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Offline rjp

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More watts aren't necessarily better
« on: September 12, 2010, 05:53:09 PM »
Resonant cabinets are making a significant comeback in stereo playback these days, as people are moving away from high wattage amps, and going for micro-wattage, literally .75w amps.

That's very interesting; I've never liked the "more watts are better" arms race. Speaker efficiency is far more important than raw wattage, as far as I'm concerned. When I had my first car, I fitted it with a Pioneer radio/cassette unit that had all of six watts per channel, and a pair of Jensen 6x9" 2-way coax speakers in the rear deck. My friends' heads just about exploded when I told them the wattage - that little Pioneer could CRANK, and give very good sound while doing so. They had trouble believing that so few watts could push out lots of sound.

It certainly didn't hurt that I used (and had already learned how to use) good equipment to make my mix tapes.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2010, 06:42:38 PM »
I've been hanging with some esoteric tweakers. But yeah, a couple of them are sub-single digit wattage. Some are in the low single digit watts.
They're running single speakers so there is no need for wattage to drive through a crossover.
The speakers of choice are quite old, paper speakers, and a variety of different arrays, such as the mentioned resonant cabinets, horns, and open baffles.
There is a cool American company called Wild Burro Audio that is selling modern updated versions of the old drivers. I'm all about these speakers, as I'd like to eventually get around to building a tube amp kit, and the simplest kits are really low wattage, so speaker efficiency needs to be high.

www.wildburroaudio.com
« Last Edit: September 12, 2010, 06:48:50 PM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2010, 08:16:33 PM »
I keep telling my wife that, but she still wants more kids...  :P

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2010, 12:18:48 PM »
^^
heh heh.

Speaker sensitivity and the power required go hand-in-hand.  There are things to be said for eliminating the passive crossover from a speaker and using a single driver and one of those is requiring far less power to reach the same SPL.  A big part of that is the need to pad the other driver to match the least efficient driver in the array, as well as losses in the passive crossover itself.

The engineering factors that have driven the world towards less sensitive speaker designs are overall extention of a flat frequency response from speaker cabinets of small size.

That's not to say that low powered single driver systems can't sound absolutely fantastic, but if the goal is an flat, extended frequency response from a small speaker which can reproduce reasonable listening levels, then it takes power to make that a reality.

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Offline mr qpl

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2010, 01:38:10 PM »


more wattage, please

Offline Church-Audio

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #5 on: September 13, 2010, 02:47:50 PM »
Resonant cabinets are making a significant comeback in stereo playback these days, as people are moving away from high wattage amps, and going for micro-wattage, literally .75w amps.

That's very interesting; I've never liked the "more watts are better" arms race. Speaker efficiency is far more important than raw wattage, as far as I'm concerned. When I had my first car, I fitted it with a Pioneer radio/cassette unit that had all of six watts per channel, and a pair of Jensen 6x9" 2-way coax speakers in the rear deck. My friends' heads just about exploded when I told them the wattage - that little Pioneer could CRANK, and give very good sound while doing so. They had trouble believing that so few watts could push out lots of sound.

It certainly didn't hurt that I used (and had already learned how to use) good equipment to make my mix tapes.

#1 Frequency response
#2 distortion @ a given level almost never see this spec
#3 Sensitivity SPL @ 1w @ 1m
#4 Size because the wife will only let you buy a speaker so big.... I know this from personal experience lol...

Wattage how much you need depends on # 3 and what kind of listening level are are going to be running at.
I basically do this if my speakers can handle RMS (not music power) 50 watts I want to avoid distortion I will get a 100watt amp to drive them I might also use a 250 watt amp if that's all I have available. Provided that you understand that you have enough power to send the speakers flying across the room.

But again you might get away with a 10 watt amp if your speakers are very sensitive and you dont crank it.. The major problem with speaker companies is the specify the sensitivity at 1k..... At 50hz... that figure is going to be much lower depending on how your room interacts with your speakers. So going by sensitivity by it self unless its averaged * and it almost never is * misleading.

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Offline Gutbucket

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #6 on: September 13, 2010, 07:08:54 PM »
Improving #1, #2 and #3 tends to lead to larger speakers.
Improving #4 means smaller speakers and trumps everything else.
The main way to try and maintain #1, #2 and #3 with smaller speakers is by re-engineering things in ways that use copious amounts of juice.

Interestingly, using active crossovers and mutilple amps, with each amp attached directly to each individual driver, allows for using far lower powered amplifiers, but is complicated to set-up and use so that approach is usually hidden within 'all-in-one' active speaker designs.
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Offline Jimna

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2010, 09:06:38 PM »
funny thing is I want to go the other way.   Ive been thinking about attempting DIY electrostatic panels.  they can be some of the most inefficient loads out there.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #8 on: September 13, 2010, 09:50:59 PM »
These are the modern resonant cabinets that I referred to, designed for old german radio speakers (see image below)
They are called Reso's and are designed for Saba speakers, though the designer is working on a baffle to fit other drivers.
I'm hardly able to comment on not stripping out old gear, given my mono buildout; but I'm not comfortable with the wholesale gutting of antiques for eBay profits. That is what Saba speakers are.
Thats where the WildBurro speakers come into play for me, as well as the Fostex speakers.
The guy that is building these cabinet kits is redesigning the face panel baffle to variable dimensions for alternate sourced speakers like the WBA stuff. So I'm watching in anticipation.
The OP of the thread is a gent named David Wong. I met David here in SoCal, in his travels, but he lives in Hong Kong. Hes a civil engn'r with tons of massive bridge design work. He now runs a medical instrument manufacturing biz in HK.  Hes deeply involved with audio fanatics from around the world, amazing audio travels, always listening to, and posting about amazing systems - and having a really impressive system of his own building, including some beautiful horns, and a really slick system for improving on Denon DL103 stereo cartridges (long story of removing the plastic housing and replacing it with one of his custom aluminum bodies).
David bought a Reso kit and speakers and has been raving about it. There are a bunch of other people raving about the design, and sound.
So, I'm listening, watching, reading, learning.  I'm leaning more towards an open baffle, for ease of building, but will likely complicate it by using stone or unobtanium,.... But this kits is said to be quite a nice project for a speaker build.
This is a two driver version. There is a one driver version, I think? People also use these in vintage design cabinets like some from Western Electric.



personally, I'd like to see something different for legs, but not sure of what. The speaker is open on the bottom, utilizing the floor reflection as part of the design theory. So it needs to stay open. The legs also lean the cabinet back, exposing the open cavity outward toward the listener.
The designer monitors and participates extensively in the thread, and does a far better job of explaining it than i ever could.

thread begin:
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.0
assembly of kit "tutorial":
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.msg23386#msg23386
« Last Edit: September 13, 2010, 09:59:07 PM by m0k3 »

Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #9 on: September 13, 2010, 11:12:33 PM »
Linn has done a lot with active crossovers, with one amp for each driver..

Don't resonant cabinets create lumpy frequency response curves at the resonant freq?

I was once impressed by highly efficient speakers, like Klipsch.  But then I decided they didn't sound that good, and spl/watt was not that important to me.

Offline Church-Audio

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2010, 08:19:27 AM »
These are the modern resonant cabinets that I referred to, designed for old german radio speakers (see image below)
They are called Reso's and are designed for Saba speakers, though the designer is working on a baffle to fit other drivers.
I'm hardly able to comment on not stripping out old gear, given my mono buildout; but I'm not comfortable with the wholesale gutting of antiques for eBay profits. That is what Saba speakers are.
Thats where the WildBurro speakers come into play for me, as well as the Fostex speakers.
The guy that is building these cabinet kits is redesigning the face panel baffle to variable dimensions for alternate sourced speakers like the WBA stuff. So I'm watching in anticipation.
The OP of the thread is a gent named David Wong. I met David here in SoCal, in his travels, but he lives in Hong Kong. Hes a civil engn'r with tons of massive bridge design work. He now runs a medical instrument manufacturing biz in HK.  Hes deeply involved with audio fanatics from around the world, amazing audio travels, always listening to, and posting about amazing systems - and having a really impressive system of his own building, including some beautiful horns, and a really slick system for improving on Denon DL103 stereo cartridges (long story of removing the plastic housing and replacing it with one of his custom aluminum bodies).
David bought a Reso kit and speakers and has been raving about it. There are a bunch of other people raving about the design, and sound.
So, I'm listening, watching, reading, learning.  I'm leaning more towards an open baffle, for ease of building, but will likely complicate it by using stone or unobtanium,.... But this kits is said to be quite a nice project for a speaker build.
This is a two driver version. There is a one driver version, I think? People also use these in vintage design cabinets like some from Western Electric.



personally, I'd like to see something different for legs, but not sure of what. The speaker is open on the bottom, utilizing the floor reflection as part of the design theory. So it needs to stay open. The legs also lean the cabinet back, exposing the open cavity outward toward the listener.
The designer monitors and participates extensively in the thread, and does a far better job of explaining it than i ever could.

thread begin:
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.0
assembly of kit "tutorial":
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.msg23386#msg23386


I can tell by looking that these speakers would sound like turd. yeah they might look cool but they appear to be designed by some granola chewing socks with sandals MF, the huge problem with this idea is you want to let the speakers do the work not the cabinet every time a cabinet vibrates you are removing efficiency. Furthermore the fact that the speakers particularly the tweeter is behind the baffle also causes increased distortion and time alignment issues.These are things that were not thought about when these speakers were designed.
Looks like something from Ikea.. Maybe we should call it the fartinhocker?









« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 08:25:07 AM by Church-Audio »
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #11 on: September 14, 2010, 08:41:54 AM »
Chris,

remember, you listen with your ears, not your eyes.
these things have guys selling off *six figure speakers.


* I wish that I could link you to the rigs that I'm referring to. They are in the members only section at lencoheaven forum.
David, the gent that I referred to, is part of an audio club in Hong Kong. I don't know if you're familiar with the audio scene in the asian countries, but, they bought up all of our classic gear when were weren't looking, and we got caught with our pants down. Across the boards,... the best of the best of the best in classic audio went to asia.
David is deeply involved with these collectors, and has posted volumes of listening sessions that he's been involved in, where there are twenty of the worlds finest speakers in one listening space, speakers that run the gamut from antique theater Voice of the Theater/Western Electric systems, Altec Lansing, early JBL,... the classics; on through Martin Logan panels, Quad ESL's (extremely early electrostats), ProAc's,.. I'm struggling to come up with names here, as there are so many represented.
David has sat these mega-collectors down to these Reso cabinets, and they're flat blown away.
Are these guys literally selling off the classics - no way! We'll never see that old iron again here stateside without spending massive fortunes to get it back. But they are making room for them in their flyweight single digit wattage systems.
The beauty for guys like myself - they can be DIY'd, or, even with the kit purchase and shipping, you're still looking at under a grand for speakers; cabinets and drivers in total.
Now, I find this highly intriguing as a DIY'r
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 10:35:45 AM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #12 on: September 14, 2010, 01:29:39 PM »
I have serious trouble believing those spindly legs are optimal.  And the way the drivers, especially the high-freq, is recessed into the cabinet is contrary to decades of logic; why mask the tweater down in a hole?  As Chris mentioned, different frequencies travel at different speeds.  So if you want the high freqs to arrive at the same time as the low freqs (and is there any reasons why you wouldn't?), then the design must incorporate something to achieve that.

Speaker development is an interesting endeavor.   Throwing some drivers in a box with some insulation, and a cross-over solution is pretty easy..   And it can sound pretty darn good.   Then you have the guys who have done it their entire lives, in labs, with great resources (anechoic chambers and extensive measurement gear), large budgets, brilliant designers, active crossovers, etc.  Linn is an example.   They can build dozens of iterations of a design to optimize the performance.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #13 on: September 14, 2010, 01:34:58 PM »
treble probably isn't too slowed down by that 3/8" offset.
Look at the abundance of front-loaded horns burying the driver 2' or more within a horn,.. just saying, but I doubt that little 3/8" offset is going to do anything.

I agree and mentioned the legs - they're not my favorite feature. But the bottom of the cabinet is open, and assuming the legs help keep the bottom unobstructed as possible.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 01:40:16 PM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #14 on: September 14, 2010, 01:46:16 PM »
The recessed high freq concern is masking and off-angle response, not 'slowed down'.

People long ago seemed to conclude that bringing the drivers out flush with the face of the speaker improves the sound.  If there is an argument that justifies a different approach, I'd like to hear it.  Otherwise, I'd guess the builder took an aesthetic/easy shortcut.   I'd expect at lease a chamfer/radius of the hard edge (but then that exposes the interior of the wood).  What other speaker designs are recessing the tweeter?

Offline Tim

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #15 on: September 14, 2010, 01:51:06 PM »
there is nothing like a flea watt SET amp running into a pair of horns... pure bliss.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #16 on: September 14, 2010, 02:05:04 PM »
most cabinets are sealed, with some only sporting a small hole for a port.
You cannot get a speaker of any size into a finished cabinet of most designs. So they have to be mounted outside of the cabinet, as its physically impossible to get them into the cabinet.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #17 on: September 14, 2010, 02:33:08 PM »
as a resonant blending design,.... it might be helpful to have the speakers deeper in the cabinet, for the floor opening output.  I can see where would the cabinets open interior, floor venting output and curving design act as a horn to a degree (i'm an artist and abstract thinking works for me,... try to follow my curved outlook here). If I were to do my own version of the speakers, they would probably come out more like a horn than a resonant cabinet, at least in the floor/bottom venting projection.
These theories are my own brain fart, and are not from the designer - his theories might be totally different.
But, like i said,... I'd probably build a more substantial skirting leg, almost to a horn design, but thats one weird tweakers fantasy amongst a million.

frugalhorn.something-or-other (i'll find the url)
thats where I've been looking lately, beyond just a simple propped up open baffle.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 02:36:58 PM by m0k3 »

Offline Church-Audio

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #18 on: September 14, 2010, 02:41:28 PM »
treble probably isn't too slowed down by that 3/8" offset.
Look at the abundance of front-loaded horns burying the driver 2' or more within a horn,.. just saying, but I doubt that little 3/8" offset is going to do anything.

I agree and mentioned the legs - they're not my favorite feature. But the bottom of the cabinet is open, and assuming the legs help keep the bottom unobstructed as possible.

HUH?  because the wave length of high frequency's is short how that tweeter is mounted is critical to dispersion and distortion. Time alignment is critical to good  sound. this box just proves that any donkey can make a box and put speakers in it. But since we are no longer "living in the 60"s" we now know a lot more about speaker design thank god.


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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #19 on: September 14, 2010, 02:51:40 PM »
http://www.methe-family.de/schallwand.htm

german site with more open baffle and resonant speaker designs

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #20 on: September 14, 2010, 02:57:31 PM »
more resonant design - this time with the speaker outside the cabinet for our out-of-the-box in-the-box thinkers

http://www.auditorium-23.de/Speakers/Rondo.html

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #21 on: September 14, 2010, 03:09:51 PM »
the mother lode of resonant cab designs:
http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/rondo/rondo.html

speakers mounted on either side in different designs  ::shrugs::

too much huff and puff over minutiae of detail.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #22 on: September 14, 2010, 03:10:46 PM »
An even response off-axis is the potential problem with that tweeter mounting in particular, and any design in general. If the goal is acurate reporduction, then science trumps art, and clearly points to the underlying fundamentals.  The challenge then is how best to realize them, given the real world contstraints.  The science becomes more and more refined, just as costs of construction genrally continue to increase and the general level of craftsmanship has droped.  Nothing wrong with beautiful craftsmanship, but the progress of our scientific understanding of how acoutics works is irrefutable.

From what I understand, most of the new research design headway is focued on power response - how evenly sound is dispersed form a speaker in all directions.  It seems that a speaker's radiation 'polar pattern' should be smooth (regardless of it's overall shape) and ideally have the same balanced frequency response at all angles, so that it illuminates the room with the same spectrum in all directions, even if it is radiating far less energy in some directions. Doing so becomes particulary challenging at the crossover regions. An even power response is cetainly not found in many traditional or high dollar speakers, but strong preference for it is confirmed by the recent and extensive blind listener testing.  I have a copy of Floyd Toole's recent book Sound Reproduction, (National Research Council of Canada, current Harmon acoustic research head scientist) which emphasises this point strongly but haven't cracked it yet. His testing has been conducted with far more rigor than any other I've ever heard of.  No audiofile wiggyness influnce there (seems they save that for the marketing dept).  Sean Olive's (head of acoustic research at Harman) blog is a good place to check out their current testing proceedures.

edit- I haven't had a chance to check the resonat speaker links M0k3 posted, but any speaker with a port is technically a resonant design, which is almost all of them these days. When is the last time you saw a new design with a sealed box? There rare a few, but not many.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 03:13:45 PM by Gutbucket »
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #23 on: September 14, 2010, 03:15:58 PM »
science (and computers) also gave us mp3's, and CD that rot in 25 years.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 03:19:14 PM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #24 on: September 14, 2010, 03:21:23 PM »
science (and computers) also gave us mp3's

Sure, and mp3 is highly effective at achieving the designer's goal of maximal sound in minimum data size.  I don't value that goal as highly as many do, but I can appreciate the extensive research and testing behind it.

I'm not sure I see your point.  Should we all go back to banging bones and singing, because science gave us both sound reproduction technology and nuclear weapons?
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Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #25 on: September 14, 2010, 03:25:42 PM »
Without the tool of science, we would have no speakers, record players or any sound reproduction equipment at all.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #26 on: September 14, 2010, 03:27:51 PM »
science is part of it.
How many beautiful old objects of audio art came from the early era?
big wooden flowers for horns; sculpted features that were never intended to be seen; Gussets that look like doilies, but can hold up machinery. Thats the art in science and engineering that is sadly lost.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #27 on: September 14, 2010, 03:38:35 PM »
is it not possible to see around the speaker hole, and like I do, see a jig saw in its future to enlarge it? or is that the DIY'r coming out?
I can see spending a half an hour and building a jig and routing a flush mount out of the kit - with that kit saving me dozens of hours of build time(?)
To me, that makes natural sense, and is a first thought with damn near everything I buy it seems; but then I look at everything for ways to tweak it (or fuck it up).
I saw the kit, and, immediately started thinking about ways to mount the WBA drivers into it - not that the legs were funky (though as stated, you could do way better, and the designer admits it), not that the the speakers were back in the box a whopping 3/8"
So, to me 3/8" is like trying to carefully straddle a hair on the floor so I don't trip over it. Silly stuff to work beyond, and certainly not something to blow a 'roid over.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 03:40:15 PM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #28 on: September 14, 2010, 03:55:47 PM »
is it not possible to see around the speaker hole, and like I do, see a jig saw in its future to enlarge it? or is that the DIY'r coming out?
I can see spending a half an hour and building a jig and routing a flush mount out of the kit - with that kit saving me dozens of hours of build time(?)
To me, that makes natural sense, and is a first thought with damn near everything I buy it seems; but then I look at everything for ways to tweak it (or fuck it up).
I saw the kit, and, immediately started thinking about ways to mount the WBA drivers into it - not that the legs were funky (though as stated, you could do way better, and the designer admits it), not that the the speakers were back in the box a whopping 3/8"
So, to me 3/8" is like trying to carefully straddle a hair on the floor so I don't trip over it. Silly stuff to work beyond, and certainly not something to blow a 'roid over.

The best way to mount a tweeter is on a flat baffle where there is nothing around the tweeter to influence dispersion. Unless you are trying to make a horn.. But horns are anything but musical.. They are a necessary evil in live sound and in applications where you need high spl and controlled dispersion at the sacrifice of higher distortion. The area around the tweeter should be smooth and free of screws ect anything sticking out above the tweeter will effect the response of the tweeter and polar pattern and frequency response in the case of mounting it on the other side of the baffle you will have adverse effects on frequency response but the benefit would be more of a directional dispersion.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #29 on: September 14, 2010, 04:18:26 PM »
that's a massive generalization; horns are anything but musical.
Yes, maybe some giant black creaky plywood cabinet on the side of a stage, that put out death metal for its whole life; But hardly in the world of the home enthusiast.
Case in point: Old JBL's, Klipschorns, Western Electric home audio, Altec, Bozak(? horn - don't recall), to name just a few - these are all amazing old school horns that will leave spin drift in their wake, still; that is if you can mange to wrangle them away from their owners.
Then you get into the DIY side of building and the world opens up wide with design.
Me,... I'm buying two sheets of 3/4" birch finish plywood, some piano hinges, and a couple of drivers, and building an open baffle speaker pair. I'll let Home Depot cut the wood for me, and be done with it after I cut two round holes, seal it, and mount two speakers.
Then I'll sell my Sol.speaks for a pretty penny, and pocket the rest, as the open baffles will probably set me back about $300, and about a half day effort.
When I move, I'll fold em up and take em away.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 05:13:42 PM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #30 on: September 14, 2010, 05:10:16 PM »
But horns are anything but musical..

No offense but, have you ever heard a real pair of high-end horns playing in a high end system?
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #31 on: September 14, 2010, 05:16:54 PM »
horns are like every speaker, some are the shit and some a shitty. 

Church is speaking from a sound guy/live sound reinforcement POV, we are audiophiles at home.   that is like comparing apples to cinder blocks.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #32 on: September 14, 2010, 05:21:07 PM »
shhhhh,..... I listen with my speaker grilles on in front of my tweeters. ::sneaks away::
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 05:22:38 PM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #33 on: September 14, 2010, 05:33:35 PM »
oh yeah,....
Presently spinning Dawg music through a mono amp, with a speaker thats buried behind a craftsman style obstruction, grass cloth, and mounted fully 2" inside the cabinet. Hell its not even sealed around the speaker, and its way back in the cabinet.
Its sucking pretty hard here right now, I tell ya.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #34 on: September 14, 2010, 05:38:25 PM »
horns are like every speaker, some are the shit and some a shitty. 

Church is speaking from a sound guy/live sound reinforcement POV, we are audiophiles at home.   that is like comparing apples to cinder blocks.

I know, that's why I am asking. We may have very different frames of reference.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #35 on: September 14, 2010, 05:46:46 PM »
How many beautiful old objects of audio art came from the early era?
big wooden flowers for horns; sculpted features that were never intended to be seen; Gussets that look like doilies, but can hold up machinery. Thats the art in science and engineering that is sadly lost.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

As I see it, the science part should have nothing to do with art or craftsmanship.  It is about understanding and quantifying the underlying principles of the physics and the of human physiology and perception of sound.  It's better when that part clearly delineated and not fogged with art and craft.

But once we understand those principles and can design for them, we can choose to implement them in hand tooled brass and exotic hardwoods.. or in cheap robot injected plastics.  The science and the craft can go together if we want them to.  We don't have to choose one over the other going ahead (except for the cost problem), but those choices are made for us looking back.

It's legitimate to choose beautiful old world craftsmanship over new technological understanding, depending on what you value more. But it doesn't have to be a choice at all.  It's harder if DIY'ing old classic stuff, but knowing the importance of the new still helps to choose what you build, restore or modify, and what you do to it.  In my mind a superior combination is modifying classic well crafted stuff, armed with new technical knowledge that wasn’t available back then.  The best of both worlds.

It all comes down to what you value most.  Horns are very efficient, and for along time were the only practical answer in engineering terms.  They still are pretty much the only practical answer for very high output PA systems.  But if the goal is truly accurate reproduction, they have very difficult to solve technical problems. If you are interested in the technicalities of horns and the modern efforts to understand them and engineer them to a higher standard of reproduction, check out the work of Earl Geddes an his papers on Acoustic Waveguide Theory (horns).  His wave guides may not look like classic old Altecs and such, but he is addressing the problems that horns have always had, that are a big reason they’ve fallen out of favor for most everything except systems requiring very high SPL (PAs) or very high sensitivity (the mini-watt tube guys).   That doesn't mean they can't sound good, fantastic even in audiophile systems.  But they usually usually aren't technically acurate reproducers, and they have significant problems in real world systems.

Nostalgia for cool old things is one thing, truly accurate reproduction is another, musical enjoyment is still another. They are all separate, but one can inform the other.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #36 on: September 14, 2010, 06:01:25 PM »
oh yeah,....
Presently spinning Dawg music through a mono amp, with a speaker thats buried behind a craftsman style obstruction, grass cloth, and mounted fully 2" inside the cabinet. Hell its not even sealed around the speaker, and its way back in the cabinet.
Its sucking pretty hard here right now, I tell ya.

I bet it sounds great! (Love the Dawg stuff.. & really looking forwared to Mark O'Conner and Frank Vignola playing Django/Grapelli Dawgish gypsy jazz here next month) But I mean that in an emotional, soul-satisfaction, it sounds good to me kind of way.  Not in a technically acturate reproduction way.

I always loved the warm resonant heavy bass tone and crackle of an old mono 45 jukebox in a bar I used to frequent years ago.. and I love playing back my surround recordings as acurately and cleanly as I know how, marveling at how close it is to sounding like I'm back there again, in the actual space with the audience around me.  Both completely valid forms of musical enjoyment, but totally different.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2010, 06:05:25 PM by Gutbucket »
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #37 on: September 14, 2010, 07:30:50 PM »
What is accurate reproduction?

My interest in mono isn't based in nostalgia. I didn't live the era, and don't have that reference to wax nostalgic in.
I do enjoy the music of the era. But that's no different than my enjoyment of any number of other genre.
What attracted me to mono can be appreciated in any musical genre, a diffuse room filling high fidelity sound - diffuse referring to a sound source that is not entirely place-able, unless you're right on top of the source. I realized this by listening to a single Bogen speaker in a clamshell box, that was essentially a free speaker that came as a part of a kit with a turntable that I was after. I ran my Hafler amp, with preamp in mono mode, and found it to be really nice variation to stereo hifi. It taught me just how nice "lofi" can be.
Its no less high fidelity than an excruciatingly precise stereo system, and is actually easier in casual listening. But the aural reproduction spectrum in no less accurate, unless you're sitting intently trying to envision a moment captured in stereo, and trying to realize a holographic soundstage imaging, and precise placement.

Is digital more accurate?
Its a format that never sat well with me; but in an odd conundrum, is the format that I record to, based on being pretty much forced to conform to a changing, decreasing media availability. With as complex as its become, I find my enjoyment in recording has steeply dropped the more complex it became, to a point where I don't have any desire to continue with it. Too much processing, even in simple two channel stereo recordings.
I've never cared for the digital sound either. I quit buying music when CD's came out, and only have a handful of commercial cd's.  I bought my commercial music in the vinyl heydays, and never really moved away from it, except in my recording,.. so its not so much nostalgic for me.
I have a favorite musical analogy that made sense to me when I first heard it:
Analog is like watching your kid slide down a long rolling slide.
Digital is like kicking your kid down a steep staircase.

To me, digital, with its scalped 20k response isn't accurate, as analog life extends beyond that, and the old school engineers managed to capture that in analog (pre loudness wars).
So, what is accurate?

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #38 on: September 14, 2010, 09:20:36 PM »
What is accurate reproduction?

We could devise a list of things, and rank them in importance.
We might have very different lists and rankings, but we could probably agree on many things.

For me the most objective measure is trying to get as close as possible to the sonic experience of a live event.  If we take that as an objective reference, then we could agree on alot more things in that list.  Here's a short list off the top of my head of what I consider important stuff, with that goal in mind:

Timbre (accurate reproduction of frequency spectrum)
Dynamics (accurate reproduction of the loudness range)
Imaging (accurate reproduction of the location origins of specific sounds)
Space (accurate reproduction of the enveloping acoustics and feel of the space)

Of course, the elephant in the room is that the goal of most music isn't accurately reproducing the reality of an event, it is creating it's own reality, an artform in itself.  That's what most of the world cares about, and what I think you are getting at.

Great albums aren't reproductions, they're totally new experiences in themselves and in that sense there is nothing concrete to compare them with other than the subjective experience one expects, or the subjective experience of other albums that are art in themselves.

You aren’t concerned with accuracy.. and that’s perfectly fine.  There are many other ways of enjoying music, thank goodness! But those are subjective measures of enjoyment which differ from person to person.  We can use a live event as a measure for accuracy, but how can we all agree if your room filling mono speaker is ‘better’ than the boombox of the neighbor? Which is more enjoyable, a Lowther or Fostex single driver speaker in your open baffle DIY speaker? This or that tube? There is no objective answers to those questions and so we get audiophiles chasing their own sonic bliss.. which is fine, but there is no agreed goal among them, only a personal subjective target.

As for digital audio, it is essentially just a container, everything you hear is analog.  Like any new technology, digital had growing pains and problems as a new technology 25 years ago, but it is now pretty much mature.  But again, it is only a container.  In that sense it's essentially different from LPs in the same way analog tape is different from 45's.. or CDs are form 8-track tapes.. or wax cylinders are from celluloid optical film tracks. All of those media have qualities we can measure objectively against a list of things we consider important (or find are important given the way humans hear).  Digital of sufficient quality measures far better than most if not all of them, though the content and how it is produced has also changed over time and is usually a far, far bigger factor than the qualities of the container itself.

As for the 20kHz thing, do you think any of that classic analog gear is actually reproducing much of anything above about 15kHz?  If it could do you think you could hear it?
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #39 on: September 14, 2010, 10:10:52 PM »
I'm very much into fidelity and reproduction. I just find it ridiculous that so much huffing and puffing and terse words can be spoken over something like 3/8" of an inch, and laugh at the ridiculousness of it. And tat I can be labeled as not into accuracy because of it.
That sound is coming out of that speaker and enclosure and saturating the room regardless of that 3/8" of additional baffle that it has to overcome (that poor little frequency pulse).

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #40 on: September 14, 2010, 10:37:52 PM »
Alot of this stuff isn't very obvious. If it was it would have been figured out years ago, when non-scientific garage level engineering like we do prevailed.  Yet, over time we've discovered that seemingly insignificant things such as this do matter and are measurable.

3/8" equals a quarter of a wavelength at 9kHz and half a wavelength at 18kHz. Half wavelengths cancel completely in the electronic realm, and fractional wavelenghts interefere in wild moire patterns in acoustic space.  It is real, just not obvious.

I don't mean to huff and puff, and I think others jumped on that driver mounted behind the baffle aspect because it was pretty well established as making a significant and measurable audible difference by speaker manufactures decades ago.

Sure, the sound is still coming out and illuminating the room. But it is probably not be doing so evenly or optimally.  Again, that doesn't mean it can't sound 'good'..

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #41 on: September 14, 2010, 10:58:41 PM »
To me, that makes natural sense, and is a first thought with damn near everything I buy it seems; but then I look at everything for ways to tweak it (or fuck it up).

And the crowd shouted.... DREMEL!!! :P

I don't mean to huff and puff, and I think others jumped on that driver mounted behind the baffle aspect because it was pretty well established as making a significant and measurable audible difference by speaker manufactures decades ago.

That is exactly it.  I don't know much about speaker design, but that aspect is something that I think has long been accepted as important.   And if the designer shortcut something that fundamental, visible, and obvious, it causes me to question his design.

Offline Church-Audio

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #42 on: September 15, 2010, 12:44:25 AM »
horns are like every speaker, some are the shit and some a shitty. 

Church is speaking from a sound guy/live sound reinforcement POV, we are audiophiles at home.   that is like comparing apples to cinder blocks.

I know, that's why I am asking. We may have very different frames of reference.

No I am talking about SOUND... It applies to all sound coming from a PA or a pair of stereo speakers.. Using horns when you dont have too is silly.. They cause more problems then they solve. There are very few designs that offer distortion free performance. Compared to a non horn tweeter. Its a fact when you put something in front of a driver to control dispersion you are also causing distortion. And what I am saying is in a living room having a horn loaded tweeter is pointless. A wave guide on the other hand is a different story. Most home speakers use wave guides not horns. Its funny how you assume just because I am a live sound engineer that I can only talk about PA cabinets.. I have worked for both sound companies that make PA cabinets and for Audiophile speaker companies making home audio products.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #43 on: September 15, 2010, 12:54:06 AM »
I'm very much into fidelity and reproduction. I just find it ridiculous that so much huffing and puffing and terse words can be spoken over something like 3/8" of an inch, and laugh at the ridiculousness of it. And tat I can be labeled as not into accuracy because of it.
That sound is coming out of that speaker and enclosure and saturating the room regardless of that 3/8" of additional baffle that it has to overcome (that poor little frequency pulse).

My whole point is this.. When you are selling speakers and you dont know about the effects of a baffle on a tweeter... You need to rethink your career path.. Not you but the company that is  selling this kit should do its homework if they really want to make a great speaker. If not they should stand aside and let companies that actually do know the difference about baffle issues. Its a pretty simple thing. If you are trying to go "oldschool" you are better off with a single full range speaker because back in the day... Tweeters were never part most stereo systems and even studio monitors in the 30/40's And when they were they are more often than not coaxial. Thats why old Tannoy gold speakers are still selling for $1600 per driver all day long.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #44 on: September 15, 2010, 08:49:00 AM »
In a large number of my posts, I've suggested that I'm likely going to a single driver open baffle.

Is this tweeter offset the only thing that you guys don't like?
The designer has suggested that the cabinets holes were designed so that they're plenty big to mount the speakers on either side of the hole.
The speaker drivers themselves have a rubber isolating grommet that the original Saba engineers built into them to give them isolation from the cabinet face.
The people that have built the kits are the ones that have decided to leave the speakers within the cabinets as that's the way that they were originally designed to be mounted. The cabinet can go either way, but, the owners have decided that the original Saba design is good enough, and have chosen to mount them inside the cabs.  With as many kits as I've seen built, and the people that are building them,... there is something about the rightness, as these guys won't be fooled - there are too many that have played this game for far too long (its not a bunch of 20/30-somethings that like rad loud music, rather, its a bunch of 40 to 60-somethings with life long audio addictions).
« Last Edit: September 15, 2010, 08:51:22 AM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #45 on: September 15, 2010, 10:01:58 AM »
In a large number of my posts, I've suggested that I'm likely going to a single driver open baffle.

Is this tweeter offset the only thing that you guys don't like?
The designer has suggested that the cabinets holes were designed so that they're plenty big to mount the speakers on either side of the hole.
The speaker drivers themselves have a rubber isolating grommet that the original Saba engineers built into them to give them isolation from the cabinet face.
The people that have built the kits are the ones that have decided to leave the speakers within the cabinets as that's the way that they were originally designed to be mounted. The cabinet can go either way, but, the owners have decided that the original Saba design is good enough, and have chosen to mount them inside the cabs.  With as many kits as I've seen built, and the people that are building them,... there is something about the rightness, as these guys won't be fooled - there are too many that have played this game for far too long (its not a bunch of 20/30-somethings that like rad loud music, rather, its a bunch of 40 to 60-somethings with life long audio addictions).

Yes well we all know as we get older we loose some of our hearing maybe thats why this cabinet design is so popular? I dont know.. but if you want to build a good box start off with a good design AND a good speaker. Can I suggest something? If you are looking for a really good sounding speaker that sounds like the 60's and has nice fidelity? The Advent /3 these are probably some of the best little speakers I have ever heard at any price. I know people are going to think I am nuts.. but thats my suggestion.. If you want to go WAY BACK... check out this speaker http://www.visaton.de/en/chassis_zubehoer/breitband/b200_6.html

Most tube stuff at the time in the 60's did not really go out to 20khz.. most of it dropped off around 10k to 14k cps.. This was because most tweeters sucked back then and because they used snubber caps on the preamp and sometimes output section to control circuit oscillation crazy instead of actually running the wires properly :) So tube amps designers simply did not bother with high real high fidelity designs.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2010, 10:18:11 AM by Church-Audio »
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #46 on: September 15, 2010, 10:06:38 AM »
Its popular because, despite the world having been discovered as being round, it works.

I can't help but be completely cynical. The same people that have built these kits, have also built their own amplifiers, their own phonostages and DAC's, etc.  They're not just fresh into the world of audio. I value their opinions on audio, as they've proven themselves to be very stable people, not prone to rushing out for the snake-oil-of-the-day. They're very well refined listeners, with immaculate alternate playback systems
« Last Edit: September 15, 2010, 10:15:04 AM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #47 on: September 15, 2010, 12:04:23 PM »
I like the open baffle concept.  Both for build simplicity and engineering reasons.  It eliminates many sources of resonance: no speaker box with sound bouncing around inside, vibrating things and re-radiating through the walls and speaker cone.  I also find it intriguing as sort of the reproduction analog of a boundary mounted microphone [edit- that is when implemented with a very large baffle (approaching an infinite baffle design), more like a figure-8 with a small one].  The drawback is that the baffle needs to be very large for the speaker to be effective at lower frequencies and the speaker used needs a stiff supension since there is not as much of an air spring supporting it. 

The simplicity of a single full range driver without a crossover is also attractve, as long as the tradoffs of rolled-off frequency extremes and a radiation pattern that begins to beam above a certain frequency as determined by the driver's diameter are acceptable.
« Last Edit: September 15, 2010, 02:56:44 PM by Gutbucket »
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #48 on: September 15, 2010, 02:56:06 PM »
Lots of roads to Rome, just depends on which Rome you are headed to.  There seems to be one in most every state in the US.

Here’s the other end of the open baffle design spectrum.  It’s complex due to it's goal of accurately reproducing as many of the aspects of the live performance experience as possible in a typical domestic living space via stereo, and it comes from a quite different philosophical approach.  Regardless of whether you find the design and approach attractive or not, the engineering methodology behind it is unmatched and may be worth wasting some spare webtime exploring.  It does get somewhat technical in places, but not too bad (ignoring the electrical equations) and is some of the best material I’ve come across for clearly exploring the important core principles underlying speaker design and stereo reproduction in general-

The brass ring of DIY speaker building for me is Stan Linkwitz's Orion (the Linkwitz-Riley crossover guy, also credited with the Panasonic WM-omni capsule mod).  I stumbled across his website something like 10 years ago and devoured everything on it, then followed it as he worked through the design phase of the Orion.  His approach to speaker design, and audio in general made a huge impression on me- always logical and based on clear engineering methodology, pursued without any audiophile preconception bias, conclusions based on the results of testing data, subjective comparison to live performances and a rigorous analysis.  An engineer's engineer.   He first defines the goal and then figures out how best to get there, without audiophile preconceptions of how it should be done. It impresses me that he thoroughly addresses details but only after ranking them by their relative importance and seems always open to throwing out avenues that don't check out.  The epitome of the scientific method, applied.

All of his designs use individual amplifier channels for each driver and active crossovers and filtering of his own design to correct their raw response and alignment.  The Orion is an open baffle design using dynamic drivers, driven by four amp channels per side, 60W each, for 8 amp channels total. It is an effort to combine the clarity and focus of an open baffle electrostatic with the full dynamic ability and more even dispersion capability of dynamic drivers.   His emphasis on the importance of a controlled power response (a balanced radiation pattern in all directions, varying in level but not spectrum) is now becoming accepted as a very important aspect of speaker design.  In hindsight, that importance may seem somewhat more obvious to recordists who are attuned to the importance of accurate microphone pickup patterns on the other side of the music reproduction game.

The 3-way Orion has a figure-8 power response across it’s entire range, the Pluto is a 2-way, omni-directional until the top most octaves, with a smooth transition between those regions, somewhat akin to the directionality of a large diaphragm omni, and looks more like a giant mic than a small speaker.

I planned on buying the circuit boards and building the Orion, then bought a house 6 years ago instead and have too many other costly projects.  It’s pretty expensive to build, (more so now than then) but the design still stands out in my mind as unique in the audio world in many ways, and I've continued to follow his site through the design of the less costly Pluto- the end results of which seem to have surprised him in how closely they match the Orion. I think that is to his credit and says something about the way he follows basic underlying principles rather than specific solutions, even past the point of seeming self-contradiction.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #49 on: September 15, 2010, 09:20:52 PM »
More on old speaker designs making a comeback,....

Western Electric 755 - DIY clones, with Saba drivers:


I had an opportunity to listen to a real pair of these WE speakers about three weeks ago. It was part of a console system where the speakers were separate of the console, but intended to draw together to give a console look. The console had a Fisher tube stereo integrate amp in it, and a technics deck of some model flavor, and R2R machine.
It was set up as a console when I heard it, and it was mind boggling good.
The speakers/console are mid 50's vintage?
So, this is something else I've been considering. They're supposed to sound quite amazing (the real ones were goose-flesh raising).

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #50 on: September 15, 2010, 10:57:12 PM »
I don't want to poke at a sore spot, and bring this up only because it seems to have become a point of contention in this thread based on the tweeter mounting on that reso design- but see how the baffle around the same drivers in that WE cabinet is camfered so that the edge angle is more closely aligned with the angle of the speaker cones, and doesn't have such a sharp angle in transition to the baffle surface?  That's not merely cosmetic, but is done so that frequencies of short wavelength don't diffract as sharply off the edges and re-radiate, creating secondary sources of sound radiation that can be problematic (mid and bass wavelengths are too long to be effected and wrap around, so the camfer around the woofer is less important sonically).  There are other design issues in play there too, both in this design and the previous one- mainly that the cavity formed by the thickness of the baffle acts as a resonant chamber at a certain frequency, effectively becoming a wave guide (which is really just a shallow horn).  Is that a big deal?  I dunno. Measuring the response of the driver in the baffle should reveal the effect clearly, listening might too, but maybe only in comparison. A good speaker design takes that response change into consideration and harnesses it, or reconfigures the design to work around or eliminate it.

These kind of things can have a meaurable effect on the on axis frequency response (and phase/time response)- which is a very traditional performance measurement and probably the most important one for any speaker.  And along with other things, they also have a big effect on the off-axis radiation of the speaker which is not a traditional thing to measure, but has become more of a focus for serious designers as the importance of how a speaker illuminates the entire room in all directions has become more and more apparent in recent years (because a large portion of the total sound that reaches the listener is reflected off the room surfaces).  That rings true with me as a recordist since I understand the importance of the direct/rebverberant ratio at the other end of the recordig chain.  Does that make sense? or too much technical speak?
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Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #51 on: September 15, 2010, 11:25:10 PM »
I understand the concept, entirely, prior to the discussion beginning. I just think differently, and chuckle at science being proven wrong on a daily basis - don't care for doctors much either, until they quit practicing.
I'm an artist, not a scientist. I think differently.
When everyone else was swearing by ORTF/DIN and directional mics (when it first passed through the dead camp en vogue), I was preaching baffled omnis as quasi-binaural/HRTF (20 years ago). Conventional doesn't always work for me, and I often look for a way around it.

I've spoken to the designer, twice, since this thread started, and he's going to take some digital samplings of the speakers both in and out. When he posts, I'll refer to the findings.
Still - how hard is it to consider just routing a chamfer in the kit?
People here just threw up their guards and closed their minds. That's what I was suggesting earlier in just cutting a larger hole (not realizing that they were already cut large enough), and finishing them differently.

His kit is minimalistic to keep it reasonably priced. Every single step in that takes set up and adds to the cost - you know this in production.  DIY'rs can take that kit, and hotrod the crap out of it - but no one has felt a need to thus far. Its a great DIY'rs starting base. Or, it would be a piece of cake just to clone it off yourself based on some rough dimensions. Its just a solid top plate of plywood, a spine, and a matching shaped, hollowed out plate at the base. You use the leftover plywood to make a gluing jig-clamp, and some lauan mahogany(sp?) 1/8" ply for the curved exterior, or the minimalist birch look. You could clone these things for cheap if you're handy. Again - thats what caught my interest.
These things would make a worthy DIY project, from scratch, or save time and buy a kit.
As far as the cabinet; it would take :30secs per hole to chamfer them, with a 5minute setup time.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #52 on: September 16, 2010, 01:28:22 AM »
I hope I didn't come across as pendantic then. But I don't think you do understand why people are rasing legitimate objections, though some comments call for thick skin.

As a minimalist, inexpesive DIY kit I think that design is ingenious.  I expecially like the shaped clamp construction method and bent luan sides giving the sides hoop stength. It's light, simple, attractive, shippable, customizable, quick and easy to make.  I dig it.

So chamfer the hole, or mount the speaker on the outside, and make it better.  But claiming something like that doesn't matter on one hand, and that these speakers are rivaling the very best for acuracy on the other is contradictive.

The science is not being proven wrong at all, much less on a daily basis.  In fact is it far better than it has ever been, more is understood about how sound works, how speakers reproduce sound in domestic rooms, how we hear, and how the brain interprets it all then ever before.  Maybe bullshit audio marketing is being proven wrong, but not the sceince.  And I don't find it suprising that people will get riled up when you make some blanket claim that it is.  Why not apply that develping knowlege to our own DIY projects, when it can make them better?

Thinking differently is great, I like to do it myself, but it doesn't invalidate the science.


musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #53 on: September 16, 2010, 08:20:35 AM »
Science invalidates its self frequently enough that it keeps me as the skeptic (and I'm referring to a far larger picture than just audio).

The only claim that I made was that allot of people have bought this kit for use with flea weight amps, have built it, and enjoy it and rave about it. Immediately people put up their guards, most without hearing them, or even reading a single review.
Amongst a group of hardcore audio enthusiasts, you will not find a single dissenter in that 50 page thread.
You don't have to mount them outside the cabinet to enjoy them.  Dozens and dozens of people, hundreds (I don't know how many kits he's sold), have assembled it, and found audio bliss despite the bad science malarkey claim behind it.
These people that I've referred to are not easily fooled, as they've been playing this audio game for many decades, each, not a cumulative sum of time; between our team members, we have 50 years experience. Not.
The science of audio has gotten better on a relatively miniscule basis, compared to the time spent, the time that they've had to improve it, and, from where they started with modern electronics. Yes we have wonderful t-amps, we have ipods, and bluetooth headhphones, and wonderful cellphones that we can text with while driving, and in-dash GPS for the terminally lost. We have ipod docks on just about everything. I'm playing mine from my refrigerator right now, and loving it (I don't own an ipod, just saying).WE have companies that put out the ultimate amplifier each tme they reinvent it, because they know someone will need that improved amp - marketing ploys abundant, all based in our scientific teams deep commitment to improving your audio.
But, even with all the improvements, speakers still have cones, frames, and coils, just like they did 80 years ago. Hell, even some of the finest electrostat speaker are 55 years old, and are more desired than their modern counterparts.
The old guys set us up with the bomb. The science that followed the old guys has barely followed them; the changes, not that drastic.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2010, 08:23:23 AM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #54 on: September 16, 2010, 11:15:54 AM »
Sorry to be blunt, because I respect you and your opinion highly, but that's simply bullshit.

You're reacting against marketing and the applications of technology filtered through the marketplace, what companies build and sell, driven by cost, and what they think people want.  Science and technology play a miniscule role in of that if any.  You are confusing craft, craftsmanship, marketing and economics with science and technology.

Science doesn't invalidate itself.  Can you give me an example of what you mean when you say that it does? Science is simply an investigative process, it is not right or wrong in itself, it is only a tool for figuring out what is going on in the world around us, and helps us build models that predict that accurately.  When one of those models of understanding is proven to be inaccurate and a new and better description of the phenomena is developed to replace it, that isn’t an indication that science is wrong or self-invalidating, it’s the scientific method working.  That's how the erroneous stuff is weeded out, the very process by which it works.  In areas where science does not apply, it is simply mute and has nothing to say.

Old technology doesn't go away, it is built upon, expanded and improved (in contrast to craftsmanship).  Sure, speakers used cones & coils 80 years ago. But claiming that our understanding of how they work, and that the materials and designs haven't been improved over that time is ludicrous.  People drove cars 100 years ago which had 4 wheels, an engine, seats.. just like cars do today. So by that logic the technology in cars hasn't improved in 100 years either.  The craft and craftsmanship has changed of course, and I dig the beauty of old gear and old automobiles as much as anybody.  We could build that stuff the same way today, given enough money, time and skill.  But go back 80 years in your time machine and you can't harness the more advanced technology of today because it hasn't been developed yet, regardless of what you wanted to do with it.

Today the materials are far more advanced and the understanding of what is going on is far more developed.  How those materials and that knowledge is applied is an entirely different thing, and I too have plenty to beef about in that department.

As I said before there is nothing wrong at all with people building, enjoying and raving about retro kits or old, well crafted gear that was often designed to work at low power because that was the only way to go at the time.  If people get bliss, excitement, engagement out of it then that's fantastic.  Their goal is a personal enjoyment and I have no doubt they are finding that in spades. But there are ways of measuring accuracy if that is the goal, and ways of agreeing on what the term accuracy means, which is the first step.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #55 on: September 16, 2010, 11:35:48 AM »
The most glaring example, and the one I'll use - the earth is round.
Generalized, sure; overused, absolutely. But its a short concise point of how scientifically accepted fact is constantly changing. do they advance beyond it? lets hope so. I'm not going to spend the time finding deeper examples.
Well, maybe just one or two more -> The recently exposed diseases coming from MRI and CATscan, and the wonderful sciences behind that; once the glory child of the industry, now a known disease giver.
I don't see modernization as that great of a thing. I'm probably the last of a dying breed - people that don't have a cellphone, nor even know how to turn one on.
I'm not a fan of the rising cancer rates that are in direct line with the advancement of technology either. It might be interesting to see where brain cancers go in another dozen years,... I just hope the expenses of it don't get socialized.

« Last Edit: September 16, 2010, 11:37:27 AM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #56 on: September 16, 2010, 11:48:31 AM »
your spinning this like fox news.  I would agree to disagree.
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #57 on: September 16, 2010, 12:12:02 PM »
Science is constantly changing as we lean more and correct past mistakes. That constant evolution is essential to it's power and usefulness.

How the knowlege it provides us is applied and used is another matter altogether.

I don't know what you're getting at with the world is round bit and I haven't heard about MRI influenced disease.  CAT scans are performed with X-rays and the effects of exposure to them are known to be harmful, yet that harm is weighed against the benefits of the diagnostic tool.  Because we've discoverd X-rays to be harmful, the amount of radiation needed for such scans has been reduced by orders of magnitude over the history of their use, all because of advancing technology. How do we even diagnose the supposed diseases you are refering to? Technology.

Your blaming science for the problems you see in the modern world is misplaced. Lumping it in the catch-all category of 'modernization' is a gross and misleading over-simplification.  Belive it or not, I share much of your concern, though I draw far different conclusions.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #58 on: September 16, 2010, 12:31:44 PM »
Stan Linkwitz-

When it comes to the practical requirements for accurate sound reproduction, then there are a surprising number of issues that are not fully understood. Sound reproduction is about creating illusions in our mind, in that amazing information processor between our two ears. Sound reproduction involves physical processes to generate air vibrations that move our eardrums and in turn stimulate mental processes, that have evolved over millions of years for the purpose of survival and for communication, processes that lead to perception of the sound source and its environment. While we can measure many different physical parameters involved in the generation and propagation of a sound field, it becomes exceedingly difficult to assess their relative importance to what we hear and how it helps or detracts from the illusion. The published scientific material on the psychology of hearing (psychoacoustics) is extensive and sometimes helpful in explaining phenomena in two-channel and surround sound reproduction.

In the following I describe what I see as frontiers, if not in yours, then at least in my understanding of what matters for accurate sound reproduction.  While I strive as an engineer to find answers and explanations based on the physics of the situation, I try to be honest to my listening observations as ultimate arbiter. I use my memory of un-amplified sound as reference for judging accuracy of the illusion. What I see as frontiers may be settled areas to others, or clear separations between opposing camps, that hold on to cherished convictions. I would hope that the exposé stimulates a few readers to research a subject further and share their insights.


More on speaker degins and 'what is accuracy'?
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/speakers.htm
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #59 on: September 16, 2010, 01:03:13 PM »
old guys and the audio bomb:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Blumlein

I'm glad that Linkwitz realizes that our ears and homes are not anechoic chambers. I don't feel that they are either.
We have the advantage of bringing home the evenings acoustic performance for critical analysis, rather than having to depend upon memory - memory is more oriented towards an artistic value than a scientifically measurable value. So is he introducing art into engineering?


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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #60 on: September 16, 2010, 01:37:28 PM »
I just picked up the biography on Blumlein, and looking forward to reading it.  That man was ahead of his time- investigative and applied science embodied.  He was working on the bleeding edge of technology at the time.  A large portion of the very real advances that have been made are built upon the strong foundation he laid. We owe alot to him.

Linkwitz stealths HRTF at the symphony. ;)
He uses the tools of engineering to decide what matters most in his pursuit of art.

Art (capital A) has no place in engineering.  But engineering is often used to further Art.
Come to think of it, that sums up a large part of the guiding philosophy I operated under when I struggled to make a living as a professional artist.. marketing be damned.
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #61 on: September 16, 2010, 01:41:27 PM »
Here's a list of important goals for a speaker that aims for the big picture of reproduction accuracy:

Flat on-axis response in free-field  (20 Hz –20 kHz)
Frequency independent polar response
Acoustically small size
Low cabinet edge diffraction
Low stored energy (resonances)
Low non-linear distortion (new sounds, intermodulation)
Large dynamic range, high SPL capability
musical volition > vibrations > voltages > numeric values > voltages > vibrations> virtual teleportation time-machine experience
Better recording made easy - >>Improved PAS table<< | Made excellent- >>click here to download the Oddball Microphone Technique illustrated PDF booklet<< (note: This is a 1st draft, now several years old and in need of revision!  Stay tuned)

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #62 on: September 16, 2010, 01:42:27 PM »
As an artist I can beleaguer this point to death. Where does the original thought come from?
I realize, chicken vs egg - but the thought has to be there before it hits paper as a sketch rendering, prior to the cipherin' stage.

edit: adding clarity of thought to a Sarge rushed post.
honey-do list day,....
« Last Edit: September 16, 2010, 01:45:20 PM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #63 on: September 16, 2010, 02:36:22 PM »
As an artist I can beleaguer this point to death. Where does the original thought come from?
I realize, chicken vs egg - but the thought has to be there before it hits paper as a sketch rendering, prior to the cipherin' stage.

edit: adding clarity of thought to a Sarge rushed post.
honey-do list day,....

Sound is very personal what some people think sounds others will not. I think its safe to say just because many people own something it does not mean it sounds good. The bottom line is if you want to build the ikea speakers you should if you want something that does not sound like a wet fart in a porcelain toilet you should rethink your plans. You are arguing for the sake of argument. Its not necessary as I dont need to hear that speaker to tell you what it will sound like. My 24 + years of building speakers and working in audio tell me all I need to know.

Chris
« Last Edit: September 16, 2010, 02:38:36 PM by Church-Audio »
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #64 on: September 16, 2010, 03:06:41 PM »
I just searched for classic Church Audio speaker cabinet design and came up with,....

Care to link us too your gallery, Chris?,... all those years of speaker design have surely yielded something.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #65 on: September 16, 2010, 04:46:16 PM »
I just searched for classic Church Audio speaker cabinet design and came up with,....

Care to link us too your gallery, Chris?,... all those years of speaker design have surely yielded something.

Actually I built speakers for my self.. And I did help with designs for sound companies.. Do I have pictures hell no.. But I can tell you I built my first speaker when I was 10 years old. I now have a pair of axiom speakers I got when I was working for them in the test lab as a sound engineer who tested 1000's of speakers and analysed them to choose what ones would go into products. I am no woodworker.. I just liked to build speakers. I know all about speaker design and how to build a good sounding box, lets see your qualifications now that we have talked about mine? Again this is not personal I just dont think the speaker you were talking about was a good design.. So I said so now you are calling my qualifications into question lol thats funny.  I dont have pictures  of all of the concerts I have done sound for does that mean they never happened? lol..... ::)  PS... I never said I designed speakers lol But I sure as hell built lots of cabinets in my day.
« Last Edit: September 16, 2010, 04:47:51 PM by Church-Audio »
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #66 on: September 16, 2010, 05:16:28 PM »
I've built mansions around speakers, with amps and peripheral gear for them that ran into the hundreds of thousands, and the houses won architectural awards, and featured in nat'l trade periodicals and as cover homes in the periodicals.
Its safe to say that I've built a cabinet or two in my day, and I worked directly with the sound designers and architects in the design and installation - and then finishing them so that they disappeared into the home. This included elaborate early surround rigs of original design and construction (we built the enclosures into the homes) :)
These were half million dollar original design audio installations in mid 80's dollars, utilizing Sonus drivers mostly, and giant 15" subwoofers built into floors, under couches, below the beds, in the disco/cabana, you name it. Built into old growth teak, marble, sandstone, plaster,... wherever they needed a custom installation.
I've built a speaker or two in my day.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #67 on: September 16, 2010, 06:34:22 PM »
I've built mansions around speakers, with amps and peripheral gear for them that ran into the hundreds of thousands, and the houses won architectural awards, and featured in nat'l trade periodicals and as cover homes in the periodicals.
Its safe to say that I've built a cabinet or two in my day, and I worked directly with the sound designers and architects in the design and installation - and then finishing them so that they disappeared into the home. This included elaborate early surround rigs of original design and construction (we built the enclosures into the homes) :)
These were half million dollar original design audio installations in mid 80's dollars, utilizing Sonus drivers mostly, and giant 15" subwoofers built into floors, under couches, below the beds, in the disco/cabana, you name it. Built into old growth teak, marble, sandstone, plaster,... wherever they needed a custom installation.
I've built a speaker or two in my day.


It sounds like you know a thing or two about speakers.. But what does that have to do with the fact I dont like the design? You are making this personal when all I did was say something about a speaker design strange..... Anyway hope you make them and prove me wrong :)
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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #68 on: September 16, 2010, 06:34:58 PM »
Apologies for contributing to side-tracking the thread with world-view defense. Let's get back on track.

More watts aren't necessarily better.  It depends on your goal.

If we can agree that the following things are important attributes for a speaker design that has the goal of maximizing the accurate reproduction of music, with the live performance experience as it’s reference..

Here's a list of important goals for a speaker that aims for the big picture of reproduction accuracy:

Flat on-axis response in free-field  (20 Hz –20 kHz)
Frequency independent polar response
Acoustically small size
Low cabinet edge diffraction
Low stored energy (resonances)
Low non-linear distortion (new sounds, intermodulation)
Large dynamic range, high SPL capability


..then simple single-driver and micro-watt systems fall short in several of those categories.  It's a very difficult goal.

If the goal is high-quality individual musical enjoyment by the listener, then it becomes easy to ignore those short comings and focus on what the system does right and is enjoyable.. which may be utterly sublime.

We can easily ignore those things because of the nature of our brains and the way we hear, which is a good thing given that we really can't get very close to recreating the actual experience of a live musical performance even with speakers that do satisfy all of those conditions.  Fortunately, we’re blessed with the ability to simply overlook the shortcomings.  It makes pursuit of pure enjoyment without critical reference to a live event a much easier to achieve goal, even if it is a moving target that subjectively varies from person to person.. and even personally over time.  Then again, maybe we’d never be satisfied for very long, chasing a chimera.

It all depends on what the goal is, how far you are willing to go to get there and what you are willing to do without. Even using speakers that fully satisfy the above criteria, it is simply impossible to fully reproduce the sound field from an actual event, StarTrek holodeck style, using any current or past technology, be it fine-crafted old-school old analog tube gear or cutting edge digital zillion-channel Wave Front Synthesis Holography.

If someone claims something sounds real, the best question may be, ‘compared to what?’

The live event is a brass ring- an incredibly difficult measure, but at least sets a standard for comparison.  I can’t think of a better one, but chasing that isn’t the only game in town. Thank goodness.  It’s not even a very popular one these days, which is something I personally find unfortunate.
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mfrench

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #69 on: September 16, 2010, 07:07:15 PM »
I've built mansions around speakers, with amps and peripheral gear for them that ran into the hundreds of thousands, and the houses won architectural awards, and featured in nat'l trade periodicals and as cover homes in the periodicals.
Its safe to say that I've built a cabinet or two in my day, and I worked directly with the sound designers and architects in the design and installation - and then finishing them so that they disappeared into the home. This included elaborate early surround rigs of original design and construction (we built the enclosures into the homes) :)
These were half million dollar original design audio installations in mid 80's dollars, utilizing Sonus drivers mostly, and giant 15" subwoofers built into floors, under couches, below the beds, in the disco/cabana, you name it. Built into old growth teak, marble, sandstone, plaster,... wherever they needed a custom installation.
I've built a speaker or two in my day.


It sounds like you know a thing or two about speakers.. But what does that have to do with the fact I dont like the design? You are making this personal when all I did was say something about a speaker design strange..... Anyway hope you make them and prove me wrong :)

The fact is that you're touting your own prowess in electronics, and trying to make me appear the fool for looking towards efficient design speakers that are very well received, on a globally growing scale. I did not say anything about having purchased, or even having heard them. What I have heard is glowing reviews about them based on my own recordings that I've supplied to audio enthusiasts around the world, any number of which have built these speakers.
Back to my building,...
The funny thing about some of our installations, is the way we buried them behind stuff, and in awkward places, like either side of gigantic living reef fish tanks. They were placed behind giant perforated copper screens, faux finished to match stone columns, wood columns, walls, etc. and still sounded fantastic. It was a trip to be looking into a huge aquarium not seeing any speakers, yet getting blasted by a huge realistic sound image through a sheet of patina'd copper screening. The realism was frightening, and it was coming through allot more than a 3/8" baffle, or a gleaming sound distorting screw head.

This is at a time when I was pulling lots and lots of live recordings of massive PA systems, and we would then crank the system to 11 on the suck knob and rock the house out. The owners son was a deadhead, and would come in and turn it up to 12, and blast the beach with live level playback essentially turning a 15k sq.ft. house into a giant ghetto blaster.
I listened to these systems for about 2 years while we finished the house, and knew them intimately: nakamichi dragon cassette decks, x2 for dubbing tapes, and dubbing to R2R as well.
These systems were racks of dozens of David Hafler amps that were directed throughout 15k sq.ft. of the highest custom homes.  I didn't wire it, or that, we were the general contractor/builder, but we were ultimately responsible for the proper construction, and finishing, and were tightly supervised in it by the sound designer.
The few free standing speakers were ADS of various sizes.
I managed to get into  the massive purchase of all the gear, and got a single 120 D.Hafler amp, Hafler pre, and pair of ADS speakers, as my second qualified rig. My first was a Saras speaker pair, garage made by a JBL designer that had just quit, and branched out into biz, around '75.

Don't be smug about the speakers, Chris. They might not be for reproduction of gigantic PA speaker music, electronica, but they make a very nice jazz, classical, chamber, late night sultry speaker, for playback at a listening level appropriate to how the music was/should be naturally presented. A PA system recording would probably crack the cabinets. They're for a mature level of listening.
I've sent a bunch of recordings (dozens) over to my friend from Hong Kong, and for the audio clubs, and David was blown away by the live presentation of acoustic music. I've done the same for people in sweden, denmark, germany, and Finland. They've all been really enthused by what they heard, and the reports back were glowing for what I record.
If my recordings were very well received by such a vast quorum, then I feel that it would be a quality try for a DIY build, or even a kit purchase that I could hotrod. But this is just of the options that I've been exploring.


Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #70 on: September 16, 2010, 07:21:30 PM »
On the subject of less is more..

I have been shocked by how much better my hifi sounds without a pre-amp.   *Much* better. Specifically, going from my squeezebox > amp > speakers.   In that case, digital attenutation allows me to control the volume.

Apparently others have also discovered this.   With my gear, max volume is not a major concern, unless there is a digital malfunction that sends distortion to the amp.  And that did happen once when there was an apparent FPGA error.  I do lose some volume without the pre-amp.

I have wondered how I might incorporate a turntable without losing fidelity.

This isn't quite fewer watts, but I think the less is more aspect isn't too far off.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #71 on: September 16, 2010, 08:01:47 PM »
but isnt the SB the preamp now?  it controls volume and does the DAC work, I would say you like your SB better than your old preamp.
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Offline Church-Audio

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #72 on: September 16, 2010, 11:07:44 PM »
I've built mansions around speakers, with amps and peripheral gear for them that ran into the hundreds of thousands, and the houses won architectural awards, and featured in nat'l trade periodicals and as cover homes in the periodicals.
Its safe to say that I've built a cabinet or two in my day, and I worked directly with the sound designers and architects in the design and installation - and then finishing them so that they disappeared into the home. This included elaborate early surround rigs of original design and construction (we built the enclosures into the homes) :)
These were half million dollar original design audio installations in mid 80's dollars, utilizing Sonus drivers mostly, and giant 15" subwoofers built into floors, under couches, below the beds, in the disco/cabana, you name it. Built into old growth teak, marble, sandstone, plaster,... wherever they needed a custom installation.
I've built a speaker or two in my day.


It sounds like you know a thing or two about speakers.. But what does that have to do with the fact I dont like the design? You are making this personal when all I did was say something about a speaker design strange..... Anyway hope you make them and prove me wrong :)

The fact is that you're touting your own prowess in electronics, and trying to make me appear the fool for looking towards efficient design speakers that are very well received, on a globally growing scale. I did not say anything about having purchased, or even having heard them. What I have heard is glowing reviews about them based on my own recordings that I've supplied to audio enthusiasts around the world, any number of which have built these speakers.
Back to my building,...
The funny thing about some of our installations, is the way we buried them behind stuff, and in awkward places, like either side of gigantic living reef fish tanks. They were placed behind giant perforated copper screens, faux finished to match stone columns, wood columns, walls, etc. and still sounded fantastic. It was a trip to be looking into a huge aquarium not seeing any speakers, yet getting blasted by a huge realistic sound image through a sheet of patina'd copper screening. The realism was frightening, and it was coming through allot more than a 3/8" baffle, or a gleaming sound distorting screw head.

This is at a time when I was pulling lots and lots of live recordings of massive PA systems, and we would then crank the system to 11 on the suck knob and rock the house out. The owners son was a deadhead, and would come in and turn it up to 12, and blast the beach with live level playback essentially turning a 15k sq.ft. house into a giant ghetto blaster.
I listened to these systems for about 2 years while we finished the house, and knew them intimately: nakamichi dragon cassette decks, x2 for dubbing tapes, and dubbing to R2R as well.
These systems were racks of dozens of David Hafler amps that were directed throughout 15k sq.ft. of the highest custom homes.  I didn't wire it, or that, we were the general contractor/builder, but we were ultimately responsible for the proper construction, and finishing, and were tightly supervised in it by the sound designer.
The few free standing speakers were ADS of various sizes.
I managed to get into  the massive purchase of all the gear, and got a single 120 D.Hafler amp, Hafler pre, and pair of ADS speakers, as my second qualified rig. My first was a Saras speaker pair, garage made by a JBL designer that had just quit, and branched out into biz, around '75.

Don't be smug about the speakers, Chris. They might not be for reproduction of gigantic PA speaker music, electronica, but they make a very nice jazz, classical, chamber, late night sultry speaker, for playback at a listening level appropriate to how the music was/should be naturally presented. A PA system recording would probably crack the cabinets. They're for a mature level of listening.
I've sent a bunch of recordings (dozens) over to my friend from Hong Kong, and for the audio clubs, and David was blown away by the live presentation of acoustic music. I've done the same for people in sweden, denmark, germany, and Finland. They've all been really enthused by what they heard, and the reports back were glowing for what I record.
If my recordings were very well received by such a vast quorum, then I feel that it would be a quality try for a DIY build, or even a kit purchase that I could hotrod. But this is just of the options that I've been exploring.


I have installed and designed and wired sound systems for over the last 20 + years Systems from $2000 to $500,000 Who cares including some very high end recording studio's. I was just saying I did not like the design of the speakers. Anyway build them I dont care. I think you are taking this way to personal. I am sorry I offended you. Speakers yeah I know about them and not just PA cabinets.
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Offline jmz93

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #73 on: September 17, 2010, 11:44:50 AM »
Chris, just curious ... who are some of your favorite speaker builders?


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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #74 on: September 17, 2010, 12:58:57 PM »
Chris, just curious ... who are some of your favorite speaker builders?

I always liked Energy reference connoisseur speakers that series was out for a short time I loved the way they sounded.
The older Polk audio speakers with the gold tweeters.
I love the sound of Altec older coaxial speakers.
I have had a pair of Genlec 1033 that I really liked.
I love Meyer HD-1 speakers
My favorite speaker for the size and for its warmth was the Advent /3 with a good amp on them they sounded great for older music.
I like Klipsch speakers that is one of the companies that did manage to get horns to work properly. I like martin logan flat panel speakers they sound very different from anything else I have ever heard.
I like many different speakers for many different reasons. I like Ribbon tweeters for example over conventional tweeters because they tend to sound more open. I like the Adam sx4 they are very expensive but sound very good.

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Offline it-goes-to-eleven

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #75 on: September 17, 2010, 01:38:44 PM »
but isnt the SB the preamp now?  it controls volume and does the DAC work, I would say you like your SB better than your old preamp.

That is one way of looking at it. I wouldn't say the sb3 is the pre-amp, I'd say there is no pre-amp. Though I think we tend to hope that pre-amps pass source signals fairly transparently to the pre-amp..  And that isn't necessarily the case.  I do lose potential output volume, because the pre-amp can add gain beyond the source level.

I wanted to dig an old CD player out of storage to try that as a source, and see if it also sounds superior without the pre on my system.

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #76 on: September 17, 2010, 01:48:54 PM »
so then its a passive pre/DAC?   its still your middle man between the source and the amp, so its a pre be it passive after the DAC or not.    I do hear lots of guys echo your statements though.
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mfrench

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #77 on: September 19, 2010, 09:38:15 AM »
I suggested that I'd bring the test results when they were available:

from this post:
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.msg60519#msg60519

Quote from: MKJ

I've just run some simple measurements. Device unter test were a Saba oval fullrange driver and the 4" tweeter both mounted in the Reso front plate as open baffle. The microphone was positioned exactly in the sweet spot of the tweeter at a distance of 1 meter.

The red line shows FR of the tweeter mounted from the inside, the blue line shows the results when the tweeter was mounted from the outside.



You can easily see that there is a drop-off of 5 dB between 5 and 9 kHz with a maximum at 6 kHz. We can easily conclude that there is a huge difference. What I don't know: What is better? So, there is a muting of frequencies, but with the tweeter mounted from the outside.

A near field measurement of the tweeters shows a small drop-off between 5 and 9 kHz:



It makes a significant difference how the tweeters are mounted. But I can't say what is right or wrong.

Here are some very quick and dirty measurements with the microphone positioned off-axis at 30 and 60 degrees. Notice that these test are not reliable and should just give you an idea of the effect.



We can easily see that listening off-axis results in a significant drop-off at high frequencies. Well, this is not a surprise, we all know this effect.

Mike

« Last Edit: September 19, 2010, 09:48:55 AM by m0k3 »

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #78 on: September 19, 2010, 10:50:13 AM »
I suggested that I'd bring the test results when they were available:

from this post:
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.msg60519#msg60519

Quote from: MKJ

I've just run some simple measurements. Device unter test were a Saba oval fullrange driver and the 4" tweeter both mounted in the Reso front plate as open baffle. The microphone was positioned exactly in the sweet spot of the tweeter at a distance of 1 meter.

The red line shows FR of the tweeter mounted from the inside, the blue line shows the results when the tweeter was mounted from the outside.



You can easily see that there is a drop-off of 5 dB between 5 and 9 kHz with a maximum at 6 kHz. We can easily conclude that there is a huge difference. What I don't know: What is better? So, there is a muting of frequencies, but with the tweeter mounted from the outside.

A near field measurement of the tweeters shows a small drop-off between 5 and 9 kHz:



It makes a significant difference how the tweeters are mounted. But I can't say what is right or wrong.

Here are some very quick and dirty measurements with the microphone positioned off-axis at 30 and 60 degrees. Notice that these test are not reliable and should just give you an idea of the effect.



We can easily see that listening off-axis results in a significant drop-off at high frequencies. Well, this is not a surprise, we all know this effect.

Mike


The tests are meaningless with out knowing what the frequency response of the tweeter it self. And again if there was any change what so ever in mic placement the test means nothing.
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mfrench

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #79 on: September 20, 2010, 08:38:30 PM »
laughs.

Offline Church-Audio

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Re: More watts aren't necessarily better
« Reply #80 on: September 21, 2010, 12:01:33 AM »
laughs.


The test used "1/3 octave" smoothing when you use smoothing you lose some of the fine detail from the test and only see huge anomalies and end up with an averaged waveform display.... So if you were to turn off the smoothing then you can see the effects of the baffle more clearly, In deep detail..... and it would not look as smooth and pretty as these tests do. When you are trying to see the difference between a baffle and no baffle YOU DO NOT USE smoothing :) Just a quick lesson on how to do a proper measurement.


Chris
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