Speaker Analysis for Armchair Critics


Hello everyone,
There’s a very important discipline called "Speaker Analysis" or "Speaker Testing" which though complicated, is brilliantly illustrated in this breakdown of the B&W 685.


http://www.audioexcite.com/?page_id=6070

Speaker analysis is to measure each of the components both separately and as they come together in a complete system. It is a part of creating a new loudspeaker, but it can also be used to analyze an existing speaker, to understand it and perhaps to make it better.  I prefer the term Analysis because it better reflects that the goal is not merely quality assurance, but to build a complete electro acoustical understanding of the system as a whole so changes can be considered, and their final results predicted.


This particular article does just that, and comes up with a couple of suggestions for re-working the crossover to end up with hopefully a better end result. At the very least, it is a significantly different speaker at the end, and achieves a far greater level of change than cables can.


I share this with all of you just as an example of the work that goes into making a loudspeaker from parts, and the tools, and how much of what we hear has to do with choices made in the crossover.


Best,

Erik
erik_squires

Showing 7 responses by tomic601

@gdnrbob  so right, opting out just hurts the contribution centered community and learning.....but I get the thick skin sometimes required....
ask yourself are you learning anything from the troll?

my speaker designer, engineer, passionate listener and frugal Dutch American has listened to both of his creations, in my room....oh ya, it hits the mark....but because we are Kaizen warriors, the mindeset is that EVERYTHING can be improved...so we toil....and enjoy the music and the Journey....

btw, my favorite mystical bird is the Kingfisher 
teachable moment ( only because i don’t consider you a troll ), the room and room nodes and modes are already another form of EQ, so I and others are doing our best to fix those with just 11 bands of EQ below 120 HZ, let whatever it is the artist/producer/engineer sought shine thru....

like I said, unamplified is the reference and yes, I am a recording engineer in both the high speed tape and digital domains.

back to our regular programming....
my signature is flat to the last band on the eleven band analog bass EQ with a Q of .72, unless I am listening to Steely Dan: Two Against Nature, then i tweak it back a whisker....

seriously Eric..keep doing your thing, learning, building speakers, etc....” Nolite te Bastardes Carrborund !” but also, don’t feed them....
6db per octave slopes since 1977, half a million sold, real systems design vs just catalog shopping components, etc....

and the ability to visually see cone breakup and non-pistonic behavior.....the cat stopped chasing the tail long ago....The Wizard of Hanford. There are a few other wizards at work also, many so humble they admit they don’t ( as yet ) know everything....
like I said, ( and will modify here ) ignore ignorant trolls and Dumpsterfire...


The cat thinks the objective is to chase and eventually catch the tail, so chasing is seen as productive design work...

start with the origin acoustic event
see how ya do at reproducing that
correlate that to measurements and distortions that matter
design to a price point. Nobody, even Gary K has an unlimited budget, nobody.

design the trade space , real engineering is about trade space management and cost as an independant variable

graduate to learning a bit about how humans hear, acoustic space on the origin event end and the reproduction end, buy some VERY expensive microphones, test equipment, chamber.. Keep listening to live music evey week...

spend most of your adult life chasing the grail....fun ;-) ignore moronic trolls