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narrow and wide baffles and imaging

According to all the "professional" audio reviews that I've read over the last several years, narrow baffles are crucial to creating that so-desired pin-point imaging.

However, over the last few weeks, I've had the opportunity to audition Harbeth 40.2, Spendor Classic 100, Audio Note AN-E, and Devore O/93.  None of these had deficient imaging; indeed I would go so far as to say that it was good to very good.

So, what gives?  I'm forced to conclude that modern designs, 95% of which espouse the narrow baffle, are driven by aesthetic/cosmetic considerations, rather than acoustical ones, and the baffle~imaging canard is just an ex post facto justification.

I can understand the desire to build speakers that fit into small rooms, are relatively unobtrusive, and might pass the SAF test, but it seems a bit much to add on the idea that they're essentially the only ones that will do imaging correctly.



128x128twoleftears
fsonicsmith's avatar
fsonicsmith
967 posts
 
Imo loudspeaker design is a juggling of compromises, and anyone who says differently is in marketing.
I possess a fraction of your technical knowledge, a tiny fraction, but this is my viewpoint too. But just to expand upon that, the people that have a hard time accepting this reality are the ones who equate exotic driver materials, driver shapes, enclosure materials, enclosure shapes, crossover configurations, crossover components, et al to "the best". I read S'Phile these days for only one reason; I love the tension between the tech weenies (JA, MF, KR) and the luddites (AD, HR, SG, KM). This thread is about baffle size but barring a dipole, large baffle speakers tend to have resonant cabinets. One approach is to try to eliminate all resonance and another is to play to the resonance. Again, it boils down to an effort to change the real world vs. an accommodation of the real world, or swimming upstream vs. downstream. One can validly argue that those that fight the current (pun) by swimming upstream are the ones who innovate and create new concepts. I accept that. But with loudspeakers, where has that gotten us? 98% of the "cutting edge" loudspeaker designs boil down to marketing BS. And now I am really getting OT, but the same applies to cabling, amplification, and all else other than digital technology. 
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,111 posts
 
 @audiokinesis  reflected wave off baffle creates constructive and destructive interference, seen as amplitude.....
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,111 posts
 
agree that real engineering is about managing the trade space...however IF we are interested in moving forward instead of creating new flavors, perhaps we can agree that lower distortion is better ?
audiokinesis
2,753 posts
 

@tomic601 wrote: "reflected wave off baffle creates constructive and destructive interference, seen as amplitude....."

A wave travelling along a surface, parallel to that surface, does not reflect off of it. However it can diffract at the edge. The amplitude disturbance caused by diffraction, in and of itself, is imo not a big deal. It is only present in the first-arrival sound so its subjective impact is relatively minor in most cases. However what IS a big deal is, the time delay. The ear is often pretty good at overlooking a distortion that occurs at the exact same time as the signal, but usually quite poor at ignoring a distortion that occurs even slightly later in time. This has to do with a psychoacoustic phenomenon called "masking" which I can come back to if you are interested.

Tomic601 also said, "IF we are interested in moving forward instead of creating new flavors, perhaps we can agree that lower distortion is better?"

I think we should try to figure out which distortions matter the most to the ears and prioritize accordingly. "Lower measured distortion" does not necessarily correspond to "lower perceived distortion". The latter is what matters in my opinion.

Duke

tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,111 posts
 
Duke: hence my blackart comment... much harder to figure out with reliability psychoacoustics than the more or less well understood physics... Werner H not withstanding....
perhaps it is useful to think of the large baffle as a 180 degree Horn....
and in a two way with crossover overlap easy to see effects of both waves and the baffle...
but an area of violent agreement is the weighted trade space for attacking distortion.... Dr Ottola got us headed down one right path there...
some very simple - like 5 parts in circuit path SS amp outperform tubes in some of the ear is more sensitive areas.....
so that designer understands how we hear and attacks the sensitive stuff first.
best to you Duke
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