Orthoacoustics and psychoacoustics.

[redshift]

According to Stig Carlsson’s philosophy of the speaker and room as a system.

http://user.faktiskt.io/schmutziger/OA51 FAQ/pdf/carlsson_ortho_design_principles.pdf

Let’s push for a resurgence of a systems level approach for speaker design and not just plop down a couple of mundane boxes on the floor, then proceed with sub and DSP/EQ the sh*7 out of the room?

Mmm, ‘Kay?

 

[solderdude]

You think this is the only (or best) approach to get good sound and everyone else but Carlsson is not getting it ?
Bose also wanted to involve the room, so do some omni directional speaker manufacturers.

At least.. all of them agree that the room is as much part of sound reproduction as the speakers and that placement is of importance.

 

[redshift]

You think this is the only (or best) approach to get good sound and everyone else but Carlsson is not getting it ?

Nope, I consider it a practical integration approach. Look; I own (and had) cans, floorstanders and near field monitors to prove otherwise.

I’m not denying that it is possible to wield generic floorstanders to sound awesome.

Now; with that being said. The reason for those floorstanders being popular is that of simplicity. They basically all look the same and share the same compromises. Cheap and easy to design and manufacture as well.

Not exactly stuff that makes an (systems) engineer go “wow” to say the least.

IMO.

Happy?

 

[Thomas_A]

I think the initial question is what model you want to follow when listening to music. Set-up can two-channel, three-channel or multi- channel. For two-channel I am a strong contender of speakers and set-ups that reduce the negative effects of the ”speaker wall”. Carlsson is one, but there are other solutuons as well.

 

[solderdude]

When ones partner also needs to be happy it means compromises have to be made.
There are plenty of non box-ish speaker designs around.

I can understand one likes certain speaker designs and some speakers might work better in certain rooms.

 

[redshift]

When ones partner also needs to be happy it means compromises have to be made.
There are plenty of non box-ish speaker designs around.

I can understand one likes certain speaker designs and some speakers might work better in certain rooms.

Stig’s philosophy was to design speakers of various shapes as to conform with his systems engineering approach. If the speaker is a plain white box with a grill on top (as in the 70’s OAx-series) or perhaps some avant-garde shenanigans with triangles and damper panels (of the 80/90’s OAx-series), so be it.

I want to see some different philosophies and compromises of speaker design in the prosumer marketplace. Specially where the room is considered a component in the electroacoustic sound reproduction chain.

It is not an outright and obnoxious rejection of the ordinary suspects of electro acoustic shenanigans. Just a bit irritating (enough?) to give some food for thought.

 

[redshift]

I think the initial question is what model you want to follow when listening to music. Set-up can two-channel, three-channel or multi- channel. For two-channel I am a strong contender of speakers and set-ups that reduce the negative effects of the ”speaker wall”. Carlsson is one, but there are other solutuons as well.

I tend to agree since it in most cases provides better WAF and compromises favorably with the ordinary living rooms without being intrusive in order to combat inherent weaknesses of the usual suspects.

IMO.

 

[Honken]

@redshift Have you heard Larsens new(er) speakers? If so, what are your thoughts on those?

I've never seen any measurements of any of the OAs but I quite liked the OA-50 when I heard it, I found it neutral and easy to listen to. It gave the same sensation of a very big soundstage as the Apple Homepod, but from the demo tracks I heard - much more reliably so than the smart speaker.

 

[redshift]

@redshift Have you heard Larsens new(er) speakers? If so, what are your thoughts on those?

I've never seen any measurements of any of the OAs but I quite liked the OA-50 when I heard it, I found it neutral and easy to listen to. It gave the same sensation of a very big soundstage as the Apple Homepod, but from the demo tracks I heard - much more reliably so than the smart speaker.

Check out ”Carlssonkult”. Plenty of measurements/restomodding going on with old Sonabs/Carlssons over there:

(I’m not affiliated with any of these sites)

http://www.carlssonkult.se/

For a relatively ‘el cheapo OA5x setup, consider sourcing second handers and then point the favorite browser of yours to Hifi kit they sell drivers and manufacture xovers in the case you don’t want to roll your own filters with DSP and biamp. I bought my OA61 from Hifi kit.

I already restored a pair of second hand half baked ‘not-quite-there-yet’ restomod OA14’s just for fun. It was more work than expected to get them in good condition.

Before I restomodded them, they had this harsh “sibilance” that bothered the guts of me. The satori drivers and xovers sorted that one out in a hurry. Great pair of speakers for your home cinema big ass telly.

For sure my OA61’s sound better, but is it worth the difference? Dunno. The OA61’s are more practical since they are wall mounts. They got this air of “installation” over them that usual floorstanders lack.

https://www.hifikit.se/

Never listened to any Larsens, I’m sure they are quite Carlsson-ish in their character.

 

[outlookrt]

Been interested in trying some Sonab, or better yet, some Carlsson speakers for a while but so far seem hard to come by in the UK.
As far as speaker+room as a unified output system I'm personally interested in Lyngdorfs approach of using on-wall + corner subs.
For me having spekaers 1metre+ out into the room has never been an option so using the room/walls makes much more sense to me.

At the very least the Carlsson stuff has an original approach, look and – I assume, sound.
Agree something different from yet-another-2-way-standmount.

I've been thinking of doing something similar and creating a DIY semi-omni speaker using a single seas coaxial which i think would yield good results but time hassle allowed development. You can see a very early experiment in this old thread.

 

[redshift]

Been interested in trying some Sonab, or better yet, some Carlsson speakers for a while but so far seem hard to come by in the UK.
As far as speaker+room as a unified output system I'm personally interested in Lyngdorfs approach of using on-wall + corner subs.
For me having spekaers 1metre+ out into the room has never been an option so using the room/walls makes much more sense to me.

At the very least the Carlsson stuff has an original approach, look and – I assume, sound.
Agree something different from yet-another-2-way-standmount.

I've been thinking of doing something similar and creating a DIY semi-omni speaker using a single seas coaxial which i think would yield good results but time hassle allowed development. You can see a very early experiment in this old thread.

Use a Scottish madman to fence a pair into Queen Elisabeth’s home turf once they declare “independence”.

What’s the duties/tariffs for importing Hifi gear these days?

https://www.hifikit.se/oa-61-paket.html

 

[outlookrt]

Good question. Havn't brought anything in from the EU as of late.
It's obviously going to be worse than it was before when it was Nothing!
I noticed Larsen speakers which are very much carrying on the Carlssson approach seem available in the UK.
The little Larsen 4.2 looks interesting.

 

[redshift]

Good question. Havn't brought anything in from the EU as of late.
It's obviously going to be worse than it was before when it was Nothing!
I noticed Larsen speakers which are very much carrying on the Carlssson approach seem available in the UK.
The little Larsen 4.2 looks interesting.

It looks like OA58’s with Larsens spin. A sweet little bugger.

Check out the restomod and measurements on Carlsson kult:
https://www-carlssonkult-se.transla...x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=sv&_x_tr_pto=ajax,nv,elem

Edit: The 4.3 seem to include the Satori drivers and Larsen even include FR’s.

https://www.larsenhifi.com/versions/

 

[Thomas_A]

Check out ”Carlssonkult”. Plenty of measurements/restomodding going on with old Sonabs/Carlssons over there:

(I’m not affiliated with any of these sites)

http://www.carlssonkult.se/

For a relatively ‘el cheapo OA5x setup, consider sourcing second handers and then point the favorite browser of yours to Hifi kit they sell drivers and manufacture xovers in the case you don’t want to roll your own filters with DSP and biamp. I bought my OA61 from Hifi kit.

I already restored a pair of second hand half baked ‘not-quite-there-yet’ restomod OA14’s just for fun. It was more work than expected to get them in good condition.

Before I restomodded them, they had this harsh “sibilance” that bothered the guts of me. The satori drivers and xovers sorted that one out in a hurry. Great pair of speakers for your home cinema big ass telly.

For sure my OA61’s sound better, but is it worth the difference? Dunno. The OA61’s are more practical since they are wall mounts. They got this air of “installation” over them that usual floorstanders lack.

https://www.hifikit.se/

Never listened to any Larsens, I’m sure they are quite Carlsson-ish in their character.

I've seen measurements of one Larsen model that was not pretty. Other modes may measure better. Also there are significant variations between Carlsson/Sonab models as well.

 

[redshift]

I've seen measurements of one Larsen model that was not pretty. Other modes may measure better. Also there are significant variations between Carlsson/Sonab models as well.

The 4.3 seem to be in good shape looking at the FR and sports the Carlsonkult satori mod it seems.

https://www.larsenhifi.com/versions/

 

[Duke]

Let’s push for a resurgence of a systems level approach for speaker design and not just plop down a couple of mundane boxes on the floor, then proceed with sub and DSP/EQ the sh*7 out of the room?

At least.. all of them agree that the room is as much part of sound reproduction as the speakers and that placement is of importance.

I like the term "orthoacoustics", and agree with Stig Carlsson's intention of making "the sound that is reflected off the boundary surfaces of the listening room enhance the quality of reproduction rather than degrading it."

Not that one obscure designer constitutes a "resurgence", but do I try to take room interactions and their psychoacoustic implications into account as much as I reasonably can. And not that this is a particularly original philosophy, but I try to get two things right: The first arrival sound, and the reflections. The first is fairly straightforward; the second, not so much.

Imo ideally we'd want the first-arrival sound to be followed by a time gap without any reflections, and then we'd like a lot of spectrally-correct reverberant energy coming in from all around. In practice the floor and ceiling reflections are virtually inevitable, but are fortunately fairly benign (according to Toole and Geddes). By using fairly directional speakers and toeing them in aggressively we can avoid early same-side-wall reflections. Then I like to add some late-onset reverberant energy by way of at least one rear-firing driver, typically aimed up-and-back to get a fairly long reflection path length before arrival at the listening area. The frequency response of this rear-firing element is tailored to its application taking the radiation pattern of the main front-firing array into account, the idea being for the reverberant energy to end up having approximately the same spectral balance as the first-arrival sound.

What I do might be called a "Two-Streams Paradigm" approach, the term being borrowed from physicist and acoustician David Griesinger:

"Envelopment is the Holy Grail of concert hall design. When reproducing sound in small spaces [home listening rooms], envelopment is often absent. Envelopment is perceived when the ear and brain can detect TWO separate streams: A foreground stream of direct sound. And a background stream of reverberation. Both streams must be present if sound is perceived as enveloping. [This implies that a time gap is needed between the two streams.]"

"Presence depends in the ability of the ear and brain to detect the direct sound as separate from the reflections. [Again, a time gap between the two streams is implied.]"

In practice what I do doesn't look anything like a Carlsson design, though I think the two are philosophically related, the main difference being that I'm trying to usefully expand the time gap between the first-arrival sound and the strong onset of reflections, for a variety of reasons.

 

[Wes]

my meta-analysis of this thread suggests paranormal activity

 

[redshift]

my meta-analysis of this thread suggests paranormal activity

Don't worry, just crank up the DSP and EQ to full pole and zero cancellations for your usual suspects standing in the middle of the floor and you’ll be back in the objective reality of obnoxious Hifi gear in no time.

 

[redshift]

I like the term "orthoacoustics", and agree with Stig Carlsson's intention of making "the sound that is reflected off the boundary surfaces of the listening room enhance the quality of reproduction rather than degrading it."

Not that one obscure designer constitutes a "resurgence", but do I try to take room interactions and their psychoacoustic implications into account as much as I reasonably can. And not that this is a particularly original philosophy, but I try to get two things right: The first arrival sound, and the reflections. The first is fairly straightforward; the second, not so much.

Imo ideally we'd want the first-arrival sound to be followed by a time gap without any reflections, and then we'd like a lot of spectrally-correct reverberant energy coming in from all around. In practice the floor and ceiling reflections are virtually inevitable, but are fortunately fairly benign (according to Toole and Geddes). By using fairly directional speakers and toeing them in aggressively we can avoid early same-side-wall reflections. Then I like to add some late-onset reverberant energy by way of at least one rear-firing driver, typically aimed up-and-back to get a fairly long reflection path length before arrival at the listening area. The frequency response of this rear-firing element is tailored to its application taking the radiation pattern of the main front-firing array into account, the idea being for the reverberant energy to end up having approximately the same spectral balance as the first-arrival sound.

What I do might be called a "Two-Streams Paradigm" approach, the term being borrowed from physicist and acoustician David Griesinger:

"Envelopment is the Holy Grail of concert hall design. When reproducing sound in small spaces [home listening rooms], envelopment is often absent. Envelopment is perceived when the ear and brain can detect TWO separate streams: A foreground stream of direct sound. And a background stream of reverberation. Both streams must be present if sound is perceived as enveloping. [This implies that a time gap is needed between the two streams.]"

"Presence depends in the ability of the ear and brain to detect the direct sound as separate from the reflections. [Again, a time gap between the two streams is implied.]"

In practice what I do doesn't look anything like a Carlsson design, though I think the two are philosophically related, the main difference being that I'm trying to usefully expand the time gap between the first-arrival sound and the strong onset of reflections, for a variety of reasons.

Carlsson and related designs also takes the room modes and cancellations (poles and zeros) as a design goal with the attenuator panels.

Which is why they have relatively flat (LTAS) FR in the normal listening room:

(OA 51 restomodded with newer drivers, longer port length and XO to match)

 

[thewas]

Don't worry, just crank up the DSP and EQ to full pole and zero cancellations for your usual suspects standing in the middle of the floor and you’ll be back in the objective reality of obnoxious Hifi gear in no time.

You shouldn't forget that those cancellations happen also from the floor and ceiling and side walls, so placing a loudspeaker directly on the front wall is just one partial solution, plus it has also other disadvantages, unfortunately almost everything is a compromise.