Any speakers with cardioid response in vertical as well?

[Bwaslo]

Cardioid radiation pattern at low frequency is a something a lot of speakers designersare pursuing, but it seems only in the horizontal pattern. Are there any designs that are also cardioid in vertical pattern?

While that would no doubt have costs in SPL capability, wouldn't it be desirable for avoiding floor and ceiling reflections? Granted that isn't considered a major problem by most (other than Roy Allison), but still something that could differentiate from all the similar cardio+waveguide boxes that are popping up.

 

[kharan]

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[Bwaslo]

Are there any spins or pattern curves for it?

 

[BenB]

A vertical cardioid wont reduce floor and ceiling reflections much at all. It could reduce the higher order reflections (ex: floor-to-ceiling-to-floor-to-ceiling-to-listener).
The first floor reflection typically has an angle that's only about 30 degrees below horizontal, and the ceiling only 40 or 45 degrees above horizontal (depending on speaker height and listening distance). If you want to significantly reduce the first vertical reflections, you need a beam much narrower than a cardioid pattern.

 

[staticV3]

Cardioid radiation pattern at low frequency is a something a lot of speakers designersare pursuing, but it seems only in the horizontal pattern. Are there any designs that are also cardioid in vertical pattern?

LF directivity doesn't really differentiate between Hor and Ver.

Se e.g:






All of these (as well as any other speaker) are equally as cardioid in the bass Hor and Ver.

 

[SigbergAudio]

Came here to say the same as @staticV3. One might assume it's only horizontal given that the restrictive / passive cardioid designs have the cardioid ports on the side, but if you look at the graphs it's actually effective in the vertical plane as well both in our design and most others.

 

[illusonic]

Palmer Orbit 11 has vertically the same cardioid control as horizontally.
All other examples below become wider in the cardioid frequency range of the vertical dispersion.
It seems top/bottom slots do pay off vertically.

 

[illusonic]

A vertical cardioid wont reduce floor and ceiling reflections much at all. It could reduce the higher order reflections (ex: floor-to-ceiling-to-floor-to-ceiling-to-listener).
The first floor reflection typically has an angle that's only about 30 degrees below horizontal, and the ceiling only 40 or 45 degrees above horizontal (depending on speaker height and listening distance). If you want to significantly reduce the first vertical reflections, you need a beam much narrower than a cardioid pattern.

Lateral 1st order reflections seem boarderline. For an equilateral speaker/listener triangle with 2.5m side length in a 5m wide room, lateral 1st order reflection angle is 60°. Not all cardioid speakers have high suppression at that angle. If the room is less wide or the triangle length increases, the reflection angle will decrease. For well behaved cardioid dispersion (no "leaks" at the backside of the speaker), one 1st order and multiple higher order reflections originating from the rear hemisphere of the speaker will be reduced for horizontal as well as vertical dispersion.

 

[illusonic]

In case the given speaker/room/stereo-triangle combination makes the 1st order lateral reflection fall into a dispersion angle where the speaker just starts to fall off, lateral reflection-level and thereby sound-image width can be adjusted by speaker toe in/out. Most people seem to prefer wide image, which can be achieved by toeing the speakers out (increase of lateral reflection level). This leads me to the conclusion, that advantages of cardioid dispersion are not found in 1st order reflections from the side walls, ceiling or floor.

Reduction of 1st order rear-wall (behind the speakers) and higher order reflections from the rear hemisphere of the speaker seem most effective in increasing sound image focus by increasing direct to reverberant sound ratio. Because sound image focus can be a question of taste, reduction of 1st order rear-wall reflection seems specifically important because it reduces otherwise strong comb-filter effects for which the notches cannot be compensated by room EQ.

The degree to which the 1st order rear-wall reflection is reduced, depends on the cardioid effect at low frequency and the distance of the speaker to the rear wall. The first/lowest frequency notch caused by rear-wall reflection occurs approximately at the frequency where lambda/4 equals the distance from the respective sound source(s) of the speaker to the wall. Further notches occurr at multiples of the first notch-frequency.

Shown below is an attempt to approximate reduction of 1st order rear-wall reflections for a speaker with cardioid effect down to 100Hz (ASCILAB C8C) in comparison to a speaker with cardioid extension merely down to 250Hz (Palmer Orbit 11). Results show that low levels (high reduction) of rear-wall reflections can be achieved in both cases, if speakers are placed with suitable distance to the rear wall. In case of the Orbits direct wall placement seems best to shift notch frequencies into the effective cardioid frequency range. For the C8C, lower cardioid extension allows higher rear-wall distance. Reduced cardioid effect around 600Hz seems to make a 60-70cm distance the optimum choice for C8C.