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Magico A5 spinorama (CEA2034)

abdo123

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Why would this sound better in a reflective room vs. a narrow directivity speaker? I'd imagine this is only true if you're looking for the widest, most enveloping soundstage possible, at which point why not just get an omnidirectional speaker?

Also, basic room EQ from AVRs usually does more harm than good, and this is doubly true with wide directivity speakers since the room has an even greater influence on their measured in-room response.

because in reflective rooms there is no HF downward slope, it can be straight as an arrow from 1KHz to 20KHz.

since the downward slope is incorporated (gently) into the speaker's spinorama then i must assume that in reflective room it would sound very neutral.

as for the room EQ doing more harm than good, this is when the off-axis response is not consistent with the on-axis response, in this speaker this is not the case, it has excellent directivity.
 

FrantzM

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Those measurements suggest a very good , well engineered speaker. At a relatively sane price... , for High End Audio. Kudos to Magico.
 
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TimVG

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because in reflective rooms there is no HF downward slope, it can be straight as an arrow from 1KHz to 20KHz

False

It is a matter of directivity and not just HF absorption (which even happens by air itself)
 

abdo123

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False

It is a matter of directivity and not just HF absorption (which even happens by air itself)

well that has been my experience with anehcoicly flat speakers with both narrow and wide directivity in my reflective living room. we're all entitled to our opinions.
 

TimVG

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well that has been my experience with anehcoicly flat speakers with both narrow and wide directivity in my reflective living room. we're all entitled to our opinions.

Listening distance? Constant or gradually increasing DI? I've never measured a neutral loudspeaker that measured flat in-room.
 

ctrl

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It will be interesting to see how the vertical frequency response measurements turn out for this speaker.

For a non-coaxial speaker to show such balanced SP, ER, SP-DI and ER-DI, there is usually a price to pay. One can make it happen that the horizontal dispersion is very even, but must balance vertically accordingly.

Here is an example of a loudspeaker that shows similar behavior (ignore frequencies <200Hz), crossover frequency is 1.5kHz:
1622629583072.png


The horizontal radiation pattern can be controlled very well:
1622629956575.png


In this case, the good performance of SP, ER, SP-DI and ER-DI is at the expense of the vertical radiation pattern (shown 0-90deg up):
1622630023645.png


Curious how Magico solved the problem with the A5. But it seems unlikely that Amir will get this LS on loan.
 

abdo123

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Listening distance? Constant or gradually increasing DI? I've never measured a neutral loudspeaker that measured flat in-room.

Listening distance is the width of the room (speakers against the front wall, couch against the backwall, roughly 3.1 meters). I sit vertically on-axis and roughly 16 degree off-axis horizontally.

The speakers are the JBL Stage A130 (measured here) with gradually increasing DI with speaker correction EQ to maximize PIR/Olive score.

index.php


the other speakers I tested in my living room do not have anechoic measurments so i will not share them.
 

TimVG

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Listening distance is the width of the room (speakers against the front wall, couch against the backwall, roughly 3.1 meters). I sit vertically on-axis and roughly 16 degree off-axis horizontally.

The speakers are the JBL Stage A130 (measured here) with gradually increasing DI with speaker correction EQ to maximize PIR/Olive score.

index.php


the other speakers I tested in my living room do not have anechoic measurments so i will not share them.

Could you use a standard 50dB scale and 1/6 or 1/12 smoothing? Also any other EQ in the bass apart from the one based on anechoic data?
 

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What is the effect of the treble roll of above 7khz? Sound “warmer”? Toe-in makes more difference? Just curious; I’ll never be buying a pair of these :)

We actually can't know what is their reference angle. Remember Buchardt S400 - proposed angle vs on tweeter axis angle:

index.php
 

TimVG

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I don't agree with that conclusion but to each his own.

It's physics. There is more radiated energy as one goes lower in frequency. Whether or not the room is absorbent at higher frequencies or reflective doesn't change these properties inherent to the speaker.
 

napilopez

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Listening distance is the width of the room (speakers against the front wall, couch against the backwall, roughly 3.1 meters). I sit vertically on-axis and roughly 16 degree off-axis horizontally.

The speakers are the JBL Stage A130 (measured here) with gradually increasing DI with speaker correction EQ to maximize PIR/Olive score.

index.php


the other speakers I tested in my living room do not have anechoic measurments so i will not share them.

Do you have any measurements without EQ though? Or are you using Maiky or Pierre's EQ? What @TimVG said about it mostly being directivity-related is true. I've done most of my speaker listening and measurements in a highly reflective space --almost completely bare walls other than -- and the PIR has always tracked well. The general behavior of JBLs is to have near constant directivity above 2kHz so you having a flattish PIR in this region is actually what would be expected.

You said you applied EQ to the JBLs, but if we look at the A130s un-EQd PIR, it has an almost flat response above 2kHz:

1622647402258.png


I assume you EQd down that midrange hump so it looks to me like these measurementsmight actually track pretty well.

That said, to @abdo123's point, I do think a large space will likely have less a droop in the top octave -- just not sure it has much to do with it being a reflective space. It's about the ratio of direct sound to indirect sound.

As an example here's the PIR of the Buchardt S400 against a 2m measurement made in the center of my old open floor plan studio apartment -- 100% bare walls where these measurements were made:

1622648016843.png


Also @adbo123, is that a spatial average? Although a single sweep should track decently, it's worth noting that the PIR as used in the olive papers is an average of 9 measurements at 3m. Specifically, this is how the PIR was captured for the olive papers (quoting myself on this from another post since I don't remember where I fetched this from)

"These in-room responses each consisted of an average of 9 measurements taken at 3M, representing the listening window angles (0; ±10 vertical; ±10, 20, 30 horizontal). In my experience performing a spatial average of this sort does produce results closest to the PIR. The speaker was 1.2m away from its rear wall and 'slightly-off center' from the sidewalls. "

So if we are really correlating the PIR to an in-room response the speaker should be measured across its listening window.
 
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abdo123

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Do you have any measurements without EQ though? Or are you using Maiky or Pierre's EQ? What @TimVG said about it mostly being directivity-related is true. I've done most of my speaker listening and measurements in a highly reflective space --almost completely bare walls other than -- and the PIR has always tracked well. The general behavior of JBLs is to have near constant directivity above 2kHz so you having a flattish PIR in this region is actually what would be expected.

You said you applied EQ to the JBLs, but if we look at the A130s un-EQd PIR, it has an almost flat response above 2kHz:

View attachment 133408

I assume you EQd down that midrange hump so it looks to me like these measurementsmight actually track pretty well.

That said, to @abdo123's point, I do think a large space will likely have less a droop in the top octave -- just not sure it has much to do with it being a reflective space. It's about the ratio of direct sound to indirect sound.

As an example here's the PIR of the Buchardt S400 against a 2m measurement made in the center of my old open floor plan studio apartment -- 100% bare walls where these measurements were made:

View attachment 133411

Also @adbo123, is that a spatial average? Although a single sweep should track decently, it's worth noting that the PIR as used in the olive papers is an average of 9 measurements at 3m. Specifically, this is how the PIR was captured for the olive papers (quoting myself on this from another post since I don't remember where I fetched this from)

"These in-room responses each consisted of an average of 9 measurements taken at 3M, representing the listening window angles (0; ±10 vertical; ±10, 20, 30 horizontal). In my experience performing a spatial average of this sort does produce results closest to the PIR. The speaker was 1.2m away from its rear wall and 'slightly-off center' from the sidewalls. "

So if we are really correlating the PIR to an in-room response the speaker should be measured across its listening window.


this is not about my JBL, or the Olive PIR model, or my EQ, or my own measurements, however i do have Maiky's filters applied in that measurement.

this is about the fact that Speakers with flat on-axis response (like the JBL A130 with the resonances neutralized) can still produce a response without a HF roll-off depending on the ratio of direct vs reflected sound. and vice versa.

for example the Magico in question produces the -6 dB optimal decrease from 100Hz to 10KHz according to the PIR model even though the speaker is not flat on axis and has a downward slope on axis anechoically and also in the listening window.

1622648613440.png
 

napilopez

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this is not about my JBL, or the Olive PIR model, or my EQ, or my own measurements, however i do have Maiky's filters applied in that measurement.

this is about the fact that Speakers with flat on-axis response (like the JBL A130 with the resonances neutralized) can still produce a response without a HF roll-off depending on the ratio of direct vs reflected sound. and vice versa.

for example the Magico in question produces the -6 dB optimal decrease from 100Hz to 10KHz according to the PIR model even though the speaker is not flat on axis and has a downward slope on axis anechoically and also in the listening window.

View attachment 133413

Sorry, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but TimVG and I were simply responding to your earlier point that:

"in reflective rooms there is no HF downward slope, it can be straight as an arrow from 1KHz to 20KHz."

I was just trying to demonstrate that the reflective room bit is, to the best of my knowledge, incorrect.

You are definitely correct that a speaker can have a straight in-room response from 1kHz to 20kHz, but that's a function of the speaker's directivity. It being a reflective room isn't going to majorly affect the overall tilt of the response, except for above ~8-10kHz or so.

To perhaps provide more context on this matter, the aforementioned room where I measured the Buchardt S400 is what would be considered "a reflective large room." Where measured, the speaker was about 2m away from the nearest walls, and about 7-8m from the furthest one. Ceilings were about 5m high.

Nonetheless, you can see that the speaker maintains a tilt in its actual measured in-room response. The reflective room did not help the speaker remain flat, despite the fact the S400 I measured was very flat on-axis anechoically.

Here is a graph comparing the on-axis to the PIR and the actual in room response. Smoothed to 1/3 since trends are the only thing that matter here.
S400 in-room.png


On the other hand, the D&D 8C has something close to constant directivity throughout most of its frequency response, so instead, it has a flatter, less tilted PIR and actual in-room response.

pir vs actual ir.png


The KEF R3 showed a bit more devialtion from about 8-10kHz, but nonetheless tracks the PIR better than the axial response.

KEF R3 IR PIR.png


So a reflective room will not straighten out the response. These weren't super controlled measurements, but in two of three examples, the actual in-room response is actually a little more tilted than the predicted in-room response above. It is the directivity that will affect the slope of the in-room response above all else between 500Hz ant 10kHz.
 

abdo123

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Sorry, I'm not trying to be argumentative, but TimVG and I were simply responding to your earlier point that:

"in reflective rooms there is no HF downward slope, it can be straight as an arrow from 1KHz to 20KHz."

I was just trying to demonstrate that the reflective room bit is, to the best of my knowledge, incorrect.

You are definitely correct that a speaker can have a straight in-room response from 1kHz to 20kHz, but that's a function of the speaker's directivity. It being a reflective room isn't going to majorly affect the overall tilt of the response, except for above ~8-10kHz or so.

To perhaps provide more context on this matter, the aforementioned room where I measured the Buchardt S400 is what would be considered "a reflective large room." Where measured, the speaker was about 2m away from the nearest walls, and about 7-8m from the furthest one. Ceilings were about 5m high.

Nonetheless, you can see that the speaker maintains a tilt in its actual measured in-room response. The reflective room did not help the speaker remain flat, despite the fact the S400 I measured was very flat on-axis anechoically.

Here is a graph comparing the on-axis to the PIR and the actual in room response. Smoothed to 1/3 since trends are the only thing that matter here.
View attachment 133428

On the other hand, the D&D 8C has something close to constant directivity throughout most of its frequency response, so instead, it has a flatter, less tilted PIR and actual in-room response.

View attachment 133431

The KEF R3 showed a bit more devialtion from about 8-10kHz, but nonetheless tracks the PIR better than the axial response.

View attachment 133435

So a reflective room will not straighten out the response. These weren't super controlled measurements, but in two of three examples, the actual in-room response is actually a little more tilted than the predicted in-room response above. It is the directivity that will affect the slope of the in-room response above all else between 500Hz ant 10kHz.

Okay let me get this straight, I thought the downward tilts was because the majority of rooms had thin fabrics and surfaces that would absorb more high frequencies than low frequencies.

Also the fact that the higher the frequency, the higher the energy, the bigger the disequilibrium is, so the frequency will decay quicker.

So to get this straight, a speaker with a triangle radiation pattern (basically beaking starting from 100Hz) would have a very intense downward slope from 100Hz to 20KHz; However, a speaker with a P E N I S like radiation pattern (D&D 8C) would have almost a perfectly straight FR in-room in a reflective room?

what about speakers like the philharmonic BMR? with consistent 180 degree radiation? flat in-room response or tilted in-room response?


Does that mean the Dutch & Dutch 8C IS the best speaker in the world? because it will perform consistently in every room?
 

spacevector

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This is off-topic - so apologies for that but there have been several posts here discussing downward frequency response tilts, PIR, room treatments, radiation patterns.... so what the heck....

If we have a speaker with a given radiation pattern, will it measure flatter in a treated room compared to an untreated room? If I understand correctly, the PIR is composed of weighted averages of on-axis and off-axis response. Since the off-axis response generally has roll-off in higher frequencies, typical PIRs have downward tilt. Now if this same speaker is placed in a room where off-axis reflections are treated, we expect lesser contribution from off-axis radiation. So should this mean that the measured response will be closer to on-axis response and thus flatter? Perhaps having overall lesser SPL?
 
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Matias

Matias

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This is off-topic - so apologies for that but there have been several posts here discussing downward frequency response tilts, PIR, room treatments, radiation patterns.... so what the heck....

If we have a speaker with a given radiation pattern, will it measure flatter in a treated room compared to an untreated room? If I understand correctly, the PIR is composed of weighted averages of on-axis and off-axis response. Since the off-axis response generally has roll-off in higher frequencies, typical PIRs have downward tilt. Now if this same speaker is placed in a room where off-axis reflections are treated, we expect lesser contribution from off-axis radiation. So should this mean that the measured response will be closer to on-axis response and thus flatter? Perhaps having overall lesser SPL?
In my ignorance I think it depends on what you treat. If you absorb bass, it will tilt less. If you absorb mids and highs, it will tilt more. Seems intuitive to me, but I am no expert in this.
 

abdo123

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This is off-topic - so apologies for that but there have been several posts here discussing downward frequency response tilts, PIR, room treatments, radiation patterns.... so what the heck....

If we have a speaker with a given radiation pattern, will it measure flatter in a treated room compared to an untreated room? If I understand correctly, the PIR is composed of weighted averages of on-axis and off-axis response. Since the off-axis response generally has roll-off in higher frequencies, typical PIRs have downward tilt. Now if this same speaker is placed in a room where off-axis reflections are treated, we expect lesser contribution from off-axis radiation. So should this mean that the measured response will be closer to on-axis response and thus flatter? Perhaps having overall lesser SPL?


from what i understood, when you have a well treated room the downward tilt becomes more severe, because the absorption we use is not consistently the same across the entire range (we absorb more highs than lows), however when we absorb the entire range we approach anechoic conditions and we get a flat response again.

it's a mixture of both the room and directivity index.
 
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