Amazing information, comparisons and analysis of results. I’m honored to have my SF Venere’s included in this presentation. This difference with the upgrades you designed resulted in better results than I could have imagined. Keep up the great work, Danny!
In my opinion, one of your best videos. Really helped to understand the spectral decay/waterfall graphs. Would it be possible for you to perform an actual speaker frequency response and spectral decay test on a video? Also, perhaps one on speaker crossover mods too ... or would that give away too many of your trade secrets? Anyway more educational videos like this would be great.
Really good video Danny, very informative, Would have helped to see more pictures of the speakers to imagine how that relates to the graphs, but still good.
I'm pretty sure I've watched every one of your videos by now and this is one of my favorites. I purchased the Clio pocket measurement system a few months ago so I can measure all my speakers and all the speakers I work on. Because of your channel and all your knowledge you share with us it didn't take me long to get it set up and figured out. This video in particular was super helpful to me to understand whats going on with the speaker. I do my best and try to fix and tweek the speakers I measure and am continuously learning more and more thanks to you.
People who become alarmed at ripping speakers apart are ignorant, this is an infinite subject much like RF propagation. Lifelong interest this passion takes, this man spends that time and then shares with us becomes more time is invaluable to us all!
It's been said multiple times but another informative video. I discovered your site a few years ago and it was like getting the keys to the magic kingdom. I have read a lot of technical information over the years, audio, and computer. Your video presentation is a pleasure to watch.
It looks to me as though in almost all cases, the "ringing"" is just what one would expect from minimum phase interpretation of the frequency response(which would of course be true literally for a single driver operating without distortion Sometimes there are ringing effects from crossover stuff but almost always in your plots the ringing comes from the frequency response, In this situation it is not true that if you notch filter the response to flat the ringing is still there A min phase response correction of a min phase resonance not only flattens it, it time (phase) corrects it. This is how min phase systems work. There are nonlinear effects involving delayed energy but on the relatively shallow waterfalls you are showing you are not seeing the chaotic noise effects and so on that can arise. Fix the response and the ringing will be fixed automatically in most cases. (Hilbert transform etc)
Great video Danny this is exactly what I was looking for and now understand so much more. Can you please do a video explaining notch, and compensation filters?
Excellent. I rather enjoy hanging out with you Danny. In all the videos of yours I've watched you have never said one thing that isn't true (that I have found true in my own acoustics work). Cheers.
I wish you had listed below all of the full range drivers you tested. It would be interesting to go on to some of those manufacturers websites and see what they have for frequency response and spectral decay charts for the drivers that you tested. Especially some of the markaudio drivers.
Thanks Danny. I'll be the first to admit I don't know what I'm looking at with the graphs in your vids but this has really helped me with this particular graph type quite a bit.
I have the Tekton Lores and yes there is a bit of ringing as Danny described. But for a floor standing speaker that is $1k, its still a lot of speaker for the money. Yeah, they are not sound staging magicians and there is a bit of ringing, but they sound a lot better than some of the contenders at or almost 2x the price. People who do buy the Lores usually pair them with SET amps, which for me mitigates the ringing a bit. It doesn’t remove it completely, but when I compared to some solid state amps, they sound best with tube. Just my 2 cents.
@@DannyRichie-uc8sw thanks for the info, but I am happy with my Lores & I’ve since upgraded and relocated the Lores to my wife’s system, since she isn’t that critical 😉. But I have to say, that at least they aren’t Zu speakers.
@@DannyRichie-uc8sw hey Danny, I want to make sure that your info is being received correctly. From the vid photo and description of a soft dome tweeter, I'm pretty sure you have the Tekton Lore Reference, which is a mid size model in the Lore line up along with the full size and mini lore. Full size Lores are quite a bit bigger than the reference and have an Audax Gold Dome tweeter. I'm positive that a couple of commenters in here have the full size Lore and I'm confident that they would need a different solution after testing than the models you had. I'm just pointing this out in case people are ordering your upgrade for the wrong speaker. Great vid though.
Thanks a lot for that Danny, that explains a lot. From the SPL level I’m guessing his is all from the normal 1W at 1m sweeps. I’ve been measuring and upgrading 3 pairs of Linn Tukans as Atmos surrounds in my Home Theater, using REW / UMIK-1, and REW isn’t showing me anything like your CLIO traces with its waterfall plot. I’ve bought an EMM-6 Dayton mic and Mic amp to use with ARTA software to see if that works better, while keeping an eye open for a used CLIO POCKET. This is definitely another one to go back and watch again. Thanks for all you do for us
Always fascinating to see some of the behavior of these speakers and your measures to tame them where needed (to the degree they CAN be tamed in the first place, of course). Thanks for putting so much time into educating us!
FWIW, the Mark Audio wide band speakers were my interpretation of an S. Lindgren design called "Pensil". The cabinets were finished with two types of RTF (rigid thermofoil). As it turns out, the cabinets were nicer that the drivers. I gave the speakers to my sister who still uses them.
Amir will be salivating over all this content he can ride on someones coattails. Danny you're a wealth of knowledge. Thank you for sharing with us gear-heads.
Suggest it is time to completely ignore Amir. He recently hijacked a thread on Audiogon with dozens of posts. Per the usual formula, Amir knows all, others are ignorant.
@@jfritzy4358 No kidding. Amir actually reviewed the Parasound JC2 BP. One of the biggest, most jaw dropping moments I've ever experienced in HiFi as a subpar piece of equipment :) Of course he never listened to it I'm sure. He appeals to the pitchfork and torch club that has 0 experience in audio. Danny is really a gem in the industry and is trying to help us make good purchasing decisions, or helping us make the most of the money we've already spent. Spending less in the hobby is what we all should be enbracing.
I have Mark Audio Alpair 11ms drivers installed in Frugal-horn XL cabs. They are directly driven and I have to say they can be a little fatiguing to listen to on occasions, especially when using Class D amplification. I also own a low power el34 tube amp which does calm things down somewhat. I'd like to modify these speakers but I wouldn't know where to begin... lol
I like dealing with folks that say do you like your speaker's sound. Heck yes! They are better than most systems I have heard. When people come over and hear them, they are impressed. Could much better and expensive speakers sound better? Sure, but to common folks who do not audiophile issues, the sound improvement may not be worth the cost!
Hey Danny, I was recently in a semi sealed demo room and really enjoyed the pressurization the room offered. Would giant foam cutouts for my open archways to my listening room help me mimic that speaker demo room?
great review on the data and graphical plots on some of the speakers you have had come through. A bit of a rhetorical question but it would sure be interesting to see how many of these speakers had xovers designed with PC software based on the driver parameters and how many were done using physical measurements? A second rhetorical question would be how many of the original designers saw the drivers ringing in their plots but either A. said to heck with it "we'll use them anyway", or B. how many at the concept stage went back and talked to the driver manufacturer and said can you get some of that ringing out, at the same cost or will the driver cost go up? I know these guys that design at the lower price points are under huge pricing pressure. May not be quite the case when you get north of 4k for a pair of bookshelfs, or 6k for a full range floor stander.
Yes! I watched it to the end! I hate to admit it, but one thing I have learned from your videos is that I know squat and diddly about speaker design. So much for me thinking “this is easy. I can do that”. Not! So glad I took on building a number of your kits. Thanks for posting; I love learning new things. Lastly - Danny - you mention several times about internal reflections causing issues with spectral decay. Are these controlled by your No-Rez?
The thing about "step-loss" of full range drivers is, that from your argumentation all speaker drivers will face that problem. I'd argue that a small full range driver mostly just got a high fs and quite a limited x-max. They're just not made to produce strong bass.
Really interesting to learn about the decay and your tratments. Would like to know how you setup the measurement. Especially where you placed the microphone.
Hi ! thank you very much for this extremely valuable video lecture the first driver was invented in 1861 i read in the web what baffles me is how after about 163 years you can still find speakers that have extremely tacky defects And they are not made by bakers but by specialized companies Sometimes I wonder what kind of checks they do on the products that leave their plants Maybe they do it on purpose to push towards the more expensive products? kind regards gino
WOW! Totally brilliant video. I now fully understand what is happening when looking at the graphs. I never suspected or understood what the front lines of the graph were for, now I know it's a timeline. I should have paid more attention to that... Also some very useful information on " toe-out ". Who would have thought that just a few degrees could make a difference. You sir are a super intelligent human being. So from across the pond here in the UK I Thank you very much.
The solutions that come from your Research make me continue to hope that there will be a day when GR Research will be able to supply Audio Lovers with a Kit that answers the question.... What more do you need?
I'm totally new to this but I'm intrigued to understand your videos. What would help is if you can do some sort of pointer to the graphs as you are explaining. The graphs aren't very legible, imo. Perhaps others would love it too or maybe they are way advanced and understand your explanation, which is very articulate. Thank you. I'm going to be ordering an upgrade to my .7's and LRS +. Very cool stuff!
Who would have thought that some foam in a port or towing speakers out 8 degrees could make That big a difference in the sound? The graphs you are showing actually helps us understand how you solve Many speaker issues. The 20 kilo hertz, ringing was very interesting. That Zoo speaker was a disgrace. When you Repeat what you are saying regarding ringing/ or not makes you more than a You Tube presenter. It makes you an Educator.
@@ClassifiedBriefWhat room? Literally millions of options to choose from. Danny’s in room will look nothing like, and way better, than most because it’s treated to be a listening room.
The garbage "secondary ringing" on the Behringer 2031p you saw at around 1khz corresponds to an internal reflection of the woofer's backwave back through the front ports. It has nothing to do with edge diffraction around the woofer's inner mounting surface and everything to do with the 10 inch cabinet depth, 10 inch cabinet width and 1khz back wave that is reflecting nicely off the back wall of the speaker's enclosure and forward through the ports with little or no insulation damping. Essentially there are three significant errors in design: insufficient insulation damping in the box, front loaded port slots that are almost 1/2 wavelength @1khz in height, and an acoustic path length from the back of the driver to the rear wall and back to the port opening that is approximately 1 and 1/4 of a wavelength at 1khz. Not sure what your background is in engineering acoustics, but this one is pretty obvious just from looking at the dimensions of the box. Overall, your videos are excellent though as they focus on aspects of design that truly matter - spectral decay plots, inter-driver phase integration, etc...
Great stuff! Few get anywhere near discussing such detailed design concepts and results. Being able to see the measured results from the hardware designs. I know it was covered some before in perhaps a more confrontational time... but I was hoping to learn more about why you choose the parameters you do? Why cut off ay 200hz? Why only 25db of decay? Obviously lower frequencies require removing room interactions more. As I would guess lower level room reflections.
Measuring lower requires being further away with the mic, but getting far enough away to start accurately measuring down low is hard to do. I can't gate out the room reflections if I get too far away.
I really like this video Danny. Thanks for the instruction. I wish all your videos were this long (selfish, I know). How did you make out at the Penn Relays here in Philly back in April?
OK! We have added spectral decay to the act. The three audible characteristics of sound fields are the spatial, spectral, and temporal. Virtually every one of these commenters have no awareness of the spatial. This means the pattern of direct and reflected sounds in the room that combine to form the imaging. The spatial cannot be measured, only heard, so they have no way of illustrating the sound in a graph or a drawing, so they just say nothing about it - if they are even aware of it. But they CAN make a drawing of it. It is called the image model of the sound in the room. You just draw a picture of the speakers and their first reflections from the walls nearby as additional virtual speakers on the other side of the walls, like mirror images in light. You can then easily see the pattern of sources in the room and how the reflected sound helps form the "Big Picture" of the imaging.
Would the Spectral Decay plots show if a stamped steel basket midwoofer had internal reflections issues of the backwave reflecting off the frame and back through the cone?
I would love to see your analysis of the high end 8” full range drivers from Lowther, Supravox, and Cube Audio (in particular the Fc8). I want to build a pair of Voigt tubes, and I’m wondering if they compare to the Tang Band drivers. BTW, I’m subscribed, but I don’t see how I can send you a Buy-Me-Coffee.
I would LOVE to see an advanced video on crossover design from you. Although, I suppose your audience would need to know the basics of electrical components first.
Great video Danny! Ashamed to say that I just bought a pair of those Mark audio drivers for a full range experiment. You provided some useful and potentially alarming insight. Can more damping potentially help to prevent excess ringing?
You can add notch filters to attenuate some of the ringing, but you can't get rid of it. You should have just gone with one of our LGK kits. They are less money and sound a LOT better.
@@dannyrichie9743 I will definitely try your speaker kits one day! I’m based in EU so shipping and customs is a bit of a barrier. Mark audio has a very good reputation on some diy forums so just wanted to see what the fuss was about. It will be interesting for comparison if nothing else. Funny how people have different ideas of what good sound is…
Dang it, I have Polk LSi 9 speakers and just spent 2 days rearranging my room and $400 on acoustic panels (i'm not kidding!). Now I find out the speakers are crap. Please recommend a $1,000 - $1,500 per pair alternative that looks decent (has grills and wood veneer.)
Having owned the Lsi9 also for several years, they are NOT a crap speaker at all. In fact they sound QUITE good, despite the measurements. I compared them to about 5 other speakers years ago, and they acquit themselves quite well. Here is another case of listening trumping measurements. NOT a perfect speaker for sure, but not bad AT ALL!
Okay, you can tell David Dicks from Audio Nirvana that his large FR drivers were hard to listen too. I had a tech put some AN Super 10" Fr in a regular Monitor size cabinets, and no crossover in a ported cabinet. Sounds good to me... I would love to have them in a TL cabinets. they would have to be 4' x 1' x 1-1/2' towers...
We sound professionals have trained our minds to dislike the ringing which actually seems to be a preference among consumers. Our ears are alert for this phenomenon even in a fairly narrow band, the sort of thing a musician would immediately pick out listening to their own instrument. JBL makes some of the very best damped speaker systems with almost bizarrely lacking ring. No one wants them in their living room but I can use them all day without fatigue and use their info to mix music in whatever way I might imagine.
Spectrum decay will also have to do with room size. If you ever ran sound for a live band you would know this. People have a tendency thinking bigger is better. Acoustics of a room is everything.
@@dannyrichie9743 Hi Danny, may I ask what particular model of the Markaudio drivers did you measure in this video? Based on your video, it seems one the lower tier models of Markaudio. It would also be interesting to measure the Pearl Acoustics Sibelius, as its driver is also based on a modified Markaudio driver (but the higher end series).
@@dannyrichie9743 Having looked further at this video, (based on the shape of the dustcap), I suspect it is one of the entry level models. I'm mentioning this because Pearl Acoustics Sibelius uses a modified driver (by the manufacturer) of the Alpair 10M model (their higher end tier series), which I believe has a lot smoother response than the driver you measured (yeah I think your measurements are accurate on that entry level driver). Furthermore, I personally have the MAOP (magnetic arc oxidisation process) version of the Alpair 10M driver, which is sort of a ceramic bathed/coated version, which in my opinion removes a lot of that resonance issues of those metal cones, which you also might be interested in measuring if ever you get to have the opportunity in getting one. Cheers to you and your team, I've been a fan ever since.
I noticed you didn't mention the crossover filters. While these are commercial products, that doesn't mean that the filters would not have too much 'Q' which could also cause ringing. So, did you check the L, C and Z to see that it had a 'Q' of 1 for a L-R filter?
Jednu otázku a prosbu bych měl. Na trhu se objevily Avangard Acoustic colibri. Co na ně říkáš. Mám rád hornové konstrukce. Ten charakter zvuku mi vyhovuje. Jenom nevím, nemám kde poslechnout, jestli to jsou pravověrné Avangard Acoustic které bych zvládl zaplatit a nebo jestli to nejsou jen nějaké life style Bluetooth ,,hračky,, Dík za případný názor. ❤
@dannyrichie9743 I appreciate the response. I've had the Signature Series Home Theater set for about 2 years now , I'm using a Outlaw 5000x Amp 5 channels driven @ 120watts per channel though a Denon X2700H AVR and drive them them pretty hard because to me good music is supposed to be played loud. I've been seeing reviews on the Signature Series and people reviewing pretty hard pretty much saying they're trash . That's why I reached out to you , thought you might have some insight on them . At 66 years of age I still love my music . You do great work Danny , Thank you.
@@burliesanford1863 Just keep in mind that to offer those at $799 they had less than $200 to work with in building them out complete and that typically includes boxing and packaging material. So don't expect too much.
@@chrisjacques5580 The time arrival can be seen in the impulse response. You can also see it in how the two drivers sum or not sum. Changing the vertical off axis can let you see it over a wider range and see what direction it is going.
Danny, a suggestion. Once you start recording your video, wait 1 second before you say, "Hey everybody!" Those 2 words lets viewers know they are viewing none other than Danny Richie!
The Polk LSI series speakers are some of the best sounding speakers I've ever heard. All this measurement stuff doesn't make much sense to me if those speakers measure badly.
We just measured a Polk LSiM703, and it measured really well. The parts quality was fairly poor, but it did measure well. I will do a video on it shortly.
@Danny, This not only saved me lots of $$$ - But, the time to make a DYI speaker using most of these supposedly full-range drivers just to hear the song "Ring My Bell" - Seems foolish now. Thanks
Danny, have you ever tested any headphones in this fashion? I am waiting upon the arrival on Tuesday of my Verum 1's from the Ukrane. I recently saw your review on You Tube of the 1's. Thanks again Joe Wlodynski
Just having a think here: The brakes on your car stop you by converting rotational energy into heat by means of friction. As the rotors and pads heat up, braking efficiency is lost, referred to as brake fade. I'm wondering if there's some of that same element in speakers when talking about stopping the driver using the suspension components. If so, is the spectral decay different if the suspension components are already warm? If so, is it by a meaningful amount? Any thoughts are welcome, especially from our wonderful Danny, here.
I can measure slightly different parameters on a driver when the voice coil is warmed up, but the suspension doesn't heat up enough to matter much at all.
@@dannyrichie9743 Oh, that makes sense. I doubted the suspension would really heat up that much, but it was neat to think about. Do you know why it changes when the coil heats up? Maybe something to do with a change in inductance? (Way out of my depth, guessing blind) Anyway, thanks so much for replying! Super cool.
Amazing information, comparisons and analysis of results. I’m honored to have my SF Venere’s included in this presentation. This difference with the upgrades you designed resulted in better results than I could have imagined. Keep up the great work, Danny!
In my opinion, one of your best videos. Really helped to understand the spectral decay/waterfall graphs. Would it be possible for you to perform an actual speaker frequency response and spectral decay test on a video? Also, perhaps one on speaker crossover mods too ... or would that give away too many of your trade secrets? Anyway more educational videos like this would be great.
I’ll second that! 👍
Really good video Danny, very informative, Would have helped to see more pictures of the speakers to imagine how that relates to the graphs, but still good.
or NAMES of the speaker, while the charts are up.
I Googled each speaker when Danny mentioned the make & model. 😉
Yeah, me too re looking up what these speakers look like.
Danny! You saved my day, with a new and different video on all what you try’s to educate us in all you Tech Talks.
I have learned more in 1 hour, than in my 44 years! Great video! Thank you very much!
I purchased the Tyler Acoustic T2's last fall and your crossover design along with Ty's craftsmanship makes for a great speaker.
Thanks!
I'm pretty sure I've watched every one of your videos by now and this is one of my favorites.
I purchased the Clio pocket measurement system a few months ago so I can measure all my speakers and all the speakers I work on. Because of your channel and all your knowledge you share with us it didn't take me long to get it set up and figured out. This video in particular was super helpful to me to understand whats going on with the speaker.
I do my best and try to fix and tweek the speakers I measure and am continuously learning more and more thanks to you.
Look forward to some recommendations for improvements to Vegas, Preston.
You are welcome and thanks for watching.
I learned something useful on a Monday morning. Good start to the week
Never though spectral decays are so revealing! This video is absolute gold to my ears!
People who become alarmed at ripping speakers apart are ignorant, this is an infinite subject much like RF propagation. Lifelong interest this passion takes, this man spends that time and then shares with us becomes more time is invaluable to us all!
Great education on audio engineering as usual Danny! Thank you!
I usually don’t post comments but that’s the best video I’ve watched in years! Thanks Danny.
It's been said multiple times but another informative video. I discovered your site a few years ago and it was like getting the keys to the magic kingdom. I have read a lot of technical information over the years, audio, and computer. Your video presentation is a pleasure to watch.
It looks to me as though in almost all cases, the "ringing"" is just what one would expect from minimum phase interpretation of the frequency response(which would of course be true literally for a single driver operating without distortion Sometimes there are ringing effects from crossover stuff but almost always in your plots the ringing comes from the frequency response, In this situation it is not true that if you notch filter the response to flat the ringing is still there A min phase response correction of a min phase resonance not only flattens it, it time (phase) corrects it. This is how min phase systems work. There are nonlinear effects involving delayed energy but on the relatively shallow waterfalls you are showing you are not seeing the chaotic noise effects and so on that can arise. Fix the response and the ringing will be fixed automatically in most cases. (Hilbert transform etc)
Great video especially the wide-bander section. Ron really needs to add some chapters I lost my place a few times.
Dang! That was interesting. I could spend years reading books and not learn this much about reading spectral decay graphs.
Amazing video , I would love if you explain more about d'appolito design and mtm design, thanks for that
Great video Danny this is exactly what I was looking for and now understand so much more. Can you please do a video explaining notch, and compensation filters?
That's a good idea.
Check this one out: ua-cam.com/video/YRB7uDPGUSs/v-deo.html
Thanks for this. Yes, it was a long video, but it kept me watching to the end. Lots of little bits of information throughout.
Always good to get a video from you, Danny. Those Sonicaps are sounding great in my Pedest'ale Tower speakers.
Excellent. I rather enjoy hanging out with you Danny. In all the videos of yours I've watched you have never said one thing that isn't true (that I have found true in my own acoustics work). Cheers.
Excellent video. Thank you Danny!
I wish you had listed below all of the full range drivers you tested.
It would be interesting to go on to some of those manufacturers websites and see what they have for frequency response and spectral decay charts for the drivers that you tested. Especially some of the markaudio drivers.
Very informative, thanks for doing this.
Thanks Danny. I'll be the first to admit I don't know what I'm looking at with the graphs in your vids but this has really helped me with this particular graph type quite a bit.
I have the Tekton Lores and yes there is a bit of ringing as Danny described. But for a floor standing speaker that is $1k, its still a lot of speaker for the money. Yeah, they are not sound staging magicians and there is a bit of ringing, but they sound a lot better than some of the contenders at or almost 2x the price. People who do buy the Lores usually pair them with SET amps, which for me mitigates the ringing a bit. It doesn’t remove it completely, but when I compared to some solid state amps, they sound best with tube. Just my 2 cents.
We've got an upgrade for those things that will really turn them around.
@@DannyRichie-uc8sw thanks for the info, but I am happy with my Lores & I’ve since upgraded and relocated the Lores to my wife’s system, since she isn’t that critical 😉. But I have to say, that at least they aren’t Zu speakers.
@@DannyRichie-uc8swDid you measure the version with standard or Beryllium tweeters? Cheers
@@DannyRichie-uc8sw hey Danny, I want to make sure that your info is being received correctly. From the vid photo and description of a soft dome tweeter, I'm pretty sure you have the Tekton Lore Reference, which is a mid size model in the Lore line up along with the full size and mini lore. Full size Lores are quite a bit bigger than the reference and have an Audax Gold Dome tweeter. I'm positive that a couple of commenters in here have the full size Lore and I'm confident that they would need a different solution after testing than the models you had. I'm just pointing this out in case people are ordering your upgrade for the wrong speaker. Great vid though.
Thanks a lot for that Danny, that explains a lot. From the SPL level I’m guessing his is all from the normal 1W at 1m sweeps. I’ve been measuring and upgrading 3 pairs of Linn Tukans as Atmos surrounds in my Home Theater, using REW / UMIK-1, and REW isn’t showing me anything like your CLIO traces with its waterfall plot. I’ve bought an EMM-6 Dayton mic and Mic amp to use with ARTA software to see if that works better, while keeping an eye open for a used CLIO POCKET. This is definitely another one to go back and watch again. Thanks for all you do for us
A pocket Clio is well worth it.
Always fascinating to see some of the behavior of these speakers and your measures to tame them where needed (to the degree they CAN be tamed in the first place, of course). Thanks for putting so much time into educating us!
FWIW, the Mark Audio wide band speakers were my interpretation of an S. Lindgren design called "Pensil". The cabinets were finished with two types of RTF (rigid thermofoil). As it turns out, the cabinets were nicer that the drivers. I gave the speakers to my sister who still uses them.
Great video, great explanation of those speaker measurements. Very educational.
P.s I really really enjoy your channel. U r the Man!
Amir will be salivating over all this content he can ride on someones coattails. Danny you're a wealth of knowledge. Thank you for sharing with us gear-heads.
The NS-5000 page on Yamaha's website addresses this problem in an interesting way.
Suggest it is time to completely ignore Amir. He recently hijacked a thread on Audiogon with dozens of posts. Per the usual formula, Amir knows all, others are ignorant.
@@jfritzy4358 No kidding. Amir actually reviewed the Parasound JC2 BP. One of the biggest, most jaw dropping moments I've ever experienced in HiFi as a subpar piece of equipment :) Of course he never listened to it I'm sure. He appeals to the pitchfork and torch club that has 0 experience in audio. Danny is really a gem in the industry and is trying to help us make good purchasing decisions, or helping us make the most of the money we've already spent. Spending less in the hobby is what we all should be enbracing.
I have Mark Audio Alpair 11ms drivers installed in Frugal-horn XL cabs. They are directly driven and I have to say they can be a little fatiguing to listen to on occasions, especially when using Class D amplification. I also own a low power el34 tube amp which does calm things down somewhat. I'd like to modify these speakers but I wouldn't know where to begin... lol
You can send one in and have it measured and tested for free.
Fantastic video Danny … just fantastic.
Add this one to your top 10 list. Thanks Danny!! Great video...
I like dealing with folks that say do you like your speaker's sound. Heck yes! They are better than most systems I have heard. When people come over and hear them, they are impressed. Could much better and expensive speakers sound better? Sure, but to common folks who do not audiophile issues, the sound improvement may not be worth the cost!
Hey Danny, I was recently in a semi sealed demo room and really enjoyed the pressurization the room offered. Would giant foam cutouts for my open archways to my listening room help me mimic that speaker demo room?
I'd need to know a lot more about you room and what your current in room response looks like.
Learned so much thanks for taking the time to do it properly ❤❤
great review on the data and graphical plots on some of the speakers you have had come through. A bit of a rhetorical question but it would sure be interesting to see how many of these speakers had xovers designed with PC software based on the driver parameters and how many were done using physical measurements? A second rhetorical question would be how many of the original designers saw the drivers ringing in their plots but either A. said to heck with it "we'll use them anyway", or B. how many at the concept stage went back and talked to the driver manufacturer and said can you get some of that ringing out, at the same cost or will the driver cost go up? I know these guys that design at the lower price points are under huge pricing pressure. May not be quite the case when you get north of 4k for a pair of bookshelfs, or 6k for a full range floor stander.
Good questions. Forward this over to some of them and let's see how they respond.
How about some charts and data regarding NoRez? Before and after…
I will need to get an accellerometer for that.
That was extremely informative video that teaches me a lot thank you
Thanks, I learn a few tricks/techniques here.
Good video, we also need to address the 8 inside-corner reflectors in a any rectangular room. Did you test them in an anechoic environment?
Yes! I watched it to the end! I hate to admit it, but one thing I have learned from your videos is that I know squat and diddly about speaker design. So much for me thinking “this is easy. I can do that”. Not! So glad I took on building a number of your kits. Thanks for posting; I love learning new things.
Lastly - Danny - you mention several times about internal reflections causing issues with spectral decay. Are these controlled by your No-Rez?
The thing about "step-loss" of full range drivers is, that from your argumentation all speaker drivers will face that problem. I'd argue that a small full range driver mostly just got a high fs and quite a limited x-max. They're just not made to produce strong bass.
Really interesting to learn about the decay and your tratments.
Would like to know how you setup the measurement. Especially where you placed the microphone.
I use an industry standard 1 watt/1 meter.
Thank you - very informative. How are the measurements done? 1 meter distance? Mic height between mids and highs?
Thank you! I did learn a lot!
Love to hear the same music track, played before and after treatment
Hi ! thank you very much for this extremely valuable video lecture
the first driver was invented in 1861 i read in the web
what baffles me is how after about 163 years you can still find speakers that have extremely tacky defects
And they are not made by bakers but by specialized companies
Sometimes I wonder what kind of checks they do on the products that leave their plants
Maybe they do it on purpose to push towards the more expensive products?
kind regards gino
WOW! Totally brilliant video. I now fully understand what is happening when looking at the graphs. I never suspected or understood what the front lines of the graph were for, now I know it's a timeline. I should have paid more attention to that... Also some very useful information on " toe-out ". Who would have thought that just a few degrees could make a difference. You sir are a super intelligent human being. So from across the pond here in the UK I Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thanks for the lecture😊
Norman (Audiocrafters Guild) is a stand up guy.. I’m glad you worked with him on a project..
Woo! Video release day! 👏🏼🙌🏼
Thank you! Great video. Very educational, i learned alot.
What are the 5 best candidates to get the most bang for the buck from one of your upgrades?
DANNY......DROPPING THE KNOWLEDGE! YEAH!!.
awsome!!! need to do more of these tutorials.
ben burkett
The solutions that come from your Research make me continue to hope that there will be a day when GR Research will be able to supply Audio Lovers with a Kit that answers the question.... What more do you need?
Great video watching from canada
I'm totally new to this but I'm intrigued to understand your videos. What would help is if you can do some sort of pointer to the graphs as you are explaining. The graphs aren't very legible, imo. Perhaps others would love it too or maybe they are way advanced and understand your explanation, which is very articulate. Thank you. I'm going to be ordering an upgrade to my .7's and LRS +. Very cool stuff!
For a 1.5 way (woofer section), should the drivers be in separate enclosures?
In that case, they can share the same air space.
Thank you for your tutelage, sensei!
Who would have thought that some foam in a port or towing speakers out 8 degrees could make That big a difference in the sound? The graphs you are showing actually helps us understand how you solve Many speaker issues. The 20 kilo hertz, ringing was very interesting. That Zoo speaker was a disgrace. When you Repeat what you are saying regarding ringing/ or not makes you more than a You Tube presenter. It makes you an Educator.
Add on in room measurements and interpretation please 😊
Why would you want in room measurements?
@@Gilligansrevenge because it's helpful knowing good in room and when you need more treatment ect based on speaker to room measurements
@@ClassifiedBriefWhat room? Literally millions of options to choose from. Danny’s in room will look nothing like, and way better, than most because it’s treated to be a listening room.
The garbage "secondary ringing" on the Behringer 2031p you saw at around 1khz corresponds to an internal reflection of the woofer's backwave back through the front ports. It has nothing to do with edge diffraction around the woofer's inner mounting surface and everything to do with the 10 inch cabinet depth, 10 inch cabinet width and 1khz back wave that is reflecting nicely off the back wall of the speaker's enclosure and forward through the ports with little or no insulation damping. Essentially there are three significant errors in design: insufficient insulation damping in the box, front loaded port slots that are almost 1/2 wavelength @1khz in height, and an acoustic path length from the back of the driver to the rear wall and back to the port opening that is approximately 1 and 1/4 of a wavelength at 1khz. Not sure what your background is in engineering acoustics, but this one is pretty obvious just from looking at the dimensions of the box. Overall, your videos are excellent though as they focus on aspects of design that truly matter - spectral decay plots, inter-driver phase integration, etc...
Great stuff! Few get anywhere near discussing such detailed design concepts and results. Being able to see the measured results from the hardware designs.
I know it was covered some before in perhaps a more confrontational time... but I was hoping to learn more about why you choose the parameters you do? Why cut off ay 200hz? Why only 25db of decay? Obviously lower frequencies require removing room interactions more. As I would guess lower level room reflections.
That sounds like a topic for a new video.
Measuring lower requires being further away with the mic, but getting far enough away to start accurately measuring down low is hard to do. I can't gate out the room reflections if I get too far away.
I really like this video Danny. Thanks for the instruction. I wish all your videos were this long (selfish, I know). How did you make out at the Penn Relays here in Philly back in April?
Thanks. I tore a hamstring just before the Penn relays and could not go.
@@DannyRichie-uc8sw Sorry to hear it.
OK! We have added spectral decay to the act. The three audible characteristics of sound fields are the spatial, spectral, and temporal. Virtually every one of these commenters have no awareness of the spatial. This means the pattern of direct and reflected sounds in the room that combine to form the imaging. The spatial cannot be measured, only heard, so they have no way of illustrating the sound in a graph or a drawing, so they just say nothing about it - if they are even aware of it.
But they CAN make a drawing of it. It is called the image model of the sound in the room. You just draw a picture of the speakers and their first reflections from the walls nearby as additional virtual speakers on the other side of the walls, like mirror images in light. You can then easily see the pattern of sources in the room and how the reflected sound helps form the "Big Picture" of the imaging.
Danny, Great Video. Very informative. Have you ever tested a Magnapan Speaker in this fashion???? Thanks, Joe Wlodynski
Yes.
Would the Spectral Decay plots show if a stamped steel basket midwoofer had internal reflections issues of the backwave reflecting off the frame and back through the cone?
A little.
I would love to see your analysis of the high end 8” full range drivers from Lowther, Supravox, and Cube Audio (in particular the Fc8). I want to build a pair of Voigt tubes, and I’m wondering if they compare to the Tang Band drivers. BTW, I’m subscribed, but I don’t see how I can send you a Buy-Me-Coffee.
I would LOVE to see an advanced video on crossover design from you.
Although, I suppose your audience would need to know the basics of electrical components first.
Good idea.
@@DannyRichie-uc8sw I second that, I'm into DIY and would love to learn a new trick or two.
Please, any link how to do spectral decay measurements? A tutorial, maybe?
You need a measuring system like Clio.
Can you teach us how to use the measurement device you use?
Clip comes with a really good manual. You have to purchase it to get it though.
@@DannyRichie-uc8sw Sounds good.
Great video Danny! Ashamed to say that I just bought a pair of those Mark audio drivers for a full range experiment. You provided some useful and potentially alarming insight. Can more damping potentially help to prevent excess ringing?
You can add notch filters to attenuate some of the ringing, but you can't get rid of it. You should have just gone with one of our LGK kits. They are less money and sound a LOT better.
@@dannyrichie9743 I will definitely try your speaker kits one day! I’m based in EU so shipping and customs is a bit of a barrier. Mark audio has a very good reputation on some diy forums so just wanted to see what the fuss was about. It will be interesting for comparison if nothing else. Funny how people have different ideas of what good sound is…
What model are those speakers from Mark Audio? I also plan to try pair of 6,5' drivers.
@@adrianenache6794 I don't recall. I was not all all impressed with them. They are a long way from the performance of our LGK models.
Dang it, I have Polk LSi 9 speakers and just spent 2 days rearranging my room and $400 on acoustic panels (i'm not kidding!). Now I find out the speakers are crap. Please recommend a $1,000 - $1,500 per pair alternative that looks decent (has grills and wood veneer.)
elacs used
Having owned the Lsi9 also for several years, they are NOT a crap speaker at all. In fact they sound QUITE good, despite the measurements. I compared them to about 5 other speakers years ago, and they acquit themselves quite well. Here is another case of listening trumping measurements. NOT a perfect speaker for sure, but not bad AT ALL!
The previous LSiM703, or current Reserve R200, Legend L200 are a start!
Great stuff, Thanks !
Okay, you can tell David Dicks from Audio Nirvana that his large FR drivers were hard to listen too. I had a tech put some AN Super 10" Fr in a regular Monitor size cabinets, and no crossover in a ported cabinet. Sounds good to me... I would love to have them in a TL cabinets. they would have to be 4' x 1' x 1-1/2' towers...
He is the one that sent them to me. I also shared the measurements with him.
Good stuff good stuff!
Cheers 🍻
We sound professionals have trained our minds to dislike the ringing which actually seems to be a preference among consumers. Our ears are alert for this phenomenon even in a fairly narrow band, the sort of thing a musician would immediately pick out listening to their own instrument.
JBL makes some of the very best damped speaker systems with almost bizarrely lacking ring. No one wants them in their living room but I can use them all day without fatigue and use their info to mix music in whatever way I might imagine.
Great channel! Why does your measurement start at 200Hz and not lower?
I think it is the size of his chamber- too small for lower frequencies.
Hi Danny, would you please tell me what kind of Loudspeaker measurement system you use and where I can buy it. thank you.
www.audiomatica.com/wp/?page_id=2829
Spectrum decay will also have to do with room size. If you ever ran sound for a live band you would know this. People have a tendency thinking bigger is better. Acoustics of a room is everything.
In this case we are looking at the spectral decay of the speaker only (no room reflections).
Thank you for this interesting video. Do spectral decays show enclosure resonances?
No they don't. To measure cabinet wall resonances requires an accelerometer that can be mounted to the side of the cabinet.
thank you
What is the impedance response?
What about the Sibelius from Pearl Acoustics? What did you think of the Von Schweikert VR-4 second generation?
Agree. Measurements of the Sibelius from Pearl Acoustics would be very interesting.
Send one in and I'll take a look at it.
@@dannyrichie9743 Hi Danny, may I ask what particular model of the Markaudio drivers did you measure in this video? Based on your video, it seems one the lower tier models of Markaudio.
It would also be interesting to measure the Pearl Acoustics Sibelius, as its driver is also based on a modified Markaudio driver (but the higher end series).
@@King-pv1du I think that one was one of their top models at the time. I don't recall the model number.
@@dannyrichie9743 Having looked further at this video, (based on the shape of the dustcap), I suspect it is one of the entry level models.
I'm mentioning this because Pearl Acoustics Sibelius uses a modified driver (by the manufacturer) of the Alpair 10M model (their higher end tier series), which I believe has a lot smoother response than the driver you measured (yeah I think your measurements are accurate on that entry level driver).
Furthermore, I personally have the MAOP (magnetic arc oxidisation process) version of the Alpair 10M driver, which is sort of a ceramic bathed/coated version, which in my opinion removes a lot of that resonance issues of those metal cones, which you also might be interested in measuring if ever you get to have the opportunity in getting one.
Cheers to you and your team, I've been a fan ever since.
I wonder how Magnepan LRS+ measure
We have some measurements of that model on our site.
I noticed you didn't mention the crossover filters. While these are commercial products, that doesn't mean that the filters would not have too much 'Q' which could also cause ringing. So, did you check the L, C and Z to see that it had a 'Q' of 1 for a L-R filter?
Crossover parts are not responsible for the ringing seen in a spectral decay.
Děkuji. Hodně si mi pomohl.
Jednu otázku a prosbu bych měl.
Na trhu se objevily Avangard Acoustic colibri. Co na ně říkáš.
Mám rád hornové konstrukce. Ten charakter zvuku mi vyhovuje. Jenom nevím, nemám kde poslechnout, jestli to jsou pravověrné Avangard Acoustic které bych zvládl zaplatit a nebo jestli to nejsou jen nějaké
life style Bluetooth ,,hračky,,
Dík za případný názor. ❤
Good videos Danny , hey have you ever worked on any Fluance speakers as in the Signature Series towers ? If so how did they measure?
I have not worked on those.
@dannyrichie9743 I appreciate the response. I've had the Signature Series Home Theater set for about 2 years now , I'm using a Outlaw 5000x Amp 5 channels driven @ 120watts per channel though a Denon X2700H AVR and drive them them pretty hard because to me good music is supposed to be played loud. I've been seeing reviews on the Signature Series and people reviewing pretty hard pretty much saying they're trash . That's why I reached out to you , thought you might have some insight on them . At 66 years of age I still love my music . You do great work Danny , Thank you.
@@burliesanford1863 Just keep in mind that to offer those at $799 they had less than $200 to work with in building them out complete and that typically includes boxing and packaging material. So don't expect too much.
yes, do have a question: what is phase? I hear you say in/out of phase and degrees out of phase.
Time arrival.
@@dannyrichie9743 ok, how is it measured? How to take account of it in crossover design?
@@chrisjacques5580 The time arrival can be seen in the impulse response. You can also see it in how the two drivers sum or not sum. Changing the vertical off axis can let you see it over a wider range and see what direction it is going.
@@dannyrichie9743 thanks Danny, love the channel by the way
I'm 60 now but I would love to be a speaker engineer. Oh well maybe in my next life?
would be nice to put Time Stamps in a video like this
Danny, a suggestion. Once you start recording your video, wait 1 second before you say, "Hey everybody!" Those 2 words lets viewers know they are viewing none other than Danny Richie!
The Polk LSI series speakers are some of the best sounding speakers I've ever heard. All this measurement stuff doesn't make much sense to me if those speakers measure badly.
We just measured a Polk LSiM703, and it measured really well. The parts quality was fairly poor, but it did measure well. I will do a video on it shortly.
@Danny, This not only saved me lots of $$$ - But, the time to make a DYI speaker using most of these supposedly full-range drivers just to hear the song "Ring My Bell" - Seems foolish now. Thanks
Danny, have you ever tested any headphones in this fashion? I am waiting upon the arrival on Tuesday of my Verum 1's from the Ukrane. I recently saw your review on You Tube of the 1's. Thanks again Joe Wlodynski
Just having a think here:
The brakes on your car stop you by converting rotational energy into heat by means of friction. As the rotors and pads heat up, braking efficiency is lost, referred to as brake fade. I'm wondering if there's some of that same element in speakers when talking about stopping the driver using the suspension components. If so, is the spectral decay different if the suspension components are already warm? If so, is it by a meaningful amount?
Any thoughts are welcome, especially from our wonderful Danny, here.
I can measure slightly different parameters on a driver when the voice coil is warmed up, but the suspension doesn't heat up enough to matter much at all.
@@dannyrichie9743 Oh, that makes sense. I doubted the suspension would really heat up that much, but it was neat to think about.
Do you know why it changes when the coil heats up? Maybe something to do with a change in inductance? (Way out of my depth, guessing blind) Anyway, thanks so much for replying! Super cool.
@@njc9911 The heat changes the electrical compliance.
@@dannyrichie9743 I suppose I'll have to look that up. Thanks Danny.