narrow and wide baffles and imaging


According to all the "professional" audio reviews that I've read over the last several years, narrow baffles are crucial to creating that so-desired pin-point imaging.

However, over the last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to audition Harbeth 40.2, Spendor Classic 100, Audio Note AN-E, and Devore O/93.  None of these had deficient imaging; indeed I would go so far as to say that it was good to very good.

So, what gives?  I'm forced to conclude that modern designs, 95% of which espouse the narrow baffle, are driven by aesthetic/cosmetic considerations, rather than acoustical ones, and the baffle~imaging canard is just an ex post facto justification.

I can understand the desire to build speakers that fit into small rooms, are relatively unobtrusive, and might pass the SAF test, but it seems a bit much to add on the idea that they're essentially the only ones that will do imaging correctly.



128x128twoleftears

Showing 14 responses by tomic601

great thread has me reading some old and new papers and thinking about ( anything is possible with a third Margarita and some good Jazz ) brushing up on my partial differential equations......

well

maybe not....

can we agree humans can hear + / - 5 db ? 1956 paper, Olsen....
time to get tge old Focal fiberglass spheres out......
Duke: hence my blackart comment... much harder to figure out with reliability psychoacoustics than the more or less well understood physics... Werner H not withstanding....
perhaps it is useful to think of the large baffle as a 180 degree Horn....
and in a two way with crossover overlap easy to see effects of both waves and the baffle...
but an area of violent agreement is the weighted trade space for attacking distortion.... Dr Ottola got us headed down one right path there...
some very simple - like 5 parts in circuit path SS amp outperform tubes in some of the ear is more sensitive areas.....
so that designer understands how we hear and attacks the sensitive stuff first.
best to you Duke
agree that real engineering is about managing the trade space...however IF we are interested in moving forward instead of creating new flavors, perhaps we can agree that lower distortion is better ?
 @audiokinesis  reflected wave off baffle creates constructive and destructive interference, seen as amplitude.....
Duke is science based ..love that....even the dark arts of HOW we hear..
anyway....the big baffle also honks up frequency response....period...
one of the reasons i like to own several speakers w widely divergent design philosophy but from competent designers....


@wolf_garcia .....I hurl at spelling......and typing with ipad...

IMO imaging is way more than speakers disappear, it is 3 D depection of the soundfield and the acoustical space ( what there might be of it ) by the system...
massed chorale in church, environment not severable from performance..
multitrack studio..not so much....most of the depth is relative volume and reverb

for those who might care see Youngs slit experiments, nice utube videos, U Conn physics has some decent stuff, not hard to see what the bigger baffle does....

perhaps Alon knows of math where the edge discontinuity matters not? 

wolf back to Cowboy Junkies......ambisonic....
and as an Infinity dealer, I was very aware of the plus and minus effects of the large wood baffles as one moved up the line, louder...yes
better? not so much.....
see Jim Smiths excellent book on getting your gear off to the side
pretty much every competent designer is doing the radius trick with the grilles
also as mentioned the massive baffle causes frequency response issues....just basic physics... yes you get more output but most of it is distortion...and finally, true to internet where we argue w words, nobody has two small sheets of cardboard to do the physical experiment
you can also take any small narrow point or even line source speaker and enlarge the baffle with a sheet of MDF, back your speakers up against the rear wall and get same effect plus more bass.... just basic math and physics...
also the large baffle will generate positive and negative cancellation which shows up as frequency response anomaly.....

these simple experiments in what and how younhear are agnostic to brand and speaker religion...and IMO help to further educate the avid listener...

I am deeply sorry IF my post offended any...

back to hearing Richard Thompsen sing about some redheaded girl...
you missed my point about it is more than about imaging....did you try the simple experiment and hear the change in sound ?
of course if your designer is trashing time and phase information, all bets are off on imaging anyway....
you can of course also duplicate the simple horn shapes for fun also......
it is more than imaging....
try this simpleexperiment

make 2 8.5 x 11 baffles out of cardboard, hold on either side of mouth while speaking, record voice from a distance of 6’ in middle of room , repeat with no baffle.....