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For the Karlson speaker fans out there...


DrWho

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Looks like JBL is employing a similar idea on their new EON series:

eon615_hero_nogrill_z.jpg

 

 

 

I've never been a fan of the EON series, and the Bluetooth control over system parameters is a bit gimmicky in my mind, but I thought you Karlson fans would get a kick out of the "waveguide" or whatever it is they're calling it.

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Somewhere over on another forum that was talking about Karlson's designs of the early 1950s, someone mentioned that if you've trying to achieve higher directivity control in a loudspeaker...that horns work really well...while using flat baffles with creative holes cut in them--really don't. 

 

I thought that was a pretty good summary of the heavy comb filtering effects of these designs that seem to audibly match some of what I'd call zig-zag equalization, i.e., "automatic equalization" of some mastering tools on the market, techniques that I've found in certain recordings, notably those of the record company Nonesuch, but is certainly not limited to that one company's recordings.  It has always been a mystery to me why I never liked the recording/finished product quality of Nonesuch (from the 1960s to the present)--and now I know why,  I don't know if all of Nonesuch's recordings are like this  but the effect on listening pleasure is certainly not positive, IMHO.

 

I've also found that, once you are successful in un-zig-zagging these recordings' EQ, it sounds much better (and I would guess the same is true for Karlson loudspeakers).  However, it is not fun to find the inverse equalization curves for these recordings, and I usually abandon trying to correct them, just like highly compressed and otherwise processed recordings of certain pop music produced of late.

 

YMMV.

 

Chris

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Why do you think this is a zig-zag EQ approach?

 

It looks to me like they're trying to diffract the HF polars of the 15" driver to more closely match that of the tweeter. You're gonna get a little more output across teh band from the slight compression ratio too, but that will be at the expense of frequency response flatness.

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Mike - read carefully - I said...

 

Somewhere over on another forum that was talking about Karlson's designs of the early 1950s, someone mentioned that if you've trying to achieve higher directivity control in a loudspeaker...that horns work really well...while using flat baffles with creative holes cut in them--really don't. I thought that was a pretty good summary of the heavy comb filtering effects of these designs that seem to audibly match some of what I'd call zig-zag equalization,
Edited by Chris A
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Isn't that what the curved hole is called in a violin or, did I just royally display more depth of my ignorance?

 

There was a thread about why subwoofers dont have a F Curve in them like violins. I think thats what is being asked or maybe I just showed my ignorance??? :D   

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F curve?

Isn't that what the curved hole is called in a violin or, did I just royally display more depth of my ignorance?

Oh,I totally forgot about that thread, haha. Maybe we can call it a modified F hole? ;)

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the heavy comb filtering effects of these designs
 

 

Btw, are you talking about the Karlson or the JBL waveguide?

 

Maybe I'm being too literal here, but I'm not seeing what the source of comb-filtering is here. Sure, there is some passband ripple from a compression chamber without a horn attached to it, but that's a strong function of the compression ratio which is very low for the JBL waveguide. As you go higher in frequency, there will be a chamber resonance that causes a low pass filter effect, but that will also have a small effect here (again due to the compresion ratio). You would have to go much higher in frequency before the aperatures are large enough to introduce reflections with enough phase rotation to cause comb-filtering - that should be well above the passband of interest, no?

 

I'm actually fascinated by the approach because the extra cost for the waveguide thing is many a few pennies - I can't imagine the JBL engineers aren't aware of things like comb-filtering, distortion, resonances, etc....I don't think the performance gains are huge, but it makes for an interesting talking point.

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F curve?

Isn't that what the curved hole is called in a violin or, did I just royally display more depth of my ignorance?

Oh,I totally forgot about that thread, haha. Maybe we can call it a modified F hole? ;)

 

 

Well....now you're getting into the territory of what my wife calls me... :unsure:

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