Hi Stefanoo,
Well, there are different types of people. 🙂 Room treatment alone is rarely affordable or realistic for many home listeners. I'm happy to compromise with moderate room treatment and DSP in the subwoofer. 🙂
Personally I think digital is much better than it used to be, so DSP is much more palatable. The people who are doing all analog will not do DSP either. All my music is digitally sourced, for convenience and preference. I don't have a problem with it, but I do have strong preferences for DAC's, amps and preamps.
To be honest, I listen to music without DSP at all. Measures and sounds great, but for movies, nothing pisses me off more than seeing an M1 Abrams tank roll across my screen but feeling it like a Soviet T-44. 😀 😀 😀 so I use DSP in the sub and the center channel. Plus, my center channel placement is not flexible.
Ok, I am kidding about the tanks. What I mean is, for me, I'm good with modest DSP and room treatment carefully applied. It's the people who will buy $2,000 on speaker cables to barely change the tonal balance of their system, but won't add room treatment because they feel it's unnatural that bothers me. 🙂
In the modern day of HT receivers though, there are many more people listening with "room correction" than before, as well as hobbyists playing with DiracLive, miniDSP, DEQX than before. I'm happy to see it's a pretty vibrant community.
In fact, i don't know if most home music listeners actually know how many A/D, DSP or D/A steps the music they listen to is undergoing. The earliest units I know of doing this was Theta, but A/D and DSP have become defacto standards in mass market receivers, though the quality of the sound is quite variable too.
I've also tried using my sub/dsp setup for music. IT was too much "meh" for me to bother with. That is, I rarely listen to music that would make enough of a difference to bother trying to integrate the sub and music system. On the other hand, the sub for movies is transformational. 🙂
Not saying no music benefitted, or that no jazz or classical has bass. Just the effort wasn't worth it.
Did I ever run into true digital artifacts that made me feel the sound quality degrated? No. All my problems were related to speaker and room integration. Once dealt with, it was seamless and you could not tell.
Best,
Erik
Well, there are different types of people. 🙂 Room treatment alone is rarely affordable or realistic for many home listeners. I'm happy to compromise with moderate room treatment and DSP in the subwoofer. 🙂
Personally I think digital is much better than it used to be, so DSP is much more palatable. The people who are doing all analog will not do DSP either. All my music is digitally sourced, for convenience and preference. I don't have a problem with it, but I do have strong preferences for DAC's, amps and preamps.
To be honest, I listen to music without DSP at all. Measures and sounds great, but for movies, nothing pisses me off more than seeing an M1 Abrams tank roll across my screen but feeling it like a Soviet T-44. 😀 😀 😀 so I use DSP in the sub and the center channel. Plus, my center channel placement is not flexible.
Ok, I am kidding about the tanks. What I mean is, for me, I'm good with modest DSP and room treatment carefully applied. It's the people who will buy $2,000 on speaker cables to barely change the tonal balance of their system, but won't add room treatment because they feel it's unnatural that bothers me. 🙂
In the modern day of HT receivers though, there are many more people listening with "room correction" than before, as well as hobbyists playing with DiracLive, miniDSP, DEQX than before. I'm happy to see it's a pretty vibrant community.
In fact, i don't know if most home music listeners actually know how many A/D, DSP or D/A steps the music they listen to is undergoing. The earliest units I know of doing this was Theta, but A/D and DSP have become defacto standards in mass market receivers, though the quality of the sound is quite variable too.
I've also tried using my sub/dsp setup for music. IT was too much "meh" for me to bother with. That is, I rarely listen to music that would make enough of a difference to bother trying to integrate the sub and music system. On the other hand, the sub for movies is transformational. 🙂
Not saying no music benefitted, or that no jazz or classical has bass. Just the effort wasn't worth it.
Did I ever run into true digital artifacts that made me feel the sound quality degrated? No. All my problems were related to speaker and room integration. Once dealt with, it was seamless and you could not tell.
Best,
Erik
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Erik,
no kidding it makes total sense to me. I wouldn't go to any movie theater unless room was perfectly calibrated, it simply doesn't make much sense.
DSP or room treatment strongly depends IMO on whether anybody uses their system mostly for home theater or 2 ch audio listening as I feel demands are widely different.
Either way, in both cases, room has to be addressed in one way or another. Perhaps I believe in audio channel, since I am fond of pure Analog listening, it makes most sense to have fully analog chain with room correction done by tubes and panels (if that is possible for both budget and room possibilities), while in Audio theater mode, having DSP with small room correction done by curtains and panels.
Just my two cents...
From a technical standpoint there's some merit in moving dome resonance as far above the 20kHz passband as possible, but in practice, anything above about 30kHz is more than far enough to avoid in-band consequences.
Even I as an owner concede that the diamond dome is 99% marketing.
I've heard many fine tweeters, including the beryllium domes used by focal and Revel, the silk dome used by Wilson, as well as the esteemed Raal ribbons. To my ears they all sound excellent, though subtly different, but at this level I suspect it's the implementation that matters more than the tweeter itself.
Fwiw, the tweeters in your Signature 800's are really outstanding IMHO, and overall, as good as any tweeter I've heard, and they're devoid of any exotic or expensive materials.
Stefanoo, I agree. 🙂 I am still setting up my panels and bass traps. I wouldn't listen otherwise! I think we are saying the same thing. Come to SF and listen sometime.
Id say that to Art, but he's a bit fussy. 😀 😀
Id say that to Art, but he's a bit fussy. 😀 😀
Thank you Erik, really appreciate your invite. If I go in that area I will definitely let you know as I would love to listen to your system.
Same goes with you, if you are in the Chicago/Milwaukee area, please stop by my place.
This is really interesting! Thank you for sharing your experience on this.
It also makes me wonder if the D3 series will indeed sound any better than D2 at this point, given they are using same XO, same tweeter and same distance for the tweeter. 😕
Art,
This is a stupid question and probably brings the thread back to the very first post here, except we understood that bringing the tweeter 1/4lamda ahead and using a first order XO was a poor choice but, if I would get diamond tweeter and place it on my signature speaker, just the dome with the magnets (not replacing the hosing, using the same exact crossover, same phase alignment, would it make any difference?
Accordingly to your measurements, there is a difference only above audible band, which should not be heard, but could potentially lower distortion on the audible band...but would this work at all?
Stefano,
you're not the tweaking kind of a guy. Just leave this high end product as it is.
Don't worry, be happy with this magnificient piece of furniture. You know what I mean.
you're not the tweaking kind of a guy. Just leave this high end product as it is.
Don't worry, be happy with this magnificient piece of furniture. You know what I mean.
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I'm kind of with Lojzek. Tweaking something that expensive.... best to trade it in and build your own or buy something you don't feel the need to get your hands into.
Now, if I was as enamored of the B&W look as I am Sophia Vergara's body, I might be tempted to rip the crossover out completely and make a tri-amped system with DSP active crossover. 🙂 However, I've heard B&W run like that too. Meh.
Best,
Erik
Now, if I was as enamored of the B&W look as I am Sophia Vergara's body, I might be tempted to rip the crossover out completely and make a tri-amped system with DSP active crossover. 🙂 However, I've heard B&W run like that too. Meh.
Best,
Erik
I get to hear 800 Sigs at a friend's house every few weeks so I'm very familiar with them. There is IMHO a (very) subtle difference at the very top, but if anything, the Sig tweeter is perhaps the sweeter sounding of the two, and the Diamond a touch more clinically accurate.
I also think there's a bit more energy in the 15-20kHz region from the Sig tweeter.
Of course it's impossible to know exactly how the Diamond tweeter would sound in your Sig 800's with its different alignment, but if it was me I wouldn't be inclined to tamper.
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At some point in the future I intend to go dsp active too.
To do it properly, employ a fixed time delay on the tweeter to bring it into time-alignment, and use a combination of passive and active crossover elements to create higher order slopes. It's desirable to use a series cap on the tweeter for some dc protection of course.
makes sense. Maybe in the future if I find a good deal on a pair of diamond tweeters, I might fit them there to see how they sound with the current alignment and crossover.
I don't know what you mean.
But...maybe what you don't know about me is that I design and build audio gears that if you see and listen to you will faint 😎
This to say, yes I am a tweaking kind of guy, I fully understand electronics and audio in general, not sure if your comment was directed to the tweeter's question or my view point on active DSPs for hi-end audio use.
Some simulated visuals based on the raw tweeter measurements Art Vandelay shared into post 591, system band-passes is minimum phase domain based but real XO points is omitted because i don't know the exact data and if added will make a huge difference to time domain seen in waterfall and wavelet.
First picture show the creation of replica roll off impulse responses in Rephase program, second picture show their performance and third picture waterfall plot diamond and alu verse a perfect impulse 20Hz-16kHz BW2 bandpass.
First picture show the creation of replica roll off impulse responses in Rephase program, second picture show their performance and third picture waterfall plot diamond and alu verse a perfect impulse 20Hz-16kHz BW2 bandpass.
Attachments
Reading the thread from the very beginning, I was under impression
that you are not the kind of a person to undertake heavy modifications
to make the product undeniably better.
Of course, you are right and I was wrong! Tweaking assumes exchanging
parts for another and you indeed were/are contemplating of exchanging
the tweeter unit under the right circumstances.
Still, the advice from B&W technician you got earlier, sounded very reasonable
to me and I think Art said similar. I'd seriously consider it. Good luck in any case!
A bit OT, but I was at a meeting yesterday with the local hi-fi club, and the guest presenter was a speaker designer with 40 years experience, including a stint with Linn in Scotland.
In his view, the most important parameters are non-linear distortion and on-axis response.
His goal is to produce a speaker with distortion levels below 0.1% above 100Hz. His current flagship speaker is fully active, using DSP for crossovers and freq / time domain correction.
In his view, the most important parameters are non-linear distortion and on-axis response.
His goal is to produce a speaker with distortion levels below 0.1% above 100Hz. His current flagship speaker is fully active, using DSP for crossovers and freq / time domain correction.
I'd say that the on axis response is the most important factor but only if the off axis is smooth and controlled. I would gladly give up some on axis flatness within the top octave for controlled directivity.
Of course if the speaker is inherently flawed, such as trying to cross over an 8" mid/bass to a 1" tweeter that can only handle a 3kHz xover, then the off axis is going to suffer greatly and I'd design in a BBC dip to keep them sounding relaxed, otherwise they are going to rip my ears off.
Non linear distortion is certainly of importance. If the drivers you are using cannot do what you want them to do without breaking a sweat, then you either need a new design, or new drivers!
As to the top octave droop in the B&W tweeters... B&W really do need to start using phase shields.
Of course if the speaker is inherently flawed, such as trying to cross over an 8" mid/bass to a 1" tweeter that can only handle a 3kHz xover, then the off axis is going to suffer greatly and I'd design in a BBC dip to keep them sounding relaxed, otherwise they are going to rip my ears off.
Non linear distortion is certainly of importance. If the drivers you are using cannot do what you want them to do without breaking a sweat, then you either need a new design, or new drivers!
As to the top octave droop in the B&W tweeters... B&W really do need to start using phase shields.
Because my speakers are 2m from side walls and I'm sitting about 3m away, side wall reflections are well below the dominant direct path, so the off-axis response is less critical.
FTR, I also have a pair of Infinity's, which use planar mids and tweeter, crossing over at 3kHz with a 4th order BW. I rebuilt the crossovers and the response measures dead flat above 500Hz (+/- 1dB) all the way to 15kHz, and then rising slightly in the vicinity of 20kHz.
These are 4-way speakers, so as you might expect the off-axis response is very uniform horizontally out to well beyond 45 degrees.
In my listening room, they still do provide a tad more presence-region energy than the B&W's but I found on many recordings that vocals and saxophones particularly were accentuated to the point of stridency. Obviously, the choice of speakers and decisions made by mastering engineers is the issue but the B&W's do sound more listenable with those recordings.
Vs the Infinity's the B&W's create a larger stage width but interestingly the Infinity's produce a more razor sharp localisation. The instruments are all smaller and more localised in space. Given the beamwidths in the upper mids, I would have expected the opposite.
FTR, I also have a pair of Infinity's, which use planar mids and tweeter, crossing over at 3kHz with a 4th order BW. I rebuilt the crossovers and the response measures dead flat above 500Hz (+/- 1dB) all the way to 15kHz, and then rising slightly in the vicinity of 20kHz.
These are 4-way speakers, so as you might expect the off-axis response is very uniform horizontally out to well beyond 45 degrees.
In my listening room, they still do provide a tad more presence-region energy than the B&W's but I found on many recordings that vocals and saxophones particularly were accentuated to the point of stridency. Obviously, the choice of speakers and decisions made by mastering engineers is the issue but the B&W's do sound more listenable with those recordings.
Vs the Infinity's the B&W's create a larger stage width but interestingly the Infinity's produce a more razor sharp localisation. The instruments are all smaller and more localised in space. Given the beamwidths in the upper mids, I would have expected the opposite.
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Well my experience has been that speakers with an excellent set of off axis curves tend to sound easy on the ears. It's the speakers with the poor off axis curves that sound forward.
Of course it depends at what frequencies the off axis issues occur as to how they affect the perceived tonal balance. Off axis holes in typical cone/dome speakers, of typical sizes, always tend to sound the similar with a piercing presentation. I am particularly sensitive to this as I suffer from hyperacusis so my subjective opinions tend to be exaggerated.
Point localisation within the soundstage tends to be dominated by off axis dispersion within the treble band. An excess of (far)off axis energy + room reflections, tends to smear the sound and create an effect that I can only describe as a white wash of high frequency energy that blurs image cues. The sound doesn't come across as bright, merely confused.
Speakers with controlled directivity do not suffer so much from this and have excellent pin point imaging. Also speakers that do not have controlled directivity but have less off axis energy (such as larger domes, some planars etc) tend to have better pin point imaging than speakers with smaller domes etc.
Pin point imaging and 'cleanliness' of the sound stage are extremely important to me, which is one of the reasons I love waveguides/controlled directivity. They provide that finely etched imaging whilst also giving you a relaxed presentation that rarely triggers my hyperacusis.
Of course it depends at what frequencies the off axis issues occur as to how they affect the perceived tonal balance. Off axis holes in typical cone/dome speakers, of typical sizes, always tend to sound the similar with a piercing presentation. I am particularly sensitive to this as I suffer from hyperacusis so my subjective opinions tend to be exaggerated.
Point localisation within the soundstage tends to be dominated by off axis dispersion within the treble band. An excess of (far)off axis energy + room reflections, tends to smear the sound and create an effect that I can only describe as a white wash of high frequency energy that blurs image cues. The sound doesn't come across as bright, merely confused.
Speakers with controlled directivity do not suffer so much from this and have excellent pin point imaging. Also speakers that do not have controlled directivity but have less off axis energy (such as larger domes, some planars etc) tend to have better pin point imaging than speakers with smaller domes etc.
Pin point imaging and 'cleanliness' of the sound stage are extremely important to me, which is one of the reasons I love waveguides/controlled directivity. They provide that finely etched imaging whilst also giving you a relaxed presentation that rarely triggers my hyperacusis.
What is interesting in my listening room is that it's the vertical axis that's most important, and the only way that I could tame the B&W's slightly exaggerated treble brilliance was by suspending a couple of small diffuser / absorbers from the ceiling at the first reflection points. The difference this made was really huge, improving the treble detail considerably as well as the overall tonal balance.
Few speakers are very smooth off-axis vertically, and particularly those that employ the typical vertical T,M.W array.
Few speakers are very smooth off-axis vertically, and particularly those that employ the typical vertical T,M.W array.