An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
21 cm center-to-center of the ribbon.
If i remember well, my actuall config is 370hz-2850hz, 300db linear phase xover.
Believe me, I've done the same plenty of times... but I wouldn't call it a fair comparison. Not to pick the best anyway and certainly not without some measurements guiding the endeavour.
It's easy enough to be impressed with a speaker's sound, but that doesn't tell you it would be easy to live with it.
The EQ you're planning on using, how is that going to be done? Pure curiosity here, no hidden agenda. I'm actually glad people go out of their ways and do things like this.
Are you going to EQ to flat, or by ear... what are the plans for that? FIR processing perhaps?
Though it was an entirely different quest than yours, it might give you some ideas to look at this: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.452310304811101.99275.206364726072328&type=3
(sorry, you'd need a Facebook account)
Come to think of it, Dynaudio should have some nice enough mid's to test as well.
Got to love the studio where they were tested...
It's easy enough to be impressed with a speaker's sound, but that doesn't tell you it would be easy to live with it.
The EQ you're planning on using, how is that going to be done? Pure curiosity here, no hidden agenda. I'm actually glad people go out of their ways and do things like this.
Are you going to EQ to flat, or by ear... what are the plans for that? FIR processing perhaps?
Though it was an entirely different quest than yours, it might give you some ideas to look at this: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.452310304811101.99275.206364726072328&type=3
(sorry, you'd need a Facebook account)
Come to think of it, Dynaudio should have some nice enough mid's to test as well.
Got to love the studio where they were tested...
Last edited:
5th element, i don't quite understand why you keep coming back since you think this whole test is a lost of time ?
I was myself questionning a lot of things from the very beginning about this test but so far everything happens the way i thought it would.
THE single question that is unanswered is how easy or even possible will it be for people (including me) to identify the drivers in a blind test.
You are right about that.
What i say is: it takes less than a minute to know if a driver has potential. You weed out the obviously poor drivers, then you take the good ones to home/lab for actual lenghty tests. Even easier if you have a benchmark for direct comparison.
But i'm not talking subwoofer or woofer, that's completely another story of course.
Real-time-analyzer, mic and pink noise. Sorry can't do ''by ear'' yet 😉 Unless is something very obvious but that's a loss of time and it can just lead to a very imprecise result. Much more efficient with the tools.
I have few calibration mics but my prefered one is the M50. Also i'm using an old good Audio Control SA-3051 most of the time.
No sweeps? I'd be curious to look at GD plots as well. Only fixing minimum phase etc.
I've played with an RTA, but I do like a measurement suite like REW much more.'
If your room is good enough (which I suspect it will be) why not see what really happens. You get the waterfall plots etc to try and correlate to what you hear.
Then again, I'd probably correct them with FIR filters 😀. As flat as it can get.
I've played with an RTA, but I do like a measurement suite like REW much more.'
If your room is good enough (which I suspect it will be) why not see what really happens. You get the waterfall plots etc to try and correlate to what you hear.
Then again, I'd probably correct them with FIR filters 😀. As flat as it can get.
The reason why I keep coming back to this thread is because I am curious to see just how you are going about doing this test. This is mainly to see whether or not it has any actual merits to it.
So far you just keep doing more things wrong rather than right.
There is absolutely no way you can assess a loudspeakers performance by subjectively testing it outside of the role that it was intended to perform. The fact that you think you are doing something meaningful by trying drivers out, and in free air of all absurdities, is beyond laughable.
You do understand that the exposed rear wave, when drivers are run full range, interacts destructively with the front wave right? This effectively means that you have a 1st order acoustic high pass in effect that is dictated by the diameter of the driver. This roll off will be preceded by a peak in output just before the roll off occurs plus a plethora of other nasty diffraction related effects. With the drivers motor structure and how open the rear of the basket is having a degree of influence too. This will then be modified by the surrounding environment.
For a driver such as the 10F you are going to be listening to a tweeter. When run free air this is a close approximation of how its frequency response will be modified.
For something like the ATC mid dome, that already has its rear wave blocked, due to its construction, you're not going to get anything like this occurring. The two will sound completely different simply because of this one simple fact. Trying to judge any drivers capabilities under these kinds of testing conditions is completely pointless.
You may have been inspired by xrk's threads to start this thread, but his threads and tests have a decent amount of scientific merit too them and control in place, so that the driver comparisons are valid.
What you are doing so far has no more meaning than saying I prefer class A amplifiers because they get hot and can keep my coffee warm. That's great but it tells us nothing about how the amplifier actually performs when doing the job that it was designed to do.
I have absolutely no objection to you listening to drivers like this simply because it suits your fancy. What I have objection to is you actually deciding some drivers fate simply because of it.
So far you just keep doing more things wrong rather than right.
There is absolutely no way you can assess a loudspeakers performance by subjectively testing it outside of the role that it was intended to perform. The fact that you think you are doing something meaningful by trying drivers out, and in free air of all absurdities, is beyond laughable.
You do understand that the exposed rear wave, when drivers are run full range, interacts destructively with the front wave right? This effectively means that you have a 1st order acoustic high pass in effect that is dictated by the diameter of the driver. This roll off will be preceded by a peak in output just before the roll off occurs plus a plethora of other nasty diffraction related effects. With the drivers motor structure and how open the rear of the basket is having a degree of influence too. This will then be modified by the surrounding environment.
For a driver such as the 10F you are going to be listening to a tweeter. When run free air this is a close approximation of how its frequency response will be modified.
For something like the ATC mid dome, that already has its rear wave blocked, due to its construction, you're not going to get anything like this occurring. The two will sound completely different simply because of this one simple fact. Trying to judge any drivers capabilities under these kinds of testing conditions is completely pointless.
You may have been inspired by xrk's threads to start this thread, but his threads and tests have a decent amount of scientific merit too them and control in place, so that the driver comparisons are valid.
What you are doing so far has no more meaning than saying I prefer class A amplifiers because they get hot and can keep my coffee warm. That's great but it tells us nothing about how the amplifier actually performs when doing the job that it was designed to do.
I have absolutely no objection to you listening to drivers like this simply because it suits your fancy. What I have objection to is you actually deciding some drivers fate simply because of it.
Attachments
''deciding some driver's fate''
Wow. That sure sound dramatic.
Will i go to hell for playing god with drivers ? 😛
I'm using sweeps with the auto-calibration from the DEQX sometimes, but i get better results in my room with ''manual'' adjustements using pink noise/SA-3051.
Not at all.
In fact this test project was born on audioatrium forum, before i even registered as a member on diyaudio.
No offense here but i couldn't care less of what you end thinking of my test. The reason why, is i seriously question your judgment in regards of what you think is good or not.
I mean... your ultimate reference seems to be B&W 800's or some average low-cost solutions while i'm talking about ATC's, high-end CDs, Voxativ, Lowther, RAAL, etc... that you probably never even heard...
We're obviously not talking the same language on the same planet.
Believe it or not, but a good thread and its conclusions can have impact on visibility of a product, and hence improve or degrade sales for said product.
Notice the rise in the popularity of the 10F?
Similar thing happened after the TPA3116D2 thread - China started making cheap boards after that. Before, I had to build a board from scratch.
Notice the rise in the popularity of the 10F?
Similar thing happened after the TPA3116D2 thread - China started making cheap boards after that. Before, I had to build a board from scratch.
Oh come on, you're kidding right ? Please tell me you're kidding..
you're not really judging a sound system with a graph, without even hearing it a single second ??
Haven't see the latest financial report of Eastern Asia Technology (Scan-Speak), no.
Ok NOW we're talking. That guy has credibility.
ATC + RAAL 70-20 = major league.
xrk, i have the standard version, you can see the picture i posted earlier. Never heard the S version but according the Chris from Solen their sonic signature are very similar. Anyways he prefers the Volt dome...
I know that a smooth FR = great sound for all genre's. That is what the two subjective test threads have shown, which is well known, that a smooth flat frequency response is to first order, the most important aspect determining the sound of a speaker system. I also know how difficult it is to achieve a transient perfect step response as I have heard my own speakers with it in place. So not kidding - I trust measurements more than someone's golden ears and anecdotes. Simple as that. You have to trust your mic if you want a quantitative way to move your system to better sound.
But Wesayso has posted recorded impulse response of his system in his room for users to convolve and have a virtual audition.
I think what member OPC said in this post is very good and portrays the two camps surrounding measurements and basically, in believing the microphone if you are an objective person.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full...in-5in-full-range-drivers-25.html#post4249709
Last edited:
My ultimate reference is my own system, that I built. The loudspeakers use the neo magnet FST for their midrange driver, I converted this into a coaxial by removing the phase plug and then using a modified tweeter so that it could fit into the 30mm diameter voice coil. The bass drivers of said loudspeakers are the JA8008 HMQ from Jantzen Audio. Apart from the tweeters upper end, due to the wave guide loading effect of the coaxial arrange, the loudspeakers are high efficiency.
To fill in the low end are three subs based on the Peerless XLS series of drivers arranged in a multiple sub configuration to minimise the effect of room modes.
The power amplifiers for the mid/tweeters are a Class A version of a current feedback architecture amplifier that can be found over in the SlewMaster thread in the Solid State forums. My build has been documented within that thread. They are load invariant, have very low noise, have very low distortion and are fast. My versions include a regulated power supply for the front end. The power amplifiers for the bass driver are the Wolverine from the same thread that are also documented within that thread. It also has very low distortion/noise and operates as a high optimum bias class AB amplifier.
The power amplifiers for the subs are class D modules from Hypex.
The crossover is handled by a DSP. No off the shelf units on the market at the time of its design could do what I wanted them to do so I designed/built and programmed one myself. It is based on a SigmaDSP chip from Analog Devices and this handles all the system integration from the crossovers for the main loudspeakers to the EQ necessary to properly integrate the subs to the crossovers/integration of the surround channels for HT. The main 8 channels necessary for the three way loudspeakers and subs use an ESS Sabre ES9018 DAC with low phase noise master clock to feed the Sabre's internal jitter reduction circuitry. I/V stages then follow with high current output buffers. A PC works as the source and provides a digital input to the DSP/DAC combo, galvanic isolation is used between the two.
Whether or not you determine that to be 'high-end' is entirely up to you. One thing is for certain though it all measures superbly from one end to the next and sounds nothing short of amazing.
We are on the same page with regards to what we want to accomplish. You're just doing it in a way that makes no logical sense from a scientific/engineering point of view. Heck it makes no sense even from a purely subjective point of view either. Because your preferences are going to be decided by other external factors rather than a drivers actual capabilities.
