Bigger midranges/speakers have better imaging?

[Jipolx]

Which is messed by early reflections...

Ok, let's say you live outside.. the same thing will happen.
( is because you are closer to them.)
Small speaker from near field can gave good imaging as big speakers from far field, but if you are a little closer to them than needed( your big speakers) the stage and focus will be tighter.

It's the 3rd time I'm repeating myself

 

[sun12]

Playing with driver sizes i discovered that bigger drivers does not really have better imaging but because they are bigger can give you a more strong phantom imaging.
But can have on that factor.

These are just examples, is not about output.
A small 2" midrange will have Great imaging, close to the listener and to each other. Are good for desk speakers but for a living room you need bigger drivers because if u use small 2" in your living room, being so far from each other and from the listener, the imaging will be defused and not focused.

For me, it's like an example with a photo: if you reduce it, you'll get more pixels and better clarity, but if you enlarge it, the pixels will be visible, and to make them invisible, you need to increase the resolution of pixels per inch, which means the larger the speaker, the higher you need to increase the detail and quality of the system as a whole.
In any case, a small speaker does not impress you with sound as much as a large speaker, just as an ordinary person would prefer to watch a movie on a large TV screen or in a cinema than to watch it on a phone screen, even if the resolution is 1920x1080 (apple iphone 6 plus 5.5 inch)

From a mystical point of view, sound has an invisible image in space that has its own special shape, color and weight, and bad sound will create blurry images in space, or if the amplifier is class D and not class A, the shape can be empty inside and you will feel the poverty of sound, it will not delight and involve you so much. If people saw sound images, there would be no disputes about which amplifier is better or which acoustics are better, you would see empty or rich images and immediately determine the quality of the acoustics or amplifier without error. And since we are blind, we have to determine the quality of sound by hearing and everything comes down to the subjectivity of the assessment and here misconceptions and numerous disputes are possible.

If we carefully approach this matter and find out with an independent expert group which speaker with what parameters is better than the rest, then this becomes a threat to numerous companies producing low-quality speakers at a high price or the price does not correspond to the quality, so such expert conclusions about which speaker or which amplifier is better are unprofitable for companies.

And it all comes down to the fact that a person himself understands and cuts off most of the unsuitable companies and speakers and creates for himself his own classification and assessment of the sound quality of speakers or an amplifier. And this will be important only for him, and the rest may not understand him or disagree.
There is no standard or benchmark for sound quality in the audio industry; there are technical parameters that can be easily adjusted to numbers and convince a person of high sound quality. The worse the quality becomes, the more time you have to spend looking for the right speaker and amplifier. And the companies that sell speakers do not sell ready-made acoustic sound so that you can understand the characteristic signature, they sell speakers and combinations of different speakers and designs that create thousands of variations of sound and what one person likes may not be liked by another person.

 

[jaapVL]

I feel that many misunderstandings arise from confusing use of terminology.
It would help if tight unambiguous definitions were formulated for all phenomena related to listening (and then everyone would stick to them).

 

[Freedom666]

@Jipolx

Problem with the topic is you answer it yourself as you are sure about your experience/perception.

From my experience I can tell that for imaging there are some factors more important than sheer driver size, its:

• dispersion
• time coherence (amplitude and phase response)
• distortion (distorted sound makes it difficult to hear well what is presented)

I get perfect imaging with 8cm fullranges and a subwoofer in a 2.1 system with the satellites close to back wall.

Post in thread 'Another corner array project'

2024-03-26 6:14 pm

I can tell I have a very good result with a stereo pair 8cm fullranges (closed box with stuffed/ damped reflex port) close to back wall and crossed over with just 340uF to a marble subwoofer active 12db.

Could merry a subwoofer to the small FRs without sonic faults with the help of a 2.1 amplifier offering 12db slope and loudness adjustment of the 20cm single woofer in corner placement.

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...-concrete-loudspeaker-box.406856/post-7547864

Behind the TV a hidden stereo pair of small audax like tweeters, with...

• Freedom666

 

[adason]

I don't need someone else to tell me, In my opinion, it is plain to see. In an anechoic chamber a good loudspeaker will give near perfect imaging, there's no reflections to destroy the image. The more accurate the signal to your ear is to the signal sent from the loudspeaker, the better imaging. There are other things a loudspeaker can do to destroy the image as well, surrounding the topic of dispersion, I am sure you know them all, already.... Its just accuracy.... Accuracy is imaging.
For that reason you won't have a really great impulse at the listening position associate with what people describe as "bad imaging". Amongst the first thing one does upon optimizing a system is to time align the sources... which essentially is, cleaning up the impulse.

You are completely misunderstaning my question.
First, no one listens in unechoic chamber. Its totally artificial environment. Btw, everything sounds awful in there. No one likes to spend time in there, people actually can get sick if they stay long enough. Its just to measure. Nobody ever puts two speakers and listening chair there for reason. Hence no one know imaging in unechoic chamber.

When we listen, we hear stereo image, in our listening room, in the listening chair. But noone can actually measure how good or bad that image is. Often just replacing one preamp can totally destroy image, or improve. Stereo image needs some room reflections, especially later than tens of milliseconds, those clearly recognized by our brain as not direct signal, give information about spaciousnes of the room. Every room has these, from small room to concert hall, reflections are normal part of life. Unechoic is not natural and you would not want to listen to music there.

When you replied 'impulse', i thought you actually know something, but you are just full of bs. Yes, each speaker has 'impulse', but you can measure perfect impulse in one position on axis in tweeter level, if you optimize crossover, but in any other position 'impulse' will be, just like fr response, far from perfect.

Unless you provide some data about impulse in the listening position and stereo image, i consider your response as misunderstanding the question.
Question was 'how you measure stereo image'.

It was a question to jipolx, but he did not answer it either, just as A vs b test.

 

[krivium]

Ok, let's say you live outside.. the same thing will happen.
( is because you are closer to them.)
Small speaker from near field can gave good imaging as big speakers from far field, but if you are a little closer to them than needed( your big speakers) the stage and focus will be tighter.

Well, i had to setup soundsytem outside in my career, and i'm lucky to live in countryside so i have backyard i can easily listen speakers i own in this conditions too ( which i does for evaluation of my experiment as it's the easyest way to remove most of room effects).

I've never experienced what you talk about outdoor, comparison including my 'mains' (15"+ 4"+1") and 4" full range in WAW ( mtm 2x8"+ 4" with 250hz xover, overall they behave as close as a point source acousticaly), neither with far bigger PA systems.

The mains are 'traditional' design with drivers in a vertical stacked arrangement ( WMT) and given driver size they need a bit more distance to sum coherently.
This is an 'issue' common to 'big' sized box and most driver arrangement, but it's in no way universal i repeat.

Now what does it mean from a practical pov? When set up in a room you need your equilateral triangle to be bigger in size than for smaller loudspeakers. So you have to step back in the room. Doing so you change the ratio of direct/reverbed sound, iow you play with critical distance of your room.

If you don't have a huge room ( or very directive (high Ka) loudspeakers) changing this distance outcome in you listen mostly to your room sound rather than direct sound. This have a huge impact on rendering.

So when you say that you have more focused stereo imaging sound when making the triangle smaller it's no surprise. By doing so you change the early reflection level and 'eq profile' they generate too, so if you are lucky it could lower the offending frequency cancelation blurring the phantom image.

Bigger driver being more directive lower in freq (wrt a smaller one for a given freq range) it can help too ( depend on the design).

Smaller driver have an omni (or at least much wider spread) behavior higher in freq and as such the 'illuminate' the room more in freq range which can be an issue wrt stereo imaging.
In acoustics this freq range are considered to be 1khz and higher. It's not on/off and what happen lower in freq play a role too but if you mess with the 1khz and upward freq, the stereo image will collapse.

Mind you it is related to the way we perceive stereophony as there is a change from difference in phase and difference of amplitude to interpret those clues at one area in the bandwidth we hear. And guess what it's a bit higher than 1khz ( circa 1,5khz).

All this is not driver size related but as directivity is implied it play a role for sure. But it's not the root cause.

Hence why people ask you to reconsider your statement and ask about other possible cause.

It's the 3rd time I'm repeating myself

And repeating something ad libitum doesn't make it an absolut truth.

Don't forget there may be loss in translation as for many of us english is not native language.

And your assumption and analysis might be biased or wrong...

 

[turk 182]

thorny discussion...it's a good thing no one has brought up how "image" can be created and manipulated by artificial means....

 

[krivium]

Question was 'how you measure stereo image'.

It was a question to jipolx, but he did not answer it either, just as A vs b test.

Well it can be measured or we could not know the angular distortion happening withing the different type of microphone couple the recording engineer have to choose from.

And it's a parameter we have access too when choosing this kind of couple, so it is possible to measure/define it.

The thing is it follow a certain amount of standardized rules which contain lowering of early reflection coloration by either having a control room larger than the recording space or use of 'tricks' to control them ( it's all in the L.E.D.E. concept but was known an applyed even before).

It's mostly impossible to apply them to domestic room though.

 

[krivium]

thorny discussion...it's a good thing no one has brought up how "image" can be created and manipulated by artificial means....

No need to complexify things further imho. 😉
But i agree understanding how our brain analyse thing is a step in the direction of understanding what have been observed.

 

[adason]

I agree that early reflections are very detrimental to the stereo image.

 

[krivium]

During reproduction of recorded message yes.
While tracking/recording they are (mostly) needed as you pointed in previous message: few signal exist ex nihilo ( synthesizer soundss are abstract by nature but even they like ambiance), they need a context to be represented in our brain image as 'natural'.

 

[krivium]

I've been missing your comment Turk. 👍

 

[adason]

I actually had access to unechoic room. Very unpleasant.
When we speak, we hear out voice inside of our head, plus all the room reflections. We automatically process reflections as part of environment. Bathroom vs large livingroom etc.
But unechoic room is so artificial its like somoone stealing our voice. Totally unsuitable for anything else but measuring of single speaker.

 

[adason]

But how do you camplo measure two impuses from two stereo speakers in your room to provide information about stereo imaging?

 

[adason]

Btw, there is guy on the web, who measures fr response in his listening position with one mic, but with both speakers on. Then he is surprised to see up and down wigles in upper fr response, and he is surprised and he derives dsp file from rew to correct for this. Not only dsp response correcting file is only applicable to his room, so pretty much useless for any other room and everybody else system, but he is measuring two speakers at once, ignoring the sine wave phase cancellation.
Thats why i would like to know how camplo measures impulses from his speakers in the listening position to provide information about stereo image.

 

[krivium]

Adason,
I'm not Camplo so won't answer in his place.
That said you could read the following until the end:
https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/ca-a...nd-room-correction-software-walkthrough-r682/
https://www.enjoythemusic.com/magaz...Room_Correction_For_Audiophiles.htm#gsc.tab=0

I won't quote extract from Mitcba's ebook 'accurate stereo reproduction using dsp' but he explain it in there.Information in this are worth the few dollars the ebook cost...and despite it is Acourate dedicated the method he emply is clearly described ( which is what mater imho). You could see how he managed to have a mostly coherent phase response over a relatively 'wide' listening area and not a one point location only.

 

[CPTX]

These are not troll questions, and I already asked google

Can imaging be objectively measured ?
Is it similar to or related to speaker directivity (which can be objectively measured)?
Can you achieve good imaging with mono?

To this noob; it seems like a moving target….some might prefer the sound to be experienced as coming from one location and others at the other extreme might prefer to experience the sound coming from “all” directions.

Thank you

 

[krivium]

@CPTX,
A) yes (edit worth a read to get a little deeper and right from the start of chain: https://gracedesign.com/support/StereoZoom10.pdf)
B)Not only
C) imaging is a stereo thing. That said in mono, depth can be assesed ( ratio of direct sound to early reflection/reverb tail)

 

[turk 182]

well i'm sure that at this point Jipolx has left the thread disappointed and angry.

it's a natural instinct to try and reason out in simple terms phenomenon we observe and most of us would tend to make correlations or try to condense it down to a "rule of thumb"

 

[krivium]

I hope not.