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Tone, Tone, Tone !


I was reminded again today, as I often am, about my priorities for any speaker that I will own.

I was reminded by listening to a pair of $20,000 speakers, almost full range. They did imaging. They did dynamics.They did detail.

But I sat there unmoved.

Came home and played a number of the same tracks on a pair of speakers I currently have set up in my main system - a tiny lil’ Chihuahua-sized pair of Spendor S 3/5s.


And I was in heaven.

I just couldn’t tear myself away from listening.

Why?

Tone.

The Spendors satisfy my ears (MY ears!) in reproducing music with a gorgeous, organic tone that sounds so "right.". It’s like a tonal massage directly o my auditory system. Strings are silky and illuminated, saxes so warm and reedy, snares have that papery "pop," cymbals that brassy overtone, acoustic guitars have that just-right sparkle and warmth. Voices sound fleshy and human.

In no way do I mean to say the Spendors are objectively "correct" or that anyone else should, or would, share the opinion I had between those two speakers. I’m just saying it’s often experiences like this that re-enforce how deeply important "the right tone/timbral quality" is for me. It’s job one that any speaker has to pass. I’ll listen to music on any speaker as background. But to get me to sit down and listen...gotta have that seductive tone.


Of course that’s only one characteristic I value. Others near the top of the list is "palpability/density," texture, dynamics.

But I’d take those teeny little Spendors over those big expensive speakers every day of the week, due to my own priorities.

Which brings me to throwing out the question to others: What are YOUR priorities in a speaker, especially if you had to pick the one that makes-or-brakes your desire to own the speaker?

Do you have any modest "giant killers" that at least to your way of thinking satisfy you much more than any number of really expensive speakers?



prof
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
Even methodical scientists have their pet theories which sometimes over run their thought processes. 
They were more like Linkwitz's W. I was using speaker (room) control from the start and a lot of power. The response of the subwoofer's was measured and a correction curve calculated. On top of this I always boost 20 Hz 3 db. Looking at the response curve there were large variations in volume up to 15 db if I remember correctly. The interesting thing is that when you started to boost the lower frequencies you would wind up increasing the volume only at certain points depending on how far the sub was from the front wall. The rest would stay almost the same due to cancellation effect. It required a lot of power to get anywhere which I had. But no matter what I did listening to something like a big organ as the bass traveled down the scale some notes would be loud then others would drop out. If you had a situation were the front wall was at some distance like 15 feet you could probably smooth out the bass response quite a bit but in most rooms that is impractical. Having a larger baffle will not do anything as the wavelengths are too long. There is one approach that I did not try which is to make four 2 driver subs and place them very close to the front wall in the positions I now use. I still do not think that would work. Wire your speakers out of phase and see if you can get the bass back moving the speakers around. 

alexberger
938 posts
 
I know  Doug Sax used Altec 604E for monitoring with crossovers designed by his brother.
These monitors where called Red Monitors.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,097 posts
 

A 3dB boost at 20Hz is NOT a shelving circuit. A shelving circuit is a progressive low-pass compensation filter, not a static figure (6dB/octave, the boost therefore increasing as frequency decreases), which exactly compensates for the 6dB/octave front-to-back cancellation inherent in dipole speakers and woofers. Without it, an OB/Dipole sub WILL exhibit declining output with frequency, and of course not perform optimally. That's just a poor or incomplete design, not an insolvable weakness in the design. ALL designs present their own challenges to be solved by a speaker designer.

Siegfried and Brian Ding did just that, and their OB/Dipole subs do NOT exhibit the failing of a missing bottom octave. Linkwitz didn't chose to go with an OB/Dipole sub out of blind allegiance to some "pet theory". Give the a little more credit than that! He (along with Russ Riley) invented the Linkwitz-Riley filters, fer cryin' out loud!

The dipole-cancellation shelving circuit is well known to professional speaker designers, and is included in the DSPeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 Dual-Core. I wonder if the fact that both Gradient and DSPeaker are located in Finland has anything to do with that?

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
No idea bdp24. But I think you missed the point. I was actually measuring what the subs were doing and had total control over the target curve sent to the woofers. There is no possible way yet anyway to maintain flat frequency response in a dipole woofer. The variations are so steep and at the magnitude of 15 db that you will clip your digital filters and probably your amp trying to do it. I had to back off the correction curves at several frequencies to prevent just that. Scientists experiment with lots of stuff. Doesn't mean that it will all work. No pain no gain. At the end of the day it is far better to use a subwoofer with naturally flat response which requires little correction and power to achieve the bass response you are looking for. The best way to do this is with very stiff and heavy sealed enclosures with opposing drivers which force cancel (like Magicos sub). The stiffest enclosure you can make for this purpose is a cylinder. The cylinder I plan to use will be a decagon with 2" to 3" thick walls about three feet long and 15 inches in diameter. I promise you there will never be a dipole speaker that will come remotely to the performance of these woofers. They will be able to punch out 20 Hz at 120 db all day long. 
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,097 posts
 

@mijostyn, you sound like the guys on the Home Theater Subwoofer sites. They too consider the SPL output capability of a sub as the only criteria with which to assess it’s quality. Linkwitz and Richie/Ding designed their OB/Dipole subs for the reproduction of music, not car crashes and bomb explosions ;-). OB/Dipole subs are not for everyone, and obviously not you. Each to his own!

I still have a pair of the original HSU subs utilizing cylindrical enclosures. Also a pair of KEF B139 woofers each in it’s own quarter-wave transmission-line enclosure, and a pair of sealed subs with 15" woofers. I bought the latter as a kit, and designed my own 4 cu.ft. enclosure: 18" w x 24" h x 24" d, inner cabinet (cross-braced every 5") separated from the outer cabinet by 1/2", that 1/2" filled with sand. Got that idea from Danny Richie, who posted plans for his 12" sub on his GR Research website.

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