Edit: Tanaka Isasuke is not chief editor of Stereo Sound, but of Stereo, a magazine published by Ongaku No Tomo Sha Corp. (Friends of Music Inc.).
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Seems Troy Crowe took inspiration from the multicells which John evidently designed years ago.
Even the number of cells is identical.
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Because (algorithmically driven) censorship is as fluid as the state of the world - currently quite severe after a few years of release, and because data 'disappears'.
I got tired of speculating... First I went to the marine store to see what fiberglass fabric looked like in person... Then after looking multiple horribly recorded video of these types of products I concluded that I won't be able to decide unless my desired product is in my hand and I can visually inspect it.
I wanted a type of organic/oriental looking...thing. Maybe not the right adjectives but non the less this pattern is really attractive to me.... I don't even want a white enclosure in particular but I am not against it... and I don't want to have to apply anything to the outside to change the color... but it is what it is... Carbon Fiber is an acceptable color but the price of it for this pattern is outrageous. Fiberglass is much cheaper. Plus with the nylon stitching I'd be wise to cover it in something, to protect the threads anyway... The most popular weave for finishes is the twill weave and then satin and plain, as long as the weave is tight, uniformity can be expected. If the weave I've chosen is uniform, I will be very happy. Colored epoxy is the idea I have in my head... What color? Not sure yet...
I took a stroll through Sweetwater's monitor pages, and everything is somewhere between black, charcoal, and grey, with the exception of completely white. I dislike the Glossy products with the exception of texture + gloss, which is seen as black brushed aluminum. This is also before I pulled the trigger on the stuff above.. but the stuff above had been researched for some time already.
I am an artist, so don't expect it to make sense lol... texture and organic material is calling to me... In particular the repetitive patterns... I am also cheap so fiberglass checked all the boxes, but its to be seen if this pattern is uniform enough for a finish, since this aspect can vary between brands and weaves
I wanted a type of organic/oriental looking...thing. Maybe not the right adjectives but non the less this pattern is really attractive to me.... I don't even want a white enclosure in particular but I am not against it... and I don't want to have to apply anything to the outside to change the color... but it is what it is... Carbon Fiber is an acceptable color but the price of it for this pattern is outrageous. Fiberglass is much cheaper. Plus with the nylon stitching I'd be wise to cover it in something, to protect the threads anyway... The most popular weave for finishes is the twill weave and then satin and plain, as long as the weave is tight, uniformity can be expected. If the weave I've chosen is uniform, I will be very happy. Colored epoxy is the idea I have in my head... What color? Not sure yet...
I took a stroll through Sweetwater's monitor pages, and everything is somewhere between black, charcoal, and grey, with the exception of completely white. I dislike the Glossy products with the exception of texture + gloss, which is seen as black brushed aluminum. This is also before I pulled the trigger on the stuff above.. but the stuff above had been researched for some time already.
I am an artist, so don't expect it to make sense lol... texture and organic material is calling to me... In particular the repetitive patterns... I am also cheap so fiberglass checked all the boxes, but its to be seen if this pattern is uniform enough for a finish, since this aspect can vary between brands and weaves
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posting this here for reference, and spotlighting... We have talked about this before in this thread but I want to dig up those comments for my own personal reference and organization. This is a comment from another thread but now I have cataloged it here. Ty @mabat for helping provide clarity as usual.
https://audiohorn.net/constant-directivity/
"When a directivity is not constant, the device loose more and more coverage when the frequency goes up, the polar aka the energy in dB relative to the angle of radiation show us the problematic " I am not a fan any literature coming from the same place money is exchanged, but Why are posting a sentence that is just meaning to say that your sweet spot is limited to how wide the coverage is before -6db. They didn't even word it right, they are describing a horn with a rising DI, to which is not the only Non constant directivity horn.
This is a type of ideal, one of many. No reason that a 70 degree beamwidth should be chosen over one that is 45degrees or 55 or 65 etc etc.
That is essentially saying that having various beamwidths is ok and the smooth uncolored transition is the real prize...
Both of these styles of horns have a smooth off axis transition. One is less uniform to frequency. The smooth off axis transition starts sooner in the HF, slowly working its way down frequency.
@oltos I don't think you have a clue what you are looking at... I think you are faking it till you make it while trying to wait for someone to say the magic thing that will inspire you to finally jump... Until you can say what polar performance you prefer and why I will assume as much is true. You should really give one of the popular AI's a try... Its always there, always on, always has replies, and you can bounce ideas off it all day with immediate responses instead of waiting for a response here... Grok is the best in my opinion with Claude 3.5 and DeepSeep right behind it... I have to correct its answers at times, but at least you can come here after a while of debating with the AI and see if your new found ideas fly or not.
If the sweet spot is big enough, If it is, there is no reason why constant directivity should be chosen over rising DI. The room will sound different but I have discovered that in either cause you end up with a Power response that is sloping Anyway... I repeat... With a well built rising DI horn and a Constant DI horn, in a room that is considered acoustically very good... You still... end up... with a Sloping Power Response... because of how much more efficiency acoustic treatment is at eating HF energy over LF... In that cause, If you have two horns one with a rising DI and one with a constant DI, but the sweet spot is identical... They can result in almost identical listening conditions.... Why is this noteworthy, because one of the major sells on constant directivity approach is "balanced power response" when in actuality be only need it be smooth without dramatic changes... The concept of Smooth transition takes precedence, In On axis Fr, Off axis FR, Power Response, THD response, DI, and possible other areas, and if one wanted to, could come up with a maximum desirable transition rate for each axis. If I am not mistaken we concluded that DI is actually only final after in the room, Just like FR... and that DI tends to rise, in heavily damped rooms for the same reason that power response slopes. downward. I might be recalling that last big of information incorrectly but being corrected is usually what I am looking for so I tend to stick my kneck out anyway.
"When a directivity is not constant, the device loose more and more coverage when the frequency goes up, the polar aka the energy in dB relative to the angle of radiation show us the problematic " I am not a fan any literature coming from the same place money is exchanged, but Why are posting a sentence that is just meaning to say that your sweet spot is limited to how wide the coverage is before -6db. They didn't even word it right, they are describing a horn with a rising DI, to which is not the only Non constant directivity horn.
This is a type of ideal, one of many. No reason that a 70 degree beamwidth should be chosen over one that is 45degrees or 55 or 65 etc etc.
That is essentially saying that having various beamwidths is ok and the smooth uncolored transition is the real prize...
Both of these styles of horns have a smooth off axis transition. One is less uniform to frequency. The smooth off axis transition starts sooner in the HF, slowly working its way down frequency.
@oltos I don't think you have a clue what you are looking at... I think you are faking it till you make it while trying to wait for someone to say the magic thing that will inspire you to finally jump... Until you can say what polar performance you prefer and why I will assume as much is true. You should really give one of the popular AI's a try... Its always there, always on, always has replies, and you can bounce ideas off it all day with immediate responses instead of waiting for a response here... Grok is the best in my opinion with Claude 3.5 and DeepSeep right behind it... I have to correct its answers at times, but at least you can come here after a while of debating with the AI and see if your new found ideas fly or not.
If the sweet spot is big enough, If it is, there is no reason why constant directivity should be chosen over rising DI. The room will sound different but I have discovered that in either cause you end up with a Power response that is sloping Anyway... I repeat... With a well built rising DI horn and a Constant DI horn, in a room that is considered acoustically very good... You still... end up... with a Sloping Power Response... because of how much more efficiency acoustic treatment is at eating HF energy over LF... In that cause, If you have two horns one with a rising DI and one with a constant DI, but the sweet spot is identical... They can result in almost identical listening conditions.... Why is this noteworthy, because one of the major sells on constant directivity approach is "balanced power response" when in actuality be only need it be smooth without dramatic changes... The concept of Smooth transition takes precedence, In On axis Fr, Off axis FR, Power Response, THD response, DI, and possible other areas, and if one wanted to, could come up with a maximum desirable transition rate for each axis. If I am not mistaken we concluded that DI is actually only final after in the room, Just like FR... and that DI tends to rise, in heavily damped rooms for the same reason that power response slopes. downward. I might be recalling that last big of information incorrectly but being corrected is usually what I am looking for so I tend to stick my kneck out anyway.
I believe it is called "learned helplessness", not 100% shure if this is the case, but I mostly agree with Camplo; it is admirable many of the experts here do not loose their patience while running in circles with oltos.
" Larger rooms like concert halls and theaters have sloping room responses—HF energy (>1 kHz) absorbs more (e.g., seats, curtains), while LF (<200 Hz) reflects, creating a downward slope." - Grok
I like the sound of Larger rooms. It is discussed why people like the sound of Concert Halls (a large room) and the aspect of envelopment is criticized. Sloping Power Response could also be just as potent, as a completely uniform decay time in MS, could potentially render the sound brighter than desirable. It is also possible that after the decay times are brought low enough that this trait disappears but according to Grok "<300ms sounds right for clarity.
"(<250Hz) need longer decay (0.4-0.5s) for warmth; high frequencies (>7kHz) shorter (0.1-0.2s) for clarity" this is the formula for a high performing mastering room or, a technical starting point, at the very least.
"Within the sweet spot, direct sound is 0 dB [Camplo- ignoring the technical typical -6db currently used], but room absorption reduces off-axis HF reflections, increasing the direct-to-reflected ratio, thus raising effective DI... The sweet spot doesn’t shrink with room absorption—direct sound (0 dB) defines it; absorption reduces off-axis reflections, raising DI without altering the sweet spot’s size" - Grok
I like the sound of Larger rooms. It is discussed why people like the sound of Concert Halls (a large room) and the aspect of envelopment is criticized. Sloping Power Response could also be just as potent, as a completely uniform decay time in MS, could potentially render the sound brighter than desirable. It is also possible that after the decay times are brought low enough that this trait disappears but according to Grok "<300ms sounds right for clarity.
"(<250Hz) need longer decay (0.4-0.5s) for warmth; high frequencies (>7kHz) shorter (0.1-0.2s) for clarity" this is the formula for a high performing mastering room or, a technical starting point, at the very least.
"Within the sweet spot, direct sound is 0 dB [Camplo- ignoring the technical typical -6db currently used], but room absorption reduces off-axis HF reflections, increasing the direct-to-reflected ratio, thus raising effective DI... The sweet spot doesn’t shrink with room absorption—direct sound (0 dB) defines it; absorption reduces off-axis reflections, raising DI without altering the sweet spot’s size" - Grok
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"High DI speakers can achieve faster "audible silence"[than low DI speakers] in rooms after playback stops, even at matched listening-position SPL. This is critical for clarity in speech/audio systems. " DeepSeek.
What I am illuminating is the idea that Higher DI creates a lower SPl level of Indirect sound.... The decay rate of the room (Indirect sound) is fixed as well as the decay rate of the Driver (Direct Sound).... Because the Reverberation level is lower in SPL it will reach 20db (not be confused with -20DBFS) sooner with High DI vs Low DI.
Increasing DI with a waveguide, increases mechanical efficiency, which is seen in an increase in sensitivity as well, but I believe less excursion is needed as well.
Because less excursion is needed to produce the fixed amount of SPL at the listening position, there is less stored energy in the drivers diaphragm. I see it as a fixed rate (if all things else are equal outside of DI) from X amount of excursion to 0 excursion, where the High DI is already closer to 0 excursion...
This, as always, is a complicated thing, and though this is what I see at face value, there could be missing information to my conclusions, that change the outcome. The board is welcome to respond.
What I am illuminating is the idea that Higher DI creates a lower SPl level of Indirect sound.... The decay rate of the room (Indirect sound) is fixed as well as the decay rate of the Driver (Direct Sound).... Because the Reverberation level is lower in SPL it will reach 20db (not be confused with -20DBFS) sooner with High DI vs Low DI.
Increasing DI with a waveguide, increases mechanical efficiency, which is seen in an increase in sensitivity as well, but I believe less excursion is needed as well.
Because less excursion is needed to produce the fixed amount of SPL at the listening position, there is less stored energy in the drivers diaphragm. I see it as a fixed rate (if all things else are equal outside of DI) from X amount of excursion to 0 excursion, where the High DI is already closer to 0 excursion...
This, as always, is a complicated thing, and though this is what I see at face value, there could be missing information to my conclusions, that change the outcome. The board is welcome to respond.
There is a compelling reason when the typical use of horns is considered, that of covering a specific audience area with minimal coverage of positions they are not.
The -6dB point was chosen so system designers could have an expectation of where overlapping coverage patterns would create a (theoretical) 0dB transition.
No decay time at any frequency would be my ideal decay time for clarity.
I have never heard sounds as clearly in any enclosed venue as in a mostly reflection free environment.
Grok in Heinlein's novel meant "identically equal", a fitting name for a technology that now has no difficulty homogenizing disparate conflicting opinions and facts into a single, frequently incorrect, ambiguous statement.
Art
Insightful.
Aside, but still somewhat related to Geddes' quote
My personal objections to the scientism (~reductionist) approach is that it's usually not refined enough with respect to the basics. In other words, it ignores the subtle aspects > sub(-sub-sub) domain interdependence, (integrity of the) signal path etc.
We can measure all kinds of distortion, room acoustics and the like, but even if a system meets all the requirements, it's by no means (at least in my opinion) a guarantee for coherent 'sound'.
An example is the much praised (soon to be discontinued) Grimm LS1be with digital Motion Feedback system, which is also used locally for psychoacoustics.
Admittedly, I didn't notice any major flaws with respect to directivity, interaction with the room, etc., but the system seriously lacked overall coherence.
The whole thing sounded quite disjointed, flat, processed, synthetic ~ unnatural.
Attention quickly waned as the system was unable to reproduce the soul of the music credibly.
It reminds me of Jean-Michel Le Cleac'h comment, while listening to Thomas Schick's Klangfilm Eurodyn system:
"Thomas, no bass, no treble, but a lot of music"
With the Grimm it was the other way around.
“Grok’ means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed-to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science-and it means as little to us as a color means to a blind man.”― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
I came across some examples/explanations:
"Physicists can’t grok the behavior of a single electron that is identical to every other electron.— John Horgan, Scientific American, 6 Feb. 2021"
"'Grok' is more than 'empathic understanding'. It's comprehension on the level of the thing becoming integrated with oneself on a molecular level. This is why both 'love' and 'hate'are simultaneous synonyms for 'grok'.
Grok seems to be loosely inspired by Jung's 'Self':
"As a totality, the self is a coincidentia oppositorum; it is therefore bright and dark and yet neither".
But perhaps refers even more to the (New Age) idea of 'higher consciousness'.
This is true (but maybe misleading,) but not the whole story. High DI also delays the onset of reverberation in a room. This delay is what makes reverberation in an auditorium sound so good - it is significantly delayed from the direct sound. High DI extends this delay in any room.
True.
But not the delay of the onset of reverberation - which is DI dependant.
This is meaningless unless you put the SPL number in some context - i.e. relative to what?
I don't give this much credence for home use, there is more than enough clean SPL in reserve for excursion to be a problem - unless you try to go too low with the crossover (I hope you wouldn't make that mistake.) It is an important consideration in sound reinforcement.
I added some missing information, but it doesn't change the outcome, just reinforces it.
I just want to point out (mostly to the audience) that your point of view is sound reinforcement and from that point of view I agree with you. I, on the other hand come from a home theater perspective exclusively and those points of view can be quite different (see below.)
I don't think that home theater people would necessarily buy this, even though it is quite true. They usually want some room acoustics to enhance the spaciousness of the playback. Floyd Toole would be in this camp I should think. Me? not so much. I like a lively room, but imaging is paramount to me and that is my central goal. I'd give up some spaciousness for improved imaging. In sound reinforcement "imaging" is not much of a thing. Two different worlds. (Same physics, different psychoacoustics.)
Am I dumb to think that it is the scientists who are the "refined" ones "with respects to the basics." We use terms and definitions properly, not in a convenient self-defining way. (Like your use of "coherent" above - it's not a subjective concept as you use the word.)
I wouldn't call anyone dumb.
There are things known, partly known, unknown and unknowable.
Imo the ideal state of awareness is to not know, like a newborn baby.
That doesn't work in this materialistic, deceptive world, so, it's recommended to develop a state of awareness beyond ignorance.
(I won't go into the implications in this thread.)
I used 'coherent' in a different context, not to dismiss yours > 'forming a unified whole'.
There are things known, partly known, unknown and unknowable.
Imo the ideal state of awareness is to not know, like a newborn baby.
That doesn't work in this materialistic, deceptive world, so, it's recommended to develop a state of awareness beyond ignorance.
(I won't go into the implications in this thread.)
I used 'coherent' in a different context, not to dismiss yours > 'forming a unified whole'.
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What is 'properly' if language is inherently limited (leads to an infinite regress)?
From a book published by Oxford University Press:
"Scientific truth is based on facts. Philosophy, religion, feelings, and prejudice have nothing to do with science. Only facts matter. Verified, reproducible facts are the bedrock of scientific truth. The facts are used to construct theories which describe the detailed relations among large numbers of facts and their origin from common roots. Each element of a theory corresponds to some part of nature and, in this sense, scientific theories describe nature."
Such paradoxical, rigid, technocratic nonsense mainly testifies to fear and a desire for control (power).
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There is more into nature than science can describe. Loudspeaker design is however engineering and here, science has helped us a lot. There still remains a spiritual context because we are dealing with music reproduction, which has a spiritual effect on people. That is why people enjoy their favorite song on a clock radio in the morning as much as on a high end set 😉