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Speaker Analysis for Armchair Critics

Hello everyone,
There’s a very important discipline called "Speaker Analysis" or "Speaker Testing" which though complicated, is brilliantly illustrated in this breakdown of the B&W 685.


http://www.audioexcite.com/?page_id=6070

Speaker analysis is to measure each of the components both separately and as they come together in a complete system. It is a part of creating a new loudspeaker, but it can also be used to analyze an existing speaker, to understand it and perhaps to make it better.  I prefer the term Analysis because it better reflects that the goal is not merely quality assurance, but to build a complete electro acoustical understanding of the system as a whole so changes can be considered, and their final results predicted.


This particular article does just that, and comes up with a couple of suggestions for re-working the crossover to end up with hopefully a better end result. At the very least, it is a significantly different speaker at the end, and achieves a far greater level of change than cables can.


I share this with all of you just as an example of the work that goes into making a loudspeaker from parts, and the tools, and how much of what we hear has to do with choices made in the crossover.


Best,

Erik
erik_squires
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
13,070 posts
 
The cat thinks the objective is to chase and eventually catch the tail, so chasing is seen as productive design work...

start with the origin acoustic event
see how ya do at reproducing that
correlate that to measurements and distortions that matter
design to a price point. Nobody, even Gary K has an unlimited budget, nobody.

design the trade space , real engineering is about trade space management and cost as an independant variable

graduate to learning a bit about how humans hear, acoustic space on the origin event end and the reproduction end, buy some VERY expensive microphones, test equipment, chamber.. Keep listening to live music evey week...

spend most of your adult life chasing the grail....fun ;-) ignore moronic trolls 
bigkidz
3,406 posts
 
So the B&W X-over could be improved IMO.
by swapping the parts for ones that cost a few dollars more?

@kenjit Possibly - I would have to take a look what is in there now but IMO probably yes.  My old Alon Model V MKIIs used such basic parts that although they sounded good at that time, just changing out the resistors to mills, replacing the caps, etc.  made a nice improvement for not much more costs (a few hundred if I remember correctly).  Bass had better impact and clarity, mid-range improved although I liked the mids to begin with, and highs were clearer and more transparent.  It was more balanced and musical.- 
Swapping parts is not hard to do and you can always change it back if you don't like the sound.



erik_squires OP
16,407 posts
 
by swapping the parts for ones that cost a few dollars more?



@kenjit 

Looking forward to you learning AC circuit analysis, followed by filter design so you can come back to that statement in embarrassment.
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
Only the capacitance value is used in the filter design. No hocus pocus hogwash. 

Erik, have you checked your filter design is adequate to avoid cone breakup? I heard you were doing 6db slopes
prof
3,480 posts
 
"Nobody knows what they're doing."


^^^ "psychological projection" at it's purest.

It's like Trump has invaded audiogon.
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