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Diffraction be gone

Let me say up front that I am not much of a tweeker to start. I will play with cables, power conditioners that sort of thing, but by and large I like to leave well enough alone. I have an older house in the NE and over the last couple years due to power upgrades, re wire of the house and related domestic issues, my space for equipment and placement choices have been limited. More over, while I have tried to treat my rooms, lets just say that most room treatments do not have a high acceptance factor.

I found Diffraction be gone through steromojo. The review is from my experiance spot on. I picked up a pair of pads from Diffractionbegone for my ATC 20-2 ASLT's and have to say I was somewhat shocked at the overall improvement. Cleaned up some of the image problems I was having and tends to allow what is on the recording to come through. (My best guess is that some of the high end related artifacts are absorbed by the pads allowing me to hear more from my listening position) but that is more or less a guess. On the other end of the spectrum I noticed a tightning of the mid bass. Odd as I had not expected it. Needless to say for less then 100 bucks it was an upgrade well worth the investment, for my monitors.

My question for the form has anyone else tried these, and if so what have you found? Mini monitors would seem to be ideal, but I am wondering if anyone has given these a shot on larger speakers?
atkatana
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
In practice either 1 alone or a combination of 1 and 3 will work best.

Oops I meant to say "In practice either 2 alone or a combination of 1 and 3 will work best."

I did not mention the trade offs but when you have no baffle at all around the tweeter then you lose LF extension. This may not see important but remember that 6" woofers tend to beam above 1Khz and tweeters distort at rather modest SPL's if driven anywhere close to that low....so often there are several conflicting compromises involved in the design choices. B&W top of the speaker mounted tweeters (which lack any baffle boost) are often crossed over quite high say at around 4 Khz - no doubt they would probably distort at all too modest SPL's if driven much lower - so this often means that the 6 inch woofer is already beaming significantly (limited off axis response) by the time the tweeter kicks in (in a sense a smoother off axis frequency response has been traded for precise imaging of a baffle-less tweeter) The huge success of B&W indicates this small compromise is well worth it to many audiophiles because of the precise imaging that it attains.
dazone
57 posts
 
Damn good post, Shad. Using the pads described above, off axis energy above the crossover also measured appreciably down in level (-4db) and therefore side wall and room reflection is made a little more benign. Audibly, I would hope. Guys with small rooms can use all the help they can get. Those measurements referred to above using the pads are on axis. A flatter on axis curve is audible I do believe in tonality and, I’ll go out on a limb here, the perception of space. Then, there is the time thing Dr. Geddes was referring to. That may be where the greatest benefit is derived. It matters not only to imaging specificity in my experience but I believe to the entire soundscape in the listening room. That's the way it seems where I sit. Literally. Cheers.
dazone
57 posts
 
"And it's old, but it's good". NY
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
Hi Tvad

When you were on the McMaster site which felt did you use for your DIY diffraction pads? Also what thickness did you use?

They have the following choices:

Firm Gray F3 Felt
Fabricated from coarse wool, this material is a common choice for vibration mountings.

Ultra Soft Gray F26 Felt
Use for packing and padding applications where the felt will be held between other materials.

Very Soft Gray F13 Felt
A gray, lower wool content version of F10 felt, this material is often used for grease and oil retention.

Soft Gray F7 Felt
When fabricating grease seals and wipers, this material's lower wool content makes it an economical alternative to F5 felt.

Thanks and advise when you can.
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