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In Reply to: RE: Diffraction and front baffle and cabinet design posted by RGA on April 16, 2012 at 19:15:29
While it is true that how a speaker sounds is ultimately all that matters, the OP's original query on the legitimacy of baffle edge round over usage deserves a complete and accurate response. The pictured example you gave is further evidence of what I was talking about. Notice the wide baffle and offset tweeter position. These two factors alone are often enough to eliminate any noticeable diffraction effects on the speaker's response. The staunch proponents of large round overs or heavy felt will always try to ignore how some of the world's "top rated" speakers do not possess such features yet they exhibit the kind of exceptionally flat response that would suggest a lack of diffraction problems. No one is saying that round overs can't help or that proper use of felt is a waste of time. The reality is that like a lot of things in the audio business, the effect of these methods is often heavily overstated and much of the details that actually explain what is measured or observed are left out.
Follow Ups:
I think what largely happened is that style took over - fat wide baffle speakers like the ATC, Audio Notes, Snells (the early good ones the AN's are based upon, Harbeths, Devore Orangutan (pictured), Trenner and Freidl etc. There are other good ones that I have not heard yet or not enough to comment too much on like the Shindo Field Coil, and Classic Audio speakers.The appearance is needed in order to sell sexy sleek looks to mainly male buyers - marketing guys make their living on knowing which music to play at a shopping mall and at what volume to get people spending and they know that "thin is in." To make such inferior designs sound decent they do all sorts of work to get the square peg to fit into the round hole and spend lots of cash on marketing science spin.
It never ceases to amaze me that some boring old rectangle box with a paper woofer and silk dome tweeter can so utterly embarrass speakers that spend massive amounts of advertising on state of the art (cough) bullet proof drivers and diamond tweeters with special separate top loading tapered technologies and others with their dual drivers, specially curved boxes or snail shaped enclosures and or pistonic motions this or that blather on top of blather. Sure there is probably some real truth in there - the compromised skinny ass box with puny plasticy sounding drivers probably really does sound significantly better if you curve the cabinet - but so what? You started with 3 day old crappy meatloaf and then you slathered a nice tasting gravy on top and you made the truly disgusting into something somewhat edible - thanks but I'd rather the thing that doesn't need to be "fixed" to be passable - even if the thing looks uglier.
Edits: 04/17/12
Isn't it true thst diffraction effects contribute to time and phase error as well as frequency response anomaly? Correcting the frequency response is one thing, but time and phase error is another. Please tell how this aspect can be dealt with without correction. Offsetting tweeters will make it less of an offense, but what about speakers whose drivers are stacked in a straight line with narrow cabinets as are fashionable these days?
Edits: 04/17/12
I'd add that the ATC grills fit around the baffle flush with it and are angled on the sides which also reduces diffraction like a rounded corner making the ATC line a poor example of a hard edged baffle.
And they make damn good speakers which was why ATC were the last speakers purchased by Gordon Holt.
The pro version of the ATC 150s differ somewhat besides being active: No grille but rounded edges.
Btw people who compared passive to active larger ATCs to the real instrument very much preferred the active ones by a fair margin. In their case the amps are rack-mounted and do not share the cab with the drivers.
Almost agree - except they sound better without the grills.
I am also glad to see that ATC puts a premium importance of driver matching and pair matching of their speakers - few speaker makers bother or advertise the fact or for that matter even seem to understand it. AN also gives a hoot about it as did Snell.
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