Each individual is a vector sum of what?
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Dutch & Dutch 15C Discussion
- Thread starter EAXAE
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It's certainly true that bass distortion is a lot less audible due to how our hearing works but maybe there are different factors involved which smear the impression.
Most people are probably just used to hear boomy and distorting bass, as that's the norm wherever you go in publicly accessible places (besides the better movie theatres). Like I was invited recently to a party at a friend's house and the scene was concentrated in the living room where of course too loud and bassy music was played. Amongst the over 20 guests I was the only one to be annoyed - everybody else enjoyed the many hours of exposure to noise. Already when I entered the room I could hear the drivers distorting and the bass reflex ports "coughing" (for lack of better words how to describe the vent noise). But I enjoyed the spots with the nulls in that room.^^ Since I always carry some Alpine MusicSafe ear protection with me on my key chain I then still could blend in without going mad (or deaf).
Or as Erin put it on his D&D 8C review, regarding masking in his room: "Speaking of distortion, yes, the measured harmonic distortion is relatively high. But, in my listening tests I had this speaker playing as high as 105dB @ 4 meters with no audible distortion other than the things that were buzzing in my living room. I even used test tones to see if I could hear the distortion in my MLP but, alas, the fireplace was vibrating as were some of the items in the bookshelves. Not to mention room modes. I’m not saying that someone else couldn’t hear the distortion if trying. But in my case, in a real living room with other things about, the distortion measured didn’t correlate to distortion heard if for no other reason than it was masked by all the things that make a real room a room. [...]"
Having had the pleasure to listen to the JBL M2 several times which has remarkably low bass distortion, then obviously also in real rooms, I can say that at least for myself it does make a huge difference.
I must say that I often found midrange and treble sounding distorted or aggressive due to high relative or absolute level. Much less often so with bass. If there is something I don't like about bass, it's usually excess level in the 150-300Hz band. For low bass, I usually don't have any issues with harmonic distortion (k2/3). Port noise generates much higher frequencies than k2/3 of the bass reflex resonance frequency, that can be quite audible in the absence of mid/treble signal components that may mask such chuffing noises.
We are used to audio sources becoming increasingly distorted with volume. That's just natural. Even human voices distort when screaming. Distortions provide a layer of information. They can grab our attention, get us engaged, make us alert. With very low distortion speakers, it's hard to assess the real volume. One always has the impression that volume is low, while it may actually be quite high. Most people perceive volume as high when distortions start to become audible or when music can be felt on the body or causes discomfort.
Besides that, our ears also become nonlinear at high SPL. I've seen people listen to open-back headphones at high volume claiming they hear no distortion, while it was easy to hear from the outside how distorted the signal was. If headphones are recorded at high level with a low distortion mic and the recording auditioned at lower level, distortion is much easier to hear. If speakers don't distort at high volume, our ears will do so at some point and listening will become unpleasant and fatiguing over longer or shorter period no matter how clean the speakers play. So there is clearly a point where speaker distortion is low enough for a given volume level.
It may be that the 8C manages to provide just low enough distortion per playback level to not become clearly audible. Haven't heard the 8C but this would make sense to me as I expect that D&D as well as Kii Audio would not have relased relatively high THD speakers if they were not convinced that this level of distortion is of little consequence. It's interesting though, that the same engineer that apparently thinks Kii 3 distortion is acceptable for a speaker that meanwhile retails for 17k€, also designs ultra-low distortion drivers. These things seem somewhat contradictory.
Regarding Erin's review of the 8C, it will be interesting to see if he accepts the same btw. even lower THD level for the Palmer Orbit 11 that also suffers a bit from cardioid losses and low bass from small housing/speakers - if he will ever publish a review on them.
All radiators in the complete loudspeaker.
The fact that the floor and ceiling bounce curves are each a power average (which of course is scalar by definition) of three angles doesn't appear relevant to the point being made. There was no claim that it is the averaging that causes combing.
Interesting comments. In fact I have to be very careful with volume on my speakers. They are a very low distortion design and I can easily playback at hearing damaging levels and have no idea , it just sounds glorious. Meanwhile I am going deaf and don’t know it! Hence the reason I always check playback with SPL meter to protect me from myself!
Correct, but these distortion numbers are at 50 Hz of no concern yet; these are inaudible. They would be an issue though at around 3.5 kHz, where our hearing is most sensitive (see page 5).
However, the rising distortion levels below 50 Hz up to easily 100% around 20 Hz (Erin's measurements stop at ~28 Hz) @ 96 dB/1m will be audible. As well around 10% THD already at 100 Hz will become problematic. Why? First of all when you sit farther away as the measured 1m distance. In theory dB SPL loss is -6 per every doubling of distance. So 96 dB/1m is equivalent to 90 dB/2m etc. Yes, even that can be considered loud but not really for the bass region. Generally our hearing if intact, reaches down to ~16 Hz and does not degrade significantly by age (in the bass region) and our hearing threshold at 20 Hz is remarkably high as ~78 dB SPL (see first link).
Second is that even if you listen at an average of 75 dB/1m, which I'd say is not too uncommon, with music that contains very high DR (dynamic range) or also with movies, you might easily find impulses or passages which suddenly spike at +30 dB in the bass region, pushing your speakers up to 105 dB SPL in this scenario.
Since the Neumann KH 150 distortion graphs were chosen to compare: this is even much more impressive considering the difference in size (and price) towards the D&D 8C. Plus, the KH 150 use only one relatively small 6.5" woofer (see Data & Diagrams)! A truly amazing choice of highest quality drivers, as well as an engineering marvel.
I have to add the link of Nuyes' review, he made extensive measurements of the kh150's drivers behaviour.
Neumann KH150 Review
After quite some time, Neumann finally released a new model in late 2022. What makes this one especially exciting is that it neatly fills the gap between the KH80 (4") / KH120 (5") and the KH310 (8") — at a very versatile 6.5" size. The back panel follows Neumann’s traditional style. With...
www.audiosciencereview.com
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