Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

haralanov wrote:

Yes, you are right. Power – you have almost unlimited power. Dynamics – you have as much dynamics as you want. But there are a lot of associated problems with that kind of dynamics. The following illustration is taken by Wolfgang Klippel’s technical paper "Loudspeaker Nonlinearities – Causes, Parameters, Symptoms":

I am not sure that I agree with Wolfgang Klippel. Yes, I heard that at high amplitude sound theoretically propagates faster, so at different temperature, pressure and horn geometry. However, how much practical significant it has I do not know. In the Wolfgang Klippel illustration the waves that are coming from compression driver are some kind of perfect waves that then get deform into changing geometry of the horn. I am sorry but it is ridicules. The deformation of the waves in a compression driver and in the phase plug is order of magnitude higher than anything that might take place in the horn. Also, the change of sound speed at high amplitude happens only at the highest amplitude. Perhaps this is why the high compression driver are not sound good. If a driver has 100% efficiency then 1W of electrical power is converted to 111dB of acoustic power. Yes, because of that or because other reasons (I believe into other reasons) the compression driver that do 111dB sensitively sound very bad. The drivers with moderate compression and with moderate acoustic pressure are way more “human” in my estimation. JBL/Altec/Vitavox and many other drivers do max 108-110db loaded and from there you need to take 6-8dB of horn gain. So, the moderate compression drivers are not at the max compression and max amplitude. There are inhalations that are made to archive 130db-150dB and in there the problem with high amplitude might take place but no one think to pay attention to sound at those systems. So, I do not feel that at moderate pressure that we use in home system the effects that Wolfgang Klippel describes is so significant or even meaningful.

haralanov wrote:

As Paul perfectly put it in words – “trombone dynamics”! So that inherent steepening of the reproduced signal makes your brain to believe the sound is very dynamic. And it really happens! BUT – you have that kind of very dynamic behavior even when you play music where that dynamics are originally not there (!!)

I disagree with Paul definition of “trombone dynamics” and I disagree with idea of contrived dynamics. Even the most dynamic playback the one can imagine no where even close to the dynamics that need to be accomplished.  Even with the best compression drivers we are nowhere near the dynamics of live sound.

haralanov wrote:

So how could this topology pass the musical messages in completely transparent way without affecting their original meaning? Yes, you already guessed – it cannot. You can also read Kondo’s observations on the subject:  Hiroyasi Kondo wrote: Cone speakers have sometimes been characterised as "boneless sounding", but such disadvantaes were elliminated by these improvemnts, and more over, this cone type achieves an obedient sound that cannot be gained from horn type units.

I do not know what kind improvements Hiroyasi Kondo implies. Worn you that he was in the business of selling audio and he made all possible claim that not necessary had factual value. I do not recognize this argument as some kind of war between direct radiators and horns. I have seen the properly made direct radiators that had dynamics greater then horns and I have seen horns that were absolutely dead. If I use horns it does not mean that I advocate horns but since I know horn I would defend horns from the criticism that I feel is unreasonable.  I think the Haralanov/ Kondo attempts to find a justification of alternation of musical messages and the affect to original meaning of the musical messages coming from loudspeaker topology is a bit too marketing-like. I think it is not topology that deforms musical messages but an implementation of a given topology. I am sure that would it be horns, direct radiator, electrostats or anything ease – if they done sensibly the they would do the identical “deformation of musical messages”. The musical messages are being corrupted not by loudspeakers but by the people who makes loudspeakers and teacher loudspeakers to sound.
 

haralanov wrote:

Tone? Where is the tone of the compression drivers/ horn combos? If there is no tone deficiency, then why one needs injection channels?

Good question. I would like to have compression drivers/ horn combo with predictable tonal characteristics but do not forget that in the world of comprehension drivers we deal with EXISTING drivers. It is much easier to deal with direct radiator as it is easy to make your own driver. Suspend any material with VC between magnets and you have a driver. To make compression drives is much more complex  and much less predictable and therefore practically no one experiment with them

haralanov wrote:

Of course (!!) it is managed mainly by the upperbass and lower midrange, but it is deformed (the “space” is deformed, not the geometrical properties of the audio window; audio window is just responsible for the feeling of space to happen in the listener’s mind) by the tweeter (not by the HFs, but by the tweeter as a separate sound source). That’s the only reason why I put an accent on the tweeters and their integration. It is so important!

I do not share or do not understand your statement that “space is deformed”. Theoretically with horns you shall have more uniformed “space” as horns do less “beaming” then largest single cone direct radiators drivers. The radiation surface from horn is also much larger and horns produce more “clouds” of sound then the “source of sound”. Again, you are talking about “deformation of space” and Ima not sure that I understand it or at least talk about the same things.

haralanov wrote:

The musical message is also affected, because its authentic value and magnitude of it expressiveness is also a function of the audio message. If it is not audio related, then all of the existing systems would be musical to the same amplitude as if the listener is listening live music, but unfortunately it is not the case...

And why do you feel that the affecting of the musical message is the subject of ONLY topology of acoustic system. When you change topology of acoustic system you along with it change many other characteristics of your playback to accommodate the new topology. So, it might not be ONLY the direct radiator vs. horns deliberation. I juts would like you to understand it.

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site