Yes. Surprisingly so; but as always, everything depends - I have another set of PC speakers here, with a famous name on them, bigger, more impressive to look at, but in raw form they're pretty dreadful, so I haven't bothered with them. A simple, slowly rising frequency sweep tells one a lot - on the duds, doing that test coaxes out quite an amazing array of squeaks, gurgles, blubbering and other unpleasantness - on the "good" units that sound run is remarkably clean, apart from the lowest octave where they produce audible results sounding somewhat dodgy. It's actually very easy to hear the distortion coming and going at various points, in frequency sweeps - the purity of the tone is contaminated, in quite obvious ways - I've played with introducing a slightly different frequency tone from the harmonics, at different levels, and a beating can be heard - just by ear, the frequency can be determined and the level, quite accurately.
Last edited:
These are also the sort of tests I do - but I dispute it being a function of the speaker; these are metrics of the overall system IME. I say this, because a particular speaker can be everything from totally mediocre in this test, to absolutely superb, without a thing being done to the speaker. The integrity of the electronics are the determining factor, and hence I can assess progress made.
When I first made my "breakthrough", decades ago, I got "apparent loudness of the right and left source" to be zero, and the "phantom image" was the only aspect of the playback that was audible - it amazed me at the time, and made it obvious that this was the quality of reproduction that should always be the goal.
More to the point, how much of it is disturbing to hear? Some modes of distortion can be filtered away by the mind, discarded as being irrelevant, without conscious effort - and other types are quite irritating, fatiguing to deal with. Personally, I have found it remarkable that I can hear my system going "off", degrading from the other end of the house, for some subtle reason - there is a quality about it which is just "not quite right" - but the level of distortion would be miniscule, would be very hard to measure conventionally ... but, it's the key ingredient that determines whether the sound is "convincing", or not ....
Seems my text got lost first time so let's try again. Interesting share Frank - page 49 though is where it starts to get interesting. That's where he ceases to focus primarily on the numbers and gets into what matters to the listener.....
Strange process. You put the fullranger on flat baffle and the other multi-ways NOT in flat baffle then you came with the conclusion that the baffle (i.e. no interference) is the "key"/answer.
Change the process, i.e all with similar baffle (same interference pattern) and observe will the same audible phenomenon happen? I think yes, but now the "key" is not interference anymore.
Then it will be obvious that fullrangers tend to produce phantom image more easily than multi drivers. Is it the point source? Phase coherence?
From my listening experience it is the phase, not only in crossover frequency (which is of course a must) but down lower to around 300-400Hz. It's a coincident that the frequency is the critical point where phase difference can be localized. What is a little strange (to me) is how (soundwise) this low frequency has an effect on a HF driver.
As for interference, firm baffle, I found them to be minor or complementary.
I have found that DF has no correlation to what I expect to hear, so I have long dumped this variable. But may be, indirectly, high DF tend to go along with other variable that is more correlated. In my case, I have my own variable.
🙂
Richard, since your thing is modulation noise, you'll find this quite interesting: this supposedly pretty spiffy Dell laptop I just started using recently was giving out quite grotty sound, and I mentioned that the tiny speakers were the cause - but with a unmentioned suspicion that it could also be the DAC. So, I was trashing the the speakers with a frequency sweep from 80 to 200Hz, non-stop for hours ... hmmm getting better, but still somewhat mucky - huge amount of gurgle, pops, spinning the tuning knob of a radio type crap ... okaaaay, this is sounding more and more like digital twittering ...
So, tried changing the sampling rate being fed to the DAC .... ah-haaaa !!! Went from 44.1, to 48, 96, 192 - now we're getting somewhere!! Dramatically cleaned up the muck in the sound, okay, let's try going down again in sampling rate - bingo! the sweep at 44.1kHz vastly better - giving the chip a whack in the pants by changing the rate fed was what it needed, gave it the jolt to knock it out of its bad behaviour.
So, the DAC or related circuitry had dreadful modulation noise, it was stinking bad - but the right conditioning of the chip has dramatically thrown it out of that state ... still not perfect, but vastly improved - the most dramatic example yet of this lurking flaw of digital circuitry ...
Mr Pass/Mr Marsh So you're essentially talking about negative output impedance. if the speaker pushes you, you push harder..🙂
Me too. Is anyone else able to confirm BV's result? In my measurements, speaker distortion measured through microphone was virtually same with voltage drive and drive through 6R8.
In many of my previous measurements, I have always shown voltage spectrum at amplifier output as well. The microphone measurements were done under same conditions as when I measured current distortion. So the amplifier voltage output is known.
My only explanation for BV's result is if it was close to crossover frequency, an interaction with crossover circuit.
Last edited:
Attachments
In their sales literature from 1974, Studer/reVox stated in plain language that the damping factor modified the speakers Q factor, but that was done by a DF of 26 dB, or 20:1. Going further would produce insignificant differences.
So Tom, as you can see, your response says more or less the same, and it was stated as such 40 years ago. As an ex owner of the integrated amp made that way, I must admit I never could hear any loose or flopping bass, but rather well defined bass lines on AR5 speakers I had it driving. So obviously, I agree.
Last edited:
George,
And here I thought that was an NSA antenna so they could find out what Max was listening to. 😀
And here I thought that was an NSA antenna so they could find out what Max was listening to. 😀
It's wire wound low inductance resistors, they are wound from constantan as möbius coils in order to cancel inductance, under the red an black flex there are parallel thick film resistors. While contribution may seen small, the difference in performance is quite big
By far the most interesting part on the photo is the tweeter,
By far the most interesting part on the photo is the tweeter,
Ouch, yes. (*)
A few days ago, THEY called me to complain over why I never listen to love songs.
I smiled and told them to put their headphones on, as I was about to please them by playing my favorite -full from love- song on my Very Hi End system.
Then I turned on the volume, opened a beer bottle, sat on the sofa and I crossed my fingers for blasting their ears off
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kzk1xZCiv8
George
(*) Stub needs to be inside a cavity or a cavity with an opening to be close to the stub and the cavity to resonate at some RF freq.
Last edited:
No two parallel resistors, one to avoid possible resonances and one (the wirewound) to set the value. OOhh and the Diamond layer is on the membranes. 🙂 as to have a very very stiff membrane.
Actually the diamond membrane is a 5 layer sandwich with 10um Diamond (SP3) over 50 um ceramic (aluminium-oxide) over a core-material of 180 um aluminum. This makes the membrane both very very stiff and very well damped (1. fundamental peak < 3dB).
Creating speakers is all (most all) about reducing noise, regardless if that noise is from; the cones as fundamental resonances, or due to un-linear elements in the VC inductance, or turbulent noise caused by air-motion in the magnet gap or compression due to a large face-plate. Optimizing the drivers and their working environment is key
The driver is the engine in the speaker, and nothing you can due to cabinets, X-overs or any other optimization mean, can make a system better than the driver you use. All starts and ends there.
Actually the diamond membrane is a 5 layer sandwich with 10um Diamond (SP3) over 50 um ceramic (aluminium-oxide) over a core-material of 180 um aluminum. This makes the membrane both very very stiff and very well damped (1. fundamental peak < 3dB).
Creating speakers is all (most all) about reducing noise, regardless if that noise is from; the cones as fundamental resonances, or due to un-linear elements in the VC inductance, or turbulent noise caused by air-motion in the magnet gap or compression due to a large face-plate. Optimizing the drivers and their working environment is key
The driver is the engine in the speaker, and nothing you can due to cabinets, X-overs or any other optimization mean, can make a system better than the driver you use. All starts and ends there.
Last edited:
So in series with each leg of the tweeter you have a thick film resistor//constantan compound resistor ??.
What is the value of each compound resistor, why such compound resistors, and why resistance in series with your tweeters ?.
What is the change in performance that you mention ?.
Your tweeter has gained very positive reviews.
Tell us a little more ?.
Dan.
My sentiments exactly. A cheap and so-so driver, no matter what you do, will always be a so-so driver, even if various implementations can deliver some positive results in comparison with other implementations.
A mud cake will always be a mud cake, no matter how you bake and shape it.
The value of each is app 1 ohm parallel with 10 ohm film. the tweeters DC resistance is 8 ohm, so the resistors damp the response a little.
This is not the forum for speakers and normally I refrain from commenting on speakers here on DIY. So please forgive from writing a little about the Raidho tweeter.
The tweeter is where Raidho started app 15 years ago, it has in principle remained unchanged since then. it has been optimized in the membrane for lighter and thinner materials and a revised conductor pattern. The surface area is app like 3 domes, but the wight is less than 0.02g, which is 30-50 times less than a normal dome assembly, it is driven over the entire surface. With the extremely low weight and conductor pattern comes a heap of befits over all types of domes, mainly the absence of mass and mass/spring induced resonances, (30-50 times less) an incredible rise time. As the membrane is sealed around the edges, it does not suffer from the non solid performance in the lower working ranges like normal end-hung ribbons does, This makes it possible to integrate it with normal cone based drivers (if they are sufficiently low in noise).
One huge advantage is also the absence of the normal low frequency resonance. this makes it possible (not so problematic) to use serial current diversion crossovers which are used through the Raidho C-D series of speakers.
This is not the forum for speakers and normally I refrain from commenting on speakers here on DIY. So please forgive from writing a little about the Raidho tweeter.
The tweeter is where Raidho started app 15 years ago, it has in principle remained unchanged since then. it has been optimized in the membrane for lighter and thinner materials and a revised conductor pattern. The surface area is app like 3 domes, but the wight is less than 0.02g, which is 30-50 times less than a normal dome assembly, it is driven over the entire surface. With the extremely low weight and conductor pattern comes a heap of befits over all types of domes, mainly the absence of mass and mass/spring induced resonances, (30-50 times less) an incredible rise time. As the membrane is sealed around the edges, it does not suffer from the non solid performance in the lower working ranges like normal end-hung ribbons does, This makes it possible to integrate it with normal cone based drivers (if they are sufficiently low in noise).
One huge advantage is also the absence of the normal low frequency resonance. this makes it possible (not so problematic) to use serial current diversion crossovers which are used through the Raidho C-D series of speakers.
Last edited:
- Status
- Not open for further replies.