So, less room influence, more of what is on the recording. Perhaps I'm naive, but that strikes me as a positive.
Do you agree with micro's characterization of the psychoacoustics?
State of the industry - Roy Gregory Editorial
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So, less room influence, more of what is on the recording. Perhaps I'm naive, but that strikes me as a positive.
Do you agree with micro's characterization of the psychoacoustics?
Yes, I understand.
Is that what you want, greater variation from room variables? Does that intercede with recording "ambience"?
Of course less room influence more of recording is a positive. I won't say you are naive, maybe the ones who liked his comment were (or rather, tribal, because I can't see it making sense to anyone).
There is less room influence usually. For example, if altec multicells were close to side walls, there will be lots of reflections and bad. So multicells are usually away from sidewalls. Big horns need space, especially to align coherently to the sitting point. Distances from walls sometimes affect, sometimes not
Good to have my thought confirmed, thanks.
So putting stuff on the walls to "tame" (mitigate?) reflection screws up what's on the recording, taking its energy.
to you and others:
So, bass is generally less directional. Horn directivity coupled with cone woofers would seem to require designer's balancing to support integration. That and to @Tango's comment about seating distance from the speakers. ?
No I won't say that, if there are reflections you manage best by putting stuff on walls, in an ideal scenario there would be none. It is never ideal.
But yes, horn rooms have less treatment if at all. They don't have zero reflections, just less.
Tang's videos sounded awful when he had taken everything off the front wall. He then added back different treatments
Integrating cones and horns is tricky, creating the flat freq graph everyone is so bothered with is easy enough. Creating a time space continuum is the difficult part, getting to a point where the timing is constant over the bandwidt is a serious challenge requiring lots of tinkering. Most manufacturers and DIYers struggle hard or do not even bother to align a tweeter properly.
dunno, we gave up after a couple of (quite elaborate) attempts that were going nowhere. Perhaps I can say something about this after Munich.
Any hybrid horn is a compromise. Then it depends how well that compromise is managed, similar to hybrid electrostats. Otherwise at least till 100 Hz or so when everything is horn loaded it is great. I don't really like the ones with cone loaded midbass woofers and I would rather take a vintage tannoy or devore orangutan or Martin Logan hybrid instead. I also prefer cones to them.
If you explain what exactly is the difference between the two for you sonically I may be able to answer as off the cuff it sounds almost impossible to differentiate between the two by ear, meanwhile let's rephrase into 'driver cooperation optimization' or something similar...I suspect it's a combination of both, there usually are several 'optima's' when adjusting and the challenge is picking the one you like most for the majority of music.
Tim,
I have answered to some of your questions before, I am not repeating it. If someone is really interested in this subject I would advise reading about it the Floyd Toole excellent book "Sound Reproduction- Loudspeakers and Rooms" . Floyd Toole writes extensively on the subject in an independent, non passionate way - we can remember that Harman produces both types of speakers. In order to analyze them, he considers conventional domes/cones and horns.
The physics of both concepts is discussed and some subjective remarks are added. There is so much information on horns spread around the book that it can not be summarized in a few small posts - and unfortunately I do not have the time to do it. One point is sure - directivity, direction control, directivity index are essential to understand and discuss the high efficiency and characteristic sound of horns - they are its origin.
BTW, I am not interested in feeding debates on my speaker is better than yours or what is the best speakers, or I have more experience than you. When I post subjective aspects, it is just my experience and opinion.
I would be very happy if you would write your posts addressing my points directly, not misrepresenting them answering to others . As you should know, these analogies are extremely misleading and I systematically avoid them, going directly to the basics and facts.
You should know you are misleading purposefully as you write. Peter pointed that out too in the context if this discussion alone. This has nothing to do with horns or cones it is your lack of ethics coupled with lack of exposure
I sometimes wonder if this is a hi-fi forum or a debating forum. Is this just argument for the sake of it?
horns have advantages, but also challenges too. not sure i have the grasp on horn tech to be able to articulate where the trade-offs are. i have intuitive dot connecting i could guess about. i'll back out of this discussion before i get too deep and over my head. i do get the very basics......
Andromeda asked for more entertainment. How about discussing horns and videos? I remember after posting some videos of my system a complaint from some was that there was far too much room response masking the ambiance on the recording. The room was far too lively. The critique was that the videos sound the same and are garbled by the overly reflective room. Some wrote that they hear my room and not the music. This is particularly fascinating considering the view that horns interact less with the room due to their directionality. The main aspect of horns according to Mirco is that they are directional and cause less room interaction and fewer reflections. Someone even suggested that horns sound better on videos for this very reason: more direct sound, less reflected sound from the room. Micro responded to Al M that the result from horns is less envelopment, less stage, less width and depth.
I actually hear the opposite from the better horn systems I have heard. Tima likely heard the same out in Utah: greater envelopment, greater information about the context or setting of the performance. Greater width and height on some recordings, less sameness. Of course this likely has much to do with the whole system and set up too.
I can not seem to reconcile the different opinions, so I tend to simply share what I hear and what my experience has been. I do not think it is so much about arguing, but rather that people have different experiences and want to share them in a discussion thread hoping to get better insight into the subject and learn something.
How does all this relate to the state of the industry? I'd say that dispersion, efficiency, and other aspects of speaker designs have really changed over time. These affect amplifier designs. This forum reflects an increase in approaches, both in designs and what people are choosing. And videos are one way people are sharing what they have and how manufacturers and media are increasingly promoting new stuff.
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I tried it but got thrown out of my yoga meditation class. Guess horns aren't my Nirvana.
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