I've spent at least 500 hours testing and playing with the ATC 75-150 standard; all kinds of xover slopes and points + EQing, with several differents tweeters, etc.. etc.. And i kept it for more than 7-8 years in my main system at home, listened to music/movies at least 30 hours per week...
Bottomline, i spent more time with it than i did with my first girlfriend.
I can say without the shadow of a doubt: this is among the very best midrange drivers ever launched on our audio world. I'm not saying this is THE best but it sure cannot result in bad speakers, especially for such easy-to-work-with design.
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We are sure not on the same page.
I've made a list of ''scientific/engineering points'' about xrk's test flaws, that are quite obvious, and STILL; his test is 100x more interesting than a graph or firstcomer's opinion.
The valuable thing i bring with my test -that is unquestionnable in a scientific point of view- is the IDENTIFICATION part. Wether or not people will be able to hear the differences and on what level/%.
The appreciation part is only a bonus for me.
Yes i understand.
But what i'm saying is: i really doubt such company relies on DIY market 😉
and even less some forum's threads...
The real influence power lies where the sale is made.
Exemple: someone calls Solen
'' Hey Chris, i need a driver that sounds good '' (no sh**?)
Ok what is your budget ?
'' uhm, between xx$ and xxx$ ''
Application ?
'' will use it that way or that way, what do you recommend ? ''
Well, i got A, B or C, but B is my most popular because (....)
'' Ok great, i'll take 10! ''
End of story.
And that repeats 40 hours per week, non-stop, + returning customers.
Exemple: someone calls Solen
'' Hey Chris, i need a driver that sounds good '' (no sh**?)
Ok what is your budget ?
'' uhm, between xx$ and xxx$ ''
Application ?
'' will use it that way or that way, what do you recommend ? ''
Well, i got A, B or C, but B is my most popular because (....)
'' Ok great, i'll take 10! ''
End of story.
And that repeats 40 hours per week, non-stop, + returning customers.
the ATC sure looks like the one to beat - what's amazing on the relative cheap is the subjective quality from Danley's Unity with inexpensive MISCO sealed back cone midranges as bandpass and affordable B&C DE25 compression driver
Bwaslo's CoSyne synergy using $2 MISCO mid drivers and $6 buyout Aurasound 6.5in woofers, and the DE25 is nothing short of amazing given he made the passive XO himself.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mult...nergy-speakers-doing-almost-linear-phase.html
Square waves from 100Hz to 4kHz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5mEQVoaJFs&feature=youtu.be
Peaks can indicate resonance, which can elongate the sound, thereby causing us to perceive it as louder than it would measure with a cal'd mic and RTA.
I guess if you're using a digital processor for the crossover, peaks are easy to knock down (timber!). For those of us who prefer to use analog, it's not as fun. Some of those peaks are pretty high Q, and may vary from driver to driver, and/or over time. Being an analog guy, I see big peaks as bandwidth limiting, since I'll want to attenuate them quite a bit. If there's a 6dB peak at 10kHZ, I may only want to use that driver up to 2-3kHZ, depending on the slope rate of the xover, because it may also ring.
Frazier's CAT40 with cheapish looking plastic horn in front of an 8" woofer deserves some appreciation too for a commercial product and sounds better / more coherent imo than some FR
I think subjective tests are riddled with variables, and are best left to finished systems, where the room acoustics will still be a huge variable. To do a subjective test of a driver that isn't mounted on a baffle seems ridiculous. How is that "real world"? FR and distortion are obviously very important, but using tone bursts in gaussian envelops to create a CSD waterfall display would be how I'd do it. Frequency selective ringing may be one of the more important things to look at. A modulated ramp test may be very revealing too. It would show the linearity of the dynamic range.
I've noticed that those who rely on subjective tests the most, tend to buy the most expensive drivers in the end. A local guy who is of that camp built some big speaker systems that sound... I avoid going over there because he might make me listen to them again...
I've noticed that those who rely on subjective tests the most, tend to buy the most expensive drivers in the end. A local guy who is of that camp built some big speaker systems that sound... I avoid going over there because he might make me listen to them again...
5th regarding the F3 peak...
I have to dare to post in this thread (again).
I would have no problem using the Ti100
The F3 reaches...um -40dB....hardly awful by any stretch.
However, the baffle interaction in Boxsim, when I initially looked at this driver (along with the AL130M) put me off in a big way. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the whoops and valleys to smooth out. So I settled for the AL130, and accepted a low xo point of 1.6-1.8k.
So all in all, lovely beast that it is, the Ti100 isn't really a good mid driver, but would be nice for a compact 2 way with low xo.
Echoing some other comments...
Weird selection for midrange use. Some fullrange (with the good and bad that follows), and midwoofers....
Bizarre. Why choose the Ti100 (besides for eye candy) when Visaton have two reasonable looking 2" mid domes to consider?
I have to dare to post in this thread (again).
I would have no problem using the Ti100
The F3 reaches...um -40dB....hardly awful by any stretch.
However, the baffle interaction in Boxsim, when I initially looked at this driver (along with the AL130M) put me off in a big way. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the whoops and valleys to smooth out. So I settled for the AL130, and accepted a low xo point of 1.6-1.8k.
So all in all, lovely beast that it is, the Ti100 isn't really a good mid driver, but would be nice for a compact 2 way with low xo.
Echoing some other comments...
Weird selection for midrange use. Some fullrange (with the good and bad that follows), and midwoofers....
Bizarre. Why choose the Ti100 (besides for eye candy) when Visaton have two reasonable looking 2" mid domes to consider?
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Until this week, i knew nothing about the Ti100. And after only few hours of free-air loose listening session, i don't know much more (yet).
Can't wait to make some real tests.
Can't do much for them, since the overall DSP/active/EQ/electronic xover thing is the best that happened to the Audio world for the past 20, 30 years ?
That audio market is moving (really) slowly but we should use technologies that makes a big improvement and not live in the past.
Of course.
It's better not to remove the quotation marks in "bigger sounds better" phenomenon. There are a lot of aspects of good sound. The aspect represented by that phenomenon is even not so clear. I doubt everyone understand what aspect is being talked about.
May be part of it is dynamic range, an important aspect to reproduce real-life experience and believable scale.
Limited bandwith... Nearfield listening set-up... Direct side-to-side comparisons... Carefully chosen music excerpts...
And that is only for the ''casual'' pre-selection.
I say: this will be very reliable.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I'm starting to bring together everything needed for the test.
.: So 2x miniDSP plate amps + 2x speaker switch box.
.: Will test 4 drivers at the time, with each having their own EQed/SPL matched channel.
.: All drivers positionned on a baffle (probably 48'' x 48'' or bigger) in a very concentric manner so spatial localisation is hard to make.
.: Listening position distance to be determined later, probably between 6 and 9 ft.
.: Will use thin black fabric to cover up the drivers and/or other ''blinding'' methods.
.: We have 2 different sizes listening room in our lab (one small and one big) and we'll test which one suit the best.
.: So 2x miniDSP plate amps + 2x speaker switch box.
.: Will test 4 drivers at the time, with each having their own EQed/SPL matched channel.
.: All drivers positionned on a baffle (probably 48'' x 48'' or bigger) in a very concentric manner so spatial localisation is hard to make.
.: Listening position distance to be determined later, probably between 6 and 9 ft.
.: Will use thin black fabric to cover up the drivers and/or other ''blinding'' methods.
.: We have 2 different sizes listening room in our lab (one small and one big) and we'll test which one suit the best.
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Here is the press article about the test we made few years ago (french only, sorry! Google translate?)
Le défi de jon8 … Trompe l’oreille !!!|Alain Brunet
it shows our ''big'' room, which was inspired from IEC standards.
Le défi de jon8 … Trompe l’oreille !!!|Alain Brunet
it shows our ''big'' room, which was inspired from IEC standards.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
While being in the pre-test/selection process, i'll take the time to test some other drivers i already have:
Radian 950 (aluminum)
Radian 950 (truextant Be)
Airborne wooden cone version
Visaton B200
Won't EQ all of them, though. Just some quick listening testing.
Yes xrk's test has it's flaws, but it still has its merits and interestingly enough both tests simply reconfirmed that the loudspeakers with the flattest frequency response were the ones that were largely preferred.
He didn't need to do this test to tell us this, we know from previous research that having a flat frequency response is literally the number one criteria for accurate and enjoyable sound reproduction. It was worth doing this test however just to show people that this is in fact true because many people seem to think that it isn't.
If you know that a flat frequency response is what you should be aiming for then one doesn't need to listen to drivers to actually find out which ones they are. Graphs tell us exactly the same thing. No they aren't interesting to some people but this doesn't change the fact that they are definitively useful and are the industry standard for assessing technical performance. If all you do is complain about graphs then all that shows is that you don't know what they actually mean or how to interpret them properly.
And with regards to your snide remark about me being a 'new comer' the first thing that comes to my mind about you is exactly the same thing. I have been working on electronics, loudspeaker and general hifi design since I was around 11 years old. I started out being subjective about everything and disregarded or largely ignored graphs. Then I learnt better. You seem to be stuck back where I was years ago.
If there is to be any point to your study then you need to make sure that every aspect of it is controlled so that the things you are changing and therefore hearing, are the things that you are actually hearing.
For example if you were to perform a bandwidth limited test (400Hz-7kHz) of appropriately set up drivers (ie in a well designed box), auditioned the Visaton Ti100 and then auditioned the B200 you'd have things changing that are not controlled, so that what you could be hearing are differences elsewhere other than the driver in question. The first huge difference between the two is the overall diameter. This leads to vastly different off axis performance and will affect the perceived tonal balance. This would be true for any 4" vs 8" comparison. Then you've got the huge distortion peak of the Ti100 slap bang in the middle of the ears most sensitive region. The B200 probably wont have this, so if you compare them how do you know if what you are hearing is the distortion peak or something else?
If you want to ensure that the difference in directivity or the difference in distortion profile limiting the Ti100s useful bandwidth isn't causing the audible difference then you need to crossover around 1400Hz with both of them. This will ensure that directivity isn't creating the perceived difference and neither is the distortion anomaly of the Ti100. Then you'll be closer to comparing apples with apples.
You shouldn't really be using either driver beyond around 1400Hz - 1600hz in a finished multiway system anyway if state of the art is what you have in mind. Or are you going to use drivers inappropriately?