Stereophile | January 2017 Issue

[NorthStar]

I should change the thread's title to ... Seamless Sound ... lol
It's all good...perfect transition from 2016 to 2017.

 

[RogerD]

It is not impossible to have a multi driver system be seamless in it's presentation. If you have a noiseless system the dispersion characteristics of any driver is greatly enhanced. I have 23 drivers and together they are seamless,dependent only on the recording. Most classical or well recorded music is seamless. If the speaker is coherent it can only improve with purity of signal.

 

[bonzo75]

SoundLabs can sound seamless if well matched and integrated in a system and room. Most of my friends who listened to them spontaneously refer that they can not feel the speaker units when listening to them. However if improperly driven or poorly placed they become a nightmare - some zones of excellence with gaps of edgy and dissociate sound. What was the model and system that you have listened?

Hi that's the point I was making, it is more than just the crossover. I heard the ultimates with Ypsilon aelius, with top of the line bel canto 1000w amps, and the old A1 with Krell fpb 600. The best I heard were the M1s with old spectrals in a large room. If not driven properly it is easy for, say, the bass to sound muddy and not be coherent with the mids

 

[NorthStar]

 

[microstrip]

Hi that's the point I was making, it is more than just the crossover. I heard the ultimates with Ypsilon aelius, with top of the line bel canto 1000w amps, and the old A1 with Krell fpb 600. The best I heard were the M1s with old spectrals in a large room. If not driven properly it is easy for, say, the bass to sound muddy and not be coherent with the mids

SoundLabs have a crossover, but the electrical signal going through it is summed in a mixer and applied as an unique signal to the full panels. The whole picture can become however more complex because of the mechanical distributed resonance system - also used in Martin Logan panels. You are pinpointing their Achilles knee - they can easily have too much bass that becomes resonant. The best bass I listened from them was using the Devialet 400´s monos.

When we refer to a seamless speaker we can consider two aspects - coherence between broad zones of spectra - bass, mids or high as you refered, or just the transition between units or spectral zones.

 

[Argonaut]

Acoustat is one brand. I did not find CLX and soundlabs seamless. Possibly we are misusing the definition but it does not necessarily sound coherent across frequencies. On some, yes. Seamless might be more than just crossovers, might have to do with the rear wave in that particular room, or maybe the various frequencies need certain levels of SPL that make the whole seem coherent. I don't know, all I know is that at the seating position the sound should be one and flow and change as one. You know it when you hear it, and hearing the crossovers is just one of the problems a speaker can have

I was under the impression that you had not heard a pair of CLX's yet ? Perhaps you might pen a review of your experience including ancillary equipment and room. I am quite sure that CLX owning members on the forum would be most interested in your considerations

 

[SCAudiophile]

lol!

 

[f1eng]

You are right that a transducer will have resonances but if it is a single driver it will not have transitions between disparate materials and the attendent phase shifts and signal robbing passive components in the signal path. It will still, despite possible response anomalies, sound as "cut from the same cloth" and not a patchwork.

Reference 3a is interesting because they run their main driver full range without a crossover and blend in a tweeter with a single cap at around 3khz. You can think of their speakers as augmented "not so" widenanders. The MM models (there are many iterations) are all this way and are time coherent and pretty close to seamless despite having a bit of a ragged FR. There is a response peak at 1khz that sometimes gives away the game. Still it is better than most two-ways in this regard. I liked their speakers very much and owned three pairs before moving to my two way horn solution.

The effect of resonances within one material will have a much bigger effect on the sound radiating from the surface than the material from which any element is made. It is true that non-pistonic drivers have the characteristic sound of the material from which they are made and a great number of conventional drive units have breakup in their passband which gives a characteristic colour, but if well engineered drivers are used only in their pistonic range the material from which they are made will not effect the sound, and this is the only way to get low distortion.
OTOH using drivers which do have resonances in the passband does allow one to choose a speaker coloured to one's taste, which is nice.

 

[bonzo75]

I was under the impression that you had not heard a pair of CLX's yet ? Perhaps you might pen a review of your experience including ancillary equipment and room. I am quite sure that CLX owning members on the forum would be most interested in your considerations

With vivaldi stack and top of the line Constellation

 

[sbo6]

The effect of resonances within one material will have a much bigger effect on the sound radiating from the surface than the material from which any element is made. It is true that non-pistonic drivers have the characteristic sound of the material from which they are made and a great number of conventional drive units have breakup in their passband which gives a characteristic colour, but if well engineered drivers are used only in their pistonic range the material from which they are made will not effect the sound, and this is the only way to get low distortion.
OTOH using drivers which do have resonances in the passband does allow one to choose a speaker coloured to one's taste, which is nice.

Can you help me understand why wouldn't any type driver material have an effect on the sound irrespective of resonances in the passband since the material of choice is physically transmitting the sound?

 

[f1eng]

Can you help me understand why wouldn't any type driver material have an effect on the sound irrespective of resonances in the passband since the material of choice is physically transmitting the sound?

Up to the point of cone breakup, which is the first resonant mode on the cone, the cone is acting as a piston and is connecting the voicecoil to the air rigidly. Up to this frequency it doesn't matter what the cone is made of. Above the frequency of the first breakup mode the cone will be adding its own over-tones to the sound, so the nature of the material, particularly its internal damping, will effect the sound from the first breakup mode frequency upwards by altering the timbre of the sound it radiates.

 

[Argonaut]

With vivaldi stack and top of the line Constellation

And ?

Would have prefered at least valve pre myself.

Are You are saying that with your golden ears the 350 Hz was so percievable?

 

[bonzo75]

And ?

Would have prefered at least valve pre myself.

Are You are saying that with your golden ears the 350 Hz was so percievable?

Actually, I was saying the crossover is not necessarily what makes something seamless or not. Agree on the valve pre

 

[microstrip]

With vivaldi stack and top of the line Constellation

Shop, show or private system?

 

[bonzo75]

Shop, show or private system?

Shop, their main audition room, it's on display there, with all top of the line transparent. In Milan with Gian60. Excellent shop, they also have the M project unfortunately wasn't set up then, many Wilson rooms, of which the Sabrina impressed for a small room system, and the most impressive was Grandinote which was very low priced and in a small room. Extremely musical. Will update name of the shop on this post tomorrow after looking up my notes. Italian names don't stick easily. Want to go back there to compare preamps from AR, Nagra, VTL and Octave

 

[Argonaut]

Actually, I was saying the crossover is not necessarily what makes something seamless or not. Agree on the valve pre

Understood, it's a shame that you didn't pack your Mook's , a few Ultra's or G's on the crossover box can be quite
revelatory with the CLX's

 

[microstrip]

Shop, their main audition room, it's on display there, with all top of the line transparent. (...)

IMHO it is almost impossible to have a decent sound from big electrostatics in a shop that also carry demos of box speakers.

When I switch from Soundlabs to boxes or vice versa I have to redo all the front of my room - swap RPG abfusors with RPG diffractals and change the bass traps.

 

[bonzo75]

IMHO it is almost impossible to have a decent sound from big electrostatics in a shop that also carry demos of box speakers.
When I switch from Soundlabs to boxes or vice versa I have to redo all the front of my room - swap RPG abfusors with RPG diffractals and change the bass traps.

Agreed, but their main system is set up for CLX. The room was nice and big,. Normally expect good shops would have better rooms and gear matches than normal audiophiles but not better than the very good to best audiophiles who gave nurtured a particular brand for years, with mods, tube rolls, etc

 

[morricab]

Up to the point of cone breakup, which is the first resonant mode on the cone, the cone is acting as a piston and is connecting the voicecoil to the air rigidly. Up to this frequency it doesn't matter what the cone is made of. Above the frequency of the first breakup mode the cone will be adding its own over-tones to the sound, so the nature of the material, particularly its internal damping, will effect the sound from the first breakup mode frequency upwards by altering the timbre of the sound it radiates.

Nice theory but show me one material that truly behaves that way. There is always some bending/flexing occurring that will transmit the character of the material while in-band and it will not be a true piston. A true long ribbon will probably have the least inherent character of it's own because it has a resonance of only a few hz and is uniformly driven over it's whole surface (for a pure metal one at least). As for materials that are very rigid like ceramic, they breakup so badly out of band that the modes are easily heard and are never fully suppressed by notch filters and the like. Doped carbon fiber sort of works but is still not rigid enough to be totally silent; however, it can behave well out of band.

A simple experiment to conduct is to take a piece of paper and just bend it back and forth...it makes distinctive sound. Now do the same with a similar thickness piece of plastic or aluminum. The acceleration from the voice coil is 10s of times greater and despite the cone profile helping things there will be flex in the cone. Laser interferrometry will confirm this.

 

[morricab]

Agreed, but their main system is set up for CLX. The room was nice and big,. Normally expect good shops would have better rooms and gear matches than normal audiophiles but not better than the very good to best audiophiles who gave nurtured a particular brand for years, with mods, tube rolls, etc

I never expect this because most dealers don't really know how to get good sound from the gear they are selling. They may have more expensive gear than the normal audiophile but not necessarily the wherewithal to put it to good use...that has been my experience with dealers and why a lot of show sound is bad.