About small loudspeaker being good at imaging i think this doesn't come entirely from dispersion but it has to do with physical dimensions which are tiny: box and drivers are small.
This have an effect in that the space needed ( distance of source to you) for the two source of a typical 2 way to sum is smaller than for bigger loudspeaker.
It makes them more 'coherent' when used nearfield ( which is the domain of use of small drivers). Of course you still have center to center spacing issues but nonetheless they seems more coherent from stereophony point.
The ultimate in this being coax drivers as you can have them 50cm away from your ears and they sum coherently because of the no center to center distance. And they are known to be very good at stereo image stability.
For the one i own and listen daily ( at the moment) one thing is sure, they can pinpoint image when required ( electronic music) but doesn't show off artificial pinpoint of natural recorded source despite being 'small' box in my view ( something like 30cm width x 45cm×35cm).
Not as good as my 'big' three ways with wide baffle ( 54cm widthx 80cm x 40cm) regarding natural source but encouraging to use coax with a bigger box ( and driver) than the one i have (Tannoy system 800).
This have an effect in that the space needed ( distance of source to you) for the two source of a typical 2 way to sum is smaller than for bigger loudspeaker.
It makes them more 'coherent' when used nearfield ( which is the domain of use of small drivers). Of course you still have center to center spacing issues but nonetheless they seems more coherent from stereophony point.
The ultimate in this being coax drivers as you can have them 50cm away from your ears and they sum coherently because of the no center to center distance. And they are known to be very good at stereo image stability.
For the one i own and listen daily ( at the moment) one thing is sure, they can pinpoint image when required ( electronic music) but doesn't show off artificial pinpoint of natural recorded source despite being 'small' box in my view ( something like 30cm width x 45cm×35cm).
Not as good as my 'big' three ways with wide baffle ( 54cm widthx 80cm x 40cm) regarding natural source but encouraging to use coax with a bigger box ( and driver) than the one i have (Tannoy system 800).
What do you call poor dispersion Celef? Not 180* coverage?
You seems to imply that imaging is only possible with wide coverage angle design.
This is not my experience but maybe this is a translation issue, or we are talking about different things here?
Eg the Tannoy system 800 have a 90* conical dispersion @ 1,8khz and up and compared to the 3 way i own which are typical wide spread dispersion in my view there is no contest, Tannoy wins easily about imaging if this is the only point of comparison (They have much less 'clarity' wrt mid freq than the 3 way, way much impact in low end ( not fair to compare 15" to 8"...),...).
Hello,
This thread needs a glossary. Directivity is the correct word.
Remember for a given piston driver, as the frequency increases the directivity gradually narrows. At the crossover frequency the ring tweeter has much wider directivity than the woofer. There is an abrupt discontinuity in the power curve at the crossover frequency.
Most ears have a strong preference for smooth directivity transitions and smooth power curves.
Thanks DT
Speaker directivity / off axis response: theory and measurement techniques - Acoustic Frontiers
This thread needs a glossary. Directivity is the correct word.
Remember for a given piston driver, as the frequency increases the directivity gradually narrows. At the crossover frequency the ring tweeter has much wider directivity than the woofer. There is an abrupt discontinuity in the power curve at the crossover frequency.
Most ears have a strong preference for smooth directivity transitions and smooth power curves.
Thanks DT
Speaker directivity / off axis response: theory and measurement techniques - Acoustic Frontiers
You imply that room reflections equals imaging, but no.
We are using the term 'spaciousness' to describe the ambience than comes from room reflections. There are good reflections and bad ones. There are good reflection sets and bad ones. Sometimes they make imaging worse and sometimes not.
Good imaging doesn't need one reflection.
Maximally flat on-axis amplitude response then?
KH80DSP suprised me with 8th order crossover, yet excellent depth perception.
Very flat on axis response and good power response.
I was listening at about 40cm from the speakers, 1.5m from the nearest wall.
--edit--
That high order crossovers wouldn't be capable of great imaging, was an idea I had.
I was proven wrong.
KH80DSP suprised me with 8th order crossover, yet excellent depth perception.
Very flat on axis response and good power response.
I was listening at about 40cm from the speakers, 1.5m from the nearest wall.
--edit--
That high order crossovers wouldn't be capable of great imaging, was an idea I had.
I was proven wrong.
Quite a bit of imaginative speculation going on about polar responses, crossovers, and this and that.
I run two large curved near-full-range ESL panels, dipole of course. There is exactly the same amount of sound coming out the back spaced from the walls (as is routine) and bouncing around whatever happens to be different behind each of the panels.
On dual-mono, the virtual image is solidly on a narrow vertical line precisely between the panels. And stays there.* If the influences talked about in this thread mattered, wouldn't that be unexpected?
Here's an experiment. Say in a loud voice, "I believe in depth with single speaker mono" and repeat 6 times. Click your heels. Play mono symphony and see if it doesn't have great depth.
B.
* and the stereo bearing performance is great too
I run two large curved near-full-range ESL panels, dipole of course. There is exactly the same amount of sound coming out the back spaced from the walls (as is routine) and bouncing around whatever happens to be different behind each of the panels.
On dual-mono, the virtual image is solidly on a narrow vertical line precisely between the panels. And stays there.* If the influences talked about in this thread mattered, wouldn't that be unexpected?
Here's an experiment. Say in a loud voice, "I believe in depth with single speaker mono" and repeat 6 times. Click your heels. Play mono symphony and see if it doesn't have great depth.
B.
* and the stereo bearing performance is great too
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Nice setup Ben, I'm a little jealous.
At the beginning of the topic I said I didn't understand dipole speakers and why people would use them. I meant that literally, it was my deficit.
I have enjoyed reading stories about quads very much, so much, that I'm positive I will one day build a pair or two of dipoles on a budget.
Do you happen to know if a cardoid or dipole microphone was used for the recordings you played? Did you experiment with delay?
Thanks for sharing!
At the beginning of the topic I said I didn't understand dipole speakers and why people would use them. I meant that literally, it was my deficit.
I have enjoyed reading stories about quads very much, so much, that I'm positive I will one day build a pair or two of dipoles on a budget.
Do you happen to know if a cardoid or dipole microphone was used for the recordings you played? Did you experiment with delay?
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for nice words. Can't say about recording but I believe it is very hard to find a purist or pure Blumlein recording.
I've experimented in lots of ways very much enabled by an inexpensive Behringer DCX2496 DSP - that I think no system today should be without. Doubt I can remember any answer to any good question you might ask.
B.
It's no problem, really.
Thanks for reminding me Ben.
I might have overshot a little on what I was trying to project here though.......
The KH80 can have a sense of depth to it.
Although I should not be overusing superlatives too soon.
It isn't only wide or narrow what I could perceive.
I think it sounded warm to me.
Thanks for reminding me Ben.
I might have overshot a little on what I was trying to project here though.......
The KH80 can have a sense of depth to it.
Although I should not be overusing superlatives too soon.
It isn't only wide or narrow what I could perceive.
I think it sounded warm to me.
There is a simple experiment I can do with my Jordan VTL speakers, I have them placed well into the room and made them with removable backs so they can make quite reasonable dipoles. With the backs removed there is an increase in spaciousness and field depth with a slight decrease in pinpoint imaging.
Sorry but You need reflections from the Wall behind the speakers to increase image depth
Exactly. The original post was about a speaker's inability to reproduce depth, acoustic space, call it what you will, etc as recorded and not as any function of a listening environment.
There are twelve pages here discussing the wrong thing...
Let me post a few words about perception.
When you look at an oil painting of a barnyard, do you see depth or do you see a flat piece of canvas with paint on it? In a sense, you see depth. And if you looked through a knot hole, you'd see exactly the same thing because two eyes or one eye, same flat painting with same perceptual cues to depth*.
In the same sense, you can hear depth in a recording. But you can hear the same depth with mostly same cues in mono as in stereo. If the oboe sounds soft and vague, must be in the back... when listening in stereo or mono. (A recording engineer can make the oboe mic track sound soft and vague (that's what I call "cooking") but that's phony stereo and phony depth... and that is exactly what is on everybody's recordings that they falsely imagine is hearing depth.)
My guess is that there may be some cues to depth arising from having two ears listening in live listening. So possibly in stereo playback there are some cues which theoretically are beyond mono or dual-mono playback. But (1) these are slight and the whole effort at hearing depth is pretty weak and (2) it seems unlikely to me that you can create a recording made in such as way as to record or preserve those cues.
B.
* looking with two eyes (with stereopsis working), there's less chance of seeing depth because the stereoptic cue says to your brain, "I see flat canvas"
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My problem of lack of perceived depth I had originally thought was something that could be designed into a crossover. Maybe it can with some subtle time or phase shifting. The problem was resolved by moving the speakers closer to the rear wall, and reducing the BST, so my initial thoughts were wrong as the first replies had thought.
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