Loudspeaker Design - from the perspective of a loudspeaker design engineer...

[semente]

Great subject.

If you cannot name the engineer nor speaker brand, will you provide a comprehensive set of measurements of a couple of his designs?

[semente]

You've mentioned "box" and "waveguide".

Since there are a few different speaker topologies (panel and open-baffle, waveguided box, horns) and because neither is perfect will you be looking into which characteristics make the best speaker for each one of them?

Or have you already settled for one particular topology which is a way of defining your preference?

 

Speakers are not listened to in anechoic rooms and different topologies interact differently with the room.

Besides audiophiles do not show a distinct (majority) preference for either wide or narrow dispersion nor for either treated nor untreated rooms.

[semente]

Since you've mentioned directivity (lateral response family at 50", normalized to response on tweeter axis):

 

Dutch & Dutch 8C (wave-guided cardioid narrow baffle box with rear woofers)

 

Kef Blade 2 (wave-guided coax narrow baffle box with side woofers)

 

PSB T3 (wave-guided narrow baffle box)

 

Sonus Faber Stradivari (650mm wide baffle box)

 

Jamo R907 (open baffle)

 

Gradient Helsinki 1.5 (waveguided coax open baffle)

 

MartinLogan Montis (planar dipole above 300Hz)

 

Avantgarde Uno Nano (horns above 350Hz)

 

MBL Radialstrahler 101E Mk.II (omni)

 

source: https://www.stereophile.com/

[semente]

4 minutes ago, Chris A said:

That's fine with the Dutch & Dutch approach, but note that the technique that is used is diffraction--the same approach used by line arrays (see the Danley paper on this subject).  To be honest, line arrays only work well if you're sitting in a certain place in the audience, and they really suck if you're not sitting in the right areas...

 

Danley is systematically replacing line array technologies and gaining significant market share in that market (i.e., when there was a fixed installation PA market before SARS-CoV-II hit the scene).  There's a reason why they are. 

 

Chris

 

High performance stereo listening is a solo activity.

[semente]

6 minutes ago, Chris A said:

Not in my house.

Who gets to sit in the center?

[semente]

Here's a good set of measurements (not to be confused with a set of good measurements):

 

Avantgarde Acoustic Uno XD

https://www.fidelity-online.de/avantgarde-acoustic-uno-xd-messungen/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[semente]

Have a look at Bowers & Wilkins 800 D3's measurements for comparison:

 

https://www.fidelity-online.de/bowers-wilkins-800-d3-messungen/

 

[semente]

When you mention waveguides, are you referring to gentle directivity control devices or to narrow dispersion horns (or both)?

[semente]

According to this admittedly limited (some of Harman's research suffers from overly small sampling) study by Olive (4) untrained listeners preferred excessive bass and quite a bit of treble (the infamous boom-tizzz sound) and perhaps we can also agree, from observation, that loud rates high in their preferences.

 

 

 

 

Could this perhaps justify different performance targets or "voicing" across the range, from a manufacturer's perspective?

 

Surely if a company can manufacture a flagship with flat on-axis and smooth off-axis response they can also do it with an entry-level design...