ErinsAudioCorner

[jhaider]

I can provide all the FR you want. But the on-axis response and normalized spectrogram, IMHO, is far more usable than a whole lot of lines that I can't read through. Just my take.

The problem with normalizing the polar map is that it can make on axis molehills look like mountains. Think cancellation notches in most coaxes, for example.

I don’t mind normalized in addition but the raw polar map is IMO the most useful in addition to being the standard.

Agreed on the “graph salad” approach, though. I can’t make heads or tails of directivity data so presented either.

 

[Doodski]

I see. 105dB at typical listening distance. And I am assuming, by your persistence, this listening distance is 2-3 meters? If so, then, you're correct; I am not achieving 105dB at that listening distance. I stood nearby for the testing of this particular speaker when I it was getting in to the upper 90's and literally winced at times because I thought "okay, this has got to be cutting it close". It survived. I just don't have the... you know... to push it further without a back-up plan.

I don't know what else I can say to get you to understand why I don't fancy doing such extremely high output tests for a speaker of this nature. Honestly, if you can cover the cost of speakers I test (should I damage one and need to replace it) I will absolutely be happy to do significantly higher output tests. This is not at all a snarky response either. I am legitimately serious. I personally don't have the income that I can risk, though. If you do and you're willing to cover the cost then I'll talk to Mads about it and get his blessing (since these are his demo speakers) and we can go from there. I am literally on the finishing stages of the review now so let me know.

I remember the @amirm speaker testing thread going through a similar growing pain. Peeps where requesting destructive speaker testing until a non-destructive NDT test mode was decided upon.

 

[richard12511]

Get it to @amirm first. Or did I miss that you both measured the same speaker already? Not same model - same exact unit.

Amir has a ton of stuff in queue already, and since it's an entry level long since discontinued speaker, he didn't want it.

 

[BYRTT]

.....For example, I prefer my own spectrogram (top) to the one vcad produces (bottom).....

Your own view is really great but for info VituixCAD can come much closer than what presented by setting some of the varius number settings to closetst ones of yours as seen below, in animation is not using exactly same spindata they can not be 100% same but good enough to hint for more optimal settings used in this example, settings used to be changed in VituixCAD to get below output is in "Options" under "SPL,Directivity"set "Span" to a lower 30dB range than the usual 50dB of CTA2034 and also into "Options" set "Image export" wideness to 920 pixel, and now rightclick in "Directivity" chart and turn on the "Normalized" and "Contour lines" features ...... also notice in VituixCAD one gets wide graphs as below when the used chart is doubleclicked and fill up the screen and think the ratio is W=100%/H=50%, where if one "Copy image" when all the six-pack of graphs is vissible then the ratio is changed to bit more detail ala ScanSpeak brochures with W=100%/H=80%.

 

[hardisj]

Last night I got the Buchardts set up in my home theater. I ran some measurements to get a sense for what the actual in-room performance is and will be providing that overlaid on the Predicted In-Room Response curve.

I've spent some time listening to these before I started measuring and took notes. I plan to listen again, try to take a few more notes and see if I can correlate what I'm hearing with what the data (both anechoic and in-room) are telling me and relay that to everyone in my review.

 

[richard12511]

Last night I got the Buchardts set up in my home theater. I ran some measurements to get a sense for what the actual in-room performance is and will be providing that overlaid on the Predicted In-Room Response curve.

I've spent some time listening to these before I started measuring and took notes. I plan to listen again, try to take a few more notes and see if I can correlate what I'm hearing with what the data (both anechoic and in-room) are telling me and relay that to everyone in my review.

View attachment 68062

That's loud.

 

[hardisj]

Your own view is really great but for info VituixCAD can come much closer than what presented by setting some of the varius number settings to closetst ones of yours as seen below, in animation is not using exactly same spindata they can not be 100% same but good enough to hint for more optimal settings used in this example, settings used to be changed in VituixCAD to get below output is in "Options" under "SPL,Directivity"set "Span" to a lower 30dB range than the usual 50dB of CTA2034 and also into "Options" set "Image export" wideness to 920 pixel, and now rightclick in "Directivity" chart and turn on the "Normalized" and "Contour lines" features ...... also notice in VituixCAD one gets wide graphs as below when the used chart is doubleclicked and fill up the screen and think the ratio is W=100%/H=50%, where if one "Copy image" when all the six-pack of graphs is vissible then the ratio is changed to bit more detail ala ScanSpeak brochures with W=100%/H=80%.

View attachment 67957

In one of my eaaaaaarlier posts I provided both versions of what you have above. I chose to go with the one I presented most recently because it's more legible. Personally, I don't feel the shading interpolation buys you much.

 

[hardisj]

That's loud.

Edit: Yep, that SPL is indeed accurate. So, yep... that was pretty loud.

 

[hardisj]

I updated the horizontal FR chart to provide F3 relative to the mean SPL from 300-3khz. Why this way? Because I wanted to.
Really, though, because different speakers have a different shape of bass response; low Q or high Q. I calculate the mean SPL based on the response between 300hz and 3000hz because experience has shown that's typically where the speaker/drive-unit is more linear in output and I want to reference the more linear range. This works well for raw drivers, too, (other than tweeters, of course). I'm sure others would prefer something else. I'm sure reasons can be made. But that's why I have chosen what I have. So, now you know.

 

[hardisj]

@Juhazi you mentioned wanting impedance at different levels. I planned to provide 0.10v as well as 2.83v. The low level voltage version is standard because it ensures the speaker/driver is in linear operating range. The higher voltage is to see what happens when the output voltage is increased to the 2.83vRMS reading.

And, as such, I have also produced a graph with the aforementioned 2.83v impedance sweep married to the on-axis 2.83v response.

 

[Juhazi]

No, I wrote:
- impedance, phase, step response and distortion at several voltage/dB by spectrum is important to people who understand speaker design and challenges of multiway speakers (bolded after quoting)

Impedance, phase and step are not (supposed to be) voltage dependant. But now as you have shown impedance is! I guess that higher peak comes from acoustic loading with high excursion, high voltage

 

[hardisj]

No, I wrote:
- impedance, phase, step response and distortion at several voltage/dB by spectrum is important to people who understand speaker design and challenges of multiway speakers (bolded after quoting)

Impedance, phase and step are not (supposed to be) voltage dependant. But now as you have shown impedance is! I guess that higher peak comes from acoustic loading with high excursion, high voltage

yea, it definitely read like you wanted each at different voltages or dB. But, fine, you don't want it...

I kid, of course. I was already going to provide the impedance at different voltages. That's one thing that has made me scratch my head... reviewers showing impedance at the typical very low voltage sweep but laid on top of the FR. You'd think they'd overlay the impedance at the same voltage as the FR. *shrug*

 

[Zvu]

Since this is a passive radiator design, it just makes visible PR nonlinearities. It loads the woofer a bit different at different voltage.

 

[hardisj]

Another aspect of my reviews I will provide is the measured in-room response at my listening position as well as the entire front row, both overliad with the predicted in-room response. That shows two things: how well the PIR does at representing the response *at least in my particular room* and gives everyone reading my subjective evaluations a way to tie those to measured as well as "see through" the 1-dimensional RTA measurement and maybe get a better understanding of how my evaluation syncs up with the other data I provide.

This is without any EQ applied. I am waiting to get the setup file for Dirac Live so I can use it to help smooth out the response. Not sure if I will use it as part of my review process (I already understand the arguments for and against but personally lean toward wanting to provide both). If nothing else, though, I hope to use the EQ to knock down some of the room modes and smooth the bass and whatever the heck is going on at 400hz! I'm going to guess the ceiling/floor interaction. I do know there is definite influence on the measurement from the seat itself; positioning the mic forward of the headrest vs at the headrest alters the shape between 1-2kHz by trading off the peak/dips but the moving mic average helps resolve that.

What stands out to me is how alike the response of the MLP measurement (single seat) vs the ENTIRE front row measurement is above 1kHz. The two vary by only about 2.5dB from 1-2kHz, less than ~1dB from 2-4kHz and above 5kHz they are practically the same. That's very impressive!

I have a list of notes based on my previous subjective evaluation and what I have heard since then. Some things don't jive but a lot of things can be made sense of based on the data without having to make a stretch. And in this experiment, there is strong correlation with the Predicted In-Room response vs what I hear and what I have measured in-situ.

I posted a picture of my room above. Here's the general layout. The numbers aren’t set in stone. I need to re-measure. I built this from memory while killing time at work yesterday waiting for some runs to finish up.

 

[BYRTT]

I updated the horizontal FR chart to provide F3 relative to the mean SPL from 300-3khz. Why this way? Because I wanted to.
Really, though, because different speakers have a different shape of bass response; low Q or high Q. I calculate the mean SPL based on the response between 300hz and 3000hz because experience has shown that's typically where the speaker/drive-unit is more linear in output and I want to reference the more linear range. This works well for raw drivers, too, (other than tweeters, of course). I'm sure others would prefer something else. I'm sure reasons can be made. But that's why I have chosen what I have. So, now you know.

View attachment 68218

F3 is nice info but graph is too wide relative to height so it decorates curves bit too much, mini example is below for ratios first one is as yours ~100:38 second one is ~100:50 and third one is ~100:80

 

[hardisj]

F3 is nice info but graph is too wide relative to height so it decorates curves bit too much, mini example is below for ratios first one is as yours ~100:38 second one is ~100:50 and third one is ~100:80
View attachment 68263

Yes, yes. I know. I will fix that.

Jeez. You’d think I’d just get some “thanks” but nooooo.

 

[BYRTT]

Yes, yes. I know. I will fix that.

Jeez. You’d think I’d just get some “thanks” but nooooo.

Ha ha manufactures will probably in silent say thanks to use of the wide one and consumers/diy/technicians will probably say thanks to the better detailed ratios.

 

[hardisj]

Ha ha manufactures will probably in silent say thanks to use of the wide one and consumers/diy/technicians will probably say thanks to the better detailed ratios.

It's probably not the ratio you want but this is the ratio I am going with. We can call it a compromise.

 

[hardisj]

FINALLY!!!!! I have finally completed my review of the Buchardt S400. I have spent countless hours on this, as you probably know by me posting my progress of everything over the last couple months.

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/buchardt_audio_s400_bookshelf/

One thing I have done differently from what I've seen is my polar spectrograms. We typically see spectrograms for a speaker "linearized" in to a rectangular shape. I was thinking, it would be neat to actually represent the data the way it comes from the speaker; in a 360° manner. Or occasionally we will see a polar plot with a single line representing a frequency, maybe with a few lines to represent multiple frequencies overlaid. But nothing that is really intuitive. So, I created these new polar plots for horizontal and vertical spl mapping of the speaker's radiation pattern both vertically and horizontally. Two versions of each. One is absolute output and the other is relative to the 0 degree axis. Not sure if anyone here will appreciate it as much as I am proud of it. And I'm sure someone will have something to say about how they prefer a different color or whatever... but dangit, I'm proud and I'm leaving it as is because it looks good to me. I think it's a better way of viewing the data. Some may not prefer it. But that's why I've offered the standard versions as well. Anyway, make sure to use the legend in the top left to get your bearings on the speaker direction relative to the radiation pattern.

I plan to make a video review but that's gonna be a bit. I need a break. For now, this written review will have to do.

I hope you guys get as much out of this as I have put in to it. I need a friggin' break now...

 

[Doodski]

FINALLY!!!!! I have finally completed my review of the Buchardt S400. I have spent countless hours on this, as you probably know by me posting my progress of everything over the last couple months.

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/buchardt_audio_s400_bookshelf/

One thing I have done differently from what I've seen is my polar spectrograms. We typically see spectrograms for a speaker "linearized" in to a rectangular shape. I was thinking, it would be neat to actually represent the data the way it comes from the speaker; in a 360° manner. Or occasionally we will see a polar plot with a single line representing a frequency, maybe with a few lines to represent multiple frequencies overlaid. But nothing that is really intuitive. So, I created these new polar plots for horizontal and vertical spl mapping of the speaker's radiation pattern both vertically and horizontally. Two versions of each. One is absolute output and the other is relative to the 0 degree axis. Not sure if anyone here will appreciate it as much as I am proud of it. And I'm sure someone will have something to say about how they prefer a different color or whatever... but dangit, I'm proud and I'm leaving it as is because it looks good to me. I think it's a better way of viewing the data. Some may not prefer it. But that's why I've offered the standard versions as well. Anyway, make sure to use the legend in the top left to get your bearings on the speaker direction relative to the radiation pattern.

I plan to make a video review but that's gonna be a bit. I need a break. For now, this written review will have to do.

I hope you guys get as much out of this as I have put in to it. I need a friggin' break now...

Well done. The kind of review detail and production you are doing is very time consuming.