Raises some interesting points about phase/time coherence,

Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

Posted by Brian H P (A) on July 2, 2014 at 11:29:08

In Reply to: The future Loudspeaker from an IT perspective posted by Ze'ev on July 2, 2014 at 09:01:28:

none of which are exactly new.

MP3s SUCK at preserving waveforms. Who woulda guessed?

MANY speaker designers over the years have pursued the "holy grail" of time/phase coherent output, with the consequent ability to yield a near-perfect step/impulse response and not utterly mangle a square wave (or, by implication, ANY wave).

The most successful designs in this regard have utilized single broadrange drivers (the article favorably mentions Quad ESLs and Manger drivers), OR time-aligned multi-driver arrays with TRUE first order crossovers.

The latter approach (exemplified by Vandersteen, Thiel, Meadowlark, Dunlavy, and a very few others) requires extremely wide-range drivers with unfiltered responses extending flat at least two octaves beyond crossover frequency, impedance-leveling circuits (Zobels and/or conjugate filters across the drivers) and (often) response-shaping circuits in series, and a sloped or stepped baffle to align the acoustic centers of the drivers front-to-back. Such crossovers wind up being anything but "simple," and the vertical listening (measuring) axis remains EXTREMELY narrow. Move your head (or microphone) up or down a couple of centimeters, the time alignment goes to hell, and they sound and measure just like any other decent speakers.

It's highly doubtful that most of us could hear the difference anyway, without extensive ear training. For those who can, the pictured accessory may be just the thing to maintain correct listening height.

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - The future Loudspeaker from an IT perspective - Ze'ev 09:01:28 07/02/14 (12)

Meet the future.... - Rod M 19:11:31 07/05/14 (1)

$24.99 and looks Lego inspired (in a cool way)... - musetap 14:03:49 07/06/14 (0)

DSP - jedrider 22:05:38 07/02/14 (1)

RE: DSP - Kal Rubinson 12:43:34 07/03/14 (0)

Some good points, but a lot of muddled thinking... - jonbee 14:28:26 07/02/14 (0)

More like Cousin It - E-Stat 13:38:10 07/02/14 (1)

heh, heh... as Walter Chrysler said, "There is NO replacement for displacement"~nT - Cleantimestream 12:27:34 07/05/14 (0)

Appears they've... - mkuller 11:36:01 07/02/14 (0)

Raises some interesting points about phase/time coherence, - Brian H P 11:29:08 07/02/14 (1)

RE: Raises some interesting points about phase/time coherence, - tomservo 12:21:00 07/03/14 (0)

"With the advent of the Compact Disc, the bottleneck became the loudspeaker" - Awe-d-o-file 10:34:34 07/02/14 (1)

RE: "With the advent of the Compact Disc, the bottleneck became the loudspeaker" - DrChaos 19:47:39 07/04/14 (0)

Follow Ups

Raises some interesting points about phase/time coherence, - Brian H P 11:29:08 07/02/14 (1)

RE: Raises some interesting points about phase/time coherence, - tomservo 12:21:00 07/03/14 (0)

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