Better systems more revealing in soft passages?

[Buckle-meister]

The room is a critical part of the equation.

I understand this, but whilst I accept your point that a certain degree of allowance can be 'built into' a speakers design, at the end of the day, no speaker manufacturer can know what the shape/size etc is of the room in which the speakers will be placed. These will also have a large effect on the sound.

...speakers are produced that expect the user to use very high level of acoustic treatments.

Exactly my point. Given that 90%+ of the population do not use any form of acoustic treatment, any exercise by manufacturers to design 'for the room' is really being done 'for the speakers' since the vast majority of folk aren't extracting optimal performance from them.

 

[WmAx]

I understand this, but whilst I accept your point that a certain degree of allowance can be 'built into' a speakers design, at the end of the day, no speaker manufacturer can know what the shape/size etc is of the room in which the speakers will be placed. These will also have a large effect on the sound.

Let's examine the circumstance of speaker engineered to be placed away from walls: The specific room size/shape is irrelevant so long as the size/shape of that room allows the speakers to be placed far enough from the walls. The increased linearity off axis will contribute to better sound quality in any normally reverberant room shape/size under these conditions, when compared to the case of a speaker that is identical but has a highly variable off axis response. You can also choose to go the heavily treated route and choose more purpose specific speakers that are designed to only perform optimally in a very heavily treated room, or you can find speakers that have a constant directivity across a very wide band of frequencies(only very large horns will do this, and they have other problems in objective performance to address) that effectively prevent off axis contribution by simply not outputting much off axis.

-Chris

 

[mtrycrafts]

All I'm meaning is that I've a healthy skepticism that speaker manufacturers are actually designing 'for the room' (after all, that's not their problem). I'm much more inclined to believe that they're simply trying to manufacture a speaker with the best characteristics as possible.

Well, manufacturers who had and has the advantage of the fruits of all that great research up at CRC will design as was quoted above as that is what listeners through DTB evaluations have demonstrated what matters most.
One has to know what the best characteristics are in order to design to them. I bet not all know.

 

[The Chukker]

Sumit: What crossover slopes are typically employed in Revel designs?

Kevin: Our networks are always tweaked to result in the smoothest possible transition between transducers. Because of that, their electrical characteristics don’t meet the textbook definition of classical filters, which is why we don’t specify them in our literature. However, the resulting response of the transducer/enclosure acoustic and the filter’s electrical response is close to a 4th-order (24dB/octave) Linkwitz-Riley characteristic.
Quote from an interview between Revel and Secrets of Home Theater.

I am a little bit pensive about posting in this thread because of its technical nature but I am searching for some answers pertaining to its contents that hopefully you could answer in somewhat layman's terms -- also I am not looking for purchase validation of my components, nor am I trying to hijack this thread.
After reading through this thread it has become increasingly apparent that 1). I will need to take room acoustics much more seriously if I am to get more performance out of my system (p.s. Buckle I cross referenced your thread regarding realtraps -- beautiful system kudos -- and your space is similar in dimensions to mine) and 2). I have Linkwitz-Riley crossovers in my speakers but I don't know exactly what they do, nor do I understand the difference between first/second/third/fourth order characteristics. Definitive's website claims that they "...are [Linkwitz-Riley] differential crossovers which equalize the front and rear drivers separately for both linear frequency and phase response of their summed output. Also included are advanced technology Zobel Networks which provide a more stable load for your amplifier". For what it's worth, when I upgraded my towers to the 7000SC's from 7002's I seemed to notice a dramatic increase in clarity during less dynamic passages but now after reading the earlier portion of this thread I'm not so sure I could've achieved the same result with some attention paid to room treatments. Thank you in advance for any and all responses.

 

[westcott]

I am a little bit pensive about posting in this thread because of its technical nature but I am searching for some answers pertaining to its contents that hopefully you could answer in somewhat layman's terms -- also I am not looking for purchase validation of my components, nor am I trying to hijack this thread.
After reading through this thread it has become increasingly apparent that 1). I will need to take room acoustics much more seriously if I am to get more performance out of my system (p.s. Buckle I cross referenced your thread regarding realtraps -- beautiful system kudos -- and your space is similar in dimensions to mine) and 2). I have Linkwitz-Riley crossovers in my speakers but I don't know exactly what they do, nor do I understand the difference between first/second/third/fourth order characteristics. Definitive's website claims that they "...are [Linkwitz-Riley] differential crossovers which equalize the front and rear drivers separately for both linear frequency and phase response of their summed output. Also included are advanced technology Zobel Networks which provide a more stable load for your amplifier". For what it's worth, when I upgraded my towers to the 7000SC's from 7002's I seemed to notice a dramatic increase in clarity during less dynamic passages but now after reading the earlier portion of this thread I'm not so sure I could've achieved the same result with some attention paid to room treatments. Thank you in advance for any and all responses.

I think a link here at audioholics will help you understand the different designs, their advantages and disadvantages, and the reasoning behind their different uses.

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/audioprinciples/Loudspeakers-Crossovers.html

Hope this helps.

 

[The Chukker]

Hope this helps.

Yes, it most certainly does, thank you for the redirect [kicks himself for not finding this on his own].

 

[westcott]

Well, manufacturers who had and has the advantage of the fruits of all that great research up at CRC will design as was quoted above as that is what listeners through DTB evaluations have demonstrated what matters most.
One has to know what the best characteristics are in order to design to them. I bet not all know.

Amen.

I am not a Revel owner and I did not use these articles to sing their praises. I simply thought that Kevin's discusssion was relevant to the original and subsequent questions.

Harman Specialty Group has a LOT of resources from all over the industry within their umbrella organization. They now have systems that rival the Canadian resources our northern neighbors once had to themselves.

 

[Buckle-meister]

After reading through this thread it has become increasingly apparent that...I will need to take room acoustics much more seriously if I am to get more performance out of my system (p.s. Buckle I cross referenced your thread regarding realtraps...your space is similar in dimensions to mine)...

I'm certainly no expert on acoustics, but I undertand enough to have been able to take measurements and obtain better sound than I've ever heard up 'till now. If you've any specific questions, start a new thread (or PM me if you'd prefer) in the Acoustics Forum and we'll take it from there.

 

[Rip Van Woofer]

Kevin Voecks is one of the sharpest tacks in the business. Before Revel he designed the highly regarded Snell speakers.

This bit from him quoted earlier caught my eye as a possible explanation for my impressions that started this whole thing:

High-order crossovers are important to have good dynamic capability without compression. It would really shock audiophiles to see how much the response of most high-end loudspeakers changes at different volume levels. They are like completely different loudspeakers when played even at moderate levels, and it is something that is very directly measurable.

My speakers use active Linkwitz-Riley 4th order (24dB/octave) crossovers. And yes, the subjective "timbre" or total sound of the frequency balance is remarkably consistent at different playback volumes or from loud to soft passages.

So is their polar response. You can walk around the room and as long as you're somewhere in front of them the quality of sound changes very little. I've tried this in a couple of rooms here (thanks to my patient wife!).

I think my earlier "little" DIY dipoles used 3rd order L-R crossovers (passive) and they were very good in soft passages, too.

Anyway, with a really good recording, something like Debussy or the finale of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde can make the hair on your arms stand up!

 

[sploo]

My speakers use active Linkwitz-Riley 4th order (24dB/octave) crossovers.

They wouldn't happen to be in a pair of 'Orions' would they ?

Having started to take a serious look into passive crossover designs, I'm left with an overwhelming feeling that active is the way to go. Pretty much all decent text on the subject is about getting round artifacts of drivers; trying to flatten impedance, balancing power levels, and a whole host of other stuff that's just so much easier to do with a digital xover and a couple of amps.

Note to self: I really must get hold of a Behringer DCX 2496, and a couple of cheap amps...