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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-11-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d
The bottom eaters from AA raised an interesting subject:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hug/messages/16/160276.html
... and of cause covered it within the scope of own fears and limitations. I particularly like their idiotic idea that the amount of channels in acoustic system combined with amount of records of the playback owner collection form some kind of constant secretive number and the less channels playback will have would yield more records on the shelves. Well, the idiots are idiots….
Still, the subject itself is not idiotic and very well worth covering.
The very first question that comes to mind would be: who is starting from scratch? Would it be the person who just enters audio, the person who just enter the horn-loading subject or the person who has experience in the field and just re-enter the “business” from scratch? Than… What would be the objective or the person? How much money/efforts s/he is willing to spend? Dose the person has ability to build himself or needs to hire help? Does the person has ability to make own decisions as it or he needs to experiment and to make assessments? What is the interaction between person audio life and his/her regular live? There are those and many other subjects that need to be covered in order to define what horn system might serve better, or at least satisfying.
I have covered this subject I believe 6-7 years back when I fantasized about big fire that burned out all my audio and made me to start from scratch. I can’t find the posts at my site and I would like to have this new thread where I later on as I have time might express some of the UPDATED thoughts on the scratch subject. Feel free to share yours… Rgs,
Romy the Cat
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Posted by haralanov on
02-12-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d Yes, the topic is really interesting, at least to me. There is one thing
for sure – the man who starts the development of his acoustic system with a blank
sheet of paper, must have a lot of experience in arranging different channels
in terms of psychoacoustic integration. If
I had to build a horn loaded system from scratch, then I will use my upper bass
channel very carefully in order to fool my brain there is no upper bass
channel. After a lot of experiments I came to the conclusion that the upper
bass channel should have 4 (!) drivers arranged symmetrically around the
main/midrange channel. This creates very interesting effect of having very big,
at least 50-60" midrange channel, but the interesting part comes from the fact
that the size of that channel can vary from psychoacoustic point of view (it is not fixed size) according to the reproduced
material. If the instruments are big, it recreates them with their real physical
size and authority, no matter how big and
massive they are, but when they are smaller, it does not make them artificially
big, but it uses its own programmed intelligence, smartly keeping their size correct.
Here is how I see it:
The 36 and 44” horns use slightly different sounding drivers (in order
to achieve more interesting tone). This "rule" applies also to the 28 and 30”
horns too. The 28” horn should use driver with slightly faster suspension. This
configuration achieves very high tonal complexity in the upper bass range and
at the same time the listener is completely fooled ALL of the sound is coming
from the midrange horn. It is possible only because the human brain is not
perfect computing device and it could be fooled quite easily, if one knows WHAT
to manipulate in sound.
Take a look at the next picture:
Do you see any blinking spots? Congratulations! :-)) Well, you reader just realized you can't trust your own eyes! Use this fact and find how you can fool your ears. It all up to you! That’s why one
needs more (strategically arranged) drivers for his upper bass/ lower midrange
channel.
All the best,
Haralanov
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-12-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d Haralanov,
this is very interesting way of looking about the things. So, you feel if to slice the upperbass vertically by multiple channels then it has some benefits, kind of odd to hear it from a person who advocates a single driver approach :-). So, you advise do not slice them by frequency but instead to let all channels to play same region but instead use multiple “drivers with slightly faster suspension”. I think it is doable but here is an alternative take, partially already implemented in Macondo: lower midbass, mid midbass, upper midbass and lower MF cared by multiple channels, low order filters and large overlap and multi-amping. The multi-amping is the key as in multi-amping environment one can set the “speed” of individual driver by loading the given driver creatively, thus effecting the diver “suspension”.
The Cat
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Posted by haralanov on
02-13-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d  Romy the Cat wrote: | | ...to hear it from a person who advocates a single driver approach :-) |
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Hahhaha, if
you call the combination of 4x23” + 4x15” + 12”+ 8” +2” a single driver
approach, then the people who really use single driver speakers should be
called driverless :-)))
Romy, the actual
sound benefit of this 4-channel upper bass configuration, is rather in the type
of sound presentation. The commonly used single upper bass horn (or direct
radiator) sitting under the midrange horn, gives the feeling that the midrange
floats over a dense and soft upper bass cloud. It is in a way interesting
effect, but it is much more interesting (at least in my view) when the upper
bass radiating area is very big AND equally distributed around the
midrange/main channel. This creates an effect of having huge and very widerange
coaxial driver, which gives the unique feeling that the upper bass is real
physical part of the midrange, loading the whole (!) room with tone. Actually
it can no longer be detected as upper bass sound – it just becomes part of the
instruments. And this is much more important than the fine tuning of the sound
of all these 4 horns. Of course it is huge benefit to imply 4 slightly
different UB tones combining in one very complex tone. And just like you said,
one can use 4 slightly different amps for these 4 slightly different UB
driver/horns for even more complex tone, so practically one can adjust
thousands of variables…
Best
regards,
Haralanov
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-13-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | haralanov wrote: | | Romy, the actual sound benefit of this 4-channel upper bass configuration, is rather in the type of sound presentation. The commonly used single upper bass horn (or direct radiator) sitting under the midrange horn, gives the feeling that the midrange floats over a dense and soft upper bass cloud. It is in a way interesting effect, but it is much more interesting (at least in my view) when the upper bass radiating area is very big AND equally distributed around the midrange/main channel. This creates an effect of having huge and very widerange coaxial driver, which gives the unique feeling that the upper bass is real physical part of the midrange, loading the whole (!) room with tone. Actually it can no longer be detected as upper bass sound – it just becomes part of the instruments. And this is much more important than the fine tuning of the sound of all these 4 horns. |
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It is certainly an interesting way of thinking. I do not feel that my “midrange floats over a dense and soft upper bass cloud”. In fact I do feel that my MF and upperbass are very good integrated. But again, I might not know how different it might be if it was otherwise. I do like the idea but I have to admit that it has some design problems. You see, the multiplication of upperbass is in way eliminates an ability to put the midbass horn in right position. I think the right positioning of midbass is more important then what you propose and if you put 4 upperbasses than they will not allow to put midbass in the game in the uncompromised location. Also, I think you a bit overly stress the drivers suspension. For sure the drivers’ suspension is one of the primary elements in drivers but how many people out there has a freedom to deal with driver’s suspension, not to mention to deal with suspension mindful and objectfully? You claim that you do and I know perhaps another 2 people who does the same claim (and I can’t confirm if with any of you). So we have 3 people over the 6 billion humans – not a lot of chance that anyone would be able to deal with driver suspension and be able to get predictable result.
I still think that what you describe is rather lab experiment than a proven wining pattern for a playback. There is nothing wrong in what you subjects but going for the 4-drivers upperbass configuration a person effectively eliminates any other options.
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Posted by haralanov on
02-13-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | Romy the Cat wrote: | | In fact I do feel that
my MF and upperbass are very good integrated. But again, I might not know how
different it might be if it was otherwise. |
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Exactly!
Some time ago I also thought my upper bass channel is flawlessly integrated,
but when I added another, symmetrically arranged UB driver (over my WR driver),
I quickly understood the new configuration is MUCH more expressive and
full-bodied sounding compared to a
single UB channel. The upperbass started to breath completely effortlessly and
it was perfectly centered at the WR/midrange driver’s axis. So it should be
experienced to be appreciated…
| Romy the Cat wrote: | I have to admit that
it has some design problems. You see, the multiplication of upperbass is in way
eliminates an ability to put the midbass horn in right position. I think the
right positioning of midbass is more important then what you propose and if you
put 4 upperbasses than they will not allow to put midbass in the game in the
uncompromised location.
..going
for the 4-drivers upperbass configuration a person effectively eliminates any
other options |
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Yes, of
course the multiplication of upperbass in a way eliminates the ability (but not exactly) to put the
midbass horn in right position,
but who cares about that, given the fact that proper placement of upperbass
drivers is at least 10 times more important than the placement of midbass horn?
Cat, you have placed your midbass horns on the roof behind you and you don’t feel
it is wrong, so why did you suddenly decide that arranging the midbass horns sideways
of the whole upperbass stack (where they should be) is problematic? If I have to think further about this, I see no option to use a midbass
horn in close proximity to the midrange channel (even if there are NO upperbass
horns there) simply because it will act as reflecting wall for the midrange channel (if
it is placed in time aligned position)… So all these upperbasses practically do
not eliminate the option for proper using of the huge midbass horns:
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-13-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | haralanov wrote: | | Some time ago I also thought my upper bass channel is flawlessly integrated, but when I added another, symmetrically arranged UB driver (over my WR driver), I quickly understood the new configuration is MUCH more expressive and full-bodied sounding compared to a single UB channel. The upperbass started to breath completely effortlessly and it was perfectly centered at the WR/midrange driver’s axis. So it should be experienced to be appreciated… |
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Haralanov, let do not create confusion at least in our own minds. Of cause the things need to be experienced to be appreciated. The fact that we exchange verbal assessments over Internet and not able to demonstrate to others any tangible result does not need to be stressed – we all understand it. What we trying to do is to exchange ideas and views. So in my view what you advocate might not be what you think. When you add a second, third of even forth driver in upperbass you do a lot different things but the most important you reduces the exertion of each individual driver by factor of 2, 3 or 4. Doing it immediately convert any driver to a driver 10 times better. You also incused the radiation surface and form micro-line array that has a LOT of advantages to full up the room. Everyone knows that piling up more channels/drivers has benefits. You propose to use the lower directivity of upper bass and go horizontal. Possible but debatable. Of cause it will have benefits but it also will have some shortcomings and I can very clearly enumerate them. I think it is impossible to evaluate all of on sitting in front of a sheet of paper however…. BTW, there is no need to agree. Everyone has own idea how we all build the things from scratch. | haralanov wrote: | | Yes, of course the multiplication of upperbass in a way eliminates the ability (but not exactly) to put the midbass horn in right position, but who cares about that, given the fact that proper placement of upperbass drivers is at least 10 times more important than the placement of midbass horn? Cat, you have placed your midbass horns on the roof behind you and you don’t feel it is wrong, so why did you suddenly decide that arranging the midbass horns sideways of the whole upperbass stack (where they should be) is problematic? |
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Where did you see me advocating that my behind-above (not just behind) positioning of the midbass horns is right one? Of cause it is wrong and if I had an opportunity doing playback and room from scratch I would of cause go for frontal positioning, something that I would not be able to do if I has 8 upperbass horn in front of me. Also, I do not think you clearly understand the disadvantage of the “midbass horns on the roof behind”. You see I would get absolutely identical sound with my midbass horns in front of me, behind or behind-above. I just would use the midbass in context of entire playback very differently if I had more beneficial location of my midbass. I can only assure you that if you were in my room then you had no idea that big horns are where they are. Well, so far no one was able to, which does not mean that it is impossible if to know what and how to listen. It does not make my location for midbass horns “right”. It let me to worship my ego and feel that with my playback setup experience I can go away even with that but it does not make the things that I do to be right things. | haralanov wrote: | | If I have to think further about this, I see no option to use a midbass horn in close proximity to the midrange channel (even if there are NO upperbass horns there) simply because it will act as reflecting wall for the midrange channel (if it is placed in time aligned position)… So all these upperbasses practically do not eliminate the option for proper using of the huge midbass horns: [image] |
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For what it worth I feel that in the case you depicted the right and left channels need to be positioning wider compare if it was regular Macondo configuration. How many people have extra width with no first reflection from the wall in upperbass?
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Posted by haralanov on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d My primary
interests (when I do purely technical listening) are in the field of psychoacoustics
and the last 2 years I spent a lot of time investigating how the brain reacts
to differently arranged sound sources. The interesting thing is that the ear
prefers slightly asymmetric arrangement
when there are two symmetric sources of sound in context of a third. That means
if your/my midrange driver is in the center of a virtual clock, the upperbass
channels should not be positioned at 6 and 12 o’clock, but they should point at
7 and 1 o’clock. This way they totally disappear for the brain, not drawing
attention to themselves. But if there is only one upperbass channel, the
situation is quite different – it should be positioned strictly on the vertical
axis, at 6 o’clock (in the way you use it in your Macondo). With four upper
bass channels, the situation is different again. In this case the brain does
not recognize the upper/lower pair of horns as horizontal sound sources, but it
treats each of them in context of the midrange channel and in the same time it
creates mental picture of the whole their sound. And because there are another
two upper bass drivers/horns below the midrange channel, they destroy the
illusion there are 2 horizontally arranged sound sources over the midrange
channel, because the brain accepts the sound of the 4 drivers as a sound that is coming from one very large round driver with build in MF channel in its center. In the same way the upper 2 sound sources destroy the illusion there
are 2 horizontally arranged sound sources under the MF channel. In the moment
when you remove either the upper or lower 2 drivers, the brain will
automatically recognize the remaining two as a horizontal source of sound…
So it’s quite complex, but once one gets the
whole picture, he can very easily arrange his channels in the smartest possible
way, completely fooling his brain there is more than one source of sound (his
main/midrange channel) in his acoustic system. In order to get the effect of completely
fooling the brain, there should be two HF sources, which are symmetrically asymmetrical (it is not nonsense)
in context of the main channel (again at 1 and 7 o’clock for the left side of the acoustic system and at 11 and 5 o'clock for the right side)… It is so convincing,
that they do not draw attention to themselves even if the entire left or right
stereo channel is turned off (!).
And there
is one thing for sure - the ear/brain does not like when there are sound
sources in the horizontal plane from the left and right side of the midrange
channel. It immediately detects them, burning a lot of "processing power" to
neutralize the devastating psyhoacoustical effect of their wrong position and the whole convincing illusion of realistic and super coherent sound source becomes
totally fucked up because of that (cheers Goto users :-))…
I agree the
using of huge midbass horns in the way I illustrated requires quite a big/wide listening
room, but the thread is named “building a HORN system from scratch”, that’s why
I showed how I would build a full horn loaded system if I have to build it. IF
I had to build it, I would not start such an oversized project without first
building a huge dedicated room…
Best
regards,
P.
Haralanov
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d
Haralanov, I partially know what you are talking about and I got my sense of it when I added the Fundamentals and Insertion channels. They both are position above MF and act as nice compliment to Macondo upperbass horn. I still do not know if the result you describe comes from psychoacoustical reasons of from the fact that when a driving current is being spread to more individual drivers than everyone has better life.
For sure to do “such an oversized project without first building a huge dedicated room” would help but there is more to it. Building a HORN system from scratch in my mind automatically implies the USE of the listening room as one of the system incident. For sure if one would like to end up with 2-way loudspeaker then it is different matter and there is nothing wrong with it. However, if a person would like to have not just loudspeaker but the whole experience of an “installation” then it is very different matter.
My definition of installation is slightly different then to have wooden trims and panels that hide cables. To me an “installation” is a complex set of measures and arguments that converts a listening space into sound expressive space. Toward to this end my definition of success is to recognize the specific room’s need and to build playback in the room that will be designed in accordance with the room’s needs, room’s capacity etc… so, to me the most stimulating installations are not the one that use rare Amish-made drivers but those where rooms and playback create an expressive elegance of design. Where the things made to work but there are no visible efforts of the efforts. In my view the multiplication of upperbass channels is “too much trying” and there is absolutely no way to hide this trying. For sure it might be a good experiment for some kind of text lab but I absolutely do not see it as building a HORN system from scratch objective. But again, mine or anybody else agreement or disagreement for this matter is absolutely irrelevant.
The caT
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Posted by haralanov on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | Romy the Cat wrote: | | To me an “installation”
is a complex set of measures and arguments that converts a listening space into
sound expressive space. |
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Of course it is, well said!
Too bad not everybody understand that...
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | I still do not know if the
result you describe comes from psychoacoustical reasons of from the fact that
when a driving current is being spread to more individual drivers than everyone
has better life. |
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The result
is affected by both of the factors (and it is very easy to check and prove it in
reality). But these two factors affect the listener in very different way. It
is like eating quality food – from one side it is a source of quality ingredients
for the stomach and in the same time it is enjoyed by the brain because it's delicious taste. So
these two properties are caused by the same thing, but they are appreciated in
quite different ways. The multiplication of the upperbass channels affects mainly
the shape and size of the sound (the physical properties of the sound’s body),
while the lowering of each driver’s excursion due to the increased radiating area
affects mainly the non-physical properties of the sound – dynamics, tonality,
distortion and hundreds more. So I treat them as different things. Actually I
see the biggest benefit (besides the huge sound body) in the fact that such a
configuration allows very precise adjustment of the way how the harmonics of
each UB channels touch the midrange, by
simply dealing with the crossovers on each of them individually. This gives
almost unlimited freedom of possibilities for adjustments (the only requirement
is the man who adjust it should know what to listen/adjust, otherwise it is a wasted
opportunity) and this degree of precision could not be achieved by using just
one horn…
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | haralanov wrote: | | Actually I see the biggest benefit (besides the huge sound body) in the fact that such a configuration allows very precise adjustment of the way how the harmonics of each UB channels touch the midrange, by simply dealing with the crossovers on each of them individually. This gives almost unlimited freedom of possibilities for adjustments (the only requirement is the man who adjust it should know what to listen/adjust, otherwise it is a wasted opportunity) and this degree of precision could not be achieved by using just one horn… |
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So, we are taking here more about partitioning the upperbass and introduction some sort of granularity of adjustments? Would it be as some kind “in- line injection channel”? I do not disagree with it but I would certainly question the practicality of it alone with cost/benefit ratio. I think if the identically amount of effort would be spend for other aspects then the benefits would be higher.
I would like also to point out that my injection channel idea and your idea of upperbass compartmentisation both come from presumed limitation of a single channel, would it be tonal, dynamic, size or any other limitation. My presumption is that if we have one single narrow band driver that severs an excellent purpose foe own operation region then I would not need to use injection and you would not be fantasizing about slicing upperbass upon 4 sub-channels.
I do get you message about enlargement of geometrical size of upperbass but I personally do recognize it as a need. If you support your upperbass with midbass horn (that by definition is very large) than you will not be worrying or expire any concern about the “size” of upperbass as midbass interaction with upperbass will do all tricks. The point is that I feel that in your case the upperbass most likely the lower channel after wish the system goes non-directional. It is not my case and this why I might not feel any need to deal with directivity or size of upperbass. The partition of upperbass in order to further kill the inner-modulations or to write in some custom harmonics – yes I would vote for it. to get bigger “influence” of upperbass but make come from many geometrical mouths – this I do not buy.
The Cat
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | haralanov wrote: | | Let pretend you have (at least hypothetically) really excellent (satisfying your reference points) single UB channel. Then how are you going to achieve the coaxial effect one gets with 4 allocated in space channels? It will be very educational for me to learn the answer of this question :-) |
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Why do you think that achieve of coaxial effect shell be my objective? It never was and I feel that coaxial objective is just artificial objective created to sell coaxial drivers. Live sound has nothing coaxial. The single point-source is ridicules, I wrote about it many times. It is not to mention that there is no such a thing as coaxial single point-source as all coaxial are not time-aligned by nature. I do not insist that I have a really excellent single upperbass but among the many weakness that I am able to name in my own playback I would put upperbass not at very top of my list. Not because it is very good but because it sufficient for what it is. I do think that topologically a single upperbass with single MF are fine, two upperbasses are better than one upperbass , 4 upperbasses are better than two upperbasses. You will have problem to position 2, 3, 4 upperbasses however in context of practical installation. Probably 2 upperbasses would do, in the same way how I use my Injection channel but it you go for more then you ask for horizontal positioning and this spells setup problems
| haralanov wrote: | | Well, my idea of using 4 strategically arranged channels around the midrange driver is not because I need bigger sized upper bass, but because this technique allows the lower midrange (and also the upperbass) to flow freely in the space |
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I do not see that 4 strategically arranged channels would allow lower midrange to flow more freely in the space.
The Cat
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Posted by RennieB on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d At first i did not think mutch about it and had no specific ideas or knowledge about horn systems, but it didn't leave my thought.
A few points for designing this horn system:
- Efficient
- Size does matter (bigger ~ Better)
- For me affordable
- Possible with availeble tools and craftmanship
- Bauhaus style, if it doesn't improve annything it should not be there
- Multi channel
Just a thought
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Posted by haralanov on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d Cat, I’m
very disappointed by the fact you missed to answer my important question. I
really hoped I’ll get the answer from you…
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I think
your definition of coaxial effect is very different than mine, so there is no sense
to further discuss this.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | You will have problem
to position 2, 3, 4 upperbasses however in context of practical installation. |
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Ironically or not, I have no practical problems
with it, simply because I’m not using big UB horns. My upper bass channels are
much more compact – 4 very massive 15” drivers with no horns. Their integration
to my main widerange channel is easier than a childish game and there is a lot
of free space for some huge lower bass drivers around them. But I didn’t
mention that earlier, because the thread is about horn loaded drivers – not direct
radiators. So the fact that it is very difficult to implement 4 UB horns in
practical terms, is not going to ruin my good sleep :-)
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | I do not see that 4
strategically arranged channels would allow lower midrange to flow more freely
in the space. |
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It is not
necessary for you to see it and I’m OK with that. I said what I had to say in
context of this thread and there is nothing more to say about it.
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | haralanov wrote: | | Ironically or not, I have no practical problems with it, simply because I’m not using big UB horns. My upper bass channels are much more compact – 4 very massive 15” drivers with no horns. Their integration to my main widerange channel is easier than a childish game and there is a lot of free space for some huge lower bass drivers around them. But I didn’t mention that earlier, because the thread is about horn loaded drivers – not direct radiators. So the fact that it is very difficult to implement 4 UB horns in practical terms, is not going to ruin my good sleep :-) |
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The subject of the whole ploy was “horn system from scratch” and if you do not use upper bass horns then what are you trying to say? It is OK to use 15” direct radiators and you with direct radiator will have even greater benefit from multiplication of drivers then horn people. Your experience with direct radiators is absolute not applicable to horns as a single 15” driver does not sound well not matter what you do to it, unless you are sitting in a closet. All drivers that we have are under-designed and you need many- many of them to reduce the exertion and to let them to operate in the “comfort zone”. In addition the 15” direct radiators have too heavy VC to and to wrong VC mounting. It is made to increase power handling. If your 15” driver has let say 20W power handling then if would be much better but you would need many of the drivers to care midbass properly. In case of midbass horn all your problem with limited exertion, undrhungin and etc are already taken care. I highly suspect that with a single properly made upperbass horn you would not need to invent the partitioning of your direct radiators. Yeas, it is good idea but I do not think it is a remedy to recover the problem of direct radiators. Also, do not forget that with let say 4” throat and a single 100Hz horn, the effective radiation surface of the horn is the diameter of mouth, or 36”. It is still larger than 4 x 15” drivers….
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Posted by haralanov on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | ...a single 15” driver
does not sound well not matter what you do to it, unless you are sitting in a
closet |
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Hahahhaha, this
statement reminds me of a guy who has been driving only very bad cars through
his entire life and he
states ALL cars on this planet are garbage ;-)
Cars like this:
Good luck,
Haralanov
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-15-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d No not necessarily. I just brought the fact that 4x15” drivers form radiation area of 2824 sq inch but one 100hz horn forms 4071 sq inch. It might not going to ruin my good sleep but it comes along with the fact that horn drivers is topologically more advanced (or works in way more advanced conditions).
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Posted by haralanov on
02-16-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d Come ooon,
comparison between the radiating area of direct radiator vs. the area of horn’s
mouth is too amateurish even for some diyaudio.com level simpletons…
It is as naïve
as saying Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is simply 100 grams of paint splashed over a 630
sq inch sheet of paper…:-)
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-16-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | haralanov wrote: | Come ooon, comparison between the radiating area of direct radiator vs. the area of horn’s mouth is too amateurish even for some diyaudio.com level simpletons…
It is as naïve as saying Leonardo’s Mona Lisa is simply 100 grams of paint splashed over a 630 sq inch sheet of paper…:-) |
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Not necessarily. When you were talking about upperbass more freely flow in the space that you did described the consequences of more gentile change of pressure between open air and radiating surface. As you begin to grow amount of drivers in case of direct radiators then you experience multitude of advancement and one of them losing boundary pressure between air and cone on each driver. So, from this perspective the comparison between radiating areas is very much variable characteristic. Remind you that horn not only does that but it performs acoustic transformation gradually. I did heard direct radiator drivers and I am well informed what kind benefits one can get from multiplication of drivers. Horns is completely different animal and you need to educate your with upperbass horn sound. Initially I thought you were taking about horn as it was the subject of the thread but only later I recognized that you talk about horn only in hypothetical terms. So, as the person who do deal with horns I do admit that with multiplication of horns per channel you will have benefits but the benefits will be less significant than those that you observe with direct radiators, which bring the whole idea to very questionable viability or even need (with horns). Again, in your idea I feel that you have primary benefit from multiplication of drivers, not prom the drivers positioning. I leave aside the options to multi-amp and to tune individual driver – no one would argue that it might be beneficial.
The Cat
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Posted by haralanov on
02-17-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d Romy,
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Remind you that horn
not only does that but it performs acoustic transformation gradually. |
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Yes, I do
agree with you about that. From both theoretical and practical point of view it
is 100% true. But the important question is where are the practical listening benefits of
it, when the brain is not disturbed by the slightly faster changing pressure
around the boundary of a well behaved direct radiating driver? If it does not
provide practical benefits in terms of sound perception – then who cares it is
more advanced topology in terms of pressure release (by saying pressure release
I do not mean TONE). Most of the acoustic instruments in reality have strong
boundary effect of their tonal pressure. Have you ever heard somebody
complaining by the fact the violin does not release its pressure gradually in
the surrounding environment?! :-) It simply does not disturb the brain in the same
way as you are absolutely not disturbed by the sharp boundary effect of
pressure release through 2 sq inch of area when somebody talks in front of you.
And all these facts are of fundamental importance.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | Horns is completely different animal and you
need to educate your with upperbass horn sound. |
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I have to
confess I have quite limited experience in terms of upper bass horns. I have
listened the big Cessaro system and I have to point the guys who made this
acoustic system have no relationship with reality. May be they have been
teleportated from another galaxy. I clearly recognized the upper bass energy is
coming from below the midrange horn and it is totally in opposite to the way
how the acoustic instruments sound in reality. The energy of the different frequency ranges emanates from different areas in space and the brain (well, at least my brain) could not be fooled - very disturbing artifact. Their UB horn not only needs
another supporting UB horn placed over the midrange driver – it literally begs
for it! Only then they can eventually get the effect of balanced (coherent) energy
distribution across the entire sound range. Not to mention the fact that a good
single 15” direct radiator has twice the sound scale of this big (and space
eating) UB horn. And it is not necessary for somebody to agree with me – I’m OK
with that.
| Romy the Cat wrote: | | So, as the person who
do deal with horns I do admit that with multiplication of horns per channel you
will have benefits but the benefits will be less significant than those that
you observe with direct radiators, which bring the whole idea to very
questionable viability or even need (with horns). |
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With all my
respect to you, I think the only way to understand the effect of adding more UB
sources which are symmetrically arranged around your midrange channel (at least
one above it) is to hear such a configuration with your own ears. If you have
no experience with it, you can continue to question its validity, but your
presumptions will remain only theoretical. I do not defend MY (or any) topology
(because I don’t need to), simply
because I really do not care how other people build their acoustic systems – I only
use what I learned from my psychoacoustic experiments and I’m trying to find
practical realization of these findings. I also learn a lot from other people's mistakes and by listening to mistaken concepts (realisations of these concepts) I gain a lot of experience. The fact that there are 6688 people
who think my point of view is wrong, does not change in any way the sound I get
in practice (and more importantly - it does not improve their sound too!)…
Best
regards,
Haralanov
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Posted by Romy the Cat on
02-17-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d | haralanov wrote: | | Most of the acoustic instruments in reality have strong boundary effect of their tonal pressure. Have you ever heard somebody complaining by the fact the violin does not release its pressure gradually in the surrounding environment?! |
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This actually is very interesting point and I never thought about it. When somebody like Mahler wants to have ultra pianissimo range from strings then he insists the whole section to play very soft. He does not leave only oneviolin to play but he insist the whole section be engages. Interesting, I need to think about it…
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Posted by rowuk on
07-14-2012
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fiogf49gjkf0d Actually, when the string section has to play ultra softly, they use a mute or damper on the bridge. This is a device that limits the ability of the bridge to pass the string vibration to the resonant body of the instrument. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqwbj0S5FKg
Actually, there is a lot of study of transmission and damping in string instrument construction even today. The height, mass and shape of the bridge (as well as string type) actually controlls how "present" the instrument sounds and how well it reacts to the players "style".http://dunwellguitar.com/SolidBridge/00Violin-Bridges75.jpg
Like in the development of speakers, there is a process to match the instrument, strings, bridge to the sonic expectations of the player and then of the player to the audience.
So, depending on the message that the player conveys, it is possible that they gently caress the strings keeping tonal pressure and "richness" reduced or at the other end use great energy and approach the mechanical limit with the corresponding increase of overtone strength.
As far as acoustic instruments go, I am not sure that the boundary effect applies except for something like a pipe organ or french horn. Flutes, violins and violas radiate primarily vertically, trumpets are very directional forwards, Celli and basses have a peg on the bottom to mechanically couple them to the floor, saxophones, bassoons, clarinets and oboes have a very complicated pattern of sound as each hole has a unique function and its own radiation pattern.
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If I were to start from scratch, I would choose a modular approach and NOT do everything at once. Even when I buy a new trumpet, I need 6-12 months to become comfortable. At first, a 12" or 15" direct radiator closed box or transmission line (also a form of horn) to completely damp the back wave (no LF output from port, just controlled pressure in the cabinet) from 50Hz to perhaps 400Hz, horns to cover 400-2000Hz and 2000-8000Hz and a planar or ribbon above that. That would probably keep me busy for a year or two. If I were then successful, I would add a horn from 100-400Hz and spend the next year integrating that.
I think the primary joy in this adventure would be to rediscover my music collection. I can imagine great frustration though until the sound becomes tolerable. Lack of Patience always seems to be my major enemy, especially if I do not have medium term results. A big horn system would cause big expectations after coming home from a concert. I have so much still to learn.
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