Odd. So that nasty looking peak is the same at both levels? So not an overdrive? If it was from a “log sweep” (Farina’s method), harmonic distortion components would be excluded, so I guess that makes sense. But what an odd step response!
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Palmer Orbit 11 Monitor Review
- Thread starter amirm
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The period of the wiggles is about 0.25-0.3ms so falls in the 3-4kHz range. As I wrote before, the speaker can do over 106dB and over 100dB < 1% THD in that frequency range. Might be a reflection pattern or a resonance. But frequency response doesn't show resonances. So the former would be my best guess.
Some step responses are indeed hard to interprete:
Some step responses are indeed hard to interprete:
olieb
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Actually not so much. If the time axis is scaled in the same way, others look similar:
Ascilab C8C (left) and Grimm LS1c (right).
The main difference is that the Palmer seems to have linearised the 1.8kHz crossover but not the woofer-mid (250Hz) one.
The stuff out beyond 10ms is probably reflections. But what you're seeing with this is a typical well-executed minimum phase, 4th order L-W crossover 3-way (with port). A "perfect" step response requires sealed boxes and linearized phase response (be it via FIR DSP or cascading all-pass) or first-order acoustic crossovers.
That's certainly a choice. Wonder why they did that?
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All the polarity inversions up to 2ms are certainly not related to the port. Maybe caused by 4th order crossover tweeter to midrange. Not sure about that.
By not linearizing the low frequency phase Palmer avoided the delay seen in the ASCILAB C8C.
And they get away with a much shorter FIR filter.
No, definitely not the port. The longer settle time is the port.
Compare it to the DD8C, which can be run fully linear phase and is a sealed box for the bass drivers - no extended settle time and it's pretty damn close to a perfect step.
Image courtesy Stereophile
The other kind of speaker that will do this is a fully passive, physically time-aligned, first order XO only sealed box, like this Dunlavy:
Again, image courtesy Stereophile
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In this case the wiggles mark the transition between time-aligned tweeter (rising edge plus small peak), mid and bass-response.No, definitely not the port. The longer settle time is the port.
Compare it to the DD8C, which can be run fully linear phase and is a sealed box for the bass drivers (just an example, not using this because it's particularly comparable):
Image courtesy Stereophile
For the Orbit the negative peak is probably the tweeter starting shortly ahead of the positive midrange peak and the back-swing of the tweeter then causes one of the peaks of the wiggle.
The Neumann shows separate innitial excursion and back swing for all 3 drivers.
BOTTOM LINE:
The suspicies wiggles in the Orbit's step response are a result of the phase linearization in the treble/midrange transition and the resulting time-alignment of the drivers. So rather a feature than a bug.
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FWIW, you don't need much delay at all to linearize the 250hz crossover - PSI manages it in analog with cascading APFs at 400hz, so we're talking on the order of ~3-4ms at 250hz.
Correct; it's minimum phase, not linear, so the delay from the XO filters causes that shape. Any properly designed 3-way with minimum phase crossovers will give a step function similar to that.
Yes makes sense. The large delay comes with the high-pass of the woofer.
We're way off topic from the Orbit, but yes - shallower filters = less phase rotation = less group delay.
Sokel
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There's a whole camp of (legit) time-domain chasers (Quad, Thiel, Dunlavy, Spica,etc ) , seeking this ideal orthogonal triangle over the years.
And some got really close.
Audible results are still subject of debate though.
As a rule of thumb for normal stuff, what we want to see is tightly put clean spikes decaying fast and smooth for drivers (ports are slow by definition)
And some got really close.
Audible results are still subject of debate though.
As a rule of thumb for normal stuff, what we want to see is tightly put clean spikes decaying fast and smooth for drivers (ports are slow by definition)
Steakhouse
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Since room correction like dirac can quite easily correct for this I would not give too much of a thought for „time domain“. It is mostly a marketing term that implies attributes like „attack“ and „better impulses“ which are misleading and dont have much to do woth phase linearity or a perfect impulse response.
I’ve had a little more time to listen back and forth between the Palmers and Genelecs. It’s a difficult one because both have positives and negatives:
- The Genelec's sound cleaner overall. Most music seems to have more clarity, I can hear into the mix rather than listening to it.
- The midrange on the Genelec's is noticeably cleaner.
- The Genelec's sound slightly brighter
- The Palmers have much better bass integration, and have a better 1-200hz in-room response due to the cardioid ports.
- The Genelec's get much louder without distortion.
- The cabient of the Palmers is completely dead thanks to the dual opposed woofers.
I am now strongly considering the investment on dual subs for the Genelec's vs the all-in-one Palmer solution.
- The Genelec's sound cleaner overall. Most music seems to have more clarity, I can hear into the mix rather than listening to it.
- The midrange on the Genelec's is noticeably cleaner.
- The Genelec's sound slightly brighter
- The Palmers have much better bass integration, and have a better 1-200hz in-room response due to the cardioid ports.
- The Genelec's get much louder without distortion.
- The cabient of the Palmers is completely dead thanks to the dual opposed woofers.
I am now strongly considering the investment on dual subs for the Genelec's vs the all-in-one Palmer solution.
90sNintendoKid
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What about dual subs with the Orbits?
thank you for the sharing! I am thinking about Palmers + sub for the best cost -performance.
You're Comparing to Genelec 8350? I would expect an 8" driver in bass reflex enclosure should be quite close in output to the dual 8" of the Orbits. And the Genelec driver is probably higher quality to start with. Nevertheless, it's a 2-way system which will suffer IMD once playing high bass levels.
What do you mean by "bass integration".
how about imaging and sound stage?
Far beyond Genelec performance, while of course only 1/3 of the price ... but I honestly think the manufacturer is onto something here. Give this another iteration and there is a insanely good money/value speaker on the horizon. The bass extension is crazy for this size.
@montyliam did you ever try moving the Orbits directly to the rear wall? The cardioid is only effective above 250-300Hz. At 50cm distance you will get rear wall recflection with inverse phase at about 140/280/560Hz. The deepest suckout in your plot is probably caused by rear wall reflection. When you move the speakers right to the wall the reflections with inverse phase move up in frequency and the cardioid dispersion should reduce reflections. At least worth a try I would think.
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