I would posit that a square wave is one of the most complicated waveforms that a loudspeaker might be (unreasonably) expected to reproduce. A square wave can be represented by a sum of sine waves, which loudspeakers certainly can handle. Some speakers can even do a good job closely approximating square wave output.
As for your question about a processed 1"+6.5" speaker, well, there are lots of reasons. Bass output, aesthetics, novelty, lobing and interference, uniformity and smoothness of power response, preference for directivity, cost, distortion, SPL, philosophy regarding processing/compensation, sensitivity/power requirements, etc.
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Hello Ben;
I don’t want you to think that I chase after you to pick on you but I whole heartedly disagree with the thought that we simply cannot record and reproduce sound with a high degree of accuracy.
To be sure the recreation of a symphony is more difficult than a single instrument or voice but to say that we CAN NOT do it is just not so.
Before you jump into the “we can’t get “that” convincingly into our living room” argument, not all of us are limited to a standard living room. I am currently listening in a 408,000 cubic foot space, (acoustically large by Manfred Schroder’s definition for wide range music) with a gentle touch of natural reverb and no discernable slap echo until you get within 15-20 feet of the back wall and no audible flutter echo anywhere.
The system is front loaded horns down to the subs which are currently 12 JBL 2242’s direct radiating with combined total system amplifier power of over 15,000 Watts. This system was not built with how loud it will play in mind, rather how accurate and dynamic it could be at realistic live levels
Is it the end all be all? Nope, but it’s much better than most.
I will buy without argument that you may not be able to “get live” with the constrainsts that you have but that doesn’t mean none of us can.
I am becoming more and more interested in what your sound system is comprised of that has you so entrenched in this belief? There must be a solid reason.
Again there is no ill intent meant in the above. This is a subject that I am keenly interested in, have spent a disproportionate amount of my income and time on including audio measurement platforms, measurment equipment and education. A true high fidelity reproduction with live SPL levels and dynamics have been a focus in my life for the last two decades. In just the last couple of years I have finally reached relative satisfaction in that goal.
Barry.
Since you ask, large dipole DIY ESL panels, from 130 Hz up, and below a 6 cu ft sealed box and my new 17-foot labyrinth. And DSP.
17 foot pipe sub 12-230 Hz ±5dB
My bass was better when I ran motional feedback for some decades with a Klipschorn bass. And if I could only have an Ionovac.... wow.
No sense me posting something provocative about ESL panels here. Or motional feedback. Or Ionovacs.
Have you experimented beyond standard technology?
Being able to play as loud as the fire-works Mendelssohn Octet I heard live last night* is a reasonable goal but transient and distortion performance rate a lot higher with me than shaking the walls.
B.
*Orford Quartet. But Heifetz is the gold standard:
YouTube
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I forgot to mention that for 30 years, the ESL panels were driven by a direct high-voltage (2400 VDC) amp with no step-up transformer.
So, like 1audiohack, I've also worked hard for decades to make a quality system. 1audiohack seems to have chosen to enlarge familiar elements albeit designing and making stuff himself (big horns, big amps, and big room) my approach was leading edge*.
B.
*I avoid the obvious French term for fear of sounding too snooty again
So, like 1audiohack, I've also worked hard for decades to make a quality system. 1audiohack seems to have chosen to enlarge familiar elements albeit designing and making stuff himself (big horns, big amps, and big room) my approach was leading edge*.
B.
*I avoid the obvious French term for fear of sounding too snooty again
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Thank you for the reply Ben;
We are definitely on different paths. I have heard some ESL’s that I liked but never found a love for them.
I read your 17 foot sub thread as it developed. That sounds like fun too.
Not much beyond standard I guess. When I was fooled by the JBL SRX sound system I bailed on the audiophile stuff since I wasn’t getting where anywhere near where I wanted to be in the home audio realm.
I have some Danley SoundLabs stuff that is becoming standard though.
The plasma tweeters are a curiosity for sure. I have never pursued a pair.
I don’t out of hand dismiss motional feedback. I stayed conventional on subs after I explored them with a laser position sensor that is accurate to about 0.003” up to 100kHz and found that if they are powered with plenty of headroom and not overdriven they behave better than I thought they would and called it good enough for me.
Front loaded horns are my available favorite but the Danley Boundry Coupled horn loaded subs have knocked me for a loop. They’re next.
My desire is not to just shake the walls, that’s easy. I use the fireworks as one kind of standard since we all pretty much know what they sound like in real life and think that any sound system capable of rendering a quarter stick of TNT popped in the sky with a decent amount of realism will likely be able to recreate percussion instruments convincingly.
My best snare drum reproduction yet comes from horn loaded JBL 2220J’s in pairs with a two thousand Watt amp on them for peak output of about 145dB and at least one large format compression driver per with several hundred Watts available.
The average level is of course far below that.
Again, thank you for maintaining a conversation with me. My desire is always to learn. On rare occasions I feel I might have something to offer and pipe up. Like I said before, this subject hold my attention fast.
All my best,
Barry.
We are definitely on different paths. I have heard some ESL’s that I liked but never found a love for them.
I read your 17 foot sub thread as it developed. That sounds like fun too.
Not much beyond standard I guess. When I was fooled by the JBL SRX sound system I bailed on the audiophile stuff since I wasn’t getting where anywhere near where I wanted to be in the home audio realm.
I have some Danley SoundLabs stuff that is becoming standard though.
The plasma tweeters are a curiosity for sure. I have never pursued a pair.
I don’t out of hand dismiss motional feedback. I stayed conventional on subs after I explored them with a laser position sensor that is accurate to about 0.003” up to 100kHz and found that if they are powered with plenty of headroom and not overdriven they behave better than I thought they would and called it good enough for me.
Front loaded horns are my available favorite but the Danley Boundry Coupled horn loaded subs have knocked me for a loop. They’re next.
My desire is not to just shake the walls, that’s easy. I use the fireworks as one kind of standard since we all pretty much know what they sound like in real life and think that any sound system capable of rendering a quarter stick of TNT popped in the sky with a decent amount of realism will likely be able to recreate percussion instruments convincingly.
My best snare drum reproduction yet comes from horn loaded JBL 2220J’s in pairs with a two thousand Watt amp on them for peak output of about 145dB and at least one large format compression driver per with several hundred Watts available.
The average level is of course far below that.
Again, thank you for maintaining a conversation with me. My desire is always to learn. On rare occasions I feel I might have something to offer and pipe up. Like I said before, this subject hold my attention fast.
All my best,
Barry.
We're all lucky to read Barry's descriptions of his highly dedicated and competent path in life.
There simply is no meaningful definition of reproduced music or fireworks "in my room". To illustrate the point, consider contrary examples that might compute.
1. headphones using kunstkopf or Ambisonics, or a Bauer circuit
2. fireworks played out of doors
3. as in 75 AR demos (like Edison's wax cylinders) of yesteryear, with anechoic recordings, live musicians, and I think, speakers arrayed on the Carnegie Hall stage
Live-vs.-Recorded Demonstrations
4. recordings made in an anechoic chamber.
5. the recent experiments with walls of speakers
If you agree those set-ups make "real" sense, then a stereo loudspeaker system does not.
The other night at the Mendelssohn Octet (two string quartets exactly), I sat next to a cello teacher. I asked her if the cellos sounded at her seat sounded like the cello she plays. She laughed and told me that professional musicians always bring along a buddy to judge when auditioning new instruments to buy*.
Also, if Barry is right, fireworks recordings would sound the same (that is, "real") in all rooms and conversely an orchestra could be recorded in any hall and sound the same "real" when played back in his room.
And on a churlish note, Loftus's research on false memories... one curious fact is that when we have the faultiest memory of a crime scene or whatever we tend to be the most confident in our testimony. I think there is something like "reproduced sound characteristic" that we identify as "real". We just don't have much memory. Like if I asked if the location of say, a flute could be localized attending at a concert hall, everybody would say, "you bet".
But even with ESL speakers, I've never passed the "down the hall" test**. And that's the real real test. On the other hand, lots of great quality sound from my systems, but I don't think it is "real".
B.
*It is possible that pop drum kit musicians do know the sound of their instrument as posted earlier. But i doubt it.
** even while listening from down the hallway from your music room, you could not tell if Diana Krall is singing there or a recording; this is an easier test to pass than actually listening inside the music room
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Hmmm. I’m having difficulty interpreting your tone as written and can’t guess the whole of your intended meaning.
I don’t mean to infer that if you simply play a recording of a symphony loud enough that you would fool anyone that it was all in ones living room.
The larger and or more dynamic the original event, and the smaller the reproducer and or the space to attempt replay, the more difficult the problem.
Two days ago at the big shop a song that hasn’t come ‘round on the random PC sourced playlist for so long I forgot it was even on there came up, six words sung before any accompaniment and the realism caused me to stop with a jolt and look at the sound stage.
Even though I was in my own environment and eighty feet from the big horn speaker system, the realism was startling. Real enough to make me turn on my heels and look, and then laugh at myself.
In my mind, that’s what this is all about. For me good audio is a genuine pursuit of happiness, one that only recently seems within reach.
My best.
Barry.
I don’t mean to infer that if you simply play a recording of a symphony loud enough that you would fool anyone that it was all in ones living room.
The larger and or more dynamic the original event, and the smaller the reproducer and or the space to attempt replay, the more difficult the problem.
Two days ago at the big shop a song that hasn’t come ‘round on the random PC sourced playlist for so long I forgot it was even on there came up, six words sung before any accompaniment and the realism caused me to stop with a jolt and look at the sound stage.
Even though I was in my own environment and eighty feet from the big horn speaker system, the realism was startling. Real enough to make me turn on my heels and look, and then laugh at myself.
In my mind, that’s what this is all about. For me good audio is a genuine pursuit of happiness, one that only recently seems within reach.
My best.
Barry.
Somehow you played what I assume is the familiar cooked studio close-mic'ed recording (AKA over-produced with the woman's sibilants turned up sky-high) or even a purist direct-to-bits master and played it back in your space at 80 feet after removing the cooking and you were amused, as you say, to find the singer was not standing there.
I've played lots of things that rivet my attention and peak my aural delight and make me want to sit down and listen*. But I've never mistaken the experience for the real thing.
Anybody have an anechoic recording link for us to try?
B.
* try this percussion piece, "Threads" by Paul Lansky:
Paul Lansky: Threads - So Percussion
Barry - So Perussion is touring in Nevada on Apr 13th
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Guys, you depart from the natural and go into the esoteric. A horn is just a coupler, an acoustic impedance that is also a wavewguide, a direct radiator is just a membrane moving the air. And so on. There is frequency, there is phase and there is pressure. That is all there is at the original event. Then there are player, signal processing and amplification, a speaker system and an acoustic environment where all this works. Any phase coherent an linear reproducing system placed in a favorable environment will give you realistic reproduction. In my last post here (Post 98*) I elaborated quite a bit to show that percusions are no black magic to record and reproduce, there is quite manageable initial sound around 2 kHz and then there is also quite simple close to sinusoidal low frequency vibration. Given that they are equally well designed, the difference between a two way 8 in bass/paper cone tweeter LR-2@5 kHz and a sofisticated 4-way is only the SPL and the dynamic range. Obviously both systems will differ in maximum SPL and the distance to listener where the pursued realism will occur. There are enough two way systems that do the magic with some coloration. Place them in wall and remove the back cover and you will have it all, just quieter.
It only takes some educated tweakeing to narrow it all to the recordings.
Square wave? No problem if it is short enough and the speaker has enough frequency headroom.
All only takes a good HF driver, a soft bass driver and a decent and linear midrange mounted in a proper cabinet tith time aligned crossover. A beginer could nail it from the first attempt. DC to infinity is within reach with 16 Hz Fs bass and a 200 kHz ribbon tweeter - both readily available. Amplifiers upwards of 300 watts per channel and 3 db of dynamic headroom are also available.
*I found small error in adding times, I added quarter vave only twice to calculate the full vavelenght time period, but otherwise nothing changes.
It only takes some educated tweakeing to narrow it all to the recordings.
Square wave? No problem if it is short enough and the speaker has enough frequency headroom.
All only takes a good HF driver, a soft bass driver and a decent and linear midrange mounted in a proper cabinet tith time aligned crossover. A beginer could nail it from the first attempt. DC to infinity is within reach with 16 Hz Fs bass and a 200 kHz ribbon tweeter - both readily available. Amplifiers upwards of 300 watts per channel and 3 db of dynamic headroom are also available.
*I found small error in adding times, I added quarter vave only twice to calculate the full vavelenght time period, but otherwise nothing changes.
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Then you try to synthesize a kick drum, a grand piano and a saxophone with only sine waves through a two way book shelf speaker....
http://www.ness-music.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ISMA_Bilbao2.pdf
Strange thing that musical instruments exhibit nonlinear behavior, when all there is "is frequency phase and pressure". It seems that you can not synthesize musical instruments in a credible way without taking nonlinear acoustics into account.
A normal direct radiating loudspeaker can not recreate complex nonlinear waveforms in a credible way, regardless of "frequency, phase and pressure". It is not simply a series of linear harmonic overtones. It is complex nonlinear waveforms. Compare the simple motion of a pendulum with the waves from a storm whipped sea breaking onto a rocky coastline.
I would like to see a one inch dome tweeter displacing (1700x1,2) 2040cm3 of air with its tiny 6,2cm2 radiating surface area in 0.0002727 seconds as per your example above....
This would be required for a true reproduction of the nonlinear shock wave from a well recorded strike on a kick drum.
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OK I don't think further discussion with you will be fruitful in any way so I will wrap up in short.
You are completely incorrect in your every guess.
Sorry that your 30 years of exploring the "leading edge" has netted you a sound system that won't even render a cell phone ring tone believably.
Barry
A shock wave does not propagate far before the SPL is too low to be a shock wave any longer. What we hear in the far field is ordinary linear acoustics. This improper use of the term non-linear is common.
So a saxophone will sound like a simple series of harmonic sine waves a few meters from the loudspeaker?
Fireworks will sound like a dull resonance a few meters from a loudspeaker?
It is not about creating chock waves with our speakers. It is about recreating complex non sinusoidal waveforms. You can easily hear the typical sound character of nonlinear acoustic effects recorded and played back at much lower sound pressure levels, without the need for recreating the nonlinear effects.
Can you differentiate between a ragged complex non sinusoidal wave form and a sine wave?
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