What about the TYPE A network??

[sfogg]

"but on the other hand I love the sound of my two Klipschorns even when they are fed a mono signal. "

Have you spent much time comparing the pair fed mono vs. a single one fed mono? Esp. on something with strong vocals?

Shawn

[psg]

"on the other hand I love the sound of my two Klipschorns even when they are fed a mono signal."

This is no surprise. A gentle slope network in each speaker would generate a pleasing ambiance with a mono program. I suppose extreme slope networks might make mono programs sound a bit dull. I never thought about that. Most people don't listen to much mono programs any more so I suppose it's a minor down-side.

Al K.

We listen to lots of mono, in the sense that there is lots of mono content in stereo. The lead vocals are often dead-center on the sound stage so are therefore (almost) mono. They should sound awful if combfiltering is so audible, but they aren't to me anyway. Hence my comment. We hear multiple sources all the time, two of them, yet our brain manages to create a point source from it that is no where near either of them. I don't know...

[psg]

"but on the other hand I love the sound of my two Klipschorns even when they are fed a mono signal. "

Have you spent much time comparing the pair fed mono vs. a single one fed mono? Esp. on something with strong vocals?

Shawn

I'll admit that I haven't. That would be a good test to see whether I can hear comb filtering.

[greg928gts]

"The problem with you", Greg, is that you have no calibrated instruments, would not know how to use them if you did and therefor do not understand their value. This being the case, all you have left is your ear / brain combination and you try over and over to convince us that what YOU hear is the same as each of us hears also. It isn't true. That is why loudspeaker manufacturers use groups of people to evaluate how a speaker sounds, not just one.

Stick to building speaker cabinets. Nobody, including me, questions your ability in that area.

Al K.

Yes, and Al, all you do is try to convince us that the techno-gibberish that you spew out all the time is the one and only way to tell if a speaker is going to sound good, and it just isn't true!

BTW, I don't know if you've noticed, but your insults and mean-spiritedness just bounce right off me.

Greg

[sfogg]

"I'll admit that I haven't. That would be a good test to see whether I can hear comb filtering."

Give
it a shot sometime. I think you will find that the image is obviously
far more stable, and vocals will have more body/weight and less
phasiness to them. They will sound more real.

In the real world we always hear vocals from a single point source, not dual mono from two sources.

The
other test to hear comb filtering easily is to play pink noise through
2 speakers. Move around (horizontally and verticaly) and listen to how
the sound changes. Do the same thing with 1 speaker and see if the
sound changes to the same degree. For those running actives up the
slope and see what effect that has.

Shawn

[sfogg]

Peter,

Checked your profile.... one fairly easy way
you can test the mono on stereo vs. mono on single speaker is to play
back a mono source through your AVR 254 and switch it between Stereo
and DPLIIx or Logic 7. Either PLIIx or Logic 7 will steer the mono
material out of your K'Horns and put it into your LaScala center. Logic
7 Movie will likely have a little bit stronger steering the Logic 7
Music and if the H/K gives you the options PLIIx should have a Center
Width setting which allows you to adjust the strength of the steering. Your center isn't an exact match to your L/R so that will influence the results a bit but you should still be able to hear the changes.

The
other thing you can of course do is spend a week or two listening to
music in either of those two modes. They will leave L material in L and
R in R but with still steer mono material to your Center. At first it
will sound very different... give it time.You might be surprised what
can happen after you get accustomed to it.

Shawn

[psg]

I'll try mono a shot. But I have always been impressed by the stereo pin-point imaging of the Klipschorns, and don't have the feeling that I am experiencing phasiness or lack of stability. We'll see!

[Deang]

Shawn - back from the dead. Nice. :-)

[sfogg]

Hi Dean,

Yeah sorry, lot went on in the last year or so. Recovering from a hernia operation so for the next week and a half I have a lot of time to kill.

Shawn

[Al Klappenberger]

Greg,

Yep, Instrument measurement plots require some education to understand, but their meaning is definable. You will have to learn what a “dB” means since most plots are displayed in these units. Terns such as “crisp”, “bright”, “sweat”, “cool” and “lush” are universally understood and can easily be used to describe the sound of a tweeter, or the taste of an apple or even a chocolate bar that’s been in the refrigerator for a while. Now that we know that an apple is crisp and cool. Lets describe a beautiful sunset to a blind man. Lets call it “bright” and “lush”. If A equals B and B equals C, then A must equal C. It follows then that my apple must also sound “lush”. So my tweeter must also taste like a beautiful sunrise and look like a chocolate bar! Well,.. Err.. Maybe not!

Al K.

[Al Klappenberger]

Shawn,

Nice to see you here again. It's been a while!

Your suggestion about listening to white noise through the entire system is a good one. I have done that may times for myself and a few times for guests. I ask them to move around the room while it's playing. I believe it does demonstrate the smoothness of the sound distribution. I have definitely seen comb action using tone bursts that are long enough to overlap in time as seen on an oscilloscope when moving the mike around the room. Just move the mike a few inches and the overlap between a single burst will move from double it's original level to zip! It really happens.

Al K.

[Deang]

Must of have been one hell of year! I actually don't get out here near as much as I used to either - it just got to the point that all I had time for was family and work. I did manage to find the time to put some nice monitors together using Radian coaxials. Take care of yourself Shawn.

[greg928gts]

Instrument measurement plots require some education to understand, but their meaning is definable

I agree. I hope to learn more about the technical side of this hobby as the years go on, even though it bores me to death.

Terns such as “crisp”, “bright”, “sweat”, “cool” and “lush” are universally understood and can easily be used to describe the sound of a tweeter, or the taste of an apple or even a chocolate bar that’s been in the refrigerator for a while. Now that we know that an apple is crisp and cool. Lets describe a beautiful sunset to a blind man. Lets call it “bright” and “lush”. If A equals B and B equals C, then A must equal C. It follows then that my apple must also sound “lush”. So my tweeter must also taste like a beautiful sunrise and look like a chocolate bar!

I don't know Al, I think you should maybe stick to the more technical descriptions, I don't think the artistic side is your cup of tea.

Greg

[Al Klappenberger]

Roberts,

As usual, you missed the point. No problem though. I didn't write that for you.

Al K.

[Deang]

I actually thought Al did a good job with that post. Describing the sound of something is quite a bit like trying to describe the taste of something - and some of the words used to describe the sound we hear are not understood the same way by everyone. Then there is the fact that we all have different hearing curves - and the room of course. In the end, what Al says is completely true - you are just one guy in one room. This is not an indictment, it's just the way it is. I may not like what you like, or I might like it a lot - there's no way to know unless I taste it first.

[Al Klappenberger]

PSG,

Listening to mono programing over a two channel system is an interesting special case. The comb "distortion" of a stereo image when there is no stereo "information" in the program is not really relevant. There is no stereo image! If everything was perfect, a program that was actually recorded with a single mike would come out of the center and remain in the center no matter where you were sitting in you listening room. With serious comb interference patters in the room literally anything could happen to the location of where the program would seem to be coming from. You need to walk around the room to tell.You also would need to do this with gentle slope networks and again with steep slope networks to see the difference. Not may people will bother!

I did a bit of listening to a distant FM station last night where the signal was randomly switching from stereo to mono. I found that it was hard to tell when it changed without looking at the stereo light on the tuner. The noise level was not very high to confuse the issue either. It's another case of the subjective nature of listening tests.

Another factor is the way modern recording engineers mix their many tracks from multiple microphones down to two tracks. I can only assume that mono recordings from years ago were also mixed down from multiple microphones. It's just another confusion factor!

I have a copy of articles in the Klipsch bibliography they used to make available. There is a lot of research on this titled "Symposium on Audio Perspective". It's been years since I looked at it, but it all seem to assume only two microphones and a derived center channel versus three discreet microphones and channels. I suspect multiple mikes mixed down to one or two as is done these days would really screw up the results no matter how good the speaker system was.

AL K.

[Al Klappenberger]

Here's a few more thoughts about playing mono programs on a stereo system that shows major comb effects.

In the old mono days, everybody had only a single speaker. The sound came only from one place and every component of the program, that is the piano, the flute and the bass drum, for example. All came nicely from the single speaker. That same program, when plaid on modern two channel speaker system, should still seem to come from exactly the middle of the two speakers. Every component should seem to come from the same place. Square in the middle. I think a speaker system that generates major comb related peaks and dips will reproduce the components of the program at random places between the speakers. One that does not will tend more to focus the mono program right in the middle. This might not be as much fun to listen to, but it would be more "correct". This implies that playing mono programs through a stereo would be a very GOOD way to test it's stereo image. The more stuff sits in the middle the better it will reproduce a stereo image when it gets a stereo program. The comb effects will generate the artificial ambiance a lot of people like with gentle slope networks. This would render a good stereo system with a good stereo image rather boring for mono programs!

AL K.

EDIT:

I just realized something else. My speakers are 18 feet apart. A mono program seems to be 18 feet wide with most of it seeming to originate from the middle. I suppose that's just how it has to be with more than one speaker. Just now focused can the center get when reproducing mono programing from more than one speaker? I could turn up the center channel volume, but that would screw up the stereo image big-time! I suppose stereo headphones might be one way. They give you the impression everything is right in the middle and inside of your head!

[greg928gts]

I actually thought Al did a good job with that post. Describing the sound of something is quite a bit like trying to describe the taste of something - and some of the words used to describe the sound we hear are not understood the same way by everyone. Then there is the fact that we all have different hearing curves - and the room of course. In the end, what Al says is completely true - you are just one guy in one room. This is not an indictment, it's just the way it is. I may not like what you like, or I might like it a lot - there's no way to know unless I taste it first.

It's no different for the person using information based only on technical evaluation, it's still just the end-users ears, still their room, still the other equipment they are using, the music they are listening to, and it's just as likely that something will sound good or not as good. They still will have to taste it first to know if they will like it.

I agree that I am one person,with one opinion about the sound of the speakers that I'm upgrading, but for many people out there that's enough. Don't underestimate the impact that the work that I do to evaluate and describe these things has on my customers. The way my business is structured, I am looking for customers who have gone through the same types of experiences I've had with Klipsch speakers, and I'm able to communicate with them on a very personal level what I have done with my own system to make it sound better to me. More people than you realize appreciate that level of evaluation much more than the technical side.

My approach to this hobby, and to my business is mostly artistic. I'm able to communicate with my customers on a level that they can relate to much better than the techno-gibberish that tends to be confusing. I've never said that the technical evaluation of speakers is not necessary or valuable, my argument has been that it's not the only way to evaluate good sound. In fact, I believe that listening to music on speakers is still the best way to determine how something sounds, so I place much more importance on the subjective and artistic approach than I do the technical. This is especially true when the technical evaluation is a redundant evaluation being done by one person, with no engineering degree, second-guessing what each of the companies who manufactured a product have done in their own testing. I believe that to draw a conclusion that one tweeter must be the best sounding because it has lower measured distortion, is of much less value to the end-user than a detailed subjective evaluation. I'm basing my business model on this, and it's working quite well so far.

Greg

[sfogg]

Hi Dean,

How are you enjoying the coaxials? Still having fun with your system?

Shawn

[sfogg]

Hi Al,

" I could turn up the center channel volume, but that would screw up the stereo image big-time! "

As I recall you are using the PWK minibox for your center? If that is the case turning up the center will mess up your imaging since the center is receiving a full mono mixdown so hard left and hard right will still be coming out of the center.

With other approaches that wouldn't be the case. Those approaches can remove the centrally imaged (mono) material out of the L/R speakers and move it physically to your center channel while leaving hard left and hard right alone.

Since it will image from front and center... why not reproduce it from front and center and reduce the dual mono comb filtering between multiple speakers and increase image stability. In these setups (when done well) your imaging is strongly enhanced, not screwed up. You have a real speaker reproducing the most critical elements (vocals front and center) and you now have imaging between three speakers instead of 2. Instead of trying to image between 2 speakers 18 feet apart you are in essence imaging between speakers 9 feet apart.

Shawn