# Dynaudio MW172 - Bad idea?



## SQram

So long story short, over the weekend I cut the floorboards out of my truck with aspirations of building recessed enclosures for a pair of Veritas AB218's I've had stored away over the years. When I pulled the speakers out of their boxes I noticed one of them has some sort of grit stuck in the magnetic gap which as we all know is near impossible to get out. It looks like the cone/suspension may have a little sag from being stored horitontal as well. Back in the boxes they went and are now safely stowed away for another 10 years...lol

That brings me to today. I'm on the hunt for a new 8" midbass to pair up with a pair of HLCD's. I've always loved the Dynaudio sound, probably 8-9 years ago I had a set of the 6" speakers paired up with a metal dome tweets and I still think it was one of the best component sets I've owned. I want something similar in my truck. 

My primary goals are tonal accuracy with as little processing as possible, and an accurate presentation of music (soundstage etc). I'm willing to sacrafice some of the benefits of the HLCD's such as dynamics, sensitivity etc to achieve the end results. I'd like to keep the HLCD's because I find they offer a lot of benefits over a traditional tweeter in a full size truck such as controlled dispersion etc. I think the huge sensitivity mismatch is also offset somewhat because I typically use an inline frquency compensator on the horns, and I'm going to give foam a try inside the mouth of the horns. I've also considered purchasing replacement 16 ohm compression driver domes to reduce power from the amplifier...

So anyways, am I going to waste a bunch of money trying to mate a pair of MW 172's to a pair of HLCD's? I realize I'd be loosing some of the benfits of a horn install, but I am ok with that.

The other option I was considering is a pair of Audiotechnology 8" Flex units. Perhaps they can be tweeked a little to bump up the sensitivity at the cost of bandwidth? I'm not all that familiar with their speakers but they seem to get rave reviews...


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## SkizeR

If you want dynaudio go with the mw182.


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## minbari

from what I understand Dyns are decently sensitive speakers. in the 91-92db 1w/1m? I am sure they could work.

you can also go for the more traditional pro audio 8" idea. B&C, Faital, Beyma, etc.


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## thehatedguy

If I weren't going to use a prosound driver, I would really look into Dyns.

I'm sure there are other really great speakers on the market, but the Dyns are a safe bet IMO...especially if you put some power on them.


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## Patrick Bateman

SQram said:


> So long story short, over the weekend I cut the floorboards out of my truck with aspirations of building recessed enclosures for a pair of Veritas AB218's I've had stored away over the years. When I pulled the speakers out of their boxes I noticed one of them has some sort of grit stuck in the magnetic gap which as we all know is near impossible to get out. It looks like the cone/suspension may have a little sag from being stored horitontal as well. Back in the boxes they went and are now safely stowed away for another 10 years...lol
> 
> That brings me to today. I'm on the hunt for a new 8" midbass to pair up with a pair of HLCD's. I've always loved the Dynaudio sound, probably 8-9 years ago I had a set of the 6" speakers paired up with a metal dome tweets and I still think it was one of the best component sets I've owned. I want something similar in my truck.
> 
> My primary goals are tonal accuracy with as little processing as possible, and an accurate presentation of music (soundstage etc). I'm willing to sacrafice some of the benefits of the HLCD's such as dynamics, sensitivity etc to achieve the end results. I'd like to keep the HLCD's because I find they offer a lot of benefits over a traditional tweeter in a full size truck such as controlled dispersion etc. I think the huge sensitivity mismatch is also offset somewhat because I typically use an inline frquency compensator on the horns, and I'm going to give foam a try inside the mouth of the horns. I've also considered purchasing replacement 16 ohm compression driver domes to reduce power from the amplifier...
> 
> So anyways, am I going to waste a bunch of money trying to mate a pair of MW 172's to a pair of HLCD's? I realize I'd be loosing some of the benfits of a horn install, but I am ok with that.
> 
> The other option I was considering is a pair of Audiotechnology 8" Flex units. Perhaps they can be tweeked a little to bump up the sensitivity at the cost of bandwidth? I'm not all that familiar with their speakers but they seem to get rave reviews...


IMHO efficiency is overrated and maximum output rules

Also, Dynaudio and Morel feature a lot of things that you see in prosound drivers: monster voice coils, high power handling, etc

The Morels in Gary Summers' Benz are as dynamic as any horn I've heard. And they should be; the midrange has a voice coil as big as many subwoofers, and the efficiency is in the 90s.


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## thehatedguy

I think saying efficiency is overrated is a bit of a stretch and look for big voice coils and maximum output is bad advice given the fact that with the crossovers used, LF extension is going to be dictated by the XO point and slope. It doesn't matter if you have 11mm one way or 5mm one way if you will never physically be able to get anywhere near either one.


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## Patrick Bateman

thehatedguy said:


> I think saying efficiency is overrated is a bit of a stretch and look for big voice coils and maximum output is bad advice given the fact that with the crossovers used, LF extension is going to be dictated by the XO point and slope. It doesn't matter if you have 11mm one way or 5mm one way if you will never physically be able to get anywhere near either one.


Speakers aren't dynamic because they're efficient;
speakers are dynamic because they're capable of high output.

It doesn't matter what recipe you use to get there.

For instance, you can spend $100 on a prosound 8" woofer from B&C and get to your goal.
Or you could spend $300 on a 'hi-fi' woofer from Dynaudio or Morel.

A lot of smart horn designers have figured this out; Tom Danley uses drivers with efficiencies in the 80s in some of his subs. Bruce Edgar's legendary midrange horn used a Dynaudio.

Both of them raised eyebrows with their driver choice, but it works.

Again, not "slamming" hi efficiency drivers per se; I use hi-efficiency drivers all the time. But lo efficiency drivers work great too.


I would use a lot more Dynaudio and Morel if they weren't so damn expensive. I like the sound of the Dayton reference drivers but their power handling isn't as extreme as Dynaudio and Morel.


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## thehatedguy

Then Dr. Edgar used a JBL 2105h which is 94 dB to start...that's what I have in my Edgarhorns. The Dyn he used was a prosound version of the dome, which was a bit more beefy than a standard dome. But later on he only used the cone drivers on the entry level horn (like I have). His reference level horns use a JBL 2440 or a 2441 compression driver.

But a subwoofer is a bit different application than a midrange or a midbass.

And both of those use some sort of horn to raise the efficiency of the system up even higher. You can only get as high as what you start with in a direct radiator system...often it is much lower after it is EQed.


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## strakele

My experience seems contrary to others that I have read, but my MW172's don't seem to take much power or a very low crossover point. 85Hz/24dB is what I have to run to keep them from bottoming on dynamic music. A quick model supports my experience... it says with a 70ish Hz high pass, they run out of excursion with 75 watts.

With my front mounted subwoofer, I don't need them to run very low, but I admit I had higher expectations.


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## Patrick Bateman

thehatedguy said:


> Then Dr. Edgar used a JBL 2105h which is 94 dB to start...that's what I have in my Edgarhorns. The Dyn he used was a prosound version of the dome, which was a bit more beefy than a standard dome. But later on he only used the cone drivers on the entry level horn (like I have). His reference level horns use a JBL 2440 or a 2441 compression driver.
> 
> But a subwoofer is a bit different application than a midrange or a midbass.
> 
> And both of those use some sort of horn to raise the efficiency of the system up even higher. You can only get as high as what you start with in a direct radiator system...often it is much lower after it is EQed.


Have you heard the Dynaudio version?

Not trying to be belligerent, just genuinely curious, as I'm starting to think about doing a horn with direct radiators. Edgar had good results with the D54, Dave Smith from JBL refuses to use compression drivers, and Don Keele has also ceased using compression drivers. I'm assuming Egar ceased using the D54 because Dynaudio ceased selling it.

Basically I wonder if we've reached a point in time where compression drivers are semi-pointless. Not 100% sure about that (yet), but as someone who's used a lot of compression drivers I'm starting to think they're unnecessary.


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## Mic10is

It will work fine.


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## Eric Stevens

I have ran Dynaudio with horns many times and they work great. My favorite were some 24W100 old school dyns that had a 4" voice coil rather than the typical 3". That is what was in the Sable when it was featured in CA&E.

Looks like the MW182 is a newer version of the 24W100 I used

Eric


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## rawdawg

I used to run a 2 way Waveguide/MW172 no Subwoofer and was beating out guys with full blown Hybrid/Tru/Scans/etc… systems. I had 50 on the WG's and 200 on the 172's. The only major complaint I ever received was "need more power!"


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## thehatedguy

Eric could probably tell you more about why Dr. Edgar stopped with the Dyns...though I do want to think Bruce mentioned it in some of the Speaker Builder articles on the Volvotreter site.

I know he could get shorter horns using a larger cone driver over the dome since the horn is an area progression.

I think the choice between compression driver or cone on a horn has a few factors to deal with. But for treble and such on a horn or waveguide, I think they make the most sense.

But no, I never heard the Dyn domes on the Edgarhorns...that was well before my time. He had long since gone to the JBL cone drivers on the Slimline horns and compression drivers on the midline and top line horns. The Dyns were back in the System 80 and 100 days.


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## JoshHefnerX

Patrick Bateman said:


> IMHO efficiency is overrated and maximum output rules
> 
> Also, Dynaudio and Morel feature a lot of things that you see in prosound drivers: monster voice coils, high power handling, etc
> 
> The Morels in Gary Summers' Benz are as dynamic as any horn I've heard. And they should be; the midrange has a voice coil as big as many subwoofers, and the efficiency is in the 90s.


I don't disagree w/ what you're saying but you need to qualify that with - if your driver has the power and power handling capabilities...

I think a lot of people are interested in what you say, and not everyone would understand that.

Josh


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## Patrick Bateman

thehatedguy said:


> Eric could probably tell you more about why Dr. Edgar stopped with the Dyns...though I do want to think Bruce mentioned it in some of the Speaker Builder articles on the Volvotreter site.
> 
> I know he could get shorter horns using a larger cone driver over the dome since the horn is an area progression.
> 
> I think the choice between compression driver or cone on a horn has a few factors to deal with. But for treble and such on a horn or waveguide, I think they make the most sense.
> 
> But no, I never heard the Dyn domes on the Edgarhorns...that was well before my time. He had long since gone to the JBL cone drivers on the Slimline horns and compression drivers on the midline and top line horns. The Dyns were back in the System 80 and 100 days.


Interesting, thanks!

I'm looking to do a two-way waveguide with direct radiators for the top end. 









Due to the fact it's a Synergy Horn, I have to use some oddball drivers for the top end, just to get everything to fit. (IE, if I used a 3" or a 4" driver at the throat I wouldn't be able to physically squeeze the midrange drivers close enough.)









I considered a Dayton RS52, which is fairly similar to the Dynaudio D54 (different cone material, but similar design philosophy: 2" dome with a beastly voice coil, high efficiency and high power handling)









But I'm leaning towards a 9" x 2.25" array of the tiny little Peerless 830970. A single unit won't get the job done, but four of them should raise the power handling and displacement to an acceptable level.

I'll post a thread once I get the ball rolling, been busy moving.


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## Eric Stevens

There were several factors for the switch away from the Dyn dome. The motor strength on the Dynaudio limited the upper bandwidth because it could not drive the horn at it's upper frequency range, the second is what Jason said, the horn was much shorter for the larger Sd of the JBL 5.25" mid making packaging of the speaker much easier to design and build.

Bruce Edgar was just visiting me 2 weeks ago.

Eric


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## Patrick Bateman

Eric Stevens said:


> There were several factors for the switch away from the Dyn dome. The motor strength on the Dynaudio limited the upper bandwidth because it could not drive the horn at it's upper frequency range, the second is what Jason said, the horn was much shorter for the larger Sd of the JBL 5.25" mid making packaging of the speaker much easier to design and build.
> 
> Bruce Edgar was just visiting me 2 weeks ago.
> 
> Eric


Very cool info! I really enjoy Edgar's articles.

























I covered six octaves using a shallow horn with a prosound midrange. *Sounded really nice.* Maybe I should skip my 'horn loaded line array' and just horn load a coax instaed.

The polars came out pretty nice and it was a super-easy project. Took about two or three days. I spent longer making the 3D model than making the horn.

Those B&C coaxes are nice.


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## thehatedguy

Been talking about coaxes being the easy way out for a synergy project...

But here is the spec sheet for the Dyn dome:

Dynaudio archive

You can see with the rising FR it was meant to be horn loaded from the start. And about 96dB to start with too. If that dome wasn't horn loaded it looks to be pretty useless as a direct radiator because the FR looks like a mountain.

And the compression driver later used in the horns after the System 100 would have so much more dynamics and bandwidth, especially the ones using the JBL 2441 drivers and/or diaphragms.


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## richiec77

I use the MW182 in the CTS-V and it's an AWESOME speaker! They can handle some juice and I've had them crossed over at 30Hz once....and they could take the abuse. 

Basket and magnet size make them fit in places most other speakers can't. Now I'm thinking about getting a pair for the Typhoon Build.

Eric, the MW182 seems to be a modern version of the 24W-100. Both are close in Diameter and feature 4" VC. Power Handling is lower with the MW182 though (180W RMS vs 350W RMS) Still comparing Theil-small specs.

http://www.gattiweb.com/images/dynaudio/24w100_data.pdf
http://www.gattiweb.com/images/dynaudio/MW182.pdf

NM. Looks like they are pretty close to being the same drive. Found a better PDF for the 24W-100. 
http://www.gattiweb.com/images/dynaudio/24w100_data2.pdf


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## Eric Stevens

thehatedguy said:


> Been talking about coaxes being the easy way out for a synergy project...
> 
> But here is the spec sheet for the Dyn dome:
> 
> Dynaudio archive
> 
> You can see with the rising FR it was meant to be horn loaded from the start. And about 96dB to start with too. If that dome wasn't horn loaded it looks to be pretty useless as a direct radiator because the FR looks like a mountain.
> 
> And the compression driver later used in the horns after the System 100 would have so much more dynamics and bandwidth, especially the ones using the JBL 2441 drivers and/or diaphragms.


Talked to Bruce today and the Dyn was a great driver and he only stopped using it because they stopped selling it.


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## fenis

I still believe in shooting for the highest efficiency driver possible for the intended bandwidth (especially when pairing with 110dB 1w/1m horns) due to something important that is often ignored on here: *POWER COMPRESSION!*

I disagree that you can arrive at the same output as long as the lower efficiency speaker has the power handling to get there. Eg. Beyma provides the power compression figures for the 10G40 (a very high regarded pro sound driver with 95dB 1w/1m sensitivity) and after 5 minutes of AES power (400w) using pink noise there is 4.5dB of power compression! 18sound drivers are slightly better with compression figures in the 2.8 to 3.5dB range. So at realistic volumes your horns are cruising along barely receiving 5w, meanwhile your midbass is heating up and falling behind by 3-4dB!

Of course using horn loading and/or multiple lower efficiency speakers would lower power compression losses but I am speaking more for direct radiators in a car install.


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## rockin

FWIW the best combo I ever had was 2 JBL 2118s paired with a set of USD 7.0 horns. You could close your eyes and instantly lose all boundaries of the vehicle. It was like sitting in the middle of a football field. Had the 8s in my doors in a 96 Olds Cutlass Supreme. If you can find them, their sensitivity is really high. Don't know how low they will play. I wasn't competing at the time and ran my subs at a MUCH higher X over point back then. Good luck. Please post your results with whatever your choice is. Like to hear your experience.


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## thehatedguy

2118s are one of my favorites. They are pretty easy to find these days.


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## Patrick Bateman

fenis said:


> I still believe in shooting for the highest efficiency driver possible for the intended bandwidth (especially when pairing with 110dB 1w/1m horns) due to something important that is often ignored on here: *POWER COMPRESSION!*
> 
> I disagree that you can arrive at the same output as long as the lower efficiency speaker has the power handling to get there. Eg. Beyma provides the power compression figures for the 10G40 (a very high regarded pro sound driver with 95dB 1w/1m sensitivity) and after 5 minutes of AES power (400w) using pink noise there is 4.5dB of power compression! 18sound drivers are slightly better with compression figures in the 2.8 to 3.5dB range. So at realistic volumes your horns are cruising along barely receiving 5w, meanwhile your midbass is heating up and falling behind by 3-4dB!
> 
> Of course using horn loading and/or multiple lower efficiency speakers would lower power compression losses but I am speaking more for direct radiators in a car install.


Power compression is a non-issue if you use multiple drivers.

There's a point where it's no longer practical to, because the wavelengths are too short. But midbass frequencies? 200hz is wider than the car you're sitting in. It's easy to array midbasses.

If you want to hear low power compression, give a listen to one of my horns with four midranges.

But, yeah, if you only want to use one driver, power compression is a big problem.


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## SQram

rockin said:


> FWIW the best combo I ever had was 2 JBL 2118s paired with a set of USD 7.0 horns. You could close your eyes and instantly lose all boundaries of the vehicle. It was like sitting in the middle of a football field. Had the 8s in my doors in a 96 Olds Cutlass Supreme. If you can find them, their sensitivity is really high. Don't know how low they will play. I wasn't competing at the time and ran my subs at a MUCH higher X over point back then. Good luck. Please post your results with whatever your choice is. Like to hear your experience.


Funny you should mention the JBL 2118's, the Veritas midbasses I am currently trying to install were designed based on the 2118 (or so I was told by the owner).

I had another look at the Veritas speakers and it appears whatever was stuck in the magnetic gap has either worked it's way out or shifted just enough to not be a problem. 

I think what I'll do is build the firewall/floor enclosures big enough to fit the Dynaudio MW 182's so I can try both them and the Veritas midbasses. In any event, I have a lot of welding/fiberglassing to do so it's going to take some time, I'll update the post as I get somethng playing.

I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts, please keep em coming!


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## thehatedguy

Badased either way.

Though I think the Dyns would want to be in a larger enclosure like IB off of memory.


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## subwoofery

Magico Ultimate III Horn-Loaded Loudspeaker | The Absolute Sound 

Good read... Then comment 

Kelvin


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## Patrick Bateman

subwoofery said:


> Magico Ultimate III Horn-Loaded Loudspeaker | The Absolute Sound
> 
> Good read... Then comment
> 
> Kelvin












I've heard a ton of horns that look like this, and every one of them had me running out of the room screaming

These types of horns are basically an evolution of the horns that were used in movie theaters in the 50s

IMHO, the problem with these types of designs is that the transducers can only sum coherently with DSP, *and only at one point in the room.*

Look at the pathlength differences between the drivers!

In a movie theater the problem is reduced because the pathlength differences are so long; IE if you're sitting ten meters from a loudspeaker a pathlength difference of 30cm is less of a problem than if you're sitting two meters away


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## thehatedguy

50s? Maybe even 30s if you are talking about RCA and the like.


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## T3mpest

Patrick Bateman said:


> Power compression is a non-issue if you use multiple drivers.
> 
> There's a point where it's no longer practical to, because the wavelengths are too short. But midbass frequencies? 200hz is wider than the car you're sitting in. It's easy to array midbasses.
> 
> If you want to hear low power compression, give a listen to one of my horns with four midranges.
> 
> But, yeah, if you only want to use one driver, power compression is a big problem.


in a car finding room isn't always that easy. If you want to cram a bunch of small 3inch drivers sure, but then even after doing several your still low on cone are and output. Finding room for several 6.5 or 8s without hacking up a door is hard. Tbh I've heard many spl cars with as many as 10 midbasses per door that didn't have the impact of my single set of 8s in the kickpanels so arrays don't always seem to work fully either.

I've heard a few that worked right, most recently a clarion pro audio demo car. You could feel the midbass in your chest 30 ft out, srs.


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## subwoofery

Patrick Bateman said:


> I've heard a ton of horns that look like this, and every one of them had me running out of the room screaming
> 
> These types of horns are basically an evolution of the horns that were used in movie theaters in the 50s
> 
> IMHO, the problem with these types of designs is that the transducers can only sum coherently with DSP, *and only at one point in the room.*
> 
> Look at the pathlength differences between the drivers!
> 
> In a movie theater the problem is reduced because the pathlength differences are so long; IE if you're sitting ten meters from a loudspeaker a pathlength difference of 30cm is less of a problem than if you're sitting two meters away


One thing I know for sure, Magico isn't just any manufacturer - having heard the Q7, I can certainly say that they know how to voice a speaker... They *really* sound *unreal*  

If you can buy that big of a speaker, you'll probably have it WELL TUNED in a room big enough to let them breathe - and if the room is big enough, you'll be far enough that it will have a big enough sweetspot for your listenning position (you've described exactly that in your post) - not having the head-in-a-vice type of configuration... Those Magico's will never fit in my 33' x 16.5' living room lol 

You've been a horn guy for a long type not wanting to use DSP in most of your project (been following your great threads for a long time). 
Then you heard Gary's system and that completely changed your impression about "normal" drivers when IMO you've probably heard what a good tuned system can really do when all drivers play within their limits in "_unisson_". 

If it's time/phase/frequency coherent, it will sound like a one driver that doesn't beam 

Kelvin


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## BuickGN

Interesting conversation. I don't have anything intelligent to add other than if I were going with Dyns, it would be the 650 or 182 over the 172. The 650 has about the same displacement as the 172 and it's just a better driver in every way not to mention it's smaller. Where the 172 might be a letdown in the low frequencies by 8" standards, the 650 with the same displacement is fine by 6.5" standards. The 182 will fit in most places the 172 will fit due to it's basket design and it has a ton more displacement. Some have used the 182 as a subwoofer so it has low end potential. A fairly weak sub but it will handle 30hz with a fair amount of power. In my opinion it's a midbass/lower midrange driver and that's where it excels and as a midbass it's almost impossible to find fault. I haven't been able to bottom mine or get them to break up with 300w and a 35hz HP. At the usual 60-70hz hp I use they're just coasting with 300w. 

I did want to reinforce they're more than capable of 2khz and up. On the downside I believe they're only around 86db efficient 1w/1m but I could be wrong. Below 100hz they seem pretty damn efficient but I believe the 650s might have gotten louder in the 300-800hz range at the same power. 

Like I said, nothing intelligent to add other than I would do the 650 or 182 instead.


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## ErinH

subwoofery said:


> You've been a horn guy for a long type not wanting to use DSP in most of your project (been following your great threads for a long time).
> Then you heard Gary's system and that completely changed your impression about "normal" drivers when IMO you've probably heard what a good tuned system can really do when all drivers play within their limits in "_unisson_".
> 
> If it's time/phase/frequency coherent, it will sound like a cone driver that doesn't beam
> 
> Kelvin


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## Patrick Bateman

subwoofery said:


> One thing I know for sure, Magico isn't just any manufacturer - having heard the Q7, I can certainly say that they know how to voice a speaker... They *really* sound *unreal*
> 
> If you can buy that big of a speaker, you'll probably have it WELL TUNED in a room big enough to let them breathe - and if the room is big enough, you'll be far enough that it will have a big enough sweetspot for your listenning position (you've described exactly that in your post) - not having the head-in-a-vice type of configuration... Those Magico's will never fit in my 33' x 16.5' living room lol
> 
> You've been a horn guy for a long type not wanting to use DSP in most of your project (been following your great threads for a long time).
> Then you heard Gary's system and that completely changed your impression about "normal" drivers when IMO you've probably heard what a good tuned system can really do when all drivers play within their limits in "_unisson_".
> 
> If it's time/phase/frequency coherent, it will sound like a one driver that doesn't beam
> 
> Kelvin


A system like Magico's horn can't be time/phase/frequency coherent. The pathlength differences are too great. For instance, the PLD difference from the mid to the tweet is about 30cm. At a 'normal' crossover frequency, *that's multiple wavelengths.*

The Magico horn is typical audiophile ********, it's a system for millionaires designed to intimidate your millionaire friends. I wish audio was like cars, where you actually get a better car for $100,000 than you get for $20,000.

Last night I swapped out my Vandersteens for my JBLs because my amp keeps going into protection mode, and both my wife and I were startled by how bad the JBLs sound, after growing accustomed to the Vandys. The thing is, *it takes months or even years of listening to get to the point where the differences are obvious.* I think that's a big part of the problem with the audiophile community; it's style over substance, cosmetics over performance.

The Magico horns sure LOOK nice.


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## P_4SPL

* Wouldn't adding time delay to the horns push them back another 30ft to get that sweet spot, being still within 3-6ft of the listener?

IMO Horns High Freq's arrive at the listener faster than the low Freq's, 

Frequency's will all sound the same, but the "lighter" high freq's will travel faster to your ears than the lows, thus reducing the sweet spot. Setting them to "Generally arrive later ~ ( although some frq's could arrive out of phase due to phase change as they travel, but nothing that would be acutley audible and discerning etc.) ~ would have them arrive at the listener at the same time.

* But audio politics could play a role in not adding time delay to the drivers etc.


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## Patrick Bateman

P_4SPL said:


> * Wouldn't adding time delay to the horns push them back another 30ft to get that sweet spot, being still within 3-6ft of the listener?
> 
> IMO Horns High Freq's arrive at the listener faster than the low Freq's,
> 
> Frequency's will all sound the same, but the "lighter" high freq's will travel faster to your ears than the lows, thus reducing the sweet spot. Setting them to "Generally arrive later ~ ( although some frq's could arrive out of phase due to phase change as they travel, but nothing that would be acutley audible and discerning etc.) ~ would have them arrive at the listener at the same time.
> 
> * But audio politics could play a role in not adding time delay to the drivers etc.


Time delay doesn't change the origin of a sound wave. This is why you can't get more "depth" to a soundstage by adding delay.

Also, the speed of sound does not vary with frequency.


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## subwoofery

Patrick Bateman said:


> A system like Magico's horn can't be time/phase/frequency coherent. The pathlength differences are too great. For instance, the PLD difference from the mid to the tweet is about 30cm. At a 'normal' crossover frequency, *that's multiple wavelengths.*
> 
> The Magico horn is typical audiophile ********, it's a system for millionaires designed to intimidate your millionaire friends. I wish audio was like cars, where you actually get a better car for $100,000 than you get for $20,000.
> 
> Last night I swapped out my Vandersteens for my JBLs because my amp keeps going into protection mode, and both my wife and I were startled by how bad the JBLs sound, after growing accustomed to the Vandys. The thing is, *it takes months or even years of listening to get to the point where the differences are obvious.* I think that's a big part of the problem with the audiophile community; it's style over substance, cosmetics over performance.
> 
> The Magico horns sure LOOK nice.


Why can't it be as time/phase/frequency coherent as your Vandersteen? 
Because it's too big while being too expensive? Sure it looks cooler than about 99% of the speakers out there. 

If you go and re-read the link I posted, the article describes what the owner did regarding the setup. It's not a passive setup like most very pricey speakers - it's a "DSP’d via their digital crossover for linear amplitude, phase, and time (impulse) response". 
You said it yourself in a previous thread that with a MiniDSP, you can tune a system to its fullest in the afternoon while moving drivers foreward or backward via T/A like magic. 

IMO, it has the potential to sound more coherent than your Vandersteen given the speaker's room is big enough for the speaker - via DSP you can control Xovers, levels & amplitude, frequency response, delay and even phase. If the Magico guy wanted to use a 6dB/oct Xover because it would sound more phase coherent, he could. 

Even Geddes moved towards active with his new Summas and future Abbeys - he's a big believer in achiving pristine sound with a MiniDSP. 

Kelvin


----------



## Patrick Bateman

subwoofery said:


> Why can't it be as time/phase/frequency coherent as your Vandersteen?











Because the drivers are too far apart.









In order for a speaker to be phase coherent the drive units must be within one wavelength. For instance, with a crossover of 3khz the maximum gap between tweeter and midrange is 4.5". (13,500 inches per second / 3khz)

Not coincidentally, the midrange drive in a Vandersteen is, you guessed it, about 4.5".

*All of this is geometric and all of this is mathematical*; if you want to go with a 6.5" woofer you'll have to lower your crossover point. To 2076.92hz, to be exact.



subwoofery said:


> Because it's too big while being too expensive? Sure it looks cooler than about 99% of the speakers out there.
> 
> If you go and re-read the link I posted, the article describes what the owner did regarding the setup. It's not a passive setup like most very pricey speakers - it's a "DSP’d via their digital crossover for linear amplitude, phase, and time (impulse) response".
> You said it yourself in a previous thread that with a MiniDSP, you can tune a system to its fullest in the afternoon while moving drivers foreward or backward via T/A like magic.
> 
> IMO, it has the potential to sound more coherent than your Vandersteen given the speaker's room is big enough for the speaker - via DSP you can control Xovers, levels & amplitude, frequency response, delay and even phase. If the Magico guy wanted to use a 6dB/oct Xover because it would sound more phase coherent, he could.
> 
> Even Geddes moved towards active with his new Summas and future Abbeys - he's a big believer in achiving pristine sound with a MiniDSP.
> 
> Kelvin


You can make small adjustments with DSP. For instance, when I make my Synergy horns the midrange taps are frequently off by as much as an inch.

*I can correct that with DSP; I can use delay to line up the impulse response.*

But you can't correct an offset that's off by a foot.

If you don't believe me, go and listen to some of these big horns. I've heard dozens of them. They all sound the same. No imaging, and it sounds like you're listening to three speakers. *There's no coherency.*

They don't **** everything up; for instance they're really good at retrieving tiny details buried in the mix. They're also very efficient.









As I see it, the main reason that people build and buy these types of horns is to impress their friends. I know guys like this; dudes who are millionaires and their entire existence is about one-upping their friends. These are the dudes that drive Corvettes, marry trophy wives, buy big powerboats. *It's a big market, but it's not about the sound, it's about the price tag.* Trust me, my Dad owns a boat, I grew up around marinas, I know the type.

The thing is, a great deal of the audiophile speakers simply don't sound very good. I'd say about 75% of them sound no better than what you can get at Best Buy. If you go to the audio shows for a while you'll notice that the speakers fall into two buckets:

1) The classics:
Companies like Dynaudio, Thiel, and Vandersteen have been refinining the same designs for decades. For instance, the reference speaker from Vandersteen isn't terribly different than what they were selling thirty years ago. Same crossover topology, similar size, same number of drive units even. These guys are doing what Porsche does with the 911; the car is basically the same but it's continously improved.
2) Everyone else:
The other 75% basically do something new every few years. Have you ever read a review in Stereophile where the reviewer mentions that the speaker was completed just days before the show, or sometimes even the night before? The reason for that is simple; the speaker manufacturer is exhibiting an entirely new design. If you look at the reviews from twenty years ago, Stereophile is littered with these companies. Brands that tried three or four different speaker types, then threw in the towel when none of their ideas got any traction. And typically the reason is simple: the speakers failed because they weren't that good.

I'm definitely the type of person who'd fall into category two. I don't build speakers to achieve The Absolute Sound, I build speakers to learn things and because I enjoy it. But that's also the reason that all of my reference speakers are made by professionals. My last three reference speakers were from Gedlee, Vandersteen, and JBL. I'm not dumb, a lot of no-name speakers and DIY speakers are absolute crap.


----------



## JoshHefnerX

SQram said:


> So long story short, over the weekend I cut the floorboards out of my truck


That makes you hardcore! Have you made any decisions/progress?

Josh


----------



## subwoofery

Patrick Bateman said:


> Because the drivers are too far apart.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In order for a speaker to be phase coherent the drive units must be within one wavelength. For instance, with a crossover of 3khz the maximum gap between tweeter and midrange is 4.5". (13,500 inches per second / 3khz)
> 
> Not coincidentally, the midrange drive in a Vandersteen is, you guessed it, about 4.5".
> 
> *All of this is geometric and all of this is mathematical*; if you want to go with a 6.5" woofer you'll have to lower your crossover point. To 2076.92hz, to be exact.
> 
> 
> 
> You can make small adjustments with DSP. For instance, when I make my Synergy horns the midrange taps are frequently off by as much as an inch.
> 
> *I can correct that with DSP; I can use delay to line up the impulse response.*
> 
> But you can't correct an offset that's off by a foot.
> 
> If you don't believe me, go and listen to some of these big horns. I've heard dozens of them. They all sound the same. No imaging, and it sounds like you're listening to three speakers. *There's no coherency.*
> 
> They don't **** everything up; for instance they're really good at retrieving tiny details buried in the mix. They're also very efficient.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As I see it, the main reason that people build and buy these types of horns is to impress their friends. I know guys like this; dudes who are millionaires and their entire existence is about one-upping their friends. These are the dudes that drive Corvettes, marry trophy wives, buy big powerboats. *It's a big market, but it's not about the sound, it's about the price tag.* Trust me, my Dad owns a boat, I grew up around marinas, I know the type.
> 
> The thing is, a great deal of the audiophile speakers simply don't sound very good. I'd say about 75% of them sound no better than what you can get at Best Buy. If you go to the audio shows for a while you'll notice that the speakers fall into two buckets:
> 
> 1) The classics:
> Companies like Dynaudio, Thiel, and Vandersteen have been refinining the same designs for decades. For instance, the reference speaker from Vandersteen isn't terribly different than what they were selling thirty years ago. Same crossover topology, similar size, same number of drive units even. These guys are doing what Porsche does with the 911; the car is basically the same but it's continously improved.
> 2) Everyone else:
> The other 75% basically do something new every few years. Have you ever read a review in Stereophile where the reviewer mentions that the speaker was completed just days before the show, or sometimes even the night before? The reason for that is simple; the speaker manufacturer is exhibiting an entirely new design. If you look at the reviews from twenty years ago, Stereophile is littered with these companies. Brands that tried three or four different speaker types, then threw in the towel when none of their ideas got any traction. And typically the reason is simple: the speakers failed because they weren't that good.
> 
> I'm definitely the type of person who'd fall into category two. I don't build speakers to achieve The Absolute Sound, I build speakers to learn things and because I enjoy it. But that's also the reason that all of my reference speakers are made by professionals. My last three reference speakers were from Gedlee, Vandersteen, and JBL. I'm not dumb, a lot of no-name speakers and DIY speakers are absolute crap.


I'm trying to understand something here. Tell me if I'm wrong  
When you apply delay/time alignment via DSP to a couple of drivers? 
It goes from this: 








to this: 











Now with a DSP, you can also play with phase - not sure what the increment can be but you can fine tune a system so that there's coherence between drivers. So it goes from this: 








to this: 











I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how it works to get there but I remember reading a post from Geddes describing exactly this and why he moved from passive in his speakers to active via a MiniDSP. 

I do trust what you heard from past interation of big and powerful setup but all those setups you heard was from a passive Xover (albeit with expensive parts I'm sure). 
Now we have DSP at our disposal and that can really help create the perfect speaker. 

There's only 2 horn speakers that I know of that uses an active setup: 
- the Magico Ultimate III 
- the Avantgarde Zero 1 

Here's a review (or two) from the Avantgarde speaker that praises what a DSP has been able to achieve to a horn speaker: 
High Fidelity 
Masterpieces from Avantgarde and Raidho | The Absolute Sound 

It's true that DSP doesn't help much if you're moving around the place when listenning to a speaker but if you're in THE spot, I'm sure it can be phase/time/frequency coherent 

Kelvin


----------



## Patrick Bateman

DSP doesn't physically move the drivers.

If DSP *could* move the drivers, then it would be possible to make a soundstage that appears to be beyond the windshield of your car. Just dial in delay, and *poof*, instant depth.

*We all know this isn't possible.*









The Magico looks like what would happen if you gave someone a million dollars to design a horn *who didn't know anything about horn design.* It reminds me a lot of those people that you see on DIYMA and diyaudio, who have very little experience designing a loudspeaker, but they have some money to burn. They buy a pile of megabuck drivers, thrown them into a box haphazardly. It sounds like ****, so then they start looking for electronic band-aids to fix it. This Magico horn is the type of speaker that gives DSP and EQ a bad name. It is a poorly thought out design, implemented with no concern for cost or size.

Stereophile and the Absolute Sound never publish a single bad review, but here's what they have to say about the speaker:

_What costs $600,000 the pair, takes 18 month months to build, weighs 1000 pounds per side, must be driven by ten amps, employs an active DSP-controlled crossover, uses six ALE compression drivers and four custom-made midbass and bass drivers, has trapezoidal and spherical horns CNC-milled out of aircraft-grade aluminum, and sounded downright awful at Munich High End a couple of months ago?_


















Here's an example of how a REAL professional designs a horn. This is the JBL M2. The JBL is a simple two-way design. The Magico is a five way. *The advantage of a two way is improved polar response.* You can see this in JBL's directivity plot. *(Note that Magico doesn't publish frequency OR directivity.* Note that JBL's frequency response is nearly perfect. This is because of DSP. 









For comparison's sake, here is a passive JBL speaker. This is an *average* of multiple measurements across the room. It is the smoothest I have ever seen in Stereophile (for an average.) John Atkinson stated that _" I'm not surprised that the Synthesis 1400 Array BG offers both superb speaker engineering and superb measured performance. I keep returning to that remarkably flat and even in-room response: Good grief!"_






Here's the deal:
*The ideal speaker is a one-way that's infinitely small and with 10 octaves of bandwidth.* The JBL is a compromise; it's a two-way. And in the vertical directivity plots, you'll see the downsides of that compromise. But the horizontals look exceptional.

The Magico is really far away from ideal. Five drivers is four too many. The fact that they're not even aligned vertically or on the Z-Axis is just plain dumb.

At this point, someone will say "but what about your Vandersteens and your Synergy horns?" It's true, they're three ways. But they do something different; they array the drivers on the y and the z axis to create a wavefront that's in-phase. The Synergy horn also does it on the X axis.

DSP can't fix the speaker locations; it can't make a sound come from a location that it's not.


----------



## SQram

JoshHefnerX said:


> That makes you hardcore! Have you made any decisions/progress?
> 
> Josh


Well I bought the Dynaudio MW 182's, working on the enclosures in the floors right now.

Also pulled the dash out and mounted a pair of Illusion Audio CH-1 HLCD's firing up at the windshield...

Massive difference with the horns in the dash, best my truck has sounded.

Some crappy pictures I took while under construction:


----------



## subwoofery

I know that phase doesn't work with 1 driver - play 1 driver and listen to a song, play that same song with 1s of delay to the driver, I know it won't sound like the speaker is further away from you although the song will start 1s later . 

Have you at least tried to tune an active setup? Because you seem like you are disgusted by it. 
Changing Xover, adding some delays and hearing the effect? 

Sorry if I sound cocky, that is not my intent but I've been playing with a couple of DSPs for a while now and I've managed to brush up my skills and love trying new things. 
What we did not have a couple of years ago was phase rotation in different increments - only a 180° phase rotation button. 
Adding delay doesn't move the driver further away from you but it manages to make you think it's further away and does a ****ing great job doing it  

You said: 


> If DSP *could* move the drivers, then it would be possible to make a soundstage that appears to be beyond the windshield of your car. Just dial in delay, and *poof*, instant depth


I'm gonna say: Having done so, delay does help you get instant depth but not the way you think... You won't have instant depth just with delays, you also need to work on the frequency response. You can have your drivers installed a lot closer to you but if you manage to dial in levels, Xovers and T/A, you can fool your brain into thinking that sounds comes from beyond the windshield. 
I'm talking about depth of the stage here, not where the stage starts... Want your stage to start closer to you, just increase the high frequencies... 

I do like this discussion but would surely love if others could chime in. 

Kelvin 

PS: regarding your quote about the Magico sounding downright awful, it's what happens when you finish installing a setup just before the show exactly like you explained. The first link I've provided showed how different the same speaker sounded with and without a good use of a DSP 

JBL is a nice speaker indeed but it's as much out of reach in price than the Magico to me


----------



## Patrick Bateman

subwoofery said:


> I know that phase doesn't work with 1 driver - play 1 driver and listen to a song, play that same song with 1s of delay to the driver, I know it won't sound like the speaker is further away from you although the song will start 1s later .
> 
> Have you at least tried to tune an active setup? Because you seem like you are disgusted by it.
> Changing Xover, adding some delays and hearing the effect?


Basically 100% of my speaker designs are hybrids now. Passive xover plus miniDSP. I believe Geddes is doing the same. I don't know if there are any passive components in the JBL M2. Danley's speakers are mostly passive, but he's posted measurements of his flagship speaker where he went with a hybrid approach.



subwoofery said:


> Sorry if I sound cocky, that is not my intent but I've been playing with a couple of DSPs for a while now and I've managed to brush up my skills and love trying new things.
> What we did not have a couple of years ago was phase rotation in different increments - only a 180° phase rotation button.
> Adding delay doesn't move the driver further away from you but it manages to make you think it's further away and does a ****ing great job doing it
> 
> You said:
> 
> I'm gonna say: Having done so, delay does help you get instant depth but not the way you think... You won't have instant depth just with delays, you also need to work on the frequency response. You can have your drivers installed a lot closer to you but if you manage to dial in levels, Xovers and T/A, you can fool your brain into thinking that sounds comes from beyond the windshield.
> I'm talking about depth of the stage here, not where the stage starts... Want your stage to start closer to you, just increase the high frequencies...
> 
> I do like this discussion but would surely love if others could chime in.
> 
> Kelvin


IMHO, Opsodis is the easiest way to 'fake' speaker locations. The simplest way for me to describe the effect is like this:

Imagine if you put a couple of stereo speakers very very wide. *You're going to get a hole in the center, because there's no speaker there.* The 'traditional' solution is to put a center channel there. The problem with a center channel is that it narrows the stage.

The Opsodis solution preserves that ultra wide stage, but without the 'narrowing' of a full-range center channel. It's really interesting stuff.



subwoofery said:


> PS: regarding your quote about the Magico sounding downright awful, it's what happens when you finish installing a setup just before the show exactly like you explained. The first link I've provided showed how different the same speaker sounded with and without a good use of a DSP


Call my cynical, but I personally think that the folks from Magico likely freaked the **** out when TAS said something negative about their speaker. A few phone calls were likely made, a commitment to purchase some advertising probably followed, and *poof*, a good review appeared. TAS and Stereophile simply aren't objective. I *do* appreciate that Stereophile does excellent measurements though.



subwoofery said:


> JBL is a nice speaker indeed but it's as much out of reach in price than the Magico to me


I used to think the same way. My reference speaker before my Summas was a JBL 2-way that cost $300 a pair. The thing that got me to change my tune was when I realized that a lot of good speakers are collectible. Particularly if they're rare. So if you spend $10,000 on a set of JBL M2s, you'll probably be able to recoup at least 50% of your investment.

$5000 is a lot of money to burn on speakers, but if you keep them for five years and listen for ten hours a week that works out to $1.92 per hour. Not an insane amount of money to spend.

On a side note, this is also the reason all my car stereo projects are removable; I think that modifying a car not only adds no value to the car, it frequently REDUCES it.

Can you tell I work in finance?


----------



## thehatedguy

Guess what myself and Kelvin is wondering is why can't DSP based delays can not be used to align the speakers?


----------



## thehatedguy

Is it the different horns, or the locations...or some of both?

I always loved the Illusion horns. They never got the attention they deserved until after they went out of business...and got hard to find.



SQram said:


> Well I bought the Dynaudio MW 182's, working on the enclosures in the floors right now.
> 
> Also pulled the dash out and mounted a pair of Illusion Audio CH-1 HLCD's firing up at the windshield...
> 
> Massive difference with the horns in the dash, best my truck has sounded.
> 
> Some crappy pictures I took while under construction:


----------



## SQram

Location I think. There is no mistaking the "image" now, it's right there dead center of the windsheild with no TA/EQ. I was going to mount the Veritas bodies in there but they are REALLY big with the straight entry adapter I had 3D printed. I contacted Eric about having a set of his straight entry horns made but I think he is just too busy launching his new company (understandably). 

Definitely need to swap out the drivers though, these roll off quite significantly on the top end....


----------



## SQram

thehatedguy said:


> Guess what myself and Kelvin is wondering is why can't DSP based delays can not be used to align the speakers?


Add me to the list...

A speaker is just a diaphram moving back and forth, other than delaying the signal going into the speaker, what else could you possibly do? Any other adjustments would alter the frequency response, unless I am missunderstanding something?


----------



## Patrick Bateman

thehatedguy said:


> Guess what myself and Kelvin is wondering is why can't DSP based delays can not be used to align the speakers?


Because the origin of the sound doesn't change.

Let's take this to an extreme:

Let's say you have a woofer that's ten feet away from you and a tweeter that's one foot away from you.

*If you delayed the tweeter for nine milliseconds, would it sound like it's origin was the same as the woofer?* Would the tweeter magically appear to be located ten feet from you?

Of course not. DSP doesn't "move" the origin of a speaker. It just delays the arrival.










Here's another example of this broken design philosophy. It's the JBL Hartsfield. I've heard this speaker multiple times, and every single time I'm astonished by how bad it sounds. No image whatsoever, no coherency. I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's frequency response is decent, becuase tonally it's not a mess. *But the articulation is just completely absent, and it images even worse.*

But don't take my word for it, here's a review from Positive Feedback:
_Both of these speaker systems sounded very very true to the originals. Just coming down the hall I could hear the Hartsfield sound, and sitting in the room and walking around in it, it was clear that the acoustic lens was working just like the originals.

I'm not a fan of either of these speaker designs personally, but I know that many people are, and given how many of the original speakers have been shipped to Asia in the past 25 years, it is very important that some people have spent the time and the effort and the sheer craftsmanship to build these for the people who need them._

I love how he calls it 'the Hartsfield sound.' He never said it sounded GOOD. And I agree, these speakers have a very specific sound: they're inarticulate. They don't sound like a coherent source. It's basically the polar opposite of a single driver speaker like a Fostex or a Fountek.



























Again, no rocket science here, the pathlengths are wrong. JBL figured this out decades ago, and all of their modern speakers have appropriate pathlengths. The Everest looks like the pathlengths are wrong, because that midrange horn protrudes farther than the tweeter horn. But keep in mind, *the acoustic origin is close to the throat, not the mouth*.*





* If you really want to obsess over this, the origin is frequency dependent. That's why Danley SH-50s are symmetrical; it makes the origin identical vertically and horizontally! But that's some Next Level **** and I'd have to get crazy technical to get into the varying acoustic origin of a waveguide.


----------



## ErinH

Patrick Bateman said:


> Because the origin of the sound doesn't change.
> 
> Let's take this to an extreme:
> 
> Let's say you have a woofer that's ten feet away from you and a tweeter that's one foot away from you.
> 
> *If you delayed the tweeter for nine milliseconds, would it sound like it's origin was the same as the woofer?* Would the tweeter magically appear to be located ten feet from you?




Well, basic principles of localization tell you why. Simply, you don't just use delay; you use the combination of delay and attenuation to achieve a coherent wavefront. In this case, I'd think the task is easier to 'match' the tweeter in front to the woofer behind it, as opposed to the other way around wrt origin (planes).

Additionally, the 9ms you quoted doesn't really apply because you're time aligning based on the crossover (namely so here because of the IID/ILD overlap being at this region of typical 2-way systems). 9ms at 2khz is about 1/2 foot. You're not gonna make up 10 feet with 9ms at 2khz.


----------



## Patrick Bateman

You guys are killing me.

You seriously think that you can make a speaker sound like it's further away by delaying the signal?

Based on that logic, I can make a lightbulb look like it's 200 miles away by delaying the turn-on by one millisecond.



You DO understand that's not how it works right?


----------



## thehatedguy

You can only make that illusion based on the one that is furthest away.

You CAN delay for a single point in space, the differences between a set of speakers so that the arrival times are the same. Take the horns and midbasses going in the Dodge...you could delay 3 or the 4 speakers in the front stage so that they are all arriving at the listening spot at the same time.

Delaying all 4 would do nothing but make them all play later.


----------



## SQram

We are not talking about delaying 1 speaker (as you suggest with your single lightbulb example).

We are discussing delaying the signal of a closer speaker to match the arrival time of a speaker mounted further away (2 speakers, or two lightbulbs total).

If the speed of light was much slower, then yes, I think you could make two lightbulbs appear to turn on at the same time with one delayed to compensate for a difference in distance.


----------



## Patrick Bateman

SQram said:


> We are not talking about delaying 1 speaker (as you suggest with your single lightbulb example).
> 
> We are discussing delaying the signal of a closer speaker to match the arrival time of a speaker mounted further away (2 speakers, or two lightbulbs total).
> 
> If the speed of light was much slower, then yes, I think you could make two lightbulbs appear to turn on at the same time with one delayed to compensate for a difference in distance.


We're not talking about TIME here; we're talking about DISTANCE.

The idea that delaying a woofer to make it SOUND further away is as silly as the idea of delaying a lamp to make it LOOK further away.


----------



## SQram

Patrick Bateman said:


> We're not talking about TIME here; we're talking about DISTANCE.
> 
> The idea that delaying a woofer to make it SOUND further away is as silly as the idea of delaying a lamp to make it LOOK further away.



Huh?

I never said time delay was used to make a woofer sound further away, I said time delay is used on a closer speaker to match the arrival time of the speaker furthest from the listener. Same thing you said here:



Patrick Bateman said:


> Of course not. DSP doesn't "move" the origin of a speaker. It just delays the arrival.


----------



## thehatedguy

Yeah I am confused too.


----------



## Patrick Bateman

SQram said:


> Huh?
> 
> I never said time delay was used to make a woofer sound further away, I said time delay is used on a closer speaker to match the arrival time of the speaker furthest from the listener. Same thing you said here:


It doesn't matter if you're trying to make the speaker "sound" like it's far away, or you're trying to make the speaker "sound" like it's closer.

*The origin of a sound source is dictated by where the sound radiates.*

You can play with DSP all you want, *but it won't make a speaker sound like it is further away or it is closer.*









That's the fundamental problem with the Magico - and why it's such a dopey design. It is clearly the brain child of someone who has little experience building horns.









And it's also the reason that JBL has aligned their voice coils - *even though they're using DSP.* It is also the reason that JBL has gone from THREE drivers in their previous reference to TWO drivers in the current reference. *The ideal loudspeaker would be infinitely small, have unlimited SPL.*


This is really really basic stuff guys; I can't figure out if you're trolling me or if you genuinely think that you can have five speakers, separated by as much as two meters, and have them magically create a coherent wavefront. It's not possible; if it was possible JBL wouldn't have a reference two way.

The Magico is a bad design.


----------



## Patrick Bateman

moar examples :








Edgarhorn. Midrange and tweeter voice coils are aligned. Alignment of bass unit is less important because the wavelengths are so long, but it still matters. It just matters far more at the midrange / tweeter xover









Danley SH-50. Pretty much the gold standard for this stuff. Danley is 'cheating' in one aspect here, but you guys probably already know how he does that so I won't cover that again









Avantgarde. Never heard these sound good. Same disconnected sound as the JBL Hartsfield. Non-aligned voice coils. Avantgarde could learn a thing or two from Edgar.









Some LeCleach horns built my John Sheerin. *Sheerin gets it.* Voice coils aligned. Sheerin was also the first person to document a DIY Unity horn.


----------



## Patrick Bateman

ErinH said:


> Well, basic principles of localization tell you why. Simply, you don't just use delay; you use the combination of delay and attenuation to achieve a coherent wavefront. In this case, I'd think the task is easier to 'match' the tweeter in front to the woofer behind it, as opposed to the other way around wrt origin (planes).
> 
> Additionally, the 9ms you quoted doesn't really apply because you're time aligning based on the crossover (namely so here because of the IID/ILD overlap being at this region of typical 2-way systems). 9ms at 2khz is about 1/2 foot. You're not gonna make up 10 feet with 9ms at 2khz.


The speed of sound doesn't vary with frequency.
9ms at 2khz is about ten feet.

I did that off the top of my head, but here's the exact length:

(13,500 inches per second) = 13.5" per millisecond
13.5" x nine milliseconds = 121.5"
121.5" = 10' 1.5"

So the math I did off the top of my head was off by 1.3%


----------



## thehatedguy

So what is the difference between physically aligning the coils and using DSP based delays to do the same thing?


----------



## subwoofery

Now we're talking  

Kelvin


----------



## Patrick Bateman

thehatedguy said:


> So what is the difference between physically aligning the coils and using DSP based delays to do the same thing?


Physically moving the source of a sound moves it.

Delaying it with DSP does not.


Again, not sure if I'm being trolled here, but if you guys are serious about this, just look into array theory. The whole reason that they do amplitude shading is because of this.










It's also the reason that concert arrays are curved at the bottom. *If it was possible to magically move a sound source using DSP, they wouldn't curve arrays.* Concerts have thousands of watts, millions of dollars in electronics, and they STILL have to line up them voice coils.


----------



## HiloDB1

Seems like you guys are on different pages. I can see what both sides are saying and they are not the same.


----------



## Patrick Bateman

HiloDB1 said:


> Seems like you guys are on different pages. I can see what both sides are saying and they are not the same.


There are a couple 'tricks' and I was hoping someone would bring them up...

That's why I was so specific about *depth*

1) You can fake lateral location, to an extent

2) If you can prevent the sound from expanding, you can do some truly bizarre ****. For instance, you can't move a sound backwards, *but you CAN move it forwards.*


----------



## strakele

I'm also confused. 

Why does it matter if the voice coils are aligned if you can delay the signal to the closer one so that the wavefront is coherent? Isn't that all that matters? I understand that having them aligned would be optimal, but..

And yes, I understand you're not changing the actual path length differences, but if the sound waves from the multiple drivers reach your ear at the same time and in phase... shouldn't everything be ok?


----------



## thehatedguy

I think we are all on the same page except for Mr Bateman.


----------



## JoshHefnerX

thehatedguy said:


> I think we are all on the same page except for Mr Bateman.


Patrick does like to wander, but his ramblings are always very interesting. Our resident "Mad Scientist"

Josh


----------



## Patrick Bateman

strakele said:


> I'm also confused.
> 
> Why does it matter if the voice coils are aligned if you can delay the signal to the closer one so that the wavefront is coherent?


Because DSP delay doesn't change the origin of the sound. Yes, it changes the time that the sound arrives, but that doesn't change the origin.



strakele said:


> Isn't that all that matters?


No, delay isn't all that matters. If it was all that mattered, you wouldn't see curved arrays at rock concerts. The necessity to align the wavefronts physically is also the reason that well-designed horns like the ones from Edgarhorn and JBL look the way they do. I do not think that the horns from Magico or Avantgarde are well designed.



strakele said:


> I understand that having them aligned would be optimal, but..
> 
> And yes, I understand you're not changing the actual path length differences, but if the sound waves from the multiple drivers reach your ear at the same time and in phase... shouldn't everything be ok?












Put two lamps in a room.
One lamp is ten feet from you.
One lamp is twenty feet from you.

Delay one lamp.

*Do the lamps appear to be located in the same position as they were before? Or did the delay change their location?*

If you think the delay will magically change the perceived location of the lamp, then I disagree with you.

If you think the delay will cause a delay in the light, *but no perceived change in location, then you understand how DSP delay works.*


----------



## thehatedguy

But who is saying you can change the physical location of the speaker with delay?


----------



## strakele

In a dark room with no visual cues other than the lights themselves, or in a specially designed room, you could change the intensity of the closer light (level adjustment) as well as delay it (time delay) so that to your eye, they appeared to turn on at exactly the same time and be the same distance from you.


----------



## ErinH

speed of light /=/ speed of sound


----------



## sqnut

Patrick Bateman said:


> Because DSP delay doesn't change the origin of the sound. Yes, it changes the time that the sound arrives, but that doesn't change the origin.
> 
> If you think the delay will magically change the perceived location of the lamp, then I disagree with you.





thehatedguy said:


> But who is saying you can change the physical location of the speaker with delay?


Take a 2 way with the woofer down in the door and the tweet on dash or pillars. Play the drivers on one side with mid and tweets out of phase. You will hear them as two distinct sound sources. Now dial in the delay so that the mid and tweet are in phase. 

If you dialed in the delay correctly, 90% of the sound would be located around the tweeter that which is physically higher. 10% mainly low end content would drag down a bit, but even that would no longer be located at the mid. Has the perceived location of sound changed?


----------



## subwoofery

Patrick Bateman said:


> Because DSP delay doesn't change the origin of the sound. Yes, it changes the time that the sound arrives, but that doesn't change the origin.
> 
> 
> No, delay isn't all that matters. If it was all that mattered, you wouldn't see curved arrays at rock concerts. The necessity to align the wavefronts physically is also the reason that well-designed horns like the ones from Edgarhorn and JBL look the way they do. I do not think that the horns from Magico or Avantgarde are well designed.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Put two lamps in a room.
> One lamp is ten feet from you.
> One lamp is twenty feet from you.
> 
> Delay one lamp.
> 
> *Do the lamps appear to be located in the same position as they were before? Or did the delay change their location?*
> 
> If you think the delay will magically change the perceived location of the lamp, then I disagree with you.
> 
> If you think the delay will cause a delay in the light, *but no perceived change in location, then you understand how DSP delay works.*


The light example doesn't really match what we're talking about here coz we are not speaking about the origin of sound (or origin of the light), it's the perceived wavefront @ 1 listenning position and the auditory illusion that delay can do with *2 drivers* @ different location. 

What other posters are saying is that for a given listenning position (in a car, it is fixed, same goes for home audio when you're in your favorite armchair), delay works great when your speakers are @ different location and @ different distance. Those same posters have been playing with T/A and their experience does not go hand in hand with what you're stating... 

Kelvin


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## Patrick Bateman

strakele said:


> In a dark room with no visual cues other than the lights themselves, or in a specially designed room, you could change the intensity of the closer light (level adjustment) as well as delay it (time delay) so that to your eye, they appeared to turn on at exactly the same time and be the same distance from you.


Good post.

I'm semi-obsessed with audio trickery, and your observation brings up something I've pondered a lot. Which is that many of our localization cues are environmental.

For instance, THEORETICALLY a low frequency sound that's immediately in front of us should be indistinguishable from one that's immediately behind us. But IRL this isn't true; I can tell the difference. My hypothesis is that some of this is environmental. (We pick up echoes.)

Our eyes play a huge role as well. One of the reasons that underdash horns can image is that *you can't see them.* Some car audio guys have done things like put fake center channels in, just to exploit the fact that our eyes play a huge part in telling us where the sound is coming from.


One of the reasons I haven't built much lately is that I'm mystified by why cardioids sound so damn good, and my 'hunch' is that the energy bouncing off of the back wall confuses the cues. IE, if you play a speaker outside, the speakers location is very obvious. The only reflection is off of the ground. I can pinpoint a speaker location with my eyes closed if it's outside. But add in some early reflections, and it gets trickier. Add in a LOT of early reflections, and the location becomes diffuse.


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## sqnut

One can locate front / back or far / near from about 80hz up. One can locate up / down from about 1khz up. With the right timing why does the sub image up from the front? because it is playing frequencies where you can neither tell front / back nor up/down. So with the right timing the brain just takes these frequencies and sticks them where it is locating the rest of the sound.

How do we locate source of sound? Our ears and brain use timing and the amplitude of sound at _both _ our ears. Sound that enters the left ear first and then the right is located to the left and vice versa. If sound enters both ears at the same time we locate the source as in front of us, when actually it may not be. So already we have used timing to change the location of sound from L&R speaker to in front of us. Of course you can use timing to change *perceived * location of sound.

We are much better at locating sound from the front vs the back and are worst at locating it when it is from the sides. How far is a factor of amplitude and timing. The ears are poor at hearing in absolutes but great at picking differences so it's not just about the amplitude of the direct sound but also the difference in amplitude between the direct and reflected sound. 

In a car why do we typically run our mids w/o attenuating but attenuate the tweets by 5-6db even before you balance for L/R? Because you want to attenuate the highs a bit and give it the sense of rolled off highs. In a car the tweets are typically 3-4 feet from you in a room its 14-18 feet. Whats the rule 3db down for 3 feet? 

You can use time and response to manipulate [edir] perceived [edit] location of sound.


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## SQram

Patrick Bateman said:


> Our eyes play a huge role as well. One of the reasons that underdash horns can image is that *you can't see them.* Some car audio guys have done things like put fake center channels in, just to exploit the fact that our eyes play a huge part in telling us where the sound is coming from.



I whole heartedly agree with this statement.

In all my vehicles I've mounted horns under the dash, I've always been drawn down to the mouth of the horn when listening, just creature habit I guess. Of course when your staring at the mouth of the horn, you're going to "think" the sound is coming from that location. Night falls and *poof*, the sound is back up on top of the dash because my visual cues are nonexistent.

This is why I mounted my horns *IN* the dash firing *UP*. I can't see them now, and there is no way I can "think" the sound is coming from below the dash. It really did improve imaging/staging from any under dash horn I've done. Of course it does present a whole bunch of other issues, but that's for another day...


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## sqnut

SQram said:


> I whole heartedly agree with this statement.
> 
> In all my vehicles I've mounted horns under the dash, I've always been drawn down to the mouth of the horn when listening, just creature habit I guess. Of course when your staring at the mouth of the horn, you're going to "think" the sound is coming from that location. Night falls and *poof*, the sound is back up on top of the dash because my visual cues are nonexistent.


Simple solution, don't run horns. Just use a mid and tweet up high and keep your stage up 24x7. jk

Even with driver locations etched in your head, when the timing and response is right the sound is disconnected from the speakers. You could be looking at the driver and you wouldn't feel like you're hearing it. Location of drivers playing ~ 2khz and up higher seems to help with height cues of everything below it, pointing perhaps to a threshold point in our hearing or the brains processing


----------



## Patrick Bateman

SQram said:


> I whole heartedly agree with this statement.
> 
> In all my vehicles I've mounted horns under the dash, I've always been drawn down to the mouth of the horn when listening, just creature habit I guess. Of course when your staring at the mouth of the horn, you're going to "think" the sound is coming from that location. Night falls and *poof*, the sound is back up on top of the dash because my visual cues are nonexistent.
> 
> This is why I mounted my horns *IN* the dash firing *UP*. I can't see them now, and there is no way I can "think" the sound is coming from below the dash. It really did improve imaging/staging from any under dash horn I've done. Of course it does present a whole bunch of other issues, but that's for another day...


My next project is shaping up to use a hard surface as a reflector. Similar to when people would aim tweeters at the windshield. But with wider bandwidth.

It gets tricky, because you need a specific wavefront to make it work. If the wavefront is spherical you'll lose the highs and it will also screw up the phase.

With a flat wavefront I think it should work.









Went to a concert last night with what appeared to be the L'Acoustics K1, and it was quite a revelation. (L'Acoustics uses a funky waveguide to turn a compression driver into a ribbon-shaped wavefront.)


----------



## onebadmonte

Patrick Bateman said:


> My next project is shaping up to use a hard surface as a reflector. Similar to when people would aim tweeters at the windshield. But with wider bandwidth.
> 
> It gets tricky, because you need a specific wavefront to make it work. If the wavefront is spherical you'll lose the highs and it will also screw up the phase.
> 
> With a flat wavefront I think it should work.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Went to a concert last night with what appeared to be the L'Acoustics K1, and it was quite a revelation. (L'Acoustics uses a funky waveguide to turn a compression driver into a ribbon-shaped wavefront.)


Just another iteration of a paraline. When is someone gonna start knocking some of this stuff out on a 3-D printer?


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## Patrick Bateman

onebadmonte said:


> Just another iteration of a paraline. When is someone gonna start knocking some of this stuff out on a 3-D printer?


Other way around!

https://www.google.com/patents/US51...a=X&ei=DKH3U8TFHMK5ogSj8oDICQ&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ

L'Acoustic filed their patent over twenty five years ago.










Not sure if Christian Heil, who invented the first item, is related to Oskar Heil, who invented the second.


----------



## strakele

sqnut said:


> One can locate front / back or far / near from about 80hz up. One can locate up / down from about 1khz up. With the right timing why does the sub image up from the front? because it is playing frequencies where you can neither tell front / back nor up/down. So with the right timing the brain just takes these frequencies and sticks them where it is locating the rest of the sound.
> 
> How do we locate source of sound? Our ears and brain use timing and the amplitude of sound at _both _ our ears. Sound that enters the left ear first and then the right is located to the left and vice versa. If sound enters both ears at the same time we locate the source as in front of us, when actually it may not be. So already we have used timing to change the location of sound from L&R speaker to in front of us. Of course you can use timing to change *perceived * location of sound.
> 
> We are much better at locating sound from the front vs the back and are worst at locating it when it is from the sides. How far is a factor of amplitude and timing. The ears are poor at hearing in absolutes but great at picking differences so it's not just about the amplitude of the direct sound but also the difference in amplitude between the direct and reflected sound.
> 
> In a car why do we typically run our mids w/o attenuating but attenuate the tweets by 5-6db even before you balance for L/R? Because you want to attenuate the highs a bit and give it the sense of rolled off highs. In a car the tweets are typically 3-4 feet from you in a room its 14-18 feet. Whats the rule 3db down for 3 feet?
> 
> You can use time and response to manipulate [edir] perceived [edit] location of sound.



IMO/E, the rules about when you can tell where certain frequencies are coming from really only apply in an anechoic chamber. In a car, play a 50Hz tone, and I'll tell you where your sub is. Play a 1KHz tone, and I'll tell you where your midrange is. With all the other stuff in a car that reflects/absorbs/resonates/otherwise has any interaction with the sound whatsoever, it makes these 'rules' more like 'rough guidelines' at best.

You can make your sub sound up front by making it in phase with your front mounted midbass at the crossover point. If you turn them off and play just the sub, you lose that effect. This applies for all speakers/frequencies that you're trying to get to sound like there coming from somewhere other than where they actually are. It's all about how they interact. Delaying the drivers' side speakers has no effect until you turn on the passenger side.


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## sqnut

strakele said:


> IMO/E, the rules about when you can tell where certain frequencies are coming from really only apply in an anechoic chamber. In a car, play a 50Hz tone, and I'll tell you where your sub is. Play a 1KHz tone, and I'll tell you where your midrange is. With all the other stuff in a car that reflects/absorbs/resonates/otherwise has any interaction with the sound whatsoever, it makes these 'rules' more like 'rough guidelines' at best.
> 
> You can make your sub sound up front by making it in phase with your front mounted midbass at the crossover point. If you turn them off and play just the sub, you lose that effect. This applies for all speakers/frequencies that you're trying to get to sound like there coming from somewhere other than where they actually are. It's all about how they interact. Delaying the drivers' side speakers has no effect until you turn on the passenger side.


Agree that the numbers are guidelines at best and I know that phase is only relevant with two or more drivers playing. Yes I have played a 50hz tone from the sub and yes it locates at the back. 

Here's the thing though, with your sub playing the 50hz tone can you tell how far behind you the sub is? 2', 6' 10'? With one midrange playing the 1khz tone you would be able to tell exactly where it's located ie distance, left/right and height. Now with both midranges playing exactly in phase and balanced for response, you should not be able to tell where they are physically located.


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## strakele

Yeah I'd agree with that. I think you could tell if the sub was really close or really far, but in the range of distances common in a car, it would be tougher to tell than with a midrange most likely.


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## sqnut

Precisely, what I was basically saying via my long winded posts is that one can use timing and response to change the perceived location of sound from its physical source. Something that Patrick was saying isn't possible.


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## Patrick Bateman

sqnut said:


> Precisely, what I was basically saying via my long winded posts is that one can use timing and response to change the perceived location of sound from its physical source. Something that Patrick was saying isn't possible.


I said the SOURCE of a sound is dictated by it's location.

Can you confuse this location?

*Yes, particularly in the lateral axis.*

Can you make a speaker sound further away than it actually it is?

That's a tough one. I think it's possible to make it sound CLOSER, but further away is a tough one.

Trying to make FIVE speakers sound like they're coming from ONE distance is a recipe for disaster.

Trying to make TWO speakers sound like they're at the same angle is easier.

TLDR: The Magico looks like a noob design to me. If it was a two way I would be more forgiving. If it was a three way with aligned voice coils, I would be more forgiving. I've never heard a 3-way speaker with unaligned voice coils that sounded coherent.

By the way, this vitriol isn't specific to Magico. I generally find that two-ways sound better than three ways, and the only four way speaker I've ever heard that I was impressed with was a Dynaudio. The Focals, Triangles, etc all sounded dynamic, loud, and excruciating.


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## sqnut

Patrick Bateman said:


> I said the SOURCE of a sound is dictated by it's location.
> 
> Can you confuse this location?
> 
> *Yes, particularly in the lateral axis.*




I think we need to look at both physical location and perceived location. So hear two drivers at unequal distances and you will locate the sound at each drivers physical location. Now dial in simultaneous arrival times and you will hear them as one source. When one gets the door mids in phase the sound no longer pulls to the near mid (first arrival). Now the sound is from the front. Same thing when you use TA on a mid in the door and a tweet on the dash. The sound now seems to come from the tweeter. So using timing one has moved the perceived location from the physical location on _both the lateral and vertical plane_. 

Our ears locate sound based on deltas in timing and amplitude. By manipulating these variables one has kind off defeated the ear and minds ability to locate sound.



Patrick Bateman said:


> Can you make a speaker sound further away than it actually it is?
> 
> That's a tough one. I think it's possible to make it sound CLOSER, but further away is a tough one.


Our ears and brain locate distance based on decay/attenuation in the highs ~5khz and up when compared to the rest of the sound. When the ears receive sound where the highs are rolled from the rest of the sound, the ears locate that sound as coming from further away.

The higher frequencies decay faster while travelling over a distance. The greater the roll off, the further the ears perceive the source of sound. Setup an eq so that 5khz and higher is rolled off progressively more. Now hook up the eq to your 2ch and listen with eq off and then with eq on. Do the speakers seem to move further away when you add the eq? You can use amplitude to manipulate the perceived distance of sound.



Patrick Bateman said:


> Trying to make FIVE speakers sound like they're coming from ONE distance is a recipe for disaster.
> 
> Trying to make TWO speakers sound like they're at the same angle is easier.


Well, both the magic bus and Gary's Merc have more than 5 speakers. I'm sure you didn't pick any timing issues in either vehicle.


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## thehatedguy

I guess I am failing to understand at a given single point in space, what is the difference between physically aligning the voice coils and using DSP to delay the arrival times so that they are aligned at the listening position.


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## strakele

No delay










With delay











You're not changing the source of the sound. You're aligning the wavefront.


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## T3mpest

thehatedguy said:


> I guess I am failing to understand at a given single point in space, what is the difference between physically aligning the voice coils and using DSP to delay the arrival times so that they are aligned at the listening position.


As long as your also attentuating the closer drivers I'm not sure what other cues our ears can use to perceive distance. You'd level match to the further driver sound it should all more or less sound like it's coming from that distance at that point. Guess it all comes down to what our brains use to perceive distance of a sound , other than our eyes lol.


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## subwoofery

strakele said:


> No delay
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> With delay
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're not changing the source of the sound. You're aligning the wavefront.


Yep, not sure I can add more to this. Tried to post pics of what DSP can do but it's not sinking in :mean: 

The above sentence is totally correct and easy to understand. Delay helps with the perception of a coherent wavefront @ the listenning position. 

Kelvin


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## rockin

T/A is of great interest to me, so I've been following this. Patrick is saying while the T/A *will* align the wavefront it won't make the closest speaker appear any farther away. I.E. as far away as the farther speaker. (At least I think that's what Patrick is saying, correct me if I'm wrong here please) Can I conclude it will make the farthest speaker appear *closer* (as close as the nearest speaker?) How bout reflections? I've always heard early reflections contribute to the perception of the stage while late reflections define the room.


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## thehatedguy

Well he hasn't really said that he thinks it can align the wavefront...I think so, and so does everyone else. But he is making a counter argument to an argument that hasn't been stated yet.


----------



## richiec77

Hahaha. Holy thread de-railment. 

Back to pics of the HLCD's in the dash! That's bad-ass!

And I'd love to see what you plan to do with the Dyn's in the floorboards. I was mulling this idea over 3 weeks ago with Joey @ SiS. Well...mine was a little crazier. Mount 2 enclosures to the floor to hold BM MK IV's. i take it you're looking at adding in enclosures behind the peddle area like what Eric did with his Sable? I'm looking at a 2008 Dodge Ram.


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## Patrick Bateman

[


subwoofery said:


> Yep, not sure I can add more to this. Tried to post pics of what DSP can do but it's not sinking in :mean:
> 
> The above sentence is totally correct and easy to understand. Delay helps with the perception of a coherent wavefront @ the listenning position.
> 
> Kelvin


The wavefront doesn't emanate from the mouth, unless the mouth is very small. 

The apparent source of the wavefront is frequency dependent.

IE, if you have a compression driver covering five octaves from 625hz to 20khz, *the apparent source of the sound will vary from octave to octave.*

If anyone has questions about that, I can post some measurements and diagrams.

This is complex stuff; way more complex than a direct radiator.











If my statement makes sense, then you'll understand that the pic above is not accurate.
If my statement makese sense, you'll understand that JBL's approach is the correct one, not Magico.

Also, *why is this surprising?* Magico has probably built and sold a dozen horns. JBL has built and sold easily a hundred thousand. Look to the experts : Keele, Danley, Geddes, Smith, Edgar. *Alon Wolf is not an authority in horn loudspeakers.* Eric Stevens has been building horns for longer than Alon Wolf.


----------



## Patrick Bateman

rockin said:


> T/A is of great interest to me, so I've been following this. Patrick is saying while the T/A *will* align the wavefront it won't make the closest speaker appear any farther away. I.E. as far away as the farther speaker. (At least I think that's what Patrick is saying, correct me if I'm wrong here please) Can I conclude it will make the farthest speaker appear *closer* (as close as the nearest speaker?) How bout reflections? I've always heard early reflections contribute to the perception of the stage while late reflections define the room.


You can only align the wavefront at a single frequency. Even worse, that frequency will vary depending on where the microphone is in the room.**

Seriously, just go listen to a five way horn. *Tell me I'm wrong after you do that.* There isn't a five way horn in the world that sounds good.

Synergy Horns are probably one of the few three way horns that sound good, and that's in no small part that their inventor is a rocket scientist* who's been solving horn problems for the better part of thirty years.

I can show anyone how to build a decent two way horn, but three way horns require a fair dose of genius, a lot of time and a lot of patience. Edgar's three ways have been refined for twenty years.

Five way horns? *You better be one of the world's best, and you better have a lot of time on your hands. Alon Wolf does not qualify.*









Tom Danley, back when his loudspeakers were part of a NASA project. Yes, seriously.








** This statement is true as long as the speaker is NOT constant directivity. If the speaker IS constant directivity, then you can get pretty darn close. *This is another flaw with the Magico design; DSP delay works better with constant directivity horns than with any other horn profile. This is why Geddes and Danley and JBL use constant directivity horns.* Starting to see a pattern here? The experts do a lot of things alike, because they WORK


----------



## SQram

Well I finally got around to installing the Dynaudio MW182's in my truck so I thought I'd post up some thoughts...

Some background:

3 way setup - Horn/midbass/sub

I'm using Illusion CH-1 horns mounted in the dash firing up at the windshield, and a pair of JBL 6" driver mounted in the doors (so I could fabricate enclosures for the Dyn's in the kickpannel area). The enclosures are vented through the floor to the outside world. Sub is a JL Audio 13.5.

For power I have 40Wx2 @ 8 ohms to the horns and 200W x 2 @ 4 ohms to the midbasses. Initial crossovers are at 800Hz and 50Hz at 24 db/oct respectively.

Right off the bat I had to turn the level up on the horns, the Dyn's have a much higher sensitivity than the JBL's, I would assume this is due to the much larger cone area. 

First impressions: Holy ****! Drums sound like drums now! I found myself twitching on several tracks, definitely a more life like experience than the smaller JBL speakers. My second thought: these things are sooo smooth. Vocals sound realistic, instruments are believable, and the sense of space is much, much bigger. Some of this is probably due to the better path lengths of the kickpannel area. 

Another exciting atribute of the much bigger Dyn's is that all of the bass is now in front of the listening position, I've actually lowered the level of the subwoofer because it's just not needed with the Dyn's up front. I find the integration between the horn and midbass so much better than before as well.

It's not without its faults though, I do have a rather large peak in response in the lower midbass region most likely due to the natural cabin gain of the vehicle, I have my work cut out in this area. Also, the enclosures are huuugge. There is also some tactile sensation/vibration in the foot well area.

All in all, this is one of the single best upgrades I have done on my vehicle, really exciting progress for me personally. To those that suggested the Dyn's, I say thank you!


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## thehatedguy

Yeap, they go pretty good together.


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## subterFUSE

Patrick Bateman said:


> You can only align the wavefront at a single frequency. Even worse, that frequency will vary depending on where the microphone is in the room.**
> 
> Seriously, just go listen to a five way horn. *Tell me I'm wrong after you do that.* There isn't a five way horn in the world that sounds good.
> 
> Synergy Horns are probably one of the few three way horns that sound good, and that's in no small part that their inventor is a rocket scientist* who's been solving horn problems for the better part of thirty years.






And if my understanding of Synergy horn design is correct, they do not use any time delay. They are designed so that the speakers inside the horn are physically in the locations they need to be so that the sound is in-time and in-phase. High frequency drivers are at the rear of the horn. Mids are forward, and bass drivers towards the mouth. I would bet that the spacing between each driver is precisely the distance that correlates to the crossover-induced phase rotation.

Time alignment is not required because the drivers are physically aligned.


----------



## subterFUSE

BuickGN said:


> Interesting conversation. I don't have anything intelligent to add other than if I were going with Dyns, it would be the 650 or 182 over the 172. The 650 has about the same displacement as the 172 and it's just a better driver in every way not to mention it's smaller. Where the 172 might be a letdown in the low frequencies by 8" standards, the 650 with the same displacement is fine by 6.5" standards. The 182 will fit in most places the 172 will fit due to it's basket design and it has a ton more displacement. Some have used the 182 as a subwoofer so it has low end potential. A fairly weak sub but it will handle 30hz with a fair amount of power. In my opinion it's a midbass/lower midrange driver and that's where it excels and as a midbass it's almost impossible to find fault. I haven't been able to bottom mine or get them to break up with 300w and a 35hz HP. At the usual 60-70hz hp I use they're just coasting with 300w.
> 
> I did want to reinforce they're more than capable of 2khz and up. On the downside I believe they're only around 86db efficient 1w/1m but I could be wrong. Below 100hz they seem pretty damn efficient but I believe the 650s might have gotten louder in the 300-800hz range at the same power.
> 
> Like I said, nothing intelligent to add other than I would do the 650 or 182 instead.




Any other opinions on the Esotar 650 vs. MW-172 vs. MW182?


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## teekitako

do you have any pics of the 182 installed. I would love to see how they worked out.. thanks


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## oabeieo

I have my mw182s playing from 40 to 125 and than a Beyma 8g40 playing from 160 to 1k and gosh dam it sounds so good, the mw182 is pretty pathetic above 200hz really compared to the Beyma that is in a horn install.


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## subwoofery

subwoofery said:


> I'm trying to understand something here. Tell me if I'm wrong
> When you apply delay/time alignment via DSP to a couple of drivers?
> It goes from this:
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> Now with a DSP, you can also play with phase - not sure what the increment can be but you can fine tune a system so that there's coherence between drivers. So it goes from this:
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> I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how it works to get there but I remember reading a post from Geddes describing exactly this and why he moved from passive in his speakers to active via a MiniDSP.
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> I do trust what you heard from past interation of big and powerful setup but all those setups you heard was from a passive Xover (albeit with expensive parts I'm sure).
> Now we have DSP at our disposal and that can really help create the perfect speaker.
> 
> There's only 2 horn speakers that I know of that uses an active setup:
> - the Magico Ultimate III
> - the Avantgarde Zero 1
> 
> Here's a review (or two) from the Avantgarde speaker that praises what a DSP has been able to achieve to a horn speaker:
> High Fidelity
> Masterpieces from Avantgarde and Raidho | The Absolute Sound
> 
> It's true that DSP doesn't help much if you're moving around the place when listenning to a speaker but if you're in THE spot, I'm sure it can be phase/time/frequency coherent
> 
> Kelvin


Found a good testing of the Avantgarde Zero 1. 
Great testing and amazing results from a DSP  

http://www.winkey-audio.com.tw/Av_zero1_Fidelity13.pdf

Kelvin


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