Referent point
Reference defined as:: Complete full midrange, in all its charms and colors, nice gorgeous soundstage, zero fatigue, zero colotation, voice 100% accurate. All amps are acceptable , from 1 watt to 1k watts. are you sure that's not what colotation referent means? :) Passive crossovers do inject distortions into the signal and screws with the phase but wide bands have issues too. As much as I like midrange my reference speakers need to have bass and highs and while more recent drivers can come closer, physics just gets in the way. Active speakers are the most likely to get you the reference sound you are looking for. Basically just feeding the driver the frequency band that falls into its sweet spot and using multiple wide bands working in unison can be tuned to provide a flat coherent full frequency speaker. With that you can could build around the amps. Since all amps are acceptable for less than the cost of one decent amp you could use multiple chip amps to accomplish the reference sound. One of the guys in the DIY club did just that and while I haven't heard them they are supposed to sound really good. |
I can understand why Klipsche horns make a big impression on folks In a 20x20 10 ft ceiling,,oh yeah, what a massive sound stage, HUGE..But what do w e really have going on in the fq spectrum,,really i mean. We have alot of big sound. But are we really after huge sound stage?? Why? Avg listening room is 10x15, 8 foot ceiling. Big Wilson's big Klipsche, big Vandersttens, the weaknesses will be heard clearly ina mid size room. The only speaker that I know that can sound super clean and perfect in all critical midrange fq's are the new high tech wide bands. 'If the room is 8x8x8 or Buckingham Place's listening room, 100x100x100, The WBer will come out as the Reference Point Speaker. The WBer is the ultimate 2nd to none (exception big expensive horns $50G's++ = disqualified) musical experience. |
I think some of you think I just happened to make up this idea of a Reference Speaker, just out of the blue as if the idea just poped in my head , not based on reality ck. Well acutally this idea has a long history of exp behind it. As I listen to mujsic on the WBer,, ideas get rolling around in my head. I start asking Q's. and Thats how I cam up with this idea of aReference Speaker. A speaker that could be placed next to a challenger and make a valid reference comparison. The only speaker i know that is as neutral as Seas Excel Thor, is this wide band high tech 8. Same neutral, and natural presentation of music, but on a much bigger soundstage (= much higher db sens = Destroys Seas Excel Thors) The Seas Thors were in soem ways my old Reference Speaker, but now surpassed with the new high tech wide bands 8. btw the Excel line is going on 20 yrs+ , and so has fallen behind on in new developments. Seas should have concentrated on making a super high tech wide band. Their current 15 yr old WB model is a bomb. I've not heard their Alnico Full Range, again its 20+ yrs old and no doubt far surpassed by the 2 chinese labs. + Very pricey at $700 each. Seas just never took the initiative to further develope the wide band speaker. Guess the money was not there. Due to the hard cold fact the USA audiophile is obsessed, if not POSESSED , with his traditional box /xover things. Seas has to go where the money is. The Wide band 8's are now finally here and yet no one seems to take note, nor show any serious interest. Speakers have always been my passion. Lucky for me the chinese tech geek figured out the design to deliver what I believe is *Reference Sound* This keeps me off the speaker Merry-Go-Round. |
but I have a big room... and a very big very lifelike sound stage with my cornerhorns with only two watts. Where did you get that the average listening room is 10x15x8? Have you been to the Decware forum? Lots of people are enamored with single driver speakers there. The problem with reference is which ones? Lil Audio makes multiple size and drivers with different sound characteristics. Your music, your room your preference, your reference but it probably doesn’t meet my criteria of a reference speaker. Another single driver wide band was a very good speaker made by the The Horn Shoppe. Great midrange but it really need a corner for bass reinforcement. Later they added a Heil AMT driver on top to fill in the other frequencies to get the desired sound. My question is, are you here to tell people what their reference should be or are you asking to learn about the preferences of others? |
@op You obviously spend time on DIYAudio, where FR drivers are a standard go to. Why do you present this info as though none of us have ever heard a pair? Most of have been there, done that. Many times over. Good for you that they are a part of your journey. But please, stop speaking to us all as though we have never heard a pair. And how many FR drivers have you listened to? In properly executed enclosures? Stop, just please, stop with the redundant and repetitive posts. |
Is it possible to have a thread without anyone mentioning Tekton? Its like hearing your Ring Doorbell alert you to motion at your front door, you race to the door in expectation of a beautiful Amazon Box but instead you find someone left a dog turd in a brown paper bag. A reference turd. And the dog threatens to sue you for the tort of conversion. Hilarious and spot on! Why anyone would totally mess up a great Ken Griffey Jr. story I’ll never know! |
Lets keep it real here folks Take Wilson’s top line speakers. Superior to my Seas Thors? How ? In what regard?? Bigger sound/more spl= plays louder? Yes Wislon’s have more spl. And big deal, the Vandersteen’s play louder, What are we really after here in speakers? Loudness? Or fidelity?? You tell me. Seas Excel line (minus their Crescendo tweeter) is the real deal. And the DavidLouis smacks down the Thors. So I know as a fact the DL VX* will smash your box/xover speaker in every spec, except the loudness thing. Klipsche Horn, sure it plays very loud. But again , what is the only essential important criteria in a speaker?? Of course none of you know the answer The answer was tanged on the 1979 Philips speakers, called **HIgh Fidelity* This is what a speaker purpose is,, and nothing else. **soundstage/presence/bass, highs/details/warm/separation/3D effect*** baloney The only word that describes a speaker’s success or less than is Fidelity. Which was being made in Chicago and Berlin , 1920's. New (low sens/xovers) is not always better, in this case, its not. WE are going full circle. Beginnings wide band, we will end wide band. |
What's the question?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So we all attend a local audiohiple club meeting. Sponsor has Wilson or vandersteen, Thiel, maybe its the Sonus Faber at the hosts listening room. Everyone is like **oooo, ahhhh, very nice sound..*** But on the way home and next day, we hear tid bits like **I loved everything about our friends ssytem, but the speakers were a bit muddy...*** How often have we heard that? So where's the Reference point speaker?? WE needa Reference Speaker. The only speaker that qualifies to my 40 yrs exp is a high quality wide band, which all began in the 1920's Chicago and Berlin. I can tell you any Wilson speaker after a day or 2 is going to grate on my nerves and I'm going to scream,,**Give me back my wide bands!!!** |
Reference speakers are speakers others have access to. It doesn't have to be a great speaker, it has to be a reference. If your referring to HIGH quality HiFi, there is no reference. There is a matter of opinion and certain preferences about what people like. Nothing more nothing less. The person who has hearing loss from 8K and gone by 12K is NOT going give a hoot about 25khz speakers other than to look at..:-) There is more than one standard being met here too. Looking like something made from surplus cargo containers AND looking like crap isn't in the cards either.. I like what I LIKE. A lot of speakers today are really functional and sound fantastic but are so UGLY. You can't put enough lipstick on some of these designs, no different with great sounding speakers of old to.. JUST UGLY and big. There are reasons for speaker grills. :-) I KEEP hearing this 1920s rant about Chicago and Berlin, 101 year later OP. A reference speaker would NEVER be hard to find or difficult to build. It's a reference. 40hz to18khz Maybe something like a JBL100 without the crazy cost (NOW). It's not a perfect speaker it's a reference.. Regards |
stringreen5,988 posts09-18-2021 8:54pmTo these ears what horns do better than most is their ability to get closer to the dynamics of live music. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Of course a big expensive world class horn system is w/o a doubt the only true Reference Point Speaker. Thing here is, how many of us will ever get a opportunity to hear sucha system? And how many of us here have the cash to afford a horn system of that Reference Point quality? For these 2 reasons and many others, horns are disqualified as being chosen as Reference Point. So the next best thing , is.....Wide Banders. WE have to be realistic here. All members have access to a wide bander. There are 3-4 reasons why WBers are the chosen speaker for being designated Reference Point. |
jd555 posts09-19-2021 1:04amOp i like where you going with this but maybe we should collectively pick ten attributes that make the best reference point and and always try to reference those when describing equipment. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Great jd55 So at least you and a few others are on board. Others here want to re-rail this train. Hey new ideas throughtout history always had the resistors, the deniers.. Then 100 yrs later the original idea pops up again, and only then, finds acceptance. The 1929 movie theater huge wide bands were the *bombs* of their day. You had no boxes with drivers of low sens /xovers... Then you can follow the history of speakers through the decades. I wonder had we wide bands on display in our audio shops back in the 70’s/80’s, would some of us chosen WBers over low sens types?? THere were the Jensen’s. in the late 50’s/60’s, But I’ve not heard them. And of course we should not forget the EV/Jensen horns around this time. Some folks still hold onto these old high quality speakers and believe they are as good as it gets. As good as these EV/Jensen wide bands/horns may be, I believe the new high tech wide bands developed in china today, are far superior to these old standards. 10 characteristics/qualities that designate WBers as The Reference Point Speaker. I’ve given most of the top reasons why WBers have earned this emminent award. The 1 most critical factor is ~~~Midrange~~ Fq’s say 300hz-say...3khz... based on my limited exp, these new WBers seem to present music like no box/xover is able to voice. HIgher sensitivity + perfect midrange gives WBers a unique and distinctive place in speaker techology. We have gone full circle, What began as wide banders in Chicago and Berlin , 1929, now has come fulll cicrle back to WBers, as the speaker of choice for high fidelity. High Sens WBers are super amp friendly , La Creme de la creame is under 9 oclock gain on your amp. This is when your amp is not pushing, most happy. WBers with their 92db+ sensitivity allows the musica to be gently coaxed from the amplifier, YOu can actually feel how smooth and delicate is the music played overa WBer speaker vs a box/xover low sens type, The ones in your listening room. You only imagine you've heard your music via the low sens speakers in your system. You've been led astray. Its alla delusion. When you acutally hear a high tech high sens WBer, your ears will be opened, you will hear the light-ness of beautiful music. Especially you jazz fan.s The new high tech WBers is the ONLY speaker you should consider, if you really want to exp lifelike vocals, gorgeous midrange colors, zero dis-coloration (-distortion/= fatigue) For my classical music, now finally all the notes are being fully represented in details and dynamics. The Seas Thors are a joke next to the new high tech WBers. Troels Gravesen's incredible high tech designs are jokes next to a high tech WBers. All has to do with higher sens and midrange. Scanspeak and Seas are hadicaped in both depts next to a WBer. |
Higher sensitivity always , in the end gane, wins out. baddest gun slinger in the old wild west WBer 8’s What was once dead and forgotten, buried neath a pile of box/xover/low sens/commercialized/consumerized LOUD speakers,,has now been reborn, like the Phoenix in the fires. Midrangemidrantgemidrange All 3 levels of mids fully represented in glorious colors as per the studio recording. A feat your box speakers can't perform. |
OK you say,, well any speaker can play light jazz, like Diana Krall, Sophie Milman. Give us soem full swing blues 'OK You got it Here you will hear the DLVX8 in more complex swing orchestra. I try to further my argument in my case that the new high tech wide banders TB2145 and DLVX* have set the standards for judging all box/xover type speakers. Try to make it through the full 15 minutes. Trust me, the speakers sound exactly as you hear them in this video,. Just pure easy midrange, extremely neutral , and naturally musical. The labs in Chicago/Berlin making these wide bands were the best speaker engineers ever. These guys were like the Einsteins of speaker designs. WE should all follow their lead. Thankfully 2 labs in china did just that. Follow the high fidelity. Both labs deserve the highest awards in all things audio. For w'/o high fidelity speakers, your $$$$$$ amp is worth no more than ,,,Low Fidelity. . Who wants low fidelity? Such as Bose and B&W's type sound. Wilson's are only a step above B&W. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjKBJ90-7M0 |
Yes open baffle, single driver, no crossover speakers have a unique sound. No one is denying that. I take it you like that sound and it’s the sound you use to measure other speakers by. OK I have no issue with that. Open baffles do some things really well . OK lets look at where you are coming from and the assumptions you state are facts. I mean if we are all seeking true high fidelity its high time to face the facts of 1) bigger is not better This isn’t necessarily true even in the wide band arena. The larger the baffle the more bass you’ll get. Increased bass response is a good thing in a reference speaker 2) throwing money at a speaker will result in great sound Not untrue but typically better components result in better sounding components. There is a 6moons post about building a high end system for $1000 using an open baffle speaker. Since the article was posted the speaker manufacture has started using more expensive drivers which resulted in better sound. 3) thinking outside the box is the creative approach to discovering high fidelity. I can’t agree more but that also includes other speaker designs. 4) a lab name means nothing when heard next to a high tech wide band.(We can lay this blame at Sterophiles feet) Here’s the rub. This statement is vague, mostly untrue and only undermines the purpose of the post. Magazine reviewers are paid by the word and a poor review could cut them off from that manufactures products is true but they also have an audience of listeners who actually pay them and if a product was truly that superior and they didn’t report it they would be out of business If there was ever was truly such a thing as a reference speaker it would probably be the Rogers LS3/5A. It was used in recording studios by the engineers who actually recorded the music you’re listening too. Playback through the Rogers would be a baseline / reference. From how it originally sounded to how it sounds on the new speakers. I get it you are excited but most of us have already been there, done that and moved on. Repeatedly posting something on multiple threads doesn’t make it so. |
What does this post even mean? What reference? Just buy what sounds good to you....who cares what anyone else thinks is a reference. The only reference that exists is what someone heard with their own ears at a studio....remember, the sound was being played through "monitor speakers", none of which were universally used...therefore, your reference is a hard target to hit, and your ears are different than the person that was actually in the studio...so what is the point in searching for some imaginary reference...if a speaker sounds like sh#t to you, but sounds great to someone else, it is still sh#t, vice versa...it is you that needs to be satisfied. |
