Also 3d printing. I regret wasting years trying to get good results from $500 printers made with cheap bearings and ball screws before finally buying a Prusa with accurate drive and the best Japanese bearings that actually last more than 100 hours.
Attachments
Sir, we dont allow no waveguide people in here...🤣🤣🤣 . Bunch of weirdos who want to make their own parts instead of buying them from the store like the Good Lord intended.
Obviously, all in good fun. 😁
For me personally, Hypex fusion plat amps, and VituixCad. Those two were game changers.
Two days! WTF? No amp should take two days to warm up! If it doesn’t sound good in the first 5 minutes of listening it’s gone from my system. Of course that excludes things I’m working on, which is most of my system.
@hifijim - I really like the performance of those, the UI and dimensions less so, but I can't argue with the final results. I wish the UI was more use friendly like miniDSP crossovers are. I have a pair of 2-way speakers I am thinking of converting, and the miniDSP ICEpower 2way amps are a much better physical fit.
From setting up sound systems in stadiums for the Swifties,
to transducer designers optimizing motor and suspensions,
to DIYers moving beyond generic off-the-shelf passive crossover
Or even budding enthusiasts designing with more than on-axis measurements and crossover-in-a-spreadsheet programs...
I would have to say software tools have sped up many processes in R&D...
to transducer designers optimizing motor and suspensions,
to DIYers moving beyond generic off-the-shelf passive crossover
Or even budding enthusiasts designing with more than on-axis measurements and crossover-in-a-spreadsheet programs...
I would have to say software tools have sped up many processes in R&D...
Strictly as a hobbyist, who ages ago saw what college labs had, I'd say the software revolution happened a long time ago. XSim, VituixCAD, REW, DATS. Unimaginably affordable compared to the tools of the 1990s. There is no longer an excuse for any professional speaker builder to make the impedance/frequency mistakes that were not uncommon before, unless they want to.
Well software and hardware go hand in hand.
When MLSSA was released in 1987 for MS-DOS based PCs It was a hardware/software solution- and came with an ISA sound card with a 12bit ADC, capable of sampling in excess of 100KHz for measurements past 40KHz.
A 386 PC had been released just a couple of years prior in 1985; and needed a US $800 (1987)… $2000 in today’s money) for the 80387 math co-processor for MLSSA… just to run.
Anyone doing any real work had to opt for that math co-pro.
Meanwhile the first SoundBlaster didn’t arrive until 1989, and at $239 ($600 in today’s money). It offered an 8bit ADC with a 12KHz sample rate, so I guess one could measure out to 6Khz with a SNR of 48dB.
When the 486 came out and had a built in math coprocessor, and sound cards offering 16bit ADC and good SNR started appearing, eg. Turtle Beach, Pro Audio Spectrum, that was probably the start of lower cost measurements…
Meanwhile I was playing Doom…
When MLSSA was released in 1987 for MS-DOS based PCs It was a hardware/software solution- and came with an ISA sound card with a 12bit ADC, capable of sampling in excess of 100KHz for measurements past 40KHz.
A 386 PC had been released just a couple of years prior in 1985; and needed a US $800 (1987)… $2000 in today’s money) for the 80387 math co-processor for MLSSA… just to run.
Anyone doing any real work had to opt for that math co-pro.
Meanwhile the first SoundBlaster didn’t arrive until 1989, and at $239 ($600 in today’s money). It offered an 8bit ADC with a 12KHz sample rate, so I guess one could measure out to 6Khz with a SNR of 48dB.
When the 486 came out and had a built in math coprocessor, and sound cards offering 16bit ADC and good SNR started appearing, eg. Turtle Beach, Pro Audio Spectrum, that was probably the start of lower cost measurements…
Meanwhile I was playing Doom…
Last edited:
Interestingly, Outline's electronic speaker turntable has been around since 1990 for polar measurements with MLSSA.
VituixCAD 1.1 was released in 2017 which enabled one to work directly with up to 718 measurements (0-359 in horizontal and vertical in 1 degree increments)
SoundEasy updated in 2022 to include bi-plane measurements aka spiniorama/CEA/CTA2034A
Many of us started staking polar measurements seriously when it became easy to do so.
Outline also introduced full mapping of concert halls, stadiums:
https://outline.it/products/openarray/
Perhaps in 10-20 years we will have affordable solutions that can model our entire living room/listening space
VituixCAD 1.1 was released in 2017 which enabled one to work directly with up to 718 measurements (0-359 in horizontal and vertical in 1 degree increments)
SoundEasy updated in 2022 to include bi-plane measurements aka spiniorama/CEA/CTA2034A
Many of us started staking polar measurements seriously when it became easy to do so.
Outline also introduced full mapping of concert halls, stadiums:
https://outline.it/products/openarray/
Perhaps in 10-20 years we will have affordable solutions that can model our entire living room/listening space
Do you have a link to what you've built there? is this an omnidirectional sound source?
How to build a spherical speaker <-- Here's a link to the posts I made on this design. Yes it is an omnidirectional speaker. With three channels of amplification and digital crossovers for each sphere they can be run as a point source, omni-directional, cardioid pattern or omnidirectional. The speakers were purchased shortly after I made them, so I don't have as much documentation as I would like. I used 20 Aurasound Cougar drivers in each 6" diameter sphere with equalization required to get a good response. A 12" woofer was used with each sphere to make a full range system. If you have interest in printing some I could dig up the .stl files.
Little off topic, but shortly after this there was a competitor to SoundBlaster that came out with realistic acoustics for games. The handful of games that came out which supported this had really fun soundscapes. For instance, you could hear your enemies, but due to wall reflections the sound might come from the opposite side, so you'd have to use your spatial and aural awareness to survive. SB would soon sue them out of existence, and AFAIK 3D acoustic game effects was never popular again, compared to say rumble pads and ray tracing.
Hello Mark.
Both have their strengths as you might imagine. TEF has a couple of of as yet (to my limited knowledge) unsurpassed abilities that are magic.
Not wanting to dilute this thread, I have sent you a private message.
Barry
The Linkwitz webpage may be more than ten years old, but it is a gem. I found the speaker testing information there greatly elevated my speaker building. The distortion and stored energy tests are great. https://www.linkwitzlab.com/
The Linkwitz - Reilly 4th order crossover. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkwitz–Riley_filter
The Linkwitz transform ( 2nd order asymmetric shelf filter ) useful to get any bass alignment you desire.
The book Sound Reproduction The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms Floyd Toole
The book Current-Driving of Loudspeakers, Esa Meriläinen Until I read this book I was easily fooled by the
audiophile press non-sense about amplifiers getting a grip on woofers. https://www.current-drive.info/
The book Power Amplifier Design, Douglas Self. An engineer exploring and documenting the performance
of different versions of each stage of a linear audio amplifier. http://www.douglas-self.com/ampins/ampins.htm
Software: WinISD woofer box design
Hornresp: Sealed box resonances, and horns.
Boxsim by Visaton. Full speaker simulation with crossover optimization. You have to type in and load files for drivers not made by Visaton. The ability to use multiple amplifiers, active / passive crossovers, position drivers on any side of an enclosure, baffle modeling and directivity calculations. It does just about everything.
The Linkwitz - Reilly 4th order crossover. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkwitz–Riley_filter
The Linkwitz transform ( 2nd order asymmetric shelf filter ) useful to get any bass alignment you desire.
The book Sound Reproduction The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms Floyd Toole
The book Current-Driving of Loudspeakers, Esa Meriläinen Until I read this book I was easily fooled by the
audiophile press non-sense about amplifiers getting a grip on woofers. https://www.current-drive.info/
The book Power Amplifier Design, Douglas Self. An engineer exploring and documenting the performance
of different versions of each stage of a linear audio amplifier. http://www.douglas-self.com/ampins/ampins.htm
Software: WinISD woofer box design
Hornresp: Sealed box resonances, and horns.
Boxsim by Visaton. Full speaker simulation with crossover optimization. You have to type in and load files for drivers not made by Visaton. The ability to use multiple amplifiers, active / passive crossovers, position drivers on any side of an enclosure, baffle modeling and directivity calculations. It does just about everything.
Last edited: