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I was fooling around with some speakers a few weeks ago and I asked myself what really contributes to the sense of "openness".
It was about then that I realized it was the tweeter. The only caveat is it needs to crossover on the low side. Around 1000-2000 kHz or so.
If you start going below that it is the woofer that needs to be very "natural" sounding.
Follow Ups:
I started to wonder this year ago after getting a pair of Clements speakers,id never heard this from any pair of speakers before or since.
Edits: 05/09/16
I own a pair of excellent Clements hybrid ribbon monitors, "neutral openness" is definitely one of their prime qualities.After Clements the company went under, Phil Clements went on to design the ingenious "H-PAS" line of loudspeakers for Atlantic Technology. The AT-1 H-PAS floorstander was favorably reviewed by Stereophile several years ago. I have not heard it but it must be a bargain at $3000 a pair.
Edits: 05/09/16
Just that.
Warmest
Tim Bailey
Skeptical Measurer & Audio Scrounger
lack of crossover distortion in the crucial 1-4 khz range (upper midrange) contributes to a sense of freedom and lack of constriction in the sound. listen to a planar or electrostatic speaker. until you have done so, you haven't really heard openness IMO.
Openess doesn't come with better cables, better amps (although amp may help if the current one is operating at the edge of its power delivery capabilities) but speakers that exhibit an off axes frequency response as close as possible to the on-axes frequency response and placement pf the speaker within that room (acoustic interaction between the speakers and the room) . If one's room is an acoustic nightmare, you could spend all the money you want on cables, amps, more expensive sources but they will matter exctly didly squat. A 0.5% improvement in sound in that direction is a complete waste of time. Fix the room and then the speakers.
There are many methods by which this can be achieved. One of those methods is probably NOT reducing the corner frequency of a tweeter crossover to 1K. It can be easily measured that distortion of most tweeters will increase significantly at that low a frequency when even a small amount of power is applied. The garbage harmonics might seem like more and better highs, but you're really hearing noise and false detail, anything but neutral and open.However one goes about it (beefier PS, better cables, better amp, higher resolution source, more and better drivers, better crossover and enclosure, better room, better recording), reducing distortion will always produce more open sound.
Peace,
Tom E
berate is 8 and benign is 9
Edits: 04/25/16
There aren't many speakers with a crossover point of 1 KHz. Even Wilsons are mostly around 1.5 KHz. What speakers are you thinking of?
The OP mentioned xover between 1K - 2K. I agree 1K is much too low. That was my point. What's yours?
berate is 8 and benign is 9
If all drivers only have a diameter of half the wavelength at the top of it's range boxiness is gone.
But it implies limited power. When the reproduced halve wavelength is smaller than the diameter there is a trade off, units are beaming and that causes music out of a box. Full range loudspeakers with a gentle breakup are a very good option, those are more an art than technology. Like the old fullrangers developed by using the ears.
It is hiding right there in the medicine cabinet behind the box of Q Tips!
I believe its time alignment, and extended highs.
And yet most of the better speakers, if not almost all(Vandersteen qualifies), are not time aligned given most definitions of time aligned. Plus I'd like your definition of time aligned. Is it linear phase or more or less?
A well built robust power supply has a lot to do with a speaker having a open and easy sound. The old adage, "It's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it" definitely applies here.
I have heard (I'm sure you have as well) speakers sound wildly different when partnered with different amps, even when their respective power ratings are similar. The ease with which a amp can deliver near instantaneous power has a lot to do with that wide open easy sound we audiophiles all go bat shit crazy for. We have all at one time heard what could be described as a muddled congested sound from a cheap (and some not so cheap amps).
Case in point; My Mikey built Sherwood S-5000 with its mostly film cap power supply completely embarrassed a well regarded Italian integrated tube amp. Same speakers - Completely different sound especially on complex rock and large scale music where reproduction of bass speed and slam are critical. I could be wrong, but I believe when a amp cannot deliver enough instant power to reproduce bass and upper bass, the treble suffers as well......Slow soggy bass and closed in sound.
Don't get me wrong, ribbon tweeters sound different than metal dome ferro fluid tweeters. Cones sound different than stats, and speaker crossover design can affect what you are going to hear to a large degree, but it all begins in the power supply in my book.
I bring this point up because I think it goes mostly unnoticed.
Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
instant current capabilities matter.
It has to be not only robust but also, I have found, to be properly regulated. If the voltages aren't really locked down tight then you get a situation where things can "walk around" and this makes distortion and affects imaging and soundstaging in particular. Big is good, but well regulated keeps the imaging/soundstaging accurate and precise.
For open and transparent highs, pretty much nothing beats a plasma tweeter, although a good ribbon, electrostatic or horn tweeter can get close enough that it is more academic than an actual perceptive advantage.
I'm with you all the way on power and regulation. One of my standard tests for power supply adequacy -- for units that pass my grunt test when lifted -- is choral music with pipe organ and a choir with boy sopranos, singing in a language I understand but do not hear every day.
My now departed friend Allen Wright called it downward dynamic range. The effect of being able to clearly hear soft sounds in the presence of loud ones. He was a strong believer in well regulated power supplies and even came up with his "super reg" board that could drastically improve DIY designs. He also told me that in a circuit everything that had to be tied down needed to be tied down tight and everything that had to swing needed to swing unimpeded. He said a lot of designs tended to get that backwards. I have heard many in that latter category unfortunately.
Right on Briggs.
Any amp can do girl with acoustic guitar, but for music that contains kettle drums, organ, and soprano voice, that's where a well regulated beefy power supply of a good amp will show a lesser amp a set of heels.
Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
Grigny , Saint Saens Couperin and Viern-Vidor masses and symphonies will get your amps attention, especially clear treble voices end. Not easy.
Brad;
I couldn't agree more. Brute power supplies with gobs of capacitance are not enough without the proper regulation. Thank you for pointing out my omitting that.
The "walk around" effect you referenced kind of made me go hmmmm. I have a friend with a much modified Hafler DH-500 driving Maggie 3.6's - I swear that I have heard this walking around effect when listening to his system. The singer would be front left and then go rear center. It wasn't terrible sounding by any stretch, but it was weird. Since he and I listen to very different music, I thought it was because the producers of the albums he likes were ham fisted meddlers.
There is one certainty; A stout well regulated power supply is a must if you are to hear everything a speaker is capable of.
Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
Is is the recording or the power supply that is causing the walking?
My bets are on the recording and not the power supplies in ALL cases. A poor power supply will manifest itself in different ways but certainly not "walking" ..
If you hear this with one amp or preamp but not others then how can it be the recording? That is why you should never rely on just one data point (or even two) for making any kind of conclusion about these kinds of things.
How do you know your head/ears are in the exact same location when listening after moving around and switching in and out different pre-amps and amps? Unless you know accurately within an inch tolerance of your listening position relative to your speakers and the same SPL levels were maintained among the different amps, I would say that all your data points would be next to useless.The other thing I would like to bring up is how would you know if it was the amplification? There are many other variables at play when listening that one may not even be aware of and yet, the amplification process gets the blame.
Edits: 04/28/16
I am struggling to see why any of the things you mentioned would matter. So what if you sit in a slightly different spot? We are talking about the sound drifting around...not just in another fixed position. I am also not talking about drifting from the left to right speaker here...I am talking about subtle shifts that blur image specificity and degrade soundstage accuracy. Also, why would SPL be relevant...nevermind that I would set it probably by ear to within a couple of db. A preamp or amp that doesn't do it, doesn't do it at any level. FWIW, when I am reviewing I set the levels to within 1db for comparisons.
If I keep everything but one item the same and then the sound is wandering a bit, doesn't that strongly suggest that it was the new item? Only if there is an interaction issue might you have a point. But preamps feeding the same amp is unlikely to have such an issue.
My experience is that the amplification most often deserves the blame.
The term "subtle shifts" is vague and I'm not sure what you are referring too. What is your point of reference for soundstage accuracy? If it has something to do with the vocals moving off center from the speaker pair's physical center, then where you sit relative to that physical center will cause a slight shift off center. There is a physical correlation between a speakers ability to produce soundstage relative to the listening position. Its physics.
How quickly can you interchange components for these comparison. Accuracy of auditory memory lasts at best for two minutes.
Its been my experience that frame of mind dictates what is heard. There are days where I sit and listen and find I'm not pleased with the sound and other times where I'm blown away by what I'm hearing using the same recording. The components haven't changed nor the material I was hearing.
Clearly this is a somewhat difficult conditions concept for you to wrap your brain around but I will try again. What you seem to be referring to are fixed spatial changes, which of course can occur when you sit offcenter. I am talking though about a sound imaging that is not sharply defined and "wanders" around the soundstage slightly and is often level dependent.
The point is that with really good electronics image stability and placement... In three dimensions is very well defined and with well defined recordings you will get a strong sense of musician locality. However, lesser gear will dilute or remove it completely to the point where the sound sticks to the speakers.
My brain is quite clear on this and its you that seems to be suffering from an audiophile fetish called subjective listening therefore its like that for everyone. If you want to sling mud, lets start or you can choose to be civil and discuss this as an adult with resorting to BS.
BS? Hardly. Just clear and repeatable observations. You continue not to understand that it has nothing to do with your obvious points about physical positioning. It is very easy to get recordings with well centered vocals or main instrument with which one can hear this effect. Also, get a good string quartet recording and listen to the positioning in the soundfield of each of the musicians. Electronics with very stable voltages will tend to keep the localizations more exact even in busy and loud passages. If voltages are not locked down tight you will get image smearing and some "wandering". I have heard both cases many times... It has NOTHING to do with physical seating or head position etc.
By all means though, give it your best shot. Btw, I have my listening position measured to the nearest mm with a laser distance meter. Explain, if you can, how the sound can "wander" and be imprecise with one preamp and locked in with another if nothing else is changed? If I sit back in the exact same spot etc? Back and forth switching confirms, other listeners confirm too.
The equipment I had and own now has never exhibited this smear you are talking about. I've also auditioned many a amp/speaker combos with material I know extremely well from piano concertos to acoustic blues sessions and I've never experienced this.
I've heard amp/receivers go into clipping while trying to fill a room with sound with inefficient speakers but even at that point, imaging was solid. The mids and highs became shrill and compressed and it was physically painful to my ears to hear the sound.
Chalk it up to coincidence I guess.
Are you famiiliar with the Dead Can Dance album "Into the Labyrinth"?
There is a song entitled "How fortunate the man with none".
Here are some snippets of some verses and their punchline at the end of each verse:
"You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him"
...
"It's wisdom that had brought him to this state
How fortunate the man with none"
"You saw courageous Caesar next
You know what he became
They deified him in his life
Then had him murdered just the same"
...
"It's courage that had brought him to that state
How fortunate the man with none"
"You heard of honest Socrates
The man who never lied They weren't so grateful as you'd think
Instead the rulers fixed to have him tried"
...
"It's honesty that brought him to that state
How fortunate the man with none"
So, Yes! How fortunate are you!
I have no idea why my friends system seems to do this (Soundstage wandering around), but it does.
Amplification, source, cables, power....Dunno - don't care......
Meat; It's the right thing to do. Romans 14:2
Sure a good ps makes all the difference but this isspeaker asylum and he wasnt asking about electronics.
ET
I think that's a little unfair.
He said, "A well built robust power supply has a lot to do with a speaker having a open and easy sound."
Not a hijack IMO.
Even so so systems can surprise you on great recordings.
I have been listening to Elac Debute B5's the past few days. The crossover from woofer to tweeter is 3000 kHz. I thought how can this hotshot designer Alan Jones pick such a crossover point/ It's right in the middle of the mid-range and the hardest to design a speaker around. Well glory be, they sound seamless and are a very open sounding speaker. So much for conventional wisdom...
> > 3000 kHz... It's right in the middle of the mid-range and the
> > hardest to design a speaker around.That's not quite the right way to think about it. Look at any musical chart that shows the fundamental frequency range of the human voice and musical instruments. You'll find that the highest fundamental of the vast majority of them is below 3KHz to 3.5 KHz.
A lot of speaker designers think it is a mistake to switch drivers when reproducing fundamentals -- why would you want the low notes of a violin coming from a bass/mid driver and the higher strings coming from a tweeter? There is an inevitable phase shift that you have to deal with.
By having a crossover in the 3 to 3.5 KHz range, the switch of drivers primarily affects the harmonics.
Edits: 04/25/16
comes from nice clean drivers mated nicely with their companions smoothly with a good clean amp of adequate power. careful choice of source components like a really good cartridge on decent tonearm, and a nice open sounding cd player (YES there are differences). sacd and dvda even better.
...regards...tr
...properly placed and matched with an amplifier.
And room treatment.
As for crossover frequencies, I prefer having none. ;)
For multi-way systems, I'm not convinced it's simply a matter of lower or higher - so long as the drivers are blended in regions where both are operating in their optimum region and don't exhibit an abrupt transition at xover.
I find large woofer two ways problematic in that regard. Or three ways where the midrange is pushed too far into tweeter territory.
And yet the BBC LS5/8 with a 12 " woofer and 1.25 " tweeter crossed at 1800 Hz worked quite well.
As for a one way system while theoretically a wonderful ideal how, in the current state of driver design, do you get wide bandwidth and dynamica and loudness capability from a single driver? Even from a planar with large surface area there are significant problems.
And yet the BBC LS5/8 with a 12 " woofer and 1.25 " tweeter crossed at 1800 Hz worked quite well.
Empirically, the woofer's directivity clamped down big time attempting to reproduce a 7.5" wavelength with nearly double the piston size. That will necessarily be a funky octave in a most critical range where virtually all instruments and voice are found. I'm sure the tweeter took over quite well with a far wider pattern. Discontinuity.
Even from a planar with large surface area there are significant problems.
I don't seem to mind the *significant problems* with my U-1PX speakers . :)
IME, the "sense of openness" occurs when the record playback seems subjectively smooth across the entire spectrum and when the physical boundaries of the room seem to melt away or disappear.The balance of direct and reflected sound in the room must seem complimentary to our ears and the recordings we listen to should be good ones. ALL types of distracting sonic artifacts must be eliminated or minimized.
Also, the "sense of openness" might have something to do with our state of mind at any given moment. Boxy minds make for boxy listening experiences.
So we do need loudspeakers that are well designed. But we also need to take great care with speaker placement, with room treatment and component matching, and we need to feel relaxed. Or else the show will be a "wash" (in the worst sense of the word).
Edits: 04/24/16 04/24/16
I think you get great openness from single driver speakers so Id say its crossover point(s) for multi driver speakers and overall crossover design and quality. Driver quality and other factors are at play too.
ET
Exactly the crossover points are very important.
That was what I was finding with the tweeters. The lower the xover point the smoother it sounded.
And generally speaking i think it's the tweeter that adds that special sense.
Again these are generalities. A systems and recording have dozens of variables.
Cross over points are important but probably more important are nice transfer functions for the roll off of the drivers at those points. A good choice of crossover point and a poor transfer function will sound like crap, muddy with no detail.
Yep I think all factors of blending multiple drivers is critical.
ET
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