Standard Vituix colour scheme has dark blue as power and light blue as early reflections
Agreed with Vineeth.
+ there should be a new studies relating to
Explorations in distortion and directivity as it relates to loudspeaker design
Regardless of preference score, my hypothesis is that these three speakers are going to sound different in real (reverberant) rooms.
Click on one of 👆 above image and click left and right, and notice how they change.
Even if you equalise frequency response perfectly flat on axis- every other axis is different
+ there should be a new studies relating to
Explorations in distortion and directivity as it relates to loudspeaker design
Regardless of preference score, my hypothesis is that these three speakers are going to sound different in real (reverberant) rooms.
Click on one of 👆 above image and click left and right, and notice how they change.
Even if you equalise frequency response perfectly flat on axis- every other axis is different
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No, it was two unrelated messages in one paragraph, confusing indeed. Maybe your evaluation is valid or not, I don't know, I haven't build the system and listened to it. Makes sense that in comparison with a narrow radiating waveguide, a similar experience can be achieved with a wider radiation pattern when one leaves the LP and moves into the predominantly direct sound zone.
In any case, creating a LW/ON dip to achieve gradual SP is common in many old two-way bookshelf speakers. It kind of works for tonality, but direct sound is clearly compromised. We will hear even shallow linear frequency distortion if it has low Q. So why not use a shallow waveguide? I cannot see a technical argument. Others might be: because it can sound relaxed to dial down the precise region (in-build EQ), because customers want their tweeters on a flat baffle (style), because why bother the difficult calculation of a waveguide for a dome if you can get away with it like this (works for the most)?
Kimmo obviously values SP very high. His builds are obsessed with gradual SP curves, then comes ON/LW, after, DI. It is not that he is not strictly following his metrics.
Hi, yeah you've got the point.
Graphs are nice and easy, eyes see "sound visualized", which is very powerful information in nice simple package, and we humans like nice and simple magic bullet solutions don't we?🙂
Unfortunately this nice isolated data is not the whole truth as perception of sound through hearing system varies wildly depending on things like playback level, room acoustics and positioning. Having lots of variables makes perceived sound kind of confusing information and requires a lot of work to make sense and none of the variance is included in the static graph(s), which makes it relatively hard to connect the visual graphs to perceived sound and vice versa.
If one wants to get very good sounding playback setup in their room there is no other way than to start interpreting the sound through the hearing system and making connection how perceived sound relates to the visual graphs. Point is to learn what you like, how does your room affect your perception, what measures of speaker matter more than something else and in which circumstances and how it relates to your context. Try not to listen your speakers only, but listen your hearing system and your room, and your speakers within that context.
Not only is audio stimuli hard to understand it's hard to communicate over, if I told you what I hear and tried my best to communicate it over you'd clearly understand what I say but still it would be hard to connect the message to your perception of sound in your mind in a meaningful way, unless you already had a (perceptual) context or framework to associate my words with. At least this is how I have felt, words and concepts are easy to understand as such but how they actually sound like? how do I know I'm actually listening what I'm supposed to? What am I even supposed to be listening to, what exactly does concept x sound like? Can it even happen in my room and speakers?
In this respect Kimmosto has good head start, as you say, years of experience behind with speakers and with various rooms, lots of listening and lots of visualized data to accompany. Similarly, what Kimmosto says might not make much sense until one has gained enough listening experience to fully understand what he is writing about, and why, all the small nyance of the wording he chose, and for what context it applies to and how it relates to your perception of sound. Even though he has a long track record on this it doesn't mean he has heard your situation or that your preference is same as his preference, (perhaps he has, but do you know your situation and listening experience?!) so reading his comments like a bible doesn't help much either and one just have to try and develop listening experience to be able to relate his message to one's perception, and vice versa.
Making/buying a speaker with nice graphs can be a good head start toward good sound, but to get any better than that needs listening skill. It's all about understanding what we actually hear; to be able to develop my system for better sound I must first learn/refine what I want to hear, then refine how my room affects perception in order to be able to reason what kind of a loudspeaker system could provide what I like, in my room and practical constraints, and how to tune the system. Now that I've understood my context better I can relate message of others to my context and to my perception and make good use of it.
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@tmuikku: I completely agree to what you are saying, especially the part about not taking Kimmosto's comments like a bible without understanding what he intended to convey in the first place.. I used to do that earlier, blindly take his words out of a post and follow it and not put it in the context he might have intended .. An example of that happened here: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/a-3-way-design-study.376620/post-7143007 🙂
However, Kimmosto's (and some others' opinions/posts about speakers) posts over here and on other forums have been serving as (sort of) my literature survey on prior art in the area and giving me broad guidelines about what to expect and what all to pay attention to in the design. Now I am trying to experiment, make my own judgements about sound and associated things.. 🙂
This is one of the reasons why I keep making one speaker after the other (and have made this thread unnecessarily longer than its title suggests.. 😀) with different directivities and other aspects. Sometimes, comparing between two things helps me understand a concept better, especially when that concept is about sound. And the literature survey part helps me with a reference.
With wireless system design, it is often easy for me. Most of the time, I know what to expect. With sound system design, I am most often lost, wandering from one thing/aspect to the other, wondering about whether this thing or the other thing made a change in the perceived sound.
To have some sanity amid this madness, this forum, Kimmosto's and others posts help me a lot 🙂
However, Kimmosto's (and some others' opinions/posts about speakers) posts over here and on other forums have been serving as (sort of) my literature survey on prior art in the area and giving me broad guidelines about what to expect and what all to pay attention to in the design. Now I am trying to experiment, make my own judgements about sound and associated things.. 🙂
This is one of the reasons why I keep making one speaker after the other (and have made this thread unnecessarily longer than its title suggests.. 😀) with different directivities and other aspects. Sometimes, comparing between two things helps me understand a concept better, especially when that concept is about sound. And the literature survey part helps me with a reference.
With wireless system design, it is often easy for me. Most of the time, I know what to expect. With sound system design, I am most often lost, wandering from one thing/aspect to the other, wondering about whether this thing or the other thing made a change in the perceived sound.
To have some sanity amid this madness, this forum, Kimmosto's and others posts help me a lot 🙂
Kimmo in my view has captured his experience in a tool vituixcad, and in his rather direct yet nice wording explained aspects based on experience. And has no problem in opposing aspects presented by others , yet almost always with his experience. The effort to develop and test variants is reduce significantly compared to my very past experience. Vituixcad is very valuable in this. Yet voicing is and remains so the final step from measurement to enyoing music.
I have heard Be tweeters a lot (mostly Yamaha vapor-deposited series, Focals second), and, IMO, their level of sound quality is marginally, if at all, better than of their mundane cousins. Also, good tweeters are good not because of dome material, but due to careful design of other parts: surround, magnetic circuit, back cavity, etc. Moreover, system design far outweights use of exotic super-drivers (not that Kimmo lacks in this department, of course). After all, 25 mm tweeter can be made pistonic up to 16-20 kHz with about any rigid lightweight material, and beryllium has no measurable advantage here. Only when designing large compression drivers material properties themselves begin to be a constraint, and for traditional dome-shaped diaphragm Be is about the only material that can be shaped into a 120 mm diaphragm and still cover full range up to 20 kHz.
I guess he just doesn't bother to design his own waveguides, and most of the commercially available are just too narrow for a wide directivity narrow baffle tower speaker. Still, every baffle is a waveguide, his tweeter have a rudimentary waveguide too, so purpose-designed wide dispersion WG with a DI of about 5 will be definitely superrior to slapping tweeter on a baffle and correcting SP with direct sound dip. Probably a minor improvement, but I don't get this waveguide aversion.
I've found this is the key, having at least two different perspectives on any particular thing enables use of logic, which allows path to reach some truth, to some understanding. If we only had one perspective, there is almost no way to know if it is better or worse than something else, I mean there is a truth but no way to evaluate it against something else, so there is no understanding but perhaps ignorance or confusion. And it's not a concept just for audio perception but everything, earth seems flat from low altitude and if everyone in the village keeps saying it's flat then it probably is true, right?
Having perspectives bridges to the audible critical distance thing I've been preaching a lot about 😀 See Griesinger's limit of localization distance, LLD. At some listening distance perception seems to shift, a transition happens, and one can change perceived sound at will by moving little closer or further from speakers around the transition distance, which gives two different perspectives on your stereo sound provided by your hearing system. Holding Griesinger studies at hand as a map naming the things you supposed to be hearing either side of the transition. Now there is two perspectives on perceived sound you can connect your logic to and start getting understanding things like: how your room affects perceived sound, how positioning and toe-in affects perceived sound, how your hearing system works to be able to pick good listening spot in any listening situation, to figure out what "hifi stereo" sound you like, provides a glimpse to what the mixing engineer was listening to and optimized your favorite recordings for etc. For example, there is now a tool to evaluate which one to compromise on CTA2034 graph if you have to, listening window or power response, and why. And any number of tests one comes up with.
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Hi, read for example https://www.akutek.info/Mitt Bibliotek/IOA Auditorium Acoustics Hamburg 2018/Additional/papers/p35.pdf or any Griesinger paper you find, here is his web site http://www.davidgriesinger.com/
Basically the map part is: "the transition", shift in perception, happens due to hearing system losing / gaining involuntary attention to sound source. By definition, beyond the transtion brain is not considering the sound important and localization is not very good, clarity is gone, there is no envelopment but just spaciousness. It's just some sound from direction of speakers. Contrary, when you are close enough so that brain gets involuntary attention on the sound, as the sound pops up above noise brain considers it important, engagement happens, clarity, envelopment. What happens is the sound and background noise are now separated in two neural streams and you can observe both, brain considers the message in recording important and gives focus to it, lifts it on it's own neural stream giving attention, while suppressing noise (room sound) turning it to envelopment. Beyond the transition it's just one neural stream, hearing system considers sound of your stereo a noise, if taking this stuff literally, and what you hear is speakers and room sound merged into one hazy blob with poor clarity and localization.
So, if you identify the transition with your home stereo setup, which defines brain considering sound of your stereo important or not you can start applying logic on what you perceive, and then ask questions and get answers. Use it on concepts like:
and so on 😉
While Griesinger and other "real studies" are as real as they can be, this stuff is largely my own observations with my stereo system in my living room with assumption what I'm hearing is indeed what Griesinger writes about in his papers. Still, what ever the transition is I've been able to utilize it to adjust my system for better sound and to get understanding on a lot of stuff, been able to link written concepts to my perception, and vice versa. I'm assuming it's all true, and that the transition is there with most stereo speakers and rooms, just make the listening triangle small enough depending on room acoustics and speaker DI.
Basically the map part is: "the transition", shift in perception, happens due to hearing system losing / gaining involuntary attention to sound source. By definition, beyond the transtion brain is not considering the sound important and localization is not very good, clarity is gone, there is no envelopment but just spaciousness. It's just some sound from direction of speakers. Contrary, when you are close enough so that brain gets involuntary attention on the sound, as the sound pops up above noise brain considers it important, engagement happens, clarity, envelopment. What happens is the sound and background noise are now separated in two neural streams and you can observe both, brain considers the message in recording important and gives focus to it, lifts it on it's own neural stream giving attention, while suppressing noise (room sound) turning it to envelopment. Beyond the transition it's just one neural stream, hearing system considers sound of your stereo a noise, if taking this stuff literally, and what you hear is speakers and room sound merged into one hazy blob with poor clarity and localization.
So, if you identify the transition with your home stereo setup, which defines brain considering sound of your stereo important or not you can start applying logic on what you perceive, and then ask questions and get answers. Use it on concepts like:
- Figure out if you like the sharp and enveloping sound closer than the transition, or more relaxed sound beyond.
- clarity, if you like the relaxed sound beyond transition, it will never have clarity like in closer than the transition would
- if you like clarity and gravitate listen in close proximity, but on some recordings make you vomit, it's likely the mixing engineer listened further away as well or he would have vomited, it just sounds better further away and that's it, enjoy.
- not hearing envelopment, sound around you, on the close proximity? you should, if not, then try do something about it, increase sound in room by toe-in or something, positioning, another set of speakers, what ever you now hear makes the envelopment better to you in your room.
- why would some people like horn speakers and some don't? perhaps one reason is they like sound either sides of the transition, and horn speakers extend it further out in the room, all the way to the sofa. If this is true, then similar sound should be achievable with direct radiating speaker as well, just shrink listening distance until it happens.
- why would some say lateral early reflections are good, while some say they are not?
- why would horizontal or vertical directivity matter?
- what about phase matching on crossover if by definition beyond transition your brain has lost track of phase already? Perhaps it moves the transtion further out?
- How envelopment is affected if my speakers are long or short wall on the room? what about a corner setup?
and so on 😉
While Griesinger and other "real studies" are as real as they can be, this stuff is largely my own observations with my stereo system in my living room with assumption what I'm hearing is indeed what Griesinger writes about in his papers. Still, what ever the transition is I've been able to utilize it to adjust my system for better sound and to get understanding on a lot of stuff, been able to link written concepts to my perception, and vice versa. I'm assuming it's all true, and that the transition is there with most stereo speakers and rooms, just make the listening triangle small enough depending on room acoustics and speaker DI.
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Sorry my post is bit of a bad English, hopefully it's readable enough to give you a spark to explore the stuff on your own 🙂
Point in the whole thing is that utilizing the transition you can be conscious about your hearing system doing it's thing in your room with your system, which you can now use as a basis to your perceptual exploration giving you confidence to know what you are actually hearing. Since the transition is such an on/off effect, you can always find it and refer either side of it quite reliably, and start to wonder and discover things from inside out, perception first, and be confident about what is it you hear since there is a reference you can check against, at will.
This is opposite what I've been used to; read about something and then figure out what it (might) sound like, giving lots uncertainty if I heard it or not, which has been very hard thing to overcome constantly questioning myself what am I supposed to be listening to, what am I supposed to hear, how do I know I'm hearing or not hearing it, and so on? Using the transition, it all emerges from inside out in a way, no confusion at all, you'd hear something peculiar and could device a test to explore it further (like changing toe-in, or delay on your tweeter), listen both sides of the transition and then be able to connect the perception to a written concept leaving no uncertainty at all.
I remember when I realized this stuff and spending only little time listening both sides the transition I'd kind of immediately recognize how my room affects the sound, it was very quick to learn about it. Room sound is now very easy to detect in all kinds of scenarios, on a live venue for example, and it's relatively easy to gravitate towards listening position I know I like.
Somehow finding the transition and utilizing some logic has been a revelation, it has unlocked listening skills in a way, removed lots of confusion about what I hear. It's a light in darkness, gives perspective and something to hold on to.
I hope this would work for all of us, and that's why I've been spamming the message hopefully luring others to try it and hopefully comment if found useful, or misleading, to see if this is something real and not just me getting too deep on the hobby 😀
Point in the whole thing is that utilizing the transition you can be conscious about your hearing system doing it's thing in your room with your system, which you can now use as a basis to your perceptual exploration giving you confidence to know what you are actually hearing. Since the transition is such an on/off effect, you can always find it and refer either side of it quite reliably, and start to wonder and discover things from inside out, perception first, and be confident about what is it you hear since there is a reference you can check against, at will.
This is opposite what I've been used to; read about something and then figure out what it (might) sound like, giving lots uncertainty if I heard it or not, which has been very hard thing to overcome constantly questioning myself what am I supposed to be listening to, what am I supposed to hear, how do I know I'm hearing or not hearing it, and so on? Using the transition, it all emerges from inside out in a way, no confusion at all, you'd hear something peculiar and could device a test to explore it further (like changing toe-in, or delay on your tweeter), listen both sides of the transition and then be able to connect the perception to a written concept leaving no uncertainty at all.
I remember when I realized this stuff and spending only little time listening both sides the transition I'd kind of immediately recognize how my room affects the sound, it was very quick to learn about it. Room sound is now very easy to detect in all kinds of scenarios, on a live venue for example, and it's relatively easy to gravitate towards listening position I know I like.
Somehow finding the transition and utilizing some logic has been a revelation, it has unlocked listening skills in a way, removed lots of confusion about what I hear. It's a light in darkness, gives perspective and something to hold on to.
I hope this would work for all of us, and that's why I've been spamming the message hopefully luring others to try it and hopefully comment if found useful, or misleading, to see if this is something real and not just me getting too deep on the hobby 😀
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About those Taipuu Keros, if I remember right Kimmo said on some forum that he was asked to not use a waveguide - because many potential buyers dont "like to see" them.
Actually he hasn't done many commercial designs and still has daytime work in other area of engineering. He has wiped off his older (experimental diy) designs from his homepage, most of them with deep horns. He said that at that time he sort of tried too hard to fight against room effect by maximizing directivity. As many of us know from experience, very high DI easily leads to too clinical/dry sound, much like wearing headphones. It might be ok for a single listener sitting spot-on the spot, but awful for typical domestic recreational listening.
Actually he hasn't done many commercial designs and still has daytime work in other area of engineering. He has wiped off his older (experimental diy) designs from his homepage, most of them with deep horns. He said that at that time he sort of tried too hard to fight against room effect by maximizing directivity. As many of us know from experience, very high DI easily leads to too clinical/dry sound, much like wearing headphones. It might be ok for a single listener sitting spot-on the spot, but awful for typical domestic recreational listening.
Another speaker along the same lines as Kimmosto's design. 🙂
Direct radiating tweeter with 5.5inch woofer (compared to the 6.5inch on Taipuu speakers)
Relatively large c-c between drivers. Tiny shallow dip on axis, linear in room and power response, mild directivity S-curve spread out over a broad range of frequencies.
And most importantly it seems to sound good across genres according to Erin.. 😉
Direct radiating tweeter with 5.5inch woofer (compared to the 6.5inch on Taipuu speakers)
Relatively large c-c between drivers. Tiny shallow dip on axis, linear in room and power response, mild directivity S-curve spread out over a broad range of frequencies.
And most importantly it seems to sound good across genres according to Erin.. 😉
Kimmosto's criticism of waveguides struck me the moment I read it. Their high frequency clarity outshines low frequencies so it draws your attention toward the highs. Not SPL level or intensity but the clarity itself draws your attention. That might make it psychologically difficult to balance your attention over the full spectrum.
I think Dave @ Ascend Acoustics is doing better designs now that he's doing some CTA2034A measurements, prioritising sound power, total early reflections and predicted in-room response over simply the on-axis response, which can only be done if one takes full polar measurements when designing the crossover.
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I don't see it as a criticism. More of a preference. I mean, what is the reference?
If many recordings of the past 50+ years have been on speakers sans waveguides, a waveguided speaker is going to have a different dispersion/directivity pattern. Of course the room is a BIG factor, but the room is highly variable.
Seems to me like we're still having the Circle of Confusion problem.
Until some organization like AES or ITU or NHK formalises a directivity standard, akin to a Colour Standard for displays, we'll be having "fun with audio" until the cows come home.
I can show you two or 3 speakers with virtually the same on-axis SPL (because I am afforded the luxury of DSP, allowing for heavily optimised frequency response, (+/- 0.25 dB)), but they sound completely different!
When you wonder why, if you look at the vertical and horizontal polars in colour, you'll see a completely different picture.
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