I made this some time ago but I crammed the ELC, the average HRTF from a bunch of ears, and a measurement from a KEMAR head. The head shows how the inner ear boost along with the head shape.
None of them are flat.
Suppose you are trying to reproduce a trombone playing at 880Hz. The artist purposely plays the instrument to give a raspy Braaaap sound.
880, 1760 2nd, 2640 3rd, 3520 4th, and 4400 5th harmonics.
Question?
Do you want the Braaaap sound, with all the harmonics, as the artist played it?
Or do you want to make the sound smooth? Roll off all the harmonics?
The answer to that question should dictate how you voice the speaker.
Yes?
No?
$0.30
Adjusted for inflation.
880, 1760 2nd, 2640 3rd, 3520 4th, and 4400 5th harmonics.
Question?
Do you want the Braaaap sound, with all the harmonics, as the artist played it?
Or do you want to make the sound smooth? Roll off all the harmonics?
The answer to that question should dictate how you voice the speaker.
Yes?
No?
$0.30
Adjusted for inflation.
Best practice is to design the speaker to have flat axial respone and such off-axis responses that PIR is slowly falling towards high freq.
This is a really big challenge... almost ìmpossible for 2-way but rather easy with 3-way.
Nowdays most sources have some kind of dsp to modify response, instead of two knobs. So, only the puristic analog hifi snobs must suffer from bad tonality or thin sound with low spl.
Many respected hifi speaker brands have consistent house sound that some people like or dislike. An experienced diyer can do that too if (s)he wants.
This is a really big challenge... almost ìmpossible for 2-way but rather easy with 3-way.
Nowdays most sources have some kind of dsp to modify response, instead of two knobs. So, only the puristic analog hifi snobs must suffer from bad tonality or thin sound with low spl.
Many respected hifi speaker brands have consistent house sound that some people like or dislike. An experienced diyer can do that too if (s)he wants.
The real problem for the audio enthusiast is when he is going on a concert of classical music in a church, closes his eyes and asks himself a hunting question: OK, is that hi fi system good? How would you describe that sound?
The answer when I asked myself that question on a concert in 1986 /Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium in the gothic church/ was: this reality is incredibly cold, screaming like a two way system in the bathroom. So I find it over the years in Teldec Archiv mastering and Dynaudio. Anyway the only alternative to the subjective choice of the already made decision by the mastering engineers is to go to the concert with your microphones and recorder, which I did with two microphones and a tape recorder many decades ago.
The crossover is the only one of many elements in the chain where the room in the end is the most expensive one.
And, trying not to be off topic, first order slope and simple well known solutions are the best way to go if you are not a professional or if diy audio is not your only hobby.
Btw, Happy New Year!
The answer when I asked myself that question on a concert in 1986 /Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium in the gothic church/ was: this reality is incredibly cold, screaming like a two way system in the bathroom. So I find it over the years in Teldec Archiv mastering and Dynaudio. Anyway the only alternative to the subjective choice of the already made decision by the mastering engineers is to go to the concert with your microphones and recorder, which I did with two microphones and a tape recorder many decades ago.
The crossover is the only one of many elements in the chain where the room in the end is the most expensive one.
And, trying not to be off topic, first order slope and simple well known solutions are the best way to go if you are not a professional or if diy audio is not your only hobby.
Btw, Happy New Year!
You are free to design speaker for yourself anyway you like. Nobody can force you to make it flat, or downward harman, or smiley face...however, if you care about hifi, that is fidelity, designing for flat on axis, and uniform off axis is standard practise.
You can do any eq you desire later, in particular room or position.
So my suggestion would be: design flat, eq in line level to suit any need.
I personally do not use harman curve, as i find it little boring over time.
I used to be soundman for amateur music group, standing next to drummer i know how drums sound live. Harman curve makes them sound boring.
I use 31 band ultracurve, mostly to cure some room modes, around midbass, and to add some sparkle on top, since highs are more directional and absorbed by room.
So its flat for me. But everyone is free to tame the sound to his liking.
Designing speaker with loudness curve in mind would be a mistake, as it would sound weird at different levels.
I used to live in Bethesda, Maryland, within walking distance from Strathmore concert hall. One of the best accoustic halls arround Washington DC. Attended many concerts, most of the time with top performers. Sound is exceptional in almost any seat.
I did often just that, listen with closed eyes comparing to my hifi. Dynamics of live event is always bigger, as recordings engineers have to squish dynamics. Low frequencies are typically effortless in large room, something not achievable in domestic environment.
Comming home after live carmina burana or verdis requiem was always dissapointing to hear my own hifi. Still far from reality. Good music hall with good performers can't be beat. Still, hifi is fun and entertaining.
Just one more funny story from Strathmore concert hall. I had tickets for joshua bells performance, vivaldis four seasons...it was around xmass, but it snowed heavily all day that day of concert. For wimpy dc area it was calamity. Power lines down, power outages, all stopped. Since i lived so close, i walked there.
There was only handful of people in lobby plus ushers. They announced that due to no electricity, concert is canceled, tickets will be refunded.
Then joshua bell came out to lobby, appologized, thanked everyone who came, and then proceed to play his stradivari for about half an hour. Whatever came to him. I stood few feet away. Not a bad concert.
There was only handful of people in lobby plus ushers. They announced that due to no electricity, concert is canceled, tickets will be refunded.
Then joshua bell came out to lobby, appologized, thanked everyone who came, and then proceed to play his stradivari for about half an hour. Whatever came to him. I stood few feet away. Not a bad concert.
The sound of a Trombone Braaap, is not a constant.
A microphone 6 inches from the bell, gets a different sound than a pair of spaced omni microphones that are 20 feet in front of the orchestra, and 20 feet higher than the orchestra.
High frequencies attenuate faster with distance than low frequencies.
The Queen Mary's fog horn was detected by instruments while it was 100 miles away.
Try that 1 mile away, with the trombone's 880 Hz fundamental, and the 4400 Hz Braap 5th harmonic. All gone.
Trombone player, stand 1 mile away, play your loudest Braap, and we will try and hear the harmonics.
A microphone 6 inches from the bell, gets a different sound than a pair of spaced omni microphones that are 20 feet in front of the orchestra, and 20 feet higher than the orchestra.
High frequencies attenuate faster with distance than low frequencies.
The Queen Mary's fog horn was detected by instruments while it was 100 miles away.
Try that 1 mile away, with the trombone's 880 Hz fundamental, and the 4400 Hz Braap 5th harmonic. All gone.
Trombone player, stand 1 mile away, play your loudest Braap, and we will try and hear the harmonics.
Thank you everyone for your thoughts and interesting stories. I would like to hear the music exactly as it was intended or recorded, and want the speakers to be faithful to that signal. You all make a convincing argument for aiming for a flat response.
After considering all the viewpoints the one that stands to make the most sense is that it's a recording engineer's goal to faithfully capture the original source with various microphones. It's the job of the audio engineer to mix the signal as they intend, on perfect speakers, in a perfectly damped studio room, to what sounds good, which would intrinsically account for any listening curves which may occur in our ear. The speakers they use are studio monitors which are flat. So if my speakers are flat also then I should get the sound as intended.
Some learnings I've made:
After considering all the viewpoints the one that stands to make the most sense is that it's a recording engineer's goal to faithfully capture the original source with various microphones. It's the job of the audio engineer to mix the signal as they intend, on perfect speakers, in a perfectly damped studio room, to what sounds good, which would intrinsically account for any listening curves which may occur in our ear. The speakers they use are studio monitors which are flat. So if my speakers are flat also then I should get the sound as intended.
Some learnings I've made:
- The Harmon Curve is designed for headphones and I am not designing headphones so that clears that up.
- The House Target Curve is for EQing a room, whose purpose is to tune for the various room modes, damping, standing waves, and room acoustics all of which occur after the sound has left the speaker and as such should not be considered in the speaker design.
- Voicing a speaker with a V-shape or smile shape or any other shape is also perfectly fine if I want all my music to sound that way, but once set it's set, and a rather more practical/appropriate action would have been to adjust my bass and treble settings on the EQ instead.
Really? In mine I would want to switch in a 'speech' mode or high cut if they were passive xo...
Attachments
The "perfect" speakers and studio room's response may often vary by +/-10dB with small variations in positions.
The hearing of the audio engineer may also vary considerably from "our ear".
Assuming you are playing back the recording at the same level as was mixed, flat response is more likely, on average, to result in "the sound as intended" than an arbitrary "loudness contour".
That said, I seldom listen to recordings at the same level as they were recorded at, so often adjust the low frequency to reflect that difference.
Art
"Circle of confusion" The Floyd Toole book covers this.
From: "Sound ReproductionLoudspeakers and Rooms"
Back to designing for the head I always like this graph of a HRTF from a paper. It shows how different each person hears.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2014.00237/full
Between the mystery of a recording's creation and the differences of a person's head from each other, I find it really comes down to just liking what you like along with some measuring to understand the preference.
Ehi, that could be a new thread: "your diy 6dB-Fc system " judged by the professionals around here...or there ..just requires an account and an INTRO !
BTW I love intros!
Another one: "your diy 6dB-Fc system without measurements" showed in its beauty and with the necessary simple solutions
The differences between heads are largely irrelevant with speakers. Everything an individual hears, produced or reproduced, passes through their single personal HRTF alteration downstream from the acoustic source. I'll never experience the world through your HRTF. A speaker that perfectly reproduces the acoustic vibrations a singing robin will be heard by all as a singing robin in both instances.
Toole's circle of confusion is implying that recordings using EQ, reverb, and other manipulations are reproductions of original acoustic events. Those are electronic studio creations, novel productions with no strict manifestation in the real world. A comparative for judging accuracy of reproduction without an original acoustic is nonsensical. In those instances factoring the studio monitors is valid since, as part of the creation process, the studio monitors are part of the original acoustic event. Slipknot may indeed be more 'accurate' through Cerwin Vega than Revel in Toole's view. A robin doesn't care about studio monitors.
So judge it and open new threads… “beauty of complex solutions” , all with measure.
Eh eh it seems that the Audio world has found its way to organize...forums are like hospitals with moderation teams passing every day to check the status of the patients.
In my case, my last three designs are, in order of disappearance: BIG TL with 6.5" woofer, crossed to a 3" then a 0.75" dome, which asks for a 2nd order when pumping music over 10 W. Then another small TL that houses a whizzered FR plus a 0.75" tweeter: only the tweeter is filtered, 2nd order at about 5kHz.
My last and now working are a pair of speakers that employ a 3" cone and a tweeter with horn, crossover is series . Those I use with a subwoofer because the system was meant to be used with my BT ex-soundbar scrounged and converted to 2.1 amplifiers. The treble is still on the hot side ( no power fall on the treble) because mostly YT ( and I hate to say it because just thinking of how much energy consumption of all the servers is wasted just to let this crap arrive to you to listen to your tunes) is no fidelity at all and compression kills or 'adapts' the treble.
So I put a 8..2 Ω across the tweeter, but it's still hot- the tweeter, not the resistor..
So these are experiments, as for hifi it's better to be on the safe side and choose 2nd order for filters.
In my case, my last three designs are, in order of disappearance: BIG TL with 6.5" woofer, crossed to a 3" then a 0.75" dome, which asks for a 2nd order when pumping music over 10 W. Then another small TL that houses a whizzered FR plus a 0.75" tweeter: only the tweeter is filtered, 2nd order at about 5kHz.
My last and now working are a pair of speakers that employ a 3" cone and a tweeter with horn, crossover is series . Those I use with a subwoofer because the system was meant to be used with my BT ex-soundbar scrounged and converted to 2.1 amplifiers. The treble is still on the hot side ( no power fall on the treble) because mostly YT ( and I hate to say it because just thinking of how much energy consumption of all the servers is wasted just to let this crap arrive to you to listen to your tunes) is no fidelity at all and compression kills or 'adapts' the treble.
So I put a 8..2 Ω across the tweeter, but it's still hot- the tweeter, not the resistor..
So these are experiments, as for hifi it's better to be on the safe side and choose 2nd order for filters.
Speaker design is a bit like car design. A land rover defender (old model) is far from an utpoic car, but that utopic car (fast, good grip, stable in cornering, ...) would be useless for what a Land rover defender is made, to be heavy duty go everywhere car. So that deviation of the utopy is done with a purpose, and it's so called inperfections are there to serve a certain goal.
We got the utopic model (for speakers, clean even dispertion low distortion and so) but that kind of speaker is not fit for all purpose. But if yo udeviate from that utopic goal, you better do it with knowledge why and how. A perfect example are reggae soundsystems, who use old tech (scoop horns, ...) to create a certain sound that suits the music and setting very well, but is very far from the hifi utopia (coloured in sound, often with high harmonic distortion). A perfect hifi system, even high power and bass heavy does not work (it was tried) for that style of music.
And you got more systems like that, but they are build on purpose that way, and with knowledge (at least from the original designers) of why and how. Both of the actual main compititors (Stakx and Qualitex/QSS) in that subsection of reggae soundsystem builders now also design and build more clean neutral systems also for the mainstream p.a. market, so they know how to do it. But those systems just don't work right as reggae soundsystem as they lack the colourations needed and so they won't sell in that market (that is still largely diy builds based btw). But even those coloured builds are also based on science and measurements and with certain predefined goals, not snake oil and guesssing on dubious theories or because someone on the internet said it...
We got the utopic model (for speakers, clean even dispertion low distortion and so) but that kind of speaker is not fit for all purpose. But if yo udeviate from that utopic goal, you better do it with knowledge why and how. A perfect example are reggae soundsystems, who use old tech (scoop horns, ...) to create a certain sound that suits the music and setting very well, but is very far from the hifi utopia (coloured in sound, often with high harmonic distortion). A perfect hifi system, even high power and bass heavy does not work (it was tried) for that style of music.
And you got more systems like that, but they are build on purpose that way, and with knowledge (at least from the original designers) of why and how. Both of the actual main compititors (Stakx and Qualitex/QSS) in that subsection of reggae soundsystem builders now also design and build more clean neutral systems also for the mainstream p.a. market, so they know how to do it. But those systems just don't work right as reggae soundsystem as they lack the colourations needed and so they won't sell in that market (that is still largely diy builds based btw). But even those coloured builds are also based on science and measurements and with certain predefined goals, not snake oil and guesssing on dubious theories or because someone on the internet said it...
Ah ah funny that you mention reggae 'coz it's what I have lately on the playlist.
The outdoor or dancehall systems that you refer to has no meaning ( and placement) in a domestic environment.
A 6" sealed sub powered by 15-30 W is enough to have the bass line thumping.
Yeah, for party you want that bass go through your organs and bones, so 50 W with walls augmentation and a compression driver to withstand abuses is good. I mean the smallest CDs available with exit to 3/4" throat.
The outdoor or dancehall systems that you refer to has no meaning ( and placement) in a domestic environment.
A 6" sealed sub powered by 15-30 W is enough to have the bass line thumping.
Yeah, for party you want that bass go through your organs and bones, so 50 W with walls augmentation and a compression driver to withstand abuses is good. I mean the smallest CDs available with exit to 3/4" throat.
Well, i'm busy designing a 1.4CD/10" woofer speaker for that now that will be a future build.
And today i listen at home with a FR as top and a 10" woofer for that kind of music. But i got a dsp eq preset if i want to sound like a reggae soundsystem in my living room, and a clean preset for other music. A lot of the new style dubreggae needs that colouration as the music is mixed to sound good on those coloured big soundsytem rigs and don't sound good on a clean system.
And today i listen at home with a FR as top and a 10" woofer for that kind of music. But i got a dsp eq preset if i want to sound like a reggae soundsystem in my living room, and a clean preset for other music. A lot of the new style dubreggae needs that colouration as the music is mixed to sound good on those coloured big soundsytem rigs and don't sound good on a clean system.