The OHM Walsh speakers are the closest to the ideal full-range driver concept. Never had mass appeal because they are not BOXES! People are CONDITIONED to expect a speaker to look like a BOX! Hence they won't listen and instead spend their money on expensive BOXES! Disclaimer: I am an owner and speak from experience!
Headphones as Models for Speakers? Interesting Read from Herb Reichert - Opinions Please
I came across this article by Herb over the weekend and found it very interesting [https://www.audiostream.com/content/problem-loudspeakers ]. He argues for speakers that are/have...
As an architect by profession, the less is more argument resonates with me on many levels. I’ve also found this to be true for this strange hobby we all enjoy, recently experimenting with passive preamps; I have found them to be truly transparent and revealing. One less power supply polluting the signal, less over-redundant gain, etc.
Does anyone have opinions of the article? The only manufacture that I can find that actively markets a simple crossover-less design is ZU Audio, and from what I have seen people have mixed reviews of their speakers. Are there any speakers that come to mind that are already using this methodology for design?
From my understanding the truly difficult part of what Herb is arguing for are
"... full-range, crossover-less, benign impedance, high sensitivity, and direct connective-ness, [and] that headphones ... should – and could – be a model for floor-standing audiophile speakers."
As an architect by profession, the less is more argument resonates with me on many levels. I’ve also found this to be true for this strange hobby we all enjoy, recently experimenting with passive preamps; I have found them to be truly transparent and revealing. One less power supply polluting the signal, less over-redundant gain, etc.
Does anyone have opinions of the article? The only manufacture that I can find that actively markets a simple crossover-less design is ZU Audio, and from what I have seen people have mixed reviews of their speakers. Are there any speakers that come to mind that are already using this methodology for design?
From my understanding the truly difficult part of what Herb is arguing for are
"...full-range transducers with high ruler-flat impedances".Is this outside of our physical capabilities as the driver scales up from headphones to loudspeakers? Any thoughts would be appreciated, there are a lot of folks out there with a lot more knowledge than I have.
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I have heard single driver speakers that sounded great but no real bass. You need big speakers for solid bass and then the mids and highs get smeared, dopler distortion. For a while, early 70s, I had speaker boxes that if you stacked them were the size of a refrigerator. The driver was the Jensen tri-axials, not 3 drivers, 3 cones! 12" bass cone w/mid wizzer and a tweeter wizzer. You can still buy 12" drivers w/tweeter wizzer or a multi-cellular horn in the center, not high-fi, PA. 1950s technology. Even many panel speakers have a tweeter section w/x-over. Binaural works great but there arent many recordings, zero popular music(?) Maybe something but popular, not. |
I have a simple headphone setup at work (audioquest dragonfly red, schiit valhalla 2, sennheiser momentum 2, Morrow MAP 2 Power cord) that depending on the music, sounds so pure and cohesive compared to my setup at home (red dragon s500, metrum amethyst, kef LS50, triode wire labs 7+, schiit sys, Morrow MA4 interconnects and SP4 speaker cable). Now it might be that the headphones are full range and the Kefs are not, or room effects, cabling, tubes vs ss; there are so many variables in my two setups. But I think I understand what he is saying, but may not completely agree with him. There are inevitable technical challenges in the change of scale from a set of headphones to a set of loudspeakers, and designers tend to make loudspeakers quite complicated in the ways Herb mentions (crossovers, filters, phase alignment, etc.) in order to compensate. What if the scale of space continues to increase (performance)? No doubt those challenges are greater. I am familiar with the Ohm Walsh speakers, and they use a completely different design than I've seen. I've never heard these speakers but am very interested. (old model of speakers but the tech still still similar). http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/ohm/ohm.html Curious if anyone else has a headphone and speaker setup and could comment here? |
My hifi rig is glorious sounding, and has been approved and certified as a superior music reproducer by noted experts...or actually just me, so the certification was easy. Tube preamp, single ended tube power amp, efficient speakers, great subs, nice wire, blah blah, but when reading in bed at night I listen to "cans"...most recently with a Schiit Magni 3 and Grados (SR80e) driven by an old iPhone 3 that somehow wifis great for this purpose (not a phone anymore of course). Sounds great, but just bought a pair of Audioquest Nightowl Carbons and they're amazing (comfortable, very accurate even without being broken in)...still...the aforementioned hifi rig remains my preferred sound reproducer, and although the speakers are 3 ways with horns (Klipsch Heresy III) somehow the crossovers and whatever else the Arkansas factory deemed worthy of sticking in a fat little box all works swimmingly. |
