Is this the ultimate 2-way speaker design?
That interview with Karl Schuemann's (AudioMachina) had some similar points: 1) The way it ought to be is a single transducer. But in the real world, that hasn't been achieved yet. At least in terms of something that is practical and still a full range transducer 2) The three way system is always going to have a crossover in the places where your ear is very sensitive to such things. You can hear, if you are listening carefully, the transition from the woofer to the midrange. It is not only a spatial transition in the sense that one is above the other and your ear-brain system can detect that; it is also that I think the characteristics of the drivers themselves are fundamentally different. So, whatever colorations the woofer imparts to its particular sound—it may be a certain type of distortion; it may be a certain type of flavor that the cone adds to the sound—those are going to be different than whatever colorations the midrange contributes. You can detect the discontinuity between the colorations 3) having that entire continuum from the mid-bass on up through the midrange and through the low treble reproduced by a single driver, you get coherence. 4) Whatever colorations that driver is imparting to the sound, they are present more or less throughout its entire frequency range and there is no crossover in the way, so there are no phase shifts, no time problems, no location problems. All of those problems are simply eliminated by the fact that it is a single driver. No matter how good a designer you are, you are not going to make a crossover disappear. Your best bet is to eliminate it entirely if it bothers you that it is there. I wonder what Karl would say about phase shifts from putting two drivers together like Epos or Verity Audio which roll off naturally. Would that help or hinder phase shifts? Here's the part about the problem with D'Appolito configuration: 5) in combination with having to have the woofers very close together in the D' Appolito configuration in order to not get the dispersion problems that you see a lot of times in the D' Appolito designs, and the amount of offset that I needed to achieve time alignment between woofers and tweeters, means that you end up with this deep wave guide. So he used a wave guide to reduce this dispersion problem and put the drivers close together which I would think would further create dispersion interactions between drivers. |
Good two-ways vs. the rest. Hmm.. I don't have either the space or the money to buy those big floorstanders. What to do? This is a never-ending discussion and contrary to what was said, I find it very enlightening especially for those who are starting on this high-end hobby. They can have your cake and eat it too, in a way. Yes, even the best two-ways have their shortcomings but what reasonably priced three-way or floorstanding speaker isn't compromised? For those interested, I have written two articles here that present one side of this discussion (scroll down to Minimonitors and subwoofers I and II). They need updating but the basis is still valid, IMO. |
Vladmir, as you said "what three-way floorstanding speaker isn't compromised" is one of the most frustrating parts of this hobby (to me anyhow). You spend more and the speaker is better in some ways but worse in others. So even spending more rarely gives you better in every way. I agree with your comments about a minimonitor and sub. Like the part about most 3-ways putting an x-over between 100 and 400 Hz. Right in the middle of the vocal range. Then they put one around 3kHz - again right where the ear is most sensitive. What a mess! I guess my ideal is a small 2-way monitor 1) put in a small room where the room provides the bass reinforcement so a sub is not needed and 2) play at 75 dB max so the driver's don't get pushed into distortion. The question I have about the audiomachina is which is better, an intricate 1st order x-over to 1) preserve time and phase coherence and 2) perfect driver integration or no x-over which 1) minimizes amp power required and 2) allows the maximum detail and transparency because of less electronics in the way of the signal path? Amp designers commonly try to remove as many circuits as possible from the signal path be it negative feedback or additional gain stages and them you've got the speaker crossover putting it all right back in again. Maybe it's a wash, I don't know. |
Well I made the jump. I purchased the Karl Schuemann ulitmate monitors. Luckily, Karl lives in the same state as I and after a couple of e-mails, he came up my way for business. Much to my delight the trip agenda also included stopping at my house and setting up a pair of his monitors. When I first saw the monitors I knew this was going to be a love-hate relationship. Not conventional looking at all, however, close examination reveals some of the finest craftsmanship I have ever seen. A wrap of the nuckles on the side of the speaker are similar to the feeling that one gets when knocking on the bumper of a HumVee (solid). Finish is jet glossy black, beautifully done. Now the sound, well I wrote Karl a check that night. I have never heard a speaker like this. I constantly was opening my eyes to verify that there were speakers in the room. Quick,,,no fast,,,what the heck, just can't describe how quickly these babies handle the music. Anyway all in all, I got em and am very happy with them. If you get a chance at CES this year, stop and listen. They are an amazing monitor. Best Regards, Michael Wolff |
