getting drumkit believeable - what modest approaches work?

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#61
My initial question was "is there a connection between radiating area or efficiency and realism, apart from the obvious fact that you need alot of radiating area to get loud?"

Magnetar said:
Oh yeah, you got it right! Th dipole pattern and no box resonance helps too..
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GM said:
No, all else being equal, it's about displacement whether a large radiating area/minimal excursion/low power or a small radiator with enough linear displacement/power handling to match it.
GM
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First, let me assume, that Magnetar meant the same as GM, just didnt mention that radiating area and excursion are exchangable, all else beeing equal.

So, according to your explanations, "realism" boils down to a high linear spl capability.

I experienced, that an instrument, played live in your room, has a tangible feeling in your body, which the speakers i heard up to date could not reproduce completely. As an extreme example take good headphones. They are very linear devices, sound very "correct", but i prefer listening to speakers, since they have more life.

What in a speaker lets it create this sense of realism? It would be strange if it would only be its capability to play loud, since for example a guitar isnt so loud and even with my old open baffle speakers, i could easily play much louder than a guitar and the realism was still lacking.
 
#62
What in a speaker lets it create this sense of realism? It would be strange if it would only be its capability to play loud, since for example a guitar isnt so loud and even with my old open baffle speakers, i could easily play much louder than a guitar and the realism was still lacking.
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You mean acoustic guitar, right ?
I think that's where the whole recording/playback technology
(as we know it) peters out.
The closest to reality recording I ever heard was an electric guitar speaker cabinet used as a microphone straight into a good analogue tape deck.
The closest to reality commercial playback was Magneplanars with big SS amplifiers. (FWIW)
 
#64
Karlson (and K-tube) can sound pretty cool on guitar and harpsichord - new couplers might need some experimentation with wings flare - especially the first few inches to get a usable balance.

thanks Happy -Gringo- will ginger capsules work? - I can't get to the store for the real thing

hey Hitsware - was a transformer employed for the speaker as microphone? - was that just shielded cable and unbalanced. what are good ways to do this method with a long run of cable? - I see speakers for kick drum mic.
 
#65
please excuse my ignorance, but for what stands "BSC"?

the "phase" issue is also quite a complicated for me. i dont know why there can be phase shifts, that are accompanied with a nonlinearity in the frequency graph, since there also seem to be phase shifts, which dont show in the frequency vs amplitude graph. also there has to be some connection of group delay and phase, since both seem to be some kind of frequency dependant time delay.
i assume, that if i use time delays for the drivers inherent delays & physical spacing and linear phase crossovers, my next speakers should be as phase linear as it could be.

it seems, that getting a drum or whatever sound believable and not just loud, is a rather complex thing.
 
#67
MaVo said:
My initial question was "is there a connection between radiating area or efficiency and realism, apart from the obvious fact that you need alot of radiating area to get loud?"





First, let me assume, that Magnetar meant the same as GM, just didnt mention that radiating area and excursion are exchangable, all else beeing equal.

So, according to your explanations, "realism" boils down to a high linear spl capability.

I experienced, that an instrument, played live in your room, has a tangible feeling in your body, which the speakers i heard up to date could not reproduce completely. As an extreme example take good headphones. They are very linear devices, sound very "correct", but i prefer listening to speakers, since they have more life.

What in a speaker lets it create this sense of realism? It would be strange if it would only be its capability to play loud, since for example a guitar isnt so loud and even with my old open baffle speakers, i could easily play much louder than a guitar and the realism was still lacking.
Click to expand...

I meant radiating area too - ie a pair of Magnepans or full range electrostats or line arrays normally sound more realistic then some high end monitor like an ATC, Westlake or Tannoy dual concentric or . There is more 'meat on the bones' to the instrument image and normally much more accurate upper bass and low midrange (this is where the heart of realism is located!) - problem is most panels fail in dynamics and most line arrays have lobing issues. I have had large horns that play LOUD but tend to sound like BIG mini monitors, still not the same as the big radiating area IMHO.
 
#68
freddi said:
hi MaVo - -I've heard drums in small club PA situations not sound as good nor dynamic as they could have sounded without any "amplification"

re:BSC - i think that means trying to offset the baffle-step with eq
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I have made the same experience, listening to amplified jazz music in a small club, it was loud as hell, making my ears ring, but at the same time the feeling of unamplified instruments wasnt there. but this is an extreme case, since a small club PA is normally struggling not to die with the power put into it. my first example was referring to a more subtle problem, the feeling of the instruments vibrations in your body. small hand drums or guitars, most instruments can be felt, i think. at least, if one is quite near them. there was a huge difference between sitting next to a instrumentalist playing his instrument and hearing the same or a similar instrument from my speakers or headphones.

slowly i get the feeling of drifting into audiophile subjectivist realm. i sincerely hope that is not the case :angel:

baffle step compensation, thanks freddi 🙂

Magnetar, is 2 or 4*12inch PA midbass drivers per side, loaded into a 0,5m² mouth conical horn for the 50-350hz range what you would call sufficient radiating area?
 
#70
>was a transformer employed for the speaker as microphone?

straight into hi-Z mic input IIRC?

>was that just shielded cable and unbalanced.

yea....a guitar cord IIRC?

>what are good ways to do this method with a long run of >cable?

i think it would do ok since the speaker Z keeps the line at lo Z

the 'mic' was 2 12" Altec guitar drivers in a Bassman type cab
into a Teac 2340. It was done sorta by accident by a blissfully ignorant type. Knocked my socks off 🙂
 
#71
BSC means "baffle step compensation"

You get a SPL loss in the midbass which needs 3-6db higher sensitivity than above...either you attennuate above midbass or you use woofers with higher sensitivity

With the use of 15" or more you may not need much BSC

To favour the drums I would place XO point higher than the standard 300hz

Realistic SPL is a funny thing, very relative...do you mean real life drums or would it be amplified drums🙄

I have just listened church organ music, and it really surpriced me that I didnt need much volume(SPL) to simulate the feeling of actually being in the church giving a "realistic lifelike experience"
 
#72
Magnetar said:
It's more complicated then that, besides that doesn't sound like much of a midbass horn, more like midrange/treble.
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would you mind to explain, which factors make it more complicated, since you have the experience that i lack?

You are right with the horn, with its 5000 square centimeters mouth area, it wont load below about 80-100hz and even then not very much, since it has a conical shape. i hoped, that the amount of radiating area in comparison to a specific frequency, would be the key element here.

thanks, tinitus, i just got it with freddis help 🙂
 
#73
MaVo said:


would you mind to explain, which factors make it more complicated, since you have the experience that i lack?

You are right with the horn, with its 5000 square centimeters mouth area, it wont load below about 80-100hz and even then not very much, since it has a conical shape. i hoped, that the amount of radiating area in comparison to a specific frequency, would be the key element here.

thanks, tinitus, i just got it with freddis help 🙂
Click to expand...

Some other factors to complicate:

Low harmonic distortion
Low linear distortion
Low IM distortion (quad amping)
Low compression
Properly damped cabinet structures
Properly shaped cabinet structures
Properly setup system/room as a whole
Correct radiation pattern vs frequency vs room
Fast settling time
Transient 'perfect' crossovers
Proper power handling
Proper amplification
Proper source material
Experience with real instruments in real space
Most important knowing where you want to be and how to get there.
 
#74
last one - in my parts might boil down to gettin' some $32/sheet plywood and "semi-pro" woofers, grab a Behringer or Samson and yeehaah ? Samson's F1200 with easy loads was a nice amp - EP2500 would probably sound more dimensional if the input bypassed the 1st op amp. Theres various 16 ohm 10" woofers but no specs
 
#79
~hifi but portable for dual use would be interesting - - I agree that real drum doesn't always have to be "loud" but getting the sound seems difficult from small and some large loudspeaker - I could probably get some semblance with Karlson 15, and big radial horn topped with tweeter

here's an old PA midbass horn I have which goes to about 60Hz in--room (I have another graph of the Klipschorn)
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
 
#80
MaVo said:


Thanks for this long list, as it showed me that my own thoughts were right on track. I feared there was something mystical hidden in the "big radiating area" thing that i had not seen.
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Nope, using a lot of surface area moves the air with less excursion. The lower the excursion the lower the distortion. It's important in the bass and lower midrange where as you go lower the excursion gets higher. Big panels (or several woofers) move air with lower distortion because there is less excursion required, make them dipoles and you load the room modes more optimal then a monopole. The combination of low distortion big panels and dipole provided it's linear, low dynamic compression and will play loud enough means you are getting somewhere. A proper size horn will do pretty much the same thing except it doesn't normally have a dipole radiation. The horn driver may also have the advantage of lower mass then multiple drivers with possible greater efficiency. More than one way to skin a cat. 😱

It's simple but you still see all those systems being 'reviewed', sold or built with puny single sixes, eights, tens ect and big price tags. IMHO they are, to quote Irish Tom Brennan, "TV speakers" 😉
 
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