What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
wrote:
Well, those umpteen million single cone drivers in TVs and radios
are anything but FR - they pretty much universally have no bass and
no treble.

Ah, but they *can* have - ask yer mate Dr Bose or any 'horn' cabinet
builder....!! ;-)

Which is why both these produce incredibly 'coloured' sound.



Ah. Those flowery expressions again. Wish I knew what they meant - or
were intended to mean.

What colour did you have in mind? Puce? Cerise?

Eau De Nil...??

Burnt Umber....??

Colouration of sound is a term that has been in use by pros ever since I
started in the industry - and that's a long long time ago. Think of a PA
system just before the point of howlround - that's colouration. Or the
same with vinyl being played on certain turntables at high level. In other
words an external influence on a sound.

There now. That's an explanation.

How about one for 'speed' and 'immediacy' ;-)



No thanks, I'll pass - the one for 'coloured' wasn't too hot....

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

"Andy Evans" wrote in message
oups.com...
Let's put this 'frequency extremes' thing to bed once and for all -
there is
no shortage of high frequency with just about all the drivers I have
used/considered

The BBC traditionally only required sound flat to 13Khz. Being in my
50s, I consider that quite enough. I don't think it's the extension
that matters but the delicacy and faithfullness of timbre.



I don't worry about the 'figures' Andy - as I've just said to Don, it's the
sound (*only*) that counts. It's not what 'horns' may (or may not) do well,
it's that once you are used to them, going back to ordinary speakers is such
a depressing experience.....

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

In article ,
Keith G wrote:
Read the numbers:

Lowther PM6C (30 - 20k) Lowther EX3 (30 - 22k) Fostex FE103E (fs - 22k)
Visaton B200 (fu - 18k) Visaton FRS8-8 (80 - 20k)

None of the drivers I currently use quote a top end anything like as low
as 10k. Consequently, I take all these 'readings/measurements' and
various other figures with a pinch of salt - it what they *sound* like
(overall) to me that counts...

Those numbers mean nothing without how they're derived.

--
*No I haven't stolen it , I'm just a **** driver*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

In article ,
Keith G wrote:
o thanks, I'll pass - the one for 'coloured' wasn't too hot....

So as a self professed vinyl freak you've never heard the effect of
feedback?

--
*Horn broken. - Watch for finger.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:
Read the numbers:

Lowther PM6C (30 - 20k) Lowther EX3 (30 - 22k) Fostex FE103E (fs - 22k)
Visaton B200 (fu - 18k) Visaton FRS8-8 (80 - 20k)

None of the drivers I currently use quote a top end anything like as low
as 10k. Consequently, I take all these 'readings/measurements' and
various other figures with a pinch of salt - it what they *sound* like
(overall) to me that counts...

Those numbers mean nothing without how they're derived.



Frankly, the numbers don't mean very much at all in the real world, other
than to a designer or manufacturer - for example, the frequency range of a
full orchestra is only about 40-14k and the *dink dink* 'Top C' on a piano
is only about 4096 Hz with only weak (inaudible for most purposes) harmonics
extending beyond 10 kHz....

(Kinda make waving the *numbers* about a bit of an exercise in
pointlessness, doesn't it...??? :-)

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:11:32 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:


"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 13:49:24 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:


"Don Pearce" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 12:56:28 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

You should also know that the full-range driver is in fact a myth.
They
are all dual cone devices with some sort of mechanical crossover

Hi Don - yes, the majority are as above, but I'm talking single cone
here.


I would also disagree with Don's statement, especially if you take the
umpteen million single cone/FR drivers that are used worldwide in
radios,
TVs, cars &c. - I certainly have single cone Visaton drivers on the go
here
myself...

Well, those umpteen million single cone drivers in TVs and radios are
anything but FR - they pretty much universally have no bass and no
treble.



Ah, but they *can* have - ask yer mate Dr Bose or any 'horn' cabinet
builder....!! ;-)



No, they can't. Dr. Bose's reputation goes before him as a marketeer,
but his speakers are universally derided among the cognoscenti (and
they do sound genuinely horrible). And of course horns make no
difference to treble, and can only increase bass down to the
wavelength limit of the horn's dimensions - I've never come across one
with the twenty feet or so you would need to get true bass out of
them, although I have seen pictures of builds by the certifiable.



I'm wary of terms like 'true bass' given that, at best, 'hifi' is a
*depiction* of 'real sound' - but, surely it doesn't need to be repeated
that nobody in his right mind would seek 'true bass' from horns or bookshelf
speakers....???


It does sound a lot nicer, though. And it certainly doesn't sound like
"a lot of bass". And why do you think that nobody in his right mind
would seek true bass from *any* speaker? It is an entirely reasonable
thing to seek.




Which Visatons do you have again? I've just looked at their web site,
and everything I can find has a separate treble unit of one sort or
another in the middle of the bass cone.


FRS8s in the Needles and B200s back in their boxes....

http://www.impactaudio.co.uk/speaker...b6ddb0ba26b286


Let's put this 'frequency extremes' thing to bed once and for all - there
is
no shortage of high frequency with just about all the drivers I have
used/considered and which quote a top end of 18K or better and up to 30K
in
some instances. Bass is no worse than 'ordinary' speakers and is dependent
on cabinet/room science, as you know better than I.....


Didn't we measure your speakers and find them rolling off severely
above 10kHz?


Read the numbers:

Lowther PM6C (30 - 20k)
Lowther EX3 (30 - 22k)
Fostex FE103E (fs - 22k)
Visaton B200 (fu - 18k)
Visaton FRS8-8 (80 - 20k)

None of the drivers I currently use quote a top end anything like as low as
10k. Consequently, I take all these 'readings/measurements' and various
other figures with a pinch of salt - it what they *sound* like (overall) to
me that counts...


I've read the numbers - and like you, I'm unimpressed by them. As you
say, what they sound like matters much more and for me a real,
dedicated tweeter produces a much cleaner, pleasanter sound that a
single FR unit.



As for bass, we also found that there was nothing below
about 60Hz - which makes total sense for the dimensions you have. I
have a tiny pair of bookshelves in front f me (KEF Cresta 10) which do
at least as well, probably rather better. Top end of course - no
comparison.


You are forgetting that I've had various examples of the following makes of
speakers he

KEF
Tannoy
Wharfedale
Quad
Dynaudio
Ruark
JM-Labs
B&W
Jamo (Concert 8s)
Rogers

plus probably others I can't recall...??


Yup, some good names there.



See again:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/LS35a.JPG

for an example of a speaker with 'no frequency extremes' which would
appear
to benefit from the use of a subwoofer in *no different way* to many
(maybe
most) FR designs - *if* you need yer trousers flapped...!!

The LS35a was designed for a purpose, and it fitted that very well. It
was for monitoring BBC programme material. Extremes of bass and treble
formed no part of the BBC output, so didn't need monitoring. Sure
people adopted them for home listening, at which point the
shortcomings started revealing themselves, so subwoofers got added.


I've not had anything like as much exposure to subs - all I can say is I've
never yet had one here that I didn't switch off after a few minutes...


Nor had I until I bit the bullet and built my own. Now I really can't
tell it is on until I turn it off IYSWIM.



One visitor here, on hearing my Pinkies...

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/busc.../buschorns.htm

"Whoah! They've got more bass than my AEs...!!"

(The pinkies have 4" FR drivers and the AEs are/were 3-way floorstanding
speakers with 165mm bass units - EVO 3s??)



Yup, and we both know what that is all about. It is why those really
cheap home cinema kits can have subwoofers that go no lower than 100Hz
- make it boom a bit and it sounds like bass - until you hear the real
thing, that is. You really do need to think some more about that
subwoofer, you know ;-)


See above - if it were not for the plethora of organ music I have stacked
here, waiting for serious attention, I wouldn't entertain the idea for a
moment. I have been fighting *too much bass* in my very small room for a
while now, but any time I need my trousers flapped I'd only have to drag my
Paladins the length of the house....


You don't get "too much bass" with a good sub. The system may even
sound a little lighter in bass, because you have the opportunity to
tune out the upper-bass hump that is currently propping up the
illusion of bass.

d

--
Pearce Consulting
http://www.pearce.uk.com

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

In article ,
Keith G wrote:
Frankly, the numbers don't mean very much at all in the real world,
other than to a designer or manufacturer - for example, the frequency
range of a full orchestra is only about 40-14k and the *dink dink* 'Top
C' on a piano is only about 4096 Hz with only weak (inaudible for most
purposes) harmonics extending beyond 10 kHz....

If the harmonics were inaudible it would sound like a sine wave. So
nothing like a piano at all.

I'm amazed at you. You go on and on about the subtle differences you claim
to hear then come up with rubbish like this...

--
*The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

"Don Pearce" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 23:11:32 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:


"Don Pearce" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 13:49:24 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:


"Don Pearce" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 12:56:28 -0000, "Keith G"
wrote:

You should also know that the full-range driver is in fact a myth.
They
are all dual cone devices with some sort of mechanical crossover

Hi Don - yes, the majority are as above, but I'm talking single
cone
here.


I would also disagree with Don's statement, especially if you take the
umpteen million single cone/FR drivers that are used worldwide in
radios,
TVs, cars &c. - I certainly have single cone Visaton drivers on the go
here
myself...

Well, those umpteen million single cone drivers in TVs and radios are
anything but FR - they pretty much universally have no bass and no
treble.



Ah, but they *can* have - ask yer mate Dr Bose or any 'horn' cabinet
builder....!! ;-)



No, they can't. Dr. Bose's reputation goes before him as a marketeer,
but his speakers are universally derided among the cognoscenti (and
they do sound genuinely horrible). And of course horns make no
difference to treble, and can only increase bass down to the
wavelength limit of the horn's dimensions - I've never come across one
with the twenty feet or so you would need to get true bass out of
them, although I have seen pictures of builds by the certifiable.



I'm wary of terms like 'true bass' given that, at best, 'hifi' is a
*depiction* of 'real sound' - but, surely it doesn't need to be repeated
that nobody in his right mind would seek 'true bass' from horns or
bookshelf
speakers....???


It does sound a lot nicer, though. And it certainly doesn't sound like
"a lot of bass". And why do you think that nobody in his right mind
would seek true bass from *any* speaker? It is an entirely reasonable
thing to seek.



No, try it this way round - why would people seeking 'true bass' from a
speaker choose the wrong tool for the job...??






Which Visatons do you have again? I've just looked at their web site,
and everything I can find has a separate treble unit of one sort or
another in the middle of the bass cone.


FRS8s in the Needles and B200s back in their boxes....

http://www.impactaudio.co.uk/speaker...b6ddb0ba26b286


Let's put this 'frequency extremes' thing to bed once and for all -
there
is
no shortage of high frequency with just about all the drivers I have
used/considered and which quote a top end of 18K or better and up to 30K
in
some instances. Bass is no worse than 'ordinary' speakers and is
dependent
on cabinet/room science, as you know better than I.....


Didn't we measure your speakers and find them rolling off severely
above 10kHz?


Read the numbers:

Lowther PM6C (30 - 20k)
Lowther EX3 (30 - 22k)
Fostex FE103E (fs - 22k)
Visaton B200 (fu - 18k)
Visaton FRS8-8 (80 - 20k)

None of the drivers I currently use quote a top end anything like as low
as
10k. Consequently, I take all these 'readings/measurements' and various
other figures with a pinch of salt - it what they *sound* like (overall)
to
me that counts...


I've read the numbers - and like you, I'm unimpressed by them. As you
say, what they sound like matters much more and for me a real,
dedicated tweeter produces a much cleaner, pleasanter sound that a
single FR unit.



OK, just for you ( I know how much you like them) I've recorded the track
that immediately springs to mind for 'isolated' treble. It has been posted
before but I think you will find it is better miked now:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/mic.JPG

- than it was before, on the poor little lapel mic! There's a lot less
'room' in the equation (almost none) which, of course, means the bass is
less than I get to hear for real as my bass comes off the walls, but there
is at least some indication of it. See below for the relevance....

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Track10.mp3

I do not ordinarily like to hear 'treble' or 'bass', I like a sound which
Swim describes as *balanced* - that is 'cohesive' in audio terms, I
believe...?? The only exception to that is a 'proper organ' when I like to
*feel* the bass and, as I have said 28,000 times now, I don't expect to get
that from horns the size I have in the room the size mine is. (Later on, if
I get time, I'm going to hook up to the Ruarks and 'revisit' a couple of my
organ discs!!)

In fact, as I have said before, I quickly accomodate the various sounds from
my system and various radios (car/bathroom/garage) very quickly and tend not
to be listening to the kit. Best example of this is out in my garage where I
frequently enjoy R3 of an afternoon from a decent little Roberts radio - I
hear the music only and never give a thought to the radio itself..!!





As for bass, we also found that there was nothing below
about 60Hz - which makes total sense for the dimensions you have. I
have a tiny pair of bookshelves in front f me (KEF Cresta 10) which do
at least as well, probably rather better. Top end of course - no
comparison.


You are forgetting that I've had various examples of the following makes
of
speakers he

KEF
Tannoy
Wharfedale
Quad
Dynaudio
Ruark
JM-Labs
B&W
Jamo (Concert 8s)
Rogers

plus probably others I can't recall...??


Yup, some good names there.



Yes, all the same but different with skightly different strengths and
weaknesses - all of which I could live with if I had to, all of which I have
rejected...





See again:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/LS35a.JPG

for an example of a speaker with 'no frequency extremes' which would
appear
to benefit from the use of a subwoofer in *no different way* to many
(maybe
most) FR designs - *if* you need yer trousers flapped...!!

The LS35a was designed for a purpose, and it fitted that very well. It
was for monitoring BBC programme material. Extremes of bass and treble
formed no part of the BBC output, so didn't need monitoring. Sure
people adopted them for home listening, at which point the
shortcomings started revealing themselves, so subwoofers got added.


I've not had anything like as much exposure to subs - all I can say is
I've
never yet had one here that I didn't switch off after a few minutes...


Nor had I until I bit the bullet and built my own. Now I really can't
tell it is on until I turn it off IYSWIM.



You'll get away with that - if I had posted it, I'd damn soon have a couple
of hot little faces telling me that it's probably 'builders's blindness' or
somesuch....





One visitor here, on hearing my Pinkies...

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/busc.../buschorns.htm

"Whoah! They've got more bass than my AEs...!!"

(The pinkies have 4" FR drivers and the AEs are/were 3-way floorstanding
speakers with 165mm bass units - EVO 3s??)



Yup, and we both know what that is all about. It is why those really
cheap home cinema kits can have subwoofers that go no lower than 100Hz
- make it boom a bit and it sounds like bass - until you hear the real
thing, that is. You really do need to think some more about that
subwoofer, you know ;-)


See above - if it were not for the plethora of organ music I have stacked
here, waiting for serious attention, I wouldn't entertain the idea for a
moment. I have been fighting *too much bass* in my very small room for a
while now, but any time I need my trousers flapped I'd only have to drag
my
Paladins the length of the house....


You don't get "too much bass" with a good sub.



Yes, I *do* know that and obviously tried the various subs here at
'inaudible' levels....


The system may even
sound a little lighter in bass, because you have the opportunity to
tune out the upper-bass hump that is currently propping up the
illusion of bass.


OK, here's one for you and for 'someone else' to throw rocks at: Last week,
quite out of the blue, I bumped into an old friend I hadn't seen for about
TWENTY years!! And, yes, he lives only a couple of miles from here, which
would have been a tragedy (as we have been here ourselves for getting for 10
years) *if* we had a lot more in common than we appear now to do!! (??) (I'm
getting a little too old for ****-ups and skirt-chasing now!! ;-)

Naturally, he got a demo of my kit (for at least 20 seconds - no interest in
it whatsoever) of the track posted above when I got the standard 'Woah,
that's nice and clear!' immediate reaction and then 'Here's comes a bit of
'bottom end!' a few moments later. Then switch off and no further reference
to it.

It's people's immediate reactions that tell me what I want to know - by the
time it's got to mention of terms like the 'upper mid' and all that old
******** I stop taking note. Strangers and indifferent types are more use
than 'fellow enthusiasts' in this respect...

Indicate when you have got/heard that track and I'll post it again recorded
from my Ruarks a little later on, for comparison....

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Keith G wrote:
Frankly, the numbers don't mean very much at all in the real world,
other than to a designer or manufacturer - for example, the frequency
range of a full orchestra is only about 40-14k and the *dink dink* 'Top
C' on a piano is only about 4096 Hz with only weak (inaudible for most
purposes) harmonics extending beyond 10 kHz....

If the harmonics were inaudible it would sound like a sine wave. So
nothing like a piano at all.

I'm amazed at you. You go on and on about the subtle differences you claim
to hear then come up with rubbish like this...



Plowie, you really got to stop *making things up* - it does you no credit
whatsoever! I have never posted that I can hear subtle differences - quite
the reverse (as ****ing usual), in fact I have only just this moment replied
to Don to effectively say I accomodate differences almost too quickly to
make other than 'night and day' comparisons between subtle changes in kit.
It's *why* I ask the milkman for his opinion....

....except that we don't have a milkman...

As the the utter ******** regarding the mention of Top C on a piano - do you
think I *invented* the phrase 'inaudible for most purposes'...?? Or, to put
it your way: So you don't know that progressively higher orders of harmonics
become increasingly inaudible...??

Now stop clutching at straws and go see my reply to Don - lots for you to
get your knife into there....

What's your view of speaker crossovers?
 

"Keith G" wrote


Indicate when you have got/heard that track and I'll post it again
recorded from my Ruarks a little later on, for comparison....



Also, what do you reckon to this little bugger:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...0656&rd=1&rd=1


- that's about 200 quid less than normal retail and half the price of a
Russian Nevaton equivalent (which are unobtainable anyway)....??

One or two good reviews on the Net from people who I suspect wouldn't *dare*
to back a crock in public (independent Yank recording studios, mostly), here
and there...??