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Omnidirectional speakers
- Thread starter oivavoi
- Start date
"Normal" speakers (corner placed 15"+24" waveguide)
and up-firing omni speaker (w\o reflector, Sonab-like)
in the same room, same mic position.
It sounds different
Well, I’m not sure how to interpret “different” in your graphs and comment, but no doubt they sound different than any forward firing “box” speaker. When I got the Enterprise, I rotated 3 sets of conventional “box” speakers in the living room, doing fast A/B/C/D thing, then extended listening on all 4. The Omni sound was seductive, to me at least. When going back to any forward firing speaker, the soundstage collapsed by comparison. Immersive is the word that comes to mind. I’m no expert or reviewer by any stretch, but have loved good sound for over 40 years and owned a lot of gear in that period. These were one of my biggest surprises, in a good way. The last time I recall being so mesmerized by a speaker was in about 1985 when hearing my Energy 22 Ref Conns in a proper acoustically treated listening room driven by a SOTA front end at a small boutique audio joint in Chicago, a maybe $1500 speaker at the time with probably $30k+ system in front of it. Anyway…YMMV, but these deserve to be heard by more folks—might surprise you too in a good way.
Ohhhh…I initially glossed over the no reflector part and just saw Omni . I suspect straight upward firing is going to sound a LOT different than Duevel reflector type design."Normal" speakers (corner placed 15"+24" waveguide)
and up-firing omni speaker (w\o reflector, Sonab-like)
in the same room, same mic position.
It sounds different
It depends. I'm not telling omni enthusiasts "don't listen to omni", but many are more categorical))
The green graph clearly shows the abundance of reflected energy. Right now I'm using omnis, but generally in a living room I prefer more directional speakers and minimal reflections (red graph).
Listening to decent omnis in stereo outdoor would be interesting, but I haven't had the opportunity yet.
Yes; may be slightly less than a LOT)) May be I'll try sometimes..
Hear is review of some up firing speakers with some measurements, that are placed against the wall, Larsen 4.2, their least expensive at $2400. Omnidirectional by room reflections.
I’d say try to listen to the Duevel reflected sound and see if your viewpoint changes compared to a Sonab style dispersion and reflective energy.
I suppose Omni enthusiast might be applicable to me. I really didn’t find much to not like in my living room, at least with the Enterprise model, but suspect that could vary on a
Given room acoustics. The main thing I noticed was a little less precise imaging location in the soundstage compared to forward firing speakers, but it’s not like the Duevel Omnis sound like mono or some such. The immersive sound more than made up for it. When I tested the smaller Planets outside, the soundstage depth was intially a little jarring—sounded like it stretched backward well into the house. Another benefit of the onmis in the living room is they still sound good no matter where you put them. Even the Enterprises are small enough that I easily can move them out of the way to use my 11.1 rig, a few times forgetting to pull them out before playing, not even noticing until later when looking over and realizing it.
The Planets really shined in my garage, sounding good even when literally buried in all the stuff in there. I live in a slab home, so my garage is also a workshop and houses all my pool equipment among other things. I now run a pair of Philharmonic BMR monitors there, a respected speaker that has been discussed here on the forum. I find it to be a really fine speaker, but the small Duevel Planet
sounds better in that “room”, buried in the mass of floor to ceiling stuff and 2 cars, even keeping up with the BMR playing with no cars and listening on a conventional “sweet spot”.
Maybe some other Duevel owners will chime in here with their experiences to confirm my observations or even just say I’m full of it.
Well, that’s an interesting design, but something that would not work here with the placement requirements. Between my equipment cabinet, subwoofer, front L and R towers, and 75” TV, the whole front wall is filled, plus the right side has no corner, just a wide opening into the kitchen.
But…I do have a pair of speakers that are similar in design, at least the angled baffle semi-upward firing design part, the “Silent Speaker” designed by Winslow Burhoe:
Direct Acoustics
directacoustics.com
I enjoy trying out something beyond your traditional forward firing “box” speakers.
I also have a pair of Heil ESS AMT-1b speakers, another design a bit off the beaten path.
Keith_W
Major Contributor
I would be really curious to see what a spinorama of those Duevel Planets looks like. I strongly suspect the omni effect of putting a sphere on top of a driver to "disperse" the sound into an omni would be highly dependent on the wavelength of the sound, the diameter of the sphere, and the distance of the sphere to the driver. Some freqs that "couple" more to the sphere would be more omni than others, and longer wavelengths would go past the sphere as if it wasn't there and straight to the ceiling. I just can't see it working well! Might be an interesting one for Amir or Erin to review.
Amir did review the Canon S-50 (Darth Vader Helmet), which has a similar concept (fire a driver into a radiating surface). Really fun review of a weird speaker. The horizontal directivity was really lumpy, but it is hard to tell whether it's a flaw with the "conventional" part of the execution (maybe poor choice of driver? Bad crossover? Poor cabinet design?) or the "radiating" part.
Amir did review the Canon S-50 (Darth Vader Helmet), which has a similar concept (fire a driver into a radiating surface). Really fun review of a weird speaker. The horizontal directivity was really lumpy, but it is hard to tell whether it's a flaw with the "conventional" part of the execution (maybe poor choice of driver? Bad crossover? Poor cabinet design?) or the "radiating" part.
It’s notable that the next model up, the Enterprise, and the others up the chain, use an inverted cone above the drivers as opposed to the balls for reflection. Is that just a cost reduction choice to make as affordable as possible, or maybe just to give a taste of what the other speakers can do? After the Enterprise, they also put woofer and tweeter on the same axis, much like the Peak 360 I have that led me to the Omni search and Duevel Planets.
360 PEAK Music System By Level10 – soundmatters
soundmatters.com
I tried to just paste a photo in, but must have already forgotten how to do it…
I didn’t do extensive comparison of the Planets and Enterprise, but will say the Enterprise is a whole level better in every way. The Planets Omni “sound” grabbed me enough to spring for Enterprise not long after. The intent with the Planets are to be inexpensive enough to intrigue folks who then want more—me. I would not have sprung for the notably more expensive Enterprise if not getting a taste with the Planets. It’s the price of admission so to speak, but the old “had I known then what I know now”, it would have been straight to Enterprise. The next model up Venus is tempting me now.
Duevel Venus measured here:
www.hifinews.com
Duevel Venus Loudspeaker Lab Report
Lab Report One of the core problems of designing a 'horizontal omni' like the Venus, which attempts to achieve 360o radiation in the horizontal plane using drivers facing upwards and downwards, is that you listen off-axis to the drivers. Compensating for that inevitably results in low...
www.hifinews.com
I’ve been systematically reading everything on the forum about Omnis in general, and Duevel specifically. I came across this, noting Omnis are very difficult to measure by conventional methods:
audiosciencereview.com
I’m a “numbers” guy, one of things I love about this forum as opposed to just subjective opinions. This is probably the only place a guy could admit to using $10 monoprice XLR cables to connect a DAC to a $3500 Benchmark AHB2 amp, but is what I had, and it sounds good. When the Benchmark DAC3 arrives next week, I will substitute their XLR interconnects, but even a pair of those is under $100. (Thankfully, both Benchmark products measure well and are well regarded on the forum…phew…could have been in for some hammering if not..)
I’m not sure if all that the Duevels do can be captured in graphs and charts, but certainly respect and consider it important.
Come on, gotta be some other Duevel owners on the forum—throw your 2 cents worth in even if you just tell me I’m losing my marbles…and ears…and need to shut up…
Duevel Bella-Luna "Omnidirectional" speakers
Wonder if you have plans to review speakers such as these - https://www.duevel.com/Produkte/EBLdia.shtml Interesting to me, especially since they look so artsy :) ...And also how "omnidirectional" measures.
audiosciencereview.com
I’m a “numbers” guy, one of things I love about this forum as opposed to just subjective opinions. This is probably the only place a guy could admit to using $10 monoprice XLR cables to connect a DAC to a $3500 Benchmark AHB2 amp, but is what I had, and it sounds good. When the Benchmark DAC3 arrives next week, I will substitute their XLR interconnects, but even a pair of those is under $100. (Thankfully, both Benchmark products measure well and are well regarded on the forum…phew…could have been in for some hammering if not..)
I’m not sure if all that the Duevels do can be captured in graphs and charts, but certainly respect and consider it important.
Come on, gotta be some other Duevel owners on the forum—throw your 2 cents worth in even if you just tell me I’m losing my marbles…and ears…and need to shut up…
Since this is a measurement driven forum more than subjective “this really sounds good” thing, if anyone wants me to pull my BMRs into the living room for an extended comparison, let me know:
Erin is mentioned a lot here on the forum and does extensive measurements. The BMRs are pretty highly regarded by Erin, and the closest thing I have on hand as a fairly accurate “monitor” type speaker. I mentioned doing a brief comparison of Duevel Enterprise and BMR earlier in the thread, but maybe a more extended comparison is warranted. Since this would be subjective, maybe some suggestions on what specific things to compare/look for would be helpful. Anything that is on Tidal or Quobuz can be streamed in highest resolution available, so any particular songs to use for evaluation are welcomed.
I have a Bryston A/B switch box around here somewhere, so other than volume leveling, I could switch back and forth quickly.
Just a thought.
Philharmonic BMR Bookshelf Speaker Review
Philharmonic BMR Bookshelf Speaker Review
www.erinsaudiocorner.com
Erin is mentioned a lot here on the forum and does extensive measurements. The BMRs are pretty highly regarded by Erin, and the closest thing I have on hand as a fairly accurate “monitor” type speaker. I mentioned doing a brief comparison of Duevel Enterprise and BMR earlier in the thread, but maybe a more extended comparison is warranted. Since this would be subjective, maybe some suggestions on what specific things to compare/look for would be helpful. Anything that is on Tidal or Quobuz can be streamed in highest resolution available, so any particular songs to use for evaluation are welcomed.
I have a Bryston A/B switch box around here somewhere, so other than volume leveling, I could switch back and forth quickly.
Just a thought.
@oivavoi
How did it go with the omnis you ordered?
Quite recently, I set up some CBTs in a quite narrow space. The reflections from the nearest side walls were clearly best to absorb. But on the opposite side walls, where the reflections arrived at about 7 ms after the direct sound, I felt it became too dull with absorption. Despite that it was broadband. In this listening space I didn't have any arriving reflections arriving from the rear, since they went into another room. I think that might have been the cause of this. So I experimented with diffusion and also hybrid diffusion/absorption on the opposite side walls. This worked much better than absorption and especially diffusion with RPG Diffractal was awesome with the result of a very spacious and enveloping sound and without the detrimental effect of the specular energy with bare reflective walls (something that creating listening fatigue to me).
How did it go with the omnis you ordered?
Quite recently, I set up some CBTs in a quite narrow space. The reflections from the nearest side walls were clearly best to absorb. But on the opposite side walls, where the reflections arrived at about 7 ms after the direct sound, I felt it became too dull with absorption. Despite that it was broadband. In this listening space I didn't have any arriving reflections arriving from the rear, since they went into another room. I think that might have been the cause of this. So I experimented with diffusion and also hybrid diffusion/absorption on the opposite side walls. This worked much better than absorption and especially diffusion with RPG Diffractal was awesome with the result of a very spacious and enveloping sound and without the detrimental effect of the specular energy with bare reflective walls (something that creating listening fatigue to me).
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Regarding “how did it go with the omnis you ordered?”—that’s pretty well detailed in my prior posts since joining in on the thread—not sure what else you are asking about?
You did bring up a good point about room acoustics/treatment, something I only touched on in the thread dialogue. My living room is pretty good acoustically, with a lot of irregular surfaces; a slight sloping ceiling (2 by 6 redwood on edge, so groove every 1.5”) with and no highly reflective drywall walls (the walls are redwood paneling), almost all glass on the left side but with 2” wood blinds, a large limestone fireplace on the right side, etc.. When I ran Audessy on my prior Denon AVR, the room correction EQ was very minimal, not noticing much difference with EQ settings engaged or bypassed. I didn’t even do anything more than set channel levels and speaker distance when switching to the current flagship TOTL Yamaha AVR (had to replace the Denon when I went to 11.1 ATMOS) I could add some room photos if helpful.
I moved the smaller Duevels, the Planets, to the kitchen, and frankly, they don’t sound all that great, but nothing will in that room, very long and narrow, with almost all reflective surfaces. I am planning to do some room measurement and EQ at some point in the kitchen.
Your comment about listening fatigue, made me think of another observation: While shuttling several speakers back and forth in the main living room 2 channel system, i found that the Enterprise could be listened to for 12 hours straight with no fatigue, something I can’t say for the other conventional forward firing speakers in the rotation. I did not play the Omnis for a couple days, and when inserting them back in, I have played for 12 hours a day for probably the last week. “Listener fatigue” may be a vague subjective observation, but the Duevels only made me want to turn it up a little louder, something the wife noted after a bit. I now have an 11PM curfew in place……. Yesterday she said “you do know you have been playing that for 12 straight hours?”
Siegfried Linkwitz was a fan of them, but heck, what did he know? Obviously the anti-omni folk know better.
That’s interesting, seeming to be somewhat similar to the Duevel concept.
The Duevels are a little better looking…wife actually said she loves the Planets look especially…
I was just mulling over the idea of offering to send my Planets to the forum, if any interest, to run them through the testing gauntlet, but think that would be counterproductive. The Enterprise is so much more speaker in every way, it would likely be a disservice to members and Duevel to judge based on Planets. The Omni “effect” was so compelling, it drove me quickly to the Enterprise. I could not use the Planets in the living room for 12 hours a day for a week or so like now with the Enterprise without wanting something else from the speaker “inventory”. Too bad I don’t have the tools to do a measurement based review here or I would “test” them myself.
He made a little money selling them too. LOL
Each to their own, speakers vary so widely in how they sound and the listeners own bias plays a big part.
It just remains IMHO, that any speaker that is going to be reflecting sounds, in a very non-linear fashion, from numerous points
all over the room, just can't be the right way to technically approach things if an accurate reproduction of the recorded source and it's intended soundstage holds any priority in your bias. My subjective listening experiences have also been very supportive of my theories on the subject, but then it just could be my personal bias clouding my listening experience so, make of it what you will.
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