I know you guys are more experienced than me in some areas but what in the hell is the logic behind this? Are you telling me that I should never be able to tell how far away a sound is? Thats impossible...If a human was talking to me, I can tell if they are close or far away...the human is the speaker in that example. I'm not picking up whats being put down here. I tried to make it make sense, like its saying that the signal may appear to be far away if thats how its meant but then you can still tell the speaker is close or far as opposed to staging within the signal and it just don't fly. Where do see this happen in nature...This is all about direct energy and reverb...Direct energy is much dryer than reverb in most cases and if you're going to try and push this theory it would have to proven in a anechoic chamber. Thinking about it a little more...it sounds like he is suggesting a constant directivity beam that is narrow and extends the whole bandwidth and to my knowledge is not a real thing at this time. Either way, this ain't happening without making sure direct energy hits you before reverb....which lends suggestion of direct field listening and/or High Q broadband directivity.
Last edited:
In the car audio world in the 90s, we used to go round and round on this one. There was an infamous thread on one of the car audio boards that raged for something like a hundred pages, got so heated that supposedly lawsuits were threatened.
It basically went like this:
Back in the 80s, a car audio shop in California built a car for competition. They did something very unique at the time; they basically kitted the car out with a full-on three-way high efficiency pro audio system.
It had horn loaded compression drivers up front, dual fifteen inch prosound subs in the trunk, and twelve inch JBL midbasses BEHIND the listener.
This was really unorthodox at the time... and it worked.
It takes advantage of a weird aspect of how we localize sounds, which is that our perception of where things are located, left to right, is based on the time difference that the sound arrives at our two ears.
IE, if a sound is to your left and in front OR behind you, it still sounds like it's coming from the left. If a sound is coming at you from 11 o'clock (front) or 7 o'clock (behind), it sounds about the same because the interaural time differences are identical.
Because this shop leveraged this one strange quirk of our hearing mechanism, they managed to create a car stereo that was just CRUSHING the competition. Because this was a time when six inch midbasses were considered "large" and they were competing with twelves (because putting the midbass BEHIND you gives you way more space than in FRONT of you.) Imagine going to a car show, and 95% of the competitors are using 1" dome tweeters and 6" midbasses, and this black coupe rolls up with 4X as much power as everyone else, along with speakers that are 10-15dB more efficient.
The forum thread then turned into a giant s-show, because the new owner of the car claimed that he'd set up a sophisticated electronic system that actually 'steered' the sound from the front to the back, based on volume, and that there actually WERE speakers up front that were hidden.
From what I heard at the time, most people believed that this story was a tall tale, and that there actually WEREN'T speakers up front; the new owner just made up the story because it was a way to fool judges (and therefore win competitions.)
This was during an era in the car stereo world, where you could win ten or twenty thousand dollars at a single contest. So it wasn't just bragging rights, there was real money involved.
Naturally, tried it both ways. I took a Saw-Z-All and cut a hole right in the floor of my car, and mounted 9" Dynaudio midbasses there.
And I also tried putting midbasses BEHIND me, using B&C 8NDL51s.
I gotta admit, even with the midbasses behind you, the soundstaging was solid. The stage was much more "diffuse." I can't say which style I preferred, both had their merits.
The main point? You can definitely alter the soundstage by putting the midbasses in some very strange locations, and even bringing them so far forward that they're now BEHIND you works surprisingly well. A big part of the secret sauce is keeping everything in phase; in the car audio world it worked because a midbass behind you is about as far away as a midbass in front of you. If they were much closer or much farther away you'd never be able to get the phase right.
It basically went like this:
Back in the 80s, a car audio shop in California built a car for competition. They did something very unique at the time; they basically kitted the car out with a full-on three-way high efficiency pro audio system.
It had horn loaded compression drivers up front, dual fifteen inch prosound subs in the trunk, and twelve inch JBL midbasses BEHIND the listener.
This was really unorthodox at the time... and it worked.
It takes advantage of a weird aspect of how we localize sounds, which is that our perception of where things are located, left to right, is based on the time difference that the sound arrives at our two ears.
IE, if a sound is to your left and in front OR behind you, it still sounds like it's coming from the left. If a sound is coming at you from 11 o'clock (front) or 7 o'clock (behind), it sounds about the same because the interaural time differences are identical.
Because this shop leveraged this one strange quirk of our hearing mechanism, they managed to create a car stereo that was just CRUSHING the competition. Because this was a time when six inch midbasses were considered "large" and they were competing with twelves (because putting the midbass BEHIND you gives you way more space than in FRONT of you.) Imagine going to a car show, and 95% of the competitors are using 1" dome tweeters and 6" midbasses, and this black coupe rolls up with 4X as much power as everyone else, along with speakers that are 10-15dB more efficient.
The forum thread then turned into a giant s-show, because the new owner of the car claimed that he'd set up a sophisticated electronic system that actually 'steered' the sound from the front to the back, based on volume, and that there actually WERE speakers up front that were hidden.
From what I heard at the time, most people believed that this story was a tall tale, and that there actually WEREN'T speakers up front; the new owner just made up the story because it was a way to fool judges (and therefore win competitions.)
This was during an era in the car stereo world, where you could win ten or twenty thousand dollars at a single contest. So it wasn't just bragging rights, there was real money involved.
Naturally, tried it both ways. I took a Saw-Z-All and cut a hole right in the floor of my car, and mounted 9" Dynaudio midbasses there.
And I also tried putting midbasses BEHIND me, using B&C 8NDL51s.
I gotta admit, even with the midbasses behind you, the soundstaging was solid. The stage was much more "diffuse." I can't say which style I preferred, both had their merits.
The main point? You can definitely alter the soundstage by putting the midbasses in some very strange locations, and even bringing them so far forward that they're now BEHIND you works surprisingly well. A big part of the secret sauce is keeping everything in phase; in the car audio world it worked because a midbass behind you is about as far away as a midbass in front of you. If they were much closer or much farther away you'd never be able to get the phase right.
Last edited:
camplo I think you've misinterpreted Tom's comments, which were that you shouldn't hear the speaker. The human talking, when reproduced should sound as though the image is in the middle and the speakers should appear silent. The person is wherever the image places them.. This is very different to an actual person.
I was feeling like because the above quote is true you will always "hear the speaker"....a speaker at 5ft cannot simulate a person speaking 1ft in front of you, very easily, if possible...due to the direct sound vs reverberation. So in the scene of the movie where the actors are locked in a trunk...it can only sound like a people in a trunk that is 5ft away in your room but never closer, not reflecting what maybe attempted to be expressed in the media, up close camera shots etc along with low reverb....reverb dryness will be limited by the room, exposing the speaker every time unless directivity prevents it or proximity to the loudspeaker or both...or if the reverb times of the room are shorter than anything ever expressed by the media. Reflections can help us localize point sources.
Yes this part...plenty a speaker could likely do this in an anechoic chamber. So like I suggest, in a room, broad band directivity and proximity are the culprit no less than room reverb performance. Those things only after timing has been sorted =/
PLaying devils advocate, I think that our human microphone frequency response changes depending on direction of sound received and there is a certain response curve that we have engrained in our psychology that says "thats behind me". then again you could always eq that out but as soon as one turned their head the time difference should expose location you'd think. Inside of a car the reflection times are likely much faster than in a living room so I guess the line would be easier to blur.
is literally reverb characteristics in my opinion, or say direct sound vs reverberation sound....so hes suggesting that the direct sound should always hit your ears first and likely not much room sound is wanted...
Last edited:
Ebay temptation: Dangling a Danley
There is a single DSL SH50 for $2,000 (+ freight) on Ebay. Just taunting me! That's a great deal, and I'm tempted....but....Ultimately I want a 2nd. I'd even pay a bit more if need be, but what about matching them? As good as the SH50 is, it's likely been modified in its 15 (?) year history. So for now, I'll pass.
"Never buy just one when you can get two at twice the price." I recall that line, from the SF movie "Contact," without giving anything away
There is a single DSL SH50 for $2,000 (+ freight) on Ebay. Just taunting me! That's a great deal, and I'm tempted....but....Ultimately I want a 2nd. I'd even pay a bit more if need be, but what about matching them? As good as the SH50 is, it's likely been modified in its 15 (?) year history. So for now, I'll pass.
"Never buy just one when you can get two at twice the price." I recall that line, from the SF movie "Contact," without giving anything away
Erin Hardison
Danley Sound Labs SH-50 Professional Audio Speaker Review
bikinpunk is Erin's user name here
Danley Sound Labs SH-50 Professional Audio Speaker Review
bikinpunk is Erin's user name here
interesting the response is somehow less flat than I expected from the complexity of the SH-50's crossover but seems to match the SH-50 spec sheet (with less smoothing). However it looks quite correctable due to the uniformity of response in the listening window. There is a spike in harmonic distortion at 900Hz which could be due to the comp going slightly lower than its comfortable with. I wonder what an active version with DSP would look like in comparison.
A few years ago, Tom Danley published some measurements of an SH50 that had been manipulated to be flat, using FIR filters. Was producing square waves that were just about perfect.
All of their speakers seem to evolve over time too; I've noticed that quite a few of them have different crossovers and even different tweeters than were originally used.
The SH50 that Erin measured may have been a month old or ten years old.
I'm willing to bet that one or two of the midranges in the array are disconnected or failed. Note the recess in the lower midrange response.
Note that the vertical and horizontal response is asymmetrical. Yet all of the midranges and the tweeters are symmetrical, and so is the horn. Therefore, it's nearly 100% certain that some of the mids aren't running or have failed:
Note that the vertical and horizontal response is asymmetrical. Yet all of the midranges and the tweeters are symmetrical, and so is the horn. Therefore, it's nearly 100% certain that some of the mids aren't running or have failed:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Attachments
Last edited:
Here's my measurement of an SH50 that I rented, a few years back:
Monster Massive
I'm 100% convinced that the SH50 that Erin measured had a defective midrange, or two. My measurements show that the mids in the SH50 that I measured were louder than the tweeter.
Erin's measurements are more accuracte and exhaustive. I don't have a Klippel and I measured the SH50 in my living room. 99% of the measurements I publish are done outside, but I just didn't have the time or strength to drag the SH50 outside.
But there's definitely no midrange 'recess' in the SH50 I measured.
If one or two of the midranges were bricked, it would likely impact the tweeter and woofer crossover also.
Monster Massive
I'm 100% convinced that the SH50 that Erin measured had a defective midrange, or two. My measurements show that the mids in the SH50 that I measured were louder than the tweeter.
Erin's measurements are more accuracte and exhaustive. I don't have a Klippel and I measured the SH50 in my living room. 99% of the measurements I publish are done outside, but I just didn't have the time or strength to drag the SH50 outside.
But there's definitely no midrange 'recess' in the SH50 I measured.
If one or two of the midranges were bricked, it would likely impact the tweeter and woofer crossover also.
I'll check on that. I could have simply used the wrong dataset for the vertical normalized plot (I measured it a couple different ways as I mentioned in my review). Also, if you look at my globe plots, they are pretty much the same if you rotate the vertical to be horizontal. And those are post-processed from the raw data via my own MATLAB script. But if that doesn't check out then I'll dig in to the speaker itself.
Tom told me this was the 4th passive crossover iteration so I'm hesitant to rely solely on comparison to data of the speaker from 2005.
FWIW, Tom saw the data multiple times. Since this was a very different speaker design than I am used to measuring, I wanted to make sure things made sense before I published it (namely, the reference point). As I also wrote in the review, this speaker came from their warehouse shelf and loaded into the back of my car by myself and a Danley employee. By all accounts, it should have been fine when it left the warehouse and it's too dang heavy for me to pick up and drop. LOL So, hopefully it's just a data fluff on my end but if it requires a fix and re-test then I'll do it if I can (barring it doesn't need to go back to Danley). I'll report back when I make headway.
This is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night. I hope like hell it's just a data blunder because - if it isn't and I am able to make the fix myself - I have no way of getting this thing back on the stand again until I can find some help again. Lifting a 130lb speaker a few inches is nothing. But lifting it 5 feet in the air is a different ballgame altogether.
Tom told me this was the 4th passive crossover iteration so I'm hesitant to rely solely on comparison to data of the speaker from 2005.
FWIW, Tom saw the data multiple times. Since this was a very different speaker design than I am used to measuring, I wanted to make sure things made sense before I published it (namely, the reference point). As I also wrote in the review, this speaker came from their warehouse shelf and loaded into the back of my car by myself and a Danley employee. By all accounts, it should have been fine when it left the warehouse and it's too dang heavy for me to pick up and drop. LOL So, hopefully it's just a data fluff on my end but if it requires a fix and re-test then I'll do it if I can (barring it doesn't need to go back to Danley). I'll report back when I make headway.
This is the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night. I hope like hell it's just a data blunder because - if it isn't and I am able to make the fix myself - I have no way of getting this thing back on the stand again until I can find some help again. Lifting a 130lb speaker a few inches is nothing. But lifting it 5 feet in the air is a different ballgame altogether.
Last edited:
To me it looks like "vertical normalized" is not normalized to on-axis - 0 axis should be flat then!
Like Patrick said, some drivers might be disconnected or in wrong polarity. Can you listen to in with your head inside the horn, or with a hand-held mic?
CSD shows resonances from the cabinet - chambers and walls. Response is possible to EQ response flat, but resonances will remain. I started to think, if NFS nearfield measurements and iterated response does exaggerate those - ground plane at say 4m distance would be interesting to see... Anyway in a room or auditorium those response wiggles are not hearable IMO.
A friend had large diy 3-way synergys years ago, and the sound in-room as stereo was unnatural effect-like to me, like wearing headphones. I can understand that some people like that, but not me.
Like Patrick said, some drivers might be disconnected or in wrong polarity. Can you listen to in with your head inside the horn, or with a hand-held mic?
CSD shows resonances from the cabinet - chambers and walls. Response is possible to EQ response flat, but resonances will remain. I started to think, if NFS nearfield measurements and iterated response does exaggerate those - ground plane at say 4m distance would be interesting to see... Anyway in a room or auditorium those response wiggles are not hearable IMO.
A friend had large diy 3-way synergys years ago, and the sound in-room as stereo was unnatural effect-like to me, like wearing headphones. I can understand that some people like that, but not me.
Erin,
Don't loose too much sleep over it.
The current DSL SH-50 still uses the 2005 frequency response chart, while using a 2008 impedance response chart.
One of the changes to the crossover "smoothed" the response, but opened up a distortion problem with the mid drivers.
See Post #21 :
In the market for low playing, high spl, subs
Interestingly, the SH-50 2008 impedance response chart was posted shortly after John Chiara had over a dozen "problem" crossovers .
The impedance of your current test cabinet shows some differences from the 2008 DSL impedance response chart.
One would expect changes in frequency response to go with changes in a complex passive crossover.
The frequency response differences between DSL's 2005 measurements and your recent ones seem more likely to be due to crossover revisions and measuring protocol than bad components.
That said, easy to stick a mic near the ports of each of the four mid drivers and see if any of them vary more than a slight amount from each other.
Art
Attachments
Last edited:
How about step response on-axis?
To me response wiggles look like mismatch of interdriver delays and I started to think, if midrange drivers playing 300-1kHz are in wrong polarity? Or just poor match.
Reading that SH-50 has several xo versions makes me worry that assembly line workers might have "corrected" the reverse polarity wiring of the midrange... Wouldn't be the first case!
To me response wiggles look like mismatch of interdriver delays and I started to think, if midrange drivers playing 300-1kHz are in wrong polarity? Or just poor match.
Reading that SH-50 has several xo versions makes me worry that assembly line workers might have "corrected" the reverse polarity wiring of the midrange... Wouldn't be the first case!