What is the purpose of flattening the response curve of a single speaker , which is determined by its intrinsic factors ? I mean , ok , you want high (or low) SPL and the choice of drivers brought you to a certain design and this lends to mitigate the interactions between the drivers. But if this driver ,lets say a midrange , has some dips and peaks in FR , is it forcing it to null these peaks and dips through some equalization an act against nature ? Eh Eh !
higher order crossovers and compensation cells must be carefully designed also with the aid of a computer...man I should have deleted this post 'cos it shows my ingenuinity!
higher order crossovers and compensation cells must be carefully designed also with the aid of a computer...man I should have deleted this post 'cos it shows my ingenuinity!
I think this question is too theoretical. At least when comparing different order slopes for LR. If you were to take out all the other variables with some theoretically perfect transducers then I think they would be about the same in terms of perception.
IMO phase distortions are very hard to hear if even audible at all. Where you will get real differences is how these filters interact with the drivers in terms of on and off axis response and how these match up with the 2 drivers.
Oh and I have been experimenting a little with variable active DSP monitors. I have a midi controller I programmed so I can change the slopes and filters right from the listening position. Working on making a biamped 2-way nearfield. It's really easy with a program like plogue bidule running on a second computer and making your own filters with synthedit and various third party modules.
IMO phase distortions are very hard to hear if even audible at all. Where you will get real differences is how these filters interact with the drivers in terms of on and off axis response and how these match up with the 2 drivers.
Oh and I have been experimenting a little with variable active DSP monitors. I have a midi controller I programmed so I can change the slopes and filters right from the listening position. Working on making a biamped 2-way nearfield. It's really easy with a program like plogue bidule running on a second computer and making your own filters with synthedit and various third party modules.
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Its audible, but maybe only if you have a good understanding of the musical instruments involved
If phase/timing issues are inaudible but still present I just get stressed
It can actually make the musicians sound like they play out of tune, and with no sense of rythm
A lot of good music easily end up sounding pretty boring and pointless, just because of that
Fortunately I know about it, and know how to deal with it
Many may not be in that position
I believe this very often leads to blame things like the digital media, and other stuff that really has nothing to do with the problem
I know how to tune a 3way
My next "reference" speaker may very well be a 2way
You will definately be in serious trouble with handling a 4way
One of my friends have huge 5ways
Exstremely impressive sound, huge and powerful, clean and clear
Really hard to find any flaws, no doubt about it, they are very impressive 5ways
But I always miss most of the aspects I prefer in listening to music, and I get bored very fast
Other people have very different priorities, and would get bored listening to the sound I like
I know my sound is the right one, but it doesnt mean much to people who cant hear it
Though, friends who have listened to both systems clearly hear or "feel" the difference, and say that music played on my system somehow sound more interesting and natural
They are never able to be more specific about it, other that to tell about their empotions and what they "feel" when listening
If you should use the most usual hifi terms we ahve learned from audiophile testers, the big 5way would be a clean winner, but only to some, and by far not to me
If phase/timing issues are inaudible but still present I just get stressed
It can actually make the musicians sound like they play out of tune, and with no sense of rythm
A lot of good music easily end up sounding pretty boring and pointless, just because of that
Fortunately I know about it, and know how to deal with it
Many may not be in that position
I believe this very often leads to blame things like the digital media, and other stuff that really has nothing to do with the problem
I know how to tune a 3way
My next "reference" speaker may very well be a 2way
You will definately be in serious trouble with handling a 4way
One of my friends have huge 5ways
Exstremely impressive sound, huge and powerful, clean and clear
Really hard to find any flaws, no doubt about it, they are very impressive 5ways
But I always miss most of the aspects I prefer in listening to music, and I get bored very fast
Other people have very different priorities, and would get bored listening to the sound I like
I know my sound is the right one, but it doesnt mean much to people who cant hear it
Though, friends who have listened to both systems clearly hear or "feel" the difference, and say that music played on my system somehow sound more interesting and natural
They are never able to be more specific about it, other that to tell about their empotions and what they "feel" when listening
If you should use the most usual hifi terms we ahve learned from audiophile testers, the big 5way would be a clean winner, but only to some, and by far not to me
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btw
Those of my friends who instantly hear or "feel" the difference described above, are also the ones who doesnt have anything special themselves
Its just funny
Those of my friends who instantly hear or "feel" the difference described above, are also the ones who doesnt have anything special themselves
Its just funny
I believe good phase/transient response in the xover helps the drivers to audibly integrate through the xover region - something that is probably especially important when larger drivers are used. Based on this idea, the largest system I have built to date, the 'Basement Blaster', is a 2 1/2 way column type system where the upper woofer of three carries most of the midrange octave energy immediately (physically and spectrally) below the HF horn. As far as imaging goes, the upper woofer and the HF are by far the most significant contributors.
The naturalness of the Basement Blaster's soundstage presentation because of this vertical localization appears to be enhanced by having the lower mids through the HF at the height it does with the majority of the bass energy below since it provides a simulation of acoustic height that is semi-consistent with that of live performers. Of course, this is more or less true of many floor standing speakers.
For my 'ultimate' system, I will use the same idea, but with only two woofers, because the Basement Blaster's acoustical center turned out to be just a little too high off the ground for optimal seated listening (unless one is sitting on a bar stool). I was thinking that for a 2 1/2 way system using two bass drivers, perhaps they could be called 'twoofers' since they are equalized differently from each other with different HF rolloffs🙂
The naturalness of the Basement Blaster's soundstage presentation because of this vertical localization appears to be enhanced by having the lower mids through the HF at the height it does with the majority of the bass energy below since it provides a simulation of acoustic height that is semi-consistent with that of live performers. Of course, this is more or less true of many floor standing speakers.
For my 'ultimate' system, I will use the same idea, but with only two woofers, because the Basement Blaster's acoustical center turned out to be just a little too high off the ground for optimal seated listening (unless one is sitting on a bar stool). I was thinking that for a 2 1/2 way system using two bass drivers, perhaps they could be called 'twoofers' since they are equalized differently from each other with different HF rolloffs🙂
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I second what Tinitus is saying. That is one of the reasons why I really like the loudspeakers with Duelund type cross-overs (I have a Duelund 4-way system myself). If you do not know about phase distortion please read the link below. It is not too technical but I think it might be an "eye-opener" to some people.
BTW, I would like to thank John K. for working with and explaining the Duelund cross-over types. John is clearly one of the few who understands these filters in detail. Duelund said to me that he would not call the filter phase linear if the target curves were not followed down to approx. - 60 db - or lower (!). At that time he was well aware of the fact that his filter types could be made much easier when the digital systems became "mature". They weren´t at the time when Duelund made his cross-over calculations....
Karsten
Phase Distortion article
You can judge for yourselves whether it is audible by using Thuneau's Frequency Allocator (free for demo mode) as a crossover. He (Thuneau/Jan) says that above 1kHz he can't tell the difference, but below that as the crossover point (or box rolloff) is lowered below that there is an increasingly audible difference
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Linkwitz's take on topology
Talk about phase shifts reminded me of one of the topics on Linkwitz's site; crossover topology mistakes.
Has this topology been used in passive crossovers? (haven't seen any mention of it elsewhere)
Talk about phase shifts reminded me of one of the topics on Linkwitz's site; crossover topology mistakes.
Has this topology been used in passive crossovers? (haven't seen any mention of it elsewhere)
I like the subjective impressions the author gave of the phase misbehaviors of the LR filters. If an image is going to 'jump out' at me at certain frequencies, I want that to be the intent of whoever made the recording, not an artifact of the speaker's xover phase aberrations. I'm glad to say that the Basement Blasters and the Iron Lawbreakers are well behaved in this regard.
Should we then refer to such an xover as a 'soul reject filter'?
Should we then refer to such an xover as a 'soul reject filter'?
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Those of my friends who know very little about "hifi" would say something like that, which would be like hearing the truth from "children"
At least their perception isnt damaged by schooled uniformity 😉
Point is, if you know all the fancy words that is known to describe good sound, they unfortunately fits well to the wrong speaker
If you dont know these words, you might just choose what you like, which may well be the opposite
In my language I could say "way too much dragging people around by the nose"
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I use what works with the drivers at hand. I have used LR2, LR4, B3, B2 and asymetrical combinations using a second order for one and a 3 on the other. The way I see as long as it sums properly I am not to concerned. So no favorites for me.
Rob🙂
Rob🙂
I never got around to reading that study you keep referring to but I have serious doubts about your claim and I doubt that the paper should be interpreted as an across the board truth. It's pretty obvious to me that we are much more sensitive to asymmetrical timing errors because this messes up the foundation of stereo psychoacoustics and this is also the basis of how we sense directionality as far as I can tell. But in terms of transient response your claims are at odds with the way I hear music from a variety of different speakers which really should mess up transient response according to measurements but still sound as snappy as can be to my ears.
Really I am not making any broad claims either. The truth is that I am not totally clear on the issue of phase errors and if I personally can hear them or not or if when I do hear them they really don't make much of a difference.
I have been doing quite a bit of experimenting with delays and as far as I can tell around the 5us mark is the point where you start to perceive the delay as a separate sound. Mind you this experiments deals with echos and not phase errors. But I have a feeling that the test you refer to may have found this same thing to be true and nothing more. And actually in my personal testing I have found that I can perceive echoes smaller than that - for me it increases clarity and nothing more, even though there is comb filtering that can be measured. But of course I would not be able to detect these "errors" if there wasn't a reference to the music without the errors.
The best (passive) x-o is the one that uses the minimal no of components, but also gives reasonably flat response, and reasonably good phase coherency through the x-o region, minimises distortion etc.... for the drivers you have chosen, without over-stessing any of drivers at the volume you will be using the speaker.
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I have an extremely accurate offset impulse response of the LR2 filter in my monitors that I can listen to music through with foobar2000 or while mixing now. I really wish I could gush like an audiophile and say it makes things so much better blah blah. On my system, for me personally, I already love the sound, so it's hard for me to gush like that when I already am in awe of the normal response. I am just taking some time living with it and trying to mix music through it etc.. But so far the detectable difference is mundane at best.
Hello Key
You mix?? I have a timing question for you. How accurate are the time bases used to sync tracks in a multitrack recording?? Will they meet that 6us window??
Rob🙂
You mix?? I have a timing question for you. How accurate are the time bases used to sync tracks in a multitrack recording?? Will they meet that 6us window??
Rob🙂
Well in a digital system it can be pretty inaccurate if you don't have the proper latency offset. But in analog I would think the weak link is probably the musician and his ability to stay on beat in terms of that window. Not sure about the mitigating factors using midi timecode to sync more than one device.
I was once involved in making a video
I made the sound tracks(music)
It was really surpricing how much the sound changed the perception of the pictures
It was really exciting
This very fine interaction between movie scenes and music only lasted as long as we replayed the tape on the master mixing machine
Played on any other video machine it just didnt work
It simply didnt have the same effect and excitement any more
Interaction between movie and music collapsed
Same thing or completely different, I dont know
Mind you, it was exstremely tiny differences and you wouldnt detect any issue with sync on a person speaking
I made the sound tracks(music)
It was really surpricing how much the sound changed the perception of the pictures
It was really exciting
This very fine interaction between movie scenes and music only lasted as long as we replayed the tape on the master mixing machine
Played on any other video machine it just didnt work
It simply didnt have the same effect and excitement any more
Interaction between movie and music collapsed
Same thing or completely different, I dont know
Mind you, it was exstremely tiny differences and you wouldnt detect any issue with sync on a person speaking
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Correct. And if you come to realize that close-up on-axis response just is a part of the picture you might be mature enough to go for a 1.order filter.
(-or 1.5 order)
As soon as you start adding components in paralell you`ll ruin the signal. Not totally, but you`re on the wrong track. The only acceptable exeption is zobel-circuits since the amp then don`t see itself/shortcut.
This off course excludes a lot of exotic drivers.
That said, 3.order might be used as a last solution if you`re stuck. Just be shure to oversize the powercapasity for the low region.
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