Vandersteen 7, 5a and 1st order XO's, Bunch of Response questions.... etc.

[Docks]

Has anyone heard the Vandersteen 7 or 5a's? I've been lusting to hear these for quite some time. How do they compare to other speakers.
Utilizing a 1st order XO they are Phase + Time accurate (as much as you can get from passive), How important is it to you and why?
If you have to suffer with the terrible 6db rolloff of the 1st order, is it worth the phase accuracy? Or would it be a better decision to just go 2nd to 4th order and not worry about it.

I've been going OCD over this phase stuff, I'm gonna build a computer soon with software to create either a 3 or 4 way speaker utilizing a FIR filter. Active xovers just seem like its the next step forward. Any thoughts//experience with this?

The more I think about it why does a linear chamber response matter so much if your room is going to butcher it anyways? Less eq? This makes me feel like a cabinet is the most imporant thing by far....
Why is EQ such a bad thing in the first place? Do the "non eq" croud not have a clue? I understand room treatment helps, but it would take forever to get a flat response that way.

If your rooms noise floor is 40db do we really need all this 100+ db of snr?

 

[Swerd]

Has anyone heard the Vandersteen 7 or 5a's? I've been lusting to hear these for quite some time. How do they compare to other speakers.

Utilizing a 1st order XO they are Phase + Time accurate (as much as you can get from passive), How important is it to you and why?

If you have to suffer with the terrible 6db rolloff of the 1st order, is it worth the phase accuracy? Or would it be a better decision to just go 2nd to 4th order and not worry about it.

I’ve heard Vandersteen 2s and 3s (but not the 5 or 7) and they are excellent speakers. The model 3 costs much less than the 5, and except for the built-in powered subwoofers, they are similar designs.

Among many other features, they do have 1st order acoustic crossovers. When I say “1st order acoustic”, I mean the roll-off slopes of the sound from the drivers, as they get signals from the electrical crossover, measures at 6 dB per octave. These crossovers are very complex – they have many more parts than a simple 1st order electrical crossover. They are difficult to design and expensive to build.

A problem with Vandersteens, probably caused by the 1st order crossovers, is that there is a very narrow sweet spot where the sounds are time and phase correct. If you move your head slightly, you loose any advantages it may provide.

This question has often been debated, and to my knowledge a clear answer has never been provided, probably because there is no simple answer. I think what is important is that in the crossover range, where both drivers are operating, it is important that the drivers’ frequency response be very smooth and relatively in phase with each other. For a 1st order crossover, that may extend more than 2 octaves above and below the crossover point. There are few drivers available that can do that. For a 2nd order crossover, that range is probably about ±2 octaves, and for a 4th order crossover it is about ±1 octave. I have heard others propose the idea that Vandersteens sound good because they have very rigid cabinets with front baffles built as small as possible. That also makes sense, but as far as I know, it has never been demonstrated to be responsible for their good sound.

Let’s clarify one point. 1st order crossovers keep the drivers in phase with each other, i.e. “phase accurate”, but the slanted front baffle is what makes drivers time accurate. Because woofers are deeper physical structures than tweeters, their “origin of sound” is further away from the listener than that of a smaller driver like a tweeter. To correct for that, a tweeter is placed further back, or the baffle is leaned back.

Linkwitz-Riley 4th order crossovers are also phase coherent, if not precisely phase accurate. The drivers are 360° out of phase with each other. That is no different than in phase, only they are 1 full cycle out of time relative to each other. To my knowledge, no one can clearly hear that difference.

 

[GranteedEV]

Utilizing a 1st order XO they are Phase + Time accurate (as much as you can get from passive), How important is it to you and why?

1st order acoustic crossovers are only phase/time accurate at the sweet spot. They have some serious phase issues if you get out of the sweet spot, and the stepped baffle used in many of these designs can create other big time issues with diffraction.

If you have to suffer with the terrible 6db rolloff of the 1st order, is
it worth the phase accuracy?

IMO definitely not.

Or would it be a better decision to just go 2nd to 4th order and not worry about it.

You still worry about it - You don't want to do violence to phase and time, but you just do it well.

I've been going OCD over this phase stuff, I'm gonna build a computer soon with software to create either a 3 or 4 way speaker utilizing a FIR filter. Active xovers just seem like its the next step forward. Any thoughts//experience with this?

The audibility of linear phase is dubious and might be very content specific if it even is audible, but the high slopes possible with such software is imo really cool. The biggest advantage of such a sharp slope imo, is how narrow the vertical crossover lobe becomes. It's almost like there is no crossover.

This makes me feel like a cabinet is the most imporant thing by far....

No, the driver compatibility / crossover execution is, just not the phase.

Why is EQ such a bad thing in the first place?

It's not, properly done, but it's generally a bandaid solution to a much bigger problem in the speaker. The crossover itself generally will have a good bit of passive EQ built right in to flatten response. EQ is best left to the bass frequencies.

I understand room treatment helps, but it would take forever to get a flat response that way.

Room treatment CAN help but not necessarily.

In a reasonably live room you'll have comb filtering of some sort, unless you've got true constant directivity speakers properly aimed, which delay the reflections.

The main thing is not to worry about the comb filtering measurement artifacts. What you want is timbral accuracy, and to that end you just need flat on-axis anechoic response, and controlled off-axis response out to the reflection point (around 60 degrees).

If your rooms noise floor is 40db do we really need all this 100+ db of snr?

Of course not. But SNR is still a bit important depending on your speakers. If you have really efficient speakers, the noise floor becomes amplified by their sensitivity and may become audible as you turn the volume up to reference levels. For people with 85db sensitive speakers, it's just silly things we do for fun to see if we can hear noise when we stick our ear against the tweeter.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I've heard the 7's twice, and the 5 once briefly. The 7 is a superb speaker. I'm not sure that's because of the 1st order acoustic crossovers. It has a lot of other design features that, along with a really good crossover of whatever order, could produce excellent results. I've participated in A-B comparisons of a speaker with sophisticated active crossovers, one first order with all the phase and time coherent bells and whistles, and one with your standard LR 4th order acoustic, both carefully optimized working into very wide-band, smooth drivers. I couldn't hear any difference in terms of imaging or soundstage depth. I'm suspicious of the claimed benefits for 1st order crossovers, but whatever the reason, the Vandy 7 rocks.

 

[cornelius]

I was into time coherent speakers for a while (Meadowlark, Vandersteen, Sequerra, etc.). It makes sense on paper to not disturb the time domain, but in reality, a higher order crossover, flat baffle design can achieve the same sound. One thing I did notice with those speakers was a natural openness, or sense of ease, but any well designed speaker can achieve that same sound. But, in my experience, it wasn't until I stepped up to some better speakers ($), that I got there. This is why I think Vandys have sold so well over the years - they can get you the taste of higher priced speakers, but you have to be willing to handle the drawbacks of the smaller listening window, looks... IMO with some quality components and a smart design, the "non time coherent" speakers work very well.

The design itself won't be the difference, but rather how it's carried out. In other words, if one really likes the sound of Vandys (and many do), then that's all that matters. I've heard the 5's and they're one of the best sounding speakers I've ever heard. But in the next room I heard some Joseph Audio speakers that also sounded pretty great (high order crossover).

 

[Nuance AH]

Swerd and GranteedEV answered the technical crossover questions better than I could have, so I won't comment on that. What I will say is that the Vandersteen Model 7 is the best speaker I've ever heard, period. Whether the time and phase accuracy portion of that is at play...well, I just don't know. If properly set up, though, the 7's sing like no other speaker!