I'm actually really interested to know this as well.
Actually, I'd like to scale this question back a bit because a 'bucket load', to me, implies a lot more than could be discussed in this thread.
But would you be willing to give me 3-5 examples of issues that are ignored? That would give me a heads up on things that I (and those that follow me) should be wary of.
As for the site in question, I can't comment on it, so I'm going to learn what I can from it. Once I've sucked it dry, it would be nice to have some more topics to move onto; this is where the 3-5 examples would be helpful.
Thanks!
Dave.
We're going to have to work on that attitude of yours...
Mick,
roflmao! 🙂
Happy in-laws = happy wife = sex.
Unfortunately, changing any one of those equal signs to a "not equal to" changes them all. That wouldn't be so bad except that...
cheating on wife = wife becomes vengeful monster from doom = divorced and destitute
What can i say, she's got all the cards. ;-)
Cheers,
Dave.
PS - On a side note, it's a well known fact that the same guy enacted nearly 85% of all adultery laws in the world... And when I meet him, I'm going to beat him so badly that he'll spend 12 months in the hospital. And then, when I get out of jail, I'm going to do it again. 🙂
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Andy, can I get some more detail on this?
While actives are connected to the amp, there will be more electronics in front of them (aka - the active crossovers). By front loading your electronics, aren't you going to just introduce more distortion into the sound (they are electronics after all) and isn't that distortion simply going to be, well, amplified by the amp?
From what I've read, I agree that an active system is easier to tune, but i'm not entirely convinced that you'd be any better off with actives than you would with a good passive... for sound quality that is.
Perhaps the design process process could progress in two stages? Use an active crossover to find the sweet spot for your build and then post-build a passive system that approximates what you'd achieved in your actives? Or have I missed something vital?
[edit]I should have said "for sound accuracy" rather than "quality"[/edit]
Nope, Good sex = happy wife = wife happy to compremise!😛
(citation needed)
Ps, I have tinnitus, from lack of sleep!!!!🙄hehehe
Thankyou! I've been practicing that for years!
I wasn't sure I could...er.. pull it off, TBH, BUT, if I was honest earlier, I shouldn't have had to!!!
Ah well....A HEM.....you may say i'm a dreamer.........
I wasn't sure I could...er.. pull it off, TBH, BUT, if I was honest earlier, I shouldn't have had to!!!
Ah well....A HEM.....you may say i'm a dreamer.........
Hi,
Yes, it is a lot easier to be "negative" than answer a question like "I know
nothing, I want to know everything", where do you start and end with that ?
IMO building something like the ZDT3.5 (with a more radical approach to the
cabinet construction and aesthetics) is a very good way to get your feet wet.
Musings on ultimate designs with diamond tweeters in a thread will not help.
The fact is ultimate speaker design is the opposite of "rules of thumb", it is
knowing your onions from your shallots. Its also true for high quality designs
only a few have the time, energy, patience, knowledge, modelling tools and
test equipment to do a good job, noting this is not enough, it also takes
some talent on the designers part, it is far too complicated for pure rigour.
It is not something anyone can do with enough research .....
😎 / Sreten.
P.S. Regarding examples : work your way through the ZDT3.5 design process
and the bucketfulls of other related designs and design information on his site,
then do the same for the best other sites like :
http://www.zaphaudio.com
http://www.rjbaudio.com/
http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com
http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/
then find some more design implementation sites .....
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Dave, You may also note that there are a lot of differing opinions out there.
Speaking from experience, it may feel like your walking a mine field.
Check out the threads linked above, as well as, geddes site (and threads) and other reputed designers. See what goes into their designs and how they arrived there, it will soon (or not), become apparent, there are different approaches taken to arrive at a similar place. You will probably decide a way forward based on these. As Homer once said 'You can use facts and figuers to prove anything these days!'.🙂
Nobody is actually wrong. *Just* subjective opinion is all, this alone can be daunting if you let it. Not all, is gospel.
Try to find out what YOUR ear is most sensitive to. For me it seems to be (I think, it is at least) phase related issues, through the 200-5k range, although for one reason or another there seems to be a couple of places in that range, where it is less of an issue. Although that is probably my room.
Just based on the above paragraph, you can see this may take some time and patience in itself, just to arrive at a 'maybe'.
Members here merely 'disguss', to reach a compromise, because thats what the game is ALL about....compromise.🙂
Just yet, another point of view.
Cheers, Mick.
Speaking from experience, it may feel like your walking a mine field.
Check out the threads linked above, as well as, geddes site (and threads) and other reputed designers. See what goes into their designs and how they arrived there, it will soon (or not), become apparent, there are different approaches taken to arrive at a similar place. You will probably decide a way forward based on these. As Homer once said 'You can use facts and figuers to prove anything these days!'.🙂
Nobody is actually wrong. *Just* subjective opinion is all, this alone can be daunting if you let it. Not all, is gospel.
Try to find out what YOUR ear is most sensitive to. For me it seems to be (I think, it is at least) phase related issues, through the 200-5k range, although for one reason or another there seems to be a couple of places in that range, where it is less of an issue. Although that is probably my room.
Just based on the above paragraph, you can see this may take some time and patience in itself, just to arrive at a 'maybe'.
Members here merely 'disguss', to reach a compromise, because thats what the game is ALL about....compromise.🙂
Just yet, another point of view.
Cheers, Mick.
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Dave,
What Mick posted is sage advice. The way i look at it, speakers today have a long way to go to be "perfect" (if that is even achievable). My guess is 1-2 out of 10. That means it is possible to build 2 completely valid loudspeakers that are totally different.
Only you can determine what compromises are best suited to your needs. And a little practice & experimentation really helps there.
Take this one that Sreten is enamoured of as a good example... i look at it and dismiss it as it has A/ 2 XO points in the critical midrange, and B/ a dome tweeter is bad enuff, but adding a dome mid (and a cheap one at that) does nothing for me.
In your situation, were room is going to dominate, you'd never likely be able to get these placed where they'd work, which is strike 3.
For your room, i'd suggest the small mini-monitor sattelite (80 Hz up, ie 8 octaves) and multiple (at least 2) small, separate active woofers (not necessarily subs)... this is the approach championed by Toole and is well suited to your room.
This can be accomplished with any number of LS3/5A-size or larger 1 or 2-way designs. There are a wealth of good midbasses to make woofers out of and they can be designed to suit the room's aesthetics.
This is also a more versatile approach, and one you can take (or change) in steps.
dave
What Mick posted is sage advice. The way i look at it, speakers today have a long way to go to be "perfect" (if that is even achievable). My guess is 1-2 out of 10. That means it is possible to build 2 completely valid loudspeakers that are totally different.
Only you can determine what compromises are best suited to your needs. And a little practice & experimentation really helps there.
Take this one that Sreten is enamoured of as a good example... i look at it and dismiss it as it has A/ 2 XO points in the critical midrange, and B/ a dome tweeter is bad enuff, but adding a dome mid (and a cheap one at that) does nothing for me.
In your situation, were room is going to dominate, you'd never likely be able to get these placed where they'd work, which is strike 3.
For your room, i'd suggest the small mini-monitor sattelite (80 Hz up, ie 8 octaves) and multiple (at least 2) small, separate active woofers (not necessarily subs)... this is the approach championed by Toole and is well suited to your room.
This can be accomplished with any number of LS3/5A-size or larger 1 or 2-way designs. There are a wealth of good midbasses to make woofers out of and they can be designed to suit the room's aesthetics.
This is also a more versatile approach, and one you can take (or change) in steps.
dave
Hi Dave,
The above is a fine example of using "rules of thumb" to dismiss something
out of hand. The ZDT3.5 is a fine example of the process of design, whether
I agree or disagree with the compromises made is not relevant. As it is I do
agree with Zaphs summation of the designs advantages and disadvantages.
Knocking cheap dome tweeters is a bit much from a $1 apex jr tweeter fan.
A domed mid is not Zaphs preferred approach, but given you have one
(chosen on performance for the price, not just the price), there are only
a few ways to proceed, and the pitfalls are very outlined in the article.
Your posts used to be as informative as they were entertaining, nowadays
you just seem to bash anything that does not follow your (very commercial)
philosophy - that is a pity. Your issues with the ZDT3.5 design are not valid,
unless your going to post in every multiway design that basically we are
all clueless and need to get on the (your) full range driver bandwagon.
😎 / Sreten.
http://www.htguide.com/forum/ : another good site for loudspeaker designs
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It is a cheap tweeter, an excellent frugal-phile (tm) device. Does fine for use above 10k, and outperforms devices used similarily that cost 10-20x as much (ie what it would have retailed for had it not been surplussed) . Despite being called a dome it is really a small cone tweeter with a big directly VC coupled dust cap. But I prefer not to use a tweeter. For a less budget constrained system (like this one), i'd probably look to a ribbon.
My comments on Zaph's design were not to knock it, but to illustrate that a perfectly valid speaker may not well fall into the set that satisfies the end user, that as Mick pointed out, Dave is going to get lots of opinions and only he is going to be able to sort thru them, and that he'll likely need to do that with some auditioning.
Sreten, you seem to be overly grumpy since you have returned from your hiatus, anything you want to talk about?
dave
Hi,
I guess some of the things I got used to here, now annoy me more.
Your post regarding Zaphs design seemed to me to knock it, rather than
say it may be valid to some, but not to others, so you need to make up
your own mind as to what is a valid approach to "ultimate design".
But you cannot do that without understanding every sentence of Zaphs
write up, everyone of which could be posted as "what does this actually
mean ?", my point of the example was you need to be able to understand.
Related to that questioning Zaph's driver choices is tantamount to near heresy.
What more does the guy need to do to show and explain why and what he does ?
/Sreten.Yes the Audax cheapy is actually a cone / dome, sold as a "balanced drive" concept
where the dome and surround have equal moving mass. Unlike the loads of look-alikes,
its other major feature is a formerless edge wound voicecoil made of one thin ribbon.
The cone / dome profile allows this to be placed in the magnetic gap by simply
attaching it to the dome / surround meeting point, a seminal cost effective design.
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To be fair, I understand this position. My guess is that there have been hundreds of guys like me who've come here, with virtually no domain knowledge at all, and have said that they want to design a speaker and 90% gave up before every making a cut and 95% of those gave up during/after their first try.
Not really musings, more a statement of commitment. If I need to, I'll spend the money for the components that I need to make this work. If that's a diamond tweeter, then that's what I'm inclined to do. 🙂
This is, in itself, a rule of thumb. 🙂
You mean, of course, theoretical research and not practical research. As for people needing talent for this I'm not sure how to ready that. You need a certain degree of talent to do anything more than simple bodily functions. I don't say that to minimize your argument, but to quote a certain chef, "Anyone can cook" (Ratatouille).
Anyways, thanks for the links! I will check them out. They've been added to the 'print-and-read' list. (I'm now doing this and reading on the train each day because the 2am reading sessions have worn me out completely. 🙁
Yeah, working on that. I showed this thread to the wife and said, "See, I told you this room was ****!" So she's agreed that the next rental will have a more amicable front room. 🙂
Hi,
I'm not, as you have surmised, having a personal pop at you.
But FWIW knowing your onions (which is a British saying) means knowing
your stuff, I added "from shallots", it may not have translated / read very
well, but its certainly not a "rule of thumb", its a statement of fact.
Your right, anyone can build a speaker, as I did fairly cluelessly (but far
better relatively informed than most) in my youth, nowadays I just know
how horrendously hard it is if your not armed with the right weapons.
I'd recommend building a high value pair of speakers you can sell on to
a friend or colleague before attempting the "ultimate", you will learn a
lot more about "cost effectiveness" and the like similar design issues.
You cannot design the ultimate speaker just because you want to.
Convincing yourself its "ultimate" is not remotely the same thing.
How many people are 3 star Michelin chefs ? what does that take ?
😎 /Sreten.
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So she showed signs of compromise then? You dog, you!😉😉😀
Dave, My current system is a fully active three way tower, (Thanks, Planet10, among others🙂). I use a Behringer CX3400 XO. It is pleasant enough to listen to, thats not to say perfect.
The importance of this is, I can reverse phase, adjust XO points and do L-pads Instantly.
Exactly how much this can help you to recognise what you as a listener prefer, cannot be underestimated. As a means to an end. All the while, you will have great sound WHILE you learn.
This is something that a passive system cannot easily do, if at all.
So then, your rule of thumb for enclosure design would be,
'What compromise best suits my specific needs'.
ie, Does footprint size matter to you?
Do you prefer BIG woofers?
Reflex, sealed or transmission line?
This is why auditioning is important. It is important to know what you like, rather than what a salesman tells you to like.
Most importantly, don't give up, just enjoy the journey for all that it is!
Mick.
Ps. It may cost more than your tenner!
Back rubs and alcohol; works every time. 🙂
Sold. 🙂
This is the part that I hate. I don't like wasting sales people's time by doing a bunch of auditions when I have no intent of buying; I feel like pond scum. It's why I haven't done much in terms of auditions yet.
I will probably buy my amplification stage because, while I'm no stranger to a soldering iron, I'm also no guru. I guess I could try building one of the kits here but again, I'd have no idea where to start, or even what I like and that would take more time of 'obsessing' away from the speaker project.
Well, 50p here and there probably won't break me. 😉
Whilst auditioning amps, audition speakers, simple, can't have one without the other!
The way I see it, the salesmen are not called, "MakeMeUpARecieptForThisMen".
Don't let them make you feel guilty for this!
I don't think your bank manager is losing sleep either! (20 quid, 'cause I felt like it, fees! WTF!).
It's YOUR (wifes) money, not their's.
As I say to my sisters everytime they take me car shopping for them, We don't go there to be the car salesmens friend!
Mick.🙂
Ps, Bet your wife a tenner she can't hold the same tenner tightly between her knees WITHOUT dropping it for 48 hours, trust me, she'll get tired!
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