A new approach to point source?

[BenB]

God, why can't this guy just go into his hole and just stay there.

Interestingly, I called this out on my first post, Eric Alexander's claim and patent is this moving mass nonsense, absolutely nothing about point source.

I actually read his patents, it is a web of circular confusing pseudoscience AND his patent does not specifically say anything about arranging the tweeter sized drivers for midrange encircling the tweeter proper. It just states using these tweeter sized drivers for midrange to reduce moving mass. There is absolutely no mention of point source, heck, I'm not even sure if Eric Alexander knows what point source is.


Additionally, only few of his models with these tweeter sized driver arrays as midrange are configured to encircled the tweeter proper. Other models such as Ulfberht has two sets of 7 tweeter array that is all midrange, including the middle tweeter sized driver.

Monitor Audio and Elac are big companies, they have proper process to go to market, so their legal department already did their due diligence on patent infringing risks, and likely read Erik Alexander's Peter Pan patents and determined there is no risk for the reasons I stated above.

I think Eric is having his lawyers talk to Monitor Audio and Elac's lawyers to try to figure out if they can gets some royalty. But he knows he's going against behemoth companies.

I don't understand why Eric's patent was awarded in the first place. Anyone who can re-arrange F=ma to be a=F/m should have rejected it. It's nonsense that would even make a hollywood technobabble script writer blush. Any court case he initiates will be embarrassing for him, as experts called by the defense will expose the falsehoods in his patent.

 

[Heinrich]

Historically, many audiophiles favored a sound that "excited the room,"

If you like, and not already know, you may want to investigate the topic this thread has drifted to a bit deeper. I always wonder, how firm people believe to understand stereo, and feel the urge to discuss secondary issues, addressing these with nearly always commercial choices.

keywords for internet search, it‘s worthwhile => Günther Theile Localisation Superimposed Soundfield pdf

Not the least, the golden arc of spinorama embraces mono, because stereo makes ignore imperfections …

 

[Arindal]

Historically, many audiophiles favored a sound that "excited the room," prioritizing a sense of spaciousness and immersion from reflections.

I am aware of such trends in the past, as there were some misleading articles particularly on omnidirectional speakers a long time ago.

It is usually simple to debunk such claims, as any attempt to excite the room by adding reflections capable of expanding the perceived width/adding perceived ambience, will result in compromised localization stability and width as well as distorting depth-of-field. I recommend to listen to one of the stereo recordings containing a lot of ambience reverb yet retaining the necessary amount of localization. Excellent example is the series of complex sacred music pieces under Jordi Savall recorded by AliaVox. Example:

Under listening conditions adding reverb, it tends to sound like in a garage.

This shift makes me wonder why there aren't more loudspeakers designed specifically for one-seat listening

There are such concepts, but I see two main reasons why they are not popular: On one hand, it is impractical to have your head ´in vice´ while listening. We tend to slightly move or turn or heads, and this might lead to very weird effects with such speaker offering narrow horizontal dispersion, particularly regarding localization stability. In practice you cannot even listen to such speaker with another person sitting behind the main listening spot.

The other reason is the directivity over frequency. Concepts with such a narrow listening window are prone to also show uneven directivity which is thwarting efforts to achieve natural, localizable imaging. Keeping directivity index equally high in the vertical and horizontal plane over a broad freq band demands an enormous level of different measures for different bands and will result in a complex yet chunky speaker. The only really elegant solution that comes to mind is the Quad ESL63 and modern derivatives like 2912 using a circularly segmented electrostatic motor structure. This is in fact an 8-way concept and far from perfect when it comes to minimize localizable diaphragm area.

By restricting both horizontal and vertical dispersion, such speakers could solve numerous problems for listeners who want to hear the recording itself, not the room's influence.

I fully agree that the goal itself is desirable particularly in modern rooms, but my guess would be it is much easier to achieve with evenly narrow vertical dispersion alone, maybe combined with a minimum of care to diffuse or attenuate side wall reflections.

 

[PristineSound]

It actually measures surprisingily even on-axis in the frequency range I assume those arrays operate.

View attachment 454458
View attachment 454459

Tekton Moab Be loudspeaker

All photos by Rogier van Bakel. Compositing by David Evett. For Christmas in 2020, a friend sent me a gift: a coffee mug decorated with a one-out-of-five-stars rating for the annus horribilis the world had just been through. The caption on the ceramic read, "VERY BAD WOULD NOT RECOMMEND."

www.stereophile.com

I personally take Stereophile's speaker measurements with a grain of salt. Having said that, let's assume for a moment that the linearity is indeed where the mid range tweeter array operated, it doesn't say a whole lot. There are measurements for horizontal and vertical off-axis, which isn't great. And you can clearly tell those tweeter arrays weren't used to emulate a point source.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Sure, just expected it to be more uneven. This would suggest they do at least measure while developing.

 

[PristineSound]

Sure, just expected it to be more uneven. This would suggest they do at least measure while developing.

Assuming that is true, he was never able to produce any of his measurements during that debacle with Amir and Erin.

But nevertheless, Tekton can be discounted here because the intention of his tweeter arrays were never meant for point source, as stated in his Peter Pan patents.

 

[Audionaut]

such speakers could solve numerous problems for listeners who want to hear the recording itself, not the room's influence.

I enjoy listening out loud with speakers. Of course, the room is part of it.
If I don't want to be influenced by the room, I put on headphones.

 

[CedarX]

I don't understand why Eric's patent was awarded in the first place. Anyone who can re-arrange F=ma to be a=F/m should have rejected it. It's nonsense that would even make a hollywood technobabble script writer blush. Any court case he initiates will be embarrassing for him, as experts called by the defense will expose the falsehoods in his patent.

I think it’s the same ego-driven thinking process I see on bad “audiophile” stuff: you get an idea, or you hear/perceive some difference … then you over-blow the idea or difference, present it at revolutionary, something that science can’t even explain … you post some absolute esoteric word salad BS on some high-end audiophile forum or make your YouTube show … if you water it down just a little, the patent is granted based on the reviewer’s doubts—the more esoteric it reads, the more patentable it becomes…

 

[Heinrich]

View attachment 454509

„Kyrie Eleison“, or in plain English, „Praise The Lord“. A choral piece, no action, long held notes in a highly reflective, big room. The original sound source is huge in dimensions, it is a choir of so many voices, and as we all expect, the room excited by the many is part of the instrument, the composition. What to expect from a recording, actually, without visual reference?

As the above mentioned discussion of stereo (Theile) should tell, stereo relies on imagination. Even with natural hearing, localisation depends on pattern recognition. The latter needs visual cues to first learn how the ears work, there is no ‚physical’ automatism around some basic rules. Why do people believe the industry / advertising / urban legend more than specialised scientists? Why is urban legend replicated, in all iterations one can think of, as if it was settled truth?

In short, the „brain“ is not to automatically deliver audible „reality“ to the mind, there has to be a conversation. Expectations, experience, it is about basic principles, read Theile. But audiophiles request instant virtual reality, and so forth. That‘s why the chit chat goes on forever, it has long lost connection to logic.

Btw, still missing an explanation regarding the undoubted virtues of coax speakers, good ones.

 

[NTK]

„Kyrie Eleison“, or in plain English, „Praise The Lord“.

 

[Duke]

Monacor Raduno. Published not later than 2011 (Tekton´s patent seemingly was filed in 2014)

At the 2004 Midwest Audio Fest speaker designer Darren Kuzma of Parts Express showed a speaker with an array of seven dome tweeters (six in a circle with one in the middle). My understanding was that only the central tweeter covered the upper frequencies.

It is not that [the Beolab 90's] are bad speakers, and the beamsteering works astonishingly well. It is just they sound like any tweeter array in the treble. You notice it particularly when listening to complex material demanding an optimum of subjective transparency in the treble region (orchestra with massive brass, choirs, big band and alike).

I haven't heard the Beolab 90's, but my own experiments with arrays led me to pretty much the same conclusion. I think there is a degradation of clarity from having multiple closely-spaced first-arrival times, at least at treble frequencies.

 

[Heinrich]

View attachment 454642

Thanks, especially for the telling emoticon. Same here, you all do not pick up *any* ‚ansatz‘ to a reason discussion. And I still cannot determine if it was too trivial, or too complicated. In this case the underlying argument, that the recording clearly shows the limits of stereo as the usually expected virtual reality. Ignored with verve. Thank‘s again.

E/g, what feature of the sonic output of most coaxes makes them a go-to choice for speaker boxes with a certain desirable property.

No bad feelings, but it‘s a waste of time.

 

[Audionaut]

At the 2004 Midwest Audio Fest speaker designer Darren Kuzma of Parts Express showed a speaker with an array of seven dome tweeters (six in a circle with one in the middle).

I can't find anything on this.
Is there any documentation?

 

[PristineSound]

At the 2004 Midwest Audio Fest speaker designer Darren Kuzma of Parts Express showed a speaker with an array of seven dome tweeters (six in a circle with one in the middle). My understanding was that only the central tweeter covered the upper frequencies.

If a picture of that starts to float around, Tekton's patent may be invalidated.

 

[kimmosto]

This was originally designed no later than 1984.

too much
It's not fully coaxial due to woofer and D21 outside mid group, but I'm quite sure designer considered or tested that layout too. One of my first designs in 1986 was simplified from this one with smaller 10" woofer. Layout was WMmTmM, and small horizontal directivity (without dropping power response at mid-range) was created with tilted center line.

 

[PristineSound]

And how can I forget this speaker, per their website, there are 10x2" mid range so not exactly tweeter sized drivers for mid range.

 

[Duke]

I can't find anything on this.
Is there any documentation?

Not that I'm aware of.

My recollection is that the speakers were deliberately kept hidden behind a curtain for most of the show, as "mystery speakers", but were revealed at the end of the show. When I made a final quick circuit of the display rooms at the end of the show is when I saw them.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Is it true in general that point source speakers usually have a smaller soundstage?

 

[PristineSound]

Is it true in general that point source speakers usually have a smaller soundstage?

I don't believe so. Soundstage size is more correlated with horizontal dispersion width. And that is generally related to the beamwidth of the tweeter and the geometry of the waveguide, if a waveguide is deployed.

The caveat is that wide dispersion can damper imaging. Every aspect of speaker design is a trade off.

Anyway, I've only experienced speakers and read technical literatures about it, never designed a speaker so I can be wrong.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Is it true in general that point source speakers usually have a smaller soundstage?

Nope.