Potential Setup Advice

fish99 · 10 Apr 2006 at 21:04

You're rather missing the point DRZ and James. I didn't say price always gives better sound quality in every case. Also I'm not denying the importance of factors such as personal preference and taste. Have another look at what I said-

"In general, if you bought 50 different sets of speakers costing £0-500 and another 50 costing £501-1,000, and did direct comparisons between the two groups (every speaker in one group versus every speaker in the other group, all setup to sound their best), wouldn't more than 50% of the winners come from the £501-1,000 group?"

Let's extend this and say you also used 1,000 different people to test them, i.e. they all tested all the speakers. And also remember I said 'setup to sound their best' whereas in your example you tested speakers all with your own amp, which may suit some speakers better than others.

All I'm saying is, as TooNice put it, price can be used as a general indicator. You're not gonna find £200 speakers that sound as good as B&W Nautilus Prestige now are you.

james.miller said:
however, i know of some speakers that are unbeatable at any price.

After such a statement you're going to have to name them

Hesky82 · 10 Apr 2006 at 21:38

fish99 said:
You're not gonna find £200 speakers that sound as good as B&W Nautilus Prestige now are you.

why not??

fish99 · 10 Apr 2006 at 23:06

Name some.

james.miller · 10 Apr 2006 at 23:30

The B&W nautilus flagships, quite probably the finest speakers ever produced, even if they are a mish mash and do look arguably ugly as sin. The build, the attention to detail of the build and the sound itself.....astounding. Though i've only had the pleasure of listening to a pair once, I've never heard anything like them.

The only thing that's ever constant when it comes to music and the hardware behind it, is that you pay for the name and the style over everything else. As you probably know, you can buy an external DAC and transport for cd's that'll rival a cd player costing 5x as much and more. It's very easy if you know what to buy

DRZ · 11 Apr 2006 at 00:37

£200 speakers rivalling what are (arguably) mankind's finest effort at true sound reproduction? I do hope you are joking!

Regarding my own setup: I tested my speakers with my setup, yes. I also tested my setup against a future upgrade path to check that when I upgraded my amp in a couple of years, I wasnt going to think "Damn, I wish I had bought the Dynaudios".

I am pretty convinced at the moment that Musical Fidelity is "my sound" - I certainly havnt found anything else on the market this side of £3k that I prefer. Makes sense to get some speakers that suit that presentation, doesnt it?

For what its worth, those Dynaudios are worth every penny - its just the Missions cost an awful lot less pennies and trying to justify that difference was quite tough at the time

Hesky82 · 11 Apr 2006 at 06:27

DRZ said:
£200 speakers rivalling what are (arguably) mankind's finest effort at true sound reproduction? I do hope you are joking!

mankind's finest effort at true sound reproduction!! mate I hope your joking!!!

The number of shop owners that say they sound crap, but because of the name they have to carry them, and people still buy them!!
theres nothing special about these speakers! all the usual, inefficient narrow range drivers with overcomplicated active crossovers to give them higher power handling.
It doesnt just stop there the power amp needed to drive these inefficient monster would blatantly have to be a crappy hi-output solid state amp with very low output impedance to deal with the complicated load presented by the No swearing!, sorry crossover

. undoubtly a far from pleasant sounding class ab or even class d amp would be needed here, a beautiful sounding class a amp just wouldn’t produce the power, heck its recommend a 500w amplifier for each driver, they don’t quote sensitivity and we can see why now lol
"mankind's finest effort at true sound reproduction" omg far from it man!

Id take a DHSET tube amp and a pair of horn loaded fullrange drivers over those 70k B&W speaker any day!!

DRZ · 11 Apr 2006 at 14:24

Hesky82 said:
Garbage

You dont get +/- 0.5dB from rubbish loudspeakers.

Acive crossovers actually give better sound quality than passive crossovers because they dont have to handle high power. The ripple from the plane of the crossover is flatter for any given order, active vs passive.

They arent low imedance either, being 8 ohms. You also dont need a 500w amp - you need 8 100-500w amps.

You do realise that the ONLY thing going for horn loaded speakers is the efficiency, right? That or your personal preference for hifi sound extends to Public Address. "Full range" doesnt actually mean anything, at all because just about any driver ever made will go "full range" if you try hard enough...

fish99 · 11 Apr 2006 at 15:54

james.miller said:
The B&W nautilus flagships, quite probably the finest speakers ever produced

Wait, so the speakers you're on about that are unbeatable at any price are also phenomenally expensive? Lol

james.miller · 11 Apr 2006 at 16:33

you wanted unbeatable - there it is lol

Hesky82 · 11 Apr 2006 at 18:36

DRZ said:
You dont get +/- 0.5dB from rubbish loudspeakers.

Acive crossovers actually give better sound quality than passive crossovers because they dont have to handle high power. The ripple from the plane of the crossover is flatter for any given order, ac.........

tbh there’s nothing remarkable about an on axis response of ± 0.5dB 25Hz - 20kHz, nothing at all!
its true to say active crossovers implemented correctly will be less likely to destroy transients and control, if i was forced to choose between putting reactive components between the amp signal and driver or grungy opamps I would go for grung over decupling providing with all the additional amps needed phase is kept intact.
I think it's pretty well known among designers that any frequency dividing network is a degradation to making natural organic music, be it active or passive, simply The best crossover is NO crossover..
I'm sorry im still trying to get over your "mankind's finest effort" statement earlier on lol

and I just don’t know where to start with this statement lol

You do realise that the ONLY thing going for horn loaded speakers is the efficiency, right? That or your personal preference for hifi sound extends to Public Address. "Full range" doesn’t actually mean anything, at all because just about any driver ever made will go "full range" if you try hard enough...

Ah, go ahead sell your house and buy those 70k b&w speakers, I'm sure you will love them

DRZ · 11 Apr 2006 at 20:34

Hesky82 said:
tbh there’s nothing remarkable about an on axis response of ± 0.5dB 25Hz - 20kHz, nothing at all!

Show me any other loudspeaker that approaches that level of flatness across the same range. One will do

I think it's pretty well known among designers that any frequency dividing network is a degradation to making natural organic music, be it active or passive, simply The best crossover is NO crossover..

Linn have been making a lot of noise about Active crossovers for years - the responses they get from their kit isnt too shabby

It is also pretty well known amongst people who are leading the area of acoustics (who I speak with on a daily basis, by the way) that you cannot make an effective single-driver full range system with any sort of control or efficiency. Which is why those attempts to do so are horn loaded.

I'm sorry im still trying to get over your "mankind's finest effort" statement earlier on lol

Post a decent argument why they arent based on actual basis in fact rather than hifi mumbo-jumbo and I might start to agree with you. As it is your vague broad brush stroke statements about things that you appear to know little about just dont wash.

Ah, go ahead sell your house and buy those 70k b&w speakers, I'm sure you will love them

I dont think I will ever be in a position to buy some speakers that cost that amount of money, let alone the amplification to go with them! Settling for the next best thing simply has to do

Hesky82 · 11 Apr 2006 at 23:01

DRZ said:
Show me any other loudspeaker that approaches that level of flatness across the same range. One will do

avante garde horns achieve 18hz-35khz at 107db, even off axis there response at lower sensitivity levels will stay flatter with higher bandwidth.
oh, and there a damn site cheaper than those B&W snails

DRZ said:
Post a decent argument why they arent based on actual basis in fact rather than hifi mumbo-jumbo and I might start to agree with you. As it is your vague broad brush stroke statements about things that you appear to know little about just dont wash

Tbh my thoughts were similar when I read some of you previous insightful comments

borderacoustic · 12 Apr 2006 at 02:33

Hello, 1st post here hurrah!

You do realise that the ONLY thing going for horn loaded speakers is the efficiency, right? That or your personal preference for hifi sound extends to Public Address. "Full range" doesnt actually mean anything, at all because just about any driver ever made will go "full range" if you try hard enough...

no they won't. The response graphs you see in driver datasheets assume a constant 1W input signal at ALL frequencies, or the graph would be meaningless. All speakers exhibit rolloff at their low and high frequency limits and there is no magic way to extend these boundaries with any one speaker, perhaps with the exception of active EQ which in most cases is a means to an end but not the ideal solution. At low frequencies the drivers T&S parameters define its performance, and at high frequencies the cone suffers 'breakup', where the moving part of the speaker assembly stops moving as one. This does not sound pretty and cannot be overcome.

The big thing going for horn drivers is the ability to match the low density of the air to the high density of the speaker cone. Same kind of thing as output resistance and damping factor of power amplifiers in a way. This allows high listening levels to be achieved with very little cone excursion compared to conventional speaker enclosures, which generally equals less distortion, providing:

1. the horn is constructed strongly enough not to resonate and colour the sound.
2. the horn is well designed and not overly compromised by size limitations.

Point#2 only really applies to bass horns, but if 70k is the playing field architectural horns are not out of the question, and would in my opinion wipe the floor with a set of B&W Nautulus's.

-0.5dB at 25Hz is pretty good, 16Hz would be nice for an ultimate speaker, but then the room messes up bass response many more orders of magnitude above 0.5dB, so it's a bit academic really. The lowest organ note is around 8Hz (Hill organ, Sydney Town Hall), but I daresay that's a little to much to expect from 70k worth.

-0.5dB at 20kHz is LAME. Fine for CD's but that's it. I can't think of any excuse for it on B&W's part, strange, very strange...

It is also pretty well known amongst people who are leading the area of acoustics (who I speak with on a daily basis, by the way) that you cannot make an effective single-driver full range system with any sort of control or efficiency. Which is why those attempts to do so are horn loaded.

ummmm.... headphones? A little removed from full scale loudspeakers, but show off the advantages of full-range point sources nevertheless.

The trouble is that true full range is quite rare,most are just wide range, and tend to cover 100Hz to 20kHz. Rear horn loading of these drivers ONLY BOOSTS THE LOW FREQUENCY. Full range horn profiles do not exist, and where they are only used to fill in the bass a little, they leave the sensitivity/efficiency alone, which for many full range drivers is quite high (think high 90's) anyway. Also, horn loading is not the only technique avalable, there are many, many variations of transmission lines, open baffles etc etc. One recent driver that springs to mind performs very well in a plain old bass reflex enclosure down to 35Hz, and extends all the way up to 20kHz without a problem. It even has +/-6mm of linear excursion, in a 4.5" speaker! The only drawback is poor sensitivity at 86dB, but the application determines whether this is a problem or not.

Linn have been making a lot of noise about Active crossovers for years - the responses they get from their kit isnt too shabby

Agreed, if there has to be a crossover the best option is active, would still be better if it didn't have to be there. Every audio system has compromises, I think the key is finding what compromises suit you, your wallet, your musical tastes and your listening environment. It would be a very dull area if there was an absolute truth, an absolutely undeniably best way of changing electricity into sound.

Steve

DRZ · 12 Apr 2006 at 02:48

Hello there!

I know about Thielle-Small parameters etc, the effects of breakup etc etc - I wasnt saying that any given driver would sound "good" when made to go full range, nor did I say anything about a constant input power or manufacturers quoted specifications. Some sort of EQ would come under "try hard enough" I feel.

Also, I am not privvy to enough technical data to assume (like you did) that it is indeed +/- 0.5dB at 20kHz - I just dont know and unless you work for B&W or know the man who designed them (who now works for Turbosound) I doubt you do either

RE your point about high SPLs from little excursion - that is the same as efficiency, is it not

Headphones are outside of the ballpark I was talking about. Even then, they arent perfect. I will go back to my "any given driver" quote though - it might not be a pretty response curve, but it still displaces air at 20Hz

I totally agree with you regarding compromise, although often compromise acoustically can tend to mean the wallet compromising more than the equipment. Take the Bridgewater Hall, for example

You seem to know your stuff, anyway

What is your background? Acoustics in your handle would suggest some sort of role in the discipline (and I sincerely hope so, and not some kind of hifi shop manager). Take a peek in Home Cinema and Hi-Fi (down at the bottom) sometime - the more knowledgeable people floating about the better !

borderacoustic · 12 Apr 2006 at 03:49

Hi,

Thanks for your compliments, and no I'm not a shop manager. I suppose my background is in engineering and furnituremaking, though it's been pretty varied. I got fed up of commercial hifi gear as soon as I couldn't afford it and started DIYing it, and now working as a furnituremaker but trying to push it in a more audio equipment directtion.

EQ would widen the range, but for most average drivers I would think the voice coils would melt or start hitting things, but I take your point of I think saying there's nothing special about full-range drivers really, apart from operating over a wider range?

As for +/-0.5dB, I don't know, probably said it as it was posted somewhere earlier. 25Hz to 20kHz is stated on the B&W site though.

RE your point about high SPLs from little excursion - that is the same as efficiency, is it not

In this sense, kind of, but as sensitivity is a ratio of power in to sound out, technically no.

As far as detail and resolution go, I feel headphones are as good as it gets but are let down by a poor soundstage and sound slightly boring to me. That's why Ilike single full range speakers so much as they have the detail and resolution of headphones, but the soundstage of...umm....speakers. For full on cranked up maximum SPL they can't keep up with multiway designs, but that's my compromise for an awesome midrange.

Anyway, it's nearly 4am now and I could do with doing some work tomorrow. I'll definitely check out the rest of the forum!

Steve

Tommy B · 13 Apr 2006 at 17:03

Got the Eltax Centre Speaker today. I'm really pleased with it. At the moment it's just connected to the B speaker output on my amp.