Trade-offs in loudspeaker design

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I'm afraid that I wasn't thorough enough in my earlier comment about negotiating the use of a bedroom for my listening room. It is the entire empty room without any existing furniture. We gave all of that away - bed, everything - gone.

Since then I've added a recliner chair for listening and a small equipment cabinet. That plus speakers is all that there is in the room. And it has thick wall to wall carpeting as well.

So I really have full control of everything in the room. I'm just not sure it's big enough to get the sound I would like to have. And I fully intend to try OBs. We'll see. Still quite a way to go.

good luck then!
 
I argue in favor of what the scientists who study the subject say. You interpret that as me thinking I know more than you. But consider this alternative: you think you know more than the people who spent decades of their professional lives studying the subject at the world's top labs.

If you have a problem with me personally I think a better approach is to explain to me how I have misunderstood the experts and/or research. Post sources and provide clear explanation that others can understand even if I can't. Everyone wins.

bradleypnw,

I think this back and forth debate might be more a matter of semantics than substance.

You have presented it as a matter of (a) a ‘live’ performance being superior to a recording, and (b) with multichannel audio it’s possible to replicate a ‘live’ performance in a room in your home. And therein lies the problem. Most people here aren’t buying either argument, and certainly not both.

A big part of the problem is using the term ‘live' to describe a musical performance. It can be interpreted in a number of different ways and leaves the door open for confusion and debate. And in so, it’s a distraction from what I believe is your real point that multichannel audio in the home could be something of value to people who haven’t tried it yet.

Toole spends a whole 35 page chapter on multichannel audio and I’ve reviewed it in light of this discussion. Nowhere in it does he use the term ‘live’ or intimate that you will be transported to the event. He does promote it heavily, however, as something that can add a significant amount of entertainment value and enjoyment to home listening. He himself has an extensive multichannel system, although it’s one that very few of us here could probably afford.

He also talks about how this is not new. There have been many attempts over the years to promote multichannel audio in the home. And all of them have failed to be successful for a one reason or another. It is somewhat ironic that home theater has now been the impetus to finally bring the possibility for multichannel audio in the home. But that is exactly what is happening.

So here is my suggestion. Instead of trying to promote this as a matter of recreating a live performance in your house, and implying that a person is a dolt if they aren’t doing it, just start talking about the benefits and additional possible enjoyment of implementing multichannel with your existing system.

Whether this eventually becomes mainstream or not isn’t worth debating right now. Let’s have information and suggestions on how people who want to try it can do so with the minimum amount of effort and expensive. Then the future of it will take of itself.
 
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Toole repeats time after time that "two ears and a brain go a long way to create the illusion of the event", or something along these lines.
The benefit of that is that less than perfect systems can create a good enough illusion to provide entertainment and pleasure.

It's then up to the designer of the system to make the correct tradeoffs to provide the best possible "raw material" for our brains to process and create the illusion.

And the room being a very important factor for the end result, could perhaps mean that beneficial tradeoffs could be those that make the loudspeaker less immune to the effects of the room - to the extent that this is feasible.
 
Toole repeats time after time that "two ears and a brain go a long way to create the illusion of the event", or something along these lines.
The benefit of that is that less than perfect systems can create a good enough illusion to provide entertainment and pleasure.

i have heard many say that wine makes their hifi systems sound better
 
Below 2-300 Hz (depending on room size) the room starts to dominate.

dave

Exactly.

But you can use the multiple sub approach, for 20-100Hz.
And you can place the mid woofer very close to a wall, to get the 100-300Hz stuff flat. Iow place the speaker on the wall, instead of free in the room as is the norm these day's. But I'm preaching to the choir here.
 
frugal-phile™
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Toole repeats time after time that "two ears and a brain go a long way to create the illusion of the event", or something along these lines.
The benefit of that is that less than perfect systems can create a good enough illusion to provide entertainment and pleasure.

It's then up to the designer of the system to make the correct tradeoffs to provide the best possible "raw material" for our brains to process and create the illusion.

And the room being a very important factor for the end result, could perhaps mean that beneficial tradeoffs could be those that make the loudspeaker less immune to the effects of the room - to the extent that this is feasible.

Worth repeating.

dave
 
@classicalfan

>So I really have full control of everything in the room

Enough to bust out all the sheetrock and put choice sound damping material between the studs, then a cloth covering? Now there's something you dont read about all that often... Semi-anechoic retrofit. I once knew a DIY'er who had something like that at one end of his basement -
 
Did I say I like dipole bass? ;) You get two for the price of one. :)

Or do you get half?

I think, (very dangerous!) that a dipole sub excite less room modes than a monopole sub. Because a dipole has a fig 8 radiation pattern and a monopole a sphere like radiation pattern.
This seems to me like a huge disadvantage when using the multiple sub approach.
You want to excite as much modes as possible, this creates for one sub lots of peaks and dips all depended on placement. But because you have different places for different subs, these waves interfere with each other resulting in a much flater frequency response. The same of cause happens with dipole subs, but now there are less peaks and dips to cancel out against each other. So you need more subs for the same result.
 
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