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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: Re: Amazing posted by morricab on February 21, 2007 at 14:32:13:
I get to work with some very advanced technology, and so, have the luxury of being able to 'bend the rules' as far as conventional wisdom is concerned for home playback loudspeaker systems.
To respond to your questions:As for what I think is the most important, I will answwer that one last, so look down below.
I am of the 'direct frequency response' school, as opposed to flat power response. I also am not very enamored of omni type systems, they are too much at the mercy of the room, even one that is well treated acoustically. I also have found that speakers that control the radiation pattern (not necesarily horns/waveguides) seem to do better in the vast majority of home environments than ones with extra wide dispersion.
In that sense, dipolar speakers, such as your planars, have a form of controlled dispersion, which extends down into the bass, which places them in a completely different category as the vast majority of omni bass speaker systems. However, being one who values deep bass response (as long as it is tight and accurate), I have found that an enclosed woofer can be made to be fairly transparent and accurate, as long as heroic efforts are undertaken to minimize the box talk, internal box reflections, and driver resonances.
As for power compression and dynamic changes, by using Pro grade drivers, I avoid a great many of the worst of those issues and problems, as normal home playback levels do not even begin to tax a 95 dB sensitivity speaker system whose components can normally handle nearly a thousand watts in a typical pro sound loudspeaker system configuration.
I have developed a special topology that allows such Pro sound drivers to be used in a very simple and pure mode, for a taste of what I am talking about, see:
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/LBIseries.htm
and subsequent pages, actually, the last page at:
http://www.geocities.com/jonrisch/LBIseries4.htmThe distortion for this sytem at nominal home playback levels is in the tenths of a percent of distortion range.
Now, all of that aside, what measurements do I consider important?
The most important 'measurement' I can make, is to listen to a speaker using familar components in a familiar environment using program material I am familiar with and enjoy or like.
I know, I know, you want the so-called objective measurement side of things. OK. The thing I prize the most, and strive for in my designs, is to achieve good clarity of sound playback. Unfortunately, there are no single dimension measurements for this factor. What do I mean by clarity? Some call it articulation, others definition or detail, and yet others may call it presence or call it 'low distortion'. What I want to achieve most of all, is to provide the clarity and cleanliness that is irretrievable via any processor I am aware of. You can't EQ clarity back into a fuzzy ill-defined speaker system, nor can you DSP it back in, it has to be preserved, via superior drivers, superior execution of the system as a whole, superior filter networks, a whole host of intangibles that are not as in your face as the all-mightly and one-dimensional FR plot.Yes, the FR does need to be reasonably flat, but whose idea of 'flat' is always the main sticking point. Flat as a ruler, ah yes, but what is the scale and range of the FR graph? Was 1/3 octave averaging (or even greater averaging) used or not? What is the inherent resolution of the measurement at any given frequency? And so on, and so forth.
Then there is allowing one's self to get hung up on a specific number or frequency, say, requiring that the FR be flat down to 50 Hz or some such criteria. Hey, that's what subwoofers are for, eh? Anyway, what matters more than reaching 50 Hz dead flat is, what is the roll-off rate below that, and how consistent is it with drive level? What is the distortion level at 50 Hz? 40 Hz?, and on and on.
When evaluating drivers or designing systems, I tend to use a holistic approach, and try not to get hung up on any single metric, and I certainly do not let the microphone rule my goals and define my milestones. What it listens like is the single most important thing.
Jon Risch
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- Re: Amazing - Jon Risch 20:36:19 02/21/07 (0)
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