@sciencecop
I agree with you about cone design. The ideal cone is perfectly rigid and perfectly and completely damped.
I agree with you about cone design. The ideal cone is perfectly rigid and perfectly and completely damped.
Best Loudspeakers for Rich Timbre?
I realise that the music industry seems to care less and less about timbre, see
https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII
But for me, without timbre music reproduction can be compared to food which lacks flavour or a modern movie with washed out colours. Occasionally interesting, but rarely engaging.
So my question is, what are your loudspeaker candidates if you are looking for a 'Technicolor' sound?
I know many use tube amps solely for this aim, but perhaps they are a subject deserving an entirely separate discussion.
https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII
But for me, without timbre music reproduction can be compared to food which lacks flavour or a modern movie with washed out colours. Occasionally interesting, but rarely engaging.
So my question is, what are your loudspeaker candidates if you are looking for a 'Technicolor' sound?
I know many use tube amps solely for this aim, but perhaps they are a subject deserving an entirely separate discussion.
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I have to say, if you mean truth of timbre, or closer to real sounding in the mids, the new Revel f 228 be is outstanding. Check out the technology and measured response of these speakers, truly impressive. The best I have had in my home, and will put far more expensive speakers to shame. They are something special when set up properly. |
@Sciencecop - your posts often contain a confrontational tone, frequently belittling anyone who doesn’t love Magicos above all else. Take a breath and relax. You are a Magico Fanboy, we get it. I’m a Boenicke Fanboy and proud to admit it and don’t know or care what the measurements say or the science says, I just use my ears. And to my ears Harbeth and Boenicke and the ProAc K6 all sound better for my home-listening tastes than the Magicos I have heard (A3, S1 ii, S3 ii, M3). If you can find a dealer you should have a listen to the Gauder Akustik Darc series. These German speakers were launched at the Munich hi-end show in May and sounded a lot like a Magico. Not surprising given they are built with a sealed and ribbed Aluminium cabinet, so I guess they were inspired by the success and sound of the Magico. With the diamond tweeter option used at the show they were very impressive - they had the essence of the Magico - the complete transparency and detailed resolution which is always impressive, but they sounded slightly different too...better maybe? Still not to my home-listening taste but impressive nevertheless. The top German hi-end hifi mag gave them a 100% rating which is something they have only ever given to half a dozen or so other hifi components ever (German hifi mags seem a lot more honest than the UK and US magazines which seem to just praise absolutely everything they review, whereas the German mags are often critical of the products they review). https://www.gauderakustik.com/index.php/en/loudspeaker/darc-en |
@fleschler pulp and paper cones are outstanding - beautifully damped, stiff and light weight. They must not be driven in to breakup - so the operating bandwidth is less than more rigid cones. Provided the designer operates the cone within its ideal operating bandwidth then paper/pulp cones can be world class and as good as anything else.... |
@duckworp I am a Fanboy of good engineering. Unfortunately, in our hobby, and particularly high-end loudspeakers, they are hard to come by. BTW, I travel a lot to Europe, and I am familiar with the foreign audio press. Don’t kid yourself; they are just as “colored” as the one in the US; try to find a bad review of a high-end German product in a German magazine, or a UK made one in a UK magazine, good luck ;) |
After weeks of waiting I finally got to visit The UK Audio Show 2018 (Woodland Grange, UK) at the weekend. They had some impressive speakers there including the curvy, strokeable Vivid Kaya 90 - amazing dynamics, scale, imagery and dare I say it, the merest hint of metallic tinged timbre? There were many other designs such as the organic sounding large bookshelf Audio Notes (AN-K) and some small bookshelves in the Malvern Research Audio room filling the room with Abbey Road via vinyl/tubes which begged the question - where have you hidden the subwoofer? The Arcadis EB2s sounded impressive and clean but a touch thin until I sat sightly further back. Then the sound became satisfyingly well balanced. It was a thoroughly enjoyable show with plenty of tea and coffee stations close to hand. Many of the dealers and designers were willing to take requests to escape the usual tinkly piano Jazz. So we got to hear the Beatles (Norwegian Wood, Girl), Beethoven (piano), Donovan (Sand and Foam), Steely Dan (Babylon Sisters), Diana Krall (Temptation), Peggy Lee (Fever), Dire Straits (You and Your Friend) amongst others. Sources included vinyl, CD, and quite a lot of streaming via phone. All of them sounded good, with vinyl often sounding close to CD, clean with very low surface noise. As good as the various designs were there was only one loudspeaker there that left me unable to find any fault sonically, and that was the Kerr Acoustic K320 (https://www.kerracoustic.com/k320) Presented in a garish blue firing down a fair sized room, about 10 x 5m with a large window behind them, it was simply delightful in the way they played different genres of music - with all the tonal/timbral colour intact. They remained engaging and surefooted throughout the entire frequency range at both high and low volume, and had probably the cleanest treble I have ever heard from any loudspeaker. Just a beautifully attractive colourful sound. Easily the best in show for me, and that included it's bigger brother the K100 which I felt was reference quality impressive in scale and dynamics (reminding me of the Naim Ovator 6000) but altogether more monochromatic than the always enjoyable K320s. In fact I can't say I have ever heard a better sounding or more enjoyable loudspeaker at any show, and that includes Avantgarde Trio's and the similar sounding ProAc Future Ones. |
It is not strange that after over a century of development that there is still no consensus amongst audiophiles as to which loudspeakers provide the greatest fidelity to the signal. Heck, some still believe nothing beats the wax cylinder for reproduction of the human voice. What is surprising is the sheer diversity of designs, techniques and technologies. What began as a simple horn soon developed into the moving coil system followed by the electrostatic principle. Yet at each phase the new technology merely complimented the previous one rather than replace it. For example we see moving coil drivers alongside BMR units alongside ribbon units and even plasma ones for treble. We might see beryllium, polypropylene, radial, paper (doped/undoped), kevlar, aluminium, graphene etc all tried as cone materials amongst others such as hemp. Then we come to the cabinets where we might find ultra rigid versus lossy designs, damped versus undamped, sealed box versus ported or transmission line designs. Sometimes there is no box at all as in open baffle or electrostatics. Cabinet materials might include MDF, Baltic Birch Plywood, aluminium, bamboo, or some form of composite design materials. Even the number of drive units can vary anywhere from just one to over a dozen. All this diversity begs the question of whether we are actually making any progress or are simply going around in circles? After all this time there's still so little that is commonly accepted and agreed upon by designers and loudspeakers still remain by far the weakest link in the audio chain as far as measurable distortion goes. So the choice of loudspeaker might therefore remain a choice of taste rather than a matter of one design being superior to another. Especially once cabinet effects and artefacts have been substantially reduced as we are beginning to now see even in relative budget designs such as the Q Acoustics Concept series. As far as the search for timbre / instrumental colour goes there doesn't seem to be any consensus there either other than it probably depends upon primarily the drive unit material itself. And it's kind of reassuring that paper is still employed in many high end designs. |
As good as the various designs were there was only one loudspeaker there that left me unable to find any fault sonically, and that was the Kerr Acoustic K320 (https://www.kerracoustic.com/k320)Interesting; other than having a single mid-woofer instead of two in a D'Appolito configuration, this speaker is very similar to the Acoustic Zen Adagio which admittedly, is something of a classic performance-to-price bargain. |
@mapman , interesting point. Clothes have a function to keep us warm, cover us up, make us look better, define which tribe we belong to etc Loudspeakers should be attempting to reproduce the recording as accurately as possible. Preferably having as little / zero character of their own. In a perfect world you would have a believable field of sound existing entirely free from it’s source. Should they be a matter of taste? @fsonicsmith , when I found out that K320s used a ribbon tweeter and were a transmission line design I was surprised. I then began to listen hard for any dispersion anomalies that I had read about with ribbons, I couldn’t hear any. I was also listening out for any hint of sibilance/crossover distortion (hate it) and there was only the mildest amount on Peggy Lee’s Fever. Probably the cleanest treble I have heard on any loudspeaker. It didn’t have the explosive dynamics of the Vivid Kaya 90s, but those were almost scary at volume. I had to return to the room at the end if the show just to check if I hadn’t imagined it all. They sounded exactly the same, even after I had heard several other designs in between. If I had the space I would get a pair in white immediately, (hopefully they come with a grille) but my circumstances probably mean selling my current speakers (which are far more childproof) first. Hmm, what to do? |
cd318, I’m fascinated by the diversity of designs and opinions among speaker designers and audiophiles as well! It seems to me there are a lot of variables going on here. First is that both designers and audiophiles come to audio with differing criteria. Some are most focused on, for instance, strict accuracy to the source, reproducing the electrical signal as accurately as possible. Others are more concerned with accuracy to "The Absolute Sound, " in terms of being able to reproduce a sense of reality, and if it takes a bit of fiddling from strict neutrality from the signal to get there, so be it. Others may be more in the "I just want it to sound good" camp, who aren’t demanding strict objective accuracy, who think that The Absolute Sound is a pipe dream, but just hold the criteria of ending up with "sound that satisfies me." Or "does it communicate music in a way that moves me?" And then there’s the fact that even when you have people generally in one camp as to their criteria, within that camp there will be variations in which compromises are acceptable, which elements most important. So in the "Absolute Sound" and "As I Like It" camps, some may focus on timbral accuracy, others on soundstaging, others on dynamics, etc, so you’ll still end up with different designs. Even those trying to reproduce strict neutrality, accurate reproduction of the source, will have to contend with debates over whether to design the speaker to output a perfectly ’neutral’ flat signal, or how much to take the likely room effects, or even our hearing, in to the design, so it all sums to neutral at our ears. So there are different ways people design speakers to be "neutral" in that regard. And THEN of course we have the subjectivity of the listener. Especially in the Absolute Sound/As I Like It camps, our hearing may be slightly different, our perception different, or we may even simply of our own preferences zero in on one aspect of the sound we like, where someone else will notice the aspects they don’t like. I find it fascinating when I sit in front of some systems with a fellow audiophile and they are really happy with what they are hearing, but for me I am nonplussed and would be just as happy with that system turned off (or happier). They may be hearing great clarity and imaging, I’m hearing a bleached tone that leaves me completely unmoved. So with different approaches, and of course everything in between, naturally we end up with a variety of design ideas, which satisfy varying criteria of audiophiles, naturally we end up with tons of different designs and preferences. On a similar note: I often agitate for a more rigorous, science-like approach to high end audio (for products that are essentially engineering problems, way too much of it seems to operate at the level of, say, alternative medicine). And I certainly would love to see more high end audio equipment produced via more reliable testing/vetting methods, with objective support for claims etc. BUT...that’s not to say I also don’t quite enjoy some of the Wild West aspect of high end audio, where you have designers trying out all sorts of wild ideas. I’ve certainly heard products whose marketing comes with really dubious design claims, but which sounded really impressive and fascinating nonetheless. And I’m very glad that there isn’t the homogeneity in high end audio design that is suggested by the attitude of some posters - or manufacturers for that matter who become fixated on "designs ought to be THIS way and NOT that way!" e.g. People who will say things like you should never use X cone materials, or never allow any resonance in the cabinet, or never go with X, Y crossovers, never combine X, Y drivers, etc. A certain single-mindedness and hard-headedness in pursuing a certain design goal can really work for a speaker designer. But in the wider scheme of things, we want people exploring various approaches. Thanks goodness we have designers trying different approaches. The recent example from my own experience I keep using are the Devore O series speakers. They have been criticized by the neutrality camp for doing everything wrong - "you never combine a tweeter with a 10" driver like that, the beaming! The mismatch, you’ll loose coherence! You don’t let a cabinet sing like that. It’s all just so wrong, any DIYer can even tell you that!" But when I auditioned them several times against a bunch of more "neutral" speakers, sure some of the defects were likely there in the mix, but not remotely to the overriding audibility the nay-sayers make you fear, and to my ears they were doing SOMETHING really wonderful that most of the other speakers weren’t. (A certain combination of organic tone and body to the sound). I also like neutral speakers too (as I’ve owned a number of them). But I’m very glad we have other choices! |
Having owned Adagios, they are a great speaker, but based upon a long history listening to them, I think that transmission lines mated to mid-woofers tend to have rather bloated, "blubbery" bass at the break-up frequency, right around 45 hz or so. It is easily overlooked, but once you recognize the sound, it is hard to completely ignore. My Devore O/93's don't disappear in the room as well as the Adagios, but they don't break up in the low bass. They are solid as a rock. Not that they go down to 20hz or shake the rafters but they stay true to form with taut bass. There is no discernible "flub". Having a 10" paper woofer from SEAS in a tuned, rear ported cabinet IMO most likely accounts for the difference. I used aftermarket outriggers with deep piercing brass spikes with the Adagios which ameliorated the problem but did not eliminate it. I spent untold hours getting the positioning just right with the Adagios. With the Devores, all you need to do is place them with their integral little wood block feet and play around for maybe an hour with positioning and the sound is glorious. At least in my room with my gear. |
Should they be a matter of taste? Fact is they are. Even if you take taste out of the equation, there is still the listening room variable. No two rooms are the same either and teh room largely determines what you hear with any particular speaker design. LEt’s not even get into how differently the "best" speaker measured might sound off various amps. Speakers make no sound alone. It’s a team sport. So one can say you want the most accurate speakers in theory and I would even agree but in practice that alone does not determine which one will choose or even work best in each particular case. So there you go. |
@prof wrote: "But when I auditioned [the DeVore O/96] several times against a bunch of more "neutral" speakers, sure some of the defects were likely there in the mix, but not remotely to the overriding audibility the nay-sayers make you fear, and to my ears they were doing SOMETHING really wonderful that most of the other speakers weren’t. (A certain combination of organic tone and body to the sound)." Excellent description of "what matters most". While the specifics of "what matters most" may change from one listener to another (and from one designer to another), imo you nailed the essence, which is these two things: 1. A speaker must do SOMETHING so well you can get lost in the music. That something can be timbre, imaging, coherence, slam, PRAT, low-level detail, whatever. But it must do something wonderful. That’s the easy part. 2. The HARD PART is, the speaker must not also do something so poorly as to ruin the magic and collapse the illusion that its "something wonderful" just created. There are more things that can go wrong than I can begin to list. Apparently the DeVore O/96’s indeed do their something wonderful and then don’t turn around and do something so poorly as to destroy the illusion. Imo that’s the magic formula, and it’s much easier said than done. Kudos to John DeVore. As for "accuracy", one of the worst-sounding prototypes I ever made was the one with the flattest response. As I tweaked the design closer and closer to flat, it sounded worse and worse. I pressed on, having faith that the heavens would open once I had achieved flatness. Nope. These days my target curve for home audio slopes gently downward as we go up in frequency, so I guess I don't even try to build objectively "accurate" speakers. Duke |
My wife insisted on removing the large electrostats from my systems and replace them with speakers with bass and dynamics. For me, I required a speaker that sounded good off-axis, basically good along a 10 foot wide sofa, 13’ from the center between the speakers. Some have commented on how wonderful the inexpensive Tekton speakers are. They maybe but they are reportedly aimed for on-axis performance, like giant headphones. These would not meet my 10 foot wide good sound criteria. Neither do original Quad speakers to those who have heard them. I also desired a speaker which is easy to drive but can handle moderately high power as well (play quietly and loudly). Once one increases the demands on the speaker measured facilities (bass, dynamics, efficiency, wide seating area), then one has to select other criteria which makes it musical such as timbre, imaging, coherence, slam, PRAT, low-level detail. So, I have limited myself as far as speaker choices which is a good thing because there are so many fine speakers made today to choose from. |
@prof , as you say loudspeaker problems are basically engineering problems and until this century's Ed Villchur comes along and radically advances the technology it is going to remain a case of shuffling compromises. I hate treble coarseness, as well as a bleached tone like yourself, fsonicsmith couldn't abide a bloated bass, Duke said he didn't enjoy a flat frequency response so as things stand mapman is right - it is a case of horses for courses. At least until a major technological breakthrough arrives. Can't some audiophile at CERN or MIT have a look at this in their spare time? Do they get any spare time? Duke summed it up really well in that a speaker must do something really well to get your attention, and since they can't do everything well you have to decide which compromise you can live with. As he said it's up to the designer to try to make sure that these compromises are not deal breakers. Unfortunately for us, the only sure way of knowing this is by listening. On the plus side, it's a way of getting to know yourself better. Oh the lengths we have to go to in the pursuit of beauty. |
So true cd318. For instance, as many know speakers like the Revel brand have been designed using the research spearheaded by the great Floyd Tool and others, in which a scientific approach to studying listener perception and speaker design, combined with blind testing, yielded methods of predicting listener preferences for loudspeaker design. And the Revels were built on those principles. I auditioned a number of Revel speakers and they were indeed terrific! They clearly benefitted from the research as they were hugely competent in just about every way. And yet...they didn't quite do "it" for me, for whatever reason. Not as much as a number of other speakers, some of the neutral camp, some of the "musical/colored" camp. It would be fascinating to take part in the HK blind testing to see if I would in fact pick the HK speakers over some of the ones I like better in sighted testing. |
@fleshler mentioned his "10 foot wide good sound criteria." There is an unorthodox technique which can give you good tonal balance over a wide area, and even pretty good soundstaging, though the soundstaging will still be best up and down the centerline. The basis is this principle of psychoacoustics (which I’m going to simplify a bit): The ear/brain system localizes sound by two mechanisms: Arrival time and intensity. We can take advantage of this to still get a decent soundstage even if we are well off to one side of the centerline. Let’s first look at a conventional setup. Imagine you’re sitting in the normal sweet spot, speakers facing approximately straight ahead, maybe toed in a little. Perhaps the speakers are ten feet apart. Arrival time and intensity are the same from both speakers, so imaging is good. Next shift your listening position five feet to one side. The image shifts all the way over to the near speaker. This is because not only are you now much closer to the near speaker, you are also on-axis of the near speaker (or very close to it) and very far off-axis of the far speaker. So both localization mechanisms favor the near speaker. In fact if you only shift partway over, the center vocalist’s image usually shifts farther than you do. Now let’s try something totally different: First, we start out with speakers that have a very specific radiation pattern: The radiation pattern is 90 degrees wide in the horizontal plane (-6 dB @ 45 degrees off-axis to either side), and this pattern is pretty much constant over as much of the spectrum as is practical (down to 700 Hz would be nice, but down to 1.4 kHz still works well). Second, we toe those speakers in severely, like maybe 45 degrees, such that their axes actually criss-cross in front of the central sweet spot. Yes it looks weird, but stick with me. In the central sweet spot, arrival time and intensity is the same for both speakers. But now let’s move over five feet to one side... Now we are sitting directly in front of the near speaker, so it "wins" arrival time. But we are also very far off-axis of that near speaker. We look over at the far speaker, and by golly we’re just about right smack on-axis of the far speaker! And so the far speaker "wins" intensity! These two psychoacoustic localization mechanisms balance out somewhat, so we still end up with a decent spread of the instruments. Depending on the recording and a few other details, the center vocalist may still be fairly close to the center. Now the soundstaging isn’t going to be as good as it is up and down the centerline, but it’s going to be way better than what we had with a conventional set-up. The KEY to this working well is, the output of that near speaker must fall off quickly and smoothly as we move off-axis, at least in the mids and highs were we get most of our imaging cues. This crossfiring setup doesn’t work very well with conventional speakers because they don’t have the right kind of radiation pattern - the near speaker’s off-axis response is still too loud. At audio shows I try to set one chair up against a side wall, actually to the outside its nearest speaker. When the room is full and someone is forced to take that seat, I give them a couple of minutes there and then ask how it sounds. I’ve never had anyone be anything other than pleasantly surprised at how good it sounds even from such an extreme off-centerline location. Another advantage of this configuration is, considerably more uniform tonal balance throughout the listening area. In particular, the cross-firing configuration results in a more uniform distribution of the highs, so nobody gets cheated in that regard. One more advantage of this configuration is, it minimizes detrimental early same-side-wall reflections. The first significant sidewall reflection for the left speaker is the long across-the-room bounce off the right side wall, and vice-versa. There is a slight trade-off: Best imaging for one person in the sweet spot is arguably a bit better with the speakers aimed right straight at the listener’s ears, or maybe aimed at a point a foot or two behind the listener’s head. Some taming of the top-end energy may be needed, as now you are directly on-axis of both tweeters, whereas with the criss-cross setup you are never directly on-axis of both tweeters. The tonal balance will also be less consistent throughout the room when the setup is optimized for a single listener. So if your priority is "10 foot wide good sound", imo it can be done with the right kind of speakers in the right kind of configuration. Examples of speakers that can do it are the JBL M2 and 4367, the PBN M2!5, anything by Earl Geddes, most models by PiSpeakers, and most of my stuff. I’m sure there are others that don’t come to mind offhand. Duke |
You can buy electronics based on good reputation or recommendations and get good sound, but speakers are the soul of the system and need to be chosen by personal interaction. But with so few dealers, old speakers are such a pain to resell, package and ship, and it's usually a financial bloodbath, so I don't buy often. The right speaker (for me) is usually"You know it when you hear it.." I make a short list, set a max price, then wait for Axpona and go with an intent to buy while I'm there. Makes for a fun trip. Axpona gives you a chance to hear your preconceived short list, then wander the rooms and hear pretty much everything that compares and exceeds. I went to hear Revel, Focal, Elac, Harbeth and heard better that were over budget, then stumbled upon "I knew it when I heard it" (Sonist Concerto 4's) for half my budget. A long-term purchase that I could not have described as "What I want" before I had personal interaction. |
On the plus side, it's a way of getting to know yourself better. +1 @cd318 Thank you for your post above and a prior post. Earlier, I had posited that some of the posts by some of the posters were "self-critiques." With the exception of @cd318 , there was silence in response. Said another way, I was learning far more about the poster than the speaker. Speakers Do Not Operate In Isolation. Without the entire system (inclusive of source material, cabling, isolation, power, etc), the room, and the listener being taken into account these 'speaker' discussions are fairly meaningless. This forum is littered, daily if not hourly with examples, both pro and con on "speakers" working small wonders or frustrating the poster to no end, generally divorced from their systems and themselves. Focusing (unflinchingly) on understanding one's own self and learning what one's preferences and dislikes are and which trade-offs and compromises (vis a vis one's self or capabilities) one is willing to accept and live with, would be far more helpful THAN the repeated efforts to analyze and deconstruct speaker attributes (especially isolated from the system and room and the individual). In other words, Understand Yourself. And keep working on it. I also believe that our discussions would be markedly more polite if we led from What / Who We Are or where we want to go or what we want to be, rather than the focus on singular components. I recently had the privilege to experience the effort and time one of our members has put into squeezing the very best out of his multiple systems - all bent to his preferences and offering him the connection to, and understanding of, the music in his special and unique way. I experienced HIS experience in time and space relative to what he has come to know and become, as expressed through his system and room. Last evening, I was again exceptionally fortunate to experience a completely different system. What I found was one of the best examples in my audio journey (and to my preferences) of balancing sheer musicality in conjunction with many elements of so-called 'modern hi-fi sound' or 'analytical' sound. This system delivered a thoroughly emotional and breath of life connection to the music. It wasn't the speaker. It was an expression of these audiophiles choices from source material through room reflections. It is an art form. |
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room. I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me. The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot. I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area). Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging). |
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room. I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me. The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot. I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area). Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging). |
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room. I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me. The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot. I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area). Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging). |
prof I have a pair of Legacy Focus (originals) in the main listening room and a pair of their Signature IIIs in the living room. I have managed to achieve a wide sweet spot only recently. I aim my speakers so that I can just see the inside sides from the center seat 13 feet away. Then I use two pair of Shakti Hallographs and 32 SR HFTs mostly on the walls (none on the face of the speakers though-doesn't work for me). My room is larger at 25' X 23'. I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me. The sound within four feet to the left and right of center now does not have a pronounced sound from the closest speaker on that side. I find that a very happy situation as just two years ago, there was a severe drop off of sound from the further speaker toward the 5' edges away from the center spot. I've heard several Audio Physic speakers and that's something they're great at, disappearing from the room and creating a wide listening area. Many small monitors can do that too but are destined for smaller rooms. My former 5 pairs of high end (at the time) electrostats were not good for wide listening areas. They beamed the sound towards the center spot (heard the same from Sanders speakers-really narrow listening area). Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers. Recently, I auditioned the Carver Amazing speakers which excelled in the mids and highs sending sound evenly throughout the large room (as well as incredible stable imaging). |
@fleschler wrote: "I couldn't imagine the speakers at a 45/45 angle towards me." I can understand that that's just too much visual weirdness for some people. The first photo in this show report is taken from well off to one side of the centerline. As you will see, in that location you are well off-axis of the near speaker but nearly on-axis of the far speaker. https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2015/10/22/rmaf-2015-audiokinesis-violates-space-and-time/ Unfortunately the write-up doesn't mention the sweet spot width. But it does talk about soundstage size, in case your first instinct is that the soundstage would be compressed. "Among the best disappearing speakers are omnidirectional speakers." I agree. With omnis, the near speaker still "wins" both arrival time and intensity, though it doesn't win the latter by as large a margin as with conventional speaker. So I think there is an argument for the approach I described even compared with omnis because with my approach the far speaker is the one that "wins" intensity. But you'd have to get past the weirdness, and that may be asking too much. Duke |
Back on August 31st I posted that "getting the reverberant field right" matters if rich and natural-sounding timbre is a high priority. I think there was a fair amount of skepticism, with @prof expressing it well back on September 8th: "I’ve never heard more room sound contribute to more accurate timbre." I’d like to offer a youtube video of a presentation by acoustician David Griesinger. David investigates concert hall acoustics, and he has determined which reflection are beneficial and which are detrimental based on timing. He is going to demonstrate this by playing four clips that include and/or exclude early and late reflections. First, he will play the direct sound only. This clip is time-gated to exclude all reflections, so it sounds thin because the longer wavelengths are also excluded. The singer’s voice sounds "proximate" (up close) because of the lack of reflections. Next, he will play the direct sound plus the first reflections. The timbre will be a bit warmer because longer wavelengths are included, but the clarity will be significantly degraded. The third clip is by far the most interesting: Direct sound MINUS the early reflections but INCLUDING the later ones. Now we have clarity along with our elusive friend, Rich Timbre! The final clip includes them all: Direct sound + first reflections + later reflections. Timbre and clarity are both degraded relative to the third clip, but timbre is still better than the first and second clips. Here’s the video, start at 13:19 and go to about 15:02, headphones or earbuds recommended: I believe the psychoacoustic principles demonstrated in David Griesinger's clips have validity that extends beyond the concert hall and into our home listening rooms. As these clips show, EARLY reflections are detrimental, but LATER reflections can be quite beneficial, enriching timbre with no degradation of clarity. So "more room sound" CAN result in "more accurate timbre" IF it is done right. Duke |
@cd318, I also went along to the U.K. Audio Show 2018 (Leamington Spa). I found Audio NEC (surprised to find them there) and Vivid/Mola Mola to be the most interesting rooms. I’m considering showing myself next year, we would bring along our Boenicke/Mola Mola/Fidata/Sablon system, if we can get the right room. For natural timbre it’s hard to beat the Boenicke W11’s. www.toetapaudio.com |
@toetapaudio, I went to the show to mainly hear the Vivid Audio and the Audio Note speakers. I was a little concerned that there weren't more familiar names (Arcam, B&W, Marantz, Sony, Tannoy, ProAc, Living Voice, Rega, Pro-ject etc) on show. So naturally I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality of some of the unfamiliar products on offer. It's often said that hotel rooms are often not a good place to demonstrate Hi-Fi but this didn't seem to be true last Saturday. I did notice that the smaller rooms tended to be playing bookshelf speakers, makes sense. Also, there seemed to careful use of the volume control this time. Some of the previous shows I remember were almost guaranteed to give you a headache by lunchtime. It was also touching to see enthusiasts, (designers and dealers), who could probably easily make a good living by other far less risk means, choosing to try their hand in audio. Good luck to all of them (except the quick buck cable peddlers - only joking, I'm probably just jealous). Anyway, for any potential visitor I can recommend taking some form of notes as you go from room to room, via smartphone in my case. It can help focus your thoughts and is a great memory aid at the small risk of looking like a good plated audio nerd. A good plan/ route of action is also useful as it's all too easy to miss certain rooms in the melee or excitement if the music grips you too much. I seem to have missed both the Townshend room and the bookshelf Kerr Acoustics room - and probably a few others. |
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pulp and paper cones are outstanding - beautifully damped, stiff and light weight. They must not be driven in to breakup - so the operating bandwidth is less than more rigid cones.Hmm... I think you’ve got that backwards. It’s extremely rigid/metal cones you don’t want operating near their breakup as they tend to be rather brash about it. I can’t off the top of my head think of any manufacturers that crossover metal midwoofers into the 3kHz^ band, however, many do it with paper and plastic cones. |
It's not necessarily the midbass that produces rich timbre and warmth. It's the 200Hz-250Hz range. Reduce energy there by making it flatter and or dipped and the speakers will sound like absolute trash. The market is filled with anemic audiophile speakers. And they sound edgy and boring and unengaging. This is why audiophiles seek out speakers that have larger cones, or cones made out of paper, or more resonant real wood enclosures. Larger cones also help reduce some energy in the 3kHz range giving a bit of that good old BBC dip. I would personally stay away from Samsung built Revel line. |
@invictus005, I agree that ’The market is filled with anemic audiophile speakers. And they sound edgy and boring and unengaging’. This can also apply to some very expensive designs too. Also, "This is why audiophiles seek out speakers that have larger cones, or cones made out of paper, or more resonant real wood enclosures". How could I not agree, having owned Tannoys for the last 10 years? However, I would go further and say that for a loudspeaker to reproduce timbre accurately, (ie not lose it via the cone materials / crossover issues or smother it under cabinet resonance ’mush’), it must have excellent handling of harmonics. The fact that a speaker usually needs two or more drivers separated by a crossover to cover the audio band can only make the task of reproducing timbre accurately incredibly difficult, especially when considering things happening on a harmonic level. |
Revel has their own factories dude, everything is built in house. Cabinets are made in Indonesia. Revel has Floyd tool and Kevin Vocks, arguably the best speaker designers on the planet, who have an embarrassment of resources availible to them for speaker design, resources that most other speaker manufactures could only dream of. That’s why their new 10k speaker sounds better than most regardless of cost, and puts much more expensive speakers to shame. It’s called science, sorry if they are not esoteric or expensive enough for you. If you actually knew the company well you would know all about how much emphasis they put on truth of Timbre and how to achieve it. |
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revel is its own company who's parent company is Harmon, not to difficult to understand, and so what? And the don't rig their tests lol, what in the hell would be the point in that? Why even spend the money on blind tests and a moving double blind floor? Yes Tool can be just that sometimes, but he has also published more papers on speaker design than any other living person, so I would trust what he has to say over yours any day. So fine, for whatever reason you don't like the company, what is it you don't like about the sound since you obviously have extensive experience listening to them? |
@chrissain I find that they do everything well, or at least okay, but nothing exceptional. It’s almost as if they’re more interested in checking off all of the boxes. It’s safe. It’s the worst kind of product. They lack the crazy visionary. The Steve Jobs. The Elon Musk. Sound is not just science. It’s also art. My ears want to be inspired. I need that ASMR. But after a few minutes of listening, I rather go on a bike ride, or something. I heard the entire Be line at the NYC store. |
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