imaging ?

[richieb]

14 minutes ago, jwc said:

Does a fat baby fart?  IMO, lascala one of the best imaging speakers.

 

--- And yes again. In my rather large room LS virtually disappear in the room. I'm not so sure they image as well as the Jubes in my room but their disappearing act is pretty amazing  ---

[mark1101]

I sit within 8 ft. of mine and it's there.  

[richieb]

My Jubes are right at 21 ft. apart on centers, pulled out a bit from the corners and angled to my listening spot about 16 ft. out  with another 10 ft. behind me. They image like crazy. Someone mentioned vocals front and center stage, singing directly at you - yep I have that. And good instrument placement across the 20 ft. + front wall. 

I place the LS very similar but about 16 ft. apart and to the front sides of the Jube bins. It is really difficult to place which speaker is playing. Amazing from such a large boxy speaker cabinet. 

And someone asked if/how I EQ'd the Jubes to image as well as they do - I don't. Nada, nothing - for me it's been KISS. CD, preamp, amp that's it. I think my room plays a big part with this. A veteran of several hi end shops who visited when I had KHorns said the room was ideal for large format speaks. 

 

[Chris A]

On 3/7/2018 at 11:16 AM, ClaudeJ1 said:

Moving speakers away from walls is counter to what PWK said, since he was trying to lower IM distortion by corner loading at all cost. So he insisted that ALL speakers worked better in the corner,  at least from a bass boost standpoint. In my own experience with SH-50's and Carver Amazing Platinums OUT OF CORNERS, the improvement in sound state and imaging makes the trade off well worthwhile, since having them in corners messes that up. So I agree with your notion here about moving Cornscalas out of corners. Besides, my Danley SH-50's were designed to be flat OUTDOORS, so moving them anywhere into any  room (in my case also in open loft) make for some sweet imaging while preserving dynamics, and STILL the bass has to be cut back a bit.

 

1 hour ago, richieb said:

My Jubes are right at 21 ft. apart on centers, pulled out a bit from the corners

 

I have played with dipoles for many years--and my experience is that the added depth that you mention is artificial due to the backwave delay of 20+ms that is outside of the Haas integration interval.  But to achieve this, the loudspeakers need to be at least 10 feet from the front wall.  It's a high price to pay for something that a good reverberation unit can do better...

 

I think a lot of people are just not thinking about what happens when you pull your loudspeakers away from the front wall...that or they are just lazy with their acoustic treatments (or not willing to experiment because they think that they won't like any treatments near the loudspeakers in-room).  The issue with pulling your loudspeakers away from the front wall is added bass modulation distortion and loss of bass below 50 Hz vs. reducing early reflections from the midrange horn/driver.  This subject has pretty much been exhausted in the corner horn imaging FAQ (which you should read if you haven't yet)--

 

When you pull your loudspeakers out away from the front wall by 3 feet, you get a nasty 1/4 wave cancellation centered at 80-94 Hz that you cannot equalize out.  Perhaps you haven't measured what happens when you pull the loudspeakers out from the front wall...without thinking about what's occurring when you do.

 

When you put your loudspeakers back into the room corners, but then add a 2'x2' absorption panels on either side of the exit of the mid-hi horn (the K-402 in the case of the Jubilee, and the K-400 horn in the case of the La Scala or Khorn, on the side walls and the front wall), you'll correct the issue without inducing a mid-bass notch due to an induced room mode, and you get the same effect on midrange early reflection suppression that you get by pulling them out--but without the added room mode notch.

 

Try it.

 

Chris

[richieb]

Several years ago at a high end shop located in an old building with huge rooms and very high ceilings I listed to some nice floor standers pulled way out into the room, over ten feet, driven by it CJ tube monos. Those speakers absolutely vanished into the room, they just weren't there. Owned Corns at the time, came home for a very, very depressing listening session. I thought I have a looong way to go ----

[mark1101]

2 hours ago, richieb said:

My Jubes are right at 21 ft. apart on centers, pulled out a bit from the corners and angled to my listening spot about 16 ft. out  with another 10 ft. behind me. They image like crazy. Someone mentioned vocals front and center stage, singing directly at you - yep I have that. And good instrument placement across the 20 ft. + front wall. 

I place the LS very similar but about 16 ft. apart and to the front sides of the Jube bins. It is really difficult to place which speaker is playing. Amazing from such a large boxy speaker cabinet. 

And someone asked if/how I EQ'd the Jubes to image as well as they do - I don't. Nada, nothing - for me it's been KISS. CD, preamp, amp that's it. I think my room plays a big part with this. A veteran of several hi end shops who visited when I had KHorns said the room was ideal for large format speaks. 

 

 

I don't understand..........no EQ.  I assume you must have passive networks with the CD horn EQ in the network.......or an active processor providing that?

 

Or........do you actually mean no EQ whatsoever?

[richieb]

59 minutes ago, mark1101 said:

 

I don't understand..........no EQ.  I assume you must have passive networks with the CD horn EQ in the network.......or an active processor providing that?

 

Or........do you actually mean no EQ whatsoever?

 

Yes, passives, Bob Crites.  

[Don Richard]

Loudspeaker placement and/or acoustic treatments are necessary to get consistent 3D imaging. Time aligned speakers seem to help greatly, along with source material that has been recorded properly and/or mixed properly. The easiest way to get 3D sound is to use mini-monitor type speakers in a nearfield setup in a 6 or 7 foot equilateral triangle , away from the walls, facing forward with no toe-in. What I have found to be unnecessary are tube amplifiers, analog sources or fancy cables.

 

I base my opinions on extensive experiments using a pair of old Boston Acoustics A150s I have had for over 30 years. I had them hooked to my TV but rarely used them and decided to play around with them. I hooked them up to a Crown XTi 1000 with some old 14 gage "speaker wire" I bought at the same time as the speakers. Source is a $179 OPPO DV 980H player. I played around with all sorts of configurations - speakers elevated, on the floor, with a riser in front, toed in and aimed various ways, against the walls, away from the walls, until I settled on the nearfield configuration described in the previous paragraph. Set up in this manner the 3D imaging is stunning, ranging from good to OMG, depending on the source material.

 

These speakers are a 3 way design using 10 inch woofers, 5 inch midrange, and I inch soft dome tweeter. They are time aligned and have features designed to reduce cabinet diffraction. I have no idea what the crossover points are, sensitivity is 90 dB for 1 watt @1 meter, 80 watt recommended power, 8 ohm load. In the past I had found these speakers to be boomy with one note bass. Pulled 5 feet away from the wall the boom is gone and the imaging really pops. I can move the listening position towards the back wall to increase the bass without getting the boom, but imaging suffers past a certain point. There seems to be a sweet spot where it all comes together with fast, articulate bass that goes fairly deep and spectacular imaging. With about 200 watts "RMS" this little system will play far louder than I want to listen. The total new price for the speakers, amp and CD player is a tad over $1000, including the high end "speaker wire".  

 

My theory as to what is happening is when a loudspeaker is located away from any room boundaries it enables a person to locate the source of the sound in 3D space, and in the case of stereo, the stereo image also floats in 3D space. Any ensemble recorded acoustically will have instruments in the rear of the group acoustically delayed by a few milliseconds, which pushes the perceived image of that instrument back. Multitrack recordings achieve the same effect by delaying the channel that the mixdown engineer wants to move rearward by enough milliseconds to move the phantom image toward the back of the group, thus increasing the 3D effect. The reason time aligned speakers seem to image better is that they do not have the time smear from multiple arrivals interfering with the recorded delays that are critical for 3D imaging.

[jwc]

10 hours ago, Don Richard said:

The easiest way to get 3D sound is to use mini-monitor type speakers in a nearfield setup in a 6 or 7 foot equilateral triangle , away from the walls, facing forward with no toe-in

What do think about a Klipsch 396 on a stick?

[Don Richard]

I am unfamiliar with the 396, but I would say if they are time aligned it should be possible to get them to 3D image with proper placement.

[ClaudeJ1]

17 minutes ago, Don Richard said:

I am unfamiliar with the 396, but I would say if it is time aligned it should be possible to get it to 3D image with proper placement.

My Danley SH-50's are time aligned and act as a single driver, even though they have 7 drivers feeding ONE HORN. My Carver Amazing Loudspeakers (have 2 versions) generate from 120 Hz. on up to 20 Khz. from a SINGLE dipole Ribbon Radiator. Plus, they already have too much BASS (they generate down to 18 Hz. with 8 12" subwoofer drivers in OB configuration) out of the corners, so I PEQ them as good as possible. However are POWER SUCKERS compared to anything Klipsch makes, so ear splitting levels will blow a fuse or two, so out of the question (Class D power is Great and Cheap, however).  But set up about 6-7 feet apart, in a "nearfield triangle" configuration you suggested, they are almost "magical" in their 3 Dimensional presentation. ALL loudspeakers, no matter the brand or type only create a desired ILLUSION from recordings of infinitely variable inputs and processes. It boils down to which FALSE illusion you prefer. One quick listen to a live acoustic Jazz trio in a small venue, from about 12-15 feet away,  will tell you how much any of your particular systems sucks in compared to a LIVE performance. So y'all shouldenjoy your favorite FAKE ILLUSION as much as I do mine!

[ClaudeJ1]

On 3/9/2018 at 12:47 PM, Chris A said:

played with dipoles for many years--and my experience is that the added depth that you mention is artificial due to the backwave delay of 20+ms that is outside of the Haas integration interval.  But to achieve this, the loudspeakers need to be at least 10 feet from the front wall.  It's a high price to pay for something that a good reverberation unit can do better...

You are way oversimplifying the cause of the effect of dipole speakers. I do not agree with your "equivalency" in corner speakers with absorption. Played with THAT for over 30 years. Read what Siegfried Linkwitz has to say. His dipoles are only 1 meter away from rear walls. Besides, the Carvers are not my primary system, which is being updated. Aside from that, I have come to PREFER speakers that do NOT need corners to operate from 40Hz to 20Khz, as in Danleys. The Jube, being a Corner Horn, works better than a Klipschorn, but out of the corners is more like a longer LaScala with another fold (great design, with a few flaws).

 

Also when I attended Axpona in Chicago, a few years ago, the best sounding speakers I heard were $2,000 dipoles, which blew away the sound of $125,000 Wilsons. The year before, in 2015, the Sadurni Horns http://sadurniacoustics.com/#staccato (which were WAY out of room corners and using Hypex amps) were the best speakers I ever heard anywhere, but $40,000/pair is way out of my league. Without sacrificing TONALITY and low distortion, I can fully enjoy both types of systems that I own, as they perform better than 99.9% of anything out there anyhow.

[ClaudeJ1]

20 hours ago, Don Richard said:

In the past I had found these speakers to be boomy with one note bass. Pulled 5 feet away from the wall the boom is gone and the imaging really pops. I can move the listening position towards the back wall to increase the bass without getting the boom, but imaging suffers past a certain point. There seems to be a sweet spot where it all comes together with fast, articulate bass that goes fairly deep and spectacular imaging.

This is what Audiophiles have been talking about for years, which I agree with. There is more to life than low IM distortion from corner loading below 300 Hz. It's just another trade off which has it's benefits. This aspect of speaker positioning has eluded many a Klipschead for many years, including ME!

 

[Don Richard]

Yeah, when I had LaScalas I liked them because I could move them around the room and locate them where they sounded best.

[ClaudeJ1]

3 minutes ago, Don Richard said:

Yeah, when I had LaScalas I liked them because I could move them around the room and locate them where they sounded best.

LaScalas (had many pairs of those and a mono center too, for 30 years) image better than Khorns for this reason, and they are more phase coherent at 400 Hz.

 

 BTW, Paul Klipsch's own Khorns and center Belle at his home were NOT in the room's natural corners of the ROOM. He had a huge living room, containing a Bosendorfer and an opposing Steinway Grand Pianos to the right (Ms. Valerie was a piano teacher). So he built the FALSE CORNERS he wrote about in the Dope From Hope. So, EFFECTIVELY, he had better imaging because HIS Klipschorns (which were regular,  right off the factory floor KWO's with AA networks) had their own corners and were at least 3 feet forward of the large bay window in his living room. They were the best I ever heard because of that AND his "purist" 2 spaced Omni microphone recordings of the Little Rock Symphony Orchestra on 15 IPS tape........................as it should be!

[Chris A]

14 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

You are way oversimplifying the cause of the effect of dipole speakers...Read what Siegfried Linkwitz has to say. His dipoles are only 1 meter away from rear walls.  His dipoles are only 1 meter away from rear walls.

I think what you're hearing is non-dipole rearward going "splash" off the walls --which is pretty much what a Bose 901 does.  You need to be outside the Haas integration interval (20-25 ms delay minimum) to get enough delay to hear an echo--to get a true impression of added depth of the recording, like the surround channels in a 5.1, 7.1, etc.  All you're getting with 1-2 metre delay is source broadening. This is well known stuff: nothing esoteric.

 

 

 

14 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

I do not agree with your "equivalency" in corner speakers with absorption.

With K-402s in the corners on top of Jubilee bass bins, the absorption pads work as advertised...at least in the physics and psychophysics of my listening room.  Your listening room physics, I would guess, must be different.

 

It works even more if the adjacent surface area farther away from the mouths of the bass bins and K-402 are also covered - out to about 6 feet (about 2 metres), but the effectiveness drops off the farther away that the absorption is from the horn mouths.

 

14 hours ago, ClaudeJ1 said:

I have come to PREFER speakers that do NOT need corners to operate from 40Hz to 20Khz, as in Danleys.

I think that it's easy to overplay this hand, and I believe that PWK was pretty clear on this subject.  I can agree to disagree with you.

 

The K-402-MEH needs no corners, but its low end improvement in the areas of lower modulation distortion and some phase growth benefits when they are placed in corners.  I've got measurements using the MEH for reference. 

 

It works the same for Danley Unity and Synergy horns, too--perhaps more because of their abrupt secondary mouth flares and non-tractrix final mouth expansions, leading to mouth impedance bounces that could use some smoothing.

 

Chris

[ClaudeJ1]

18 minutes ago, Chris A said:

All you're getting with 1-2 metre delay is source broadening. This is well known stuff: nothing esoteric.

I never claimed it was esoteric, just a new experience for me. Apples and oranges comparison. Bose 901's are NOT open baffle, and are asymmetric Bipoles. The Carvers are Symmetric Dipoles, with inherent side cancellation. Also, the HUGE surface area of the drivers makes them Low Distortion devices, not like Bose. The front/rear amplitude of the drivers is equal while the Bose is an 8:1 ratio, thus making the WALL itself the dominant "big sound" with the front driver adding extra "clarity."

 

ARTTO, from this Forum,  (Architect and Bass player) in Chicago has his SH-50's out of corners and he has the best 3D imaging I've ever heard from horns and his room is 1st class with treatments. He used to have 2 Khorns and a Belle for years and has moved on. My own 3D depth of image in a loft space is pretty good too, but not as good as his. In my new space, I'll be forced to put them in corners, or pulled forward against the side walls (per Tom Danley's Email recommendation). I'll let you know how it goes, since we are all slaves to our room geometry primarily with positioning as secondary consideration.

[ClaudeJ1]

On 3/9/2018 at 12:47 PM, Chris A said:

have played with dipoles for many years--and my experience is that the added depth that you mention is artificial due to the backwave delay of 20+ms that is outside of the Haas integration interval.  But to achieve this, the loudspeakers need to be at least 10 feet from the front wall.  It's a high price to pay for something that a good reverberation unit can do better...

I had mine only 4 ft from the rear wall, so I guess I'm INSIDE the Haas integration interval. I fully understand that the effect of this particular speaker is "fake" BUT I really like how it sounds. The bass has micro definition, being free from cabinet resonances. It's just a completely different sound from my horns but still very GOOD, so it's fun to listen to music with this effect on a second system. This is no different than people who play 2 channel recordings over a 7.1 system using various artificial setting on their AVR to get all the channels doing the music, or those who decide to RE-MASTER their commercial music to suit their taste!

 

[Chris A]

I still own Magnepan MG-IIIa's--which were my main system from late 1983 to December 2007.  I don't look back on that experience anything like owning Jubs for the past 10+ years.  I would never go back to a dipole--especially one with large radiating areas like a planar.  There are a few reason why, but having a sweet spot that's about 2-3 inches wide isn't the least of the reasons.  That problem doesn't go away if the room gets really big, I've found.

[ClaudeJ1]

6 minutes ago, Chris A said:

I still own Magnepan MG-IIIa's--which were my main system from late 1983 to December 2007.  I don't look back on that experience anything like owning Jubs for the past 10+ years.  I would never go back to a dipole--especially one with large radiating areas like a planar.  There are a few reason why, but having a sweet spot that's about 2-3 inches wide isn't the least of the reasons.  That problem doesn't go away if the room gets really big, I've found.

I don't disagree on your points, this is a new experience for me, but I'm not trying to replace my all horn system. It's just another room. If I play with these for a while and find the initial bloom wears off, i can sell them and get my money back to try some other things. The Carver Platinums have a Narrow/Tall Radiating area for 90 percent of the sound, the large area is the OB SUBWOOFER section from 120 Hz. down, so it's not like the Maggies.

 

But I will NOT sell my Synergy Horns, which are still my reference standard. This is just play time for me. but now having another room to sit and listen in, I don't mind playing with these dipoles for a while, especially with the addition of a Kilowatt of Class D amplification to the setup. I also don't mind sitting in one sweetspot to get the full effect, since serious listening is inherently an anti-social experience (like headphones).