How directional can a speaker be at low frequencies in a space where one wavelength gets to the far wall? In sound reinforcement the spaces are usually quite large (or why do you need the reinforcement?). Most home and mixing/mastering spaces are small. The far wall will become a virtual source for low frequencies that is still 1-2 wavelengths away. Absorption at 100 Hz usually requires substantial volume. Diffusion needs surfaces to diffuse that are wavelengths in size, again large for a 10 X 18 room.
No one wants to treat rooms for better sound. It has no big aluminium sex appeal. However its probably the best return on investment in audio.
Demian,
My house has a foot print of 16' x 34' which with a bit of design gives me a wavelength of below 35 Hz. Even though there are two rooms originally per floor.
One can use furniture to modify wave propagation modes. I just moved a door to the basement to get a pair of coupled spaces.
But yes we do work in different size spaces.
Derfy,
The world is bigger than all you can see, even where the Earth meets the sky.
My house has a foot print of 16' x 34' which with a bit of design gives me a wavelength of below 35 Hz. Even though there are two rooms originally per floor.
One can use furniture to modify wave propagation modes. I just moved a door to the basement to get a pair of coupled spaces.
But yes we do work in different size spaces.
Derfy,
The world is bigger than all you can see, even where the Earth meets the sky.
It's the synergy concepts i'm interested in. Obviously a huge horn is better, but for domestic use you can do pretty well with a tapped 15” horn. Oh and it's DIY at its best
Yeah, the huge horns are fun to design in hornresp, but a little daunting to contemplate in CAD, much less plywood. The designs that contemplate parking the horns in the upper corners of one's room interest me the most to be honest, from a packaging and taking-best-advantage-of-the-directionality perspective. Since the synergy peters out in the midrange, the woofers can be more conventionally packaged on the floor and still be in-phase.
FWIW tapped horns typically refer to folding a low-frequency quarter wave pipe (tapered or not) such that the woofer excites two different places in the air column. Also cool stuff, but a different Danley tech.
Yes, let me be the first to acknowledge that I know pretty much next-to-nothing about the world you work in.
Potato/potarto. It's got holes in the waveguide for other drivers. That makes it 'tapped' in my book
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/285030-bookshelf-multi-way-point-source-horn.html first post has been updated with the measurements. Given its cheap drivers, cheap horn and lots of bondo I personally think its fairly impressive within the chosen compromises. And certainly low distortion compared to any direct radiator designs.
Bill W did one too, but using a compression driver.
And I accept that there is an argument that the point source down to sub 100Hz may not be as much of a benefit as it seems for the home and the geddes/jbl method of a hoofing great woofer from 1kHz down seems to work well.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/285030-bookshelf-multi-way-point-source-horn.html first post has been updated with the measurements. Given its cheap drivers, cheap horn and lots of bondo I personally think its fairly impressive within the chosen compromises. And certainly low distortion compared to any direct radiator designs.
Bill W did one too, but using a compression driver.
And I accept that there is an argument that the point source down to sub 100Hz may not be as much of a benefit as it seems for the home and the geddes/jbl method of a hoofing great woofer from 1kHz down seems to work well.
I do similar things..... absorption behind paintings. And hide other absorption in unseen places... lighting soffits and of course heavy pad under wall to wall carpet. This is to reduce the reverb time only. Sometimes bring out large absorption panels in most critical listening.... like to prevent reflection off the nearby piano. too heavy to move so I block it's reflections with sound absorption panels.
Most are listening in the far field well beyond the critical distance and having wide dispersion speakers..... attempts to find a suitable listening position where a null or peak does not exist at some frequency is very hard and attempts then to smooth them out with dispersion panels and curved surfaces can help. The time delays and transient smearing from reflections and their affects require more absorption. All tends towards a rather dead room to get greatest clarity in far field listening.
Wide dispersion speakers have created a night mare of acoustical treatments and looks bad in a modern house. OK for a studio. The new designs which recognize the necessity for maximum clarity and controlled more narrow dispersion have done their home work and are improving the High-End with more accurate sound heard by the listener.... only the sound from the source speaker and recording. And, with very low distortion speakers, you hear mostly the recording only. What more could one want?
THx-RNMarsh
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First we are told that our goal is a realistic presentation that sounds like real musicians are playing in our listening space. Then we are told that the sound must not interact with the listening space (like floors carrying the thump of a bass drum). This seems like a conflict to me. Music, or perhaps more correctly musical instruments, react with the space where they are played.
@nezbleu. It seems like you may be over-generalizing. If speakers are isolated from their stands, the sound will still interact with the room. Also, live musicians are not exactly mounted on stands, so not so clear there would be any conflict in principle.
Besides, at least for Recoil stabilizers, it sounds more like real musicians in a well-imaged stereo sound field. Without the stabilizers stereo imaging tends to sound more smeared out from left to right. Tighter imaging sounds more real to me, can't speak for others.
Besides, at least for Recoil stabilizers, it sounds more like real musicians in a well-imaged stereo sound field. Without the stabilizers stereo imaging tends to sound more smeared out from left to right. Tighter imaging sounds more real to me, can't speak for others.
There certainly is an element of assuming the audience is ignorant. It's such a mess of inappropriate analogy I don't think any conclusions can be made.
At last! A break in the tread where I might contribute. '-)
My audio world seems to be so different from the double blind arguments often put here. I daily talk (by phone) to people from all over the USA who are involved in quality audio upgrades, and sometimes actual product design. We operate on a completely different level of 'sensitivity' that still remains consistent between us. We can hear just about anything, including cleaning our connectors or digital discs, different line cords, internal mods, etc. We also can separate our 'daily listening equipment' similar to a 'daily driver' automobile from our 'sports cars', that parallel with our reference audio systems. When we design, or modify, we mainly think and talk about our references, not our 'daily listening equipment', and this creates a completely different conversation than what is normally discussed here by my critics. We actually make progress, rather than just debate double-blind statistics. I would hope to contribute more here in future on 'meaningful' mods that seem to be dismissed here in general.
My audio world seems to be so different from the double blind arguments often put here. I daily talk (by phone) to people from all over the USA who are involved in quality audio upgrades, and sometimes actual product design. We operate on a completely different level of 'sensitivity' that still remains consistent between us. We can hear just about anything, including cleaning our connectors or digital discs, different line cords, internal mods, etc. We also can separate our 'daily listening equipment' similar to a 'daily driver' automobile from our 'sports cars', that parallel with our reference audio systems. When we design, or modify, we mainly think and talk about our references, not our 'daily listening equipment', and this creates a completely different conversation than what is normally discussed here by my critics. We actually make progress, rather than just debate double-blind statistics. I would hope to contribute more here in future on 'meaningful' mods that seem to be dismissed here in general.
John, whenever this thread with your name on it slows down you always seem to find a way to attract some attention back here, even if it means riling things up a bit.
However, I find myself bored with claims about hearing line cords. I want to know how different brands of Romex sound, how panel breakers sound, and most of all, how PG&E power sounds compared to Con Edison.
However, I find myself bored with claims about hearing line cords. I want to know how different brands of Romex sound, how panel breakers sound, and most of all, how PG&E power sounds compared to Con Edison.
John, you know from experience where this all leads right? Usually, you end up getting beaten up pretty good over it. I guess that would be okay if its your choice, but there is a problem.
I don't know if you have been watching the discussion about the 24/96 listening test, but we are starting to collect some very interesting results suggesting that maybe people can hear more than some of the old research would indicate. As you might expect, trying to get people to take a fresh, open-minded look at it has had some ups and downs.
You probably aren't helping any progress in this area by going a little bit too far in your claims. Would you please consider trying to keep it real as you can? If you or somebody who has proven very accurate and reliable over time thinks they can hear something, I would be interested to hear about it.
But, please let's not go overboard to get everybody overly motivated to beat you up once more just to get some action going in this thread again. Does that sound fair?
I don't know if you have been watching the discussion about the 24/96 listening test, but we are starting to collect some very interesting results suggesting that maybe people can hear more than some of the old research would indicate. As you might expect, trying to get people to take a fresh, open-minded look at it has had some ups and downs.
You probably aren't helping any progress in this area by going a little bit too far in your claims. Would you please consider trying to keep it real as you can? If you or somebody who has proven very accurate and reliable over time thinks they can hear something, I would be interested to hear about it.
But, please let's not go overboard to get everybody overly motivated to beat you up once more just to get some action going in this thread again. Does that sound fair?
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