Diy Question thread

Is this different to resistivity and if so, how?

 

Brilliant Thorsten, only thing is I've heard it all before. You place much weight on a small part of the equation. I guess we're both as stubborn as each other, which of course means we each see the others opinion as wrong on this matter.

Excellent then. We do agree on something.

 

I have had this discussion with T before and I think it boils down to this. If you want truthfulness to the actual recording, then you need to eliminate room interaction as much as possible. Highly directive speakers do this. Especially those with an even off-axis response. This is brilliant for studio quality control monitors.

BUT, this does not mean you are hearing the recording as intended by the artist or engineers. When the recordings are made they expect a certain amount of room interaction such as high frequency reflections. From our understanding of how our mind hears things, we can create the conditions such that you can have this expected room interaction and still maintain the ability to hear every detail and all that in the recording.

So really when T starts on about speakers not being competently designed... I think he should really only say this when one specifically states they want truthfulness to the recording, not necessarily what was intended to be heard.

 

I think Chord cables are quite neutral, they seem to have a concistent performance in variable systems.

 

Larger drivers are another helpful ideal, as they couple to the room more effectively giving more direct sound over a wider area.
Hence the reason the larger 10"/12"/15" Tannoys seem less affected in the Mid/treble by room interaction, with superb snap and punch in the midbass, though they rely on room size and distance for decent low bass.

 

Simon,

Well, we have around four general options as to how a recording went....

1) Basically untouched - direct minimalist recordings

2) Engineered using acoustically treated control rooms with large, fairly directional studio monitors

3) Engineered using nearfield monitoring

4) Engineered in acoustically live rooms using "HiFi" Speakers and other oddbals (omni's etc.).

Of the above 1 to 3 (which covers probably 70% + of all recorded music) require normally that room influences are minimised if wewant to hear what was intended. In case 4 all bets are off (of course).

We can minimise the room interactions at the source (speaker) or by treating the room.

But as said, if someone likes their Mahler served with extra reverb sauce who am I to argue with it? Of course, fidelity of any concept or level it is not, but if it is enjoyed.

In my case having spend quite a few formative years in pro-audio and recording I prefer "studio monitor" style sound most of the time (more in the line of Urei, Tannoy, TAD and MEG though and not in the lines of PMC, ATC and BBC).

Ciao T

 

I remember an article on the singer Fish, he talked a little about his home studio, and how he would listen to his finnished work on his home stereo, Quad 606 with MF speakers.

I think Paul Hardcastle also used to do this ? with little Tannoy reds and technics amplifier.

Not many studio monitors are that suitable for home listening are they? I though they were designed as tools which highlight detail etc so the engineer can hear any problems regardless of how musical, I found the Yam NS 10m quite pathetic in the domestic enviroment.
I remember the early 90's when ATC, Tannoy DMT , Yamaha and certain PMC's became the exception and started following in the B&W Kef Spendor footprints, though the Tannoy and Yamahas needed amplification of the oposite type to the others.
(I also remember something about the active ATC being held back by the amplifiers, but confess the passives were being driven with around £10k plus of Krell if memory serves correct)

Nowadays we are starting to develop room EQ with Tact and a few others bringing some benefit to the consumer market.
Loudspeakers will be starting to get a lot less complicated to interface with the amplification and room EQ developements in the next few years I guess.

 

This reminds me of a discusion on High end source , where the discusion was about what was the best actual audiophile product.

Most were saying the master tapes with their superior resolution was the ultimate, and better than the final vinyl copy, but they failed to realise that the master tape has to be engineered and that the actual copy on vinyl is what the band and sound engineer were after.

 

Thorsten's own particular speakers which imbodies his whole philosophy use a full range driver with a horn loaded HF and monopole subs.

My own opinion is that fullrange systems are entirely unsuitable for reproducing bass, mid and partial treble frequencies - if your looking for low distortion both linear and non linear like a truely accurate system would provide.

There's a whole host of other 'points' that make something of joke out of just how seriously Thorsten takes himself.

Like I've already said, I'm quite sure that what I have right now measures better than Thorstens effort in a number of area's and in terms of 'ideal'. The sound? Who knows.

 

Hi,

Your own opinion.

And I am certain (I merely need to look at the design) it measures rather poorely in other areas.

Design is a tradeoff, always.

The 64,000 Dollar question is which tradeoffs get us closer to the truth and equally closer to what are looking for sonically....

Ciao T

 

Right back at you. Besides its common knowledge that fullrangers are deficient in the area of distortion, not my opinion. This was my opinion; fullrangers are unsuitable for 'accurate' loudspeakers.

Finally something we can agree on.

You already know that balancing distortions of different kinds (cabinet, driver, room etc.) is a delicate balancing act with no 'right' way that can be applied in a broad and general fashion.

Have you considered that I use a comprehensively treated room with unconventional digital filtering for both the loudspeaker and the room? Its a compromise but allows me to embrace other stong points and balance the negatives with treatments to achieve an overall strong performing system compared to one that has more eggs in a smaller number of baskets.

So why proclaim your recipe is closer to accurate than any other competant brew? We both know that measurable accuracy and the realism of the fascimilie are not completely coincidental, although I place quite a lot of faith in the measured performance of my speakers.

 

T, engineered and mastered are two different things (at least as far as the label goes). I am in no doubt that for no.1 your highly directional speakers will be great. They should take you right into the venue.

As for the rest though, it does not seem common practice to master modern recordings on large 'studio monitors'. Even less common is mastering on nearfields.

Nearly every high end mastering studio I have seen uses high end hi-fi in a treated room. They of course have studio monitors on hand for reference and then they take it to the car and home and the i-plod to check how well it translates. Some use oddball types but generally those that specialise in a certain type of music.

The truth of course is that all these systems get used to master, but it seems to me that the hi end hi-fi is the main tool of choice and the other options just pull the recording in one way or another until it sounds good on those as well.

As you know, I am playing with OB’s at the moment, but I will insist on using some room treatment to deal with the back-wave of the thing and am aiming for reasonably wide dispersion treble with a smooth off-axis.

I don’t see that MEG’s treble and midrange can be that directive either, when it is a small dome tweeter and mid without waveguide. I have not checked the spec though admittedly.

BTW I saw a step-response for the RL900 the other day. Quite interestingly the B&W 800 thing performed better in this area!

 

By the way are you free this weekend or next? (if I haven’t annoyed you too much )

 

Hi,

This "common knowledge" seems right up with some other items of common knowledge that are utterly wrong.

The level of distortion in a driver mainly depends on motor design. The Driver I use has 1/" linear throw (peak/peak) with a cone just a little shy of 8" cone diameter. You need a lot of SPL before distortion becomes significant.

As always, the key is implementation, not principle.

Well, one can observe how large the distance between what one considers "ideal" and what one has is and draw conclusions. My Full Rangers have a reasonable dynamic range without obvious distortion, an excellent behaviour where directivity is concerned, are time coherent (and do reasonably decent square waves), freedom from cabinet colorations, minimised room interactions etc.

In other words, they come mightly close to requirements I set out ages ago over on the Single Driver Site.....

Yes. I did that in the mid 90's for a friends studio even involving similar midrange drivers to those you use. And no, I do not feel it was/is as good as a good quality full range setup, but it had to answer greater SPL requirements than my home system, due to a larger and fairly dead (and thus absorbent) room where you needed a lot more SPL from the speakers than I do.

Because, as it so happens, it is.... :MILD:

L8er T

 

After reading numerous posts concerning the merits or not of PMC monitors over all other transducers, £250 CD players and various ic's I would like to make a few points.

I do have some basic knowledge of electronics and I have designed and built a pair of speakers using the Manger Bending Wave Transducer. In my opinion they sound stunning, they make other speakers I have compared them against sound ponderously slow, and false, including PMC OB1's. The PMC's had great base in the demo room I was in, however the mids were congested, vocals sounded muddled and vague. I have however not heard every speaker in production and therefore I am unable to state that they are the best. I have no way to afford the costlier designs on offer, the main reason I undertook to make my own, however I really like them. Zanash is free to offer his opinion on them as he has heard them.

All CD players do not sound the same. Fact. I find it hard to comprehend that anyone with an interest in music, recorded or live, would be unable to hear any difference between players. Obviously many players sound similar, but there is clear difference between Marantz and Naim, as an example. Although there are many things that can influence the music produced by transducers, some of them are hard to affect.
I doubt many people would enjoy listening to music in a recording studio all the time, I for one prefer to relax within comfortable surroundings at home. I therefore have to accept the shortcomings of any room I wish to use for listening pleasure. The fact that changing the room may have a larger effect on the quality of sound than changing the cable, does not negate the fact that changing the cable could have a positive effect on the sound. Some thing else that affects the perceived quality of music is the mental and physical state of each person listening. The senses we posses are not constant in their sensitivity, mild dehydration can affect the hearing. The mood you are in will have a dramatic effect on your perception. Each person has a different set of ears, and a unique brain. Likewise people have diverse opinions of the ideal soundin relation to timing, rhythm, width & depth of the sound stage etc. Therefore imo there are more important factors to maximum enjoyment then just the shape of the room.

All cables do not sound the same. Fact. Again it takes little effort to test this out.
Zanash provided me with a 5 way mains lead, it had an obvious effect on each part of the chain it was connected to. I was also able to try some of his ic's first his Ag-Ag and then his Au-Ag both were superior to the ones I was using and both sounded different. Swapping the Chord DIN ic from the Naim to two phono plugs and Zanash's ic proved to be a real eye opener ( should that be ear ?) His cables are superior to much of what is available on the high street, and at a very reasonable cost, thus they represent stunning value for money. If this sounds like a plug for him it's not meant to. I am attempting to illustrate a point, all audiophiles do not spend a fortune on designer cables, some spend very little on a cable that was designed to sound very good. I for one preferred the sound of 2.5mm twin & earth to 79 strand speaker cable with my Ruark Sabres.

You only need to open your ears and your mind and all will become clear.

 

resistivity is the inverse of conductivity whereas I haven't specified the length or csa of the material.

 

Using a single drive to cover such a large range is a good idea in terms of phase and tonality, it isn't however comparable, in terms of distortion, to a competant 3-way design using drivers to cover dedicated ranges, with a mid for the most important region and a conscious effort for flat power response.

IMD is particularly poor with fullrange/widerange drivers at anything approaching reasonable SPL's. Surely you've seen the test results scattered around the web? The implementation helps but drivers like the B200 sound substandard to me.

Mid 90's?

Your comments are largely invalid from my experiences. Digital filtering technology, power and quality has moved on in leaps and bounds since that time. And in particular, much advancement in time/amplitude based correction. Maybe revisit the whole thing and your opinion will be more relevant.

I've played around with virtually every kind of crossover you can imagine and in the same room spread over a set of two loudspeaker design that were somewhat related in specifics. Passive, analogue active IIR (both DCX2496 and DIY flavour circuits), FIR (using various windowing functions based around studio mastering EQ plugs and DEQX).Out of all these, I've settled on what sounds and measures best and without question its FIR filters which give a precise sound with large dynamics and near impeccable measured performance which is important to me because I believe in accuracy.

It sounds like we're both having fun eitherway so I'll leave it at that.

 

Hi,

The Driver I use has a LOT more excursion than your Midrange so it does not need to be "protected" from bass. Past that, I am of course running a 3-Way system, however the "midrange" operates without filter....

To me as well, hence I do not use drivers like the B200....

The X-Over used then was BSS's top of the range. It is still competetive against current readily available digital crossovers and in fact has ALL the functionality (time alignment, multiple parametric EQ's per channel) found in current day designs. Only the price has dropped significantly since then.

If you do the whole crossover on a PC (or Mac) you can improve on this, but only at significant issues around usability and all around sound quality.

Yup.

L8er T

 

I was talking about distortion not excursion.

Not comparable at all if this is what your referring to:

http://www.bssaudio.com/includes/product_sheet_include.aspx?product_id=30

These are what I use:

DEQX
http://www.deqx.com/pdc26.html

And DRC:
http://drc-fir.sourceforge.net/

The BSS is inferior in all area's. As I've said already, the two implementations are not comparable so you can't judge by what you've already tried.

I don't use the PC XO anymore due to reliability and related sound quality issues.

 

Hi,

But surely you realise that the main mode of distortion in moving coil drivers relates directly to excursion, the other main sources relate to eddy current distortion which is minimised in my drivers due to a number of reasons inherently.

If that is what you use the BSS I used all these years ago is DEFINITLY comparable. It cannot do as complex driver equalisation, but the general principles and implementation is very comparable.

And the BSS unit I used was different, build to much higher standards than what is sold currently by BSS (it cost around £ 3,500 at the time IIRC!).

As said, compared to any other hardware crossover the BSS still compares well, nearly 10 years later.

Ciao T