Sorry, misintepretation. My professional interests lead me to listen horns all the time without I ever complain about them.
What I dislike is the constant promotion of horns as state of art in place where they are certainly not doing the best.
I know some sound engineers and acousticians who perfectly agree with me,
and I think there are not alone.
Les goûts et les couleurs... Among weeds, there are deliciously aromatic herbs.
Cask05 said:
This is a bit contradictory with Toole you quoted in an other post, It ignores the Haas effect and the hot spot of horns when listened at short distances. By the way, Toole does not specially recommend to avoid room reflections. There are ways to live in a nice sound environment with them.
Difficult to do better than 5532s or some recent op-amps a bit more delicate to use, at the low level signals stages and blameless amps at the power stage.
I give you mine above. I am also very keen on the ultra-low distorsion Renardson Mosfet amp, I have three stereo specimen of it, and also a circuit called the Schlotzaur buffer.
Believe it or not, so do I, but my passion for some time has been horns, probably because of my excellent experiences learning from Roy Delgado over the past 7 1/2 years-this even after experiencing horn designs as a kid (DIY khorns). It's been one of the most interesting adventures that I've had.
I've found that there is a lot of bad information out there on this subject that I can attest to--much more than I personally see elsewhere in audio. Good horns are actually pretty rare, IMHE.
Perhaps it is the high learning threshold found in this subject area, intersecting more than one major discipline that is required for successful implementation that has propagated so much of the misinformation, i.e., room and interior acoustics of horns, psychoacoustics and human hearing preferences, electromagnetic design, product development, etc. I don't know.
I do know that most people apparently haven't heard truly well design horn-loaded systems, including those that are today marketed at extremely expensive prices (and unfortunately--typically found in the EU). Danley, Delgado, Toole, Olive, Hughes, Geddes, etc. today all have something to share in this subject area that keeps the subject fascinating.
Chris
Id say that basically all good speakers, at moderate spl, are more or less comparable dynamically. but at high spl, this is where compression will be heard with small speakers..
about dynamics, imo, all small speakers begin to sound compressed past 85db indeed.
but for under 85db, I dont hear a difference in dynamics between my big 3-way and my 2-way nearfield.
of course, comparing my 3 way with my small two way at high spl is where you definitely see the enormous drawback of small speakers but for normal spl, I dont see a difference between a huge system and a small in terms of dynamics if listened at small spl
am I wrong to think that horns are more dynamic only if high spl are needed or is there clearly also advantage at low spl?
about dynamics, imo, all small speakers begin to sound compressed past 85db indeed.
but for under 85db, I dont hear a difference in dynamics between my big 3-way and my 2-way nearfield.
of course, comparing my 3 way with my small two way at high spl is where you definitely see the enormous drawback of small speakers but for normal spl, I dont see a difference between a huge system and a small in terms of dynamics if listened at small spl
am I wrong to think that horns are more dynamic only if high spl are needed or is there clearly also advantage at low spl?
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Yes, rock is usually compressed. However, this double cd is around 17-18db in average. I have some classical cd's that are around 20db, but that's about the limit. How many recordings have a higher dynamic range??? I don't have any...
Btw, I know how to check dynamic range….
Peter
This behaviour is 100% due to the amplifier compressing, not the speaker! Because the speakers are so "obvious" everyone points the finger at them, but it's the electronics misbehaving that causes this type of distortion.
I've done the exercise so many times of driving a cheap, miserable looking speaker to produce powerful dynamics, just by feeding it a clean enough signal - it's a no-brainer. And OTOH I've listened to monster, expensive units trying to sound impressive, but fed with inadequate drive - and they just sound like pathetic junk ...
It's the system, stupid !! ... 😀
Fas, any thoughts on what it is about such an amp? A person might use amps rated at less than a watt and get quite loud levels and not notice anything related to compression. Could you be suggesting inverse distortion cancellation when you mention system synergy or something else?
A lot of it is power supply - unfortunately, many amplifiers are insufficiently engineered in this respect, and even though they may meet a required THD spec the simple truth is that the rail voltages are modulating too severely, the current spikes being drawn at various points in the system are causing too much interference, and the end result is audible compression. If one takes a straightforward amplifier topology, and simply bumps up the effective capability of the supplies by a substantial amount, then the result is much, much cleaner sound at higher SPLs. This is the sort of approach that will allow "effortless" sound - think of a car analogy, and that the amplifier power supply is comparable to the engine: which is more "comfortable", the screaming 4 cylinder, or the burbling V8 ... ?
Without imparting prejudice, this is one thing I find fairly consistent with single ended amplifiers. In my experience building push-pull amps, a large capacitor bank is a partial compensation for a small transformer but a full rated transformer is worthwhile.
A difference even at low volumes is certainly possible.
This has not so much to do with horns, it has more to do with the resulting sound field at the listening position, which is made up by the direct sound from the speakers and the contribution from the room.
It just so happens that horns generally have more directivity control, and this creates more direct sound and higher sound intensity.
The same can be achieved using smaller, direct radiating speakers, with proper care for room acoustics.
The combination of reflections (or bad room acoustics in general) and Robinson-Dadson can indeed lead to degraded perception of dynamics at higher volumes. But this is of course one of several factors only.
Regards
Charles
Regards
Charles
Most of my classical and big band jazz recordings have and RMS value of 20-24dB below peak with peaks at 0dB. That's dynamic. And I think even Elton John's Madman Across the Water is in the 21dB range. Surprisingly.
Of course different softwares report different numbers, so the ranges are approximate.
It's an interesting question. You would think that if your average listening level is low, or you sit very close, the small speakers should do just as well as big horns.
If your average level is 75dB and your speakers can hit a clean 95dB at the listening spot, that should be just fine.
But I think there is something psycho-acoustic going on. Small speakers usually sound small and limited, even at low levels. There are exceptions, but in general that's what I find.
Yes, those big speakers that go loud also perform so well at low levels. Is it the same things things that cause it? One thing smaller speakers don't have is consistency in performance between the baffle step frequency and the schroeder frequency.
Directivity is for sure one of the points making big speakers sound big. Here is an attempt by afamous member of this forum at making a small speaker sound big. There are witnesses claiming that it does indeed work:
acoustics
And that fact that large horn systems are mostly only "tickled" at domestic SPLs is for sure another reason for them to sound effortless and dynamic.
Regards
Charles
acoustics
And that fact that large horn systems are mostly only "tickled" at domestic SPLs is for sure another reason for them to sound effortless and dynamic.
Regards
Charles
Am I the only one, that has noticed powercompression in hot tweeters ?
Kills dynamics from where I sit.
Kills dynamics from where I sit.
I have once visited a manufacturer of active studio monitors.
They are buliding their own tweeters mainly because they think/feel/measured that commercially available tweeters are too bad in this respect. They also think that ferrofluid is detrimental to the sound. So their solution was to build them with tight tolerances in order to improove on the magnetic flux (efficiency) and convection cooling (power rating). They can't manufacture their voice-coils with tighter tolerances than others do, but they measure and sort them into three diameter classes for which they use pole piece and top plate pairings in three respective classes as well.
They say that it gives them a 6dB advantage over the competition.
Regards
Charles
They are buliding their own tweeters mainly because they think/feel/measured that commercially available tweeters are too bad in this respect. They also think that ferrofluid is detrimental to the sound. So their solution was to build them with tight tolerances in order to improove on the magnetic flux (efficiency) and convection cooling (power rating). They can't manufacture their voice-coils with tighter tolerances than others do, but they measure and sort them into three diameter classes for which they use pole piece and top plate pairings in three respective classes as well.
They say that it gives them a 6dB advantage over the competition.
Regards
Charles
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