I in no way have attacked you.
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Could recommend speakers suitable for extra-large spaces?
- Thread starter haerinnn
- Start date
LoL... Just reading this thread makes me want meds...
I have said anything else either. It's a form of DBA, which has existed a long time. Sure it works well for sub frequencies but bass is much more than sub frequencies. You can't run it very high, meaning you're leaving out greats part of the bass and also lower midrange. So it will never be a high-end solution. Besides, the walls and particular the real wall will hinder one from doing the best treatment for mids and highs.
Yes there are several SBA systems out there. Here's a measurement from one SBA system. I don't know the details of this particular SBA.
But again I want to bring to your attention that an array of woofer isn't needed to achieve an even response if room as very well treated. Below is a room with only about 1/4 of proper treatment (which was practical possible here), and you can see how good the response is only with that treatment and only front speakers (no subwoofer). Fully treated this would be more or less completely flat and free from resonances. Red graph is before treatment and blue after. No EQ being used.
CBT was been patented by JBL, so it was protected. It's also a challenging design to do. JBL hasn't promoted any real CBTs to the commercial market (only in the pro-arena) and my guess that's because of the cost with the drivers and assembly.
BTW: I think our CBT Atlantic speaker will reach the necessary SPL you require. Probaby not above 10 KHz but that's not needed either because peaks in that region will not go that high. Below 300 Hz and where you have the greatest peaks the max SPL is very high. 121dB @ 1m per meter. The CBT looses less than 3 dB per doubling of distance.
We're still working on assembling, but below you can see how the cabinet looks standing without drivers. Custom finish is possible.
Waxx
Major Contributor
Trinnov is a system like there are more, it's not that much different than Dirac, or Room Perfect, it's just used in an other (more pro audio targetted) way than those other room correction software systems. And it's way to expensive to be in the mainstream market, so I guess it will die out like others who tried the same did. Dirac is popular because it's accessible for the average crowd, Trinnov is not, and so will get too little market to be a real player (at least in the consumer market). 11k for a stereo dsp (Amethyst) is way to expensive but for a few elitist audiophiles...
Find an old Sherwood R972 that isn’t broken and try Trinnov there…
Dirac is indeed popular because it is accessible, but Trinnov appears to be doing well financially with their current setup. You have the wealthy Walmart family and the wealthy Hermes family. It’s OK and likely better business to support a stable but profitable business in the high end.
The fact that they shipped it in a R972 means that it is POSSIBLE to implement this with lower cost electronics. They just choose not to right now.
Waxx
Major Contributor
It's that the high end audiophile market is not really into dsp's, and network audio, they are stuck in old tech and special cables and so. Digital processing is almost seen as evil there.
Hermes is othewise, every woman, from rich to poor wants a bag, so serving the extra rich woman is still a big market, super high end audio is a very small market of which 98% doesn not want digital processing in their system at all.
The only place where i can see that price scheme work is in high end home theaters, and that is probally their main target, not hifi.
Hermes is othewise, every woman, from rich to poor wants a bag, so serving the extra rich woman is still a big market, super high end audio is a very small market of which 98% doesn not want digital processing in their system at all.
The only place where i can see that price scheme work is in high end home theaters, and that is probally their main target, not hifi.
About 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to design and build a large room mainly dedicated to audio. It was attached to our farm home, accessible through exterior doors and an entryway. 12m long, about 350 cu meters, so not quite the size you are planning, but not small either.
I didn't care about home theatre, just wanted to try multi-channel DVD-A and SACD, while making sure to fully optimize for regular stereo.
The room also doubled as a play room for the kids, loaded with pool and ping-pong tables, arcade games, etc.....my exchange to the family for letting me go wild with the audio.
Room dimensions were specified for best possible modal dispersion, and the room was treated acoustically for absorption and dispersion. Wonderful sounding room.
Used Meyer speakers for L-C-R plus L-R rear, and rear sub. All those (500kg) were flown from ceiling. Main front subs were corner stacked.
System was way overpowering intentionally. Vision blurring bass. Upscale night club / performance hall sound quality & power.
I could have used less powerful speakers, but I'm still glad I didn't
Ok, point of all this...is just to buy a little credence when I suggest that once we reach a certain level of equipment/speaker excellence, I believe that implementation matters more than the particular gear selection.
It comes down to good engineering in the end in my experience, and to that end ......if I were to build another room, i would arrange auditions of similar implementations with the understanding I want whoever I chose to be able to not only sell me gear, but be able to work with the acoustic architect I hired.
And once it is all up and running, come to my home and setup / verify the system.
I'd want that more than any specific brand, no matter how good the brand hit my ears at their arranged demo.
Also, and this is just me...I'd not consider pure home audio speakers or care about their preference scores.
I'd go prosound install or studio. There's a lot of good names. Meyer and Danley I know, Fulcrum Acoustic is interesting. Genelec looks good, so does a newer player Theory Professional. Plenty would work, if done right I think.
One thing for sure, have fun with your project...I know I did !
I didn't care about home theatre, just wanted to try multi-channel DVD-A and SACD, while making sure to fully optimize for regular stereo.
The room also doubled as a play room for the kids, loaded with pool and ping-pong tables, arcade games, etc.....my exchange to the family for letting me go wild with the audio.
Room dimensions were specified for best possible modal dispersion, and the room was treated acoustically for absorption and dispersion. Wonderful sounding room.
Used Meyer speakers for L-C-R plus L-R rear, and rear sub. All those (500kg) were flown from ceiling. Main front subs were corner stacked.
System was way overpowering intentionally. Vision blurring bass. Upscale night club / performance hall sound quality & power.
I could have used less powerful speakers, but I'm still glad I didn't
Ok, point of all this...is just to buy a little credence when I suggest that once we reach a certain level of equipment/speaker excellence, I believe that implementation matters more than the particular gear selection.
It comes down to good engineering in the end in my experience, and to that end ......if I were to build another room, i would arrange auditions of similar implementations with the understanding I want whoever I chose to be able to not only sell me gear, but be able to work with the acoustic architect I hired.
And once it is all up and running, come to my home and setup / verify the system.
I'd want that more than any specific brand, no matter how good the brand hit my ears at their arranged demo.
Also, and this is just me...I'd not consider pure home audio speakers or care about their preference scores.
I'd go prosound install or studio. There's a lot of good names. Meyer and Danley I know, Fulcrum Acoustic is interesting. Genelec looks good, so does a newer player Theory Professional. Plenty would work, if done right I think.
One thing for sure, have fun with your project...I know I did !
Waxx
Major Contributor
Meyer, Danley, JBL, ... all make high quality high power systems made for bigger spaces. That is what i also would do. No line arrays in such a space (they need more space to really work right), but high power point source, so compression drivers in horns and big woofers is what you need. I know JBL Cinema speakers very well and it can with the right dsp config really cover a space like that in hifi quality. Danley i don't know but they have a very good reputation on that. Meyer i heared but never installed myself, and it sounded similar good like the JBL cinema (when tuned right).
I also think the install and tuning is way more important than what brand in such a space. DSP programming becomes an essential part of it, and acoustics treatment can help a lot (if that is possible off course, i know he reality). You will need someone who can measure the room and tune a dsp well to make this work.
Just putting speakers in such a room is mostly not a good id. They need to be tuned to the room on dispertion (also vertical) and have a throw (don't fall off to much on a distance) and horn tweeter are better on that than domes (in a waveguide or not). They also go louder so you don't have to push them to the limit like you will have to do with domes.
I also think the install and tuning is way more important than what brand in such a space. DSP programming becomes an essential part of it, and acoustics treatment can help a lot (if that is possible off course, i know he reality). You will need someone who can measure the room and tune a dsp well to make this work.
Just putting speakers in such a room is mostly not a good id. They need to be tuned to the room on dispertion (also vertical) and have a throw (don't fall off to much on a distance) and horn tweeter are better on that than domes (in a waveguide or not). They also go louder so you don't have to push them to the limit like you will have to do with domes.
@haerinnn , first I just wanted to thank you for using your resources to offer a wonderful viewing and listening experience to a large number of people. Kudos to you, and I really hope everything comes together for you in a way that brings your vision fully to life.
I think @gnarly's recommendations are excellent:
And this:
My background includes custom high-end studio monitors, but imo you would be better served by someone experienced in the type of installation you have in mind. Here's a photo to give you an idea of which way my thinking goes for speakers for a high-power application, mine are the big in-wall main monitors:
And here's a close-up of the subwoofer with me standing behind it for scale:
Okay just kidding... I'm actually standing a few feet behind the cabinet and bending my legs a bit to make it look bigger than it really is. My fingers are actually way behind the back of the cabinet; I'm just holding them up at the right height. The woofer is only 21".
That was to give you some context for the suggestions I'm about to make... and also that was for my ego, as I'm kinda proud of those.
Okay the thing I want to focus on is the radiation pattern width of the horn, and the shape of the audience area. You will want the coverage pattern of your horns to be wide enough to cover the audience area. (Yes I am making the assumption that you will be using horns or Danley's or something similar; I'll come back to this later).
For those big studio monitors I was limited by budget constraints to using off-the-shelf horns. The horn I used has a radiation pattern width of 60 degrees, and the only other off-the-shelf horn I liked a lot also had a pattern width of 60 degrees. I would have PREFERRED something more like 70 degrees, to give better coverage for the musicians standing around BEHIND the mix position listening to their new album for the first time, but making custom 70-degree horns would have busted the budget.
For a small theater application you will probably need a pattern width of around 80 degrees (like the Meyersound Blue Horns) or more, UNLESS you intentionally make the audience area narrow enough and deep enough that it can be covered well with a narrower-pattern horn. For instance, the Danley Synergy Horn has a pattern width of 50 degrees. That might be too narrow to be practical, as your audience area would have to be fairly narrow and deep, but the time to make that decision would be BEFORE you start pouring concrete for the foundation!
Fairly wide-pattern speakers can be used for a narrower audience area, but narrow-pattern speakers will not work well for a wide audience area. So you can maximize your speaker choices by designing an audience area that is more narrow-and-deep rather than wide-and-shallow.
Line arrays excel at giving you wide coverage, and at making the loudness consistent at different distances from the screen. They also pack a LOT of SPL capability into a fairly compact package. But I do not recommend line arrays for your application! Let me explain why:
Line array modules get their wide coverage patterns by firing their compression drivers through a diffraction slot, they call it a "waveguide", and that diffraction slot introduces a coloration. The sharp edges of the diffraction slot cause a reflection (which is what widens the pattern) and part of that reflection goes right straight back down to the compression driver diaphragm, where it is reflected out again towards the slot, where part of it is reflected back down again... and so on, back-and-forth as it decays. The ear hears this as degraded clarity and even as harshness, and (to the best of my knowledge) this sort of problem cannot be fixed by EQ.
A horn can also have this sort of coloration if it uses a diffraction slot and/or if it has sharp edges at the mouth. In other words, not all horns are created equal, not by a long shot. Horn design is a juggling of tradeoffs, and I can go into more detail if you'd like.
In your speaker search I suggest that you prioritize characteristics which CANNOT be fixed with EQ. This would include coverage pattern width and uniformity; freedom from resonances (which includes the back-down-the-throat reflection in line array modules); and adequate SPL capability, ideally with a fair amount of headroom of course. Don't be too concerned with the published on-axis frequency response curve because THAT is something which can and will be fixed by EQ during the installation process.
And imo you are doing the right thing to look into loudspeaker choice BEFORE you design and build the room. If the audience area is too wide and shallow, you will not have as many loudspeaker options to choose from.
In my opinion.
I think @gnarly's recommendations are excellent:
And this:
My background includes custom high-end studio monitors, but imo you would be better served by someone experienced in the type of installation you have in mind. Here's a photo to give you an idea of which way my thinking goes for speakers for a high-power application, mine are the big in-wall main monitors:
And here's a close-up of the subwoofer with me standing behind it for scale:
Okay just kidding... I'm actually standing a few feet behind the cabinet and bending my legs a bit to make it look bigger than it really is. My fingers are actually way behind the back of the cabinet; I'm just holding them up at the right height. The woofer is only 21".
That was to give you some context for the suggestions I'm about to make... and also that was for my ego, as I'm kinda proud of those.
Okay the thing I want to focus on is the radiation pattern width of the horn, and the shape of the audience area. You will want the coverage pattern of your horns to be wide enough to cover the audience area. (Yes I am making the assumption that you will be using horns or Danley's or something similar; I'll come back to this later).
For those big studio monitors I was limited by budget constraints to using off-the-shelf horns. The horn I used has a radiation pattern width of 60 degrees, and the only other off-the-shelf horn I liked a lot also had a pattern width of 60 degrees. I would have PREFERRED something more like 70 degrees, to give better coverage for the musicians standing around BEHIND the mix position listening to their new album for the first time, but making custom 70-degree horns would have busted the budget.
For a small theater application you will probably need a pattern width of around 80 degrees (like the Meyersound Blue Horns) or more, UNLESS you intentionally make the audience area narrow enough and deep enough that it can be covered well with a narrower-pattern horn. For instance, the Danley Synergy Horn has a pattern width of 50 degrees. That might be too narrow to be practical, as your audience area would have to be fairly narrow and deep, but the time to make that decision would be BEFORE you start pouring concrete for the foundation!
Fairly wide-pattern speakers can be used for a narrower audience area, but narrow-pattern speakers will not work well for a wide audience area. So you can maximize your speaker choices by designing an audience area that is more narrow-and-deep rather than wide-and-shallow.
Line arrays excel at giving you wide coverage, and at making the loudness consistent at different distances from the screen. They also pack a LOT of SPL capability into a fairly compact package. But I do not recommend line arrays for your application! Let me explain why:
Line array modules get their wide coverage patterns by firing their compression drivers through a diffraction slot, they call it a "waveguide", and that diffraction slot introduces a coloration. The sharp edges of the diffraction slot cause a reflection (which is what widens the pattern) and part of that reflection goes right straight back down to the compression driver diaphragm, where it is reflected out again towards the slot, where part of it is reflected back down again... and so on, back-and-forth as it decays. The ear hears this as degraded clarity and even as harshness, and (to the best of my knowledge) this sort of problem cannot be fixed by EQ.
A horn can also have this sort of coloration if it uses a diffraction slot and/or if it has sharp edges at the mouth. In other words, not all horns are created equal, not by a long shot. Horn design is a juggling of tradeoffs, and I can go into more detail if you'd like.
In your speaker search I suggest that you prioritize characteristics which CANNOT be fixed with EQ. This would include coverage pattern width and uniformity; freedom from resonances (which includes the back-down-the-throat reflection in line array modules); and adequate SPL capability, ideally with a fair amount of headroom of course. Don't be too concerned with the published on-axis frequency response curve because THAT is something which can and will be fixed by EQ during the installation process.
And imo you are doing the right thing to look into loudspeaker choice BEFORE you design and build the room. If the audience area is too wide and shallow, you will not have as many loudspeaker options to choose from.
In my opinion.
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Oh, for revenge, this sweetheart went full stalker on me on Facebook, reacting with sad face emojis on all my posts since 2017—reams of them.LoL... Just reading this thread makes me want meds...
- Thread Starter
- #113
Thank you for your detailed and professional response. I've learned a great deal from it. Is it because they don't have a high enough SPL that you don't consider using home Hi-Fi speakers?About 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to design and build a large room mainly dedicated to audio. It was attached to our farm home, accessible through exterior doors and an entryway. 12m long, about 350 cu meters, so not quite the size you are planning, but not small either.
I didn't care about home theatre, just wanted to try multi-channel DVD-A and SACD, while making sure to fully optimize for regular stereo.
The room also doubled as a play room for the kids, loaded with pool and ping-pong tables, arcade games, etc.....my exchange to the family for letting me go wild with the audio.
Room dimensions were specified for best possible modal dispersion, and the room was treated acoustically for absorption and dispersion. Wonderful sounding room.
Used Meyer speakers for L-C-R plus L-R rear, and rear sub. All those (500kg) were flown from ceiling. Main front subs were corner stacked.
System was way overpowering intentionally. Vision blurring bass. Upscale night club / performance hall sound quality & power.
I could have used less powerful speakers, but I'm still glad I didn't
Ok, point of all this...is just to buy a little credence when I suggest that once we reach a certain level of equipment/speaker excellence, I believe that implementation matters more than the particular gear selection.
It comes down to good engineering in the end in my experience, and to that end ......if I were to build another room, i would arrange auditions of similar implementations with the understanding I want whoever I chose to be able to not only sell me gear, but be able to work with the acoustic architect I hired.
And once it is all up and running, come to my home and setup / verify the system.
I'd want that more than any specific brand, no matter how good the brand hit my ears at their arranged demo.
Also, and this is just me...I'd not consider pure home audio speakers or care about their preference scores.
I'd go prosound install or studio. There's a lot of good names. Meyer and Danley I know, Fulcrum Acoustic is interesting. Genelec looks good, so does a newer player Theory Professional. Plenty would work, if done right I think.
One thing for sure, have fun with your project...I know I did !
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- Thread Starter
- #114
Thank you for your detailed and professional reply. I've learned a lot from it. I think I'll choose speakers with a wider coverage angle. As far as I know, speakers with a wider coverage angle can create a wider soundstage, and I prefer a more expansive soundstage.
How do you evaluate the horn design of this speaker? What are its advantages?
- Thread Starter
- #115
Does anyone know about this subwoofer design? It adopts a horizontally-opposed architecture, which is said to be able to significantly reduce the cabinet vibrations caused by reaction forces. So far, I only know that KYD has such a design.
keithyates.com
UberSub - Keith Yates Design
keithyates.com
You're very welcome.
High SPL is one reason. I'm convinced high SPL needs to include linear response headroom for transients, throughout the spectrum.
Both ends of the spectrum are the difficulty in my experience. Everyone knows how much subwoofer it takes for the low end to maintain uncompressed, unclipped, and relatively undistorted SPL. I don't think that many people are aware that the high end is problematic too. For me, only compression drivers have maintained ease of linear delivery at higher SPL. Not alot of home audio with compression drivers....
Second reason is simply value. There are a host of well known reasons why proaudio delivers much more sound quality for the dollar, imho.
Does anyone know about this subwoofer design? It adopts a horizontally-opposed architecture, which is said to be able to significantly reduce the cabinet vibrations caused by reaction forces. So far, I only know that KYD has such a design.
UberSub - Keith Yates Design
Opposed motion for force cancellation works.
After my big audio room, I was sort of left with nowhere to take my audio hobby, so I turned to DIY. I've built a number of subs, three different versions that used opposing drivers, and four or five that didn't. High power, high excursion 18" drivers.
The opposed driver versions won't toss a beer setting on them when cranked, whereas the unopposed will try to walk across the floor.
Here's a DIY example using vertically opposed.
Anyway, opposed has been around for quite a while.
AC/DC made the ole EV MT4 pretty famous
In home audio, the reason wide-pattern speakers give you a wider sound stage is because strong early reflections off the sidewalls pull the soundstage width to the sides a bit. Imo there are downsides, including less precise imaging (that strong early sidewall reflection is blurring the image locations a bit), and reduced clarity. So it's a trade-off, and my understanding is that most people prefer the wider soundstage in a home audio setup. I am not one of them, but two-channel isn't the topic of this thread so I'll get back on topic.
In a high-end cinema setup, you have side channel speakers so you are not relying on strong early sidewall reflections to widen the soundstage, and your sense of space is whatever is on the recording because you have side and rear channels dedicated to that. So imo the main arguments for using wide-pattern speakers for home audio do not apply to a high-end cinema setup. And clarity matters a lot for cinema, so imo you don't want your radiation patterns to be much wider than what's needed because you want to maintain as high of a direct-to-reverberant sound ratio as you resonably can.
So for your application, I think that you only need a wide enough pattern for each of your main speakers to cover your audience area.
I like the large radius round-over around the mouth, I like the elliptical shape, and I like the pattern shape (80 degrees by 45 degrees).
The large radius round-over and elliptical shape are conducive to very low coloration and a well-behaved radiation pattern in my experience, assuming it's a "constant directivity" horn or approximately so. And that 80 degrees of horizontal coverage seems just about right to me.
The reduced vertical coverage means that high frequency energy isn't being "wasted" going towards the ceiling and floor. A limiting factor for a large-format compression driver is that it runs out of top-end energy, so funnelling the available top-end energy only into the audience area makes sense from the standpoint of available headroom. My preference for home audio would be a round horn, but imo that would not be the best choice for your application because it does not focus the high frequency energy where the audience is, at least not in the vertical plane.
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- Thread Starter
- #118
That is to say, for a multi - channel system, if there is no need to consider a wide enough coverage to cover the audience area, does a narrower coverage angle result in better sound quality?
This is the official test report of this speaker. Is this an excellent measurement result? At my level, I can only see that the frequency response curve is very flat and the directivity is very good, but the directivity drops sharply above 10,000 Hz. I don't know what impact this will have.
Imo the pattern DOES need to be wide enough to cover the audience area. You want someone at the far left-hand side of the front row to still be within the coverage pattern of the right-front speaker, so I think the left and right front speakers would be toed-in. You might even go with a fat-wedge-shaped or trapezoidal audience area.
Imo the reason you don't want coverage patterns much wider than necessary is because, in general, the higher the direct-to-reverberant sound ratio, the better the clarity.
That looks excellent to me for a two-way system with a large-format compression driver.
The pattern-narrowing above 10 kHz is because of the compression driver's exit diameter. They don't say what that diameter is, but it's probably in the range of 1.4 inches to 2.0 inches (my guess is 1.4 or 1.5 inches). So north of 10 kHz, the compression driver is simply beaming into a narrower angle than the angle of the sides of the horn.
There is a juggling of tradeoffs involved here. A horn with a diffraction slot is often used in prosound to get better dispersion at the top end, the trade-off being edginess or harshness at high SPLs caused by the diffraction slot.
A "small format" compression driver (1" throat diameter) would start to beam higher up in frequency, but would not have as much broadband SPL output capability and power handling, and the crossover to the midwoofer would have to be considerably higher. Imo a small-format compression driver is not a viable option for this application. What happens below 10 kHz is many times more important than what happens above 10 kHz.
Some manufacturers add a tweeter or supertweeter to cover the very top end. Obviously manufacturers have differences of opinion on that subject, and my preference is to cover everything from the crossover on up through a single horn. (In home audio I often cheat and add a rear-firing tweeter, but I don't think that's a viable option here.)
The top octave is probably going to be EQ'd during the system installation process. EQ won't change the discrepancy between the off-axis and on-axis response north of 10 kHz, but it can make an overall net improvement. Now we are getting into the specifics of system calibration and imo this calls for someone with genuine expertise in this area. You will probably want your system EQ'd to whichever "house curve" makes the most sense for your application, and imo that should be done by a professional.
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