You have a very expensive head with two ears ( and one brain) and you're gonna buy a cheap microphone!?
From your words it seems that a speaker with both linear and non-linear low distortion is not possible
My feeling is that commercial speakers have usually high level of distortion (i do not know if linear or not) especially in the low Hz range.
When i see people prasing the bass from a speaker with a 4" woofer i feel like there is something wrong in this statement.
Simply because most of the listeners have been never exposed to a speaker with real bass ... i have ... a big JBL and i have never heard more real drums Unbelievable but very telling about what bass is.
i think it depends a lot on which kind of music you listen to, the distance from the speakers, the room ... personal preferences.
Imho is important to isolate the very low Hz from the rest of the range.
My ideal speaker is a two box design ... with a bass box and a upper box dealing with mids and highs.
The very fundamental and still open to debate question is the cut frequency between bass and satellite ... i am very very undecided on this issue.
It is my recurrent nightmare ... really.
My target is a 3 ways speaker with conventional drivers. I like a lot ribbon drivers ... but the very good ones are not cheap at all ... Unfortunately
I see 3 ways full range speakers crossing low using cone mids (e.g. about 120 Hz) and other crossing high using dome mids (e.g. about 400-500 Hz).
I really do not know which way to go.
But what i know is that i really want the bass in its own cabinet mechanically decoupled by the satellite. That is a very sane design choice. At least imho of course
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I'm not saying that. However there are issues that I used to believe were harmonic distortions that I now understand are something else. It continues to surprise me how while setting up a speaker I can cause things like a cone hitting the stops, and it is not as bad as I used to expect.
You have a very expensive head with two ears ( and one brain) and you're gonna buy a cheap microphone!?
i see your point. I love instruments. I should have studied acoustics instead of chemistry that scares me deeply.
At an audio fair i met a technician who told me a story.
He had the opportunity to visit a small theater in Milan (do not remember the name) with a particularly good acoustic treatment.
He was shocked about how just a small portable radio was able to fill the room with sound.
I visited many home listening rooms of friends of mine ... someone with a very expensive system. No one was acoustically optimized. I know ... it is a non sense ... but that is.
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That's a good thing, I isolate the tweeter too; also the components of the crossover ( wires, too ).But what i know is that i really want the bass in its own cabinet mechanically decoupled by the satellite. That is a very sane design choice. At least imho of course
i do not think i understand well
... do you mean a cone bottoming out ? that is a disaster leading to damages. Personally i have problems mainly with the lower audio range ... it is very challenging to get a very good bass. Like playback a pipe organ Toccata e fuga in all its glory. Very very difficult. But also very very nice. Exciting.
Hi ! yes indeed ! this one here
one of my favourite tracks for pipe organ YouTube
are there tracks that go lower ?
Anyway, more in general i think that bass Hz are a bad beast ... they need their own "cage" like a tiger ... and above that cage the much less ferocious mids and highs.
To put a big and powerful shaking woofer in the same box with mid and high drivers is a real challenge for vibrations control ... not necessary
I like the bass box plus satellite arrangement a lot ...
imho the sound becomes immediately clearer
Thanks and kind regards,
gino
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"Lord, save Thy People" by Widor goes very low, depending which organ it was played on. It is organ , combined with brass and drums and depending on the capabilities of the reproduction chain - what is intended to sound radiant - is sometimes quickly turning into sounding harsh.
Prelude and fugue on B-A-C-H by Listz is sometimes also very bombastic - and threatening for some peole.
Regards
Charles
Prelude and fugue on B-A-C-H by Listz is sometimes also very bombastic - and threatening for some peole.
Regards
Charles
Hi again ! thanks a lot for the very kind and interesting link.
I will look for a recording of this song. I am always interested in cds also good for testing the limits of a playback system.
Speaking of commercial speakers ... the last bass i liked was the one coming from a pair of JBL L166 Horizon in a small size listening room ... for me it was quite perfect.
Rubbish. They are better than almost any speaker in a small to medium room because they don't splash the walls with sound and have a far more consistent soundstage as you move about the room than anything else I've ever heard.
I own Unitys in a 6x3 room firing down the long axis.
Hi ! yes i am convinced that for a home situation a controlled dispersion can help a lot especially if walls are not treated acoustically. Reflections can be a nightmare. Maybe i should look to horn loaded drivers ?
i really do not see this as a problem. I do not move when i am listening ... i just sit in my chair like i guess everyone else. Also i usually listen alone ... so the sweetspot can be small ... no problem at all
i have seen some pics ... very smart design. Just a single horn loading all the drivers ? i wonder which is the smallest model adopting this concept.
Could you provide me with a link ? thanks a lot again Kind regards gino
“Phase cohesion “ imo is almost always the easiest thing to realize when sitting between the speakers and in front of them.
When the speakers are off axis or have unequal path lengths than phase coherence is a massive undertaking by use of linear phase filters and time delays and other phase tools usually done in fir filtering.
If your situation is optimal and you sit between the speakers it’s extremely easy to get good phase coherence between the pair , even if there’s massive amounts of phase distortion because of high order filters , they still have good coherence as the both have the same path lengths. Using linear phase filters is a completely different subject and shouldn’t necessarily be part of coherence between a stereo set.
Once you add any other angle to either of the speakers things fall apart. And that’s where it gets dicey
When the speakers are off axis or have unequal path lengths than phase coherence is a massive undertaking by use of linear phase filters and time delays and other phase tools usually done in fir filtering.
If your situation is optimal and you sit between the speakers it’s extremely easy to get good phase coherence between the pair , even if there’s massive amounts of phase distortion because of high order filters , they still have good coherence as the both have the same path lengths. Using linear phase filters is a completely different subject and shouldn’t necessarily be part of coherence between a stereo set.
Once you add any other angle to either of the speakers things fall apart. And that’s where it gets dicey
Maybe.
I usually listen alone as well, but what I meant was, that with correct set up, because the side walls are considerably less of an issue, the soundstage is more coherent over a wider area.
In mine, it's only the MF/HF. They're the older Lambda Unitys.
Not to mine. Here are William Cowans original Unity builds which also show some pics of the Unity and explain how they work and their quality. If you imagine these with an additional woofer above (both AE TD15S), you'll get a good idea what mine are like. Mine are 3 way active though.
Here is the final implementation, which I heard some years back, and they are superb. Easily one of the very best systems I have ever heard, DIY or commercial.
There are lots of DIY Unity/Synergy build threads on the forum.
Hi again ! i think that listening to music is a very personal experience ... unless it is a movie or party music of course ... this issue of small sweet spot is really a no issue for me ... but i think i get the point
Thanks for the helpful information. I will look around to find details.
i will study the topic for sure. I am intrigued by the concept. Ambient reflections are really a pain ... if i can limited the acoustic treatment e.g. only to the wall behing the listening spot that would be a great thing ...
I read once that we are not bats ... but still we hear acoustic reflections
I understand bats localize obstacles by means of sound reflections ? so if there are no reflections we do not hear walls and so we get that concert hall effect very very astonishing ...
Thanks again for the all the kind and valuable advice.
wow ...
http://cowanaudio.com/images/finale.gif
if a chain sound great every element of the chain must be great ...
http://cowanaudio.com/images/finale.gif
i have always heard bad things about this brand ... maybe this is an exception ...
if a chain sound great every element of the chain must be great ...
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Depends on the design. Digital XO has the potential with good design to do both frequency and time optimisation. Probably the way of many future commercial designs as it can allow all DSP/DAC/cables/amps to be inside the speaker for cost and aesthetic benefits.
Stereophile measured two Dynaudio 2-ways: one passive and the other DSP active. Time coherence graph sure looks good on the DSP DXO. What sounds better to the listener is another thing.
Hi ! very interesting. Maybe we will see a revolution soon. I watched a video of a loudspeaker manufacturer ... they sell same speaker active or passive ... 90% of the clients prefers the passive one. I guess because they like to play with things ... i am sure a pro would choose the active one ... at least for convenience and reliability
they look both pretty spectacular to me ... maybe just mounting the tweeter a little recessed inside a horn would have improved the graph for the passive unit. I am looking at horn loaded tweeters as well.
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