Moderation comment: This thread split off from New Markaudio Drivers
Edit: This is in relation to posts 490 and 493 in the thread above.
The specifics are for a sealed box design, and I further specified the near-field listening condition.
I would cross over at a much lower frequency. Like 40-60 Hz crossed over to a sub.
I for one would like to see this trend of trying to get a full range reproduce up to 25-30 kHz reversed and focus at making it try to reproduce down to the 30s Hz. There's a lot more audible content down there than above 20, or even 18 kHz.
Of course you need some very good EQ and the will to give up high SPL output.
And I wouldn't use the 3 inch driver. I would use the bigger driver that can give you high enough frequency output.
Other than my own OCD problems I have with it, the Pluvia 11 would be actually perfect for that. And possibly these Alpair 11 MS drivers too, although they have less area.
Edit: This is in relation to posts 490 and 493 in the thread above.
The specifics are for a sealed box design, and I further specified the near-field listening condition.
I would cross over at a much lower frequency. Like 40-60 Hz crossed over to a sub.
I for one would like to see this trend of trying to get a full range reproduce up to 25-30 kHz reversed and focus at making it try to reproduce down to the 30s Hz. There's a lot more audible content down there than above 20, or even 18 kHz.
Of course you need some very good EQ and the will to give up high SPL output.
And I wouldn't use the 3 inch driver. I would use the bigger driver that can give you high enough frequency output.
Other than my own OCD problems I have with it, the Pluvia 11 would be actually perfect for that. And possibly these Alpair 11 MS drivers too, although they have less area.
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I guess it's a matter of choice. No full range has wide dispersion up to 17 kHz that I know of, except one.
Doppler effect is not nearly as bad as people make it seem, in my opinion.
They are usually the same people that listen to speakers crossed over smack in the middle of the 1-3 kHz range and then tell you that 24 bit is so much more revealing than 16 bit.
sax512,
The frequency range you mentioned - wouldn't those be better handled with woofers/mid-basses (preferably multiple or big)? And when you are going for 20Hz or below - then sub-woofers? It would be a tough ask for a relatively light coned wide-band driver (specially a modestly sized one) to play low and loud.
Probably a bass-wide driver like the Alpair 12P is capable of going down to the 30s in the right cabinet.
The frequency range you mentioned - wouldn't those be better handled with woofers/mid-basses (preferably multiple or big)? And when you are going for 20Hz or below - then sub-woofers? It would be a tough ask for a relatively light coned wide-band driver (specially a modestly sized one) to play low and loud.
Probably a bass-wide driver like the Alpair 12P is capable of going down to the 30s in the right cabinet.
Any driver can go low. But then the rest of the audio band is overpowering the lows and that's why I said you need good EQ and will to lose SPL. Why do people want to fill up their room with 'big' sound is something I don't understand. You got a full range? The beauty of it is it's (relatively speaking) a point source. Get those speakers close to the listening position if you like 95 dB SPL. You can (and should) do that with a point source. This is the driver I was referring to, which unfortunately is a little lacking in xmax. And I also don't particularly like the phase plug, personally. Dayton Audio PS65LP-4 6-1/2" Ultra Efficient Low Profile Full-Range Driver 4 Ohm
No point, decades of 80-120 Hz cinema, DIY proof that once we move below the phone BW [250-2500 Hz] our hearing acuity rapidly rolls off even at very high SPL.
Music supposedly goes out to 102.4 kHz, but movie soundtracks, CDs barely do 20 kHz while hearing acuity flattens out at ~5 kHz, so maintaining at least the pioneer's 15 kHz for top end 'air' works fine for most adults.
Agreed unless designed to be XO'd >300 Hz or strictly for near-field [< 1m] apps.
GM
This doesn't make any sense. Speakers are equalized flat, not according to Fletcher–Munson curve.
Recordings are mixed based on monitors that are equalized flat, so if speakers were to take into account human hearing sensitivity with frequency (Fletcher–Munson curve) they would sound like crap.
Where did you take the 102.4 kHz figure? And why does it matter if human can't go (most don't even get any close) to 20 kHz?
Recordings are mixed based on monitors that are equalized flat, so if speakers were to take into account human hearing sensitivity with frequency (Fletcher–Munson curve) they would sound like crap.
Where did you take the 102.4 kHz figure? And why does it matter if human can't go (most don't even get any close) to 20 kHz?
Who said anything about EQing speakers to the FM (or any other equal loudness) curve? GM merely pointed out that our hearing acuity is poor in the LF, so trying to chase some notion of missing detail down there is more or less a search for the end of a rainbow. In a similar fashion, as he points out, our hearing acuity also levels off quite rapidly > 5KHz, so while trumpet harmonics (see the link he provided) have been measured out past 100KHz, the limitations of our hearing and the HF reach of the carrier mediums, amplifiers and speaker hardware render chasing extended HF for the sake of itself rather moot. We live in the midrange; LF provides foundations, but what detail exists in LF notes lies in their harmonics, while the subjective HF 'air' so often talked about is usually not much higher than about 15KHz, and often significantly lower.
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I disagree. Especially because cross over in the even very low frequencies carry artifacts 2-3 octaves above the cut off frequency. And at that point you are well into the 200 Hz. You listen to a classical guitar recording through a single driver that is not crossed over to anything or one crossed over to a sub, let alone a woofer in the 300 Hz, and the difference is evident, especially in the transients.
I agree, in fact I said I'd like to see the efforts in single driver designs to go towards the low frequencies rather than the 25-30 kHz.
As I side note, I'm sure other instruments might have frequency content even higher than trumpets. So what?
Recording and reproducing it, even if we had microphones and speakers capable of the task, would be useless because of our ears limitations.
Fully agree on the 'air' thing, but again, having the lows coming from the same driver as the mids makes a lot of difference to me.
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Then you are arguing against decades of research and factual findings.
Indeed. The point is, you appear to have missed the fact that GM was giving support to your contention of the limited value of extended HF for its own sake (though disagreeing WRT the idea that extremely low XO frequencies have some profound value in themselves).
Both GM and I have already said that.
If that's what floats your boat, power to you, but since it flies in the face of most findings over a period of decades, you will forgive me [and possibly a few others] if I suggest you are in the minority.
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I'm not saying that our hearing is as sensitive is the lows as it is in the mids, if that's the research you're talking about. We agree on that.
I'm just saying that even with the reduced sensitivity it makes a clear difference whether you have a cross over or not down there.
Maybe with a brick-wall digital crossover things wouldn't be as bad, but that's just speculation and I would have to test it. I'm already thinking about it as a matter of facts.
I'm just saying that even with the reduced sensitivity it makes a clear difference whether you have a cross over or not down there.
Maybe with a brick-wall digital crossover things wouldn't be as bad, but that's just speculation and I would have to test it. I'm already thinking about it as a matter of facts.
I already did.
Yours is an opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it.
But stating that crossing over under 250 Hz is inaudible is a coarse generalization at best.
What type of cross over? What type of box? What type of listening condition?
I don't doubt that for HT what you say is true most of the time, but once again I know for a fact that for near field mixing (classical, acoustic, purist-type recordings) it is audible and not that hardly either.
You can argue if that difference is worth the loss of SPL, but that's again a matter of opinion.
As you said, I am probably in a minority. But to me it is worth it.
Yours is an opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it.
But stating that crossing over under 250 Hz is inaudible is a coarse generalization at best.
What type of cross over? What type of box? What type of listening condition?
I don't doubt that for HT what you say is true most of the time, but once again I know for a fact that for near field mixing (classical, acoustic, purist-type recordings) it is audible and not that hardly either.
You can argue if that difference is worth the loss of SPL, but that's again a matter of opinion.
As you said, I am probably in a minority. But to me it is worth it.
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I have a lot of sympathy for this point of view. It's not simply that my ears don't work so well up high given my age (14kHz to 16kHz or so things tail off quickly) but I like the simplicity of a single full range driver for DIY. And the biggest challenge is getting good performance simultaneously at the top and the bottom. Sure, we can add another driver for a FAST, or we can add a tweeter for a traditional 2-way. Both have issues, both require a cross-over and for the FAST this is sometimes prohibitive with a passive solution so it gets even more complex.
At the top end the two issues are ragged frequency response (let's be honest, it's the bane of full range drivers) causing subjective 'harshness'; the other issue is poor dispersion except when using 'toy' sized drivers (that's going to stir something up isn't it!). I think the new MA drivers are moving in a great direction in terms of improving dispersion - these novel cone profiles look like the first real advance in the art since the invention of the whizzer cone. With better dispersion there will be less need to build a 'hot' on-axis treble to compensate for the off-axis fall-off.
At the low end, the challenge is the usual one - big box vs extension vs efficiency. For many folk, the solution is the larger box, whether a floor-standing Pencil or a back loaded horn. But for every customer who will accept a large speaker, 10 others will take the smaller one and then live with constricted dynamics or start fiddling with sub-woofers. For the low end with good dynamics, larger diameter drivers with modest Vas seem the best solution.
So we'd like to see drivers with smooth treble and good dispersion but no need to go much past 18kHz if you ask me. And we want large sized drivers that can move some air at the bottom end, be workable in modest enclosures and have decent treble dispersion. There, simple
I'm in the process of building a small reflex box for the A10.3, this is not far from a great solution - will be interested in any new drivers that can better the A10.3 in the same box with perhaps a change in port length to tune (i.e. all the folk out there with this driver can buy an 'upgrade').
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Where? I was hoping you would state what the advantages you imply are, with technical support.
And yours is also opinion, which you are entitled to. What I query is the sweeping generalisations you apply -such as stating that crossovers at 40Hz - 60Hz are somehow less audible than those, for example, an octave or two octaves higher without bothering to provide the slightest piece of context. Since that was your original statement / implication, which is not supported by the majority of research and experience, the onus is upon you to prove it, not the other way around.
That is what I (and no doubt others) have been hoping you will provide in support of your contentions. The point being, as I have noted on several occasions, is that stating a very low crossover frequency taken in and of itself (i.e. frequency only, without making any comment on design context, drive unit behaviour, crossover slopes, physical positioning &c., as you appear to have done above) is meaningless. I don't need to be asked those questions, because I've been politely hinting for several days now that you forgot to state them yourself in your original remark
You appear to be, and if it is worth it to you, that's what counts. I would simply suggest you try to be clearer, assuming you are not simply making sweeping generalisations.
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