Yes very good points. I do have one question tho (2 questions near the end of this post)... As your sig says, you went the way of a scientific approach, your opinion and those that share your opinion must be respected.
Not that my approach is better or worse, but what I did it was just a natural progression. I tried multiple speakers in an folded horn type of enclosure meant for a specific driver. I tried 2 drivers that the enclosure was not built for. I then picked the best sounding driver and wanted to maximize the beautiful sound I heard coming from just 2 drivers. So as money permitted, I bought more drivers and changed enclosures 2 more times. Finally, I wound up with what I thought sounded best, i.e. a very nice and capable system that can definitely produce the SPL's very cleanly, without EQ. In fact it seems that when they're louder, some recordings come to life even more! AND it turns out I went the way of CBT. Like wesayso said, I wanted to hear the P7's on steroids!
@wesayso: Yes, I do use an AMT tweeter in the middle as I like a slightly 'brighter' speaker. It does give it a mild sweet spot in the middle if you really listen. It's crossed over very high ~10kHz 3dB/oct, so it's not enough to be a detriment to speech but just enough for cleaner sounding cymbals.
One more note on my system, because it is different than wesayso's. All the P7's are crossed over at 150Hz to limit their excursion and also to keep the upper freq production cleaner. Also, I use subs... I find I don't need an EQ, even though a DEQ2496 is in the optical loop. Originally, the bass was 'boomy' and I did use EQ. But I preferred to fix that by shortening the vent tuning length on a couple of the subs.
Enough about me, it's seems the OP has more than a couple of highly recommended drivers.
Also @wesayso: When you say ringing are you referring to something you're hearing from said driver, or looking at the FR curve on the datasheet?
Best regards,
Sam
Not that my approach is better or worse, but what I did it was just a natural progression. I tried multiple speakers in an folded horn type of enclosure meant for a specific driver. I tried 2 drivers that the enclosure was not built for. I then picked the best sounding driver and wanted to maximize the beautiful sound I heard coming from just 2 drivers. So as money permitted, I bought more drivers and changed enclosures 2 more times. Finally, I wound up with what I thought sounded best, i.e. a very nice and capable system that can definitely produce the SPL's very cleanly, without EQ. In fact it seems that when they're louder, some recordings come to life even more! AND it turns out I went the way of CBT. Like wesayso said, I wanted to hear the P7's on steroids!
@wesayso: Yes, I do use an AMT tweeter in the middle as I like a slightly 'brighter' speaker. It does give it a mild sweet spot in the middle if you really listen. It's crossed over very high ~10kHz 3dB/oct, so it's not enough to be a detriment to speech but just enough for cleaner sounding cymbals.
One more note on my system, because it is different than wesayso's. All the P7's are crossed over at 150Hz to limit their excursion and also to keep the upper freq production cleaner. Also, I use subs... I find I don't need an EQ, even though a DEQ2496 is in the optical loop. Originally, the bass was 'boomy' and I did use EQ. But I preferred to fix that by shortening the vent tuning length on a couple of the subs.
Enough about me, it's seems the OP has more than a couple of highly recommended drivers.
Also @wesayso: When you say ringing are you referring to something you're hearing from said driver, or looking at the FR curve on the datasheet?
Best regards,
Sam
I can only find one question in your post, so I'll try and answer that one.
The ringing I refer to is something that can be seen most clearly in an IR and/or a waterfall plot. An FR curve could easily hide it with smoothing of the curves. I'd look at as many objective measurements as possible before buying and personally I even check the drivers myself.
Do we hear that kind of ringing from a single driver? Tough question.
But due to arraying you'd get a bigger chance of prolonging the ringing time and you might run into trouble. There will be time differences between the driver at ear height and those further up or down and the ear. No amount of processing can ever reconstruct that.
While using a driver like that might sound very persuasive when used as a single source or stereo pair, I'd advise against using it within an array. I won't stop anyone from doing so though, we can all make up our own minds. 🙂
The ringing I refer to is something that can be seen most clearly in an IR and/or a waterfall plot. An FR curve could easily hide it with smoothing of the curves. I'd look at as many objective measurements as possible before buying and personally I even check the drivers myself.
Do we hear that kind of ringing from a single driver? Tough question.
But due to arraying you'd get a bigger chance of prolonging the ringing time and you might run into trouble. There will be time differences between the driver at ear height and those further up or down and the ear. No amount of processing can ever reconstruct that.
While using a driver like that might sound very persuasive when used as a single source or stereo pair, I'd advise against using it within an array. I won't stop anyone from doing so though, we can all make up our own minds. 🙂
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asking strangers on the internet to pick out a wine for yourself is really not the best approach - you gotta taste it for yourself. I like what X did - get a bunch of drivers and listen to them all.
I think the main point wesayso is making is that some aspects of a driver cannot be fixed or improved by EQ or processing so those become more important to get right when picking a driver. An array of drivers will never sound the same as one single driver otherwise there would be no point in doing it. The best single fullrange may not be the best array driver. As not that many people build full range arrays of the required length there isn't a lot of data on a wide range of drivers in that application.
A smooth frequency response on and off axis and low energy storage (less ringing in a CSD) are good specs to aim for. Getting that in a small enough driver with enough x-max to allow LF EQ'ing limits the field considerably.
I built a TC9 array and don't regret my driver choice.
In a comparison of drivers it would also be good to try and EQ them to a similar frequency response as any difference in FR will dominate, I suspect the differences in drivers would then be harder to pick.
A smooth frequency response on and off axis and low energy storage (less ringing in a CSD) are good specs to aim for. Getting that in a small enough driver with enough x-max to allow LF EQ'ing limits the field considerably.
I built a TC9 array and don't regret my driver choice.
In a comparison of drivers it would also be good to try and EQ them to a similar frequency response as any difference in FR will dominate, I suspect the differences in drivers would then be harder to pick.
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you make good sense to me. but for single driver full range there is an attraction to the simplicity and purity of avoiding EQ and all the rest. and a bit of laziness 😀
I can see why it would seem attractive to use a single driver without EQ for simplicity, but the OP suggested an array in the first post. A full range array with a good amount of EQ is still much simpler than a multiway active 🙂
I don't subscribe to the "purity" approach of thinking that anything added is somehow worse. If I try some processing and it makes an improvement then I will use it. A "purist" array (no EQ) sounds pretty ordinary, but a well processed one sounds very good. It's only when you turn the processing off that you realise just how bad it sounded without it 😀
I don't subscribe to the "purity" approach of thinking that anything added is somehow worse. If I try some processing and it makes an improvement then I will use it. A "purist" array (no EQ) sounds pretty ordinary, but a well processed one sounds very good. It's only when you turn the processing off that you realise just how bad it sounded without it 😀
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