He swapped the magnet polarity. That's patent-worthy innovation, right?
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Worst measuring loudspeaker?
- Thread starter Purité Audio
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bmc0,
I read from left to right. So I oriented the top outside ring magnet with north up and south down and went from there.
No that's an inventive flip and not an inventive step.
30% Bob said, make the magnets 30% thinner.
I read from left to right. So I oriented the top outside ring magnet with north up and south down and went from there.
No that's an inventive flip and not an inventive step.
30% Bob said, make the magnets 30% thinner.
Penelinfi
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Are they trying to reduce diffraction from the cabinet (that a woofer would play?)
Or, it's for strength
Or, to reduce the cheap speaker look you get from trying to put a flat driver frame against a curved baffle - it either sticks out anyway, or you have half inset on the top/bottom.
Elizabeth Borresen has effectively done nothing to me. I do not claim to own the 4 x Neo ring magnet ironless motor assembly. On the contrary, I published and fully disclosed the concept. In February 2009, that concept moved from my desktop into the public domain. So what's the problem? As modest as that concept is, it was part of almost10 years of independent research that included STEALLUS, STEALLUSX, and Almost Air Core motor assemblies. Elizabeth is attempting to steal the concept from the public and thus the loudspeaker industry. His business model is to lie, cheat and steal his way to profitability. How can folks standby and let this happen? As a min, we should promote a boycott of Borresen loudspeakers and the related snake oil products. As a norm, we should debunk his claims whenever we can. I claim that he is dangerous and will drag the loudspeaker industry et al. down. The loudspeaker industry is already technically retarded and falling farther behind the other A/V industry segments every year. We need loudspeaker companies to follow the TOPPING business model, no rhetoric, just performance. There is no better group than the ASR community to throw a net over Borresen et al.
MarkS
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The Audioholics video about the B&W 801 D4 Signature is here: https://rb.gy/9vo9em
Primarily informational on the tech and history of B&W, Gene gives these high praise.
He also shows measurements in a treated room (at a store) with no EQ:
These definitely do not belong in a "worst measuring speaker" thread!
Primarily informational on the tech and history of B&W, Gene gives these high praise.
He also shows measurements in a treated room (at a store) with no EQ:
These definitely do not belong in a "worst measuring speaker" thread!
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Old_School_Brad
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Alright, if that’s what needs to happen, I’ll boycott Borresen. I’ll do it for the community. It’ll be hard, but I’m determined to cope. One day, I’ll probably look back on this journey as one that helped shape me.
thewas
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I went a step further and threw mine out of the window, an expensive loss, but that's life... By the way mine where the first of the even newer generation, not ironless but membraneless!
Stereophile measurements of the B&W 801 D4 Signature are here: https://www.stereophile.com/content/bowers-wilkins-801-d4-signature-loudspeaker-measurements
These measurements are far more revealing of actual performance than any in-room measurements would be.
Definitely not in the "world's worst" category, but not all that good either.
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MarkS
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Why is a measurement at 1 meter more revealing than an in-room measurement at the listening position?
Those in-room measurments are making me think that B&W has been getting a bad rap here.
It's not just a measurement at 1 meter. It's a suite of quasi-anechoic measurements that show on and off axis frequency response curves, along with close mic curves for the woofers and the port. You can see far more detail this way as well as teasing out what is on-axis behavior of the speaker and what is off-axis behavior.
Have you not read Dr. Toole's book or any of his writing here or elsewhere about the limited utility of in-room steady state response measurements? A good in-room curve does not guarantee good sound.
Also, just look at the magnitude scale for those in-room measurements. 20-25 dB swings from peaks to trough! Is that "good?" How could anybody tell from that? The room is dominating the response, as it nearly always does. So what you're seeing from those curves tells us very little about the speakers themselves.
Have you not read Dr. Toole's book or any of his writing here or elsewhere about the limited utility of in-room steady state response measurements? A good in-room curve does not guarantee good sound.
Also, just look at the magnitude scale for those in-room measurements. 20-25 dB swings from peaks to trough! Is that "good?" How could anybody tell from that? The room is dominating the response, as it nearly always does. So what you're seeing from those curves tells us very little about the speakers themselves.
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Some +/- 2.5dB isn't that bad, neither the slight raise towards the upper registers. Probably that is all about room gain in the lower mids. Extension is straight down to 30Hz which is well preferred by many.
And agreed, the automatic room adjustment provided by DIRAC and other distracts many too. The direct sound has to be flat foremost, the room only follows, at least when listening - mono! It may be different with surround, as far as I understand Dr. Toole correctly, but for stereo (mono) the flat on-axis is prime. In-room is not crucial, as people "listen through the room" anyway.
The spinorama's of-axis, predicted (not real that is!) in-room response is taken way too serious by some way too often. To those, please consider to get a microphone at hand (buy, steal or borrough). Measure "in-room" at one concrete position, measure somewhere else, like 1 foot away, compare, wonder.
1. The scaling is wrong (80 dB vertical, and the image is very wide (X-axis) to make it look smoother).
2. 801 D4 is better than other speakers in the 800 D4 series.
This is what it looks like with proper scaling (first image):
With ERB smoothing. 3-6 dB dip at 1.5 - 3 kHz:
805 D4 in-room (Stereophile):
Bowers & Wilkins 805 D4 Signature loudspeaker Measurements
Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, and an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the quasi-anechoic frequency- and time-domain behavior of the 805 D4 Signature in the farfield. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 microphone for the nearfield...
www.stereophile.com
804 D4 in-room (Stereophile, red line):
Bowers & Wilkins Diamond Series 804 D4 loudspeaker Measurements
Sidebar 3: Measurements I used DRA Labs' MLSSA system, a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone, and an Earthworks microphone preamplifier to measure the Bowers & Wilkins 804 D4's frequency response in the farfield. My primary axis for the measurements was level with the tweeter, but I also performed a...
www.stereophile.com
You can do both. < 500 Hz is dominated by room resonances (as always).
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Short38
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Almost as good as the intro to Second City TV!
Neither does a good on-axis curve under anechoic conditions in 1m alone. If any FR measurement could help determining balanced sound in my understanding, it would be taking on-axis as well as listening window behavior into consideration just as much as indirect soundfield linearity in the room, plus the level balance between the two.
Most of 3-way B&W concepts with a top-mounted tweeter and low-order x-over filters seemingly result in a specific directional behavior making the result very room-dependent in the treble region, i.e. higher directivity index between 1K and 3K as well as pretty low index above 5K, with some bands dominated by interferences in between.
thewas
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Didn't claim such.
Exactly, directivity matters, unless someone is listening under anechoic conditions.
Yes, the high directivity at the presence region makes them not sound harsh even with non euphonic recordings, a kind of a BBC dip.
Did not imply that, was just meant for clarification.
Kind of a ´dip of diffuse soundfield´. That is said to make voices and presence/midrange-laden sounds appear less harsh, but it might pose a problem with instruments offering a brilliance-heavy harmonic spectrum, such as heavily distorted electric guitars, dry-mic´d trumpets or alto/soprano saxes at times.
... and still there are deviance by a dB or even two in predicted versus real in-room (which?!). The room may have a thick curtain hanging just where a nasty peak in off-axis response comes up and so forth. Wasn't that the purpose of room treatment to begin with?
Perfect is the enemy of good in two ways. In longing for perfect one might loose the good on the way, but in the rare case perfect is achieved, it will show to be superior to good.
Damn, you came out swinging. Edit: you even made him delete that post. Well done.I noticed that you guys were bashing Børresen within this thread. I might be able to help out.
Michael Børresen was on LinkedIn puffing and complaining about patent offices.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7313594732541050881/
Then I added my comment below his post.
Respect must be earned. This guy is a joke! I can add this to my lists of stories.
https://pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archi.../Mowry_Steve/Air_Core_Tweeter_Magnet_Assy.pdf
Voice Coil is an industry wide publication and it's free. What is the probability that he reads Voice Coil? Please wait while I integrate.
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