Unusual Speaker Designs

[RayDunzl]

 

[maverickronin]

I suspect they've done as well as they could have given the interesting design choices.

It looks like someone in marketing threw down some concept art on an engineer's desk and said, "Make me something that looks like this!"

 

[jhaider]

Sony's brand new nearfield speakers SA-Z1. I would love to try them one day:

View attachment 64943
View attachment 64944

Leaving aside the questionable acoustic design (see discussion, supra), I have a question: who has room on their desk for that?

Don’t most of us have our desktop speakers on mounts or stands, to conserve desktop real estate for work-related things?

 

[Blumlein 88]

View attachment 64968View attachment 64969

Some well known odd speakers which look like they were brought back from the future.View attachment 64973
A well known vintage model for those old enough to remember.

So which design is more unusual. The DQ10 or the Quad you wished you had which is why you buy the DQ10?

I know what I think about the sound of both.

I thought it odd you'd try and emulate the look of a 2 way ESL that is sort of like a line source using a 5 way that looks like it was just slap-dashed to fit behind the Quad-like facade.

Hopefully I don't offend any DQ10 owners. I've a couple friends that own them.

Quad ESL57

I had a pair in the copper grill version Quads.

 

[GelbeMusik]

Hopefully I don't offend any DQ10 owners.

From a design perspective, the furniture part, I actually like these guys a lot. The general technical idea I like too, it is all so idealistic! If one could only make it work properly.

 

[RayDunzl]

So which design is more unusual. The DQ10 or the Quad you wished you had which is why you buy the DQ10?

This seems to be a naked DQ10:

Not what I expected, whatever that was...



Ass end of a naked Quad being refurbished:

 

[RayDunzl]

Makes me like my crappy 22 year old reQuests as much as ever...

 

[tuga]

It would definitely work better with amplitude shading and delay, I agree.

To your specific points:

• Even combined with delay/amplitude shading, three is not a large enough number of drivers in the array to yield coherent/useful vertical directivity control.
• The "assist tweeters" have 14mm diaphragms. I find it impossible to imagine they allow the central tweeter to be crossed over any lower than it otherwise would be.
• Similarly, I can't imagine they improve SPL/THD on the low end either.

Moreover, if they were using such an array on a passive design, I'm inclined to think it remains marketing BS now, as it must have been back then.

I do accept that they would likely widen horizontal dispersion at very high frequencies, but that isn't listed as a design goal.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but since a smaller 0.75" tweeters will have to be high-passed at a higher frequency and their dispersion will be wider at the bottom of its passband than that of the main 1" tweeter at the same frequency, isn't it plausible that using them in combination will reduce beaming or raise the frequency at which the speaker starts to become more directional?
There's the problem of interference, of course, which may outweigh the advantage of maintaing CD up to a higher frequency...

These are the horizontal and vertical response families of the Sony SS-NA5ES standmount.

Not bad I'd say, perhaps excellent horizontal dispersion characteristics?

Sony SS-NA5ES, lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on central tweeter axis,
from back to front: differences in response 90–5° off axis, reference response,
differences in response 5–90° off axis.

Sony SS-NA5ES, vertical response family at 50", normalized to response on central tweeter axis,
from back to front: differences in response 45–5° above axis, reference response,
differences in response 5–45° below axis.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/sony-ss-na5es-loudspeaker-measurements



Both the step response and the waterfall are pretty good too:

The SS-NA5ESs are probably as good as the f126bes.
And whilst they costs 50% more in the US than the Revels, the Sonys are some £200 cheaper in the UK and I find them considerably better looking. It's a no brainer.

 

[tuga]

This seems to be a naked DQ10:

View attachment 65082

Not what I expected, whatever that was...



Ass end of a naked Quad being refurbished:

View attachment 65083

The DQ10 looks like an ESL joke, reminds me of the guy who bought an f2.8 300mm telephoto on ebay and when he opened the package it was filled with bricks...

 

[mhardy6647]

So which design is more unusual. The DQ10 or the Quad you wished you had which is why you buy the DQ10?

I know what I think about the sound of both.

I thought it odd you'd try and emulate the look of a 2 way ESL that is sort of like a line source using a 5 way that looks like it was just slap-dashed to fit behind the Quad-like facade.

Hopefully I don't offend any DQ10 owners. I've a couple friends that own them.

Quad ESL57
View attachment 65067

I had a pair in the copper grill version Quads.
View attachment 65068

Well, I own a pair of "ESL-57s" but no DQ10s.
FWIW.

 

[Ron Texas]

So which design is more unusual. The DQ10 or the Quad you wished you had which is why you buy the DQ10?

I know what I think about the sound of both.

I thought it odd you'd try and emulate the look of a 2 way ESL that is sort of like a line source using a 5 way that looks like it was just slap-dashed to fit behind the Quad-like facade.

Hopefully I don't offend any DQ10 owners. I've a couple friends that own them.

Quad ESL57
View attachment 65067

I had a pair in the copper grill version Quads.
View attachment 65068

They definitely tried to trade on the shape of the Quads. The part I don't understand is three tweeters.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but since a smaller 0.75" tweeters will have to be high-passed at a higher frequency and their dispersion will be wider at the bottom of its passband than that of the main 1" tweeter at the same frequency, isn't it plausible that using them in combination will reduce beaming or raise the frequency at which the speaker starts to become more directional?

Absolutely. I mentioned this in the last sentence of my post that you quoted.

It's the vertical off-axis performance that troubles me. This speaker and other one mentioned by @HammerSandwich both exhibit major deviations on response as little as 5° (or likely less) vertically off-axis.

Keep in mind the graph's vertical scale. There are up to 6dB deviations 5° off-axis (and more in the case of the other speaker). It's intolerable simply as a practical matter IMHO.

@HammerSandwich is right that it will be better controlled with the amplitude shading/delay of the DSP speaker though.

 

[Deleted member 14468]

When I was shopping for my first full blown HT system, these speakers were getting some press because they had done well in a magazine's speaker shootout ...

http://norh.com/Norh_Loudspeakers/Marble_4.html

View attachment 55966

Too be honest, I was pretty infatuated with these speakers and was seriously considering purchasing them for the HT room. Their shape, however, presented some placement challenges, so I didn't pull trigger. Good thing too. Here's the Soundstage measurements for the Norh 6.9 - an upscale version of the speaker pictured above ...

Dodged a bullet I think.

You know what, they're not THAT bad -- and the pair we reviewed is in storage still, under my house. Yes, the frequency response is, literally +/-5dB, but I've seen some expensive boutique speakers that measure much worse. That said, it's not by any means a great hi-fi speaker -- it's more like an art piece that makes sound ;-)

Doug
SoundStage!

 

[Blumlein 88]

They definitely tried to trade on the shape of the Quads. The part I don't understand is three tweeters.

The marketing spiel was they had created a phased array for superb imaging. They made a big deal out of saying the combined total helped with diffraction effects as I recall. The claim being that like a Quad it sounded like a single driver (yes I know original Quads were actually a 2 way). They did not make mirror imaged pairs initially. Later they did make a right and left with mirror image positioning of the drivers.

Maybe we can get someone with a pair to send to Amir. Would really like to know how those would do on the Klippel.

Read this 3 paragraph mini-review by JGH who says the Quads are a tiny bit better, but these are something special.

A couple of back views from this web site: http://www.vintagehificlub.com/quick-informations/dahlquist-dq-10-loudspeaker/

 

[Ron Texas]

The marketing spiel was they had created a phased array for superb imaging. They made a big deal out of saying the combined total helped with diffraction effects as I recall. The claim being that like a Quad it sounded like a single driver (yes I know original Quads were actually a 2 way). They did not make mirror imaged pairs initially. Later they did make a right and left with mirror image positioning of the drivers.

Maybe we can get someone with a pair to send to Amir. Would really like to know how those would do on the Klippel.

Read this 3 paragraph mini-review by JGH who says the Quads are a tiny bit better, but these are something special.

A couple of back views from this web site: http://www.vintagehificlub.com/quick-informations/dahlquist-dq-10-loudspeaker/
View attachment 65219
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I listened to these back in the day but was not especially moved by them. Actually, the only speakers I can remember from that era are the big 8 panel Maggies. Further, I can't remember anything which sounded better than my LS50's with subs. They get no love at ASR, but I thought the Triton 1R's had potential. Then again, lots of folks like to trash the LS50's. It's a hobby around here.

 

[MattHooper]

So which design is more unusual. The DQ10 or the Quad you wished you had which is why you buy the DQ10?

I know what I think about the sound of both.

I thought it odd you'd try and emulate the look of a 2 way ESL that is sort of like a line source using a 5 way that looks like it was just slap-dashed to fit behind the Quad-like facade.

Hopefully I don't offend any DQ10 owners. I've a couple friends that own them.

Quad ESL57
View attachment 65067

I had a pair in the copper grill version Quads.
View attachment 65068

Quad 57s in the original bronze grills are one of my favorite all time speakers. I would LOVE to own a pair (and was actually offered a pair free!) but their form factor and power requirements just don't work in my room at this point. (I used to have Quad 63s with Gradient Subwoofers).

 

[valerianf]

Once in my life, in the 1980 area, I was able to listen an omni-directional plasma tweeter.
Visually and musically it was an unforgettable experience.
What a piece of engineering!

 

[Hugo9000]

One of these two unusual speaker designs won many awards for its industrial design, and according to the manufacturer it features "room-filling sound"--the other design costs $22k per pair.

Introduced in 2000, designed by Jony Ive:

And at $22-thousand/pair, introduced in 2008:

 

[pozz]

@Hugo9000 Before I scrolled down, I thought the first picture was of floorstanders and a huge egglike sub.

 

[Blumlein 88]

@Hugo9000 Before I scrolled down, I thought the first picture was of floorstanders and a huge egglike sub.

Me too.

If they have a sale for the second one in the post, say get up to $15,000 off, I'll probably get a pair.