That 'life' in music usually is distorsion..
Measurements are everything, but only if they are properly analyzed..
Driver with 0.5-1% THD can't be better than one with 0.1%, but can sound better to someone who likes that kind of distorsion.. but that has nothing to do with objectivity..
In the meantime this measurement turned up..
www.audioexcite.com Blog Archive Fountek NeoCD1.0 Measurements!
Maybe it's time to think about some other tweeter..
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mult...-rs225-8_rs52an-8_amt2-4-a-2.html#post5040796
Neutral is one thing, sterile/dull is another. I have some SOTA TB flat 4.5" drivers with ultra-low HD, and they have more life than the RS52. They just sound more realistic. I have Morel TSCW636 midbasses on another project, and in the midrange they have vanishingly low HD, and the mids are wonderful.
Life is not always HD. You'll just have to agree to disagree with me, because I don't find all of the minute-HD drivers realistic. You can mute and damp a driver into oblivion, and make sure that it has ultra-low HD, but in some cases you just sucked all the realism out of it.
There are examples of good usage of stiffness, damping, and HD results:
Seas U18
Morel Supreme woofers
SS 15W/8530K00
AC AC130F1
Usher 8948A
Peerless 830991
HiVi F6
TB W4-1798S
All of these sound great, properly implemented, and don't leave me with a feeling of unrealistic results or overdamped and sterile sound. I'm sure some you would rate great, and some poor. The fact exists that the F6 in a project scored higher than anything else at MWAF one year, and it does not likely meet your standard of approval.
Again- HD measurements are not everything.
Later,
Wolf
Again, you don't give any proof for that, just your subjective opinion..
If you try to define hifi, THD measurement is most important..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fidelity
Why are you posting under multiple identities ?
Your main account is still active, however if you wish to leave diyAudio as you so publicly stated then that account can be disabled.
Currently best dome midrange on the market is Tang Band 75-1558SE if we are looking at distortion measurements. It has lower distortion and can be crossed much lower than RS52. ATC SM75 would fit the bill but it has become unobtainium since june 1.
TB 75-1558SE
Dayton RS52AN
Morel MDM55
If it were up to me, i'd buy the TB 75-1558SE - it's well worth the money. I'm yet to be convinced that direct radiator driver with Sd of 24cm^2 (more or less every 2" dome midrange) can play midrange naturally. In my experience, for under 1KHz you need at least double that. TB-1558SE fulfils that condition too so i'd give it a go.
As for alleged superiority of RS52 over MDM55 - i presume that the thing that people hear as sh!t-spit from RS52AN regarding distortion are abrupt changes that happen in it's distortion profile. Sudden peaks and dips are more likely to be noticed than smooth distortion profile.
Other than that, i'd like to see someone that will notice the difference in distortion level - listening to music not sweeps or white noise - between the levels of 0.1% vs 0.3% driver distortion.
TB 75-1558SE
Dayton RS52AN
Morel MDM55
If it were up to me, i'd buy the TB 75-1558SE - it's well worth the money. I'm yet to be convinced that direct radiator driver with Sd of 24cm^2 (more or less every 2" dome midrange) can play midrange naturally. In my experience, for under 1KHz you need at least double that. TB-1558SE fulfils that condition too so i'd give it a go.
As for alleged superiority of RS52 over MDM55 - i presume that the thing that people hear as sh!t-spit from RS52AN regarding distortion are abrupt changes that happen in it's distortion profile. Sudden peaks and dips are more likely to be noticed than smooth distortion profile.
Other than that, i'd like to see someone that will notice the difference in distortion level - listening to music not sweeps or white noise - between the levels of 0.1% vs 0.3% driver distortion.
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Do you have any experience with these drivers..
Completely wrong, it is much easier to recognize distortion in a wider spectrum..
Even though, RS52 peaks are below average Morel distorsion..
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/solid-state/50218-how-much-distortion-can-we-hear.html#post559320
There is no one objective reason for Morel to be legendary brand name..The thing is one can't brag as good enough with Dayton Audio as with Morel which is probably a legendary brand name already.
Measurements below average, design without any original idea..
I liked the 75-1558 when I heard it. It is a solid performer.
V- the Morel Supreme line is SoTA, and have very low HD; both the tweeters and the woofers. All of the Coppersleeve driver variants also have very low HD. Some of their tech was initially licensed from Dynaudio, yes, but they have moved beyond that with the Rohacell cones, the coaxials, and the Coppersleeve motors.
To my knowledge, Dynaudio does not have those cones, do not have coppersleeves, and do not have coaxials. Sure- the Hybrid motors and the hexatech/coil voice coils and the inside out driver geometry is something that came from Ejvind Skaaning back in the days when all were a single loudspeaker driver manufacturer and company.
But- the really low HD of the Morel drivers' motors with the copperlseeves is why Magico uses their motors for their 'nanotech' cones on their midranges.
There are absolutely reasons that Morel is near the top.
Later,
Wolf
V- the Morel Supreme line is SoTA, and have very low HD; both the tweeters and the woofers. All of the Coppersleeve driver variants also have very low HD. Some of their tech was initially licensed from Dynaudio, yes, but they have moved beyond that with the Rohacell cones, the coaxials, and the Coppersleeve motors.
To my knowledge, Dynaudio does not have those cones, do not have coppersleeves, and do not have coaxials. Sure- the Hybrid motors and the hexatech/coil voice coils and the inside out driver geometry is something that came from Ejvind Skaaning back in the days when all were a single loudspeaker driver manufacturer and company.
But- the really low HD of the Morel drivers' motors with the copperlseeves is why Magico uses their motors for their 'nanotech' cones on their midranges.
There are absolutely reasons that Morel is near the top.
Later,
Wolf
The thing is one can't brag as good enough with Dayton Audio as with Morel which is probably a legendary brand name already.
Yeah, right. Legendary. Legends and myths are just swirling around them
I do agree on that when we are discussing very high distortion. That doesn't count when we are talking about difference between 0.1 and 0.3 percent distortion.
I guess you haven't read my post. I do see that RS52AN has lower measured distortion. The thing that bugs me is why it didn't win in direct A/B comparison with MDM55. If you read my post carefully you'll see that.
I was trying to find rational explanation why Morel beats RS52AN in listening tests. If you bothered to enter the links i posted, you saw that few great loudspeaker designers (Denis Murphy, Paul Kittinger, Dan Neubecker, Rick Craig... ) used RS52AN and Morel MDM55 and preferred MDM55 despite it's 30$ higher price and despite it's ludicrous distortion of 0.3%
I really don't know why you shared this in discussion on loudspeaker distortion. The guy is wrong on so many levels.
Oh yes, i own a pair of MDM55 and i intend to order RS52AN for a direct comparison. But i will not use them as direct radiators because none of 2" dome midrange sounds natural enough to me when mounted on flat baffle (and i heard quite a bit 3 way speakers with dome mid - most of them were MB Quart, Infinity, AR and Dynaudio - crap). To be able to play under 1000Hz as it should, midrange needs larger cone surface than 24sq.cm or it needs a waveguide - i tried and now i know. You should to.
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Not a matter of physics but physiology. It may be that brain interprets different levels of distortion differently at different loudness levels. Look at Gedlee research on distortion perception.
As for Scan Speak, maybe because 2nd harmonic is not that relevant or can't be heard in music content untill very very high. Maybe higher order distortion are of more relevance than low order distortion. Maybe, maybe maybe... The idea isn't new.
I do not have the answers on these. I'm trying to draw conclusions out of all this mess.
As for Scan Speak, maybe because 2nd harmonic is not that relevant or can't be heard in music content untill very very high. Maybe higher order distortion are of more relevance than low order distortion. Maybe, maybe maybe... The idea isn't new.
I do not have the answers on these. I'm trying to draw conclusions out of all this mess.
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I have to agree with Vulejov here. My friends in the local audiophile club believe that listening tests are more reliable than test measurements. I believe that the ear is inconsistent on it's best day, and listening tests are riddled with variables (like program content and room acoustics). Test equipment measurements are much more reliable, if you know how to do them, and interpret them.
I while back there was a listening test comparison of about a dozen midrange drivers, and one of the songs they used for the comparison was a song by the band, Heart... Heavily distorted hard rock... How the heck would anyone know what that song is supposed to sound like with the ultimate High fidelity speaker??? That test showed how poorly educated those people are, and nothing else. After some nagging, they finally did some actual distortion tests, but by then I'd lost faith in their competency.
Doing valid tests with test equipment is not always easy to get right, but it's the only thing we can count on. If your high end speaker sounds too sterile or boring, maybe your program source material is why, maybe your listening room rings at certain frequencies and affects how you hear, or maybe you bought one of those $5000 preamps that has no tone controls.
Certain distortion types can enhance certain types of program material (2nd harmonic on a solo part, or the very short term reverb effect created by a phono needle inertia vibrating the record disk, etc.), but personally I'd rather have fidelity.
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