Unusual Speaker Designs

[andreasmaaan]

That particular null is relevant only to the bats and cats.

At 15° off-axis, yes. But look at how it moves lower and lower down in frequency as one moves further off-axis.

 

[QMuse]

At 15° off-axis, yes. But look at how it moves lower and lower down in frequency as one moves further off-axis.

After 45 deg I don't think they play a major role in our perception, and that one is at 7kHz. Not very good, but not a complete disaster either. My bet is that it would sound better than it looks on the graphs.

 

[andreasmaaan]

After 45 deg I don't think they play a major role in our perception, and that one is at 7kHz. Not very good, but not a complete disaster either. My bet is that it would sound better than it looks on the graphs.

What are the benefits exactly?

 

[QMuse]

What are the benefits exactly?

Well I didn't say there are benefits, did I? All I said is that it would sound better than it looks on the graphs.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Well I didn't say there are benefits, did I? All I said is that it would sound better than it looks on the graphs.

...but worse than a properly designed speaker

 

[QMuse]

...but worse than a properly designed speaker

Sure. Their biggest problem is the price tag - for that kind of money they should be doing much much better.

 

[HammerSandwich]

What your explanation has glossed over with the respect to the Sony, however, is that the output from the "assist tweeters", having a centre-to-centre distance of approximately 3.5cm, will interfere with each other destructively even small distances vertically off-axis.

Can't all 3 be integrated into a coherent array with amplitude shading and/or delay on the assist pair? Advantages compared to a single tweeter would include vertical control to a lower frequency, lower XO point, better tweeter SPL/THD on the low end. If that's Sony's approach, they could produce much better results with this new DSP speaker than with the passive that Stereophile measured...

 

[LeftCoastTim]

I think tweeter-woofer bookshelf design are like cars--it is the result of many decades of iteration that settled on a near optimal compromise. Sure, there are 6 wheeled cars, 3 wheeled cars, cars with rear wheel steering, all wheel drive, rear wheel drive, 2, 4, 6 seats, whatever.

But globally, most popular cars has four wheels, front wheel drive, four cylinder engine, in a two or 3 box configuration.

The research on sound reproduction says flat frequency response and wide directivity sounds the best, and it seems like 2-way bookshelf can deliver that at low cost.

Efficient? Yes. Boring? Yes.

Personally, I like boring and efficient. The most exotic thing I own is a Kinesis Advantage2

 

[Wes]

View attachment 64968View attachment 64969

Some well known odd speakers which look like they were brought back from the future.View attachment 64973
A well known vintage model for those old enough to remember.

How good WAS the DQ10 BTW?

 

[Wes]

That is OK. I tend to reply as I did when anyone criticizes a statement made by a Stereophile writer and attributes it to many or all of us. A sensitive point for me.

Let's say there is a very wide range of writers in that publication...

 

[Wes]

Look like they came out of a comic book.

Please! The Magico-co-cost speakers came out of a Graphic Novel.

 

[Archsam]

I think tweeter-woofer bookshelf design are like cars--it is the result of many decades of iteration that settled on a near optimal compromise. Sure, there are 6 wheeled cars, 3 wheeled cars, cars with rear wheel steering, all wheel drive, rear wheel drive, 2, 4, 6 seats, whatever.

But globally, most popular cars has four wheels, front wheel drive, four cylinder engine, in a two or 3 box configuration.

The research on sound reproduction says flat frequency response and wide directivity sounds the best, and it seems like 2-way bookshelf can deliver that at low cost.

Efficient? Yes. Boring? Yes.

Personally, I like boring and efficient. The most exotic thing I own is a Kinesis Advantage2

I tend to agree, and it explains why most of the speakers listed in this forum are of the type that beg you to ask: do I buy these speakers, or a Ferrari?

 

[mhardy6647]

The obelisk. Met Dick Shahinian many many moons ago, interesting guy.

View attachment 64985View attachment 64985

Nice loudspeakers -- and in production for a long time.

shahinianpg1 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr
I picked up this brochure (that's the last page of it) at a small hifi store in downtown Baltimore when the Obelisks were fairly new on the scene (EDIT sometime in 1977)

 

[GelbeMusik]

I tend to agree, and it explains why most of the speakers listed in this forum are of the type that beg you to ask: do I buy these speakers, or a Ferrari?

These alternatives are mutually exclusive. Ferrari, by intent, makes bad hearing. (Just try.)

 

[Wes]

not if it's broke

and, usually....

 

[mhardy6647]

How good WAS the DQ10 BTW?

meh, IMO.

Used the same woofer as the "Original Large Advent", some very good mid and treble drivers, and the Motorola piezoelectric "lemon juicer" tweeter.
They benefit greatly from LF augmentation (and Dahlquist sold a subwoofer for them) and they were (are) extremely power hungry. Dollar for dollar, I much preferred the Polk "Monitor Series" of the same era, which were much cheaper, and the ads/Braun loudspeakers of the day, which weren't so cheap but which were extremely satisfying loudspeakers, top to bottom.

The DQ10 was also quite deliberately designed to look like Quad's seminal "ESL-57" electrostatic loudspeaker -- that always bothered me a little bit, too.

AH477etc by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

 

[Soniclife]

The obelisk. Met Dick Shahinian many many moons ago, interesting guy.

View attachment 64985View attachment 64985

I've heard these a few times, they are so off sounding it took a few goes in different rooms for it to sink in just how much I didn't like them. Truly mystified how they have a following.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Can't all 3 be integrated into a coherent array with amplitude shading and/or delay on the assist pair? Advantages compared to a single tweeter would include vertical control to a lower frequency, lower XO point, better tweeter SPL/THD on the low end. If that's Sony's approach, they could produce much better results with this new DSP speaker than with the passive that Stereophile measured...

It would definitely work better with amplitude shading and delay, I agree.

To your specific points:

• Even combined with delay/amplitude shading, three is not a large enough number of drivers in the array to yield coherent/useful vertical directivity control.
• The "assist tweeters" have 14mm diaphragms. I find it impossible to imagine they allow the central tweeter to be crossed over any lower than it otherwise would be.
• Similarly, I can't imagine they improve SPL/THD on the low end either.

Moreover, if they were using such an array on a passive design, I'm inclined to think it remains marketing BS now, as it must have been back then.

I do accept that they would likely widen horizontal dispersion at very high frequencies, but that isn't listed as a design goal.

 

[HammerSandwich]

I can't argue with most of that.

A 3-driver array still strikes me as able to control vertical dispersion significantly. Consider a ~4" ribbon tweeter's vertical lobe. But I hadn't realized the 14mm size - that's unlikely to to help anything else, and it's a bizarre design choice for an array that uses more drivers at lower frequencies. And if Sony's using a different kind of array, well...

I believe we're on the same page about this design, but perhaps the measurements will astonish us.

 

[andreasmaaan]

I can't argue with most of that.

A 3-driver array still strikes me as able to control vertical dispersion significantly. Consider a ~4" ribbon tweeter's vertical lobe. But I hadn't realized the 14mm size - that's unlikely to to help anything else, and it's a bizarre design choice for an array that uses more drivers at lower frequencies. And if Sony's using a different kind of array, well...

I believe we're on the same page about this design, but perhaps the measurements will astonish us.

You'd want them to for the price tag

But actually, I'd love to see it measured. I suspect they've done as well as they could have given the interesting design choices.