Everything is a compromise - isn't it ? You may be quite right but intelligibility and authority are not the same.
The smaller woofer might indeed give better intelligibility due to less beaming and therfore delivering more off axis energy in the frequency range where intelligibility sits. And the higher crossover frequency allows for less group-delay distortion. But no one said that one has to use an LR4 crossover with a 8" woofer.
regards
Charles
The smaller woofer might indeed give better intelligibility due to less beaming and therfore delivering more off axis energy in the frequency range where intelligibility sits. And the higher crossover frequency allows for less group-delay distortion. But no one said that one has to use an LR4 crossover with a 8" woofer.
regards
Charles
Taste is the most important factor for sure but as far as any meaningful "objective quality" is concerned there are facts as well.
Fact is that "the midrange is where we live".
160-3000 Hz? Singing - more like 80-1100 with overtones much much higher. Typical speech - 85 to 180 Hz for male voice and 165 to 255 Hz for female voice.
Take a look:
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An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Another fact is that the "middle" C is around 260 Hz
How about that?
So
a midrange handled by the tweeter?
What is it you are agreeing here? Only one point: 8" is the minimum, agree or not. Or more, musical midrange is not 300-3000 but 160-1600. No straw man.
What have I said? Did I say that we live in bass instead of midrange??
And?? Those numbers are from your post, 160-1600 and 300-3000, meaning it covers the two bands you specified. Please note your own word: "overtones".
If you crossed at 1kHz. From pic you showed, midrange is from 120(?) to 6000 Hz. The point was, if the critical midrange is handled by one driver alone, you are save from ugly crossover design skill. It has nothing to do with science but own limitation. The worst compromise in speaker design is avoiding complexity because of incapability.
Sure, but there's no such thing as too much intelligibility, but too much authority.
Long time ago I always focus on the lower range of male focal. It is generally difficult with small midrange. But later when I concentrate more on accuracy, I have learned that there is "larger than life", "fuller" issue. It may sound cool, but wrong.
still, it's just the upper end of the midrange
You mean the division of the frequency bands at the bottom of this one?
That part of this chart is the typicially misleading part of it, I posted the chart just because it shows the range of the overtones correctly.
still 2-way 8''+1'' is a classic nearfield studio design, right?
3-ways with dedicated midrange are there when more bass extension and more SPL is needed which means a bigger woofer like 12'' - it is not about "more intelligibility" at all
Moreover when the woofer is just 10'' even a midfield monitor can be just 2-way 10''+1'' - a contemporary example: Genelec 1032B - A Compact Bi-Amplified Monitoring System
with the 1.8 kHz crossover point just like the vintage Yamaha NS500 I mentioned above
best,
graaf
more examples:
BM15A
crossover point at 1.8 kHz as well
AIR15
crossover point at 2150 Hz!
1976 vs 2014:
http://knisi2001.web.fc2.com/ns-500-h.jpg
http://dynaudioprofessional.com/media/6378/bm15a_persp.png
whatever happened to all this alleged so called progress??
(Yamaha is equipped with an AlNiCo magnet in the woofer and a Beryllium diaphragm in the tweeter)
BM15A
crossover point at 1.8 kHz as well
AIR15
crossover point at 2150 Hz!
1976 vs 2014:
http://knisi2001.web.fc2.com/ns-500-h.jpg
http://dynaudioprofessional.com/media/6378/bm15a_persp.png
whatever happened to all this alleged so called progress??
(Yamaha is equipped with an AlNiCo magnet in the woofer and a Beryllium diaphragm in the tweeter)
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Yes, yes and yes. I'm well aware of all of it. The only thing I am not is how 8" is a minimum.
Btw why it seems that you think that such studio monitors are reference level?
Ok Ok! Not "a minimum", let's say instead "the most reasonable choice", Ok?
Mainly because of this: www.linkwitzlab.com/spl_max1.xls
Because they are the choice of the people who need a reference level in their daily job, making a living, not just for amusement like audiophiles.
Let me ask You in turn - why it seems that you think that such studio monitors represent
?
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It is not as it seems. I have never said or related such studio monitor with that "avoiding complexity" compromise. May be cost and space is the compromise, I don't know. But I have never found (first hand) studios with sufficient attention to speaker reproduction accuracy. At lower level, they are just like audiogon users. They ask (instead of design) and choose according to available knowledge and budget (which often is restricted either).
Of course it would be more expensive to use two woofers. The price of say a 5.25 inch and 8 inch from the same range is not half, more like 75%.
Then, in order to stop the midrange becoming smeared from two sources, you need to make the design 2.5 way. So up goes crossover complexity.
Now cost has increased a fair bit... Cabinet volume may be a little less or may be about the same, but now it doesn't go as deep because the Fs of the smaller drivers is higher.
Then, in order to stop the midrange becoming smeared from two sources, you need to make the design 2.5 way. So up goes crossover complexity.
Now cost has increased a fair bit... Cabinet volume may be a little less or may be about the same, but now it doesn't go as deep because the Fs of the smaller drivers is higher.
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Don't know any. I think studio requirement is less critical. They only need to be "Nearfield" quality. May be they even need to know how the recording will sound with average consumer speakers.
oh well we could argue whether it's more like 75% or 65% or is it necessary to buy smaller woofers from the same range and so on
but:
we could argue whether it's really necessary to go 2.5 but truth is that it would be effectively a 3 way, and I know no such 2.5 way studio monitor, perhaps because it would be worse by design anyway:
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