Oh, here comes some new rules.
''listening genuinely''...
listening genuinely... Seriously ?
Do yourself a favor: buy a DEQX and play with xover points for a week or two. It will open your eyes (and hopefully your ears as well).
... and while you play with the DEQX, try the linear phase v.s. Linkwitz v.s. Butterworth... and, of course, play with the delays as well. Don't forget the EQ part!
Given how bad (in ultimate terms) even the best speakers are, one can have 2 very different speakers that are equally valid.
It is all about how the designer ranks the compromises that need to be made.
dave
No.
1. Again, we're dealing in a subjective environment so there is no absolute answer nor absolute ''best midrange'' nor best anything for that matter. BUT we can get some statistics of what is prefered or not among users of said systems (and components).
2. Only TWO ultimate goals exists in our case: A) research of High-Fidelity, which simply means to search for an audio copy, a clone as perfect as possible to the original, or B) an audio reproduction systems that brings enjoyment to the users.
3. A) probably leads to B) even though it's not 100% sure as of yet.
4. B) is the most accessible ''proof'' that something is working good, excellent or bad. Human sensorial system is the final judge. Not graphs, not theories, not objective technical prowess.
5. That hobby sure can drift from his original goal(s)... towards data/theories analysis and self-satisfactory technical prowess. We're very very close to a geek's masturbation pattern here, i hope you're all aware of that. 😉
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I agree with you on that.
Even the best system is merely ''good'' in the absolute.
But you cannot say there is no different levels... Everybody with some sense of criticism can say, with a note out of 10, what his preferences are.
They do it on a pro-level for the wine (with more or less marketing corruption pollution, but that is another story) why it wouldnt be possible for audio systems ?
youve lived with 8 years with the atc mid and you dont know what I mean by it being analytical sounding?
Please, don't communicate clearly your thought so we can keep this thrilling question for 10 more pages.
Listening session no.4 with various xover + limited drivers selection
Listened Visaton B200 and Radian PB950 w/truextant Be and spacer for more excursion and also Radian PB950 stock (alu).
Tested the Radian HORNLESS (yeah, yeah i know) and for the first time in the pre-selection process i played with some EQ and very various xover points.
350hz-5.5khz
500hz-4khz
1.2khz-6khz
1.5khz-7khz
Except for pure SPL, the Visaton B200 was subjectively better in every config.
One can think using the Radian compression driver hornless below 1-1.2khz is a pure waste of time (or even with a short horn)... but equipped with the Radian's optionnal spacer, he's surprisingly good to handle ''torture'' EQing in the 400-800hz zone.
I now better understand why some people use compression drivers hornless. Can sure be fun, especially in home audio environment where ultra high SPL is not needed.
That being said, i find his overall performance far than stellar for the price tag.
Even in the mid-hi region (where a horn as little effect), he lacks of focus, life-likeness and overall feeling that leads to music enjoyment. And that is even with EQing... I cannot imagine for a single second this driver winning against the ATC, 10F or Voxativ in the appreciation blind test. Cannot compute that.
For these reasons and also the fact that i will inevitably face some arguments about using a short horn instead of a huge 400hz horn (i cannot use big horn because of the logistic/config of the test), i'm giving a ''Pending elimination'' status to the Radian.
Listened Visaton B200 and Radian PB950 w/truextant Be and spacer for more excursion and also Radian PB950 stock (alu).
Tested the Radian HORNLESS (yeah, yeah i know) and for the first time in the pre-selection process i played with some EQ and very various xover points.
350hz-5.5khz
500hz-4khz
1.2khz-6khz
1.5khz-7khz
Except for pure SPL, the Visaton B200 was subjectively better in every config.
One can think using the Radian compression driver hornless below 1-1.2khz is a pure waste of time (or even with a short horn)... but equipped with the Radian's optionnal spacer, he's surprisingly good to handle ''torture'' EQing in the 400-800hz zone.
I now better understand why some people use compression drivers hornless. Can sure be fun, especially in home audio environment where ultra high SPL is not needed.
That being said, i find his overall performance far than stellar for the price tag.
Even in the mid-hi region (where a horn as little effect), he lacks of focus, life-likeness and overall feeling that leads to music enjoyment. And that is even with EQing... I cannot imagine for a single second this driver winning against the ATC, 10F or Voxativ in the appreciation blind test. Cannot compute that.
For these reasons and also the fact that i will inevitably face some arguments about using a short horn instead of a huge 400hz horn (i cannot use big horn because of the logistic/config of the test), i'm giving a ''Pending elimination'' status to the Radian.
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The Visaton B200, on the other hand, is a serious contender.
Yes! a wheezer-free 8'' wideband (some will be happy!) 😛
that happen to be cheap as well (relatively).
I know that one pretty well already, but it's always good to revisit in a different context, especially in a comparison context. Can't wait for session 5 where i'll compare this B200 against the whole family 🙂
I'll move then to session 6 where i'll compare only what i believe to be, so far, the top 4 to 5 contenders.
The ''casual'' part of this pre-selection will soon come to an end with proper Baffle (dimensions and material) being choose and EQ/SPL-match being made for every driver... And, of course, at least 2 more pairs of ears.
Yes! a wheezer-free 8'' wideband (some will be happy!) 😛
that happen to be cheap as well (relatively).
I know that one pretty well already, but it's always good to revisit in a different context, especially in a comparison context. Can't wait for session 5 where i'll compare this B200 against the whole family 🙂
I'll move then to session 6 where i'll compare only what i believe to be, so far, the top 4 to 5 contenders.
The ''casual'' part of this pre-selection will soon come to an end with proper Baffle (dimensions and material) being choose and EQ/SPL-match being made for every driver... And, of course, at least 2 more pairs of ears.
You are speaking as if I have no REAL-LIFE experience and are jumping to conclusions simply for your own benefit.
I don't need to KEF, Revel, YG Acoustics and TAD all basically follow the principles I use when designing loudspeakers. Many DIYers also follow similar ideas.
You clearly need lessons in comprehension.
I said this.
Which means actually using the full range as a genuine full range and not bringing in some kind of tweeter at some point. Starting WIDE on directivity with it narrowing slowly as frequency increases is far less of a problem than Starting WIDE, having it narrow then going WIDE again as you bring in a tweeter. This is why you need to match the directivity of the midrange to the tweeter so that the off axis transition is also smooth.
Excuse me? Do you purposefully NOT read what I am typing? More specifically the part where I mentioned designing, building and programming my own DSP? It is remote controlled and yes I have played with it extensively, having multiple xover profiles programmed within it and guess what I can swap between them in 0.01 seconds at the press of a button from the comfort of my listening position and yes I did make use of its ability to do so.
Stop making assumptions about me just to try and further your own points and stop holding onto this belief of me having relatively little practical experience. You clearly no nothing of me and clearly do not bother reading what I write. I have been around the hifi 'block' more times than I would care to mention.
When one designs loudspeaker crossovers one designs to meet specific acoustic functions. Selecting Linkwitz or Butterworth on some DSP box does nothing to match the drivers natural acoustic roll off to the actual target acoustic roll off. I would suggest you go and select the variable Q type filters that actually allow you to program all of the filter blocks parameters manually so you end up with an acoustic transfer function that is useful. If you have not done this yet then I suggest you try it and actually figure out what it is you're supposed to be doing rather than what you think you are doing.
Delays are simply a function of xover design with a loudspeaker requiring specific amounts to correctly time align and phase align all of the drivers. Simply 'playing' with the delay function is not advised as there is a specific amount that you require to get the job done. One arrives at this amount empirically by measurement of the system.
Science would disagree. Also science would say that there is no absolute best midrange driver in the world because the best midrange driver for one loudspeaker design is clearly not the best midrange driver for another. Still I repeat what I said before. If you are looking for the worlds best midrange driver then it must meet 'best' on all fronts, this means both subjective and objective.
If you don't like this then tough, old, hardened, brittle loudspeaker surrounds to you.
Hopefully you will re-evaluate every driver again when you start using baffles and actually record things this time so that other people can join in.
Oh, here comes some new rules.
''listening genuinely''...
listening genuinely... Seriously ?
Do yourself a favor: buy a DEQX and play with xover points for a week or two. It will open your eyes (and hopefully your ears as well).
The Behringer DEQX has a polarized electrolytic at the input that isn't biased, and it has an opamp driving what appears to be a load of about 350ohms. Gary Pimm who has one did a writeup on his webpage about it. Gary and I both redesigned and rebuilt the analog sections of our Behringer units (mine is actually the DEQ2496). I also talked with 2 different Behringer reps who both said their stuff was not very Hi-Fi.
Yes, losses occur. But primarily added stages of transducers produce transformations; information is rearanged, mostly phase and amplitude response. In this regard information that is lost has been transformed into noise.
David Griesinger has demonstrated that recording from two different seats in a concert hall are readily identified when listened to through stereo speakers or headphones; even for two seats in close proximity to each other.
The underlying fundamental is changing a single variable. Listening to different speaker drivers via recording is identical process. When listener uses their own speakers/headphones for listening to multiple results with single variable changed, the listener's speakers/headphones factor out.
First order approximation of human outer ear is of a microphone with a shaped directivity pattern. In this regard a microphone with directivity from cardioid family is better approximation of human ear than an omni-directional microphone. Next best approximation is dummy head recording. The best approximation for an individual is with microphones located in ear canal next to eardrum. Griesinger does this.
The full information carrying capacity of human hearing bandwidth and dynamic range exceeds what a human is capable of utilizing on a moment to moment basis. The higher the information content, the more human hearing system throws away. The thread http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/everything-else/273330-low-level-detail-experimental-search-test.html#post4291353 demonstrates this quite clearly by introducing uncorrelated secondary signal -30dB (about 3%) of primary signal's level. Human doesn't hear this and readily accepts the integrity of primary signal as being clean.
xrk971's Zoom H4 recordings for subjective blind comparison are an excellent example of the above principles at work. Sure, he could have equalized all the drivers flat for point where recording were made; and the poll results might have been inconclusive for driver preference. By leaving the drivers un-equalized he attracted attention of full range driver users that believe EQ is bad, and a good many of them had an eye opening experience that measures taken to have a flat response, be it by use of drivers with inherently flat response or even the use of EQ, may provide a better listening experience. His recordings capture highly reverberant recording space, which is another constant that factors out across the recordings, revealing directivity differences of the drivers. Based on spectrograms of driver impulse responses the highly favored TC9FD has the broadest coverage among the tested drivers and thus excites the greatest number of reflections with the widest spectrum; in this case listeners are crying out yuck and yum at the same time, while also supporting all the research of Toole and other researchers showing general listener preference for speakers with flat response, and for acoustically lively rooms rather than for acoustically deader rooms.
Your approach of multiple elimination by you, followed by further selection by live listeners is very difficult to perform without bias, even with baffle covered in black. Each listener has to be placed at the same listening position, audition how ever many test tracks are used, and this repeated for each driver. Then for any semblance of validity the test needs to be repeated. A speaker switch box with baffled drivers arrayed about listener is nonsense approach.
Factor out the variable of added transduces and increasing the count of truly blinded listeners will produce a much more robust result, even if it looks like a null result.
Regardless of your approach many will be laughing at you, and with you.
You seem very well equipped for this endeavor from perspective of most participants in this forum.
I'm looking forward to your continued presentation; and I'm not laughing yet.
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This is the key point. Objectively (compared to nearly any amplifier), loudspeaker drivers have many many problems. Narrowband resonant storage, high IM distortion in parts of the working band, varying dispersion, nonlinear behavior in the spider and surround, breakups either just above or within the working frequency band, poor impulse response, the list goes on and on. They're all bad; it's just the limitations of materials science at the present time.
In practice this means choosing different sets of problems, and making a subjective judgement call about which set of problems can be overlooked (for now). It's basically a steak vs lobster decision ... neither is better, the choice is entirely personal. Just like there is no "best" dinner, there is no best driver, just the favorites of the moment.
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Although I agree with what you've said here, I think there is still value in these tests. In the end, I expect there to be maybe 3-4 drivers that are rated tops, each of which sound slightly different, and each of which will be slightly more ideal, depending on the rest of the system (crossover freqs., efficiencies, dispersion issues, etc.).
5th element, all that i understand here is you don't accept the challenge. I'm so very surprised. 😉
Well, ladies & gentleman, that ends the communication between me and sir 5th element. Let's just call it a very poor acoustic impedance issue. 🙂
So let's continue the listening sessions...
Well, ladies & gentleman, that ends the communication between me and sir 5th element. Let's just call it a very poor acoustic impedance issue. 🙂
So let's continue the listening sessions...
+1
That being said, we can conduct an evaluation test that may conclude like this:
67% prefer the steak while 29% prefer the lobster and remaining 4% are vegans.
I have no choice but to make some kind of selection. Same applies to xrk971 test. I mean; i just can't test each and every drivers there is...
This thread title says it all: I need your help.
The help to point me out the drivers that are the most popular/respected among DIY.
And, thank you all, i found some interesting drivers.
Just to show you i'm of good faith, i could even select a driver that I don't like at all, just for the sake of having it tested. BUT i need at least a reason to do so (i.e. votes or else).
Once the selection is complete, it's not up to me at all. It will be up to the testees (i probably won't participate at all).