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In Reply to: RE: My simplistic take away: posted by AbeCollins on February 17, 2025 at 09:47:06
How loud do you play you music?
I rarely play mine into the 80db range.
I do enjoy listening to bass down into the 20hz range.
Follow Ups:
And at 80 dB your ears are way down in response, about 20 dB? meaning even if it's on the recording you won't hear it.
Some times loudly mostly not.
I do watch movies through the same system.
Must have the low notes, but you can't even hear they are there unless the speakers do it. Ideally one can tie into the room gain slope own low, in a perfect case one has single digit response. NOT for loudness but the amazing effect it has when vlf is present in a recording or soundtrack.
My focus is on the stereo / phantom image however.
The issue with subwoofers is your hearing response is such that at 20Hz, the threshold of perception / audibility is around 80dB BUT at the same time your ears much greater sensitivity to the 3rd harmonic at 60Hz means that a 7% 3rd harmonic has THE SAME apparent loudness as the 20Hz fundamental.
While you can't localize very low frequencies, It is also hard to make a subwoofer that does not radiate frequencies well above crossover and in a range where one can localize the source.
"While you can't localize very low frequencies, It is also hard to make a subwoofer that does not radiate frequencies well above crossover and in a range where one can localize the source."
For reasons of patience more than time I have not experimented with using my sub at a lower, say 45hz or 35hz, crossover. I have it set at 55hz with the LRS's.
The subs do not only reproduce subwoofer frequencies. A simple kickdrum test proves it.
I have a ML depth sub. It has not been abused.
The fact that subs radiate energy significantly above their freq setting should put to rest the notion you cannot localize a properly set up sub but half the posts in this thread are just sailing right past that claim.
Old myths die hard.
the sub must be faulty!
Or the room!
Doubt it.
/ optimally proportioned triangles are our friends
They are a simple 2 box, transmission line speakers.
EJ Jordan metal drivers.
4" close to full range and a 7" woofer.
Will they satisfy a BOOM BOOM BOOM junkie? Nope, not into that.
The bass is like the midrange version of a QUAD electro stat.
Only For bass.
I hear detail that is missing from to many speakers.
Maybe it's something that needs to be heard to understand.
Once heard though, you wouldn't want to do without it.
Sorry for the awful picture.
Shinny black speaker's have proved very difficult to photograph.
I don't want to hear my music like it's coming from different drivers.
John Klemmer playing his sax should sound like it's coming from
one source, not woofer, up to mid driver, up to tweeter.
"I don't want to hear my music like it's coming from different drivers."
Nor should it. When people are aware of different frequencies coming from different drivers, they're either too close to the speakers, or there's a problem with the design of the speakers.
On the other hand, people sometimes convince themselves of something which isn't actually true. The "mere" visual cue of three or four drivers can be enough to make some people believe that they're hearing different frequencies from different drivers. If a visually opaque scrim was placed in front of the speakers, completely obscuring their appearance, that psychological association may disappear!
I see that you're using a transmission line LF speaker. Can we assume that it is ported near the bottom of the cabinet? If so, do you notice that lower frequencies are coming from there?
"Sorry for the awful picture. Shinny black speaker's have proved very difficult to photograph."
Especially when there's a bright light source in the frame. Turn off the screen or turn up the room lights, or both. You'll get a better shot.
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
I have never heard any sound coming from the port.
Either with these of my Fried sub or my Fried clone.
I use both music and a BASS ZONE test cd.
They don't go as low with a lot of volume as my FRIED Model H
type subs I built. I had Dynaduio 1.8MKII's back then.
I had a Fried H sub with African Rosewood veneer.
They were beautiful.
I wanted to play music with forward facing drivers instead of
side firing drivers.
I used Peerless 10' drivers. 85486 I believe.
They could play 10 hz at 90 dbs.
These 7' drivers can't do that but since I don't play at ear damaging volume levels it's not a problem.
Besides they sound better.
I have been trying to properly photographing those speakers for a long time.
TV on, TV off.
Even moved the TV out of the picture.
Umbrella lights.
White umbrella, trying reflective and shoot through.
Silver umbrellas.
UP, DOWN, back, close.
Can't do well with reflecting the light off the ceiling as it's
about 18' high.
There is no way to get enough natural light into the room.
I have different electronics' so I need to try again.
No more Carver & ATL.
"I have been trying to properly photographing those speakers for a long time." (Etc.)
LOL
You sound a bit frustrated with photographing them. I feel your pain. :)
Photographing a black or nearly black object is a study in lighting, reflection and shadowing. I once photographed a medium-light skinned Caucasian woman and her very dark-skinned Negro new husband at their wedding. That was a challenge!
Study some professional pics of black grand pianos. That will help.
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
I knew a couple at work where she was as white as snow.
He was as black as coal.
I always wondered if they had kids what they would look like.
The critical distance where the sources fuse into "one" is one aspect however unless those sources are less than 1/3 to 1/4 wavelength apart, those sources still radiate separately and interfere with each other where they overlap at crossover.
These differences in radiation, even with the same response are how with ones eyes closed, a single small driver on a large flat baffle can be very hard to localize the source distance where most multi-source speaker it is easy.
At work i have been calling that loudspeaker spatial identity, how strongly does your ear / brain hear / triangulate it's depth location vs what the recording sounded like (distant, close etc).
No big deal until you want stereo and a strong phantom image without an obvious right and left source as part of the image, then compared side by side, the flat baffle / single small driver wins. Great, if you live within it's limited output and frequency response .
Here, these aren't "hifi speakers" cosmetically in the video but they all do radiate as a single point down to a few hundred Hz using smaller Synergy horns, with some music mixed on them in the video.
.
"I don't want to hear my music like it's coming from different drivers.
John Klemmer playing his sax should sound like it's coming from
one source, not woofer, up to mid driver, up to tweeter."
I find that an interesting observation, makes me wonder if you are a musician.
You have touched on a rarely mentioned phenomena in "hifi" and one that drove the direction of the loudspeakers at work, especially the ones in recording studio's.
What you want is one source of sound in both time and space, not multiple arrivals and sources that then interfere with each other being too far apart to combine coherently (1/4 wavelength or less).
Musicians have an edge so far as listening to loudspeakers, they know what the instruments sound like in person where listening to a recording someone else made, it's your guess / desire what it should sound like, a single ended comparison.
To make a phantom image that over rides the image the speakers make as a source at the right and left, takes simple radiation, one way is a single small driver covering a wide bandwidth. The reason is ideally the radiation from one the right or left speaker (facing it) is the same at the right and left ears and does not have information that your ears use to judge how far away it is. Difference information detracts from the phantom image as those locations are added to the signal.
Another way is the ESL-63 that synthesizes a single point source radiation using delay lines and rings of radiation.. I repaired a pair of those once and they changed my outlook on what speakers actually did / how you hear some aspects of how a loudspeaker radiates. Up close, they were very good, a better stereo image than any of the flat electrostatics i had made.
What i found for the Unity and then Synergy horns was that you could also synthesize a single wide band point radiation using a constant directivity horn if you added the ranges together inside a horn where the sources are all less than 1/4 wavelength apart at their upper frequency limit.
The horn impedance transformation frequency (like a high pass knee) changes as you move from the apex towards the mouth so it's also as if one had a built in crossover.
I found a way to use the physical offset in a passive crossover to reduce or eliminate the normal crossover phase shift. That way what radiates is as if it were one impossible wide band driver, one radiation in time and space..
The first time I head ESS speakers with the HEIL driver
I couldn't figure out what is was that I disliked about their sound.
Then I read how they work.
They squeeze the air.
Didn't like that.
Had Magnepan MGIII's for a few months before
I couldn't stand them any more.
The difference in the drivers.
Metal & plastic spoke at different speeds.
They didn't last 10 months.
As for being far enough away from multi-driver speakers.
I heard the big Infinities in a Hugh, Hugh room in a NJ dealer.
Poor Mr, Kleemer. Didn't know he played a sax with a 8' mouth.
And Diana Krall, yikes!
she sounded like she had a biggest mouth in the world.
At an audio show in Manhattan years ago I went into Ed Meitner's room.
In my opinion he had the best sounding speaker.
It was a single driver, not enough bass for me but they were
without that multiple driver thing that brothers me.
The OHM F was pretty good but require a very large room.
Not for me and I'm not a musician.
I first recognized a sensitivity to coherence as a teen. After befriending the owner of a new hifi shop in Atlanta in 1974, my awareness of audio systems skyrocketed. That dealer introduced me to a world I had not previously experience. My first major recalibration of how realistic an audio system could be was with their upstairs system: Magnepan Tympani IIIs tri-amped using Audio Research electronics with a Crown DC-300a on woofer panels.
Through that shop, I met Dr. Cooledge (founding TAS reviewer JWC) who was also a baritone in the ASO chorus and member of the board. He was also responsible for bringing Telarc to Atlanta in '78. It was hearing his Dayton-Wrights in '76 or so that forever set my preference for full range electrostats. He enjoyed lots of solo piano and choral content which highlighted their strengths. Unlike the Quad 57 with its frequency segmented drivers, it was a true full range design. Certainly not perfect and with its SF6 "gas bag" approach to increase bias voltage and power handling was kinda finicky. I assisted in the surgery required to replace one of the panels which was an experience. But it was the next recalibration for me as to achieving a natural sound. It also angled the identical panels to minimize beaming. Here's a later version with ten panels vs eight for the earlier XG-8 version I experienced:
It was also known to be an incredibly difficult speaker to drive. In the 80s, Nelson Pass demoed his big Threshold amps driving double D-Ws in a stacked array. In that same 70s era, I traveled with the good doctor to visit a guy in Newnan who had the Mark Levinson HQD system using stacked Quad 57s supplemented with Decca ribbon tweeters and Hartley 24" subwoofers. While certainly impressive, I still preferred the seamless presentation of the Dayton-Wright approach.
I bought my first full range stats when I was 20 (1977) and haven't looked back. Today I use vintage Acoustat 1+1s in the HT system and use what I consider the ultimate stat, Sound Lab U790s in the main system. Imagine a speaker with the midrange purity of a Quad extended to provide solid first octave response in a line source configuration with a realistically sized image. It addressed the beaming challenge by way of attaching the single diaphragm across a grid of flat facets angled to controlled degrees (22, 45 and 90). And like your unity horns, they can be used in arrays to increase either width or height.
From tomservo:"information that your ears use to judge how far away it is."
Not to diminish tomservo's knowledge, but the two primary mechanisms for judging how far away a source is, are:
1. Spectral content.
2. Direct/reflected (ambient) sound ratio (which also varies with frequency).
Explanations:
1. All musical instruments (and the human voice) have dispersion patterns which vary with frequency. This results in more "presence" when an instrument is "up close".
2. Even given a sine wave (single tone), the reflected sound will become increasingly noticeable as the source is moved farther away. This also varies with frequency, based upon the room's acoustical characteristics.
Good mixing engineers know this, and use various methods of modifying input signals to create their desired "soundscape".
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
Edits: 02/19/25
All of those are known effects but consider this situation.
Out doors, at a large distance it is still easy to face into the source of sound so that what reaches your right and left ears is essentially identical and the only clues you have to distance are the ones you mention. A recording of that is the illusion we wish to produce.
So now you have two different loudspeakers that have the same spectral response but entirely different radiation patterns, one a single simple point over a wide band and the other multiple sources that interfere.
You play the recording of a distant voice with the spatial things that make it sound distant.
With your eyes closed, one speaker it is easy to tell where it is right to left and easy to guess it's say 10 feet away.
The other speaker it is also easy to tell where it is right to left but now it is not as clear where the speaker actually is in depth.
The speaker that is easier to localize is radiating a more complicated pattern with differences between your right and left ear that allow you to triangulate it' depth.
In stereo, the speaker harder to localize singly (all other things being equal) produces a stronger phantom / less loudspeaker awareness.
We're not talking about outdoors, which is a whole 'nuther can of worms.
With regard to indoor home stereo sound reproduction, we know where the speakers are. We can see them. So, what difference does it make if we close our eyes and imagine that we don't know where they are? That's a "pig in a poke".
The biggest thing which I want to "imagine" is the space in which the recording was made. Whether it was a real space or a contrived/produced space doesn't matter to me, as long as it sounds good. Many multi-track studio-produced recordings sound very good and "believable".
And, I want a desirable "room soundfield", aka, ambient sound. This is generally achieved via good room acoustics along with wide dispersion loudspeakers.
Only in a production room would I want an acoustically dry room with very directional speakers. Other people, with their "listening chair" may disagree. I don't have a "listening chair". Altough, I do have a "sweet spot" - it's on the landing halfway up the stairs. :)
*********
We are inclusive and diverse, but dissent will not be tolerated.
I play music at moderate to loud levels - loud if the wife isn't home ;-)I want to at least sense the bass. I want to hear the bass if it is meant to be heard. And if the music warrants it I want to feel the bass hit me in my chest.
I want impactful bass to come AT ME from the music and from the front of the room like the rest of the music. I want enveloping bass coming AT ME but not indistinct bloat enveloping the entire room from all directions. This may be why I prefer front firing subs pointing at me.
Edits: 02/17/25 02/17/25 02/17/25 02/17/25
I want enveloping bass coming AT ME but not indistinct bloat enveloping the entire room from all directions.
I'm not a fan of any notion of *bloat* either, aka artificial boom or punch but first octave bass as heard from string bass, concert drum or pipe organ does uniformly pressurize a room. There is little sense of "AT ME". An exception being the initial "launch" of a concert drum strike when you hear the harmonics coming at you but only sense the fundamental wave reach you. Like I've heard countless times in concert halls, churches or the incredible acoustics found at either the Mormon Tabernacle or Mormon Conference Center.
My diagonal sub setup in the HT is both measurably linear and non-directional. You sense the contribution of the subs only when the content contains such. I guess it depends upon which *reality* you're trying to reproduce. :)
It this LP any good?
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Have a different one myself.
While the Tabernacle is a much smaller space than the Conference Center, the acoustics of the loaf of bread shaped building are incredible. Should you visit hearing a chorus rehearsal, they often begin by dropping a pin or tearing paper. Once I made it a point to seat at the very back on the upper level. Vocal articulation remains exceptional.
Love feeling the 16 hz pedals of the massive pipe organ.
It was a stereo side firing cabinet.
Irving felt to recreated the ambiance better.
I sold it and built a pair of subs that I could use facing forward.
I couldn't do without deep bass.
Not, boom boom boom bass.
When Paula Cole drops her voice I want to hear that.
How anybody can listen to speakers that can't play below 40 hz.
The sad-sack story about there's no need for bass the low don't know what they are missing.
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