Wilson Alexx V
When I saw these I thought, " When did Home Depot start selling speakers?" (They even have wheels.)
When I saw these I thought, " When did Home Depot start selling speakers?" (They even have wheels.)
I thought that Gryphon amp was the most ridiculous looking thing I had ever seen but that D'Agostino stuff is beyond belief. More proof that the sense of aesthetics in the 21st century is moribund. Kind of like those Mercedes hood ornaments worn around rapper's necks a decade or so back. Who needs, or wants, any sense of proportion? Incongruity is now considered a design virtue.
When I see commercial loudspeakers that have a 10 inch center to center separation between midrange and tweeter it makes me laugh! Maybe that is why it is called "Avant Garde"??? 😀
I searched youtube for 'best highend speaker' and audio bacon calling this favorite this was the top result.
Some years ago I would have laughed right along with you. With the ability to measure and process polar behavior in the design of a system becomming so easily accessible I might not be so quick to laugh these days.
A nice current case in point:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/new-project-tower-3-way-with-twin-8s.378223/
I took a look at that thread. In the first post where you linked, the horizontal responses look OK, albeit with a very strong change in system directivity. But that is not where my concern lies, it's in the vertical plane. I found those responses after some searching, in post 99. The data is a simulation/model. Did the builder measure and post these (the off axis vertical responses are not as easy to measure)?
Anyway here is the sim of the vertical responses:
The 1k-4k Hz region that has responses crossing each other and with severe dips at some angles is considered "bad" in my book! This will happen with widely spaced drivers that are crossed "too high" for the distance between them. TBH, it's difficult to completely avoid these effectgs for any two non-coincident drivers, but in the case where the mid and tweeter are widely spaced you can pretty much guarantee this kind of significant response "flaw" will occur. When it is possible to place the tweeter and midrange next to each other, doing so will minimize these effects, as will using as low a crossover point as possible (in this case it already looks to be pretty low, around 1.75k Hz).
everytime i look at those transformer tweeter it looks like those Dalek from doctor who
^^ CharlieLaub, yeah the lobing is impossible to avoid with a multiway speaker that has a separate tweeter because the drivers cant be physically close enough to get them sum only constructively to all directions. Often such a system ends up with c-c spacing off 1/2wl or more at crossover frequency and quite severe nulls around the crossover to most directions, except main lobe. With 2Khz crossover driver spacing would need to be ~2" or less, its 17cm long, not gonna happen. This makes a dip in power response, also nulls towards first vertical reflections affecting perceived sound, timbre, as suggested by the power response already.
The point by increasing driver spacing and/or crossover frequency is to introduce the first side lobes. This smooths out the power reponse and gives possibility to have quite similar response towards first vertical reflections as direct sound.
Negative is that the main lobe gets narrower, so a reduced vertical sweetspot. But if one does the math, and always listens seated in the sweetspot its not much of a bad deal.
Now if all went well the side nulls between all the lobes point to listener ankles and above head contributing only to reverberant field and the nice side lobes point to ceiling and floor where first reflection happens and what you get is nice balanced sound that resembles the on-axis response.
Might not suit all situations and applications but for some it is a logical setup.
The point by increasing driver spacing and/or crossover frequency is to introduce the first side lobes. This smooths out the power reponse and gives possibility to have quite similar response towards first vertical reflections as direct sound.
Negative is that the main lobe gets narrower, so a reduced vertical sweetspot. But if one does the math, and always listens seated in the sweetspot its not much of a bad deal.
Now if all went well the side nulls between all the lobes point to listener ankles and above head contributing only to reverberant field and the nice side lobes point to ceiling and floor where first reflection happens and what you get is nice balanced sound that resembles the on-axis response.
Might not suit all situations and applications but for some it is a logical setup.
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tmuikku beat me with a better response than I would have written anyway.
Sims vs measurements look to start at post 211 in that thread.
On topic to the rest of this thread, I myself could NOT live with a Dalek speaker even if they exterminated off axis lobing. Lol
Sims vs measurements look to start at post 211 in that thread.
On topic to the rest of this thread, I myself could NOT live with a Dalek speaker even if they exterminated off axis lobing. Lol
As to driver spacing in the multiways i design i work to keep the drivers being crossed within a quarter wavelength so that lobing becomes moot.
dave
dave
Yeah, this can be done with bigger tweeter that can play to low frequency, to get wavelength long enough. This might also work fine on many applications but not for others. Basically this means big tweeter transducer which means beaming the highs and/or SPL limit, which might or might not be an issue. Certainly narrows sweetspot also in horizontal axis.
And yes looks is very important 🙂 That said I'd like speakers to disappear both visually and sonically, anti-highend 😉
And yes looks is very important 🙂 That said I'd like speakers to disappear both visually and sonically, anti-highend 😉
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