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Horns - Necessary to complete the Audiophile Journey?

Absolute

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I would rather do prolonged listening, say a week off then back on.
Switching back and forth would require the listener to know which aspects of the sound to focus on, otherwise clutching at straws...
But the question was if the change is audible, not likeable. Without ABX testing there's no way to know if the change is audible.
 

tuga

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But the question was if the change is audible, not likeable. Without ABX testing there's no way to know if the change is audible.

I was referring to audibility not preference.
An ABX test may be the best/only way to prove a difference exists but it may not be the best way to determine whether or not that difference is audible.
 

Lbstyling

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This looks heavily smoothed and still shows what looks like resonances at around 1200 hz and 3khz.
I don't know how to read driver-measurements, but I'd be wary if there's resonances in those places.

Further measuring will tell BUT I'm not sure I see what your seeing. Off axis, this is parallel, so its not cone breakup at least.
 

Lbstyling

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How audible is time alignment?

How important is it, really?

I know it's supposed to drastically improve imaging, but those models that seemed to place it first in the design criteria (Dahlquist, Spica, Thiel) didn't end up dominating the speaker world and taking over everything because they were so self-evidently superior.

The only way to time align is coax or full range drivers.

If you physically time align a 2 way, the second you change your elevation, its out of alignment.

Not that time aligning sounding good is BS. Vertical spinorama tells you how much difference moving to a point source matters in terms of measurement (at least): A lot.

Under the room transition frequency, (400hz ish) it likely doesn't matter much to the ear.
 

Absolute

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I was referring to audibility not preference.
An ABX test may be the best/only way to prove a difference exists but it may not be the best way to determine whether or not that difference is audible.
last ned.jpg
 

Absolute

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Exactamente, my dear Manuel. Flipping between A and B may not be the most effective way to determine if there's a difference for many reasons f.e. that particular programme may not make the difference obvious.
I don't understand the difference between testing if there's a difference and testing if it's audible. You can always pick your own timeframe and material to check for differences, but if you can't hear those differences in ABX testing, how can there be an audible difference?
 

tuga

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I don't understand the difference between testing if there's a difference and testing if it's audible. You can always pick your own timeframe and material to check for differences, but if you can't hear those differences in ABX testing, how can there be an audible difference?

There may be differences but you can't hear them for lack of training, there may be differences but the programme may not be adequate to expose them, there may be differences but listening in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar system may not let you focus....

Anyway, regarding the "X" factor, it's a matter of practicality as it might prove difficult to blind test over days or weeks.
 

MakeMineVinyl

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My feeling is that if you listen mainly to more recent multi microphone recordings mixed down to stereo there isn't much, if any, phase coherent information on the recording to reproduce. If you have lots of old stereo recordings which were captured on 2 carefully positioned microphones it is probably worthwhile.
FWIW I found that when I got precise time alignment between my drivers, the image locked in markedly and the soundstage went well beyond the left/right boundaries of the speakers. I listen mostly to recordings which were not multi-tracked - jazz and classical. I listen in only one position, and there's never any other listeners, so I could care less what's going on in listening positions other than where my butt is.
 
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Frank Dernie

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all righty then ;)
Are you sceptical?
IME if you can define the transfer function of the passive crossover, which should be easier than any of the corrections they added later, running it on the DSP active crossover would probably be within the tolerance of a batch of actual passive crossovers, no?
 

Sal1950

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Exactamente, my dear Manuel. Flipping between A and B may not be the most effective way to determine if there's a difference for many reasons f.e. that particular programme may not make the difference obvious.
If you mean long term listening may train you to hear differences which you then would be able to more easily identify in a DBT A/B test, maybe?
If you mean that you can identify differences under long term conditions you'll still never identify doing instantaneous A/B, Baloney
Just an illusion you'll never be able to produce evidence for.
 
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tuga

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If you mean long term listening may train you to hear differences which you then would be able to more easily identify in a DBT A/B test, maybe?
I you mean that you can identify differences under long term conditions you'll still never identify doing instantaneous A/B, Baloney
Just an illusion you'll never be able to produce evidence for.

The opposite actually.
Long term listening not for training puposes but to identify particular issues that are not obvious with short duration AB (for reasons previously mentioned).
Training to know what to listen for (not soundstage).
 

Sal1950

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Training to know what to listen for
That's what I said.
But if it doesn't improve your ID of the differences in short A/B's, it's still just a sighted, bias influenced, illusion
 

tuga

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That's what I said.
But if it doesn't improve your ID of the differences in short A/B's, it's still just a sighted, bias influenced, illusion

Whatever...
 

Duke

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But if it doesn't improve your ID of the differences in short A/B's, it's still just a sighted, bias influenced, illusion

One thing which does not show up in a short A/B is listening fatigue.
 

Duke

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This is a new coax 15 inch driver.

View attachment 73085

Beat that!:oops:

Imo that is excellent behavior for a coaxial and distortion data is not needed for confirmation, especially since this is a prosound-type driver.

Ime energy ridges like we see at ballpark 1.1 kHz and 2.9 kHz indicate resonances, which probably can be addressed via EQ in the crossover.

Eminence's new Kappalite 3012CX also has exceptionally smooth response for a coaxial woofer.

The tweeter is a plastic diaphragm unit:

Celestion CDX1-1731

https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/specs/294-2138--cdx1-1731-spec-sheet.pdf

The CDX1-1731 is the best screw-on compression driver I have found; it's in several of my prosound products. I really like Celestion's polymer diaphragm units.
 
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