I would add separate forum only for room acoustics. Speaker-independent discussion could be: how to control resonances, reflections, flutter echo / early decay and reverb time, what acoustical parameters should be measured, how and why, how to interpret results, typical targets, effects of listening geometry, available materials & components, hints for installation, diy projects etc.
Speaker discussion should also include more information about acoustics when topic is not generic i.e. room independent. Acoustical parameters, treatment, room dimensions, building materials and speaker & listener locations should be specified when asking help or recommendation for speaker problem.
Sound preference, favorite music genres and other limits for discussion should be specified too if needed and possible. Otherwise discussion ends up to common and irritating state where everybody recommends their own or favorite. Dipole lovers praise dipoles, synergy owners won't forget to repeat all reasons why this horn and speaker type is The King and others are not, and so on. This would be okay in thread "Praise your favorite as much you can and do not mind if never heard or designed anything else" 😀
Speaker discussion should also include more information about acoustics when topic is not generic i.e. room independent. Acoustical parameters, treatment, room dimensions, building materials and speaker & listener locations should be specified when asking help or recommendation for speaker problem.
Sound preference, favorite music genres and other limits for discussion should be specified too if needed and possible. Otherwise discussion ends up to common and irritating state where everybody recommends their own or favorite. Dipole lovers praise dipoles, synergy owners won't forget to repeat all reasons why this horn and speaker type is The King and others are not, and so on. This would be okay in thread "Praise your favorite as much you can and do not mind if never heard or designed anything else" 😀
That line (...actually a region of acceptance...which is entirely okay) seemed to work itself out fairly rapidly here: Audio Asylum Thread Printer
I still don't understand why that it isn't a "suitable" subforum. Could you enlighten us a bit more?
Chris
Neil Davis, My plus 1 on that post. I started that unification thread just for the self powered crowd who is interested in that. You have contributed and I appreciate that, we need more to find the thread but it is just mixed in with Multi-way and hopefully will become a great resource for anyone working towards those goals. It would just be a lot easier to attract attention if it was a sub-catagory of speakers, I'm sure there are others who would like to make a self powered full range speaker. Bringing the digital side and the software side over to the loudspeaker category is the challenge as many of those probably never look in the loudspeaker threads.
I will PM you, I would love to have you on the team, the thread team to share all you can add. I also have selfish reasons to connect with like minded designers so I can actually bring my ideas to the masses. There are just many more who will never lift a soldering iron, or cut a board with a table saw to build a speaker system. Those people should be able to share in all that the rest of you create, this could change the way the masses listen to music, enough of ear buds and lossy Bose type gear, we need to revive the art of listening to music for the common folk.
I will PM you, I would love to have you on the team, the thread team to share all you can add. I also have selfish reasons to connect with like minded designers so I can actually bring my ideas to the masses. There are just many more who will never lift a soldering iron, or cut a board with a table saw to build a speaker system. Those people should be able to share in all that the rest of you create, this could change the way the masses listen to music, enough of ear buds and lossy Bose type gear, we need to revive the art of listening to music for the common folk.
I'm hopeful that the new forum platform will sort a lot of this out. I understand Neil's conundrum, where do you put a project like his? Moderators often have to move threads that get posted in the wrong place, sometimes it can be a real head scratcher to figure where they should go. Is it speakers, amps, line level?
The goal with the new forum software is to be able to build your own virtual categories. Some of that can come from tags. However, Chris and some others have pointed out the tagging doesn't work for long, people either stop doing it, or abuse it. I don't know the answer to those problems. Yet.
What about this?
We make a few more subcategories in speakers; E.G. - High Efficiency, Line Array, Active Crossovers, Open Baffle. But, any forum user would be able to combine any or all of these into one for his own browsing pleasure. Want to see everything in Speakers, no problem, just lump them all together in your view.
A sort of a la carte forum.
The goal with the new forum software is to be able to build your own virtual categories. Some of that can come from tags. However, Chris and some others have pointed out the tagging doesn't work for long, people either stop doing it, or abuse it. I don't know the answer to those problems. Yet.
What about this?
We make a few more subcategories in speakers; E.G. - High Efficiency, Line Array, Active Crossovers, Open Baffle. But, any forum user would be able to combine any or all of these into one for his own browsing pleasure. Want to see everything in Speakers, no problem, just lump them all together in your view.
A sort of a la carte forum.
Wow, I like that idea! Since Tech Talk added some categories I know I miss things because by default I read the main forum and forget to check the others. This would allow a user to personalize the number of categories viewed at a glance.
David
Member
Joined 2003
Seems like a good way to keep everyone happy! Sounds almost too good to be true.
Is there a way to ensure, or at least improve, more complete descriptions in thread titles?
That sounds good. Except "Active Speakers" would be a broader category than "Active Crossovers" and it wouldn't overlap Digital Line Level as much.
And I'd be happy to see a single category of unconventional speakers that included all three in your list -- HE, LA and OB. I'm not convinced there would be enough traffic for any one of these to stand on their own, but combined they should attract a lot of contributors. The "Planars and Exotics" forum focuses more on the drivers rather than the enclosure effects, so that one is fine as it is.
This is an odd analogy, but I like it and agree with it.
If you look at the numbers, there is a lot of support for XRK's analogy. I just totaled the 2015 stats for the top three forum categories and compared them to Jan 2010 from the wayback machine. The first thing that stands out is that Multi-Way is huge. It is the biggest sub-forum on diyAudio at 19.3%. The second thing that stands out is that the smaller forums are the ones with the biggest growth in the last 5 years. Look at the numbers highlighted in green. I think XRK is right in suggesting there is an optimal size for growth and enjoyment, and that Multi-Way is well past that point.
Some people have argued that partitioning Multi-Way will kill it off, but based on its size and what has happened in the last 5 years, I don't see any chance of that happening. I would expect to see growth in the new smaller forums and maybe Multi-Way will become a somewhat smaller, more focused group that is more enjoyable, with a higher S/N ratio. Right now the frenetic pace of Multi-Way is driving away potential contributors (and I don't think I'm the only person who feels this way).
Edit: I used the number of threads in this table rather than the number of posts. The number of posts might be a better indicator of activity. And the number of posts divided by threads might be a good indicator of sustained dialogue. If someone wants to analyze those numbers, the spreadsheet is here
Thanks for doing this. I only suspected it because I know my threads created in Mutiway disappear into obscurity within days because of lack of "shelf space". I have better luck on Full Range where activity goes on for a long time. Years even.
OK, now to deliver on that. 😀 Jason is pretty good with this stuff, let's hope that a new platform can allow this level of customization. I think it can. There has not been a final decision on the new platform.
As far as more descriptive thread titles, that's really up to the members. On rare occasions we edit thread titles, if they are really bad or at user request. But it would be better if people took it on themselves to write better thread titles.
As far as more descriptive thread titles, that's really up to the members. On rare occasions we edit thread titles, if they are really bad or at user request. But it would be better if people took it on themselves to write better thread titles.
Could carry the stigma that an array is a single plane affair. May miss single/multiple driver dimension based directivity/separation based lobing questions.
Good. Searching is only tricky for simple reasons (vernacular, writing style of the author etc.) no need to add a house of cards onto that.
The current style of search is OK, no need to take the car in for a tune up and cone back with a new paint job.
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