This is exactly what I said. You just suggest some standard pattern unless you have tested the driver yourself. You are not concerned with the result. When you test the driver it's a long, drawn out process to arrive at the correct treatment. One can only conclude that if you had not "tested" the F200A you would suggest the same thing. Vastly different than what you suggest based on you "tests", and producing less than optimum results, if I believe there is any improvement at all.
Bud, like dlr, I DO pay attention. Your response was just what I anticipated. You sound like a salesman who doesn’t really understand the product or the customer and just talk around the issues in an effort to say what you think the customer wants to here so that the sale can be closed. I just don't believe you at this point. You have trod over your own words and reversed course so many times I just don't believe you. I’m leaving the store.
Carlp said:
Sorry, Carl, that's balogny. What does cost have to do with which thread it should be in? Are you saying that only el cheapo drivers are to be considered suitable for the other thread? I'm looking for objective input from someone prompted to risk what they consider to be big bucks. Everyone is toying with mostly cheap, cruddy drivers. If I asked for objective results on the other thread the cacaphony would be unbelievable, so please don't tell me this must go there.
I will say now for a third time, I will let the person forking out their money say what they consider big bucks. I use drivers that in a commercial system may fetch $2000 or $10,000, we all know how that varies. I would not risk them had I paid $2000 on a commercial system for them based on anything I've seen. So far no one has felt differently who has a multi-way system. Heck, there aren't even any inexpensive 3-ways fully treated that I can recall. No midranges, no tweeters, definitely no objective measurements of same at all.
I note that you'd only consider a very old speaker set and only the woofers, apparently, not the midrange nor the tweeter. Do you consider it big bucks, enough so that if you trashed the them, you'd be bent out of shape? If not, you haven't risked much. But of course, that won't happen until you've practiced with a throw-away $25/pair set and some Pinnacles (not much on the "high end" or expensive side there). That shows how much confidence you have in the treatment at the moment.
Dave
planet10 said:
I'm not familiar with the Apex III. Are all drivers, woofer, midrange and tweeter, to be treated and documented? Is it his personal use set? How much is he risking?
Dave
soongsc said:
Thanks for the link. Looks like the tweeter can't be treated, no cone/dome, surely he won't touch the ribbon. Measurements before/after will be interesting, especially the midrange unit. I hope we get to see measurements without a crossover and with, the former being more important as to extent of the alteration in FR, then with the XO to show the impact of the change once crossed, since that is the classic way to handle breakup and FR anomolies. I suppose we won't be seeing any distortion measurements.
Also looks like it's reversible for woofers and midranges given the diaphragm materials.
Dave
First, ease up and relax, Dave (and check your dictionary). Then, read again. I simply said that if you don't give us specs for what constitutes "big buck" speakers, then your post belongs on the other thread as it isn't "technical." Hey, you guys are the ones asking for the measurable results, not me. But I digress. I really don't care where your post is.
Now, are you saying your concern here is that you want to see someone willing to risk what for them is big money to try enable? If that's so, then I understand what you're saying but I don't get your point. Of course I wouldn't try ANY tweak or upgrade on any "big buck" system without first trying it on a cheaper one. I wouldn't even risk a favorite CD to try the green sharpie tweak until I tried it on a less "valuable" CD first - fwiw, that tweak didn't do a thing to my ear. To suggest otherwise seems silly and pointless to me. And yes, I'd consider the old Ohms to be a big risk to me on my budget (also, I never said I wouldn't be willing to enable the mid and tweater. How did you get that from my post? I was simply describing what I have - updated Ohm speakers).
The fact that I wouldn't treat the more valuable speakers has nothing to do with my confidence in enable. As I've said many times, I have no confidence nor lack of confidence in enable. I simply don't have an opinion until I try it. Again, I don't get your point. Would you buy a $5k system without hearing it first?
Carl
Carlp said:
All I can say is go back to my post 523 on the previous page to see where and why I brought this up. You make my point. If you had confidence, you'd do it, rather than test it. Your post is totally contradictory. You "have no confidence" and you "have no lack of confidence". Either you have it or you don't. Evidently you don't.
So far no one has seen fit to risk treatment of a personal multi-way setup (forget expensive, no multi-ways seen yet) despite Bud's claims (in post 517, most of it based on perception, certainly not appropriate for this thread, BTW) and others' claims. I'd like to see some objective data on multi-way systems, we see almost exclusively single full-range drivers treated, few measured of any kind. Bud's claims all drivers mask and all are improved when treated. I'd like to see objective data by someone moved to risk their multi-way system.
It just hasn't happened so far.
Dave
We would have to look at the individual drivers for even the slightest possibility for the distortion figures to even mean anything. I don;t think anyone is going so deep as to figuring out what part of the distortion data is due to XO, what due to lobbing, etc.dlr said:
soongsc said:
Wrong. All you need is the distortion measured before/after, both with the XO in place. That will show the change in the distortion profile of the completed system, the only way anyone is going to use any treated drivers in a multi-way system. The raw response doesn't matter in that regard, it's the end result that counts.
Since much if not most of the change will be in the FR in the stop-band, the change in the system FR with the XO in place may not show much change. The distortion profile is where the change is likely to be evident in a multi-way system, especially for the woofer and midrange. It cannot be handled like a full-range that has no crossover used.
If you look at the linked page on the APEX III, it's already commendably close to flat. You're not likely to see much FR change, so distortion measurements may be needed to properly assess the changes.
Dave
I prefer not to comment on this unless someone is willing to take the time to know what part of the distortion figure is caused by what. It takes more time than doing the drivers individually, and I certainly don't want to spend time to win an argument that serves no purpose.dlr said:
soongsc said:
There is no argument to win. What part causes what doesn't matter in the context of mods to a driver. What does matter is what changes occur with the treatment in the FR and distortion. If the former shows little change, the latter is the only way to assess the efficacy of any treatment. If you can't demonstrate a change in one or the other in some meaningful way, what's changed? Nothing.
Dave
Well, if the distortion measurements are high and not caused by the cone, of course you will not see much change, it's all masked by the more donimant source of distortion that has not changed.dlr said:
soongsc said:
Two things. One, you don't know if the existing distortion is high enough to dominate without measuring.
Two, if the existing distortion is so dominant that the changes are insignificant, then what's changed due to the treatment? Nothing.
Seems to me that determining the significance of a treatment is the issue.
Dave
Now we are talking speaker system design. Some people think the system design is more important than the driver.dlr said:
I am quite sure that we can expect the most significant improvement to be in full range driver systems. For multi-driver systems, assuming that the XO design is transient perfect design and the components are measured and selected for optimum performance, only when each driver is optimized individually will the system benefit significantly. This is my personal experience. I look at distortion figures when I decide which components to select in an XO, but I look more at CSDs of drivers.
This is why I would recommend each driver to be measured individually. Anyone can do whatever they see appropriate.
soongsc said:
Wrong again. It is not system design. We're speaking of a completed design. Whatever that design, it is what it is. The measurements cover reality. The changes Bud proposes has nothing to do with pre/post design, he does not differentiate that whatsoever. The treatments have never been described as related to design. The changes in drivers due to treatment affect the system response if made on a completed design. The link you posted to the Apex III is for a completed system design. Unless that system (or any other completed system) is to be re-designed after treatment (I doubt that is in the works), then the measurements must for the system, otherwise they will be irrelevant.
Your recommendation is not valid with regard the objective analysis of treatment to an existing design. My approach would be similar to yours (with no need of a CSD, however) when selecting a driver, but then I would likely never select a driver that needed the sort of changes that enabl makes. That's my preference, but it also does not enter into an appropriate analysis.
Dave
dlr said:
Very interesting what Earl is saying about the usefullness of these kinds of distrotion measurements. From the research he (and it seems KEF, Harmon, and others...) has done, these results won't tell us much of anything.
dave
Distortion
This is a typical "trump card statement" being made to supposedly refute Dave(dlr). Not everyone agrees with what Earl says , plus I believe the discussion (if that's what you can call it) is about changes between what occurs b4 treatment vs. after treatment, not specific non-linear low order distortion at high spl. As such, it's a useless strawman.
Bud has repeatedly stated that EnABL fixes all sorts of problems, from lobing to diffraction to transparency to clarity to low level distortion, so you've made no point at all wrt Earl's analysis. Since no one has shown any quantitative results on any system, it's nothing more than a tweak. Even Bud agrees with this.
Gee, I wonder what Earl's take on EnABL might be, seeing as he's such an objectivist and all... maybe the Summas should be eNabl'd, eh??
John L.:
planet10 said:
This is a typical "trump card statement" being made to supposedly refute Dave(dlr). Not everyone agrees with what Earl says , plus I believe the discussion (if that's what you can call it) is about changes between what occurs b4 treatment vs. after treatment, not specific non-linear low order distortion at high spl. As such, it's a useless strawman.
Bud has repeatedly stated that EnABL fixes all sorts of problems, from lobing to diffraction to transparency to clarity to low level distortion, so you've made no point at all wrt Earl's analysis. Since no one has shown any quantitative results on any system, it's nothing more than a tweak. Even Bud agrees with this.
Gee, I wonder what Earl's take on EnABL might be, seeing as he's such an objectivist and all... maybe the Summas should be eNabl'd, eh??
John L.:
planet10 said:
Go re-read what he said. Read from the beginning again. I've been following that. He's not questioning all distortion measurements. Quite the contrary, it's which ones and how they are used. His point is that making correlations between perception and distortion measurement is difficult. I find what he has said very interesting and note that he has been in agreement to some degree with Mark K (page 1, post 21: "Much of what you say is true and very good points.") and I find much to accept. Metrics related to correlations with perception, that is. He does dismiss any metric between THD and IMD that most of us who have been following zaph's and Mark K's work have as well for some time. But it's difficult to get others to study the issue, the enabl threads are no exceptions.
Quote from page 1:
"Basically through an ellaborate test of some 25 college students we were able to show that THD and IMD are meaningless measurements of distortion as far as perception is concerned. Basically one cannot say that something does or does not sound good based on these measurements."
But if you want to start using his input for relevance, try these quotes as well:
"You are presuming that your premise "a line array sounds so much more cleaner and dynamic that conventional speakers" is actually true. How do you know that? Because you listened to a couple and came to this conclusion? I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but I can't comment on YOUR perceptions. Show me some real data, or some blind studies that confirm your hypothesis is in fact true and we can move from there. But to assume the unproven as fact is simply not something that I can comment on."
Now substitute "EnABLed driver" for "line array" and "untreated driver" for "conventional speakers". Does the point made have a familiar ring to it?
Possibly the most troubling comment to many in this thread might be this one, again on page 1 (there are quite a few I could quote):
"Anyone who says "its what you like that matters", does not have accuracy as the goal, it is preference, and distortion is usually prefered."
I think that the measurement thread would be very enlightening to many. It will be counter to a significant amount of the posts in this and the first enabl thread.
I haven't even gotten to page 2 yet. I think that the relevant quotes might exceed the limits imposed by the board software for a single post.
He says he's leaning to the case of non-linear distortion not mattering, though that's still out-of-line with other current thoughts, but only time will tell on that. With regard to linear distortion, the kind most influenced by driver treatments, he considers it to be significant if I remember enough from the thread. EnABL will affect primarily the linear distortion.
Now I'm on page 2. One item includes reference to his "distortion metric". Don't be lulled into thinking that he's dismissed distortion altogether, he leans to the side of linear distortion being the bigger problem. On that, I think I agree, as I've been less inclined to go for the lowest distortion drivers, those usually being metal with copper in the gap. My favorite mid is still the 12m/4631 doped paper.
Now on page 3:
"A big problem in audio is the tendancy to use any rational explanation of the cause of something as factual proof. It takes more than something being a possible cause to make it the real cause. "
"If something is not substantiated with solid evidence then it should be so stated."
These must really sound familiar! I initially thought of posting from the thread, but I held back until you brought it in.
Now on page 4 (and my favorite quote):
"Having a hypothesis and proving it are vastly different things, don't you agree? The hypothesis part is easy - proving it is where the work is. Most people stop at the hypothesis and just assume its proven because they thought of it."
Dave
dlr said:
I have. Your points have nothing to do with my statement... but what he does say puts into question the validity of your statement that i quoted.
Earl would dismiss EnABL out of hand, there has been no study yet done, objective or subjective, that scientifically supports what most who hear it describe. But Earl does have science that says that the conventional distortion measures will tell us nothing about it either.
I'm as eager as anyone to see that we decipher what is happening -- and have been actively assisting in pursuing that goal. In the meantime, everytime i listen to my hifi, i am reaping the benefits of EnABL.
dave