Thank you very much for your kind comments. I keep trying the make improve the WAF of my speakers but I suppose that the major sticking point is simply size.
Best wishes to you and all for the coming holidays and the New Year.
Well, As you know, I never let things go without checking. So thins morning I took an old test baffle and looked at measurement with the drivers laid out as they are now, and moving the lower mid up so that the mounting flanges of the mids touched. They can't be any closer. The position of the lower midrange relative to the side panels was unchanged by removing material from the bottom of the baffle. I.E. the lower mid remained the same height off the floor. The baffle shape also remained unchanged. Thus the effect is that due to the angled edges of the baffle being much closed to the lower midrange mounting flange. The result was a loss of 1dB sensitivity below 700 Hz. Not a lot but still requiring 25% more power to achieve the same SPL as with the original baffle. Simulations of the polar response did not show what I would consider significant differences until out past 30 degrees. So it looks like a wash to me. You are not going to gain much in polar response and you are going to loose a dB in sensitivity below 700 Hz.
And what happens then? What do actual measurements show happens? Does it all "wash out" in the overall mish-mash of room reflections, with no effect on first reflections or power response?
We give up a whole lot more than 1dB for the dipole pattern in the first place . . . maybe one dB more is not too high a price for a more nearly point source radiator and more nearly dipole behavior on all axis . . .
Thank you very much for your kind comments. I keep trying the make improve the WAF of my speakers but I suppose that the major sticking point is simply size.
Sorry John, I meant that I wish to adjust my W's A. There's nothing peculiar with your speakers, because form follows function.And to me a well working gadget is always beautiful.
Juha ("John" during English classes at school)
Last edited:
My point was that moving the drivers closer still doesn't come close to making anything point source like and remember it's still a dipole in the vertical direction, more or less. But the 1dB in sensitivity is over a wide band width, not just around the crossover point. The reality is how the system sounds; very good. The bigger issue with polar response is between the tweeter and the upper mid, and these isn't anything that can be done about that. As SL said about the LX521, listen sitting down.
I don't know why people get their panties all up in a bunch because they can't listen to there system hanging upside down from a trapeze hung from the ceiling.
Anyway, I'm not about to change anything for the sake of changing it.
Thank you very much for your kind comments. I keep trying the make improve the WAF of my speakers but I suppose that the major sticking point is simply size.
Sorry John, I meant that I wish to adjust my W's A. There's nothing peculiar with your speakers, because form follows function.
Juha ("John" during English classes at school)
I understood what you meant. I'm just working on WAF form the other end. Yes, form follows function, but you don't always want to show everything you've got. A little mystery goes a long way. At least that what my high school girl friends would tell me.
The speaker was designed to have the woofer system integrated into the speaker. I really can not speculate on what would be required if the woofer were separated. If you are just referring to there being a mechanical connection between the woofer cabinet and the main panel I don't see a particular advantage or benefit from isolating them.
Reflections. Some people care about them, some don't.
My sense of it is that the ceiling and floor play a significant role in overall power response and the perception of it. The vertical MTM is a clear example . . . it can sound fine in the near field and yet have an obvious and significant signature at a distance in a real room.
I like to move around when listening, so I'm more attentive to a broad "listening area" than I am to a prefered sit-down "sweet spot" (it probably bugged SL that I spent almost no time in the "preferred chair" while auditioning the LX521 . . . but I was in that case concentrating on the "sound" of the midrange, not on third-point-of-the-triangle imaging).
To the extent that that's true (and it's not universally true) it's a crying shame . . .
I guess I should add that a good part of the reason I prefer dipoles and a diffusive front wall is that with a substantial preponderance of the recordings I own they just sound better over a larger listening area.
Last edited:
Speaker placement and sound perception are discussed deeply in other topics/threads.
But it is important to know what is the placement recommendations of the designer and his/her listening room conditions. SL must be credited for this. Commercial speaker are usually more "universal" by design.
Also, the method of the recording makes a big difference. I it one set of X/Y mics or a mix of X/Y and close mics or even spatial mics ets. Binaural is a different story. Most of modern rock, jazz and pop is multimic-close mix, even most live recordings. Classical has a variety of recording methods and most album covers don't tell that.
But it is important to know what is the placement recommendations of the designer and his/her listening room conditions. SL must be credited for this. Commercial speaker are usually more "universal" by design.
Also, the method of the recording makes a big difference. I it one set of X/Y mics or a mix of X/Y and close mics or even spatial mics ets. Binaural is a different story. Most of modern rock, jazz and pop is multimic-close mix, even most live recordings. Classical has a variety of recording methods and most album covers don't tell that.
Interesting, given the emphasis in this thread and the LX521 ones about the 'new way' to do open baffles.
Could you be more specific about the things the NaO II does that the Notes don't?
I have this odd concern, based irrationally on the more delicate appearance of the Notes and LX521, that I will lose some of the 'liveliness' that made me keep my current speakers when I compared them other well-regarded speakers like Maggie 1.7s.
They’re (both designs) driven by the physics. As a result comparing Note with LX521 one finds more similarities than differences. The miniDSP has obvious advantages as the crossover, both in cost and flexibility. I’d be really surprised if we don’t see a lot of LX521-like implementations using it. The baffle shape of the Note (bigger) gives a bit more “boost” on the low end, I suspect that the LX521 gives a bit better vertical pattern control. For driver choice it’s six to one, half a dozen to the other . . . you could put the Scan drivers on the LX521 baffle or the Seas drivers on the Note baffle and not much would change, and those are not the only alternatives. The Note makes itself unnecessarily bulky with the acoustically pointless frame and grill . . . you could do the same with the LX521 and it too would then look like ORION.
Whether there's a change in "liveliness" with either of them (compared to other speakers or previous versions) . . . I'm not even sure I know what that would mean, let alone why it would be so. And while I'm already "on the road" to building a LX521 "clone" (using a miniDSP crossover and different drivers) I'm not entirely sure why I'm bothering, since I don't expect the "improvement" over ORION to be all that substantial (especially, and here I'm speculating, in an already tuned and treated listening room). I'm sure the LX521 (and probably the Note) gives "better imaging" with a selected few recordings . . . with most of the recordings in my collection it is probably moot.
The new way (well not new to me) is to extend the dipole response to higher frequency. I said when the original Note was introduce that I really didn't know it is was better or just different sounding. For me the idea of extending the dipole behavior to higher frequency was more of a technical challenge with outcome, as far as reproduction of recorded music, being a wait and see affair. It's like building an F1 race car. You design it as best you can, run around the track and get a lap time. Then you sit back and think about everything and wonder where can a change be made and will that yield a better lap time. So you make the change and the lap time comes down by a couple of tenths. Seems better, right? Maybe, maybe not. There are lots of other things to consider. For example, suppose those couple of tenths came because of better grip in the corners. Still sounds great until you run some mock races and find that the tires only last 28 laps where as the old way they lasted 31, and it's going to be a 90 lap race. So those couple of tenths which save 18 second in the race out on the track don't do the trick because its going to take 22 second for the extra pit stop. Thus, 0.2 seconds faster per lap equates to 4 second slower in the race. The slower car is actually faster in the race.
I can assure you that the NaO II RS (which no one but me has heard), the Note and the Note II RS are very live sounding, at least by my standards with the type of music I listen to. But I have no idea what "liveness" means to you. I honestly can not believe that anyone would be disappointed with any of the systems as they are all very good speakers. I know that that sound like self promotion, but I also want to emphasize that I consider myself a DIYer and an active member of the DIY community. I want my speakers to be as good as I can make them. That is why I am active at DIY Audio. I may criticize and be criticized. I'm OK with that because in the end I listen to what people are saying and if something seems like a good idea, I'll try it regardless of the source. And I'll report back on what I find.
Now, all this doesn't answer your question because I've avoided it. And I avoided it because I really can not give you a definitive answer. I like the midrange of the NaO II Rs a little better but the highs might be considered better in the Note II Rs, at least until I put on a different recording and that turns everything "nwod edispu". Both speakers are very dynamic, provided you give them the power to breath. Both have very good bass, unless you think HT bass is a must, and both speakers really do disappear.
I have the Nao Note for a week in my living room now.
- Ultra smooth high frequency. No biting harshness I sometimes heard with dome tweeters/horn. They play much more recordings well with no complaints. Some recording that I thought were bad played flawlessly.
- But sometimes I thought there is something missing, sparkle etc. Maybe less "lively" in sfdoddsy's word (?). Not sure if this is the characteristic of planar tweeters. I think john had used the work "soft" before when comparing to Nao II (?). Something like that.
- Ultra smooth high frequency. No biting harshness I sometimes heard with dome tweeters/horn. They play much more recordings well with no complaints. Some recording that I thought were bad played flawlessly.
- But sometimes I thought there is something missing, sparkle etc. Maybe less "lively" in sfdoddsy's word (?). Not sure if this is the characteristic of planar tweeters. I think john had used the work "soft" before when comparing to Nao II (?). Something like that.
Yes, I did say softer. The Note II is the same way, but I would not call it a lack of liveliness. It is definately not the Neo3 as the Note II has domes. Playing some jazz and rock where the drummers hit some hard rim shots both speaker are very dynamic and "lively". I also referred to it as sounding more natural.
Way back when I first designed the Note (the version you have been listening to) my impression was similar, there was something missing. But after extend listening I found that what was missing was that the speaker never revealed itself.
People used to say much the same about Maggies (despite their other flaws), and that feeling is perhaps more there with LX521 as well. I remember when I got my first Maggies . . . more than one person looked at them, commented that the sound in the room was "good", and then asked "where are the speakers?".
I think it has to do with the uniform polar . . . we're so used to "the box", particularly baffle step, but also the divergence of on-axis and "room" response in general, that when it's gone it does seem like "something's missing". I think it's one of the generally unremarked characteristics of really good loudspeakers (lots of box makers claim the effect but don't really produce it).