Here's three anecdotes from my projects:
1) I invested about six months building my second set of Unity horns, and I trashed them about a week after I finished them. What I noticed was that they worked GREAT if the recording had an impeccable soundstage, but if it didn't, they basically sounded mono. Those speakers made me realize that nearly everything I listened to is recorded terribly. (I mostly listen to punk rock and EDM.)
2) Right now I have two systems in my house. The first system is a set of Behringer Truths, with a waveguide that's about 135 degrees. The other is a set of Yamahas, with a waveguide that's about 80 degrees. I am definitely forming a preference for the Behringers, despite the fact that they cost about 25% as much and they're 25% as big. I'm still willing to invest some work in tweaking the Yamahas, but right out-of-the-box, the Behringers are ridiculously good, and I think the wider directivity may play a role here.
3) At CES this year, I listened to the JBL 4367 back-to-back with the new Revel speakers. Though the Revel cost a small fraction of what the JBLs cost, they were definitely competitive.
This is pure speculation on my part, but I think what's happening here is that the wider directivity combined with a quality dome tweeter may be preferable to a compression driver on a waveguide with narrow directivity. This is super subjective, because the dome tweeter is measurably worse, but there's something about "dome tweeter + wide angle waveguide" that sounds really spectacular. It's like the waveguide raises the dynamics and efficiency a bit, but you still have that 'sweetness' that you get with a dome, and some early reflections that add a pleasant amount of ambience.
Having said all that, one area that the Yamaha excels in is midbass; it's really tough to beat a 12" prosound driver in a rigid enclosure. The midbass on the Yamahas is really nice.
About three years ago I did an experiment with some "Bose style" reflecting speakers.
The part that blew my mind was that intelligibility IMPROVED. This seems completely counter-intutive; you would think that additional reflections would turn everything into mud. But it didn't.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I've been building horns for over two decades now, and it took me some time to realize that all they're doing is focusing the same amount of energy into a narrower beam. IE, there isn't any magic going on here to raise the efficiency, we're simply taking a finite amount of sound and we're focusing it into a cone.
One of the 'weird' things about the M2 is that it has measurably high output AND high efficiency. And this is because the VOLUME of the M2 horn is comparable to a very narrow horn, but the directivity is wide because of those 'beaks.'
The M2 horn is basically two diffraction slots, laid on top of each other, and arranged at a 45 degree angle.
If JBL had used a conventional wide angle waveguide, they would have had to move the xover point up quite a bit.
Dispersion preference???
For me.......Horses for Courses......
I have a modular 4-way system that let's me interchange various horns, using the same bms coax CD.
It's song by song whether I like a 60x50, or 90x60 best.
I go wider sometimes too. The 60x50's array very well...some tracks sound best with two (100 degrees total ) or even three (140 degrees) modules arrayed together.
I never know what dispersion pattern wins....
Some tracks sound best using just one side only in mono.
Some best in stereo; some best 2 sides both in mono...
I never know.
Also have Acoustat-X dipole stats running...some tracks sound best there.
And an old pair of Bose 901's hanging in the garage..a few songs even sound best there.
Whether the track preference is dispersion dominated or not, I dunno. But I figure it has to be in the case of the Bose, cause good speakers they are not Lol.
My gut feeling says, the crappier the recording, the more likely wider dispersion sounds good....IOW, dispersion can hide alot of sin
Also have the impression the more alive the room, the better wider dispersion sounds. Maybe it keeps the speaker pattern more equivalent to the room pattern.....dunno.
Bottom line for me...I gave up a long time ago thinking there is an optimum fits-all dispersion-angle solution.
The best sound I've heard always seems to come from constant directivity designs, played outdoors. So I think pattern control, not necessarily what pattern..seems important.
My 2c...
For me.......Horses for Courses......
I have a modular 4-way system that let's me interchange various horns, using the same bms coax CD.
It's song by song whether I like a 60x50, or 90x60 best.
I go wider sometimes too. The 60x50's array very well...some tracks sound best with two (100 degrees total ) or even three (140 degrees) modules arrayed together.
I never know what dispersion pattern wins....
Some tracks sound best using just one side only in mono.
Some best in stereo; some best 2 sides both in mono...
I never know.
Also have Acoustat-X dipole stats running...some tracks sound best there.
And an old pair of Bose 901's hanging in the garage..a few songs even sound best there.
Whether the track preference is dispersion dominated or not, I dunno. But I figure it has to be in the case of the Bose, cause good speakers they are not Lol.
My gut feeling says, the crappier the recording, the more likely wider dispersion sounds good....IOW, dispersion can hide alot of sin
Also have the impression the more alive the room, the better wider dispersion sounds. Maybe it keeps the speaker pattern more equivalent to the room pattern.....dunno.
Bottom line for me...I gave up a long time ago thinking there is an optimum fits-all dispersion-angle solution.
The best sound I've heard always seems to come from constant directivity designs, played outdoors. So I think pattern control, not necessarily what pattern..seems important.
My 2c...
This isn't the first time I've seen the loudspeakers blamed for a problem that's not in any way their fault. (Perhaps this is just a common human failing.)
I guess that I don't have to point out that the choice that you're talking about isn't "hi-fi". In fact, what I'd call it is "creative sound reproduction". Personally, I've been finished with that sort of thing for over 5 decades of home sound reproduction experiments and listening trials. I don't blame loudspeakers for really bad music choices--and there are a lot of those to be had (bad recordings, that is). I recommend working on the music instead.
"The better the loudspeakers get, the more you can hear the defects in the recordings." It's always been that way.
Having said that, I can say that the narrowness of the SH-50's coverage was something that I never got used to. It takes more like 90-100 degrees of coverage horizontally to be much more realistic sounding, and integrate with the other loudspeakers in the array to form a seamless soundstage image. Fifty degrees of horizontal coverage doesn't do that. You need two SH-50s at each position, side-by-side, in the loudspeaker array in my experience.
Chris
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I suppose if you used two room corners with the SH-50s and pushed them all the way back until the connectors are touching the room corner seam (perhaps providing baffles from the mouths to the side walls to complete the integration of reflections with the room's walls), and do a re-EQ, they would function like cornerhorns and would open up their sound stage to the room's boundaries (being careful to avoid disturbances in the smoothness of the walls within 5-6 feet of the loudspeakers). But I've seen no one do that, and there would be some downside in the midrange coverage disturbances that you'd have to deal with.
Overall, if you have a reasonable listening room in terms of size, shape and early acoustic reflections/reverberation, it's much easier to design the horns to cover about 90-100 degrees horizontally, then I find that the listening experience just unfolds before you.
Chris
Overall, if you have a reasonable listening room in terms of size, shape and early acoustic reflections/reverberation, it's much easier to design the horns to cover about 90-100 degrees horizontally, then I find that the listening experience just unfolds before you.
Chris
Hi, from what you've been writing, I think your choices in music probably have a lot to do with that.
Humm...I think I see what you're implying (correct me if I got this wrong):
--If you're intending for me to go into an apologetics discussion on room acoustics, I think that you'll be a bit disappointed. I'm not going to apologize to others for doing a reasonable job with my room, while they still have significant issues with theirs. But I also don't have caveat my comments on what I believe works and doesn't work, because of the room acoustics.
[What I don't understand is those that do have significant room acoustics problems and that don't disclose this each time they make some generic DIY loudspeaker design recommendation that's heavily influenced by less-than-desirable room acoustics.]
--If you're instead commenting on the music that I picked in the linked thread (Missing Octave)--most all of those recordings/albums referenced in that thread were picked because they had the most issues and could benefit most by demastering. Those recordings don't represent a cross section of what I do actually listen to on a regular basis.
Chris
--If you're intending for me to go into an apologetics discussion on room acoustics, I think that you'll be a bit disappointed. I'm not going to apologize to others for doing a reasonable job with my room, while they still have significant issues with theirs. But I also don't have caveat my comments on what I believe works and doesn't work, because of the room acoustics.
[What I don't understand is those that do have significant room acoustics problems and that don't disclose this each time they make some generic DIY loudspeaker design recommendation that's heavily influenced by less-than-desirable room acoustics.]
--If you're instead commenting on the music that I picked in the linked thread (Missing Octave)--most all of those recordings/albums referenced in that thread were picked because they had the most issues and could benefit most by demastering. Those recordings don't represent a cross section of what I do actually listen to on a regular basis.
Chris
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Yeah, I think that is accurate. I find myself screwing around with various angles on the loudspeakers, to try and add some ambiance by intentionally generating reflections off the sidewalls. What Bill is doing with his additional speakers has a similar effect.
I can't stand listening to music on headphones, and it's probably for similar reasons: so much of what I listen to is nearly mono, on headphones it just sounds awful.
Hi Chris, my comment was much simpler, it was only in reference to this thread. What i gathered is that you choose well recorded music that probably contains an ambient presence.
Hip-hop, EDM, alternative, cranking rock....I'm guessing are not in your mainstay listening...pls pardon me if i'm in err.
That's all i meant in previous post ...no further implications...
I completely agree with your comments on room acoustics. In fact i barely even pay attention to system impressions or even measurements when room size/acoustics are not mentioned.
Okay, peace fellas...
To John: I do believe that lateral reflections in the "second room" are absolutely essential (this is the basics of the 90 degree horizontal coverage comments), even though those reflections are not in the recordings. I want to be clear about that. Without those reflections, our multichannel arrays would fall apart in terms of the immersive listening experience, and stereo recordings would suffer immeasurably from "the fundamental flaw of stereo" as Toole has tagged it. This is the interaural perceived dip in response from 1.8 to 2.2 kHz that's a function of the stereo human hearing system. Those lateral reflections "fill in the hole" at that "BBC dip" band.
I also can't stand headphones, so we're on the same page there. I've had a lot of trouble talking to people that advocate that "the conditions of hi-fi are best when wearing exceptionally good headphones". I try to avoid those conversations--and those people when they turn to that discussion. I usually then mention the "6 foot-wide headphones" that Bob Carver mentioned that he was testing years ago, trying to deal with eardrum bounce issues--then I wait for a response from the headphone enthusiasts. Usually, there is no response.
To Mark: I apologize as I was contemplating more sinister intent, so pardon my response. The music of my youth was the 1970s, not the 1990s-2000s. I really feel bad for those that grew up in that era, such as my children. I'm continually surprised by them in that they have themselves voluntarily rejected most of the music of that era in favor of the old stuff that I've listened to. I can tell you that I wouldn't have listened for very long to the music of my parents as a substitute for the music of my youth.
However, it's now pretty well documented what started in earnest in 1991 to stereo music tracks--and it's pretty horrible from the perspective of the preceding decades of music--from the standpoint of the how the record companies turned the music into "corned beef hash". I wish that I could do something to resurrect that music's fidelity and dynamic range to return it to something closer to an acoustic music aesthetic, but that's basically impossible due to the magnitude of the damage done to the recordings. I'm really sorry for the Millennials and late Gen-Xers. The default production quality of their music is awful, I've found.
Okay...I do try to pay attention to the comments made on this forum by its participants to try to translate what they are saying into my environment. Sometimes I get pretty frustrated trying to guess what kind of environment they have--and what kind of music that they're using when they make their comments. I once saw a guy on another forum flatly state that all his music sounded a lot better when he converted it to low bit rate, highly compressed MP3 files. I felt bad for him, but I could say nothing without further damaging the already strained atmosphere from the older guys on the forum.
Chris
To John: I do believe that lateral reflections in the "second room" are absolutely essential (this is the basics of the 90 degree horizontal coverage comments), even though those reflections are not in the recordings. I want to be clear about that. Without those reflections, our multichannel arrays would fall apart in terms of the immersive listening experience, and stereo recordings would suffer immeasurably from "the fundamental flaw of stereo" as Toole has tagged it. This is the interaural perceived dip in response from 1.8 to 2.2 kHz that's a function of the stereo human hearing system. Those lateral reflections "fill in the hole" at that "BBC dip" band.
I also can't stand headphones, so we're on the same page there. I've had a lot of trouble talking to people that advocate that "the conditions of hi-fi are best when wearing exceptionally good headphones". I try to avoid those conversations--and those people when they turn to that discussion. I usually then mention the "6 foot-wide headphones" that Bob Carver mentioned that he was testing years ago, trying to deal with eardrum bounce issues--then I wait for a response from the headphone enthusiasts. Usually, there is no response.
To Mark: I apologize as I was contemplating more sinister intent, so pardon my response. The music of my youth was the 1970s, not the 1990s-2000s. I really feel bad for those that grew up in that era, such as my children. I'm continually surprised by them in that they have themselves voluntarily rejected most of the music of that era in favor of the old stuff that I've listened to. I can tell you that I wouldn't have listened for very long to the music of my parents as a substitute for the music of my youth.
However, it's now pretty well documented what started in earnest in 1991 to stereo music tracks--and it's pretty horrible from the perspective of the preceding decades of music--from the standpoint of the how the record companies turned the music into "corned beef hash". I wish that I could do something to resurrect that music's fidelity and dynamic range to return it to something closer to an acoustic music aesthetic, but that's basically impossible due to the magnitude of the damage done to the recordings. I'm really sorry for the Millennials and late Gen-Xers. The default production quality of their music is awful, I've found.
Okay...I do try to pay attention to the comments made on this forum by its participants to try to translate what they are saying into my environment. Sometimes I get pretty frustrated trying to guess what kind of environment they have--and what kind of music that they're using when they make their comments. I once saw a guy on another forum flatly state that all his music sounded a lot better when he converted it to low bit rate, highly compressed MP3 files. I felt bad for him, but I could say nothing without further damaging the already strained atmosphere from the older guys on the forum.
Chris
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Been following this thread with interest. My system at present is original Lambda Unity Horns, on top of 15" Altec 416-8b's in a sealed box. It's supported on the low end with three subs. It's multi-amped with a DEQX. The mid bass are run with no high pass and the subs integrated via a Mini-DSP, ala Geddes multi-sub approach.
It shines regarding tonality and dynamics. And it goes very loud while remaining clean. The soundstage is wide and stable. But, especially at moderate to low volumes, the soundstage on most recordings doesn't have much apparent depth ("they are here", as in right here).
I'm considering running the main speakers as a two-way similar to the Geddes Summa. I'd tried it briefly in the past, without the mid-ranges, and it sounded pretty good. That way I have an extra channel on the DEQX to play with some "ambience" speakers. The DEQX makes it easy to dial in a wide range of delay, volume, and frequency settings. I have some small desktop speakers to play with. If I decide to keep it that way, a couple of small sealed boxes with the little 2 1/2" SB speakers might be interesting to try.
Sheldon
It shines regarding tonality and dynamics. And it goes very loud while remaining clean. The soundstage is wide and stable. But, especially at moderate to low volumes, the soundstage on most recordings doesn't have much apparent depth ("they are here", as in right here).
I'm considering running the main speakers as a two-way similar to the Geddes Summa. I'd tried it briefly in the past, without the mid-ranges, and it sounded pretty good. That way I have an extra channel on the DEQX to play with some "ambience" speakers. The DEQX makes it easy to dial in a wide range of delay, volume, and frequency settings. I have some small desktop speakers to play with. If I decide to keep it that way, a couple of small sealed boxes with the little 2 1/2" SB speakers might be interesting to try.
Sheldon
@Chris, thanks! No apology needed at all, my friend.
@Sheldon, I have the same problem as you at low listening levels with my high power / high sensitivity rig. Just lacks life and presence.
You've probably already done this, but in case you haven't, it's helped my low level issue a lot. Plain ole simple gain staging.....
I drop amp gain down as low as it will go, and try to make sure everything upstream is running as high as possible.
@Sheldon, I have the same problem as you at low listening levels with my high power / high sensitivity rig. Just lacks life and presence.
You've probably already done this, but in case you haven't, it's helped my low level issue a lot. Plain ole simple gain staging.....
I drop amp gain down as low as it will go, and try to make sure everything upstream is running as high as possible.
Google gives many hits at diyaudio.com
Adding a rear-firing tweeter
Adding a rear Ambience tweeter
Rear tweeter - Pros and Cons
And most lately by Bill Waslo Ambience tweeters using small BMR drivers
I have used it too and was quite happy! I had the rear tweeter pointing 45¤ up. Usually xo is so high and distance between radiators so long, that polarity doesn't mean a thing. With careful measurements there are differencies with interference hickups, but you can't hear them. Spl adjustment would be nice and why not highpass too. Easy to test with dsp boxes!
My measurements and impressions start from here https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mul...aborative-speaker-project-42.html#post3761585
Adding a rear-firing tweeter
Adding a rear Ambience tweeter
Rear tweeter - Pros and Cons
And most lately by Bill Waslo Ambience tweeters using small BMR drivers
I have used it too and was quite happy! I had the rear tweeter pointing 45¤ up. Usually xo is so high and distance between radiators so long, that polarity doesn't mean a thing. With careful measurements there are differencies with interference hickups, but you can't hear them. Spl adjustment would be nice and why not highpass too. Easy to test with dsp boxes!
My measurements and impressions start from here https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mul...aborative-speaker-project-42.html#post3761585
I've googled too and found the 3 first links before deciding to ask as it wasn't enough, and i'm happy to have done so.
I have seen both your and Bill project, but missed those part in your project and this specific thread from Bill. Lot of stuff to think about, to make my own ideas. Exactly what i was searching. Really interesting, thanks !
I have seen both your and Bill project, but missed those part in your project and this specific thread from Bill. Lot of stuff to think about, to make my own ideas. Exactly what i was searching. Really interesting, thanks !
The original Revel Salon had no waveguide. A second tweeter was added to the back, to accomplish something similar to what you are doing.
The Revel Salon 2 added a waveguide, and the designer (Kevin Voecks) mentioned in an interview that the new cabinet and the new waveguide made the second tweeter unnecessary.
I have a hunch that the combination of a small waveguide with a wide beamwidth and a narrow baffle is the key here. I've been messing around with vertical waveguides that use a diffraction slot to get wide horizontal beamwdith and narrow vertical beamwidth.
Your Cosynes are still my reference but I'm eager to see if I can build something smaller that sounds comparable. Wife isn't thrilled with their size
Hi PB - thanks for bring this old thread of mine back to life! I have just reread my first analysis with interest - nearly three years ago - but feels like a lifetime after the last 18 months!
I don't know if you have seen my other thread - but I have now built some OB speakers - obviously CD speaker using an entirely different set of principles.
I am now fully sold on this direction. They have absolutely trounced my 'Balls of Prestige' - quite unexpectedly (it started as a prototype build - an OB itch I wanted to scratch for a long time).
I have also seen your thread on the difficulties you have had with your new house and it's acoustics.
The OB speakers I have now - are incredibly well behaved compared to my synergies, and my 4-way balls, - they need virtually no room node EQ, have incredibly flat listening position MMM, and perform much better on the clarity measurements in REW. I wonder if they might therefore perform better in your acoustic space too?
I just wonder if it would be worth you mocking up a quick OB prototype as I did with some of the (relatively cheap) GRS drivers? No baffles needed!
I don't know if you have seen my other thread - but I have now built some OB speakers - obviously CD speaker using an entirely different set of principles.
I am now fully sold on this direction. They have absolutely trounced my 'Balls of Prestige' - quite unexpectedly (it started as a prototype build - an OB itch I wanted to scratch for a long time).
I have also seen your thread on the difficulties you have had with your new house and it's acoustics.
The OB speakers I have now - are incredibly well behaved compared to my synergies, and my 4-way balls, - they need virtually no room node EQ, have incredibly flat listening position MMM, and perform much better on the clarity measurements in REW. I wonder if they might therefore perform better in your acoustic space too?
I just wonder if it would be worth you mocking up a quick OB prototype as I did with some of the (relatively cheap) GRS drivers? No baffles needed!