Dynaudio Ask the Expert Series - Dynaudio Tweeters & MSP Woofers

[watchnerd]

Dynaudio has a whole series of videos on varying acoustic topics for their consumer and professional speakers (wish JBL would do the same...).

This one focuses on how and why Dynaudio makes some of the driver design decisions that it makes, particularly it's continued use of soft dome tweeters, MSP woofers, and pro vs consumer speakers:

 

[Cosmik]

Slightly disappointed with their idea that even if the measurements look good, the sound can be bad. This is standard audiophile folklore.

If I were them, I would be thinking that if measurements and subjective listening impressions fail to correlate, I should be looking into the following:

1. The listening tests are faulty - not enough time in the universe to properly test every permutation by listening to it, even if you believe that blind listening tests are scientific. And sighted listening tests really are going to lead you down some meaningless paths.
2. The myriad *other* aspects of the system have not been set up optimally (woofer & mid levels, crossover frequencies & slopes, etc.). You can't assess a tweeter by listening to it alone.
3. The measurements are incomplete or looking at the wrong things. Solution: improve their understanding of measurements.

Of course, I am probably being naive. If I were running a commercial speaker company, I would seek to appeal to all types of target customers, so I would have to talk about measurements *and* subjective listening - my company has artistic integrity, 'soul', etc.

I would also seek to imply that performance is not just about specs, because my speakers would not be better than everyone else's in that regard.

The making-your-own-drivers thing is a great angle.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I thought there talk about ribbon tweeter needing a ribbon woofer was nice. Of course you could effectively say Maggies match a ribbon tweeter with ribbon woofers (yeah I know the woofer is a different kind of panel, but it would work no differently in directivity than if it were a large ribbon).

I have helped people build speakers in the past, and a couple used the Esotar tweeters which really are exemplary. As for the listening vs measuring in their designs, I would like to know really how much of each is done. Do they really listen just to tweeters for hours for design decisions? Or is it just a final check to make sure they haven't messed up somewhere. I would think that was just a bit of marketing to audiophiles there.

 

[watchnerd]

I would think that was just a bit of marketing to audiophiles there.

I suspect you are correct. If you watch some of the rest of the video series, they have interviews with some more junior engineers who blatantly talk about spending time measuring and lowering distortion, with less mentions of listening.

You also heard them reference their new measuring facility, which is supposedly like a modernized version of the JBL spinorama.