kimmosto
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This includes also diffraction. Therefore conventional full space boxed and baffle concepts have difficulties to deliver.
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Speakers that produce astonishing soundstaging/imaging?
- Thread starter gn77b
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Killingbeans
Major Contributor
Nice! Too bad the efficiency is so low. They would probably shine as nearfield monitors?
Are the woofer and passive radiator from Tang Band?
If you have a perfectly linear frequency response and can preserv this at LP within a time window of say 2 ms even in far-field in a small room, you have a good chance of good detail retrieval. Doing so with a wide-dispersion speaker is difficult unless they are designed for large toe-in. Having speakers in near-field will also enhance detail for the same reasons, but also enhance stereo system errors and reduce ASW.
Diffraction of boxes can be dealt with using round boxes or large bewels.
Come on, I'm just listening to The Rolling Stones, Undercover (Of The Night) for after work relaxation. It deliberately has this neon feeling to it. I'm sitting 1 meter out of the stereo center. You may ask if I miss something? No, frankly. My feeling is, that I just right 'understand' the recording, and I ask you back, what else should it deliver?!
Maybe my intellect superseeds the standard, which is set by the infamous verbose auidiophool. Just in that case, what about another training in listening to music? As music, not as a 'signal' to reveal imaginary imperfections of an overwhelmingly costly stereo 'system'?
DanielT
Major Contributor
The distortion parameter mentioned in the thread?
Okay to have good FR that trumps distortion in importance if you were to rank (I think most people think so) but it's still there. Or can be there and seriously disrupt the experience. And yes, speakers that distort or, even worse, amplifiers that are driven into clipping sound terribly bad. Think crappy old car stereo played at high volume. Anyone who has turned up the volume on one of these crap car stereo knows how it sounds, and that in itself can kill all types of soundstaging/imaging.
Or these, check distortion levels and read Amir's response:
audiosciencereview.com
Edit:
Distortion is perhaps mostly a proboem for those who play at high volume. But doing that, listening at high volume sometimes and it sounds good can be a really nice experience.
(have I heard of HiFi systems other than mine and experienced)
Okay to have good FR that trumps distortion in importance if you were to rank (I think most people think so) but it's still there. Or can be there and seriously disrupt the experience. And yes, speakers that distort or, even worse, amplifiers that are driven into clipping sound terribly bad. Think crappy old car stereo played at high volume. Anyone who has turned up the volume on one of these crap car stereo knows how it sounds, and that in itself can kill all types of soundstaging/imaging.
Or these, check distortion levels and read Amir's response:
GR Research LGK 2.0 Speaker Review (A Joke)
This is a review and detailed measurements of the GR Research "Little Giant Killer" (LGK) 2.0 bookshelf speaker. It comes in various forms from a kit ($313) to fully finished pair ($1,038). Our DIY expert @Rick Sykora built my sample using the flatpack ($100): Rick had to do the round over on...
audiosciencereview.com
Edit:
Distortion is perhaps mostly a proboem for those who play at high volume. But doing that, listening at high volume sometimes and it sounds good can be a really nice experience.
(have I heard of HiFi systems other than mine and experienced)
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Heck, I can be in the kitchen and still enjoy even if I miss some details.
Exactly, the music as an artform doesn't need the 'perfect' stereo. F* stereo 'imaging' in contrast to 'soundstageing' in contrast to just more and more and even more money. And more money! Illusionary ...
Very interesting thread thank you
I heard a statement which I find it hard to accept. The substance is that any decent pair of loudspeakers positioned in an anechoic chamber would give an excellent soundstage. If this were true, which I really don't know, it would be proof that what really ruins the soundstage are the environmental reflections that in a anechoic chamber do not exist
I tend to believe that it's true and that room makes a difference more than speakers As long as these are decent
So in a normal home situation i think that speakers with a limited/narrow dispersion would interact less with the boundaries
Some speakers like Dunlavy, Snell, Lipinski ecc. use felts around the dome in order to limit the H and V dispersion
I saw mentioned in the thread the MBL omni I listened to them at an audio show I could not locate the instruments and the players in the space precisely
I was just hearing sounds and voices from the space ... a weird experience Like when i listen a out of phase track of a demo disc
I love pinpoint images Wilson were quite better Impressive
I heard a statement which I find it hard to accept. The substance is that any decent pair of loudspeakers positioned in an anechoic chamber would give an excellent soundstage. If this were true, which I really don't know, it would be proof that what really ruins the soundstage are the environmental reflections that in a anechoic chamber do not exist
I tend to believe that it's true and that room makes a difference more than speakers As long as these are decent
So in a normal home situation i think that speakers with a limited/narrow dispersion would interact less with the boundaries
Some speakers like Dunlavy, Snell, Lipinski ecc. use felts around the dome in order to limit the H and V dispersion
I saw mentioned in the thread the MBL omni I listened to them at an audio show I could not locate the instruments and the players in the space precisely
I was just hearing sounds and voices from the space ... a weird experience Like when i listen a out of phase track of a demo disc
I love pinpoint images Wilson were quite better Impressive
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Killingbeans
Major Contributor
The way I understand it, a speaker in an anechoic chamber will give a very narrow soundstage. A "bad" illusion of soundstage, if you will.
On the other hand it will give much more pinpoint phantom imaging.
Reflections give the illusion of an expansive soundstage, but a lack of reflections give the illusion of distinct sound sources. Meaning you'll always be looking for a compromise.
I thought they did so to reduce edge diffraction?
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Agree but it a bit separate discussion. I can certainly get more of both ”illusion” and ”detail” playing Proprius Cantate Domino in 4.2.2 vs stereo vs sitting in the kitchen. If not I could just use my kitchen radio.
We actually need some room reflections for reproduced sound to sound right. Quote from this post, which quoted Dr Toole:
Toole 2008
Sound Reproduction
“In-head localization seems like the logical opposite of an enveloping, external, and spacious auditory illusion. Perceptions of sounds originating inside the head, which routinely occur in headphone listening, can also occur in loudspeaker listening when the direct sound is not supported by the right amount and kind of reflected sound. The author and his colleagues have experienced the phenomenon many times when listening to stereo recordings in an anechoic chamber, usually with acoustically “dry” sounds hard panned to center or, less often, to the sides. It prompted an investigation (Toole, 1970), the conclusion of which was that there is a continuum of localization experience from external at a distance through to totally within the head. It is often noted with higher frequencies, and it can happen in a normal room with loudspeakers that have high directivity or in any situation where a strong direct sound is heard without appropriate reflections. Moulton (1995) noted that “speakers with narrow high-frequency dispersion . . . tend to project the phantom at or in front of the lateral speaker plane.” In an anechoic chamber, it can occur when listening to a single loudspeaker, especially on the frontal axis, in which case front-back reversals are also frequent occurrences. This phenomenon is so strong that it need not be a “blind” situation. Interestingly, a demonstration of four-loudspeaker Ambisonic recordings played in an anechoic chamber yielded an auditory impression that was almost totally within the head. This was a great disappointment to the gathered enthusiasts, all of whom anticipated an approximation of perfection. It suggested that, psychoacoustically, something fundamentally important was not being captured or communicated to the ears. An identical setup in a normally reflective room sounded far more realistic, even though the room reflections were a substantial corruption of the encoded sounds arriving at the ears.”
I'd agree, good sound still sounds good: the LiAR (listening in another room) test is part of the audiophile lexicon, after all. Why leave that pleasure to your significant other?
From a tiny seed, grow great things. Or not.
Listened only a few seconds to that piece from Motettkör, only to conclude that it was the least creative arrangement. You chose it for some reason, right? ;-))
Let's get into a battle of ingenious music: Tete Da Bahia, Duplo Sentido. I heard it on Austrian radio when driving home, and I nearly lost it, deliberately driving into the wilderness of the foreign landscape. I didn't but it cost me a lot of self control. My car's stereo is from Bose ... .
kimmosto
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Of course, but I meant that proper diffraction handling is very rare so almost every boxed and OB speaker is quite mediocre in imaging, sound stage, tolerance to very different listening distances and geometries. Bevels are also diffraction generators which don't work properly without rounding with long radius. Good design is not necessarily small, beautiful, easy to manufacture and cheap so willingness to compromise is natural.
Brasil is my second home so I listen quite a lot to Brasilian music including songs of the great Gilberto Gil. It does not take away the nice illusion of the singer and choir of ”Julsång” in the church.
Bevels can be very effective
Basic article | Baffle geometry
About baffle design, edge diffraction, secondary sound sources and their influence on the reproduction quality of loudspeakers.
heissmann-acoustics.de
Hi thanks for the kind advice I think there can be a confusion between a narrow soundstage and a narrow dispersion
A speaker with a narrow dispersion (i.e. narrow sweet-spot) can have a very wide soundstage if you are in the sweet-spot of course
I use to listen exactly in the sweet-spot with the speakers facing at me Toed in i mean Also because i start from the idea that most speakers FR are optimized on axis
that is exactly what i am looking for Pinpoint imaging but also instruments and players firmly placed in the virtual soundstage This is the magic of stereo
Not for me ... reflections will be confusing to me Like a room of mirrors in an amusement park After a while i got panic I want to escape
i think that edge diffractions can be eliminated with the use of absorbing felts ... like Dunalvy, Snell, Lipinski, Spica, Wilson, Rockpport, Rogers and recently also Avalon have done with great results i guess. Many others have used this solution Only for the mid high drivers by the way
Very smart effective and very cheap solution that i would like to test as soon as i end my home renovation
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^Felt and towels can have some effect but is very little / tricky to adjust and a marketing tool at best.
Only way to get rid of edge diffraction related secondary sound source is to get rid of the edge. Well, another possibility to exploit is to not radiate sound toward that edge on wavelengths where its acoustically big. Few ways to get rid of a loudspeaker edge:
1. really get rid of it, roundover with radius big enough to wavelength, basically sphere whose radius much bigger than the transducer radius (otherwise there is an edge between transducer and the sphere).
2. get the edge far enough from the transducers so that path length to the edge is similar to path length to room boundaries, edge becomes one with the room and effectively disappears.
3. get the edge so close to the transducer there is no delay to the edge and it becomes one with the transducer and effectively disappears.
Felt just introduces another edge so the material should be chosen carefully to be effective for the wavelengths etc, then it tries to reduce sound toward the box edge which it isn't usually effective enough for practical amount of it that fits on the space so all that happened was some spreading of the "problem". Basically its not very good solution. Its better to roundover the edges with big enough radius, basically one needs to approach a sphere, as big radius as fits. If you are lazy, make the box/structure no bigger than the transducer and no roundover fits and performance is pretty good. Use low pass filter below diffraction happens. For tweeter one can't use low pass, so use big enough round over.
Remember, commercial speakers need to be visually appealing, also people usually want visually appealing stuff.
Speaker that has low diffraction is probably not very appealing, or cheap, or easy to DIY. Its much easier to make rectangular box, have it vaneered nice and populated with trendy components and sell it to customer with nice margin.
Only way to get rid of edge diffraction related secondary sound source is to get rid of the edge. Well, another possibility to exploit is to not radiate sound toward that edge on wavelengths where its acoustically big. Few ways to get rid of a loudspeaker edge:
1. really get rid of it, roundover with radius big enough to wavelength, basically sphere whose radius much bigger than the transducer radius (otherwise there is an edge between transducer and the sphere).
2. get the edge far enough from the transducers so that path length to the edge is similar to path length to room boundaries, edge becomes one with the room and effectively disappears.
3. get the edge so close to the transducer there is no delay to the edge and it becomes one with the transducer and effectively disappears.
Felt just introduces another edge so the material should be chosen carefully to be effective for the wavelengths etc, then it tries to reduce sound toward the box edge which it isn't usually effective enough for practical amount of it that fits on the space so all that happened was some spreading of the "problem". Basically its not very good solution. Its better to roundover the edges with big enough radius, basically one needs to approach a sphere, as big radius as fits. If you are lazy, make the box/structure no bigger than the transducer and no roundover fits and performance is pretty good. Use low pass filter below diffraction happens. For tweeter one can't use low pass, so use big enough round over.
Remember, commercial speakers need to be visually appealing, also people usually want visually appealing stuff.
Speaker that has low diffraction is probably not very appealing, or cheap, or easy to DIY. Its much easier to make rectangular box, have it vaneered nice and populated with trendy components and sell it to customer with nice margin.
kimmosto
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but clearly worse than actual zero diffraction concept. That kind of simplified studies don't reveal all multi-source effects. Just how overall directivity and response deviations look as few frequency responses. Audible differences can be quite surprising.
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