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  »  New  About speakers Imbedded Macro-Positioning...  Big room AEZ...  Playback Listening  Forum     15  187189  05-16-2007
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
haralanov


Bulgaria
Posts 130
Joined on 05-20-2008

Post #: 21
Post ID: 16740
Reply to: 16738
Slightly different perspective on the subject
fiogf49gjkf0d
 Romy the Cat wrote:
For sure the tweeter do bring some own positive element to sound as well. It is hard to describe what they do. They for sure add transients, bite to HF, nice extension of MF overtones but the most important they produce the smooth and what I usually call “lubricated” enter and exit for mid range tones. The HF, if they compliment MF properly, do the same job – they create proper, more natural, more auditably-palatable entry and exit for MF into auditable space. They sort of the lubricate the MF and make MF it interact with room more naturally and more discriminatively.

Yes, Romy, you described it very well, and it is perfectly normal to happen. Transient response is function of frequency and phase response and nobody could have realistic sounding transients if he has limitation of the frequency response. The tweeters even do some more – they extend the color spectrum of the acoustic system’s sound. Every midrange driver has a tendency to lack the color discrimination in its upper working range (due to different resonances inside its structure) and it makes Amati and Stradivari violins (just for an example) to have the same sound signature due to the lack of tonal complexity when reproducing their specific overtones. And if the frequency response is limited, they could even sound like violas! If the overtones are screwed in some way (and there are thousands of things in the drivers and the way the drivers are used, that violate overtone’s complex structure) then the sound gets very specific with its own taste, which is added to all of the reproduced sound. Speakers are just dead mechanical devices with no own intelligence, so they blindly add/distract their own taste and the really bad thing is they do it every time and always in the same way. The tweeter helps a lot, it injects a lot of color nuances, but only if the midrange channel has the potential to do some things correct. Besides that, every midrange/widerange driver blocks the very fine nuances in the decay of the instruments – without reproducing them, the brain could always recognize the sound is not real, but it is reproduced. It directly affects the musicality of the system, because it adds a lot of bricks and fog on the way of the communication bridge between the system and the listener, as something invisible just stays in front of the music and blocks the authentity of its messages.

decay without tweeter.JPG

So the tweeter is always needed. The bad thing is it deforms (in 99,9999999999999999999% of the cases) the perfectly round audio window, formed by the midrange channel and "pull" some notes sometimes at its axis. These are often the notes that have their fundamentals at the upper working range of the midrange channel. The higher the midrange channel extends (but only if it has good tonal complexity in its upper range!!), the less prominent that effect is. Doing this, it deforms the coordinate system of the sound field and mainly affects its deepness and unlimited openness. It could be very easily detected by just listening only one of the channels of a given stereo system. But first of all, I have to note this cannot happen if the midrange/widerange channel is not able to project that coordinate system. Everything depends on it. In the world of direct radiators it is mainly a matter of size of the driver. 8” widerange could not even dream for open space presentation, despite the fact it can have mind boggling tone. Just an example:
 
IMG_4153.jpg
 
Not even 10” – it could present the correct size of the images, but there is still a lack of the original space around these images. 12” – this is another world, but only if made properly. There are no 12” widerange drivers made commercially that can do this, so unfortunately no one can understand what I’m talking about. About the world of horns – I do not know – I just don’t have enough experience, but I suppose there is a minimum diameter of the horn’s throat (just like there is minimum size of the voice coil of direct radiators) in order to be able to project that space.
 
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I presume, in context of the conversion in this thread, you are not talking about switch off one of the Macondo’s stereo channels but rather switch off one of the Macondo’s HF channels.

No, no, I’m talking just about switching off one of the Macondo’s stereo channels – not the tweeter of one of the main channels. This is the only way to know the true capabilities of your driver’s setup and its absolute performance and it is the most difficult test for ANY system to pass.
So what do you hear after you switch off one of the stereo channels? Do you feel any collapsing of sound and especially the scale of sound? Do you feel that the sound is pushed inside your midrange horn? Do you feel the size of the instruments has shrunk down? Does the sound still breathes freely in the air? Are you still able to feel the original acoustic atmosphere of the recordings or you now have the feeling that the sound is just in front of you inside your room?

Best of all,
P. Haralanov



"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -A.E.
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,131
Joined on 05-27-2004

Post #: 22
Post ID: 16741
Reply to: 16740
Switch off one of the stereo channels…
fiogf49gjkf0d
 haralanov wrote:
So the tweeter is always needed. The bad thing is it deforms (in 99,9999999999999999999% of the cases) the perfectly round audio window, formed by the midrange channel and "pull" some notes sometimes at its axis. These are often the notes that have their fundamentals at the upper working range of the midrange channel. The higher the midrange channel extends (but only if it has good tonal complexity in its upper range!!), the less prominent that effect is. Doing this, it deforms the coordinate system of the sound field and mainly affects its deepness and unlimited openness. It could be very easily detected by just listening only one of the channels of a given stereo system. But first of all, I have to note this cannot happen if the midrange/widerange channel is not able to project that coordinate system. Everything depends on it. In the world of direct radiators it is mainly a matter of size of the driver. 8” widerange could not even dream for open space presentation, despite the fact it can have mind boggling tone. …. Not even 10” – it could present the correct size of the images, but there is still a lack of the original space around these images. 12” – this is another world, but only if made properly. There are no 12” widerange drivers made commercially that can do this, so unfortunately no one can understand what I’m talking about. About the world of horns – I do not know – I just don’t have enough experience, but I suppose there is a minimum diameter of the horn’s throat (just like there is minimum size of the voice coil of direct radiators) in order to be able to project that space.
  
I am not familiar with those types of drivers and with the results they are able to show. I know that that there are some people (not in US) who tend to use open baffles and large light drivers with no suspension but I do not know what results they are getting from it.
 haralanov wrote:
No, no, I’m talking just about switching off one of the Macondo’s stereo channels – not the tweeter of one of the main channels. This is the only way to know the true capabilities of your driver’s setup and its absolute performance and it is the most difficult test for ANY system to pass.
So what do you hear after you switch off one of the stereo channels? Do you feel any collapsing of sound and especially the scale of sound? Do you feel that the sound is pushed inside your midrange horn? Do you feel the size of the instruments has shrunk down? Does the sound still breathes freely in the air? Are you still able to feel the original acoustic atmosphere of the recordings or you now have the feeling that the sound is just in front of you inside your room?

Of cause when we set up sound of loudspeaker we deal with only one right or left channel.  Regarding the switching from full stereo to mono by only from right or left channels then it is slightly from different plot. Of cause I have “collapsing of sound and especially the scale of sound” but it only happened for my stereo listening position.  To use a single speaker and to get proper mono sound it requires having the speaker to be positioned in the room differently. Since I do not move the speakers when I go mono I do prefer to have mono coming from both right and left channels. I know there are people who love to preach that it is impossible to get proper mono from stereo installation but I disagree and I very much prefer mono coming from both speakers in my room. I am talking about mono sound not accidently as I do not feel that only right or only left channels of stereo sound is worthy  in most of the cases.
 
The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
haralanov


Bulgaria
Posts 130
Joined on 05-20-2008

Post #: 23
Post ID: 16742
Reply to: 16741
Some more questions
fiogf49gjkf0d
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I am not familiar with those types of drivers and with the results they are able to show.

Yes, but you are familiar with the compression driver and horns. How could somebody control the size of the audio window, formed by his midrange channel, using horns? If I remember correctly, you chose your Vitavox S2 driver because of its tone, so you deal with a fixed diameter of the horn’s throat (that means fixed size of the audio window, without option to be controlled). But is it optimal? How could one adjust it without changing the compression driver? I also remember you decided to load it in 440Hz horn based on the frequency range it will play after the high-passing. But is the size of that 440Hz horn enough to reveal the background of the sound? Yes, I realize the bigger the horn, the worse it plays in the upper part of its range, but how could one adjust all those contradicting variables by just using given compression driver in a given horn?

 Romy the Cat wrote:
I know that that there are some people (not in US) who tend to use open baffles and large light drivers with no suspension but I do not know what results they are getting from it.

I know what their results are – too much energy in the midrange, lack of tonal complexity in the upper midrange, bad HFs and no bass. I will be very surprised if somebody demonstrate me some different sound than the above mentioned description when using only one driver, no matter its size. In addition, drivers with no suspension do not have tone - the sound is always too empty. I personally use 12” for my main widerange channel and at the same time I’m using 2x15” in symmetric configuration to get the energy in the lower midrange and upper bass (they are not finished yet), and now I’m building 4 pcs of 23” paper coned drivers to cover the bass range with proper authority and scale. Single 12” in OB is nothing more than just a naïve fantasy if one is looking for really full scale sound.

 Romy the Cat wrote:
Of cause I have “collapsing of sound and especially the scale of sound” but it only happened for my stereo listening position.  To use a single speaker and to get proper mono sound it requires having the speaker to be positioned in the room differently.

It doesn’t have to happen, despite the current positioning of one of your stereo channels. Actually it doesn’t have to happen even if that channel is put in the corner. Do you think there is a position in your room where that channel will present the sound in a way that you won’t be able to feel any deficiency of the recreated space?



"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -A.E.
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,131
Joined on 05-27-2004

Post #: 24
Post ID: 16743
Reply to: 16742
Sorry, I do not follow your.
fiogf49gjkf0d
 haralanov wrote:
Yes, but you are familiar with the compression driver and horns. How could somebody control the size of the audio window, formed by his midrange channel, using horns? If I remember correctly, you chose your Vitavox S2 driver because of its tone, so you deal with a fixed diameter of the horn’s throat (that means fixed size of the audio window, without option to be controlled). But is it optimal? How could one adjust it without changing the compression driver? I also remember you decided to load it in 440Hz horn based on the frequency range it will play after the high-passing. But is the size of that 440Hz horn enough to reveal the background of the sound? Yes, I realize the bigger the horn, the worse it plays in the upper part of its range, but how could one adjust all those contradicting variables by just using given compression driver in a given horn?

Sorry, I am not following what you are trying to say. My familiarity with compression drivers has nothing to do with it and my selection of 440Hz horn for S2 was because the S2 specifics not because my consideration of audio window. The term “audio window” – we need to define what it is as I think you and me use different definition what audio window is. In my view audio window is not geometrical term and I do not work on “shaping” it.  

 haralanov wrote:

It doesn’t have to happen, despite the current positioning of one of your stereo channels. Actually it doesn’t have to happen even if that channel is put in the corner. Do you think there is a position in your room where that channel will present the sound in a way that you won’t be able to feel any deficiency of the recreated space?

Oh, yes, it would not happened if speakers are located in corners but my speakers are very much not in the corners but in the mid of the room. I do not like the corners positioning, even for corner-loaded speakers and it always flatten out the back wall. Again, I am not following what you are trying to say. With disconnect one of the channel in my configuration I do lose a lot of “space” but I do not consider it as something wrong. This is absolutely normal in my case as my room and my entire listening environment are built around a pair of speakers.  I do not use single left or right channels, unless I calibrate measure or test. With two channels on I feel that I have no problem with “recreated space deficiency”. If I had objective to drive my room from one channel it would be completely different design a but I have no such objectives.

Rgs, the Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
haralanov


Bulgaria
Posts 130
Joined on 05-20-2008

Post #: 25
Post ID: 16744
Reply to: 16743
OK, then follow me :-)
fiogf49gjkf0d
 Romy the Cat wrote:
With two channels on I feel that I have no problem with "recreated space deficiency"

Romy, I have never said you have to listen to only one channel during your regular listening sessions. I just mentioned it is the most difficult TEST to pass for any system, including your Macondo. Of course you will listen at both of your stereo channels. But their absolute performance strongly depends on the quality of your left and right channel alone. So if they do the things I already mentioned several times, the owner of these stereo channels will experience different, much more advanced type of recreated reality (which could NEVER be achieved if the channels have any deficiency of “space” when listened separately, no matter the room integration efforts and no matter if they are placed according to DPoLS rules)
 
 Romy the Cat wrote:
my selection of 440Hz horn for S2 was because the S2 specifics not because my consideration of audio window. The term "audio window" - we need to define what it is as I think you and me use different definition what audio window is.

“Audio window” – that is property of sound that belongs entirely to the reproduced sound and it is strongly system related. It doesn’t exist in reality (when listening live music), because in reality it is totally unlimited in size. Despite the fact it is sound related, it directly affects the musicality. I’m not a good descriptor of sound in context of English language, so I should give you very simple example of that playback’s related phenomena, despite the fact I am perfectly sure you already understood what I’m talking about. Take any accidental midrange driver and let your amplifier to feed some signal to it. What you should hear is a sound pushed inside a very tiny spot – that’s what I call small “audio window”. As I already gave an association somewhere within your site – it is the same like watching a movie on the display of your mobile phone – you get the idea of the event, but it is totally artificial – you are completely disabled to feel the physical aspect of the event. So there is a critical size of that “window” and if it is not achieved, one can never have the physical aspect and the greatness of a given recorded musical event. The physical aspect makes the recreated event believable and real, so if the listener could not get in touch with it, he cannot feel that physical directness of the musical messages, because he rather feels the sound like a the memory of the music popping up from the "head" of his acoustic system, but not the super expressiveness of the music. So the system should be able to reproduce the music with the same amplitude as the originally performed music, in order to affect the listener in the same, and IF is possible – in even more influencing way.
So with improving the quality of the system, the audio window should get larger and larger, until it lose its meaning as a sound related artifact (in the best case scenario with top level acoustic systems) – it should be completely transparent window of unlimited size, that allows you to be and to feel like a part of the original music event. In other words – there should be no window at all. So until that window is part of the system’s type of sound presentation, we are faced with something artificial, which makes the reality not so believable and not so physical. Too pity that almost no one cares about that…


"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -A.E.
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Jorge
Austin TX
Posts 141
Joined on 10-17-2010

Post #: 26
Post ID: 16746
Reply to: 16744
Window vs Sound Stage
fiogf49gjkf0d
Part of setting up a system is listening to both channels independently,  they measure the same and sound the same,  but individually with a lower volume and punch,  and of course no stereo effect.

" the audio window should get larger and larger, until it lose its meaning as a sound related artifact (in the best case scenario with top level acoustic systems) – it should be completely transparent window of unlimited size, that allows you to be and to feel like a part of the original music event. "

Window vs Soundstage: I guess we are talking about the same thing,  the stereo effect caused by two speakers,  very simply put.  I have heard a lot of show systems with terrible soundstage,  a very small "window like" soundstage, even on very expensive speakers.  I always thought soundstage was more about the setting of the speakers, I guess with cone drivers, the size of the cone matters,  as described by Haralanov and Paul S (on the Natural Remedies thread).  I do know that if you set the speakers too far apart the soundstage breaks,  more powerful, dynamic, speakers seem to hold the soundstage toghether for bigger separation lengths, It would be logical that a bigger cone area would push more energy across the soundstage and hold it for longer and maybe even image better.

I dont know how familiar Haralanov and Paul S are with horns set ups,  but some of the bigest strenghs of horns is indeed power and dynamics,  I have seen stereo horn pairs hold soundstage for very long lenghts, I dont know how important this is for soundstage even though it could it seem irrelevant.

IMHO horns do have the ability to image better than direct radiators.  It seems that having a more focused output helps in avoiding early reflections of sound, so they work more like headphones.  Whatever it is, horns do image wonderfully.

Now, the effects I am describing,  like the Harmonizing effect and the Boiling point,  and indeed the Sphere like soundstage go way beyond the normally nice soundstage natural to any stereo system.  I would not really describe it as of unlimited size,  this can happen on most well set up systems:  The spherical soundstage is a completely  different effect,  it could even be seemingly smaller in size but what it does is expand to the front and rear. But the most definitve property is that instruments loose the extremes: you dont get highs or lows, just extended midrange.

What makes it spherical is that this mid-rangy sounding instruments jump out at you,  somehow aquire, or better yet: demand, their physical space on the soundstage.  It is spherical because you feel like you could bend downwards and look infinitely beyond the sphere,  on bass,  and also lets say stand up and get a clear view on top,  like the "poles" of this sphere being highs and lows,  not evidently present but seemingly infinite in extension.  Hard to describe,  but clear if you have heard it before.

I have been thinking for the last few days that maybe my initial description carries a terrible mistake:  The Harmonizing effect comes before the Spherical soundstage,  since this soundstage Sphere is a very important part of the Boilling effect.

Romy, can I get some confirmation from you on this.


Jorge
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Jorge
Austin TX
Posts 141
Joined on 10-17-2010

Post #: 27
Post ID: 16747
Reply to: 16746
Horn
fiogf49gjkf0d
Haralanov: I would love to try that amazing driver inside a horn! 
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,644
Joined on 10-12-2006

Post #: 28
Post ID: 16748
Reply to: 16747
Silver Bullet
fiogf49gjkf0d
Jorge, from your posts, I gather that you actually listen to your results.  So you realize there is no way to predict what Haralanov's driver would sound like in (your) horn...  except...

As Romy has said, "articulate", tone-rich direct, paper drivers are "delicate", and my experience suggests that NONE of the direct drivers I have narrowed down to would "work" loaded into the sort of horns I have seen around here, anyway.  Honestly, I have no idea why those little metal diaphragms "work" in horns, either, and IMO the Big Price one pays for the resultant "gains" is the blanching of Tone.  Hence, eg., the Injection Channel...

Yes, yes, direct radiators have their own problems, etc., etc.  But I would laugh myself half to death if that particular 8" "worked" in a horn!

Best regards,
Paul S
07-31-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,131
Joined on 05-27-2004

Post #: 29
Post ID: 16749
Reply to: 16746
The message vs. messaging.
fiogf49gjkf0d
 haralanov wrote:
Romy, I have never said you have to listen to only one channel during your regular listening sessions. I just mentioned it is the most difficult TEST to pass for any system, including your Macondo. Of course you will listen at both of your stereo channels. But their absolute performance strongly depends on the quality of your left and right channel alone.
 Sure, no one would argue and as I said when speaker is design, tested, calibrate or tuned then only one right or left channel is used. 
 haralanov wrote:
“Audio window” – that is property of sound that belongs entirely to the reproduced sound and it is strongly system related. It doesn’t exist in reality (when listening live music), because in reality it is totally unlimited in size. Despite the fact it is sound related, it directly affects the musicality. I’m not a good descriptor of sound in context of English language, so I should give you very simple example of that playback’s related phenomena, despite the fact I am perfectly sure you already understood what I’m talking about. Take any accidental midrange driver and let your amplifier to feed some signal to it. What you should hear is a sound pushed inside a very tiny spot – that’s what I call small “audio window”. As I already gave an association somewhere within your site – it is the same like watching a movie on the display of your mobile phone – you get the idea of the event, but it is totally artificial – you are completely disabled to feel the physical aspect of the event. So there is a critical size of that “window” and if it is not achieved, one can never have the physical aspect and the greatness of a given recorded musical event. The physical aspect makes the recreated event believable and real, so if the listener could not get in touch with it, he cannot feel that physical directness of the musical messages, because he rather feels the sound like a the memory of the music popping up from the "head" of his acoustic system, but not the super expressiveness of the music. So the system should be able to reproduce the music with the same amplitude as the originally performed music, in order to affect the listener in the same, and IF is possible – in even more influencing way.

So with improving the quality of the system, the audio window should get larger and larger, until it lose its meaning as a sound related artifact (in the best case scenario with top level acoustic systems) – it should be completely transparent window of unlimited size, that allows you to be and to feel like a part of the original music event. In other words – there should be no window at all. So until that window is part of the system’s type of sound presentation, we are faced with something artificial, which makes the reality not so believable and not so physical. Too pity that almost no one cares about that…
 OK, I do accept your premises of “audio window” but I am not sure why you associated it with MF and HF. From my point of view your definition of “Audio window” is more managed by upperbass and lower MF.  
 haralanov wrote:
I have been thinking for the last few days that maybe my initial description carries a terrible mistake:  The Harmonizing effect comes before the Spherical soundstage, since this soundstage Sphere is a very important part of the Boilling effect. Romy, can I get some confirmation from you on this.
  
I can’t provide any confirmation as I am not final destination. I however do feel that your Harmonizing effect, Spherical effect and soundstage shaping effects are a bit contrived effects. We can argue which goes after which but I think importance is not in sequencing but in relationship between listening practice and sound presentational geometry. The presentational geometry is very important but only for audio not for listening to the message.

The caT


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
08-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
haralanov


Bulgaria
Posts 130
Joined on 05-20-2008

Post #: 30
Post ID: 16750
Reply to: 16749
There is a difference between true reality and imaginary reality
fiogf49gjkf0d
 Jorge wrote:
some of the bigest strenghs of horns is indeed power and dynamics

Yes, you are right. Power – you have almost unlimited power. Dynamics – you have as much dynamics as you want. But there are a lot of associated problems with that kind of dynamics. The following illustration is taken by Wolfgang Klippel’s technical paper "Loudspeaker Nonlinearities – Causes, Parameters, Symptoms":

Wave steepening.jpg
 
As Paul perfectly put it in words – “trombone dynamics”! So that inherent steepening of the reproduced signal makes your brain to believe the sound is very dynamic. And it really happens! BUT – you have that kind of very dynamic behavior even when you play music where that dynamics are originally not there (!!) So how could this topology pass the musical messages in completely transparent way without affecting their original meaning? Yes, you already guessed – it cannot. You can also read Kondo’s observations on the subject:

 Hiroyasi Kondo wrote:
Cone speakers have sometimes been characterised as "boneless sounding", but such disadvantaes were elliminated by these improvemnts, and more over, this cone type achieves an obedient sound that cannot be gained from horn type units.


Notice how Vengerov starts to play at 0:25-0:40:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk6tqaPLp5M&feature=relmfu    "You start beeing heroic - which is unnecessary" - he said :-))

When the universe is at rest, I want to feel its calmness, not to feel my ass kicked by the horn's dynamics.
Tone? Where is the tone of the compression drivers/ horn combos? If there is no tone deficiency, then why one needs injection channels?

 Jorge wrote:
IMHO horns do have the ability to image better than direct radiators.

Jorge, I think you have heard no more than 5% (in the best case!) of what direct radiators are capable of in terms of Sound. One cannot judge for a given topology of speakers by just observing what is being offered to him by this stupid industry…
 
 Jorge wrote:
you dont get highs or lows, just extended midrange.

Actually if one hears the sound as extended midrange, this is also a sound artifact. The sound of the different instruments should be heard as a sound coming from different instruments and nothing else. When I listen trombone playing live, I do not hear how its midrange sounds like, I just hear the sound of the trombone. When I’m listening double bass playing live, I do not hear the bass or its overtones – I hear just the sound of the double bass. So the extended midrange effect should be there, but it has to be completely unnoticed by the ear/brain.

 Jorge wrote:
It is spherical because you feel like you could bend downwards and look infinitely beyond the sphere,  on bass,  and also lets say stand up and get a clear view on top,  like the "poles" of this sphere being highs and lows,  not evidently present but seemingly infinite in extension.  Hard to describe,  but clear if you have heard it before.

Yes, I know exactly what you are talking about, but there is a higher state of sound presentation that is much more interesting and musically involving.

 Romy the Cat wrote:
I am not sure why you associated it with MF and HF. From my point of view your definition of “Audio window” is more managed by upperbass and lower MF. 

Of course (!!) it is managed mainly by the upperbass and lower midrange, but it is deformed (the “space” is deformed, not the geometrical properties of the audio window; audio window is just responsible for the feeling of space to happen in the listener’s mind) by the tweeter (not by the HFs, but by the tweeter as a separate sound source). That’s the only reason why I put an accent on the tweeters and their integration. It is so important!

 Romy the Cat wrote:
The presentational geometry is very important but only for audio not for listening to the message.

The musical message is also affected, because its authentic value and magnitude of it expressiveness is also a function of the audio message. If it is not audio related, then all of the existing systems would be musical to the same amplitude as if the listener is listening live music, but unfortunately it is not the case...

 Romy the Cat wrote:
Sure, no one would argue and as I said when speaker is design, tested, calibrate or tuned then only one right or left channel is used. 

The whole point is/was and will be this:

 haralanov wrote:
So if they do the things I already mentioned several times, the owner of these stereo channels will experience different, much more advanced type of recreated reality (which could NEVER be achieved if the channels have any deficiency of “space” when listened separately, no matter the room integration efforts and no matter if they are placed according to DPoLS rules)



"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -A.E.
08-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
twogoodears


Italy
Posts 116
Joined on 03-26-2008

Post #: 31
Post ID: 16751
Reply to: 16740
Decay... my five cents...
fiogf49gjkf0d
Always following the interesting discussion, that's what I wrote/found in my system, at an earlier date (vs. haralonov's post # 21, dtd July 31st...) http://twogoodears.blogspot.com/2011/07/filling-glass.html... and
http://twogoodears.blogspot.com/2011/07/summertime-disk-tord-gustavsen-ensemble.html

... mmmhhh...


"Use your ears as your eyes" - Gertrude Stein

Stefano
08-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,131
Joined on 05-27-2004

Post #: 32
Post ID: 16752
Reply to: 16750
Monday morning….
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 haralanov wrote:
Yes, you are right. Power – you have almost unlimited power. Dynamics – you have as much dynamics as you want. But there are a lot of associated problems with that kind of dynamics. The following illustration is taken by Wolfgang Klippel’s technical paper "Loudspeaker Nonlinearities – Causes, Parameters, Symptoms":

I am not sure that I agree with Wolfgang Klippel. Yes, I heard that at high amplitude sound theoretically propagates faster, so at different temperature, pressure and horn geometry. However, how much practical significant it has I do not know. In the Wolfgang Klippel illustration the waves that are coming from compression driver are some kind of perfect waves that then get deform into changing geometry of the horn. I am sorry but it is ridicules. The deformation of the waves in a compression driver and in the phase plug is order of magnitude higher than anything that might take place in the horn. Also, the change of sound speed at high amplitude happens only at the highest amplitude. Perhaps this is why the high compression driver are not sound good. If a driver has 100% efficiency then 1W of electrical power is converted to 111dB of acoustic power. Yes, because of that or because other reasons (I believe into other reasons) the compression driver that do 111dB sensitively sound very bad. The drivers with moderate compression and with moderate acoustic pressure are way more “human” in my estimation. JBL/Altec/Vitavox and many other drivers do max 108-110db loaded and from there you need to take 6-8dB of horn gain. So, the moderate compression drivers are not at the max compression and max amplitude. There are inhalations that are made to archive 130db-150dB and in there the problem with high amplitude might take place but no one think to pay attention to sound at those systems. So, I do not feel that at moderate pressure that we use in home system the effects that Wolfgang Klippel describes is so significant or even meaningful.

 haralanov wrote:
As Paul perfectly put it in words – “trombone dynamics”! So that inherent steepening of the reproduced signal makes your brain to believe the sound is very dynamic. And it really happens! BUT – you have that kind of very dynamic behavior even when you play music where that dynamics are originally not there (!!) 

I disagree with Paul definition of “trombone dynamics” and I disagree with idea of contrived dynamics. Even the most dynamic playback the one can imagine no where even close to the dynamics that need to be accomplished.  Even with the best compression drivers we are nowhere near the dynamics of live sound.

 haralanov wrote:
So how could this topology pass the musical messages in completely transparent way without affecting their original meaning? Yes, you already guessed – it cannot. You can also read Kondo’s observations on the subject:

 Hiroyasi Kondo wrote: Cone speakers have sometimes been characterised as "boneless sounding", but such disadvantaes were elliminated by these improvemnts, and more over, this cone type achieves an obedient sound that cannot be gained from horn type units.

I do not know what kind improvements Hiroyasi Kondo implies. Worn you that he was in the business of selling audio and he made all possible claim that not necessary had factual value. I do not recognize this argument as some kind of war between direct radiators and horns. I have seen the properly made direct radiators that had dynamics greater then horns and I have seen horns that were absolutely dead. If I use horns it does not mean that I advocate horns but since I know horn I would defend horns from the criticism that I feel is unreasonable.  I think the Haralanov/ Kondo attempts to find a justification of alternation of musical messages and the affect to original meaning of the musical messages coming from loudspeaker topology is a bit too marketing-like. I think it is not topology that deforms musical messages but an implementation of a given topology. I am sure that would it be horns, direct radiator, electrostats or anything ease – if they done sensibly the they would do the identical “deformation of musical messages”. The musical messages are being corrupted not by loudspeakers but by the people who makes loudspeakers and teacher loudspeakers to sound.
 

 haralanov wrote:
Tone? Where is the tone of the compression drivers/ horn combos? If there is no tone deficiency, then why one needs injection channels?

Good question. I would like to have compression drivers/ horn combo with predictable tonal characteristics but do not forget that in the world of comprehension drivers we deal with EXISTING drivers. It is much easier to deal with direct radiator as it is easy to make your own driver. Suspend any material with VC between magnets and you have a driver. To make compression drives is much more complex  and much less predictable and therefore practically no one experiment with them


 haralanov wrote:
Of course (!!) it is managed mainly by the upperbass and lower midrange, but it is deformed (the “space” is deformed, not the geometrical properties of the audio window; audio window is just responsible for the feeling of space to happen in the listener’s mind) by the tweeter (not by the HFs, but by the tweeter as a separate sound source). That’s the only reason why I put an accent on the tweeters and their integration. It is so important!

I do not share or do not understand your statement that “space is deformed”. Theoretically with horns you shall have more uniformed “space” as horns do less “beaming” then largest single cone direct radiators drivers. The radiation surface from horn is also much larger and horns produce more “clouds” of sound then the “source of sound”. Again, you are talking about “deformation of space” and Ima not sure that I understand it or at least talk about the same things.


 haralanov wrote:
The musical message is also affected, because its authentic value and magnitude of it expressiveness is also a function of the audio message. If it is not audio related, then all of the existing systems would be musical to the same amplitude as if the listener is listening live music, but unfortunately it is not the case...

And why do you feel that the affecting of the musical message is the subject of ONLY topology of acoustic system. When you change topology of acoustic system you along with it change many other characteristics of your playback to accommodate the new topology. So, it might not be ONLY the direct radiator vs. horns deliberation. I juts would like you to understand it.

The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
08-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
haralanov


Bulgaria
Posts 130
Joined on 05-20-2008

Post #: 33
Post ID: 16753
Reply to: 16752
Monday night :-)
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 Romy the Cat wrote:
Yes, I heard that at high amplitude sound theoretically propagates faster, so at different temperature

These are totally different things. At higher temperature the sound really changes its speed, but its waveform remains unaffected.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I do not know. In the Wolfgang Klippel illustration the waves that are coming from compression driver are some kind of perfect waves

Thank God he chose idealized kind of sound wave coming out of that compression driver to illustrate what happens as simply as possible. I don’t even want to see what the waveform will look like if he feed a real sinusoidal signal to a real compression driver :-)
 Romy the Cat wrote:
The deformation of the waves in a compression driver and in the phase plug is order of magnitude higher than anything that might take place in the horn.

I do agree! Now imagine what will happen after the horn amplify this deformed by the phase plug signal, which is then further steepened by the horn itself.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
the compression driver that do 111dB sensitively sound very bad. The drivers with moderate compression and with moderate acoustic pressure are way more "human" in my estimation.

So do we have to conclude that the less the compression – the better the sound? ;-))) May be that’s the reason I find the sound of the drivers having zero compression much more natural and life-like.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I disagree with Paul definition of "trombone dynamics" and I disagree with idea of contrived dynamics. Even the most dynamic playback the one can imagine no where even close to the dynamics that need to be accomplished. Even with the best compression drivers we are nowhere near the dynamics of live sound.

Yes, the live sound is always way more dynamic than even the most dynamic system in existence today. I suppose by using the term “trombone dynamics” Paul wanted to say “pushed with force dynamics”. That kind of dynamic behavior is very different in comparison to the dynamics of the real live Sound, because it is formed by a different mechanism. Of course it is better to have as much dynamics as possible, but only if these dynamics are accepted by the brain as natural. Yes, the brain could be very easily fooled, but how could one explain the fact that I can always recognize I’m listening a horn loaded compression driver without seeing what I’m listening to?
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I have seen the properly made direct radiators that had dynamics greater then horns and I have seen horns that were absolutely dead.

So do I. Ironically, but I have never heard a horn that beats my current 12” widerange direct radiator in context of dynamics department. I will trash it in the moment when somebody demonstrate me better sounding horn – in context of dynamics, transient response, tone, scale, transparency,delicacyand so on.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I think the Haralanov/ Kondo attempts to find a justification of alternation of musical messages and the affect to original meaning of the musical messages coming from loudspeaker topology is a bit too marketing-like.

I’m not looking for a justification of alternation of musical messages and the affect to original meaning of the musical messages coming from horn topology – I only mentioned that all of the horns I have ever heard do affect the musical messages, making them too horny every single time. I will be glad somebody to demonstrate me proper horn implementation (because everybody knows most of the horn implementations sound like crap) that is free from those artifacts.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I think it is not topology that deforms musical messages but an implementation of a given topology.

Yes, you are correct. But then show me a horn made of material that resembles the properties of any part of the human body – to have the softness and to feel fleshy from the inside. The sound signature of that imaginary horn will be absolutely different in comparison to a horn made of hard synthetic material, MDF for example.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
The musical messages are being corrupted not by loudspeakers but by the people who makes loudspeakers and teacher loudspeakers to sound.

Yes, that is true. But let’s imagine you know a guy who is immune from making audio mistakes. Let pretend he is going to put his maximal efforts in achieving the best sound he is capable to achieve by different topologies. I think his result will be very different when he deals with horns, conventional direct radiators and electrostatic speakers, simply because every single topology has some limitations/disadvantages that cannot be cured (without making another kind of compromises) no matter how talented that guy is.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
I would like to have compression drivers/ horn combo with predictable tonal characteristics but do not forget that in the world of comprehension drivers we deal with EXISTING drivers.

So why don’t you try to make your own compression driver according to your own ultimate requirements?
 Romy the Cat wrote:
It is much easier to deal with direct radiator as it is easy to make your own driver. Suspend any material with VC between magnets and you have a driver.

Hahahhaha! I wish the things were as simple as you suppose they are :-))) Now I understand why manufacturers produce so crappy sounding direct radiators – they just think it is enough to “suspend any material with VC between magnets and you have a driver” :-)))))))
 Romy the Cat wrote:
The radiation surface from horn is also much larger and horns produce more "clouds" of sound then the "source of sound".

I think you wanted to say reflection surface, not radiation surface, right? Radiation surface is the surface that is directly attached to the vibration creating element (the voice coil). So the radiation surface of the horns using compression drivers is equal to the surface of the dome of that compression driver. All the rest is reflecting surface.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
And why do you feel that the affecting of the musical message is the subject of ONLY topology of acoustic system.

Wait a minute! I have NEVER said the magnitude of affection to musical messages is a subject ONLY to a given topology of acoustic system. In reality it is affected by absolute everything, even by the color of your room décor.

Best regards,
Haralanov
 


"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -A.E.
08-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,131
Joined on 05-27-2004

Post #: 34
Post ID: 16755
Reply to: 16753
Very specific problems?
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 haralanov wrote:
I think you wanted to say reflection surface, not radiation surface, right? Radiation surface is the surface that is directly attached to the vibration creating element (the voice coil). So the radiation surface of the horns using compression drivers is equal to the surface of the dome of that compression driver. All the rest is reflecting surface.
It is incorrect. There is no reflection surfaces.  The actual radiation surface of compression driver might be considered the size of the throat but the factual radiation surface is the whole perimeter of horn. In case of multi-channel installation the combine surface of the drivers as arrays act at radiation surface. Do not forger that in case  of your large wide-band driver the geometry of the driver act as restrictive cancelation devise, setting up directivity of radiation. In case of horn the directivity is also restricted but not by side cancelations as the throat of the horn is negligibly small for each location at horn mouth. Of cause the mouth of the horn is a radiation surface. If you measure sender and sides of a MF horn then you will have a few dB differences but you will have 20-30dB different outside of the horn. If you have 40Hz midbass horn with mouth of 3-4 meters then do you feel that 40hz wave get radiated from mouth and do not cover the whole surface of the horns mouth? Of cause in case of horns mouths are the active transducers…
 haralanov wrote:
I’m not looking for a justification of alternation of musical messages and the affect to original meaning of the musical messages coming from horn topology – I only mentioned that all of the horns I have ever heard do affect the musical messages, making them too horny every single time. I will be glad somebody to demonstrate me proper horn implementation (because everybody knows most of the horn implementations sound like crap) that is free from those artifacts.

What does it mean “horny”? do you mean that they had honk? If so then they were very specific playback with very specific problems and they do not define what horn-lording is able to accomplish generally.


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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haralanov


Bulgaria
Posts 130
Joined on 05-20-2008

Post #: 35
Post ID: 16756
Reply to: 16755
There are no reflections only in the free air
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 Romy the Cat wrote:
What does it mean “horny”?

Take a look at the video:
 haralanov wrote:
Notice how Vengerov starts to play at 0:25-0:40:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk6tqaPLp5M&feature=relmfu  "You start being heroic - which is unnecessary" - he said :-))

 
 Romy the Cat wrote:
do you mean that they had honk?

No. The amount of honk mainly depends by how much a given horn is pushed to work at its lower working range. When I give examples, in it entirely in the context of horns which have been high-passed at least one octave higher than the horn is able to support.

 Romy the Cat wrote:
It is incorrect. There is no reflection surfaces. 

To have a situation where there are no reflection surfaces, the compression driver must be radiating directly in the air. Loading it with a horn is equivalent of placing reflective surfaces around the exit of that driver.
 
 Romy the Cat wrote:
Of cause in case of horns mouths are the active transducers…

That’s because the wave cannot escape until it reaches the mount of the horn – it is surrounded by all sides. But that happens only at the lower working range of the horn. When you play some HF tones in let say 440Hz MF horn, the wavelength of these HF is small in comparison to the horn’s diameter and you have a lot of random uncontrolled reflections. If you don’t want to have reflections in the upper part of the working range, then you have to eliminate the horn surface, which means to eliminate the entire horn or to use it no wider that 1 octave.

If I have to be fair, right now I’m not able to feel the horn smell, because the smell of my pillow completely overrides it:-)
Good night,
Haralanov



"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -A.E.
08-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Jorge
Austin TX
Posts 141
Joined on 10-17-2010

Post #: 36
Post ID: 16757
Reply to: 16755
Tone and girls
fiogf49gjkf0d
The other night I listened to a Girl with Guitar master tape. A friend has a home recording studio that would make most comercial studios not only jelaous, but also broke.  A highly modded ATR 102 in 1/4" half track and a vintage stereo microphone;  this same master we listened to in a horn system that is slighly different than mine.  The power and dynamics of the voice made the singer herself come to tears, she said she had trouble in every studio she had recorded in because the sound always got compressed,  this was the first time she had been able to listen to her real singing voice with all her nuances, I think she would know about it.

And yes even the slightest subtle chords were properly, softly, played...

I personally could not believe how powerfull and how much of sentiment a voice and a guitar can have right out of the studio.  I take back all the times I said most systems can play girl with guitar music properly!   .

Romy said

"I think importance is not in sequencing but in relationship between listening practice and sound presentational geometry. The presentational geometry is very important but only for audio not for listening to the message."


We have been talking about this "mechanical" or Geometrical audio effects, but have not looked at the transmision of the feeling put into the music by the artist, and this is what music is all about.  Now without the electronic gear and all this careful measurements we would not be able to bring the magic in;  but lets not forget about the magic!

As I said earlier even within these stepped effects I so bluntly described there are still levels of reproduction depending on gear and set up:  Both of the parts have to be looked at.  I would say tone and texture some of the most important aspects of an organic playback. 

As an example I would remind how silver cabling sounds, it helps to bring out a pérfect resolution in the mechanical sense,  most instrument will come out and be more delineated,  but tone ussually suffers from this.  I played for a few months with a wonderful solid state amp: Chord,  it would bring out each and every detail in the recording with perfect size and pin point it perfectly in the sound stage. After a few months I came to call it the "cold bitch".  She was like one of this great looking girls I dated, perfect all around, slim, red long hair, perfect sized breasts long legs high heels, funny, beautiful face, really shocking to look at, and that belly button piercing that drived me crazy:  but she was terrible in bed!   I am sure she made some other guy very happy and this is where the most complicated tuning of a system comes in, and it is again a matter of preferences, but also access:  If wasnt so funny and good looking I would have never been able to go out with a girl like that only to realize,  well...  I have never been able to  quad amplify my system with 4 Ongaku amplifiers, looks can only get you to a certain point! Wink But maybe even all Ongakus wont be the best solution in order to bring magic for a given system in a given room. In this regard we are on our own.

I guess we could talk about some basic layouts; Ussually horns sound better with SET amps,  Most direct radiators with SS.  but then again,  I like my upper bass horn with SS sometimes,  copper ribbon cabling, Power conditioning,  Alnico drivers with SET amps and Push pull with ferrite magnets,  room acosutics, it is all about the tone and how we like our girls.


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Jorge
Austin TX
Posts 141
Joined on 10-17-2010

Post #: 37
Post ID: 16758
Reply to: 16756
Still this is more important
fiogf49gjkf0d
Nice video:  Soft tones are easy, even for horns, the minuteness, the clear detail, the low distortion of horns playing softly is what kept me into them. Then Vengerov cries out:  "Still this is more important",  when music calls for character and punch to be able to have it.

I got an Lp of Shostakovich playing the Russian Easter Oveture, and when the big crescendo comes to its peak,  the volume is lowered by the sound engineer!  I wanted to kill him, to throw the record out the window,  is  like when you start softly with a girl and when the crescendo comes, you cant perform!
08-01-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,131
Joined on 05-27-2004

Post #: 38
Post ID: 16760
Reply to: 16758
I read before the bed....
fiogf49gjkf0d

 haralanov wrote:
Take a look at the video:
I am not sure why you keep bringing the Vengerov’s video again and again. It is quite banal things and those infomercials of Vengerov educating in front of camera the sentimental girls how do not play overly arousing of overly patriotic have become the annoying stamp of his marketing of himself.  Look for Menuhis teaching his master classed how do not play Paganini overly “heroic” and listen him to play Paganini’s concertos – you will hardly will enable to tolerate his attitude.
 haralanov wrote:
To have a situation where there are no reflection surfaces, the compression driver must be radiating directly in the air. Loading it with a horn is equivalent of placing reflective surfaces around the exit of that driver.

Sorry to disappoint you but you are absolutely wrong about it. Loading a driver to a horn does introduce a front contras peruse that is not linear and that has a well designated name – throat reactance. One of the definitions of compression driver is that the driver is designed to deal with throat reactance and can’t work without it properly. The throat reactance is NOT a reflection but permanent force that participates in balancing of diaphragm damping. If driver feel an actula reflection from horn then it is juts shitty horn design and shall not be used.

 haralanov wrote:
That’s because the wave cannot escape until it reaches the mount of the horn – it is surrounded by all sides. But that happens only at the lower working range of the horn. When you play some HF tones in let say 440Hz MF horn, the wavelength of these HF is small in comparison to the horn’s diameter and you have a lot of random uncontrolled reflections. If you don’t want to have reflections in the upper part of the working range, then you have to eliminate the horn surface, which means to eliminate the entire horn or to use it no wider that 1 octave.

Yes, ideally a horn shall have 1 octave bandwidth and optimal horn rate is a single point not a wide bandwidth, very similar to optimal ani-scatting for tonearm – it is perfect only for one single point on the record surface. Still, there is reality of practical implantations and those realities do allow to use slightly wider bandwidth by losing horns equalization. Still, in case of too HF loaded into to too large horn the problem that you will not will be NOT “random uncontrolled reflections” but absolutely different problems. Again, forget about random uncontrolled reflections in the horn (with exception of reentry in LF horns). They do not exists. The HF propagates as light – where do you see light get reflected back from the horn?

 Jorge wrote:
Romy said "I think importance is not in sequencing but in relationship between listening practice and sound presentational geometry. The presentational geometry is very important but only for audio not for listening to the message."

We have been talking about this "mechanical" or Geometrical audio effects, but have not looked at the ….

It was not what I was talking about. Let me give you a clue. The simple audio term “soundstage” has a number of levels of understanding.

At first level person recognizes soundstage as a geometrical virtualization of performing space. Most of the people are there

At second level person recognizes soundstage as a geometrical virtualization of own perception to performing events. Not a lot of people get there.

At the third level person recognizes soundstage as a melt, sort of alloy between virtualization of playback imaging and own perception. Think about conductor positioning his musicians in accordance to his interpretive objectives. Very very few people in audio get there.

The forth the level give a person a freedom to have any soundstage and by the force of own mind and creativity to override it in own perception to whatever she/he wants it to be. I know just 2 people who are able to do it in audio.

The last fifth level is the level of ultimate peace and maturity with soundstage where the perception of first level with the geometrical virtualization returns back but this time a person knows where, how and how much reconstructive powers she/she willing to dedicate of it his perception and how much he is willing to get sound presentation as is. Mitigating in his/her mind the force of own observation the person might deal with absolutely any soundstage results.

This illustrative above is given as a pattern to understand my quote above.

The Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
08-02-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
haralanov


Bulgaria
Posts 130
Joined on 05-20-2008

Post #: 39
Post ID: 16761
Reply to: 16760
Reading for awakened sleepers
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 Romy the Cat wrote:
It is quite banal things and those infomercials of Vengerov educating in front of camera the sentimental girls how do not play overly arousing of overly patriotic have become the annoying stamp of his marketing of himself.  Look for Menuhis teaching his master classed how do not play Paganini overly “heroic” and listen him to play Paganini’s concertos – you will hardly will enable to tolerate his attitude.

Your response is a very good illustration of how you redirect attention away from the actual discussing subject and point it to a completely different direction that has absolutely no relation to that subject. You asked me what I mean by saying “horny” and I just gave you an example – nothing more, nothing less. The video link is not there to illustrate what Vengerov or Menuhin do, but to show you how I feel the horns sound like (!) – they always push the sound with unnecessary force.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
Sorry to disappoint you but you are absolutely wrong about it.

Ha, you cannot imagine how difficult it is for me to get disappointed :-))
 Romy the Cat wrote:
One of the definitions of compression driver is that the driver is designed to deal with throat reactance and can't work without it properly.

That’s why I am interested only in drivers which don’t need any throat reactance in order to work properly. But I will trash my drivers and replace them with compression ones in the moment when somebody demonstrates me really worthy horn loaded drivers. I do not belong to the group of people who are slaves to a given speaker topology and I can instantaneously change my concepts IF there is something that is going to provide better results in terms of sound.
 Romy the Cat wrote:
The throat reactance is NOT a reflection but permanent force that participates in balancing of diaphragm damping.

Yes, yes, I know… :
reflections inside a horn at HF.jpg
 Romy the Cat wrote:
The HF propagates as light - where do you see light get reflected back from the horn?

This is the third you put words in my mount, words that were never told by me. Where did you read I have written that the sound is reflected back in the horn? I said it is being reflected inside the horn, not back in the horn.

 Jorge wrote:
I would say tone and texture some of the most important aspects of an organic playback. 

Of course you are right, Jorge. But think about how many people have them both in reality. Well, the tone of most compression drivers is at/below kinder garden level. So what could the person X do about that? He buys/borrows different compression drivers in order to hear which one of them has the “best” (by saying the “best” mean the “least compromised”) tone. After listening to many different drivers, he decides that Vitavox S2 is the “best” one among them. Then he makes a horn for that S2 driver. He likes the sound of that combo very much, but he still feels there is tone deficiency. So what does he do next? – he invents the Injection channels! Let see what his requirements are: “for injection channels you need overly saturated by coloration drivers”. He injects some additional colors in the sound and now he feels he has better and more “interesting” tone. OK, by doing this, he really have more interesting tone, but let analyze his sounds results. He decides to play his favorite violin concerto. The violinist performing this concerto has decided to invest $ 1 000 000 in his violin, because he feels this particular violin has some special colors in its sound that no other violin has.  Now the owner of the injected S2s listen to this concerto, but is he able to hear the real colors of that violin, despite he feels his system has super tonal complexity? The answer is NO. I will tell you why. It is because the sound is now polluted by the algorithm that makes the injection channel to be saturated by colorations. That algorithm affects the sound always in the same way, because the injection channel does not have own intelligence to decide how to color the sound of the different instruments. It colors their sound with the same intentions every single time and that is the real problem. The sound of every note has the taste of that channel. I really hate to give that example, but here it is again – it is the same as adding salt to everything you eat. Well, how do you find the taste of salted bananas? So we have a situation where the colored injection coming from this channel is not able to reveal the original overtone structure of that $1 000 000 violin, because it inserts harmonics that have nothing to do with the harmonics created by this violin when listened live. Yes, somebody should say that reproduced sound (not Music!) has nothing to do with the original live performed sound, but then this person has very specific sound in his room. This specific sound is not true to the original, because his system is not able to mimic the original sound, despite he consider it has ultra high level of absolute tone complexity. Well, the reality is just the opposite – the system should not have any single mechanism that distorts the sound in any way in order to reveal the true complexity of the original tone recorded on his CDs/vinyls/tapes. If the system is not able to do this, there is a high possibility the reproduced sound of an Amati violin to sound like a cheap plastic-lacquered Chinese made violin.


"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." -A.E.
08-02-2011 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,131
Joined on 05-27-2004

Post #: 40
Post ID: 16763
Reply to: 16761
Looking wider....
fiogf49gjkf0d
 haralanov wrote:
Your response is a very good illustration of how you redirect attention away from the actual discussing subject and point it to a completely different direction that has absolutely no relation to that subject. You asked me what I mean by saying “horny” and I just gave you an example – nothing more, nothing less. The video link is not there to illustrate what Vengerov or Menuhin do, but to show you how I feel the horns sound like (!) – they always push the sound with unnecessary force.

 
Nope, it was not my desire to redirect attention but my lack of understudying why you brought us that video clip, twice. Now you have explain that for you it is the illustration that horn push the sound with unnecessary force. I did not get this message from the video. Also, I do not feel that horn push sound with unnecessary force. If the horns are not overloaded then they are perfectly able to play soft. In fact even theory would describe why horns are able to play much softer than anything else as they have higher compliance to minimum currents, the currents what the direct radiators will not even recognize as “signal”.
 
 haralanov wrote:
That’s why I am interested only in drivers which don’t need any throat reactance in order to work properly. But I will trash my drivers and replace them with compression ones in the moment when somebody demonstrates me really worthy horn loaded drivers. I do not belong to the group of people who are slaves to a given speaker topology and I can instantaneously change my concepts IF there is something that is going to provide better results in terms of sound.

 
There is nothing wrong with drivers that use throat reactance as a contra load and the drivers that do not. There are people who modify the front pressure to drivers, I experimented with it and it does change the things. I think you have a bit wrong attitude toward to it. You have a direct radiator that you like and you for some reasons feel a need to attack horn loading idea. The reality is that the horn loading idea does not compete with your direct radiator and your criticism to horn loading is not very rational and practicable. No one forces you to use or to like horn loading, if you do not like them then to be so. Frankly speaking I would be more interested to hear about own direct radiator driver then to hear your not always accurate criticism about horns.
 
 haralanov wrote:
>reflections inside a horn at HF.jpg

 
I am sorry, haralanov, but it absolute BS. What do you feel is wrong in your ilistration? To have a reflection as you depicted the wavelength shall be comparable with the radius of the throat. The throat of 1.5” diameter would be equal 1.9 cm radius and would be equal to a wavelength of 18052Hz. Do you have any idea what happen in any compression driver at 18Khz? The operation at such high frequency not even closely reminds the coherent waved as you depicted and the driver at those frequencies has 99% of cancelations and phase randomizing that is consume in itself. In order the drive to be able to push 18K the throat would be a few mm and your picture will not be even applicable as those type of the drivers will have the phase plug with long extended needle into the horn, the needle that will make your illustration impose.
 
 
 haralanov wrote:
This is the third you put words in my mount, words that were never told by me. Where did you read I have written that the sound is reflected back in the horn? I said it is being reflected inside the horn, not back in the horn.

 
When you said “reflected” and used it as a critical justification it might be understood ONLY as reflected back as I see absolutely no problems with any other type of reflections. Reflections is it how all sound works, so what is the problem with it? The forward reflections in horn are not reflection but the signal that horn mouth produce. When you gardening hose with water and the water rushes out of the hose then do you care that some of the “particles” of the water moved inside the hose slightly side-wise? Of cause not as you use the pressure of the whole hose mouth to do what you need to do. Do you want to measure and to compare the alleged reflections in the horn mouth with the actual reflections of the direct radiators? Have you heard about the axis cancelations in direct radiators? Why do you feel that the axis cancelations in direct radiators are less damaging then alleged horn reflections? The point is that I do not feel that forward reflections in the horns are a subject at all – it just not exists in my estimations any meaningful way. If so, then any accusations of reflections I understand only as reflections back, something that is unquestionably bad and something that any good horns shell not have.
 haralanov wrote:
Now the owner of the injected S2s listen to this concerto, but is he able to hear the real colors of that violin, despite he feels his system has super tonal complexity? The answer is NO. I will tell you why. It is because the sound is now polluted by the algorithm that makes the injection channel to be saturated by colorations. That algorithm affects the sound always in the same way, because the injection channel does not have own intelligence to decide how to color the sound of the different instruments. It colors their sound with the same intentions every single time and that is the real problem. The sound of every note has the taste of that channel.

Possible, but what is an alternative? To use a good quality direct radiator that presumably gives all necessary colors? There are two problems with this approach. First, colors pallet is only one of the characteristic, there are many others. The second: how do you know that with your driver you might not be benefited by what I call “injection?” You might not know what kind result I get from my ejection and your assessment that your single driver gives a sufficient palette of colors might be inaccurate. It is very difficult, almost imposable to make those assessments without being familiar with the actual results. One more thing. In my mind the injection that I use is more preferable solution then to use truly rich driver as you presumably use. The resosn is that using one good driver you have no control over it’s color. The driver is what it is and you can’t add or reduced colors. The key in it not to have driver color-dull but not to have it overly color-frenzy. Using one driver you have no control over depth of colors, I do.
Rgs, Romy the Cat


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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