Flat frequency response


I am often surprised by the number of speakers with "gee-whiz bang" technology but can't even get speaker design 101 right. I can see the benefit of avoiding a lot of signal processing but preferences notwithstanding, flat frequency response seems like the logical place to start and then progress from there.

1) Why is it so hard to achieve?

2) Does it matter?

3) Is it reasonable to say when you skip the basics you are only progressing on a flawed foundation.

cdc

A waterfall plot shows decay times describing the acoustics in that particular ROOM

roxy54

Thanks !

 

erik_squires

Where did you take Speaker Design 101? Is there a particular author / engineer whose course or book on speaker design you are referring to?

You make a good point. I have not seen flat FR as a design goal in any text. I should have put "Speaker Design 101" in quotes. My bad.

My guess, based on your questions is that you have none of that background,

Very cool you have that skill but IMHO should not be a requirement to have an opinion or yours would be the only response here, haha. With your design experience, I would be interested what you think about "1) Why is it so hard to achieve?"

Yes I do but I would rather example JA saying things like "That midrange deviation from flat will give vocals a nasal quality." Disclaimer: this is from memory, not an exact quote. I just used quotes for clarity.

But enough about me, back to the topic on hand, I am guessing your answer to "2) Does it matter?" would be no?

 

 

Theres lots to learn on the topic of frequency response.

Are you familiar with "The Harman Curve"? That could be a fun place to start!

Any quality company around $1k and up will do computer simulation 

and frequency phase plots and account for peaks in the Xover .

thsts another area ,having owned a Audio store for a decade and being a die hard Audiophile that’s one area 95% of all mfg  go cheap why because of $$ either Chinese capacitors or low average Solen caps , and cheap ceramic resistors 

even inductors tiny Bobbins, or sledge hammer type .

I bought a 5 year old Dynaudio ,they are very good Jantzen open core inductors 

caps and resistors ok , I put in muncher higher grade parts ,a solid 15% improvement many people don’t understand ,it’s the 🧠 or ♥️ of your loudspeaker ,

the entire Signal goes through there , Even $25 k martens ,Magico A5 and Wilsons , they use decent rated a 9 on the capacitir scale ,Mundorfs best caps are their supreme in several flavors,marten and Magico use the much cheaper Evo caps why ? They get 50% off .rule of thumb 25% no more goes into the build including packaging ,the rest R&D overhead and markup ,this too applies to electronics.

that’s why I highly recommended to upgrade any loudspeaker Xover you plan on keep a major Sonic upgrade.

I concur, speakers that are designed to be flat responsively are boring.  Give me one that brings life to the party [without being obnoxious].