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How come that when most audiophiles

follow the philosophy of "shorter, less complex signal path is better", they then wire their carefully chosen equipment to speaker cabinets filled with a boatload of transformers, capacitors, resistors, and drivers which exhibit gross non-linearities which are only compounded by adding them all together? I believe that the reason is the "specification game" again, where people believe that speakers must have a frequency response from DC to light +-3db, and as a result, speaker systems must have many drivers to cover the range. Notice the specs only show freq. response, and nothing about phase non-linearity induced by multiple crossover components. This seems to be a non-linearity in system philosophy where short signal path does not apply to speaker systems, but is paramount in all other aspects of the system. I use a direct input from source to OTL amp and DIY Fostex based 1-way speaker cabinets. The result is very natural, dynamic, phase-coherent,detailed, and revealing. The only non-linearities I have to deal with are the ones inherent in the driver/cabinet combo. With some careful design and impedence curve mods, I get a more musical sound than any "high end" speakers I have ever heard(and I've heard alot) as well as any of the multi-way speakers I've ever designed and built(also alot). Why do you think that there is this disconnect in thinking regarding short signal path as it relates to speakers?
twl

Showing 4 responses by hearhere

hearhere
55 posts
 
Not all speaker manufacturers avoid the phase issue. See, notably, Dunlavy which documents both frequency and time domain performance. Vendors such as Thiel and Audio Physics (IIRC) and some others also place emphasis on this as well.

Whether "musical" and "accurate" are the same or different objectives is another story, and reflect on the individual designer's (and listner's) preferences.
hearhere
55 posts
 
I don't see any reason whatsoever that an ideal speaker "must" -

- have SPLs from 88-95 dBW at 12 feet?
- have an 8 ohm impedance?
- have a driver that measures and weighs less than the air it displaces?
- use a magnet that delivers equal force, etc. etc. etc.?
- must occupy less space than a Vandersteen 2C?

Some of those specifications are essentially irrelevant to the end sound. But if we're looking for ideal technical accuracy, including phase response, it'd be extremely difficult for any speaker to match or exceed the Dunlavy SC-VI, which near as I can tell doesn't meet any of the above except for sound output.
hearhere
55 posts
 
The key, as pointed out by Onhwy61 and Craig is "Everything should be made as simple as possible, BUT NOT SIMPLER". Not all speaker designers are willing to compromise phase and time performance just for simplicity's sake, even in their wide bandwidth designs.

As TWL has shown, with a different set of design goals, one can make a very satisfactory "short wire" speaker. Different goal, different approach, happy listener.
hearhere
55 posts
 
Albert, you posted a list of features and elevated them to the level of standards for an ideal speaker. To quote you:

"My "impossible" speaker posting was exactly on topic because it listed ideal standards for that single driver system, including the crossover design and ability to be driven (impedance load and efficiency specs). If you do not believe that these are important to a speakers design and performance, you have much to learn."

For many of the features it is irrelevant whether you are referring to a single- or multi-driver speaker, and I’m still uncertain as to the need for such absolutes. For example, why do you specify an 8 ohm impedance as ideal? Are 4 ohm speakers inherently worse? Or why must speakers have a sensitivity in the specific range you mention? There are many audiophile-grade amplifiers that can drive the 4-ohm, inefficient Thiels to very high volumes without working up a sweat. And the size constraint baffles me completely.

There is more than one approach that leads to state of the art, especially in speaker design. Some violate one or more of your standards by a wide margin - that does not make it a design flaw.
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