ok another sidebar gone awry.
so let's look at the issue a little differently.
anyone care to submit their personal favorites in the "really good horn" category.
frequency range along with intended application is open season.
so let's look at the issue a little differently.
anyone care to submit their personal favorites in the "really good horn" category.
frequency range along with intended application is open season.
I had/heard bass horns that are terrible, all of them folded with sharp corners and used too high. I think folded bass horns need to be used low, probably below 120 cycles or so where they can be excellent. In a home if you plan on using them (seems people build a lot of transmission lines "tapped horns" for this now) they should service as low frequency range devices a- they should also take advantage of the walls floor. ceiling boundary's. I recently replaced my corner horns with six low tuned BR 18's and have to say it is better (JBL 2242) but still use as a main subwoofer a floor/wall/corner loaded 2242 in a folded horn.
Straight bass horns properly placed with the right drivers (80 cycles up becomes "practical") up to around 600-800 cycles are IMHO the king of tone, transient impact, live uncompressed sound playback. A couple of watts and you have realistic "whole body" playback experience. Below the 80 cycle range you need many low distortion high efficiency drivers to keep up with this all out emotional bliss. To understand this for what it is you have to have it in your room, otherwise in my opinion your opinion is pretty much irrelevant and you should stick with what you know.
Straight bass horns properly placed with the right drivers (80 cycles up becomes "practical") up to around 600-800 cycles are IMHO the king of tone, transient impact, live uncompressed sound playback. A couple of watts and you have realistic "whole body" playback experience. Below the 80 cycle range you need many low distortion high efficiency drivers to keep up with this all out emotional bliss. To understand this for what it is you have to have it in your room, otherwise in my opinion your opinion is pretty much irrelevant and you should stick with what you know.
My sentiment exactly . . .
I have no reason to care what you think you hear.
Earl, on the other hand (even when we disagree), presents evidence . . .
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Let me state that unless I post proof, I see my opinions as just my opinions. In my opinion. They are honest opinions of a guy who bought a couple of planes and houses and three divorces mixing audio. Hell even my ex wives would give me that much credit. 😀
I have elsewhere, but it's been a while.
While I understand the advantages and hear what multiple subs placed around the room are doing, I find the loss of directionality not to my taste. Bass envelopment vs bass location is partly a matter of taste. One of the things I love about big, strong bass cabinets in stereo is their ability to give me the "feel" of a venue, more than it's sound. From good stereo subs in a well treated room, the feel of the recording venue can be palpable. I enjoy that - it's a big part of the fun for me. Distributed subs give me the sound, without the dimensions.
Caveat: I seem to be better than average at locating bass direction. In blind tests with a number of friends, including sound engineers, I was much better at resolving bass direction than anyone else. That is probably not rare, just a little unusual. But if you have never heard a stereo system with clean, solid bass, you may not know what you are missing.
Pano try that test with pure sine wave below 40. Fyi it is the transients giving us direction cues.
Pano - so you don't buy Griesinger's claim that bass envelopment involves a multiplicity of signals arriving from random directions? He seems to have studied this problem a lot and that is his conclusion. Doesn't jib with your claim. But I guess that you are saying that you don't like "envelopment" - although that is a major criteria for a good concert hall.
Oh, I like it OK. But it's a different effect. I would rather have good bass envelopment than bad bass of another kind. But proper stereo bass sounds more realistic to me. Bass all around is a cool effect, but does not give me the "window into the venue" effect that I enjoy.
I have. I can locate it. So it's not just the transients, at least not for me. And please don't get started on the "your tone was not pure" debate. We've been there, done that. All accounted for.
The best sub bass systems I've ever heard have been either horns or large IB systems, of these only the horns have been reasonably flat in room, within +-5dB 15-100Hz. They have all been an integrated part of the house of their owners. Any horn will at these low frequencies have a small mouth and a peaky response close to their cut-off. This response can be fairly well matched to the room response, especially if one makes the horn mouth close to the full width of the room.That way one only have room modes in two dimensions to deal with. The sound of such a horn is deep, dynamic and for lack of a better word, feather-light. It does not draw any attention to itself, it just IS in a way no other system can match. Close to 50% efficiency down to 16Hz is fantastic! I have been a part of building three horns like these, of which one was my own for a few years and it was hard to let go of it a few years back when I sold the house.
BR,
Anders
BR,
Anders
I've been living with Khorn Klones for decades. They are not immune to room modes unless you've got a big room and drop like a stone below about 40Hz.
The bass section does make a good sub.😀 But if you want to get below 35 - 40 Hz you need to find an alternative.
For proper envelopment I need at least one more sub.😱
Earl, I've been thinking about this and want to give a good answer, but can't. I believe that I have looked at Giesinger's work (likely at your suggestion) but don't remember details.
I certainly don't argue with the claim quoted above. It seems the very definition of bass envelopment. It's just not something I want to favor over a more directional bass in playback. Bass seems to be very taste specific, so opinions are strong and all over the map.
Combination of both depending on level, but I can hear LF in the 5 Hz range from clean headphones at relatively low SPL (for that frequency range).
Many people seem unable to hear that low, they only "feel" it.
Art
wow my last test with an audiologist the lowest frequency sine i could detect at a -35 db level was 28 hz
square or triangle i could detect 22 hz and that's with the audiologists test set.
square or triangle i could detect 22 hz and that's with the audiologists test set.
This has been studied extensively in the automotive market for decades. The answer is both. In a car, its mostly feel. In a home, if your house and furniture are very rigid, its mostly hearing, but neither homes nor furniture are rigid and both and coloration through mechanical means.
And its a gradual progressive loss "feeling" until its gone at about 150 Hz.
And, of course, if you are losing your hear then you mostly "feel" it, but there is some bone conduction to the audio neurons, which does get lost when the hearing goes.
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Lidia, my wife, is a Professor of Audiology and a practicing clinician and she would laugh at this claim. No "audiologist" or equipment is recognized at 28 Hz. If your "audiologist" did this then are not to be taken seriously.
Hearing a 22Hz square or triangle wave would mean you were hearing 66Hz, 110Hz, 154Hz, and all the other odd harmonics at the same time.
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