Hi Mark
Just out of curiosity. What source for music do you use to input in the Q-SYS? Preamplifier, Streaming, streaming from a PC or CD?
I just checked out the Q-SYS Core 110f spec sheet. It can be feed with 16 bit 48kHz over USB. I guess you have to feed it analogous via a separate DAC and accept an extra set of DI/AN and AN/DI conversion to listen to HiRes digital music. Curious what you do.
The Core 110f sure looks like an awesome tool to play with! I like that remote-control.
Steffen
Just out of curiosity. What source for music do you use to input in the Q-SYS? Preamplifier, Streaming, streaming from a PC or CD?
I just checked out the Q-SYS Core 110f spec sheet. It can be feed with 16 bit 48kHz over USB. I guess you have to feed it analogous via a separate DAC and accept an extra set of DI/AN and AN/DI conversion to listen to HiRes digital music. Curious what you do.
The Core 110f sure looks like an awesome tool to play with! I like that remote-control.
Steffen
Hey Steffen and Speedysteve7, thanks for the kind and enthusiastic comments...
and heck yeah, black is better for sure
Thx for that deanznz,
Pano's "zinger" experience is very interesting. Both from the standpoint of he couldn't measure anything wrong, and the strength of the correction he found to satisfy his ears. 2130Hz -10dB, Q=5 is a very large correction, ime.
I may reach out to him, to explore his thoughts....
After making any major processing changes, for both safety's sake and to catch screwups, I bring up driver sections up one at a time starting with VHF, then working down,
I really don't know what to think about the "sometimes overly bright sound" . It may be rooted in the pychoacoutics behind transient response (which I know very little about.) Because transients are where it's most noticeable.
Sound really jumps out of the syn11 rig.
For example, one of my standard test tracks for kick drum is 'Ordinary Average Guy' by Joe Walsh. Kick is right at the beginning and pretty much all alone....easy test. We all have our favs, huh? Another for me is good ole Thunderstruck.
When I turn up the volume on Syn11, the 'OAG' kick is much crisper and more dynamic that I've heard on any setup before.
Startlingly so, and has made me set up other speakers to compare. They all sound like what I'm used to, a very powerful, but predominantly lower frequency ka-boom kick.
So I go back to Syn11 to listen again for what's wrong with them,
but damn... Syn11 sounds much more real...makes the other rigs sound muddy.
Plain dunno what's right or wrong......
and heck yeah, black is better for sure
Thx for that deanznz,
Pano's "zinger" experience is very interesting. Both from the standpoint of he couldn't measure anything wrong, and the strength of the correction he found to satisfy his ears. 2130Hz -10dB, Q=5 is a very large correction, ime.
I may reach out to him, to explore his thoughts....
Yep, I have easy mute buttons for each driver sections, in addition to level controls.
After making any major processing changes, for both safety's sake and to catch screwups, I bring up driver sections up one at a time starting with VHF, then working down,
I really don't know what to think about the "sometimes overly bright sound" . It may be rooted in the pychoacoutics behind transient response (which I know very little about.) Because transients are where it's most noticeable.
Sound really jumps out of the syn11 rig.
For example, one of my standard test tracks for kick drum is 'Ordinary Average Guy' by Joe Walsh. Kick is right at the beginning and pretty much all alone....easy test. We all have our favs, huh? Another for me is good ole Thunderstruck.
When I turn up the volume on Syn11, the 'OAG' kick is much crisper and more dynamic that I've heard on any setup before.
Startlingly so, and has made me set up other speakers to compare. They all sound like what I'm used to, a very powerful, but predominantly lower frequency ka-boom kick.
So I go back to Syn11 to listen again for what's wrong with them,
but damn... Syn11 sounds much more real...makes the other rigs sound muddy.
Plain dunno what's right or wrong......
Hi again Steffen,
My music collection is on J-River. Put all my CDs on it, I do stream a lot, and copy favorite streams to J-River as well.
Yes, the Core110f's USB is only 16 bit. But I've found using it with a PC 16 bit is no problem, because in qsys you run the digital signal just below clipping through out the schematic, and attenuate just prior to amplification. That said, I do wish bit depth was 24 just cause....
I now use Dante instead of USB, with Qsys. Cores can get a Dante software license, or larger card Cores can use a Dante hardware card. Mine has 64x64 ch, 192kHz capability. But I just stick to 48kHz, cause that's what qsys runs at internally.
I do wish qsys were 96kHz, mainly for measuring and timing delay precision of 0.01ms (vs0.02ms @48kHz).
Because personally, as far as music goes, I'm quite happy with good ole CD sample rates.
Imo the quality of the recording vastly swamps sample rates . I wasted too much money on high rez
Re qsys remotes....you wouldn't believe what all you can build into one....literally any control in the schematic.
And with afaict unlimited presets, that can be segmented into specific function blocks, or global,..anyway you like...
I'm not sure I read your plots well - due to my failings🙂 not the plots.
They seem very flat and true.
I've found with my Holmimpulse amplitude vs Freq measurements that I tend to like the sound of a good boost of deep bass, slightly less mid bass, slightly less mid, slightly less upper mid, same level tweeter..
The whole plot slopes left (high) to right (a bit lower).
Truly flat is too bright for me.
Dug this plot of mine out from way back when - don't know if this thinking is relevant to your set up though?
They seem very flat and true.
I've found with my Holmimpulse amplitude vs Freq measurements that I tend to like the sound of a good boost of deep bass, slightly less mid bass, slightly less mid, slightly less upper mid, same level tweeter..
The whole plot slopes left (high) to right (a bit lower).
Truly flat is too bright for me.
Dug this plot of mine out from way back when - don't know if this thinking is relevant to your set up though?
Sorry my plots have been hard to follow....will try to be clearer.
I share your tonality preferences. I like a bit of bass bump, and truly flat is almost always too bright. So I use a downward sloping house curve like so many folks do.
That said, I typically tune to get flat magnitude and phase.
Because I manually adjust bass, and overall downward slope in real time, on a track by track basis.
It's very easy for me because I've done so much of it, and usually needs no further adjustments for an entire album, or often even a Youtube playlist that stays in genre.
And, inside vs outdoors always needs considerable adjustment.
And, And.........most importantly...individual track adjustments add greatly to my enjoyment of them .
Here's an example of typical flat tuning, (also shown in post#2.
In the frequency magnitude response pane, Green is the entire Syn11.
Blue, Brown, Purple, Pink, and Dark Red are individually the 18"s, 12"s, 4"s, coax CD's HF, and VHF.
(The red trace above them is Coherence, which is a statistical measure of correlation, stimulus signal to measurement.
It is displaying the CD's HF section in this plot, so coherence is high across it's bandwidth, but zilch elsewhere.
It's a very useful stat for knowing how much multiple arrivals are contaminating the measurement.)
This plot in contrast to flat above, is one where there is an embedded downward sloping house curve into each of the driver sections' FIR files.
Dark Purple is the Syn11 without subcart. The 18"s in the syn horn are high passed at 50Hz on this one. Coherence is for full speaker.
My idea behind embedding the house curve was to get a head start on manual adjustments, with the house curve being the center of gravity so to speak, where manual often ends up going.
But I'm so used to manually adjusting vs overall flat, and tuning/verifying individual drivers sections as flat, ......i found the embedded house curve is more of a pain than a help.
Prosound Meyersound's philosophy got me started with 'just make dang speaker flat'....then do what you want with it situation depending.....and know you are always starting from a well known flat cornerstone.
Anyway, hope all that was clearer, and helped explain.
The thing with this Syn11 rig that keeps me scratching my head re tonality....
Is I have never heard such clarity, tonal vibrancy, and transient response from of a speaker...it continue to amaze every time I put on old favorites, or stream new music.
Sometimes with previous DIY projects, when I thought I'd achieved a new level of clarity, deeper inspection into frequency response measurements showed the reason....like a small unknown/unwanted boost in hf as example.
I can't find anything like that, or anything else wrong with Syn11 so far....
And in the past, sometimes the gains in clarity were indeed real. Syn10, when I added small mids to bridge between CD and low was the biggest such clear jump.
I'm hoping this the case with Syn11....a real jump....it's just, the jump almost seems too good to be true.....especially given how much more razorlike manual adjustments work on this build vs any prior syn versions.
At this point, I'm left thinking the jump is due to either the inclusion of lower freq extension into the horn with the 18"s,
a further reduction in modulation distortion with drivers covering narrower bandwidths,
my best c2c spacings yet achieved,
the directionally of the 75x60 horn along with its size....or some combo of all of the above.
Or, I'm just totally 'fffffed up !
Hi mark100,
I apologize if this is off-topic, but I was wondering what technique are you using so that your low-frequency measurements, e.g., 32 - 300 Hz, show such a small variation?
I am curious because I recently finished and measured a low-frequency enclosure, and the near-field measurement was shockingly similar (withing few Hz, e.g., f_3, f_10) to the simulation. Once I move the microphone to the listening position, the measured signal reminds me of Alps.
I understand that I can correct the peaks, but even with the 1/12 smoothing that you use, the signals has the deep nulls.
Kindest regards,
M
I apologize if this is off-topic, but I was wondering what technique are you using so that your low-frequency measurements, e.g., 32 - 300 Hz, show such a small variation?
I am curious because I recently finished and measured a low-frequency enclosure, and the near-field measurement was shockingly similar (withing few Hz, e.g., f_3, f_10) to the simulation. Once I move the microphone to the listening position, the measured signal reminds me of Alps.
I understand that I can correct the peaks, but even with the 1/12 smoothing that you use, the signals has the deep nulls.
Kindest regards,
M
Hi M,
In both of the plots in #145, the lowest section is just the 18" drivers in the syn horn.
The response doesn't include the "subcart" (the name i've given the lower sub to help differentiate it from the 18" sub drivers in the syn horn)
Both plots were at about 1m, so pretty close to the syn's 18"s.
And yeah, out in the room it will all go to hell.
Which is why i don't make or value sub measurements out in a room....I use my ears for that.
All my subs, like the subcart, PPSL, sealed and vented regular boxes, etc........get measured and tuned out on the driveway.
Since I use linear-phase xovers, I know they will mate up and be in phase with main speakers indoors, with nothing more than correct time delays.
Out on the driveway, I make a physical distance measurement with a tape to ascertain where the sub's measured acoustic center is vs a ToF measurement.
That gives me the info needed to get delays right indoors.
Syn11 is unique for me, as I have to measure subwoofer's low freq along with main speaker, cause a sub section is part of the speaker !!
Heck, the outer extremities of syn11's ports, including its 18" ports, all fit in a 24"x16" rectangle. Hard to separate that Lol
Which is why the response is included in indoor traces.
Normally, i say to heck with indoor measurements below 100Hz.
I know folks will tell me about multiple subs, sub optimizations, Dirac, etc.
I also can't see how any of that will ever get as good as outdoors. Even outdoors, two subs muddies up, other than when sub content is part of the stereo mix.
Every time I've tried to do anything with subs indoors, single or mutiple, doing any thing other than placement and EQ'ing down room modes....
....well, bass & especially bass transients.... get fatter ,blurred, muddy. Me No likey
So i just use my ears to try to get what I hear outdoors to sound as clean and dynamic indoors. My turn to veer OT haha
In both of the plots in #145, the lowest section is just the 18" drivers in the syn horn.
The response doesn't include the "subcart" (the name i've given the lower sub to help differentiate it from the 18" sub drivers in the syn horn)
Both plots were at about 1m, so pretty close to the syn's 18"s.
And yeah, out in the room it will all go to hell.
Which is why i don't make or value sub measurements out in a room....I use my ears for that.
All my subs, like the subcart, PPSL, sealed and vented regular boxes, etc........get measured and tuned out on the driveway.
Since I use linear-phase xovers, I know they will mate up and be in phase with main speakers indoors, with nothing more than correct time delays.
Out on the driveway, I make a physical distance measurement with a tape to ascertain where the sub's measured acoustic center is vs a ToF measurement.
That gives me the info needed to get delays right indoors.
Syn11 is unique for me, as I have to measure subwoofer's low freq along with main speaker, cause a sub section is part of the speaker !!
Heck, the outer extremities of syn11's ports, including its 18" ports, all fit in a 24"x16" rectangle. Hard to separate that Lol
Which is why the response is included in indoor traces.
Normally, i say to heck with indoor measurements below 100Hz.
I know folks will tell me about multiple subs, sub optimizations, Dirac, etc.
I also can't see how any of that will ever get as good as outdoors. Even outdoors, two subs muddies up, other than when sub content is part of the stereo mix.
Every time I've tried to do anything with subs indoors, single or mutiple, doing any thing other than placement and EQ'ing down room modes....
....well, bass & especially bass transients.... get fatter ,blurred, muddy. Me No likey
So i just use my ears to try to get what I hear outdoors to sound as clean and dynamic indoors. My turn to veer OT haha
Big jump is likely multiple things combined!
Yep, we do surely learn from revisions/iterations. Number 4? Good for you !! Have all the versions been forward?
Mine surely haven't.....
Maybe some will find their history interesting...
I met Tom D at a trade show and he was very positive about using a CD straight to a low mid like a 12" or so.
So I took of with that, and versions 1 through 6 were all prototypes, just trying different horn patterns and port locations. Along with mouth terminations..... like with/without secondary flares.
And I was dominated by a belief in CEA-2034....that getting on-axis and polars as smooth as possible would make for best sound.
All version efforts went into that goal.
And measurements and sound steadily improved such that....
Syn7 was the first version I built a pair for stereo.
It had curved secondary flares, (and the best set of on and off-axis measurements I've achieved yet in any version.)
But the curved foam board flares were a bear to make.
So Syn 8 was to see if the curved secondaries were worth the trouble. It was very close to the same design as syn7, but made with straight sided secondary flares.
Didn't measure as well as Syn7, but sounded the same, just as good. Good enough to become a stereo pair too.
Syn8's secondary flares were removable.
And it was especially built to allow easy-to-add mouth terminations, such as roundovers, felt wraps, etc. That was it's whole purpose, to find out how much polars mattered.
Some things helped polars, some things hurt.
But the dang sound never changed much, if any.
I concluded I needed to let go of focussing on CEA-2034.
Like everything in audio, I think after a certain SNR is achieved, further optimization is probably best described as further obsession haha
Anyway, feeling at a dead end, looking for improvements, I took a harder look at Danley's models, pondering why they all included small mids to bridge between the CD and low end driver. I figured it was for SPL capability like most folks said, which I didn't need more of.
But for the heck of it, decided to try it anyway,
So syn9 proto1 was born. It was such a piece of a junked together repurposed old horn,.... because I had doubtful expectations.
Yet it sounded absolutely glorious !!!! It was a 90x60 with no secondary flares.
2nd syn9 proto using small mids was an all out effort, that I was sure would be the ticket for a stereo pair.
A 75x60, and I'm done with secondaries now for good.
But it didn't sound quite as awesome as the junker proto...?????
I decided the problem was the narrower 75 degree pattern, and built the 3rd syn9 proto, a 90x60, that I loved.
Which I called Syn10.
Syn10 totally rocked, and adding a center syn10 stack for LCR matrixing was only thing I could think looking for improvement...
I was happy as hell with syn10 LCR.
Then, some wild hair led to the Syn11 build, .....and this thread.
Syn11 is clearly a real improvement over syn10.
I do wish it had a 90x60 pattern, instead of its 75x60. And I do wish there's a way to make the whole rig a little smaller.
I think using 15"s in the horn instead of 18's could help trim size a little. I would keep them sealed, and only try to use them down to 40-50Hz.
The subcart's18"s do the deep extension., and the box could be a little smaller too, to match the smaller 15" syn horn.
I do think getting the syn horn to reach down to 40-50Hz on it's own is a key to the improved sound. Maybe the key, dunno.
If nothing else, makes for easy 1/4WL integration with the subcart.
So a 6-way still. But maybe small enough to go LCR with....... hahaha
I do know one thing though....until plywood with the quality and price of Russian baltic birch becomes available again, my DIY efforts are on totally hold other than processing etc. Building the second syn11 and the subcarts out of what i could find and afford, was a total bitch.
My lovely lady is happy though...say's we finally get to work on a kitchen remod
Hope this was fun guys...don't know why I've been moved to write so much lately....maybe I should say sorry..
Hi mark100,
thank you for the reply.
Kindest regards,
M
thank you for the reply.
So, if I understand correctly, the plots are result of outdoor measurements, and you do not further compensate for the room effects. Is that a correct understanding?
Kindest regards,
M
Hi M, That's not correct. Both plots under discussion in #145 were indoor plots at about 1m, and were of the Syn11 horn section only.
The only reason the lowest 18" section looks good is due to closeness of the measurement.
What I was trying to convey, and was probably too wordy about...is that I personally don't put value in indoor sub measurements .
This is the subcart raw measurement and processed reponse, taken outdoors ground plane at 4m.
It's what I run indoors without further EQ etc, other than playing with various low-pass frequencies.
It looks good cause it basically is good....and outdoors
The only reason the lowest 18" section looks good is due to closeness of the measurement.
What I was trying to convey, and was probably too wordy about...is that I personally don't put value in indoor sub measurements .
This is the subcart raw measurement and processed reponse, taken outdoors ground plane at 4m.
It's what I run indoors without further EQ etc, other than playing with various low-pass frequencies.
It looks good cause it basically is good....and outdoors
Yeah even though there are sometimes sidesteps or going backwards, it's all learning on various things and inevitably leads to bettering what is it you are concentrating on, eventually Even if you built exact same thing but learned to make better measurements, adjustments, learned thing or two how to listen or what is wrong, all kinds of things, and progress happens.
Even if you built exact same thing but learned to make better measurements, adjustments, learned thing or two how to listen or what is wrong, all kinds of things, and progress happens.Hi mark100,
I was wondering, if you could post the measured, i.e., unfiltered Syn 11 in the 500 - 20,000 Hz.
Kindest regards,
M
Thank you for the explanation. I am still surprised how look the Syn 11 looks in the about 125 - 500 Hz bandwidth.It looks good cause it basically is good....and outdoors
I was wondering, if you could post the measured, i.e., unfiltered Syn 11 in the 500 - 20,000 Hz.
Kindest regards,
M
Hi mark100,
thank you very much.
Kindest regards,
M
thank you very much.
My measurement looks like yours between 800 Hz and 20 kHz, and I was wondering if my measurement was garbage. Looking at your (equalized) results, I feel much better.
Kindest regards,
M
Hi Mark
I really learn a lot from your experiments and sharing knowledge, and my Synergy-build for corner-placement is heavily based on your writings!
Often I get kind of sidetracked by Mark´s projects, they make me think, what can I use, how can I implement something similar? So I have been thinking how to build a six-way system as Mark, five-way MEH plus Sub, but to put in a corner! The 18" woofers on the sides are a real challenge, as they are so deep that they demand very big secondary flares to make room for them, so I have been fantasizing about swapping the two 18" drivers for four shallow 12" woofers, that are not so deep. One in each corner of the MEH/SYN. Makes port-placement easier too. Some time ago I found those 4 inch deep 12" woofers:
https://www.daytonaudio.com/product/1258/ls12-44-12-low-profile-subwoofer-dual-4-ohm
So here you go Mark. When the kitchen is finished you can build three SYN12, 90x60 with those drivers on the side.
In the meantime I will slowly go on with my big 3-way corner-MEH, sticking to the decisions I made when I started the build.
Steffen
I really learn a lot from your experiments and sharing knowledge, and my Synergy-build for corner-placement is heavily based on your writings!
Often I get kind of sidetracked by Mark´s projects, they make me think, what can I use, how can I implement something similar? So I have been thinking how to build a six-way system as Mark, five-way MEH plus Sub, but to put in a corner! The 18" woofers on the sides are a real challenge, as they are so deep that they demand very big secondary flares to make room for them, so I have been fantasizing about swapping the two 18" drivers for four shallow 12" woofers, that are not so deep. One in each corner of the MEH/SYN. Makes port-placement easier too. Some time ago I found those 4 inch deep 12" woofers:
https://www.daytonaudio.com/product/1258/ls12-44-12-low-profile-subwoofer-dual-4-ohm
So here you go Mark. When the kitchen is finished you can build three SYN12, 90x60 with those drivers on the side.
In the meantime I will slowly go on with my big 3-way corner-MEH, sticking to the decisions I made when I started the build.
Steffen
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hornsteff here is one alternative way to mount a driver to a MEH/synergy
more info from this post (and thread):
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/synergy-build-with-tf0410mr-mids.324097/post-5501378
I asked David McBean how to go about simulating this in this post and his answer is in the next post:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/hornresp.119854/post-7367527
more info from this post (and thread):
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/synergy-build-with-tf0410mr-mids.324097/post-5501378
I asked David McBean how to go about simulating this in this post and his answer is in the next post:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/hornresp.119854/post-7367527
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Thx Steffen, kind words...glad I've helped stoke some of your design ideas.In the meantime I will slowly go on with my big 3-way corner-MEH, sticking to the decisions I made when I started the build.
Good luck with the corner syn build. I wish i could figure out such.....everytime I contemplate the idea, I come to the conclusion I really want to use the walls as one giant set of primary flares (with no secondary).
And that the room needs to be built around the speaker, not the other way around !!! ...Lol
About 2-3 weeks ago I got inspired by ncbluetj's BASH build which uses 4-15" !! https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/the-b-a-s-h.391536/page-6#post-7190481
Decided to see if I could retrofit a pair of 18" to an old synergy prototype....looked like it could work, providing a box could be built to wrap it.
The old proto is a 75x60 build that uses two 12"s, four 4"s, and a coax CD.
View attachment 1117558
I'm like yeah, I can build a box around it, but it's going to be one heavy sucker. I'll need to build it on site, in its final resting place.
Decided I wanted to build it on a stand to match the height of other synergies sitting on tall subs. Used a vented sub box emptied and turned point up for the base.....(which already had coaster wheels, yay)
View attachment 1117561
Built the box pieces and painted them. Time to assemble.
First thing was to mount the 12"s and seal them up the way the proto was designed.
View attachment 1117563
So I can start putting it together on the stand.
View attachment 1117566
Ann then add the rest of the drivers.
View attachment 1117568
And then add the box.
View attachment 1117569
Finish the wiring and seal her up...
View attachment 1117570
Done. Assembly went nicely....took about 4 hours yesterday......happy camper
View attachment 1117576
**** that looks good man! Wow , very nice