General Speaker Advice and Recommendations

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by shotgunshane, Mar 7, 2017.

  1. Ziva

    Ziva Friend

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    Incredibly helpful. Thanks so much.

    I’ve never really taken measurements before, but it seems like it would be relatively easy to measure with something like a Umik-1 or Omnimic (not sure if those are wand mics?). If that makes sense, I’ll start there.

    I think I should be able to to measure the resistance too, based on a quick google (my wife works with electron microscopes and finds my ratio of audio gear:technical know-how hilarious).

    If that fails, I found a place within driving distance who said they could take a look. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t barking up the wrong tree first, given the lack of information out there (I have trouble looking at specs and knowing how something sounds).

    This may take a little while, but these speakers look awesome, and I’d love to hear what they can do. Will let folks know how it turns out.
     
  2. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Aaargh! Both abbreviations (or initialisms, if you prefer), not acronyms. and...

    Granite.
     
  3. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Anyone tried a miniDSP SHD Studio as a digital preamp? Thinking of the following setup: SHD Studio>Yggdrasil>Speakers Studio>random dac>subwoofers. I would remove the Freya-S from the chain and thus have the Studio for preamp, digital crossover and Dirac duties. Also the integrated streamer is nice to have.
     
  4. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    That sounds like a good usecase for the SHD Studio. I only have experience with the 2x4HD and their portable headphone AiO. The UX isn't stellar, but once it works, it works fine.
     
  5. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    All i need to overcome is a bit of nervosa about bit crunching with digital volume control haha...
     
  6. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Generally bit loss sounds like an elevated noise floor, as you'd be getting quantization errors. If you can't hear it, then you should be okay.
     
  7. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Seems i'm going to have to weigh my options, it's not in stock for the next 2-4 weeks. I have a Sonarworks mic i might give the trial a go, Dirac doesn't have a windows version available looks like. Just a frontend for their hardware.
     
  8. Don Quichotte

    Don Quichotte New

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    Please post impressions if you do get it. I'm interested in the SHD Studio but there's little user feedback about it available on the net.
     
  9. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    I used to have a original mini dsp a few years back. that version wasnt transparent enough imo. I dont know about the newer versions though like SHD. my 2 cents.
    personally, unless you want to use the mini dsp as highpass for your main, and low pass for your subs, id pass. especially if you only want to use a minidsp for dirac: better speaker placement, LP and treatment is what works on the long run, not room correction
     
  10. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    You can't really do much meaningfully in terms of absorption/diffusion for anything with wavelength over 2m (f=170Hz). Placement can help, but you're shifting room modes, not eliminating them. Imo placement should eliminate wide nulls, but the rest can be effortlessly doctored by surgical EQ.
     
  11. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

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    Will do!
    Well i have gone as far as i can with placement and room treatment, i spent quite a long while optimizing everything. The dsp is more like the finishing touch. The crossover, streamer and dirac are all desirable to me. I plan on having dirac just for the room modes while leaving the rest as is. And this is the studio version which is fully digital so i can still use good dacs and having them straight up to the speakers should add some transparency as well.
    Yep and sorting out phase/ impulse response between subs and mains is something i'm after as well.
     
  12. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    says who? every acoustician will clearly explain all the shortcoming of room eq. will not repeat it here


    careful perfect speaker placement, listening position placement and room treatment is how you make a good room

    measurements of bass traps about 10 inch thick measurably helps down to 80hz.
     
  13. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Coating the room with a 10" rockwool slabs you're eating up around 3.4dB at 80Hz. With just a corner trap you're getting less. Over 3kHz it will eat up everything and get you a dead room.

    I'm okay with killing nulls and RT30 with treatments, but everything else can be attenuated by a knob on your screen.
     
  14. JayC

    JayC Resident Crash Test Dummy

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    I agree that you cant treat all frequencies and be practical about it, but you do what you can and correct for the rest. Just depends how much space and money youve got

    I wouldn't put 10inch traps in my little apartment, much rather deal with the lows using correction but that's just me
     
  15. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    stop with your nonsense. well treated room specifically means not too dead

    coating the room? who does that?

    treating the early reflections points leaves plenty of walls uncovered basically 80% of the wall without treatment

    3.4db. how can you come up with such random number? this is nonsensical. room treatmemt is about reducing room resonance (decay). nothing to do with db unless your talking about bass peaks. it depends on the density of the foam, how many corners are treated, ect.

    for reducing peaks, ime this is much
    more related to speaker placement and listening positionplacement. room treatment treats decay exceedingly well. something room eq is extremely limited if you want a large "sweet spot" simply
    put

    every acoustician will clearly explain to you why room eq is far from being the ideal solution. simplest, sure.

    werent you working for a company specialised in selling room eq? sure sounds like it
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2019
  16. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Yeah, but reflective surfaces make sense when you're over the Schroeder frequency which is usually over 1kHz for most domestic rooms. There are no such thing as an early reflection at 80Hz because it's a omnidirectionally radiated 14.12' long wave. Also - every acoustician will tell you that early reflections under 20ms will alter the tonal perception of the signal and thus fall under frequency response. Therefore the effect is easy to correct with attenuation or boosting, unless you somehow get a true null.

    I got -3.4dB attenuation by calculating the absorbtion factor of a 10" slab of rockwool (which is used in thick broadband absorbers, not foam) at 80Hz. The same slab will fully absorb everything over 1kHz, turning the room into an anechoic chamber and also a very efficient sauna.

    Under Schroeder frequency you're merely shifting around the room modes by changing the positioning, over this frequency you enter the realm of absorption and diffusion and you generally shoot for symmetrical placement to get good imaging. The frequency response will be dictated by direct sound and early reflections.

    There is no ideal solution. Want to treat for sub-bass? How about using a floor that's floated on rubber? If room EQ is so simple, then tell me what room effects can be equalized away and which are better left alone?

    I'm no longer with Sonarworks, so there's no monetary gain for me here. However during my time there we were able to help more than 40 000 people get their monitoring in order. A good bunch were in studios designed by acousticians.
     
  17. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    while you can attenuate the boosting effect of a bass resonance, room eq by design cannot attack the decay issue a untreated room inherently have at all frequencies...

    I feel like we have a separate line of conversion. for bass, since they are omnidirectional and bass resonance builds up in corners seriously messing up the decay of bass frequencies, eq will only be used to tame the bass peaks but leave the decay problem runs free. the goal of a great room is to have even decay at every frequencies. if one have a10db peak at 100hz, using room eq to tame that 100 hz peak might help, but it wont help to tame the decay issues that a untreated room have at all frequencies from 20hz up to 500hz. Room eq for a untreated room may help, but its far from being ideal.

    you mention 3-4 db of attenuation. not sure why tbh unless you only talk about bass peaks and nulls. early reflections from about 600hz and up will not create important peaks and nulls in most cases, yet will for sure mess up the decay for those. the goal iirc is -20db within 20ms at the listening position for every frequencies.

    most acoustician actually stress that ETC response tells you more about your room then FR. Room eq can target some FR irregularities in the bass, but seriously useless when it comes to the midrange and higher frequencies since you cannot tame the decay (ETC) problem in the mid and treble with room eq.

    for sub bass, I think the only solution is pressure based bass traps.

    bass traps dont turn a room into a anechoic chamber, everyone who sues big bass traps cover them with a reflective material (kraft paper) to make that bass traps reflective at higher frequencies and only absorb bass Frequencies

    I have talked to enough studio guys and the consensus is that room eq is the cherry on top of a good well treated room. if your room is untreated, room eq in a untreated room is like putting a cherry on top of a turd. might make it more appealing but its still a turd
     
  18. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    Well, but is the decay really longer for mode frequencies when compensating for the level difference? I mean the easy solution is to look at the spectrogram compensated for the level and there you can still see the resonances, but when EQing the response with a regular old MP EQ the CSDs won't really show a room mode.
    Obviously it's not practical since you're just linearizing the response at one room position, but you can definitely fight these resonances in the digital domain. Below Schroeder I think minimum phase filters should work just fine. Here's an example I generated in REW with just 4 MP EQ filters by hand. This is a very strong 19 dB or so room mode.
    I don't think it makes a difference for the resulting response at that exact point in space whether you're fighting the room mode with absorbers, helmholtz resonator, EQ, etc.

    example 2.jpg

    example 2 EQ.jpg
    To get better decay at lower frequencies we'd need more LF extension, which I didn't try to EQ in. Also attached another example, but that one is less severe.

    This is not to say that I like to use EQ to fix room modes, but in theory it works just fine. But again, you're not really fighting the problem at the source, so averaged throughout the room it'll just make the response less linear to use such insane filters like I just showed.
     

    Attached Files:

  19. fraggler

    fraggler A Happy & Busy Life

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    In general, what is the smallest woofer that might give me more "thwack?" I am generally happy with the balanced, laid-back sound I get from my Energy RC-10s plus Rythmik L12, but sometimes feel like I want a little more impact in the midbass(?). For instance, when listening to jazzish music, I don't get enough energy coming off of the upright bass. Plenty of boom and rumble when necessary in the low bass, but not much impact where lower playing acoustic instruments are. I guess there isn't much energy between where the bookshelf speakers roll off and the sub comes into its own? Or maybe that is just the nature of my speakers and amp (Denon X3400H). I am still extremely limited in my space, but have thought about building something with 7" woofers to see if I can get better energy in that range. Any guidance?
     
  20. LetMeBeFrank

    LetMeBeFrank Won't tell anyone my name is actually Francis

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    I've had 12's, 10's and 8's and I've found 8's to be the sweet spot for really great mid-range punch. Since you're so space limited, the diy 7's might be a good place to start.
     

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