I disagree, neither the page nor the post were wasted because laughter is good for Your health after all! 😀
fortunately the beer didn't come out of the nose, there was no danger of asphyxiation, all's well that ends well 🙂
From a really good topic to... well almost personal insults. i really want to know "Why omni is not more popular"
I personally have no judgement. I.E this topic. Because i see too much.... no, yes, rubbish, could,be might be, stuff in this thread...... I would love to see more than just facts by a few....
This topic is a great one. But hard to justify personally. I have done omni set ups etc. And have liked it. But i could never get a A+ from my audio friends... So i have moved away from them... Not to say they are correct. Its just so very subjective. And i like omni but statistically people don't.
I don't think its possible to achieve the next great topic off "Yes omni is the way to go!" We need more people to trial and provide input into this subject. So we can make it happen. Rather than the rubbish i have seen in this thread............
I expected more from this topic. Credit to the people replying. Its just sad to see peoples opinions / flamboyant English wording that is confusing the topic and frankly pointless.
I shut up now....
Optic
I personally have no judgement. I.E this topic. Because i see too much.... no, yes, rubbish, could,be might be, stuff in this thread...... I would love to see more than just facts by a few....
This topic is a great one. But hard to justify personally. I have done omni set ups etc. And have liked it. But i could never get a A+ from my audio friends... So i have moved away from them... Not to say they are correct. Its just so very subjective. And i like omni but statistically people don't.
I don't think its possible to achieve the next great topic off "Yes omni is the way to go!" We need more people to trial and provide input into this subject. So we can make it happen. Rather than the rubbish i have seen in this thread............
I expected more from this topic. Credit to the people replying. Its just sad to see peoples opinions / flamboyant English wording that is confusing the topic and frankly pointless.
I shut up now....
Optic
Totally agree to optic's comments. For me this is a topic I would like to explore, and the fact is that there is not much valuable information in this thread. Hopefully the ones who do contribute will outnumber the ones who just "small talks"
yes, that is one of the biggest problems - only substitute the word "people" with the word "audiophiles" - people like omni but statistically audiophiles don't
audiophiles learn to like specific unnatural sound and regard it as correct, desired etc.
the rest is more about sociology of a consumeristic subculture and trend-setting mechanisms of small niche industry driven mainly by this subculture than about about realistic sound reproduction
diy community is mostly part of it
Your audiophile friends don't like it so You drop it even if You like it, how can we really get anywhere with such an attitude?
prejudices produce rubbish
on the contrary - there is A HELL LOT OF valuable information in this thread, in fact there is EVERYTHING revealed in this thread that is needed for You to have better, more realistic sound reproduction, not just slightly better but better in the sense of genuine BIG LEAP in quality
Can't You see it? Then what are You looking for?
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Sorry for the misunderstanding. There is valuable stuff, but it kind of disappears in all the off topic posts.
Why isn't his omni? That's very confusing to me, since I have always believed this was one of the few high end omnis around.
Well, ok, here's my 2 cents, take it for what it's worth.
I've tried several of the ideas I've seen in this thread and learned a lot about alternative speaker design. I've tried the flooder technique from Graaf's recommendation and I've tried a couple of reflectors. For a couple of days, I had a makeshift prototype cabinet (which I've now disassembled for other purposes) that resembled a Duevel Planet. Granted, the spheres I scrounged were probably wrong (bowling ball) I imagine it wasn't vastly different from a proper reflector. I could be wrong. Anyway.
I found the floor positioned (flooder) speaker to be the least different. All I really did was take my speakers off their stands and sit them face up on the floor with a slight angle. (wood shim) I jumped the L-Pad in my crossover to get the tweeter going a little hotter and set about to have a listen.
My personal conclusion? It's different. The stereo image and depth of the recording change. The sound is much, much "larger". Drum kits that once occupied a razor sharp spot "a little left of center" were now much bigger and more diffuse. Some sounds that I was used to having a certain placement in familiar recordings seemed to just "exist" in the room in a huge cloud of sound rather than being able to close your eyes and point at them.
Why did I put them back on the stands after a few hours? It wasn't for me. It wasn't unpleasant or wrong, it was just different. It's a different flavor. I think in the end what it boils down to is personal preference and folks who decide that they prefer that sound don't like to be told they are wrong any more than people who like latin coffee better than african coffee.
There's no accounting for personal taste and I think that sentiment is exemplified in this debate, which I've had a good time reading and occasionally participating in, but in the end, we're going to do what we think sounds best to each of us individually and no amount of popularity contest is going to change it.
yeah, absolutely, to each his own
perhaps in case of those sounds the aim of the configuration was not achieved - I mean preserving "the basic waveform/transient shape of a musical sound" in every reflection to "make laterally reflected sound as similar to the direct sound as is needed for precedence effect to work because otherwise we start to hear the room that is the wall reflections as real distinct sound sources that mix up with the speakers as real distinct sound sources to create a mixed-up soundfield"
the source of the problem can be in the first place physical time misalignment of the drivers in the lateral plane when loudspeaker is lying on it's back and/or crossover issues
also tonal problems can arise in effect of a misplacement of a loudspeaker that is not designed for such a placement, some space problem can result from those tonal problems and so on
it's the same situation as ever - loudspeaker should be designed for a specific placement and speaker/room interface
So the best way to test this is in an empty room where the speaker distance from each other and the walls is the same as to the listener? Am I understanding you correctly?
I agree.
Start building an omni project tonight using a single FR(stereo pair). I want to fire the driver at around 45 degrees into a lens.. not sure what it will look like but will post my results in a few days.
well, I'm not an oracle claiming to right 😉
I was looking at the fact that the RAAL omni is built from multiple ribbons, arranged in a circle
it's been clearly stated by others that drivers arranged in a circle is not 'the best way' to achieve omni radiation
maybe all sorts of strange phase related things will happen, I don't know
but seems possible from what we know about 'side by side' arranged drivers
below is a real true omni driver
and really not that much different from any other horisontal mounted driver
Attachments
It reallly depends how omni you want it to be!
Both Siegfried Linkwitz and the designer of the Rountree Omnimon have prefered more directional highs. Pluto's more directional treble and the omnimon's forward radiating treble unit are deliberate design choices not a concession from technical or cost limitations.
As I said before listening to Pluto you can have that razor sharp pin point imaging, provided you listen up close to the speaker. As you move away the images becomes bigger then more diffuse, this happens in a very natural way, there will be an optimal distance for individual taste. Some people even find Pluto's (up close/nearfield) stereo precision too precise, they find this fake, a stereo effect, I have even heard this from owners of regular forward radiating box speakers, ESL's and an Orion owner who find the imaging too precise, too crisply delineated.
Provided your listening space is not too cramped (you can move away from the speakers) you can experience the speakers and tune the soundstage to taste, big, small and everything in between!
The all frequency fully omni speakers (non directional highs) will inevitably produce the more diffuse presentation even when you sit close to the speakers. This may be desirable for people who really do not like the overt stereo precision of typical stereo mini monitor speakers and have little space to move back from the speakers.
Both Siegfried Linkwitz and the designer of the Rountree Omnimon have prefered more directional highs. Pluto's more directional treble and the omnimon's forward radiating treble unit are deliberate design choices not a concession from technical or cost limitations.
As I said before listening to Pluto you can have that razor sharp pin point imaging, provided you listen up close to the speaker. As you move away the images becomes bigger then more diffuse, this happens in a very natural way, there will be an optimal distance for individual taste. Some people even find Pluto's (up close/nearfield) stereo precision too precise, they find this fake, a stereo effect, I have even heard this from owners of regular forward radiating box speakers, ESL's and an Orion owner who find the imaging too precise, too crisply delineated.
Provided your listening space is not too cramped (you can move away from the speakers) you can experience the speakers and tune the soundstage to taste, big, small and everything in between!
The all frequency fully omni speakers (non directional highs) will inevitably produce the more diffuse presentation even when you sit close to the speakers. This may be desirable for people who really do not like the overt stereo precision of typical stereo mini monitor speakers and have little space to move back from the speakers.
Do you have a link where Linkwitz describes what kind of directivity he was looking for when designing the Pluto?
Way back in Post #10, I posted links to speakers that about as truly Omni-direction as is possible in a speaker -
I'll post links rather than the actual photos, since I don't own the Photos.
MBL - America - MBL 101 X-treme
MBL - America - MBL 101 MKII
The MBL 101 MKII are about US$70,000 per pair. I shutter to think what the MBL 1010 X-Treme might cost. I'm guessing about US$200,000 per set/pair.
Notice that the True Omni carries over to the cylindrical midrange and tweeters.
Steve/bluewizard
I'll post links rather than the actual photos, since I don't own the Photos.
MBL - America - MBL 101 X-treme
MBL - America - MBL 101 MKII
The MBL 101 MKII are about US$70,000 per pair. I shutter to think what the MBL 1010 X-Treme might cost. I'm guessing about US$200,000 per set/pair.
Notice that the True Omni carries over to the cylindrical midrange and tweeters.
Steve/bluewizard
I will not pretend to be an expert but I had private brief email conversations with SL a long time ago, so I do not have links.
SL produced a page on his website with constant directivity, I sent some speaker links to him for this page and briefly discussed Rowntree Omnimon directivity.
The page for constant directivity is here:
Constant directivity loudspeaker designs
This page discusses speakers which primary design aim or at least one of the main aims is the directivity of the speaker. If you haven't seen it it should be an interesting read.
Note SL says: "I do not know how consistent the radiation pattern has to be. Nor do I know that constant directivity over the whole frequency range is optimum."
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Member
Joined 2009
I will challenge this statement. In my experience wide dispersion of very high frequencies has no great impact on the image itself. I will say that wide dispersion that high is beneficial and provides extra realism to the presentation. But the effect is rather subtle and maybe only noticeable in fast switching tests. I hesitate to give hard numbers but let's start with -12dB above 6kHz at 60degrees.
I had a chance to audition these at AXPONA. Actually I should say that I had the chance to audition the room they were in because it sounded like they were set up very poorly. In a much worse room, the Orions were clearly the best speakers at the show. I'd love to give the MBL speakers another chance because the sound did have a unique quality and that driver is very interesting. From a practical perspective however, they did not impress as something I would want in my room (suppose I had that kind of money in the first place).
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He also says "Since loudspeakers are listened to in closed spaces there are fundamentally only two ways in which they should illuminate the room sound-wise: Either omni-directionally or uniformly directional over the whole range from low to high frequencies. This allows the delayed, reflected sounds from the room boundaries to have the same spectral signature as the direct sound."
So I don't think that "Pluto's more directional treble" is a "deliberate design choice". He already had the woofer/mid pipe and the 2" Aurasound was interesting enough to try it. I bet other driver combinations work equally well (although I'm not sure another driver like the Aurasound exists).
There was a time when so called FAST designs (woofer plus fullrange driver) were popular with the German DIY crowd. The Pluto is such a design optimized for wide directivity.
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