Millercarbon continues to bleat on about the benefits of high sensitivity speakers in not requiring big amplifier watts. After all, it's true big amplifiers cost big money. If there were no other factors, he would of course be quite right.
So there must be other factors. Why don't all speaker manufacturers build exclusively high sensitivity speakers? In a simple world it ought to be a no-brainer for them to maximise their sales revenue by appealing to a wider market.
But many don't. And in their specs most are prepared to over-estimate the sensitivity of their speakers, by up to 3-4dB in many cases, in order to encourage purchasers. Why do they do it?
There must be a problem. The one that comes to mind is sound quality. It may be that high sensitivity speakers have inherently poorer sound quality than low sensitivity speakers. It may be they are more difficult to engineer for high SQ. There may be aspects of SQ they don't do well.
«audio2design to @tomic601 , that makes no sense at all. If you go into an actual natural environment, short of being in a cave, or very close to a cliff, or in front of a large tree, the only source of reflection is the ground, and normally that is dirt and somewhat soft (absorptive) ground cover. Trees by virtue of being somewhat round, make excellent diffusers. That negates your whole argument right there. That nature you mentioned? Predominantly it behaves more like an anechoic chamber w.r.t. music reproduction than it does the average listening room.»
Complete non sense, an anechoic chamber ideal is absolute silence measured in Db....Nature is anything except absolute artificially designed "silence" measured in Db....
«Also negating your argument is your room is not the recording studio, or the concert hall, or the church. For the most part you want to negate the impact of the room so that the acoustical cues in the recording are clearly communicated to the ears/brain and you hear what was recorded.»
Complete non sense the recording cues from different microphones and different location are RECREATION after trade-off choices from the recording engineer, not PURE reproduction....Then for the most part we want our room to be an helper to facilitate the concrete recreation of our experience of timbre; the information about timbre being partially lost or distorted by virtue of the trade -off choices in the recording process....Our room can compensate and facilitate or impede this natural recreation....
«Removing early/loud reflections via speaker placement, broad band absorbers, and diffusion absolutely will do this. Close late reflections are bad too.»
Complete non sense, because first: even world-known acousticians are not in complete agreement about the suppresion or partial use of the early reflections...read this article where Floyd Toole speak positively about using some early reflections but is criticized for that...
It is a fact verified by science that speech recognition is greatly improved with some early reflections... Which one and the timing with late reflections is an acoustical complex problem not to be solved by dogmatical ignorance...
«I expect few people have actually heard stereo speakers in an anechoic chamber. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not bad at all, with pin point natural imaging.»
Complete non sense... Read what musician think about that in this link:
«I expect few people have actually heard stereo speakers in an anechoic chamber. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not bad at all, with pin point natural imaging. There is a big difference between audio reproduction and a new sound created in a room. Voices sound weird in an anechoic chamber because there is none of the expected echo . Recorded music sounds predominantly natural because the echos are already built into the recording. Your eyes and brain may be at odds though. That nature you mentioned? Predominantly it behaves more like an anechoic chamber w.r.t. music reproduction than it does the average listening room.»
Another nonsense here....What is true for some aspect of imaging is NOT true for timbre perception...These phenonema are correlated yes but not reducible ONLY to frequencies accuracy...
Sound in an anechoic chamber sound a bit like headphone, said Floyd Toole, the sound is in our head...In nature sound dont live in our head , for our survival we must locate sounds and identify clearly speech articulation....Then the metaphor comparing nature lack of echoing walls and anechoic chamber is bullshit....The level of sound recorded in a silent desert cannot be compared to an anechoic chamber by a margin measured around +30 Db......You dont jump because of your heartbeats in a desert, in an echoic chamber you do.... It is even dangerous to live there more than 45 minutes for many people....
"Recorded music sounds predominantly natural because the echoes are already built in the recording" is non sense because it is not the echoes that are built in in the recording but some information about the original room where the musical instrument were recorded with a lost of information and his inevitable distortion by the inevitable trade-off i spoke about linked to the choices made by the engineer between for example the 4 different kind of microphones he can use and their specific location...Not one microphone can record the same information even at the same location....These choices implicate a distortion in the information recorded about timbre for example...
The audiophile room is precisely what can help the recreation of a more natural sound if rightfully designed or acoustically treated, not only to erase some bad timing actions from the walls, but to use and take advantages from some others... It is called positive timing acoustical events...This information coming from our room can help us to recreate the natural timbre of the initial instrument in his living location and compensate in some way for the lost of information or the distorsion of the information coming with the recording process....
I will conclude by saying that the decision to voice or not speakers in an anechoic room is a technical matter in the hand of speakers designer specialist...BUT thinking that an anechoic chamber is good for a musical experience is ridiculous...Designers of speakers can and must ask for EXPERIMENTAL conditions that have NOTHING to do with immediate musical listening conditions and are more linked to the improving process of the limitations of their structural design... Ignorance only can confuse together, digitalisation of sound, acoustical and/or musical information... They are related but are 3 different events or process....
Then pretending that anechoic chamber reveal more information because frequencies perceptions are more "pure" is ignorance clothing in knowledge... It is like pretending that flying ourself in an aerodynamic chamber or a wind tunnel is the more truthful experience for flying...
Confusing the resistance of the parts of a plane in a wind tunnel with real flying action and impression, is like pretending that the more" accurate" frequencies perception and imaging in an anechoic chamber "sounded more natural" than in a treated acoustical room using reflection and timing events created for human ears to recreate musical timbre and not only imaging ...
Perhaps robot will prefer anechoic chamber....They dont like what seems to them" useless" information, like the "colors" of a stradivarius compared to an ordinary or mediocre violin....Like us humans....😁
Another area where attribution is difficult, the dynamic nature of high efficiency systems.
Is it that, or is it the controlled dispersion?
I'm not saying low compression speakers aren't good. I'm saying that some of what we may attribute to "fast" or high impact speakers is really just better room integration.
Amazing how you can take a slow, muddy, small sounding speaker and transform it with the appropriate room treatment, or how a poor room will sound better with tightly controlled speakers like horns, ESL's and open baffle.
Mijostyn wrote:
"A speaker that can hit 110dB without compression is going to be more
dynamic than a speaker that can only get to 100 dB even if it is less
efficient."
Agreed.
Mijostyn again: "Another issue is trying to run 15" woofers up to 700Hz then crossing to a
horn."
I understand your skepticsm.
Intuitively it sure seems wrong because it's almost never done in home audio. Actually, running a 15" woofer to 700 Hz is like running a 5" woofer to 2.1 kHz: For the right kind of 15" woofer, it's a piece of cake. (The 15" midwoofer I'm using is plus or minus 1 dB to about 1.7 kHz with no filtering, then it has a 3 dB peak at 2 kHz. Its effective motor-strength-to-moving-mass ratio surpasses every small high-end midwoofer I know of, and falls in the ballpark of 5" cone midranges.)
Some of the finest studio monitors in the world, the classic Augspurgers and the magnificent JBL M2, use the 15" woofer + horn format. There are several brief YouTube videos about the M2 which are imo worth watching.
Mijostyn: "Two very dissimilar drivers crossed right in the meat of the
midrange."
The big woofers and horn-loaded compression drivers are visually dissimilar, but ACOUSTICALLY they are far more similar than most cone midwoof/dome tweet combinations in the crossover region. Let me explain:
What we hear is a combination of the direct sound and the reverberant sound, the latter being dominated by the speaker's off-axis response. Ideally the off-axis response tracks the on-axis response very closely. However if there is a directivity mis-match in the crossover region, it is impossible for the on-axis response to match the off-axis response through the crossover region.
A directivity mis-match in the crossover region is almost inevitable for a cone midwoof/dome tweet combination, because the cone's radiation pattern will be narrower than the smaller dome's radiation pattern. There are two ways around this: One is to widen the midwoofer's pattern by using (hopefully well-behaved) cone breakup, and the other is to use a horn or waveguide of some sort to deliberately narrow the tweeter's radiation pattern so that it matches the midwoofer's.
The latter is what I do, only at a lower frequency than most midwoof/tweet combinations.
Crossover frequencies are a juggling of tradeoffs. Briefly, for a combination of psychoacoustic and practical reasons, imo 700 Hz makes sense. It arguably makes better psychoacoustic sense than just about any higher frequency does.
So like I said I understand your skepticism, but I've put some thought into my (often unorthodox) design decisions.
"Another area where attribution is difficult, the dynamic nature of high efficiency systems.
"Is it that, or is it the controlled dispersion?
"I'm
not saying low compression speakers aren't good. I'm saying that some
of what we may attribute to "fast" or high impact speakers is really
just better room integration."
I totally agree.
I would not be surprised to learn that, in practice, room acoustics and radiation patterns usually play as big if not bigger role in real-world dynamic contrast as thermal compression.
My point is that dynamics are a matter of volume. A speaker that can hit
110dB without compression is going to be more dynamic than a speaker
that can only get to 100 dB even if it is less. efficient. Just a matter
of power. Horns are very dynamic because they go very loud. They do it
with less power because they tend to be very efficient. As far as sound
quality goes, it's a toss up.
Thermal compression occurs with all voice coils. The less efficient the driver, in general there will also be greater thermal compression as the speaker is being asked to deal with more power. As the voice coil heats up (which it does on each individual bass note; yes, they can heat that fast) its ability to move the speaker cone is reduced. Result: lower efficiency speakers tend to have lower dynamic qualities as well and unless you move away from a voice coil M.O., you can't throw more power at it, more power makes it worse. IOW the louder you play, the more compressed it becomes.
Mahgister, This will be my last reply to you because you continue to demonstrate no ability to understand or from where I am standing even attempt to understand. You just get your self all in a huff and go nay nay nay about stuff you are grossly and woefully lacking knowledge on. You embarrass yourself.
It is a fact verified by science that speech recognition is greatly improved with some early reflections... Which one and the timing with late reflections is an acoustical complex problem not to be solved by dogmatical ignorance...
Clearly you don’t understand the discussion, but feel free to clog the thread with ramblings. Reproduction of sound/music, is NOT the same as creation of sound/music. Most music is mixed near field in setups that tend to have little in the way of early reflections. I am sorry that you cannot understand the difference between recording speech in an anechoic chamber and playing back speech recorded in a regular room and then played back on stereo speakers in an anechoic chamber. Have you never used headphones?
Floyd Toole specifically talks about using reflections to gain a sense of space. That is a taste thing. Gain space, loose imaging. You will note in my comment about imaging of stereo speakers in an anechoic chamber being laser focused. Want to guess why that is? Try to think more, and contradict me without adequate information less. You may learn something.
«I expect few people have actually heard stereo speakers in an anechoic chamber. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not bad at all, with pin point natural imaging.»
Complete non sense... Read what musician think about that in this link:
Again, you clearly do not understand, even though I repeated it, several times, that creation of sounds/music is much much different from reproducing it. I don’t know what else I can say except spend more time reading (listening) and understanding and less time reacting. You will be farther ahead.
The rest of your diatribe / attempted attack on what I wrote is just more of the same so wasting my time pointing out what you wrote that is wrong (probably all of it, I got bored reading it) would waste my time and clog the thread.
I will leave you with a little tidbit. Do you know what a lot of enterprising hobbyists do who can’t afford anechoic chambers, and need better measurements do when building speakers? .... They take them outside. Why? -- no reflections (again! except the ground as noted).
Have a nice life Mahgister.
p.s. "Sound in an anechoic chamber sound a bit like headphone, said Floyd Toole, the sound is in our head" ..... this is not remotely true. Not at all. I am not sure why Floyd Toole said it, and several, including me, who have heard stereo playback in an anechoic chamber called him on out on it. Usually (almost always) people only have 1 speaker in an anechoic chamber, so it is quite possible he never actually heard stereo playback in an anechoic chamber even with all his experience and was talking off the cuff. I was doing contract research on some advanced signal processing and had multiple speakers in the chamber. IF, and it is a big IF, you actually thought this through, in an anechoic chamber, with stereo speakers, all the social clues are there for angular position, depth, and some simulated height potentially from frequency shaping. None of that changes in an anechoic chamber. In fact, absent reflections, these items are all clearer.
You don't have to have a highly efficient speaker to overcome dynamic compression in normal usage. As the article points out, there are methods of voice coil design, speaker design, material choices, etc. that can all mitigate these problems, hence probably why there are 100's if not 1000+ speaker designers, but very few professional driver manufacturers, and why top speaker companies design their own drivers. It is also a reason why active speakers will be necessary for the absolute in sound recreation.
Reproduction of sound/music, is NOT the same as creation of sound/music.
Ok i will not answer to all your distortion of my points...
Except these one...
Pure "Reproduction" of sound/music is IMPOSSIBLE in practice... It is a path where each foot is placed on diverging choices.... The management of these choices are what i called a "recreation" of what was a musical creation in a living stage or room...But you dont answered that point at all...You only call me ignorant like it was an argument....Recording engineer by the way are not only scientist but artist for this reason...
I cite Toole about reflections and someone who contradict him, just to relativize your own DOGMATIC affirmation that all primary reflection are bad... You distorted my intention like usual..Read your own posts before answering me . Or keep a red string in your head....Even late reflections can be good if wisely used by the way...
I contested not, the fact that nature lack walls and reflections, 😊 but your false assimilation of nature and an anechoic chamber, remember?.... Here also you distorted my intention...
I will let you with a tidbit to pounder also with the same arrogance you always keep with any " ignorant audiophile"...
Why do you think speech is badly perceived in an anechoic chamber?
A clue: Most headphones have ALSO a room with reflections...This is their shell....
I already have a life and i try to not attack other audiophiles with my dogmas....It is not your case... Practical acoustic is an art based science not a science, like medecine is an art by the way...
«Ignorance come first from what we know, not from what we dont understand»- Anonymus Smith
You don’t have to have a highly efficient speaker to overcome dynamic compression in normal usage.
Now, before you tell me what I don’t know and need to know, consider the following:
What system constellation as it pertains to minimum cone diameter, sensitivity rating and wattage would, according to you, be able to deliver sufficient SPL coverage for "normal usage" with a room size of, say, up 30 square meters (or, no more than ~3,000 cf. total volume) - as an active design with the whole none off-the-shelf trimmings, that is, so to stay on your home field? Room acoustics per your preference here.
Enough for a while with any further elaborations of all the exclusivities in regards to tailored driver design, impedance matched amps, measurement methods, analysis and DSP tools and other sheer engineering prowess. Let’s get some blunt, physical requirements in place as per the above.
As the article points out, there are methods of voice coil design, speaker design, material choices, etc. that can all mitigate these problems, hence probably why there are 100’s if not 1000+ speaker designers, but very few professional driver manufacturers, and why top speaker companies design their own drivers.
Would said mitigations make up for what bigger and more efficient drivers incorporating horn- or waveguide loading with compression drivers could do in regards to fairly uninhibited dynamics? What’s sufficient SPL-wise, even? How about headroom - lots of it; does that make of sonic difference to you, the ease that comes from using lots of radiation area and high efficiency?
One thing would be an acknowledgement of the above as a stand-alone factor; another whether it’s compatible with a commercial design meant for sale with all that entails and the size restrictions and other that typically follows here. It’s a convenient stance implicitly claiming what’s "sufficient" for normal usage, likely catering to a product development of one’s own within said limitations, when setting the bar higher in that regard could make a worthwhile difference to some - non-commercial it may be as a product range.
It is also a reason why active speakers will be necessary for the absolute in sound recreation.
High sensitivity speakers cost more to make and lets not forget that higher efficiency speakers with higher impedance cost even more to make but it all comes down to good quality design for any speaker to make them perform and sound good you will know when you find the right one for your ears because all sounds will just sound right to your ears.
Excellent @glubson. From the fertile mind of Bruce Thigpen, the Eminent Technology TRW-17 Rotary Subwoofer, for the bottom octave (20-40Hz) down (fed enough power, flat to 1Hz!).
Guys, it's simply not true to make a statement that a higher sensitivity speaker is more costly to make. Drivers, cabinet material, R&D, spikes, connectors, wire, glues, finishes.... and of course how many points dealers get to sell them if selling through conventional means will determine costs, not sensitivity.
Others have said that higher sensitivity speakers have to be larger in order to transduce low frequencies at the correct levels. Also that driver manufacturing tolerances are tighter. Both these increase costs.
But if that's not correct then you must go back to my original post and tell me why all manufacturers don't build high sensitivity speakers, rather than only a small minority.
Guys, it's simply not true to make a statement that a higher sensitivity
speaker is more costly to make. Drivers, cabinet material, R&D,
spikes, connectors, wire, glues, finishes.... and of course how many
points dealers get to sell them
Let's be clear about one thing: Sensitivity isn't the same thing as Efficiency and it really is the latter which is the focus of this thread. You can build a high sensitivity speaker by simply taking a number of low efficiency drivers and putting them in parallel. Cheap and high sensitivity, but its efficiency will remain low. High Efficiency cannot be achieved cheaply for the simple fact that there is a much higher degree of precision needed in the construction of the driver's motor.
The difference between Sensitivity and Efficiency: The former is 2.83Volts at one meter. The latter is 1 watt 1 meter. If the speaker is 8 ohms the two are the same. If we take four 8 ohm drivers that are 87dB and put them in parallel, the load is now 2 ohms. The sensitivity is increased by 6dB; 93dB doesn't sound too bad. But that is 2.83volts into 2 ohms; when you do the math that is 4 watts. If you put 1 watt into that same array you'll still get 87dB. A higher efficiency driver that can make 98dB with 1 watt and is 8 ohms is a different beast altogether. This describes the 15" drivers in my speakers at home and they cost $2000.00 each.
You can find 15" drivers that cost $200.00. I'd be very interested to learn of a 15" with the same 22Hz free air resonance and 150 watt power handling that cost $200, or even $600.00. Have at it! But I think you'll find that such simply does not exist.
1+ ctsooner. The most expensive speakers I have even seen are not efficient at all. The Klipsch Horn is actually a good value in today's market. @audiokinesis, That makes perfect sense Duke. The radiation of the woofer will narrow down to that of the horn buy 700 Hz. It should work as long as the driver is not colored. The speakers that I have heard that run a 15" woofer that high have been colored. Again the K horn is a good example and I think they moved the lower crossover to 350 Hz from 500 Hz. If you manage to avoid another crossover point that would be great. @atmasphere, I do not disagree. Thermal compression exists but good drivers take this into account, ventilation, ferrofluid, etc. So, to what degree does this effect the sound we hear at home, at the volumes we listen at. The only drivers I have are subwoofers and with the system going as loud as I'll ever play it they are just loafing along. I would think ESLs would be more limited by mechanical compression than anything else. I'm not sure but I do not think they heat up at all. The transformers certainly stay cold. Transformer saturation might be an issue.
@audio2design, I doubt anyone is going to jamb a tube or class A amp into a speaker enclosure. You can add DSP control to any system. Check out DEQX and Trinnov. The problems with active loudspeakers are, audiophiles tend to shy away from all in one stuff. Right now this market is with equipment like Sonos. Great for TV and background music, not to hot for overall sound quality. The companies that make this stuff and have the horsepower to do it are not interested in audiophiles. Not enough of us. They are marketing to the masses who do not like big speakers, do not want to spend a gazillion dollars on equipment and are not critical listeners. I also doubt they would ever go near an 8 foot ESL. Amar Bose was a brilliant guy but lets face it, the 901 was not a great speaker. He sold a bunch of them jumpstarting a huge company with lots of horsepower. Look what they make now. How is Meridian doing? You certainly do not see a lot of their systems in the US. Audiophiles have a tendency to be digital and processor phobic. The last thing a died in the wool Vinyl listener wants is a computer in his speaker.
I'd agree with poster @ctsooner here. Pro manufacturers, the more or less sole supplier for this segment, have developed and build their high efficiency drivers for decades now, and relative to their size, material use and R&D are actually very fairly priced compared to "hi-fi" drivers in general. Boutique high eff. drivers with AlNiCo magnets or field coils housed in luxuriously finished cabinets and all will always be (much) more steeply priced, though are hardly representative in this context. Fortunately they needn't be that pricy to show the merits of high efficiency designs.
Largely it comes down to size, sound type and association, I believe; high efficiency speakers are closely related to if not directly derived from the pro sector (certainly driver-wise), a sector audiophilia isn't too comfortable with, and coupled with their sonic imprinting as typically more direct, dense, dynamic and present (also due to their dispersive nature) may not appeal to audiophiles and their more widespread exposure to a "softer," thinner, more laid-back and "reverberative" sound (some even feel the dynamics capabilities of high eff. speakers to be "exaggerated"). I'm sure many regard high eff. designs as more "brute" and lacking subtlety, not least when linked to the pro/studio environment, but it's often very far from the truth (did I mention conjecture?). As if sheer volume wasn't an issue already high eff. into the lower octaves takes some very serious size - there's no noodling around that requirement either - and when most have jumped ship with the high eff. main speakers long ago it's even more rare seeing subs in this category of speakers.
What's most popular in hi-fi is also a popular narrative, and that's an inertia not easily brought to hold.
How can you cool the driver voice coil if you need 100 watts to listen to it at normal volume? Even if you put a dedicated fan it wouldn't help! In contrast if you need just 5 watt, you don't have this problem even with the most straightforward driver coil design.
Thank you phusis. If I understand you correctly, you make a new point after 119 posts to this thread: A large majority of audiophile speaker designs are low efficiency because a large majority of audiophiles don't like some of the sound characteristics of high efficiency speaker designs. Or, as you say, they think they don't.
If that's correct, I wonder how much the sound characteristics of the puny 10 watt often SET amps that are commonly used to drive high efficiency designs have got to do with it. Like some of the posters here, I certainly don't like them. Would they sound different (better?) driven with a high current amp with a big power supply, even if the wick has to be turned a long way down? They would be under better control, particularly in the bass where most of the problem lies.
...
A higher efficiency driver that can make 98dB with 1 watt and is 8 ohms is a different beast altogether. This describes the 15" drivers in my speakers at home and they cost $2000.00 each.
These are field coil-fitted drivers, right? In that presumable case their price, though way above what needs to serve a fitting purpose here, makes a little more sense.
You can find 15" drivers that cost $200.00. I'd be very interested to learn of a 15" with the same 22Hz free air resonance and 150 watt power handling that cost $200, or even $600.00. Have at it! But I think you'll find that such simply does not exist.
The Electro-Voice DL15W woofer/mids of my pro cinema speakers are 97dB sensitive/8 ohms, have a 21Hz free air resonance, and take 400 watts long term. And there are two of them in each speaker (+ subs). Being they're high-passed below ~85Hz further adds to their power handling. I'm unaware of their price being they're discontinued, but my guess is around $300 retail per driver at the time.
The problem is because high efficiency speakers today are rare a very few audiophile had opportunity to listen good implemented system with high efficiency speakers. The other factor is the average high efficiency speakers are more transparent and shows more flaws of the system electronics.
I remember, for me it was shock when I at first listened a good high efficiency speakers system back at 2002. I was like a medieval knight who saw an army armed with aircraft and tanks. Since that day I heard many systems, but any low efficient system didn’t impress me. In the best case they sound just OK. They also sound more boring in therm of music. If any thing impressed me - it always was high efficient system!
Thanks Alex. In terms of my original question, I am rather afraid you are saying high efficiency speakers are rare because they're rare. That won't get us far.
And on your second point. Or are systems electronics commonly used to drive them often flawed? I have always felt that in many cases it is the flaws that make them less 'boring'.
"it's simply not true to make a statement that a higher sensitivity
speaker is more costly to make..."
Based on sixteen years of manufacturing fairly high efficiency speakers, I disagree.
The enclosure is usually the most expensive component and high efficiency calls for large, typically labor-intensive enclosures. As enclosure size goes up so does the enclosure cost, even moreso if the larger enclosure is also more complex. And enclosure size has two hidden costs: Shipping cost and opportunity cost. The latter is due to the sheer amount of space the speaker takes up in a showroom.
Many other costs also are typically (though not always) higher with high efficiency, but enclosure cost is always higher for the larger enclosure assuming an equivalent enclosure build technique, and dramatically so for dramatic size differences, and even moreso as the enclosure complexity increases. Sort of like the cost of building a house goes up as the size and number of rooms (complexity) go up.
Alex, who said you need 100 watts to drive a voice coil at normal volume? First of all music is dynamic and made up of a palette of frequencies. You don't listen to a sine wave. Even with less efficient speakers RMS wattage is going to be pretty low at normal listening levels maybe 10 watts at most while still hitting peaks of 100 watts. A woofer that is well ventilated is it's own fan. That is the way it is designed. The drivers I use can take 600 watts continuously indefinitely. I doubt they have ever seen 100 watts RMS
The low sensitive speakers sound boring because they eat microdynamics that exist at live performance. They are simply much less musical. The audio business (producers, sellers, reviewers) cheat you and sell you cheaper stuff as something good and fancy. I'm sorry. I don't want to be offencive. You asked what do people think about this topic. It is just my honest opinion.
Maybe I'm missing something. I have a resistor attached on chassis of my phonostage. The chassis is on open rack and good ventilated and it is much bigger than any voice coil. The power dissipated on this resistor just 8 Watt. And this power 8W make a big
chassis temperature about 20C hotter compared the room temperature. It is not bad, but the voice coil is inside the little box and much smaller.
These are field coil-fitted drivers, right? In that presumable case
their price, though way above what needs to serve a fitting purpose
here, makes a little more sense.
@phusis
They are TAD 1602s. Pricey, and a bit different from the EV. I forgot to mention they have Alnico magnets.FWIW the midrange driver employs a field coil and a beryllium diaphragm with a Kapton surround. They are Classic Audio Loudspeakers model T-3. I had the cabinets custom-built by CAL to be a bit taller than stock so they are flat to 20Hz.
Alex We shall agree to differ and remain friends. Doesn't happen much here I know. But I'm hoping for some changes and to expose the trolls and the bigoted and closed minded for what they are. Know who they are but don't name names. Different opinions honestly and humbly held are the lifeblood.
My first thread has been quite a success with 120+ contributions. Thanks to all.
If I understand you correctly, you make a new point after 119 posts to this thread: A large majority of audiophile speaker designs are low efficiency because a large majority of audiophiles don’t like some of the sound characteristics of high efficiency speaker designs. Or, as you say, they think they don’t.
It’s certainly a type of sound quite a few audiophiles don’t warm to particularly, likely because of another type of sound they’re typically exposed to or, yes, they dismiss this segment of speakers out of hand/sans 1st hand experience. Or, they may simply not like the ones they heard, for whatever reason, which is perfectly fair.
Habitual use is important to stress here, I find. It’s a bit akin to the sonic difference between passive and active speakers perhaps; using the same speakers in one and the other configuration I find the former is generally the more euphonic sounding, softer, less clear, less resolved and less transiently "snappy"/more smeared. To some passive here is the more "musical" and warm variant and thus more pleasing, whereas to others active is the musically more honest, resolved, transparent and less bottlenecked presentation and therefore what they prefer. Below is an excerpts from a JBL K2 S9800 review that highlights a universal characteristic of horn-loaded, large-woofer speakers and their type of presentation:
Horn speakers are not to everyone’s taste, and while a number of visitors agreed that this speaker seems remarkably free from the vices normally attributed to the breed, some listeners might find it a little too ruthlessly revealing, preferring something rather more laid-back and restrained. While the K2 does have some aggressive tendencies when worked hard, taking no prisoners among poor-quality software, sources, or amps, its ability to "suck in" the listener and create involvement in even unfamiliar material is unparalleled in my experience.
One aspect of performance that’s somewhat different from the norm lies in the way this speaker interacts -- or rather doesn’t interact -- with the listening room. Most speakers have relatively wide dispersion in every direction, so that although the sound you hear is dominated by the direct sound from speaker to listener, it is richly augmented by room-reflected sound. However, both the K2’s large bass/mid driver and its mid/treble horns seem to have comparatively narrow dispersion through the midrange and treble, so there’s less room sound than is usually the case.
In that respect the K2 shows certain similarities to dipole panel loudspeakers such as the Quad ESL-988, which have a figure-eight-shaped distribution. This means that you hear more of the direct sound coming straight to you from the loudspeakers, and proportionally less sound reflected from the walls, floor, and ceiling than you would using a speaker with a much wider dispersion characteristic, such as the B&W Nautilus models.
Whereas the Nautilus 800 will tend to fill the room more, creating a strong impression that the musicians are actually sitting right there, the K2 and Quad provide more of an "open window" onto the recording sessions, revealing more of what the recording engineer intended, but less of the illusion that musicians are actually playing in front of you. This is neither praise nor criticism, as there’s neither right nor wrong here, but it is a relevant observation that has a significant impact upon the character of the listening experience.
This quality undoubtedly contributes to the very precise imaging, alongside this bulky speaker’s surprisingly good transparency. It’s not quite a match for the best dipole panels here, but is rather better than most box loudspeakers in this regard.
If that’s correct, I wonder how much the sound characteristics of the puny 10 watt often SET amps that are commonly used to drive high efficiency designs have got to do with it. Like some of the posters here, I certainly don’t like them. Would they sound different (better?) driven with a high current amp with a big power supply, even if the wick has to be turned a long way down? They would be under better control, particularly in the bass where most of the problem lies.
No, through high quality high efficiency speakers, not least very high eff. (i.e.: from ~100dB’s on up) all-horn speakers I find great quality SET’s to bring out the best in them. There’s a combination here of aliveness, vibrancy, uninhibited yet naturally warm presence and a lit-from-within sense of presentation that’s quite unique and utterly beguiling. To take full advantage of SET’s you need very high eff. speakers so only to use as little as possible of the few watts available, and stay in the very low range of distortion. By comparison some Solid State amps (less so SIT’s) with the same very high eff. speakers sounded somewhat grey-ish, a bit mechanical, less folded-out and just downright flat.
Myself I previously used a pair of very high eff. all-horn speakers, but for some reason I ended up not giving them the SET they deserved and instead veered more towards active with SS amps (30 watts pure Class A to the horns and Class D variants in the half kW range further low) and horn hybrid speakers that I use now. Again the passive vs. active sonic marker applies, though literally here; active with the horn hybrids I’m using now (~100 to 110dB’s sensitivity) infuses a vitality and ignited-ness, even with SS amps, that to me is akin to the sonic imprinting of SET’s + all-horns, the difference though being an added sense with the active config. of evermore ease, resolution and (a sense of) unlimited power delivery.
They are TAD 1602s. Pricey, and a bit different from the EV. I forgot to mention they have Alnico magnets.FWIW the midrange driver employs a field coil and a beryllium diaphragm with a Kapton surround. They are Classic Audio Loudspeakers model T-3. I had the cabinets custom-built by CAL to be a bit taller than stock so they are flat to 20Hz.
Never heard Classic Audio Loudspeakers, for that I imagine I'd have to go abroad to the US. From what I can tell they must be excellent speakers. How would you compare them to the likes of JBL Everest's (DD67000, or one of the other two variants), if you heard them?
How would you compare them to the likes of JBL Everest’s (DD67000, or one of the other two variants), if you heard them?
I have. The Classic Audio Loudspeakers are **easily** in the same league. If I had to compare, the CAL is a bit smoother, owing to a better interface between the throat and horn, resulting in far less artifact. The field coil compression driver is also a higher performance bit of kit.
Phusis, I would bet there are a host of SS amps that would handily out perform any SET amp. Any small class A Pass amp for sure. JC1's definitely and most probably all of Atma-Sphere's amps. Like trying to race a 911 in a VW Bug.
I have. The Classic Audio Loudspeakers are **easily** in the same league. If I had to compare, the CAL is a bit smoother, owing to a better interface between the throat and horn, resulting in far less artifact. The field coil compression driver is also a higher performance bit of kit.
I would expect no less of the T3’s, or CAL speakers overall. The DD67000’s are great speakers, and somewhat better than their smaller K2 S9900 sibling than I initially thought, but there’s a shred of "splashy-ness" to their midrange than when not there lends a smoother imprinting, as you point to with the CAL’s. What are the T3’s sold for - close to $100k? Re: mentioned "better interface" it reminds of what Simon Mears told me of the importance of the coupling between the compression driver exit and the throat of the horn it’s mounted to; transition, transition, transition - as he put it.
@mijostyn --
Phusis, I would bet there are a host of SS amps that would handily out perform any SET amp. Any small class A Pass amp for sure. JC1’s definitely and most probably all of Atma-Sphere’s amps. Like trying to race a 911 in a VW Bug.
"Outperform;" per your ears or more from a theoretical perspective? And in what context of speakers? SET’s, great ones at that, are dependent on very high efficiency speakers (and not too heavy an overall load) to perform their best, at least from my chair. Paired properly as such I find the combo is magical, or just rather natural and uninhibited sounding. I suspect most haven’t really auditioned them in the context I refer to, and if they have the speakers here (typically all-horns) may been so far from their usual sonic menu that an assessment would veer closer to their imprinting, and not the amp(s). Myself I certainly can’t complain using a variety of SS-based amps in my set-up, but I wager a substantial aspect of this rests in it being a fully active configuration.
@phusis, yes, my set up is fully active but you could never use SET amps in my system. I really require big amps. I was talking in the context of very efficient speakers. SET amps are very romantic and if that is what you like then by all means but a class A SS amp particularly a Pass or Curl design is going to be more accurate, have more control over the woofer and still have a little of the romance. I would also rather buy records than $1000 tubes.
Costs for high-eff drivers are greater, Size high- eff designs are larger can cost more to build ship take up more room at dealers and distributors. And I will also add that buyers don't want changes. And they have been told for decades that all horns are problematic and they bought the line that small is better. Face it would you buy a toaster that was better than others but was larger and looked not like a toaster? We are simple tools and want to blend in and conform with others not to stand out.
What are the T3’s sold for - close to $100k? Re: mentioned "better interface" it reminds of what Simon Mears told me of the importance of the coupling between the compression driver exit and the throat of the horn it’s mounted to; transition, transition, transition - as he put it.
@phusis As I understand it, my speakers are currently about $33,000/pair. Mr. Mears is correct. The coupling was optimized on a computer and the result is very smooth and seamless. People often comment on hearing T3s (and T1s) that the speakers sound more like ESLs in that they are so fast and seamless. IOW no ’horn artifact’ at all.
Regarding the SETs, IMO/IME their main advantage is that as the power is reduced, the distortion decreases linearly to unmeasurable. This is important because (to trot out an old expression) it really is all about that first watt. But just so you know, this character is not unique to SETs, although it is rare in push-pull amplifiers. But you can imagine since I’m writing this that I know of a few amps which share this important characteristic. But one **disadvantage** of SETs is that their primary distortion product is the 2nd harmonic, as well as low power and troubles making bandwidth due to the output transformer.
Now we all know that the 2nd harmonic is innocuous in that the ear is insensitive to it (and because the ear converts all forms of distortion into tonality, it assigns the quality of ’warmth’ and ’bloom’ to this one). However, the ear assigns this same quality to the 3rd harmonic as well, but there is an important distinction. Circuits that have a 2nd harmonic as their primary distortion product mathematically have what is known as a ’quadratic non-linearity’. Its not so important to know the math, but if you feel like working it out what you will see is that harmonic orders above the 2nd decrease rather slowly as compared to a circuit that has a ’cubic non-linearity’ (produces the 3rd as the primary distortion component). An amplifier that has this quality has its distortion decreasing much faster as the order of the harmonic is increased! This is important since the ear uses higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure (and assigns the quality of harshness and brightness to them). IOW, an amplifier with a cubic non-linearity will sound more detailed (because distortion masks low level detail) and **smoother** because the higher ordered harmonics are at a lower level.
In terms of circuit design an amplifier with this characteristic must be fully differential and balanced from input to output. In this way even orders are cancelled with each stage in the amp (instead of being compounded), leaving the 3rd as the primary distortion component, at about 1/10th what you would get with a single-ended circuit, assuming that neither employs any feedback.
Now if you mix single-ended and push-pull, you wind up with a prominent 5th harmonic in addition to a 2nd and a 3rd (put another way an amp like this has **both** cubic and quadratic non-linearities). This is why many people prefer SETs, but those same people find that if they hear an amp with similar concepts (triode, class A, zero feedback) executed fully differential, that it has all the desirable properties of SETs without a downside. BTW this difference is easy to hear (its not subtle) and of course its also easy to measure.
Atma-Sphere that sound great but is way above my pay grade. But, I think you just explained why I like Pass and Curl amps so much? Phusis, those are quite some speakers you have. What are you using for subs? They must be unusual to keep up with your main speakers.
@mijostyn I don't know about Curl's designs so much, but Nelson does make fully differential amplifiers so he is able to take advantage of the lower distortion afforded, and yet have a nice 3rd to help mask the higher orders.
My opinion of speakers is very jaded now. I've been living with large ESLs for so long that most other speakers sound.....small, even if they go loud. I find horn loaded designs very interesting but I have yet to hear one that I would consider. I have not heard Ralph's speakers, I'm sure they are excellent. I have heard a few at shows that were not impressive, but what ever is at a show. Some of the older Horn loaded speakers like Altecs and JBLs that I had a lot of experience with when I was young were all very colored. Back then K horns were the best but they did not image well and though not as colored as the other horn speakers you still knew you were listening to horns. Frankly, I liked the Cornwall better than the K horn. I owned Heresy's for 10 years and for a teenage rocker with a Dynakit Stereo 70 they were great until I got Large Advents and a Phase Linear 700. The Advents were more natural and imaged very nicely. The Heresy's were the last and only horn speakers I ever owned. The problem is there are painfully few situations where you can hear them in a controlled situation. Some of them are very large, very expensive and few dealers are going to keep them on the floor. Those of us here have gone down our own path and become entrenched in one technology or another and always seem to think ours is best. There is no single best. There are thousands of bests. Since we can't hear all of these systems it is fun to talk about them and hear about what other people are doing. In many instance you might learn something that you can apply to your own system.
"Harmonic orders above the 2nd decrease rather slowly as compared to a
circuit that has a ’cubic non-linearity’ (produces the 3rd as the
primary distortion component). An amplifier that has this quality has
its distortion decreasing much faster as the order of the harmonic is
increased! This is important since the ear uses higher ordered harmonics
to sense sound pressure (and assigns the quality of harshness and
brightness to them). IOW, an amplifier with a cubic non-linearity will
sound more detailed (because distortion masks low level detail) and
**smoother** because the higher ordered harmonics are at a lower level.
"In
terms of circuit design an amplifier with this characteristic must be
fully differential and balanced from input to output. In this way even
orders are cancelled with each stage in the amp (instead of being
compounded), leaving the 3rd as the primary distortion component, at
about 1/10th what you would get with a single-ended circuit, assuming
that neither employs any feedback."
VERY INTERESTING!!
I think this explains part of the difference I hear between your amps and good single-ended triode amps, in particular:
"
An amplifier that has this quality has
its distortion decreasing much faster as the order of the harmonic is
increased!" And,
"...even
orders are cancelled with each stage in the amp (instead of being
compounded), leaving the 3rd as the primary distortion component, at
about 1/10th what you would get with a single-ended circuit...".
Thank you for putting this down in writing. I copied it to a file so I can find it again.
Some of the older Horn loaded speakers like Altecs and JBLs that I had a
lot of experience with when I was young were all very colored. Back
then K horns were the best but they did not image well and though not as
colored as the other horn speakers you still knew you were listening to
horns.
Like any other tech, horns have benefited dramatically from the aid of computer optimization. I owned Altecs, Klipsh and EV horn systems and there's no way I would go back to them; as you say they were very colored (and lacked bandwidth, particularly in the bass). The Classic Audio stuff is a different beast altogether- neutrality is a good descriptor. The speakers produced by Audiokinesis using waveguides had a similar neutrality- you found yourself involved with the music rather than the speakers.
.. my set up is fully active but you could never use SET amps in my system. I really require big amps. I was talking in the context of very efficient speakers. SET amps are very romantic and if that is what you like then by all means but a class A SS amp particularly a Pass or Curl design is going to be more accurate, have more control over the woofer and still have a little of the romance. I would also rather buy records than $1000 tubes.
SET’s isn’t the way I’m heading either, but some of the best of them I’ve heard (300b-based by David Wright of UK) didn’t sound "romantic" per se; just natural, as I described earlier. The Ongaku (211 tubes) is warmer sounding to my ears (as is most Kondo), but I’m thinking whether this character has to do with the silver transformers mainly (instead of cobber).
@johnk --
Costs for high-eff drivers are greater, Size high- eff designs are larger can cost more to build ship take up more room at dealers and distributors.
Relative to driver diameter and weight I don’t see high eff. pro units being notably more expensive vs. hi-fi dittos, although of course they’re usually larger and take more power which then reflects their price. My main issue is taking this out of proportion with high eff. boutique drivers from the likes of TAD ($2,000 per 15" unit as mentioned by Ralph), older WE’s and Vitavox (both crazily priced), as well as (to a lesser degree) Great Plains Audio/older Altec’s or other. Brands like B&C, EV (older units in particular), RCF, 18sound, BMS and others are more fairly priced, and still great high eff. pro drivers. Some if not most of you guys commenting on this make your own speakers or are affiliated with people who are, and the drivers being used as examples here mayn’t be more widely representative.
And I will also add that buyers don’t want changes. And they have been told for decades that all horns are problematic and they bought the line that small is better. Face it would you buy a toaster that was better than others but was larger and looked not like a toaster? We are simple tools and want to blend in and conform with others not to stand out.
Well put - completely agree. I’m sure most audiophiles would find my using pro cinema speakers and 20 cf. horn variant subs to be if not laughable, then oddly.. different. Your horn set-ups are much larger still. Be that as it may I’m not going back to smaller, low eff. all-direct radiating boxes.
@atmasphere --
Thanks for your very interesting elaborations on SET’s and distortions types.
As I understand it, my speakers are currently about $33,000/pair. Mr. Mears is correct. The coupling was optimized on a computer and the result is very smooth and seamless. People often comment on hearing T3s (and T1s) that the speakers sound more like ESLs in that they are so fast and seamless. IOW no ’horn artifact’ at all.
I must have thought of the T1.5’s/T1’s re: price. $33k/pair or thereabouts for the T.3’s isn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to many other offerings in high-end and the JBL Everest’s mentioned earlier I’d say, from what I’ve read by you and others, that they are very fairly priced in light of the drivers used (Alnico and field coil magnets), overall finish/use of hardwood and being handmade.
@mijostyn --
Phusis, those are quite some speakers you have. What are you using for subs? They must be unusual to keep up with your main speakers.
Thanks, I think ;) The horn mounted on top of the EV main cinema speakers is the HP940 and crossed at just below 800Hz. Within a few weeks they’ll be replaced with the (much) bigger HP9040 horn using the existing (and still fitting) DH1A comp. driver. The EV bass cabs are meant for use with both of these horns, the entire speaker called either TS940D or TS9040D depending on the horn mounted to them. The intention using the bigger horn is to control directivity all the way down to the cross-over point (as low as 500Hz, if desired), and thus make for a somewhat better coverage pattern transition between the twin 15" woofers and the horn. The smaller horn I use now has a mode between 2-3kHz, whereas the bigger one moves it down to ~500Hz. Choosing a cross-over in the 650-700Hz region with the same steep slopes should avoid any outright mode issues. We’ll see.
The two subs are tapped horns (called "MicroWrecker") fitted with a 15" B&C woofer each (15TBX100). Tuned at 23 to 24Hz, 97dB sensitive, and taking up 20 cf. per horn. They are unusual, yes, not what one typically sees in hi-fi, if rarely at all. They sound different to direct radiating twin 18" ported subs (their effective air radiation equivalent) being more smooth, enveloping and effortless sounding. They fit the EV mains great.
@atmasphere --
Like any other tech, horns have benefited dramatically from the aid of computer optimization. I owned Altecs, Klipsh and EV horn systems and there’s no way I would go back to them; as you say they were very colored (and lacked bandwidth, particularly in the bass). The Classic Audio stuff is a different beast altogether- neutrality is a good descriptor. The speakers produced by Audiokinesis using waveguides had a similar neutrality- you found yourself involved with the music rather than the speakers.
The David Gunness developed HP-series horns from Electro-Voice (based on Don Keele’s Constant Directivity design’s from the 70’s) aren’t of the earliest "squeamish" types, and supposedly the bigger variants HP640 and 9040, as well as the earlier HR-series, are very well liked by audiophiles-into-horns. I’m sure the Classic Audio horns are better being newer, computer aided developments as well as their more inert hard-wood material use, albeit smaller; this is where physics and sheer size comes into place for directivity control down to the x-over point, and that’s not trivial. Compromises, compromises..
@phusis The T-1 has a 250Hz horn, using a 4" compression driver that is field coil powered. The diaphragm is made of beryllium and employs a Kapton surround, which is how it goes so low without breakups. I don't know the spec on the T-1 but I do know that the 3" diaphragm in the T-3 has its first breakup at 35KHz. The breakups are a pretty big deal; I got to hear what the regular TAD diaphragm did compared to the CAL unit and it was not subtle- much smoother!
The T-1 has a 250Hz horn, using a 4" compression driver that is field coil powered. The diaphragm is made of beryllium and employs a Kapton surround, which is how it goes so low without breakups. I don’t know the spec on the T-1 but I do know that the 3" diaphragm in the T-3 has its first breakup at 35KHz. The breakups are a pretty big deal; I got to hear what the regular TAD diaphragm did compared to the CAL unit and it was not subtle- much smoother!
The combination of larger VC diameters, beryllium diaphragms and being field coil powered sounds like a recipe for sonic excellence. That’s next level rocket stage for sure..
They are very interesting speakers and IMHO very nice looking. It is a world away from what I deal with.
My approach to subwoofers is totally different to Phusis. His are 7 dB more sensitive but much larger 20 cf to my 1.9 cf ! I have to use four of them to create a line array and each one has two 12" drivers in it. They require power and a computer to control them but they will go flat down to 18 Hz. The enclosures being small and cylindrical are very stiff and the cabinet resonance is way above the operating range and very well damped I can't even see it running them full range. They break up at 2000 Hz. Actually, I should say "it" not "they" as there is only the mule built. The idea was to minimize enclosure vibration and resonance using woodworker friendly materials. The woofers are in phase and located at opposite ends of a 28" cylinder. Their reactive forces cancel out keeping the affair from shaking. The walls vary between 1 7/16 to almost 2". I have not weighed it yet but it is darn heavy. Definitely a two person lift. Now I have to build the other three and finish them all in polyester satin black. They should have no problem keeping up with the Sound Labs. Psyched to say the least. ESLs are so simple relative to other designs. There really is not much to them. Working around their limitations is pretty easy. You just need the right amp and you have to take the low bass away from them. They will do it but it so compromises them.
Community made the best horn designs even today we haven't equaled what they offered during the 1970s. Their multi cells are by far the most advanced on earth the leviathan and the radials all not bettered by modern designs. I have been beta testing for a few companies they know I have many horn types to use the horns they made to go with there new designs are just based on older designs but are smaller. So while it is possible to design better horns today we don't because of the size and costs to build them.
Most speakers of low sensitivity have more elaborate crossovers to even out the frequency response. It is just an engineering tradeoff, but since more power is needed, anyway, better drivers, also of low sensitivity can be used. When I switched from a 200 wpc Phase Linear amp pushing stacked Advents, I was in heaven, at least until I heard a Threshold amp and Audire amp drive really good speakers,
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