Parry and thrust! It is going to take me a while to get this image out of my mind.
"If you don't have a $200k [speaker]..."
- Thread starter Gregadd
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I think people are missing out on a great opportunity here. Some intrepid and generous Wilson owner needs to host a shootout with an O/96 owner in the spirit of audio camaraderie and in the interest of audio science, or at least in the interest of audio entertainment. It would be the Battle of the Boxes. David vs. Goliath. Who wouldn’t want to buy a ticket to see that?!
Matt
Matt
i think everyone who has an expensive set up has the ability to buy just for kicks an used O96 and NAF 2a3 integrated and play for a few days, then sell back used if they don’t like it. The fact that they won’t do it because “seriously dude I have 100k speakers and 100k amps, like big you know and you expect me to indulge in this foolery” is what stops them
""""""SHOOT OUT '''''''' some people still don t get it .
Its not about shoot out , but its about what you like to listen too .
Its not about shoot out , but its about what you like to listen too .
Room is one thing, recordings are another. system approach and evaluation changes the more you learn about recordings and use better vinyl recordings for evaluation.
One, you could build a system to play good recordings and performances, or
Two: you could play recordings that excite a certain frequency that is the strength of a particular speaker. Like boom chik boom chik boom boom chik.
I’m sure that’s the case with some people, but surely there’s some owners out there with good spirit and a sense of humor about such an event. O/96 partisans can dress up in peasant garb and Wilson partisans can wear top hats and monocles. Light refreshments could be served, maybe even alcohol?
Matt
An often neglected point. Broad frequency midrange drivers need some square inches to deliver. Most box speakers, the midrange is just too small. Larger surface areas allow transient intensity without having the diaphragm excursions move far. Many think this is applicable to woofers alone, but I think many box speakers starve their midrange square inches.
The 75 inch ribbons in Pendragon cover a wide midrange frequency range, and have effective (dipole) radiating surface of 144 sq inches.
This is simply not true. If you look at an impulse coming from a properly setup Alexia V or higher, The drivers are perfectly lined up to deliver that impulse to arrive at the listener’s ear at precisely the right time. Very few loudspeakers do this as well as Wilson due to their nomograph technology based on the ability of the drivers to move back and forth and up and down. When timing is correct, instruments are reproduced properly in terms from the mic doing the recording. So soundstaging is very precise. You now have precise spatial cues.
In other words, an impulse leaving from tweeter, mid, and woofer to arrive in perfect alignment must involve the adjustable drivers like Wilson uniquely does although some speakers do a partial job of it.
As for phase and frequency response, separate neural pathways control path in terms of a listener’s perception. It’s very hard to hear and process phase information. It’s different for timing. I believe the timing element is there due to inherent safety reasons, ala fight or flight.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
I like the three P's
Properly
Perfectly
Precise
I just read the manual of the XVX that has infinite number of combinations can be done with the 3 P's. As I am sure you are aware of that when you change one you may need to change them all. The drivers move up and down, left and right and front to back, per haps someone much smarter than I can do the math on how many possibilities that equals to make them proper, perfect and precise.
Oh wait my wife moved the chair to clean LOL
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Go learn a bit of physics ok and then come back and try to discuss intelligently.
Look at the review from Stereophile. Figure 2 shows the crossover rolloffs. These are clearly steeper than 1st order. Wilson Audio Specialties Alexia V loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com
Then the impulse response in Figure 5 should look like a right triangle but it doesn't because the midrange is going negative when the other drivers are positive. So the tweeter and woofers go out when the mid is going backwards. Compare this with a truly time coherent speaker, the Thiel CS3.6
Thiel CS3.6 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com . In particular, note Figures 2 and 4 (taken at the right microphone height). Figure 4 is a proper right triangle and what a truly phase/time coherent speaker delivers. Do you see the difference??
Thiel and Vandersteen make phase/time coherent speakers because they used first order crossover and staggered/sloped baffles to align acoustic centers. Aligning acoustic centers without getting the crossover right will not lead to time alignment.
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A non-phase coherent speaker can be time coherent if the drivers are physically time-aligned.
No because of the group delay caused by crossover...only 1st order crossovers allow true time alignment passively.
Also, some crossovers, like 2nd order butterworth and Linkwitz-Riley require the inversion of the midrange to account for the phase rotation, otherwise you get a big suckout at the crossover point in the frequency response where the two drivers will cancel each other out. If you invert then the two add but the drivers are going opposite directions. This can be seen clearly in the Alexia's impulse response where the midrange goes negative and woofer and tweeter are positive going.
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Right, you need a high order crossover filters to cancel group delay. You are technically correct that it won't be absolute zero without DSP. But I don't think the poster you're chastising is so egregiously incorrect as to deserve a flogging.
Ummm...high order filters introduce even more group delay. This is why a 4th order Linkwitz-Riley filter, although phase coherent, will not work for time-alignment as the 360 degree phase rotation introduces a lot of group delay. The driver offset needed to get the time alignment would be quite large and not practical with box speaker. It doesn't look like wilson is using such a filter because A) the sloes aren't that steep in the frequency response plot in Stereophile and B) you would not invert the midrange with a 4th order design.
IME, more often than not, you get what you pay for. That doesn't mean that the $ / enjoyment level is linear especially at higher $$, but, (as others have said), with speakers and especially so at higher SPLs, size matters. Rock bands don't have mini speakers as output for the audience, an orchestra isn't 2 guys with a kazoo and if you've ever heard a sax or trumpet in person, you'll agree you need large multi - driver dynamic - capable, low - distortion transducers to yield real - world sonics.
All that said, or course there are variations in quality and personal preference that make speakers at any price point more of a bargain (or not). But a Yugo isn't a Bentley and there's good reason for it. ;-)
All that said, or course there are variations in quality and personal preference that make speakers at any price point more of a bargain (or not). But a Yugo isn't a Bentley and there's good reason for it. ;-)
Yes of course - typo/brain-fart. But you understood what I meant. Something like a Bessel filter.
I actually saw these charts before my reply. In fact, JA likes the performance and says this:
”In the time domain, the step response on the optimal axis at 1m (fig.5) reveals that the tweeter and woofers are connected in positive acoustic polarity, the midrange unit in negative polarity. (I confirmed this by looking at the individual step response of each unit.) The decay of the tweeter's step smoothly blends with the negative-going start of the midrange unit's step and the decay of the midrange unit's step blends almost as smoothly with the positive-going start of the woofers' step. This suggests optimal crossover implementation. Finally, the cumulative spectral-decay plot at 1m on the optimal axis (fig.6) shows a relatively clean initial decay but low-level ridges of delayed energy at 2.76kHz and 6.28kHz.
So the way I read this is that JA is quite happy with the time domain performance.
The reality is that perfectly aligning the drivers via the nomograph is the most precise way to align the impulse across the driverto arrive at the listener’s ear.
P.S. The Thiel 3.6s, as good as they were decades ago, don’t hold a candle to Alexia V performance.
As I stated earlier I love the O/96s. I think they sound great. But as good as they are, I don’t believe they reach the performance of the Alexia V. There are a lot of great speakers. I like the Joseph Audio and Harbeth speakers too. But I think have to give credit to those manufacturers who are doing a lot of innovative engineering and reaching new heights of performance.
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