Interesting Philosophy

[ClaudeJ1]

Obviously the Khorn does other things better than the Thiel...things that matter more than time-alignment. But that doesn't mean the Khorn sounds better without it!

Aha, now we are getting somewhere fast!

[bodcaw boy]

that's why alot of people like bose speakers....

take care,

roy

[Islander]

When I first set up my JubScalas, they had no tweeter delay, meaning the time alignment was worse than you'd find in a standard La Scala, because a standard La Scala has a difference in horn length between the K400 squawker horn and the LS bass bin horn of less than 2 feet (still a lot), while the JubScala has a greater difference, since the K510 tweeter horn (which also carries mid/squawker frequencies) is over a foot shorter than the K400 horn.

The non-time-aligned sound was alright and not objectionable, but after dialing in some delay to the treble channels (a bit over 2 milliseconds or around 75cm/30in at present), the sound was noticeably tighter and more together on certain material, particularly when a bass and treble line closely accompanied each other. This may not yet be the perfect setting, but it definitely sounds better than with no delay.

The tweeters are resting on top of the bass bins and I finally have some tweeter stands that allow the fronts of the tweeter horns to line up with the fronts of the LS cabinets.

The difference in frequency between bass and treble notes is not that important. What matters is that the timing between notes produced by each driver is not altered by the speaker and is produced with the same timing relationship that is in the recording.

[Don Richard]

According to Tom Danley, whose Synergy horns are so time aligned (they will pass square waves for a decade of frequencies) you need to stay withing 1/4 wave to achieve this, which means at my 900 Hz. Xover point from Mid Bass to Mid Horn, I'm looking at about 3 1/2 inches, which isn't completely happening there either. But, I say, the closer the better, where it counts.

Generally, 1/4 wave is desirable for most types of speakers. Larger spacings can be successfully used in point source systems that are vertically stacked, depending on the vertical directivity of the elements used. Provided that electronic signal delay is used, time alignment and coherent driver integration can be successfully achieved.

Time alignment is difficult to achieve at all points in space and at all frequencies simultaneously, but time alignment will get the arrival times closer than they were everywhere in the room.

Tom Danley's Synergy horns are a superb example of modern techniques applied to horn loudspeaker design. And he's using conical horns.

[ClaudeJ1]

that's why alot of people like bose speakers....

take care,

roy

Yes, they love their 30% Intermodulation Distortion from those tiny little cubes (aren't they just the cutest things) or in the case of the 901, ramming bass and treble into a "midrange" speaker, creating a 10 millisecond time misalignment by bouncing 8/9th's of the sound off a wall first before it recombines with the front driver................yum...............but they have great ads, like politicians running for office.

[MitsuMan]

Loudspeakers

Loudspeakers should not be bass reflex. No dipolar operation in any forms. No synthetic driver’s cones. The wider dynamic range is better but after 110dB/W the Transient/Tone balance rapidly goes down. No impedance equalization, no resonators of any kind. No crossovers more then 6db/octave if possible; in very specific cases higher order might be used but very reservingly, very “creatively” and with the very well-determined purpose. Loudspeakers should have more then 3 channels and the channel should be painstakingly and meticulously time-aligned not only geometrically but also acoustically. Any minute phase discrepancy between the channels religiously tabooed. Loudspeakers should be viewed only in context of their listing environment and should be positioned according the DPoLS concept (search my site for further explanations). The “quality” of the loudspeakers should bear ONLY on the quality of drivers and the loudspeaker design should recognize and to embrace (not combat!) the idiosyncrasies and the craving of the drivers, and consequentially the design should furnish the best possible environment for the drivers to let them operate at thier full blossom. Horn loaded loudspeakers are the most advanced topology of any loudspeaker. The properly implemented horn-loaded loudspeaker is more superior topology then juts “horn-loaded loudspeakers”. The properly implemented and advancely performing home-based horn-loaded loudspeakers are practically unknown to wide audio public.

They were my very basic principles according which I shaped my playback. If you do not like them…
then I have others....

Romy the Cat from the "Good Sound Club" site.

Someone who cannot spell or use proper grammar should not try to sound like an expert. [*-)]

[ClaudeJ1]

Someone who cannot spell or use proper grammar should not try to sound like an expert.

Well, I have published over magazine 200 articles in 2 field. Also, English is my second language. I am very good at spelling, grammar, and writing style, but I always make errors, especially on the Web. I was quoting someone else's observations about horns and recognized the error, but made no judgement about the intelligence of the author. One of my best friends, who is extremely intelligent, has a speech impediment and is the worst speller I ever met.

So, assuming that others, from different countries or not, who are not purfict spelurs, are unintelligent or cannot make positive contributions on the Web, is a cheap shot from others who make no other useful contributions to the points.................and perhaps, why we as Americans can be construed as arrogant.

[Mallette]

>Someone who cannot spell or use proper grammar should not try to sound like an expert.

DANEJER! HI VOLTIGE!

Just because someone spells sloppily does not in and of itself suggest they might not be saying something worth paying attention to.

Dave

[MitsuMan]

Someone who cannot spell or use proper grammar should not try to sound like an expert.

Well, I have published over magazine 200 articles in 2 field. Also, English is my second language. I am very good at spelling, grammar, and writing style, but I always make errors, especially on the Web. I was quoting someone else's observations about horns and recognized the error, but made no judgement about the intelligence of the author. One of my best friends, who is extremely intelligent, has a speech impediment and is the worst speller I ever met.

So, assuming that others, from different countries or not, who are not purfict spelurs, are unintelligent or cannot make positive contributions on the Web, is a cheap shot from others who make no other useful contributions to the points.................and perhaps, why we as Americans can be construed as arrogant.

Are you the author of the article you posted? That's not how I took it. You portrayed it as if you were just posting someone else's philosphy. In no way was it meant as a cheap shot at you. If you took it that way, then you have my apologies. I still stand by my original statement, however. []

[jdm56]

Obviously the Khorn does other things better than the Thiel...things that matter more than time-alignment. But that doesn't mean the Khorn sounds better without it!

Agreed. It's just that we, as audiophiles, can tend to get bogged down chasing our tails in pursuit of perfection. I know I have. And how can you even chase perfection when you can scarcely get two "experts" to agree on what perfection is? People can't even agree on what is the "correct" way for a speaker to radiate sound into a room. For example, look at Klipsch and Mirage. I'd love to hear their engineers have a go at each other! So if we can't even agree on where to start from in our pursuit, what chance is there of arriving at the same destination? Precious little, I'd say. My gosh, just look at how many speaker manufacturers there are, and factor in all the home-brew guys and it's staggering how many "versions of the truth" there are about how to reproduce sound. ...On the other hand, all this diversity is part of what makes this obsession of ours so interesting![8-|]

[ClaudeJ1]

Are you the author of the article you posted? That's not how I took it. You portrayed it as if you were just posting someone else's philosphy. In no way was it meant as a cheap shot at you. If you took it that way, then you have my apologies. I still stand by my original statement, however

No, I'm not the author, I just cut and pasted it so he would get the credit (or the blame, LOL). I did not take it personally at all, I simply disagreed with your blanket statement and backed it up with experiences.

It effectively discourages intelligent people who can't spell very well, by way of being from a foreign country, or having that type of handicap. I have a friend who is a Brilliant industrial designer, with several patents. He can built anything mechanical or electronic, but he got straight F's and flunked out of high school because of SEVERE dyslexia..........he can't read, and can barely write. But boy can he draw and build some cool stuff!!

So my disagreeing with your original statement is backed up by knowing people who are and SHOULD be considered experts, but they have terrible grammar and spelling skills, OK?

This is called the World Wide Web for a reason, but you are entitled to your own opinion either way.

[Marvel]

No, I'm not the author, I just cut and pasted it so he would get the credit (or the blame, LOL). I did not take it personally at all, I simply disagreed with your blanket statement and backed it up with experiences.

The author is Roman Bessnow, and he has been posting on audio sites for years, and runs the Romy the Cat website. He is pretty out there, but often a great read.

Bruce

[MitsuMan]

"..........is a cheap shot from others who make no other useful contributions to the points................."

Methinks you did take it personally, and that's ok. Unproductive, but ok. Not knowing me or my background or what I listen to or my experience level, it seems odd that you would get defensive. Maybe my post was somewhat blunt, but it appears to have struck close to home.

Being a mechanical engineer myself (for 23 years) I don't feel I need to defend myself, as I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm an expert.

A philosphy is open to interpretation and SHOULD be a matter to invite debate. You appear to convinced in your conclusions as being correct as given. Therefore, there is no debate.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program. []

[ClaudeJ1]

Being a mechanical engineer myself (for 23 years) I don't feel I need to defend myself, as I'm not trying to convince anyone that I'm an expert.

A philosphy is open to interpretation and SHOULD be a matter to invite debate. You appear to convinced in your conclusions as being correct as given. Therefore, there is no debate.

It was never about you. Also you never debated any philosophy whatsoever about horns, which was the quote to start with. You never got past the spelling thing to get to the philosophy debate and still haven't gotten there.

You just said that people who can't spell shoudn't be acting like experts. With the Internet full of self-proclaimed experts and this guy, certainly acts like one if you read the rest of his site.

I feel the same way you do about "experts", whether they can spell or not, who say they can hear a picobel drop across a relay contact, spend thousands on speaker wires and tens of thousands on direct radiators................or, worse yet, just come up with C minus ratings of any speaker that costs less than $100,000.

[DrWho]

One has to wonder if the lack of attention to detail in the writing isn't a sign of a lack of attention to detail in the actual content of the message. Even though that's unfair to the people that have difficulty communicating, it's just the way human communication works. I find myself burned on this many times, which is why it's something I make a conscious effort to attenuate.

Though in the case of the quoted author, I'd have to say that some of the logic seemed to be lacking in many regards - and it's more than just an inability to communicate...though the weird language doesn't make it any easier to read. To sum it up - nothing in the quote had anything to do with any performance characteristics....just the choice of "tools". The problem with that kind of philosophy is that it automatically rules out any new or alternate tool that might achieve the same performance while providing improvements in other areas.

[ClaudeJ1]

To sum it up - nothing in the quote had anything to do with any performance characteristics....just the choice of "tools". The problem with that kind of philosophy is that it automatically rules out any new or alternate tool that might achieve the same performance while providing improvements in other areas.

I didn't dig into it that deep. I just thought it was cool that he has such high regard for using horns, only the best driver characteristics, no EQ, and first order networks without Zobels. This is what I have been doing of late and it's the best sound I've ever had.

[ClaudeJ1]

OK, I just went to the "Good Sound Club" site of Romy the Cat. He was talking about Rachmaninoff..........so basically he is a classical music fan and he is a RUSSIAN immigrant................this explains his arrogance as well as his bad grammar and spelling..............still entertaining and interesesting, though.

[Romy the Cat]

don't buy the time alignment arguments because I don't see it happening in live music - bands, orchestras, choirs, etc. If it is not critical or even possible to time align live performance, why worry about playback?

I don't buy the phase arguments because virtually all recorded music has been phase shifted thousands of degrees between the mic and the tape. A few more degrees can't really hurt, can they?

The time alignment and phase things might be important so someone producing an audiophile recording using very special mic placement and other techniques, no mixing, no editing, maybe no mastering. I did not choose my gear to play just a couple of perfect records... not that there is anything wrong with that!

Time alignment does not involve the spacing between performers, but rather the spacing between the drivers in a loudspeaker system. Whenever there are two or more sources reproducing the same sound anomalies will occur. When the multiple sources are separated in time by more than 10 milliseconds or so, two distinct sounds, as in an echo, will be heard. This is not good. If the sources are separated by less of a time interval a comb filter will result. Comb filters cause a rough frequency response curve and lobing. Lobing causes a rough polar response which results in the sound reflecting off of the walls causing time smear and poor imaging.

Irregular frequency response, time smear, and poor imaging. Not what we want. Proper time alignment of the drivers within a loudspeaker system eliminates and/or reduces those problems.

The time/level shift between the performers in a recording is what allows us to perceive the stereo effect. A system with bad time alignment between its drivers interferes with that effect, affecting the realism of the reproduction.

Correct answer, Don. The argument that used is immature and irrelevant.

Romy the Cat

[Romy the Cat]

Time and phase alignment makes complete sense on paper. But a klipschorn sounds about a million times better than a Thiel, so who cares?

Here it was another idiotic argument!

[Timmikid]

Time and phase alignment? Does that mean digging up threads from the past and continue like nothing has happened since? [O]