Playground for practical listening exercises

[Charlie1]

I think it's really coming together and I really like what I'm hearing.

[lejonklou]

I do too! Sounds very promising.

I have so many questions about this project. I’ll start with the first: Why the upward mounting of the mid/bass driver? Did you try mounting it above or below the tweeter and what were your conclusions?

[springwood64]

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0RGgZLKuv8riZ

Sounds very engaging.

[Spannko]

Thanks gents.

Re the bass unit position: tbh, it came about by chance whilst determining the optimal enclosure volume. I built a conventionally shaped enclosure with a rear panel which could be moved back and forth, altering the internal volume. Due to the relatively large area of the rear panel, just small movements produced disproportionately large volume changes. The solution was to reduce the movable panel to the smallest area possible, which resulted in a pipe with the drive unit at one end. Using the optimal volume, conventionally shaped enclosures appeared to lack the coherence of the pipe, so I stuck with it. As for forward vs upward facing bass unit: a forward facing unit in the pipe appears to be preferable to a forward facing unit in a conventionally shaped enclosure, but still seems to lack the coherence of the upward facing unit. As for tweeter top vs bass unit top: I compared front facing bass and tweeter, bass top vs tweeter top. Bass top was perhaps slightly better but still not as as coherent as the bass unit firing upwards. I haven’t tried tweeter and bass firing upwards - maybe I should!

[matthias]

Very interesting Spannko,
and you are using a (first order?) series crossover?

[Spannko]

Thanks Matt. That’s correct, with just one capacitor and one inductor.

[lejonklou]

Very interesting, Spannko! Thank you for sharing.

[matthias]

IMO, when it is ready it might be a very nice speaker in a smaller listening room.

[Spannko]

IMO, when it is ready it might be a very nice speaker in a smaller listening room.

What makes you think that Matt?

[matthias]

I think they are sounding great. Maybe I am wrong by just comparing the volume of the speakers to the 3677s for filling a 50 sqm listening room.

[Spannko]

I think they are sounding great. Maybe I am wrong by just comparing the volume of the speakers to the 3677s for filling a 50 sqm listening room.

Ah, ok. I understand. This is something I’ve wondered myself, but until I’ve tried them in a larger room I won’t really know.

[ThomasOK]

I'm definitely liking the music coming through these, although I do miss the other notes. I have always loved Bouree and am big into Jethro Tull, at least up through most of the 70s.

The bass has a very rounded, juicy quality that I quite like and the notes are easy to follow. You might want to look at what some others have done with upward facing woofers or drivers. The original Hegeman 2, the Harmon Kardon Citation 13, the various Shahinians and some of the Allison Acoustics might be worth looking at to see what they did and why they did it.

[Spannko]

I'm definitely liking the music coming through these, although I do miss the other notes. I have always loved Bouree and am big into Jethro Tull, at least up through most of the 70s.

The bass has a very rounded, juicy quality that I quite like and the notes are easy to follow. You might want to look at what some others have done with upward facing woofers or drivers. The original Hegeman 2, the Harmon Kardon Citation 13, the various Shahinians and some of the Allison Acoustics might be worth looking at to see what they did and why they did it.

Yes, the missing instruments do tend to make familiar sounding tracks sound a bit unusual!

I’m not familiar with the Hegeman 2. Unless the Hegeman came earlier, I believe the Citation 13 was the first speaker with upward firing drivers. Dick Shahinian had a role in the design of the 13’s and used his experience in the project to develop his own range of loudspeakers. I’m also vaguely familiar with the Allison speakers. Although the 13’s, Shahinian’s and Allison’s had non-forward firing drive units, their reasons for doing so were slightly different. The 13’s were designed to “fill the room with sound”, Shahinian was aiming for “poly directional” sound radiation and Allison believed that an upward facing bass unit when positioned as close as possible to the rear wall ensured the closest approximation to an ideal 2π bass loading. Linkwitz also liked the idea of an upward facing bass unit, but his thought was that the unit then more efficiently “loaded the room”, or something along those lines. My reason for using an upward facing bass unit was because I thought it sounded better. So there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on why upward facing drivers might be a good idea!

[erho]

My first clips here, sorry for the bad quality and my cat......

Which one do you prefer please

1) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HgKVzU ... share_link

2)https://drive.google.com/file/d/1saK2F5 ... share_link

3)https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zu9tTc ... share_link

[Tendaberry]

I loved your cat, but found it difficult to pick a favourite, maybe no. 2.

[erho]

I loved your cat, but found it difficult to pick a favourite, maybe no. 2.

thank you, 15, 25 and 35 cm distance from the back wall

just saw that I made a mistake when uploading, here are the right ones:

1. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HgKVzU ... share_link

2. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1saK2F5 ... share_link

3. https://drive.google.com/file/d/10f8dRM ... share_link

[matthias]

15, 25 and 35 cm distance from the back wall

What is your in room impression?

[erho]

15, 25 and 35 cm distance from the back wall

What is your in room impression?

No 3, 35 cm distance, because with the other ones I got a bass boom with certain music

just saw that I made a mistake when uploading, here are the right ones --- see above, these are the right links now

[Charlie1]

I hear too much sound off the wall in 2856.

I'd probably go with 2857 but hard to tell with that track.

Maybe try closer together too, although I appreciate you have the cabinet preventing them going much closer to one another.

[springwood64]

1. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HgKVzU ... share_link

2. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1saK2F5 ... share_link

3. https://drive.google.com/file/d/10f8dRM ... share_link

No 2 I think, but found it tricky. Have you explored 1cm increments behind and in front of no 2?

[erho]

I hear too much sound off the wall in 2856.

I'd probably go with 2857 but hard to tell with that track.

Maybe try closer together too, although I appreciate you have the cabinet preventing them going much closer to one another.

will try it closer without cabinet

[Charlie1]

Cool!

Maybe try quite a lot closer in that case with about 150cm between tweeters.

[erho]

Cool!

Maybe try quite a lot closer in that case with about 150cm between tweeters.

okay thank you

[Whatsmynaim]

I found 1 to be pretty good.

[beck]

I found 1 to be pretty good.

I agree…….As Charlie1 wrote experiment around 150 cm from tweeter to tweeter. Mine are 155 cm apart. Then try again with different distances from the back wall.