The making of: The Two Towers (a 25 driver Full Range line array)
- Thread starter wesayso
- Start date
Well report comes here
can't stop saying in we talk about acoustic waves in a real room then sound get six out of six stars. We listened many genres and it was obvious as with fair good headphones or near field monitoring that all genres and mixes are reproduced crazy high quality with some silky soft and pleasing sound transferring listener into recording room compared to most other speakers. When music starts playing foot mostly start tapping by itself, lips can't stop smile a bit and brain will have more, no alcohol or joints are necessary here for high enjoyment, audio quality will do the kick by itself. Could think about drawback having such good sound system and sweet spot on daily basis will be its hard to leave home and get away to work or get the garden or car fixed.Because of the fantastic sound experience coffee on table below picture is some best cup ever had.
Of course its okay from personal experience to make small critics about Vifa TC9FD18-8 driver or say its not mine cup of tea, but think then inherent potential for this driver hasn't been investigated deeply enough and brought up to surface, and can follow that wesayso gets little sad sometimes when reading stuff that directly looks down this Vifa driver because he have reached audio nirvana into living room documented by the best REW impulse plus step response and APL_TDA plots i have seen shared, and wildest thing is those plots are at actual listening position and now I know how such plots sound in real, wow.
15 km away into town where i was born can go listen BeoLab 90 or all the top end B&W models and use these listening experience as reference for above report plus my own DSP steered two way 10F8424/SPH-250KE and head phones. For me TC9 towers is as good as BeoLab 90 and are a fantastic acoustic sound experience but where BeoLap 90 think mostly is a "what we can do nowadays project" because its cost is so sky-high and only reachable by rich people. My own DSP steered two way think can reach high acoustic sound quality as towers and BeoLab 90 but only at calibration point about 50 cm distance spot in space, everywhere else quality decrease into more ordinary sound quality.
We did listen a lot of acoustic guitar tracks that for me was unknown and while they sounded simply fantastic i did notice because i play guitar myself and have T.C. Electronics effect pedal "SCF" which is a good quality analog "stereo chorus/flanger & pitch modulator" i noticed all these guitar tracks sounded as they have that effect pedals turned on with a light touch setting. I say this because its a fact our ears have different distance to the multiple drivers and that could maybe sound as such type of effect, but in that those tracks was unknown material to me then its just a thought and just speculation to discuss and learn from.
Thanks to wesayso girlfriend and son open their house and hope life goes their way as they want best to have it, but he he can say at least by clever hard work and thoughts by the man in the house they have crazy high quality audio sound system to enjoy for years to come.
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Thanks BYRTT for your kind review.
Regarding those guitar tracks, I can send them to you for further investigation.
Was it:
Keith don't Go Live from Nils Lofgren and
Steven Stills - Treetop Flyer?
Did you hear it on:
Led Zeppelin - Going to California or
Rodrigo & Gabriella - Hanuman?
In my humble opinion (on the first 2 tracks) it's how they were recorded, as they do pretty much sound the same in my Car, (only a smaller staging) and that's definitely not line arrays. The car also has a carefully balanced stereo setup and was the reason for me to build better home speakers.
I'm a sucker for that sound. Using amplified acoustic guitar, you've even had my acoustical guitar with electric pickup in your hands, we could have replicated the sound right there.
I should have played you some Paco de Lucia or Al Di Meola.
Regarding those guitar tracks, I can send them to you for further investigation.
Was it:
Keith don't Go Live from Nils Lofgren and
Steven Stills - Treetop Flyer?
Did you hear it on:
Led Zeppelin - Going to California or
Rodrigo & Gabriella - Hanuman?
In my humble opinion (on the first 2 tracks) it's how they were recorded, as they do pretty much sound the same in my Car, (only a smaller staging) and that's definitely not line arrays. The car also has a carefully balanced stereo setup and was the reason for me to build better home speakers.
I'm a sucker for that sound. Using amplified acoustic guitar, you've even had my acoustical guitar with electric pickup in your hands, we could have replicated the sound right there
.I should have played you some Paco de Lucia or Al Di Meola.
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Another thought, BYRTT, did ACDC's Highway to Hell sound dry enough? That should answer it, really...
If it's an added effect on acoustic guitar because of the arrays, it should be there on all songs, right?
I bet you didn't notice it on The Eagles - Hotel California from When Hell Freezes Over. Plenty of acoustical guitar in that track.
The Guitar on Crosby Stills Nash - Helplessly Hoping also is more dry in my recollection.
If it's an added effect on acoustic guitar because of the arrays, it should be there on all songs, right?
I bet you didn't notice it on The Eagles - Hotel California from When Hell Freezes Over. Plenty of acoustical guitar in that track.
The Guitar on Crosby Stills Nash - Helplessly Hoping also is more dry in my recollection.
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Thanks BYRTT for your kind review.
Regarding those guitar tracks, I can send them to you for further investigation.
Was it:
Keith don't Go Live from Nils Lofgren and
Steven Stills - Treetop Flyer?
Did you hear it on:
Led Zeppelin - Going to California or
Rodrigo & Gabriella - Hanuman?
In my humble opinion (on the first 2 tracks) it's how they were recorded, as they do pretty much sound the same in my Car, (only a smaller staging) and that's definitely not line arrays. The car also has a carefully balanced stereo setup and was the reason for me to build better home speakers.
I'm a sucker for that sound. Using amplified acoustic guitar, you've even had my acoustical guitar with electric pickup in your hands, we could have replicated the sound right there
I should have played you some Paco de Lucia or Al Di Meola.
Welcome, the kind review is because in my eyes its simply a fact you have crazy high quality acoustic sound as system was corrected of 02 Dec 2016 in wide area, as could you actual see those irritating invisible waves with your eyes and then corrected them take another better route to listening area. Such facts and results are hard not to admire done by diy style when one see the ordinary humble tools/gear and cost used.
Me too am a sucker for that sound, if you can get me the Steven Stills track i can try analyze in my 50 cm correction spot in space where acoustic quality is sky-high and also into headphones (promise to delete track again after test in i haven't payed copyright for it).
Another thought, BYRTT, did ACDC's Highway to Hell sound dry enough? That should answer it, really...
If it's an added effect on acoustic guitar because of the arrays, it should be there on all songs, right?
I bet you didn't notice it on The Eagles - Hotel California from When Hell Freezes Over. Plenty of acoustical guitar in that track.
The Guitar on Crosby Stills Nash - Helplessly Hoping also is more dry in my recollection.
Regarding "AC/DC Highway to Hell" my thoughts was it sounded very good but that my own 2-way in magic spot and also within some 2 meter is bit dryer so lets see when i get above Steven Stills track how it goes.
In live track "Hotel California" we went to garden solve our need as smokers when kick drum started rule the number and left xrk971 in sweet spot so didn't notice so much, but you right there is plenty acoustic guitar into the track.
By the way talking tracks from Eagles live album "Hell freezes over" can tell track no 11 "The last resort" is such a track that really touches me inside by the instruments harmonics and vocal performance, not that i have any relative life situation to that track but just the musical performance. That track wesayso kindly played for me to go home on, wow here at home have to go headphones or magic spot in space or drive to town listening BeoLab 90 to get as high in quality as TC9 towers.
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Regarding the acoustic guitar tracks, I enjoyed them immensely on the Towers. I have the same copy of Nils Lofgren's Keith Don't Go and have listened to it numerous times using my reference speakers and my good headphones with a class A F5 headphone amp. I know that track well and have to say that the presentation on Wesayso's Two Towers surpasses headphones in clarity and impact while having huge sound stage. I really enjoyed the acoustic Hotel California - its like tasting good chocolate for the first time or drinking your first beer on a hot summer day after cutting the grass.
What stands out with these speakers and the system they are part of is the visceral feeling and emotions that one gets from hearing music like it has never been heard before. It is totally enveloping and engaging and the low distortion will fool you into thinking that it is not as loud as it really is, until you try to talk to each other that you find you have to raise your voice or yell. I suspect the sound levels were averaging 90dB at listening position maybe 92dB. My iPhone mic was clipping on kick drums when I recorded it. No noticeable distortion by ear and bass quality was superb down to 17Hz. Those little cones can indeed or our bass when working together.
Anyhow it has been quite the day to remember. We need to do this again.
What stands out with these speakers and the system they are part of is the visceral feeling and emotions that one gets from hearing music like it has never been heard before. It is totally enveloping and engaging and the low distortion will fool you into thinking that it is not as loud as it really is, until you try to talk to each other that you find you have to raise your voice or yell. I suspect the sound levels were averaging 90dB at listening position maybe 92dB. My iPhone mic was clipping on kick drums when I recorded it. No noticeable distortion by ear and bass quality was superb down to 17Hz. Those little cones can indeed or our bass when working together.
Anyhow it has been quite the day to remember. We need to do this again.
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It's on it's way now... I'm listening right now on headphones...
More thoughts tomorrow, I'm headed to bed
Thanks received and listened and didn't take long, there is clearly no colorings from long lines because that acoustic guitar has very clearly that chorus/flanger sound here so case closed they just reproduce what they feeded
.
You do make a good point: Your near field listening spot IS dryer. With all the processing and the bits of hidden passive damping, my room is still an ordinary living room. It is bound to be "still there". But by having the indirect sound mimicking the direct sound it is very forgiving.
My Haas kicker/ambient addition only adds to that, trying to hide the room you're in and trading it for a better one. But it still is a room.
I'm glad you guys agree that it's "working" on so many different songs and genres. That's what I've been focussing on. My theory still is: it should be possible with good speakers to make everything sound a bit better.
It wasn't easy and it took me quite a while. It won't be "the reference" sound as I aim for listening enjoyment more than accuracy. I hope to get the best mix of those two. If I wanted accuracy I would have stuck to a near field setup.
Instead I opted for the most visceral experience I could get, hence the ambient channels and a slightly more "wet" presentation.
Remember the RT graphs from REW?
Without the ambient channels:
With the ambient channels on:
For me it shows better 'distribution' of indirect sound in the room. Helping to hide the real room.
Fooling the brain, that's what Stereo is, right? It's still quite a long tail. I'd need way more 'passive means' to get rid of the energy.
Top priority of this room is to keep it a living room. I'm thinking I succeeded to make it double as a listening room without using invasive means.
I don't know if I'm right, but I think this isn't so much different from what Linkwitz is trying to accomplish with his OB setup. His room is also very much a wet room. I guess I have a better defined RFZ*, but without any means to verify it's still a guess.
* = Reflection Free Zone, I aimed to get the first 20ms as clean as I could get it in my room.
Thanks received and listened and didn't take long, there is clearly no colorings from long lines because that acoustic guitar has very clearly that chorus/flanger sound here so case closed they just reproduce what they feeded
Thanks for that. It still might be right that my room/setup adds to the lush feeling, but it's a sauce that's spread out over all songs. I'm not using them as a Studio reference. Though in some parts they might even do better than the real thing
(that sounded a bit snobbish, I admit)
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Tell me more
. I can't get enough of this! hahaha, thanks. I agree, we should do this more often!I have to ask: what did you think about that Zappa track I played - "Find her Finer"
I think his recordings are top notch! Fun, engaging and real sounding instruments! I like it better than Anne Bison, which has obvious issues in staging. Though there still is a lot of "freedom" in the placement of voices in the mix.
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That was my first Frank Zappa song on good speakers. It was indeed very good - you will have to get me that to try at home. I forgot to mention that I really liked Infected Mushroom tracks as well. Even the classical Spanish acoustic guitar (Rodrigo) sounds great.
That's the beauty of this system. Everything sounds great.
That's the beauty of this system. Everything sounds great.
hmmmm... is somebody thinking of buying about fifty TC9 drivers?
Ha ha year in the car at way home it hit me many times or 2x 36 times SB65WBAC25-4 because xrk971 personal praised that driver among the many he has tested, but but but we must realize its not just simply to stack 24 TC9's to get Ronald's performance, his system from computer to speakers and also room treatment is so well executed into every little detail backed by investigation and good documentation, so to get absolute same performance will cost quite some work and time.
But it shows what's possible with the resources available to DIYers and a limited budget on gear and an unlimited budget of time and labor! Working within the constraints of a difficult room can be very time consuming. On the flip side, imagine the costs of replacing the speaker system four or five times to get to the same end as Wesayso in a single shot. I'd choose the single shot approach every time!