The Path to Paradise . . . or the Road to Ruin?

[DaveC]

Schroeder frequency is where a room turns from resonant to reflected sound , 80Hz is around where bass becomes omnidirectional,
Keith.

No, that's the Schroeder frequency. At the speaker, the transition from half space to full space depends on the baffle dimensions and is usually MUCH higher than 80 Hz, that's the baffle step.

edit: just realized you're talking about perception and localizing sound, this is due to human perception and has nothing to do with the physical behavior of sound.

 

[Purite Audio]

Perhaps this will help, or Floyd Toole's excellent book.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_acoustics

Keith.

 

[DaveyF]

The strength of the motor also plays a large part, which can be approximated by Bl^2/Re.

Also, it's not like ribbons are perfect, they produce a bit of glare imo... Personally, I think cones can be more transparent because they don't add that kind of distortion and together with the increased dynamics... well, I'll take a dynamic speaker over a ribbon/stat and a horn over a dynamic speaker.

I agree with this. Although I personally wouldn't take a horn over all else. The best ribbons I have heard do seem to 'break up' a little under higher power...resulting in a bit of glare. Interestingly, I recently heard a very well thought of speaker with ribbon tweets...at high power the 'flapping' of the ribbon was easily seen.Quite an odd sight to see.

 

[bonzo75]

I agree with this. Although I personally wouldn't take a horn over all else. The best ribbons I have heard do seem to 'break up' a little under higher power...resulting in a bit of glare. Interestingly, I recently heard a very well thought of speaker with ribbon tweets...at high power the 'flapping' of the ribbon was easily seen.Quite an odd sight to see.

Hi, which ribbons are these?

 

[PeterA]

Where here the speakers located for these measurements? I have already ordered the book and DVDs, but they were not yet delivered. International post and customs are always slow this time of the year ...

The speakers were in the location I had them in when he arrived. I think we also had the subs on and he played some pink noise to identify room nodes and moved around the general listening area with a mic until he found the smoothest bass response. It ended up being 7" further back and thus closer to the back wall than I had my seat. He also raised the seat a few inches. It made a nice difference. With that as a starting point or foundation, he proceeded to work on better speaker positions.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, you had a lot of affection for the Liszts horn sound when we demoed them recently. Have you completely dispensed w/the idea of going up to the Cessaro Gamma? I really do believe this may be the transducer that ticks all those boxes for you. And you'd be the envy of a'fools over North America as the only owner.

My lack of depth issue with horns was unexpected and disconcerting for me. I never paid much conscious attention to depth until I realised I was suddenly missing it.

 

[LL21]

My lack of depth issue with horns was unexpected and disconcerting for me. I never paid much conscious attention to depth until I realised I was suddenly missing it.

I am very curious to understand 'where' depth comes from in speaker design. I have tended to think about depth as one of the more nuanced elements in speaker design which is influenced by:

- dispersion of the actual sound waves (Omnis, cones, panels, etc)
- tiny distortions which (while they may not affect other 'bigger' details/characteristics of the sound) effectively 'destroy' the soundstage or collapse it

In my own system, i found that as distortion decreased (mechanical from vibration), note separation, orchestral separation occurred...and then i also found that space increased such that in large-scale works, the distances seemed to be maintained rather than collapsed.

I cannot speak about differences between major design types (omnis, panels, horns etc)...but somehow, i cannot imagine (other than omnis) that speaker design quality/implementation, speaker placement, speaker/system distortion would not have a greater influence on soundstage than whether its a panel vs cone vs horn? I have to imagine well-done, well-positioned horns can provide plenty of depth?

There's me...a clear non-techie. Really posting this to learn rather than to posit.

 

[PeterA]

Ron, I'm fascinated by this thread and your other one, "introduction and Listening Biases". I've read through both, and perhaps I missed the information that would answer this, but I am curious about something regarding your tastes in music and the speakers which you are considering. Given your tastes for more contemporary music and what I consider less complex music focused around vocals and a few instruments, are you basing your speaker selections on those that are best suited for reproducing this kind of music?

These super speaker systems would seem to excel at reproducing the most complex type of music which I've always considered to be full orchestra at realistic volumes and scale. That involves extreme resolution, accurate timbre, ultra clean, fast dynamics, great frequency extension and very large scale with dimensional depth, and believable soundstaging.

Your tastes would imply to me that you are interested in mid range magic, a more intimate presentation with palpable presence. The singer in your room kind of experience. Your analog front end, tube electronics and cables seem to support that, yet the speakers under discussion here seem to be the type that excel at reproducing everything extremely well, hence the "super speaker" description. I wonder if you need full bass towers, for instance. Do you need the scale and extension of some of these choices? Perhaps large panels for a transparent, seamless presentation would suffice. One that excels at mid frequencies and Tone, Dynamics and Presence, but not the last word in soundstaging, extension and scale.

Could you clarify what it is that you are looking for in this SOTA pair of speakers? Do you want them to do everything well, or do you want them to have particular strengths which suite your specific tastes in music? It's early, and perhaps this is an inelegantly phrased series of questions, but at this level of speaker, do you want them to do everything well or do can they perform better in some areas than in others?

I'm sorry if this has already been addressed in your threads and I have somehow missed it.

 

[Groucho]

I am very curious to understand 'where' depth comes from in speaker design. I have tended to think about depth as one of the more nuanced elements in speaker design which is influenced by:

- dispersion of the actual sound waves (Omnis, cones, panels, etc)
- tiny distortions which (while they may not affect other 'bigger' details/characteristics of the sound) effectively 'destroy' the soundstage or collapse it

In my own system, i found that as distortion decreased (mechanical from vibration), note separation, orchestral separation occurred...and then i also found that space increased such that in large-scale works, the distances seemed to be maintained rather than collapsed.

I cannot speak about differences between major design types (omnis, panels, horns etc)...but somehow, i cannot imagine (other than omnis) that speaker design quality/implementation, speaker placement, speaker/system distortion would not have a greater influence on soundstage than whether its a panel vs cone vs horn? I have to imagine well-done, well-positioned horns can provide plenty of depth?

There's me...a clear non-techie. Really posting this to learn rather than to posit.

Massive phase distortion is present in almost all audiophile speakers. As a result, there is a long list of 'excuses' why it doesn't matter.

 

[bonzo75]

I am very curious to understand 'where' depth comes from in speaker design. I have tended to think about depth as one of the more nuanced elements in speaker design which is influenced by:

- dispersion of the actual sound waves (Omnis, cones, panels, etc)
- tiny distortions which (while they may not affect other 'bigger' details/characteristics of the sound) effectively 'destroy' the soundstage or collapse it

In my own system, i found that as distortion decreased (mechanical from vibration), note separation, orchestral separation occurred...and then i also found that space increased such that in large-scale works, the distances seemed to be maintained rather than collapsed.

I cannot speak about differences between major design types (omnis, panels, horns etc)...but somehow, i cannot imagine (other than omnis) that speaker design quality/implementation, speaker placement, speaker/system distortion would not have a greater influence on soundstage than whether its a panel vs cone vs horn? I have to imagine well-done, well-positioned horns can provide plenty of depth?

There's me...a clear non-techie. Really posting this to learn rather than to posit.

I find trios with bass horns to do the best orchestral separation, imaging, and scale by far. I also find horns easy to position once you have a minimum size. Depth and soundstage to me comes from design, because I hear it on panels and certain horns, but no matter how good the box at soundstaging, I always find myself "outside looking in". MBLs and line arrays like Pipedreams and Megalines also soundstage well, whatever one might find other faults with them. I am more sensitive to immersive soundstage (sound coming out into the room), rather than a bell 10 feet behind the speaker.

I find that subs add to depth and soundstage, probably because the bass waves add to that 3d feel.

Sure there is speaker placement involved, putting a line array or panel close to the front wall or toed in incorrectly could reduce depth and soundstage.

 

[Purite Audio]

My lack of depth issue with horns was unexpected and disconcerting for me. I never paid much conscious attention to depth until I realised I was suddenly missing it.

Genuine recorded acoustic is very rare, one would need a very simple recording ,perhaps just one pair of crossed microphones, most recordings are recorded 'dry' in a non reverberant booth and then reverb is added later to create the impression of natural acoustic.
I find that both my horns and active monitors do not produce any image behind the plane of the loudspeakers, but an image is projected into the room, and especially with the monitors indivuidual components are fixed laterally.
I wonder if it is the nature of dipole designs, where as much energy is radiated from the rear of the loudspeaker as the front that leads to the impression of 'depth' .
Keith.

 

[Jim Smith]

My lack of depth issue with horns was unexpected and disconcerting for me. I never paid much conscious attention to depth until I realised I was suddenly missing it.

In the dozens - maybe over a hundred - of installations/voicings I have done of Avantgardes, lack of depth was NEVER an issue.

Some dealers and even some manufacturers do not value this aspect with admittedly large hornspeakers, and may minimize or even ignore it. I certainly heard this lack of depth at the Avantgarde facility. Fortunately, by the time I had a chance to visit Avantgarde to work out final distributor agreements, I had already worked with the speakers back home. In fact, I personally thought that I was getting better, more musically involving sound from UNOs than they were with Trios.

In fairness, they (and some other horn speaker manufacturers) do not value this aspect and do not consider it in their set-ups.

I do, with the proviso that depth is a part of Presence, when properly incorporated in the set-up. IMO, you have to have Dynamics, Presence & Tone to provide a maximally involving musical sound with any high-end system. Otherwise, we end up listening to/for sonic artifacts from our revealing systems. It's almost an inverse result as we acquire ever more detailed/high-resolution components.

As is well documented, Avantgarde-USA went on to win numerous raves over the sound we had at shows, exhibits, etc. Dynamics, Presence & Tone were well accounted-for in each of those demos.

Finally, I am saying that when you did not experience depth, you were right. But I would recommend that you not assume that horns cannot do it. IMO, of course.

 

[PeterA]

I wonder if it is the nature of dipole designs, where as much energy is radiated from the rear of the loudspeaker as the front that leads to the impression of 'depth' .
Keith.

Keith, by 'depth' in this case with dipoles, are you describing a violin that appears to be 10' deep rather than 6" or a violin that appears to be 10' in front of a piano that is behind and to the right of it? I have always heard dipole speakers as having a diffuse sense of imaging where the sound seems scattered all over the room with little image specificity.

 

[bonzo75]

Hi Jim, have visited the facility since they installed the trios with the bass horns?

 

[DaveC]

In the dozens - maybe over a hundred - of installations/voicings I have done of Avantgardes, lack of depth was NEVER an issue.

Some dealers and even some manufacturers do not value this aspect with admittedly large hornspeakers, and may minimize or even ignore it. I certainly heard this lack of depth at the Avantgarde facility. Fortunately, by the time I had a chance to visit Avantgarde to work out final distributor agreements, I had already worked with the speakers back home. In fact, I personally thought that I was getting better, more musically involving sound from UNOs than they were with Trios.

In fairness, they (and some other horn speaker manufacturers) do not value this aspect and do not consider it in their set-ups.

I do, with the proviso that depth is a part of Presence, when properly incorporated in the set-up. IMO, you have to have Dynamics, Presence & Tone to provide a maximally involving musical sound with any high-end system. Otherwise, we end up listening to/for sonic artifacts from our revealing systems. It's almost an inverse result as we acquire ever more detailed/high-resolution components.

As is well documented, Avantgarde-USA went on to win numerous raves over the sound we had at shows, exhibits, etc. Dynamics, Presence & Tone were well accounted-for in each of those demos.

Finally, I am saying that when you did not experience depth, you were right. But I would recommend that you not assume that horns cannot do it. IMO, of course.

I agree... this whole horns can't do depth thing is just wrong. I have ones in my living room now that have the most 3D soundstage I've ever heard, the room boundaries are not audible at all... it can project sound in front of or well behind the speaker position and way beyond the walls... It's better wrt soundstage than any conventional box speaker I've ever heard.

 

[Purite Audio]

Keith, by 'depth' in this case with dipoles, are you describing a violin that appears to be 10' deep rather than 6" or a violin that appears to be 10' in front of a piano that is behind and to the right of it? I have always heard dipole speakers as having a diffuse sense of imaging where the sound seems scattered all over the room with little image specificity.

Peter in all honesty I do not have that much experience with dipole designs, I just never liked anything I heard enough to pursue the concept.
It is only since reading Toole that I understand why I might not enjoy them.
A sensation of depth is possible even in a mono recording ,simply by placing one instrument further away from the microphone than another, but most modern recordings are a hotch potch of different techniques.
Keith.

 

[bonzo75]

Peter in all honesty I do not have that much experience with dipole designs, I just never liked anything I heard enough to pursue the concept.
It is only since reading Toole that I understand why I might not enjoy them.
A sensation of depth is possible even in a mono recording ,simply by placing one instrument further away from the microphone than another, but most modern recordings are a hotch potch of different techniques.
Keith.

Hi Keith, I am trying to figure out how Lamm 2.2, thrax hybrid, and Ypsilon aelius will compare to each other and the spectral. Do you know on which page of Toole's I can find the answer?

 

[spiritofmusic]

DaveC, what horns are you auditioning?

 

[DaveC]

DaveC, what horns are you auditioning?

They are my own design... soundstaging is incredible but the driver needs a bit of work to even out FR...

 

[amirm]

Ron, I'm fascinated by this thread and your other one, "introduction and Listening Biases". I've read through both, and perhaps I missed the information that would answer this, but I am curious about something regarding your tastes in music and the speakers which you are considering. Given your tastes for more contemporary music and what I consider less complex music focused around vocals and a few instruments, are you basing your speaker selections on those that are best suited for reproducing this kind of music?

Why do you say modern music is less complex? It is actually the other way around. I listed reference clips for testing loudspeakers and room EQ in this thread: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-Music-Tracks-for-Speaker-and-Room-EQ-Testing

Here is a graph from that article:

The only thing that matched the richness and complexity of pink noise was "female pop rock." Orchestral music that everything things is important dropped a big notch from there. And the rest of the top-10 is dominated by pop/rock music and Jazz with its fewer instruments.

Human voice for example is very complex. You want to tell an MP3 from its original? Listen to the vocals. Likewise guitar strings by itself are highly revealing. Why? Because it gives you the opportunity to hear what is before and after it. Those are not masked by other instruments.