Horn Speakers at Munich High End 2016

[DaveC]

This goes beyond aspects of horn speaker behaviour, into system characteristics: if a system doesn't subjectively compress as the volume is raised - something I address by optimising the electronics

Umm, no. Not at all. Never going to happen.

While I understand you are happy with the results you have gotten modding electronics and I agree there is a huge improvement in sound that can be realized by simplifying the signal path and using high quality parts, you can't modify the speaker's inherent behavior by modifying the electronics. That should be very obvious.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: You assume you have reached some level of performance others have not, but it's certainly possible the opposite is true and many here have far better systems than you do. Just something to think about...

 

[Al M.]

Umm, no. Not at all. Never going to happen.

While I understand you are happy with the results you have gotten modding electronics and I agree there is a huge improvement in sound that can be realized by simplifying the signal path and using high quality parts, you can't modify the speaker's inherent behavior by modifying the electronics. That should be very obvious.

Just like it should be very obvious that the best electronics will not overcome inherent problems with the room the system is in. If I understand Frank correctly, if the system performs right the room doesn't matter. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[DaveC]

Just like it should be very obvious that the best electronics will not overcome inherent problems with the room the system is in. If I understand Frank correctly, if the system performs right the room doesn't matter. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And according to fas42 the speaker doesn't seem to matter either while most people find the speaker and room to be the dominant factors. This is, unfortunately, an impossibility... a stereo is a system and all parts of it matter.

 

[ddk]

Hello David

OK so we are not that far off at all. I absolutely love my 4344's! I consider them a reference system and will always keep them. I hear you on the sensitivity I use E-145's in my baseline set-up which gives me a 98db starting point like the DD5500 same woofer. The sensitivity issue is two fold. You can't get bass out of a woofer without mass and of course they have changed the horns to CD which is a real game changer. If you compare say the 4344 design to a 4430 the horns and woofers used are key to the sensitivity differences.

The 4344/4345 had a biamp option and if you look at the power requirements and sensitivity the top end 2122 and up were based around the 10" mid-range's sensitivity. The horns and UHF driver were padded to match that. They were straight up pads with no response tailoring. If you look at the 4430 which as the replacement it completely changes. Because the 4430 uses a CD horn you have to set up a network that effectively performs a passive EQ on the response so you trade off efficiency to flatten the on axis and off axis response of the compression driver horn combo. The use of CD horns/ wave-guides has contributed to the drop in sensitivity because of the response tailoring needed to use this type of horn.

Rob

I never liked that bi-radial horn, its bad! Bi-amping is fine when using the same amplifiers and there can be sonic benefits in some cases but you run into integration issues when you you use different ones specially when mixing tubes and ss amps on the same speaker. 4344/4355 are efficient enough my 18 watt Lamm SETs easily drive them. I'm even driving my JBL B460 subs with another pair of Lamm ML2's, that 2245H is a beauty.

david

 

[fas42]

And according to fas42 the speaker doesn't seem to matter either while most people find the speaker and room to be the dominant factors. This is, unfortunately, an impossibility... a stereo is a system and all parts of it matter.

Where I differ from most audio enthusiasts is that very early on I chanced on getting a system to a level where the room didn't matter, subjectively. And since I did this with speakers of just reasonable quality the lesson was obvious, to me - there will be an impact by the speaker quality, and room behaviour; but it is of a far lower order that other criteria - now and then I come across a system which shows me where I can get better performance purely by virtue of the speakers being exceptional, but this only occurs but rarely; normally disturbing audible artifacts so dominate the end product of sound that that I can't get past the problems I hear, I'm too aware of the system misbehaving.

All parts of a system matter, yes - but it's the relative importance of each of them that is key; for most it's speaker and room, for me it's the electronics chain prior to the drivers. All my experiments where I have deliberately used low quality parts, to everyone's amusement , have demonstrated that over and over again - you see, I understand exactly what Steve heard on those Bionor speakers, because that type of sound is what my goal always is - I heard that happen 30 years ago, and my efforts ever since are always to replicate that quality. The intriguing thing when a system works that well is that then the room, etc, seem irrelevant, they don't play a major role - unless very deep bass is being asked for, then one would have to worry ... but that type of bass has never been my thing, hence not an issue.

 

[Al M.]

Where I differ from most audio enthusiasts is that very early on I chanced on getting a system to a level where the room didn't matter, subjectively.

Seriously? I just did some further experimenting with carpets behind my speakers up to the front wall that I am looking at from my seat (the speaker drivers are about 7 feet from the front wall) and the influence on imaging (more forward vs. more recessed) and high frequency response is profound. It's simple acoustics, and no electronics will change that.

Unless the electronics do not allow for spatial information about the soundstage in the recording to come through. Then the room acoustics do not make much difference for imaging. I had that situation before I got my external power supplies for the amps, but now that the electronics have improved and all the electronic noise is removed that prevented low-level spatial info to come through, the room does make a profound difference on spatial presentation.

So, contrary to your claims, as electronics get better, the room plays a more important role. If it doesn't in your case then your electronics aren't good enough.

 

[bonzo75]

I think I will shoe horn Apogee Grands into my current place since room doesn't matter.

 

[microstrip]

Seriously? I just did some further experimenting with carpets behind my speakers up to the front wall that I am looking at from my seat (the speaker drivers are about 7 feet from the front wall) and the influence on imaging (more forward vs. more recessed) and high frequency response is profound. It's simple acoustics, and no electronics will change that.

Unless the electronics do not allow for spatial information about the soundstage in the recording to come through. Then the room acoustics do not make much difference for imaging. I had that situation before I got my external power supplies for the amps, but now that the electronics have improved and all the electronic noise is removed that prevented low-level spatial info to come through, the room does make a profound difference on spatial presentation.

So, contrary to your claims, as electronics get better, the room plays a more important role. If it doesn't in your case then your electronics aren't good enough.

IMHO it is not worth debating which plays a more important role, as the arguments are too specific to each situation being described and our preferences and sound priorities are very different. There is a lot more in sound reproduction than noise and frequency response. In my particular room I have found that electronics can do lot more for believability than sound treatments. Just inserting the wrong combination of electronics can make the system unlistenable with many recordings.

 

[fas42]

Seriously? I just did some further experimenting with carpets behind my speakers up to the front wall that I am looking at from my seat (the speaker drivers are about 7 feet from the front wall) and the influence on imaging (more forward vs. more recessed) and high frequency response is profound. It's simple acoustics, and no electronics will change that.

Unless the electronics do not allow for spatial information about the soundstage in the recording to come through. Then the room acoustics do not make much difference for imaging. I had that situation before I got my external power supplies for the amps, but now that the electronics have improved and all the electronic noise is removed that prevented low-level spatial info to come through, the room does make a profound difference on spatial presentation.

So, contrary to your claims, as electronics get better, the room plays a more important role. If it doesn't in your case then your electronics aren't good enough.

Al, it's more complex than simple acoustics - even though I've been exploring this audio behaviour for 3 decades, on and off, I didn't understand what the underlying mechanism was in human hearing that makes all this happen - until a couple of months ago. The 'answer' is what the research field of Auditory Scene Analysis is currently very active in investigating - that how we perceive what we hear is a balance of what the brain 'expects' to hear next, correlated with what actually hits our ear drums; a large part of what we subjectively hear is actually 'manufactured' inside our minds, it's a completely automatic process, learned through a lifetime of hearing.

Why good audio works, subjectively, is that it mimics the quality of sound that live acoustic events produce - our brains take this on board and happily allow the illusion to fully manifest - but too many artifacts in the sound disturb this automatic acceptance, and the sound doesn't "work" - it just sounds like another hifi system.

How to get rid of the artifacts? One solution, that many people use, is to manipulate the room environment so that the disturbances are less obvious in the position where you're listening; the other, that I use, is to stop them being output into the room at all. The end result, to the listener is very similar: the acoustic and space of the recording takes over, becomes the dominating sound to one's hearing. My way is difficult, because every little thing matters, and often one has to get under the hood of the electronics to solve things; working from the outside so to speak limits the options, so then, yes, working with the room acoustics may be the smart way to go ...

 

[Zero000]

I think I will shoe horn Apogee Grands into my current place since room doesn't matter.

I nearly put Amphitryons and later on Divas in my limited space. Hell, they're just taller after all...

 

[Al M.]

My way is difficult, because every little thing matters, and often one has to get under the hood of the electronics to solve things; working from the outside so to speak limits the options, so then, yes, working with the room acoustics may be the smart way to go ...

Frank, you don't understand. Things in my system have improved from under the hood of the electronics, from the inside so to speak, and the room became more important. See my previous post. It's logical, if you think about it.

 

[DaveC]

Frank, you don't understand. Things in my system have improved from under the hood of the electronics, from the inside so to speak, and the room became more important. See my previous post. It's logical, if you think about it.

Again, +1... Once your electronics are to the point they preserve all the fine detail with little distortion, and you have speakers that are resolving enough, the next thing you need is an acoustic environment that allows you to hear the detail. With conventional direct radiator speakers the acoustic environment is critical to getting very good results. Many horn speakers are very directional and are less sensitive to the room, so a different strategy of treatment is also needed. For example, first reflection points might not even be an issue at all with some horns.

 

[fas42]

Frank, you don't understand. Things in my system have improved from under the hood of the electronics, from the inside so to speak, and the room became more important. See my previous post. It's logical, if you think about it.

Al, we're coming from different angles - and this is where one might need to listen to what the other thought was good sound to fully appreciate the points of view. Interestingly, I have literally just come back from a good afternoon and evening with the local audio friend, with significant movement forward for his system. And where were the gains made? Not in the slightest for the listening area, or speakers - but all in the area of the quality of the connections between the component parts ... we were listening to classic Oscar Peterson recordings, and his system was in a good enough zone that it was easy to demonstrate where the quality was being lost in this single problem area. You want detail? His system was swimming in detail, but the losses from this weakness were disturbing the clarity and "comfortableness" of that detail - it meant the difference, when running at high volume, between being totally engrossed, immersed in the sound, versus somewhat disconnected and apart from the musical goings on ...

 

[jkeny]

The resolution to this conflict about room Vs electronics may well be explained by Auditory Scene Analysis as Frank said.

Fundamentally, we construct what we perceive as hearing. This construction is based on processing of & the interrelationships between elements of the soundfield. As I understand it, we can cope with & adjust for certain types of anomalies in the signals if these anomalies are consistent. In other words a room has a certain characteristic sound that is always the same & we subconsciously adjust for this characteristic. It doesn't interfere with the believability of the reproduction - afterall, it's what we are used to on a day to day basis - listening to people speak in different acoustic spaces - & we've learned this & built mechanisms to adjust for it.

However, if there are anomalies created in the electronics that vary based on the signal being processed, then we are less able to adjust for these & they interfere with the believability of the sound. Such anomalies are not encountered in the world of non-electronic reproduction & therefore they are much more likely to confuse our auditory perception. So, elements like, jitter & noise modulation, which are all signal-dependent lead to much less believability than certain room nodes or room characteristics do.

I believe that the general principle applies - if a low-level anomaly is regular or predictable then, within reason, we internally adjust for it in our processing & it becomes relatively invisible to our auditory perception. That's not to say that if this anomaly is removed we don't notice it - we do! Its what makes this hobby so interesting & what makes continual improvement possible - the discovery of & removal of smaller & smaller issues.

I believe that fully grasping the concept that "what we hear" is actually more correctly stated as "what we process" will lead to a better resolution of such issues.

Edit: If we treat hearing, not as a human perception, but as a learning machine that processes signals in a particular way (processing that we don't yet fully grasp), then we will make better progress in our understanding & ultimately in what makes for a "better reproduction illusion". We are too constrained by the concept of our abilities to instantly recognise frequency & amplitude differences & not so invested in how we might be processing signals over longer periods of time & how some discrepancies between these longer term relationships of the signals can lead to "less believability". This leads to the usual forum fights.​

I'm not saying that room treatments don't matter - it's just a case of how we process these aspects differently & how they are perceived in different ways

 

[DaveC]

The resolution to this conflict about room Vs electronics may well be explained by Auditory Scene Analysis as Frank said.

Fundamentally, we construct what we perceive as hearing. This construction is based on processing of & the interrelationships between elements of the soundfield. As I understand it, we can cope with & adjust for certain types of anomalies in the signals if these anomalies are consistent. In other words a room has a certain characteristic sound that is always the same & we subconsciously adjust for this characteristic. It doesn't interfere with the believability of the reproduction - afterall, it's what we are used to on a day to day basis - listening to people speak in different acoustic spaces - & we've learned this & built mechanisms to adjust for it.

However, if there are anomalies created in the electronics that vary based on the signal being processed, then we are less able to adjust for these & they interfere with the believability of the sound. Such anomalies are not encountered in the world of non-electronic reproduction & therefore they are much more likely to confuse our auditory perception. So, elements like, jitter & noise modulation, which are all signal-dependent lead to much less believability than certain room nodes or room characteristics do.

I believe that the general principle applies - if a low-level anomaly is regular or predictable then, within reason, we internally adjust for it in our processing & it becomes relatively invisible to our auditory perception. That's not to say that if this anomaly is removed we don't notice it - we do! Its what makes this hobby so interesting & what makes continual improvement possible - the discovery of & removal of smaller & smaller issues.

I believe that fully grasping the concept that "what we hear" is actually more correctly stated as "what we process" will lead to a better resolution of such issues.

Edit: If we treat hearing, not as a human perception, but as a learning machine that processes signals in a particular way (processing that we don't yet fully grasp), then we will make better progress in our understanding & ultimately in what makes for a "better reproduction illusion". We are too constrained by the concept of our abilities to instantly recognise frequency & amplitude differences & not so invested in how we might be processing signals over longer periods of time & how some discrepancies between these longer term relationships of the signals can lead to "less believability". This leads to the usual forum fights.​

I'm not saying that room treatments don't matter - it's just a case of how we process these aspects differently & how they are perceived in different ways

I agree with that, it's very important to understand if you're designing equipment, especially speakers. Toole spoke a lot about that in his last presentation on video. But it's not so simple... you can't just lump everything having to do with the room into one category. Some things matter a lot, and others that you might think would matter from understanding the physics, simply aren't audible.

The truth is, fine detail and spatial information can get lost due to room acoustics, especially with direct radiator speakers. Speakers often have flaws or cost saving measures that reduce their ability to suspend disbelief in the listener. The best designers know exactly what contributes to what. Frank is starting to figure it out with electronics, great. So have many... but maybe he'll get further if he starts looking at the whole thing in terms of a complete system, because it's all important. And low cost electronics have issues you can't just mod away either.

Look, it's no secret to me or many people that stock, inexpensive electronics can be improved on. The system I'm listening to right now is all my design from source output to driver input, except for the bass amp. I don't modify cheap electronics, I build my own high end electronics. I know exactly what Frank is saying and he's half right, but missing a big part of the picture as well.

OK, even though speakers don't matter can we get back to talking about horn speakers?

 

[Steve Williams]

There were many hor speakers on display at THE Show.. Some were very good and others only so so

I liked the Acapella I heard on display by Audio Federation.

 

[Al M.]

I know exactly what Frank is saying and he's half right, but missing a big part of the picture as well.

That sums it up nicely.

Also, just posted on the thread "A Huge WBF Shoutout To JackD201" (what a nice coincidence as it fits right here; emphasis added):

I feel very fortunate to be friends with Jack. He made me realize first hand the wonders of having a proper music room. It was my experience in his room that seeded my mind into building a new music room. At that time, my wife was telling me to renovate my aging music room. But my time in Jack's room made me desire a new and bigger room. To make sure my project manager, contractor, and interior designer fully understand what I wanted, Jack generously hosted the team for a listen in his room. They all tremendously enjoyed the experience and remarked how three hours seemed to just fly by. Whatever enjoyment I derive from being an audiophile now is due to Jack making me realize how far a room can bring a system. Thank you Jack.

 

[jkeny]

I agree with that, it's very important to understand if you're designing equipment, especially speakers. Toole spoke a lot about that in his last presentation on video. But it's not so simple... you can't just lump everything having to do with the room into one category. Some things matter a lot, and others that you might think would matter from understanding the physics, simply aren't audible.

The truth is, fine detail and spatial information can get lost due to room acoustics, especially with direct radiator speakers. Speakers often have flaws or cost saving measures that reduce their ability to suspend disbelief in the listener. The best designers know exactly what contributes to what. Frank is starting to figure it out with electronics, great. So have many... but maybe he'll get further if he starts looking at the whole thing in terms of a complete system, because it's all important. And low cost electronics have issues you can't just mod away either.

Look, it's no secret to me or many people that stock, inexpensive electronics can be improved on. The system I'm listening to right now is all my design from source output to driver input, except for the bass amp. I don't modify cheap electronics, I build my own high end electronics. I know exactly what Frank is saying and he's half right, but missing a big part of the picture as well.

OK, even though speakers don't matter can we get back to talking about horn speakers?

Sure, after I posted I looked at the thread title & realised it's about horn speakers. Maybe another thread on this topic would be beneficial - Is there a fundamental difference between room/speakers & electronics as far as believability goes?

 

[fas42]

A very quick, last word, with relevance to horn speakers - the aim is convincing sound, and nearly every expensive, ambitious system I have come across has failed, and often badly, in this area. Horn speakers, for a variety of reasons, make the job so much easier and hence are worth pursuing as a very valid technique to use ...

 

[ddk]

I agree with that, it's very important to understand if you're designing equipment, especially speakers. Toole spoke a lot about that in his last presentation on video. But it's not so simple... you can't just lump everything having to do with the room into one category. Some things matter a lot, and others that you might think would matter from understanding the physics, simply aren't audible.

The truth is, fine detail and spatial information can get lost due to room acoustics, especially with direct radiator speakers. Speakers often have flaws or cost saving measures that reduce their ability to suspend disbelief in the listener. The best designers know exactly what contributes to what. Frank is starting to figure it out with electronics, great. So have many... but maybe he'll get further if he starts looking at the whole thing in terms of a complete system, because it's all important. And low cost electronics have issues you can't just mod away either.

Look, it's no secret to me or many people that stock, inexpensive electronics can be improved on. The system I'm listening to right now is all my design from source output to driver input, except for the bass amp. I don't modify cheap electronics, I build my own high end electronics. I know exactly what Frank is saying and he's half right, but missing a big part of the picture as well.

OK, even though speakers don't matter can we get back to talking about horn speakers?

Its best to quantify cheap electronics so we know the category you're referring to, sub 1k, 5k or 10k for amp+pre or integrated model? Depending on the brand they're not all the same and more expensive parts don't necessarily improve anything and at times can sound worse. IME many (too many!) of high priced (10k+ to ?) branded, extolled electronics have little in common with music or natural sound and are mostly about hifi so price isn't an indicator of good or bad sound.

Getting back to horn speakers, the same is true, sum of parts are not a guarantee for success as one can see from the many high priced TAD, GIP & Gotto based modern horn speakers that don't perform properly. Blending compression drivers and cone drivers remains a problem for most of the designs and no amount massaging, active, passive or digital can't fix the integration problem. No one that I know is making light and efficient cones to keep up with compression drivers.

david