frequencies ... in the original post i talked about ear-brain and language / speech evolving simultaneously but forgot to mention this crucial aspect about information content ...
part of the reason why higher frequencies are more important to intelligibility is they simply contain more information ...
this is regardless of the ear-brain mechanism and what information it can extract from music - i'm talking about purely about the mathematical information content of the signal.
if you study wireless telecommunications you will learn that to transmit more information the frequency has to go up. this is why wireless telecommunications went from KHZ range for AM radio to MHZ range for FM radio to GHZ range for cell phones
it is the same for audio signals - higher frequencies contain more information, which is why MP3 compression sometimes cuts off everything above 16 khz to save on bitrate ... which at first may seem odd since the sampling rate remains at 44 khz yet the information above 16 khz is discarded because there is simply too much of it ... ( or am i wrong and it doesn't work this way ? correct me if i'm wrong )
from some of the charts i posted it is clear that the ear-brain can also extract more information from higher frequencies ... in the original post i talked about ear-brain and language / speech evolving simultaneously but forgot to mention this crucial aspect about information content ...
part of the reason why higher frequencies are more important to intelligibility is they simply contain more information ...
Correct me if im wrong:
Audio, audio digitizing and digital transmission are defined by frequency but they are very different fields and have little commonality.
High frequencies don't intrinsically "contain more information". In digital transmission higher carrier frequencies allow higher bit rate transmission. But that's a very misleading analogy in terms of music.
Music is dominated by frequency. Octaves are a doubling of frequency. So 10,000Hz to 20,000Hz only has one theoretical octave despite having 10,000 frequencies . But its not a musical octave. Theres little "information" in that band , even for the few people who can hear that high. The highest note played in an orchestra is about 5kHz on a piccolo. Above 10kHz there's no readily perceived pitch, no melody or harmony up there, its just a sense of "air". Try recognizing songs with a high pass set at 10kHz.
Digitizing analogue audio requires encoding amplitude and frequency. Lossless codecs will need the same bit cost to encode a tone of 20Hz or 20,000Hz. Lossy coding will dispose of what is not needed for perception. So cutting at 16kHz is an easy way to save data. I suspect most adults would not reliably differentiate music cut at 13kHz.