Dynamic vs Estat Round 15

It would be interesting to make a graph/chart of impulse and decay characteristics of various drivers types. Undershoot vs overshoot in a certain sense, but not the FR dictated measured sense, but rather in a perceived driver texture sense. Even bright phones with treble ringing can still sound too soft in the inital attack (and the rendering of every sound) (looks in direction of City Chicken Special Senior) and warm phones can have a texture of overshoot.
Sort of the difference between stats, soft dome tweeters, diamond tweeters, ceramic tweeters, focal beryllium tweeters, B&W wanna be diamond tweeters, T+A estat tweeter of WTFness (which manages to be on both ends of the spectrum at the same time - no, not good at all), etc. ...

 

So much easier to just listen XDDD

 

Hey Bill,

I think I’ve got a simple explanation to your frustrations regarding “grain”… I believe a more appropriate term would be “noise”, related to the magnetic system of the driver (not to be confused with THD). The various cone materials are usually less impactful on the sound than the magnetic system of the driver and the audio chain as a whole. In general, neodymium and treble are oxymorons. Talking from many years of speakers experience here, ferrite motors are better and cobalt ones are superior to both ferrite and neodymium. Also, some magnetic system designs are better designed than others. In the headphone world there are 0 headphones with cobalt magnets. Even in the speakers world, the only marvellous drivers are manufactured by a handful of small ateliers that are pretty much totally unknown to the wide-world.

I went through AKG Q701 (oh, the horror), HD800, LCD-2F, LCD-3F, LCD-X, and loads of other similar crap. I built a number of amps (transistors and tubes) and used all other equipment from my main stereo system. None of these headphones translated the what you guys refer to as “plankton”, nor carried the smoothness my speaker system does. The only 2 headphones that remain with me now are HD650 and Focal Spirit Classic. Eventually, I purchased a compact DAC/Amp combo from a local atelier for 700 euros and called it a day. Sadly, the top tier headphones are yet only a far cry from the best speaker systems. I’m not referring only to the overall sound impact of speakers, but to headphones inability to translate the signal into acoustic pressure with sufficient accuracy. However, none of that seem to matter. The vast majority of consumers are unable to recognise what I’d refer to as faithful reproduction of the recording. On top of that the manufacturers seem to behave in a reactive manner to the market, so I doubt any time soon we’ll see absolutely top notch headphones.

 

What, in your opinion, makes Cobalt magnets superior to Neodymium in terms of technical aspects? What do you think is the cause for your impressions? I really don't see the advantages for other magnet types compared to the high field strength of Neodymium.

 

As far as I know, the hysteresis properties of the magnet. A driver designer can elaborate better than me. I'm making my statement based on personal experience. I've owned or tested over a hundred pairs of full range and limited bandwidth drivers. The neodymium "noise" is omnipresent across all transducers driven by such motors.

 

I have read what Besnia says about magnets before on speaker builder's blogs.
Might be additionally related to magnetic field symmetry.

 

Not true. The original Fostex T50 from 70's used cobalt magnets. Don't think that alone made it a world beater though.

 

Well, that's true too. i've heard some crappy cobalt drivers too. There are different cobalt grades and types. Different magnetic system designs. Cobalt magnet alone doesn't guarantee top performance, but all top performers do have cobalt magnets.

I've heard a Soviet made planar phones with cobalt magnets. Not great either

 

Replying to Marv's earlier post:

If you like old school, then check out the Dukane plasma horn tweeter from 1958.
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/dukanecorp_ionovac_plasma_tweeter_14a435a.html

Never heard one, but did by chance hear a Plasmatronics speaker system with ionic tweeters back in the 1990s. Everything else since pales in comparison (by a wide margin) to the HF reproduction heard then (the woofers were too slow to keep up). They were not plagued with ozone production, as the plasma arc was bathed in a supplied helium injection. One had to swap to full helium bottles every so often.

There are also DIY sites to build "singing flames" but those are pretty inefficient without horn loading. Also requires high voltage and produce poisonous amounts of ozone. But hey, all in the pursuit of Highest Fidelity.
http://www.plasmatweeter.de/eng_plasma.htm

 

You found the ionic tweeter that great? I was never super fond of it. Even if it sounds super fast, I always thought it lacked clarity (sounded distorted). That is coming off the Acapella and (more noticeably) Lansche implementations.

 

That's the only logical progression. Let's all spend 50k on magical Feastrex drivers handcrafted by japanese monks.

 

Im actually looking for a stupidly good and expensive single driver speakers now. Its just better. Full stop.

 

Not to keep derailing this thread with speaker talk, but has anyone heard the Lamhorn 1.8 with AER MK1 drivers? I wanna compare them to Omega Alnicos.

 

Never heard those implementations. The Plasmatronics I did hear were to die for.

 

Interesting to note...Lowther DX3 uses foam surrounds, paper cone, and hi-ferric(?) magnetic system. I can safely say that these are HIGHLY resolving, totally uncompressed and plankton monsters. I also find them to have a certain treble grain imparted to the sound that exists separate of the above qualities. It might simply be related to FR anomalies in the treble, although I have ostensibly corrected that with surgical EQ. Food for thought. I have yet to experience a diversity of driver magnet types.

Yes, the ones we heard (don't remember which) last show had a certain grit to the sound. Just not clean and transparent as traditional stuff.

Link?

While I'm willing to take you at your word, what measurable aspects could this be seen as? Would you have to look directly at some magnetic field strength/uniformity? The way I'm reading your statement I'm guessing that this "noise" does not correspond to any noise output of driver, but might nonetheless correlate to the perceived "grain" that we often talk about.

 

Good speakers are actually cheaper than good headphones too. LSR 305s are pretty much better than all but Sennheisers and the OSMT? Yeah they're better than any headphone especially in the treble. I think the HD 598/600/650 have their place (late night critical listening) but Fostex can't get their act together, Beyer sucks and AKGs sound like a shittier NS10 or some shitty warmfag audiophool speakers with an awful crossover null. $1000+ planars and electrostats are retarded.

What I don't get is how these dealer distributed manufacturers of receivers/DACs/boxes of digital shit are still in business. Most of their stuff actually sounds much worse than the direct sale brands like Schiit, Emotiva, Grace, and even Meier are putting out, not just more expensive.

 

Psalmanazar, your post is spot on. The thing is small companies like Schiit and Emotive are in the niche audiophile(ish) market, the shitboxes companies are in the mainstream. The vast majority of consumers care more about features, rather than the supposed core product - the sound.

 

Still waiting for @noaudiophile 's post on "the folly of ear speakers" or whatever.