Classical or better i say Orchestral music remains one of the last hopes of recorded music with high dynamic range……when combined together the right speaker, amp and room?……even if you hate the genre, you can’t hate the sonic experience.
You’re faced with some challenges that will be driven by your room which sadly, you didn’t mention in the beginning and no one thought to ask……for a high dynamic DIY 3 way effort system?…….
Your listening distance is going to create its own acoustic filter based on frequency and power response and the boundary gains and losses of the room. If I read you right, this is a pretty large space……8 meters deep and 4 meters across?
So the quiet parts and low level details will be at the bottom of the dynamic scale…..let’s say the full 12db from the dynamic peaks shall we? And would it be safe to say your average listening distance in such a large space and speakers near the wall is around 3 meters? The by far greatest challenge you face is the low end here……in such a dynamic room combined with dynamic content….this is foundation and no magical midrange or exotic tweeter will matter much. Remember your previous DIY efforts and where you are today…..the countless graphs of in room response you’ve looked at and always the same…..the largest peaks and nulls always in the 150hz on down range….where the room imparts its opinion….or justice….however you wanna see it. Combine 6-8db non smoothed peaks and nulls in this range with 12db of encoded dynamic range and add in as much as 12 db of loss from distance (inverse square). AND you wanna listen at low volume primarily?
If I’ve gotten most of the above correct, let me know…….we can likely eliminate an awful lot of drivers and alignment suggestions quite easily now.
You’re faced with some challenges that will be driven by your room which sadly, you didn’t mention in the beginning and no one thought to ask……for a high dynamic DIY 3 way effort system?…….
Your listening distance is going to create its own acoustic filter based on frequency and power response and the boundary gains and losses of the room. If I read you right, this is a pretty large space……8 meters deep and 4 meters across?
So the quiet parts and low level details will be at the bottom of the dynamic scale…..let’s say the full 12db from the dynamic peaks shall we? And would it be safe to say your average listening distance in such a large space and speakers near the wall is around 3 meters? The by far greatest challenge you face is the low end here……in such a dynamic room combined with dynamic content….this is foundation and no magical midrange or exotic tweeter will matter much. Remember your previous DIY efforts and where you are today…..the countless graphs of in room response you’ve looked at and always the same…..the largest peaks and nulls always in the 150hz on down range….where the room imparts its opinion….or justice….however you wanna see it. Combine 6-8db non smoothed peaks and nulls in this range with 12db of encoded dynamic range and add in as much as 12 db of loss from distance (inverse square). AND you wanna listen at low volume primarily?
If I’ve gotten most of the above correct, let me know…….we can likely eliminate an awful lot of drivers and alignment suggestions quite easily now.
I think you should consider a dipole. Find a dealer or a friend and listen to one before your next build.Alpigiano said:
Classical music is one of the few genres that is recorded naturally with two microphones. On this type of recording, a dipole speaker can seemingly disappear. That happens even at low volumes.
I like Magnepan, but dipoles can be built with conventional drivers as well.
Ed
If a loud car truck or scooter is not driving by, noise floor is a fan distributing the heat or A/C around. I live on a half acre lot, with inch thick plaster walls under lapboard siding. Nearest house is 13 m away wall to wall. Fridge is in the cinder block garage. Early spring nights there is a factory screw air compressor 2 blocks away, but they have finished their production run (plastic gasoline ccontainers) fortunately by derby day. It is a great location. I can play piano at 3 AM and not bother anybody.
Luckily (like many genres) classical is a huge realm of music, so I would imagine 90% of music lovers can find something they like. I don't like most symphonic music but love many chamber pieces and some solo piano works. There are a lot of small classical labels that specialize in audiophile quality recordings.
Indeed! Even better for my case, the Revelator 3WC. A floor stander would be trickier to accommodate, basically will have to move/sell furniture and that's a much harder sell. Volume is high but I could manage it, may need a deeper and shorter cabinet. My reasons to prefer the Wavecor are because it has a lower Rms, higher Qms (with lower Xmax) and also higher Qts (a ported enclosure is a must for the Revelator 22W/4851T00 I think). Ah, and at least in the UK, the Revelator is almost twice the price. Do you think it will work well?
You're basically spot on. Orchestral is what I should have said, chamber music is less challenging for the Carreras, sounds lovely,
For the room - I can have the speakers either on the 4m side or on the 8m side. Listening distance in both cases is a bit less than 3m. With the speakers on the 8m side, the challenge is that they'll be even closer to the wall (small kids, TV) and face a wall not that far. But they would be far from side walls. On the narrow side, there's a sofa that I can leave 3-4m away, and move the speakers out more, but they'll be close to the side walls so (I think) worse for dome midranges. The floor has a large fluffy rug so I hope it will help. The Carreras are in the 8m wall, not toed in. I have moved them around to the other wall before, I prefer them on the longer side.
Every time I simulate the room I get pretty bad resonance and even bass suckout if I'm not careful. Side walls are an issue, toeing in helps and I can do that.
As I think I mentioned already, this is one of the main motivations to go active - I can use parametric EQ on each driver to tame the worst of it.
I don't expect to be able to accurately measure much at low frequencies. But I think I'll be able to hear major issues.
Looking forward to your suggestions on which drivers to eliminate! Thank you
Forgot to add - SBA-7MD looks great too, I did not see that! I've read varying opinions of the Satori dome midrange but it's definitely a contender. I (we) would much prefer a bookshelf to a floorstander but a proven design is appealing. Pricey woofer but it is on my 'low volume shortlist'. Thank you!
You could simply replace it with MW19P in 24L
Another design to consider: http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/SBA-741.htm
Ok.……so let’s examine your dynamic range needs as it relates to frequency and the wide dispersion you’re looking for.
Assuming you’ve got the noise floor worked out in your space to enjoy the content at the lower scale of the range AND given the listening distance and losses, you’ll need a mid and tweeter that can play to 100db without power compression……that’s not a big ask if you keep the drivers within a 3 octave passband for each……that’s 500/1k and 2k for the mid and 4K/8k and 16 for the tweeter.
Since this is a purpose built DIY, to compromise wouldn’t serve the effort or make much sense……and as such, I’d exclude dome midranges from the equation………….that narrows the heard a bit.
Two paths you can go by……..largish midbass up to 1k and then a 1” compression driver OR a 5” class cone pushing a little higher……plenty of stone shapes to fit the pattern available
Bass?………Orchestral?………….you’re gonna need to extend down to an F3 of 25hz……….25hz at 100db……you’re gonna want to explore 15” woofers here…..and to fill the volume of your largish space……I’d use no less than 4………one each in the speaker and then 2 more I’m seperate boxes acting as subs
In your position - not wishing to annoy neighbours etc - I'd use a really good pair of headphones so you don't miss anything.
My hearing is very good to around 9000-10000 Hz, then nothing much, but I find that I miss too much listening at very low levels. In a violin concerto, for example, there's a wide dynamic range and I miss much of the slow movement.
Some pop/rock music can sound 'loud' even at low volume (Deep Purple's 'Made in Japan', for example) but there are few classical pieces which are like that: maybe Liszt's first Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff's famous prelude or some bits of Beethoven.
Not the advice you want, but that's what I'd do.
Geoff
My hearing is very good to around 9000-10000 Hz, then nothing much, but I find that I miss too much listening at very low levels. In a violin concerto, for example, there's a wide dynamic range and I miss much of the slow movement.
Some pop/rock music can sound 'loud' even at low volume (Deep Purple's 'Made in Japan', for example) but there are few classical pieces which are like that: maybe Liszt's first Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff's famous prelude or some bits of Beethoven.
Not the advice you want, but that's what I'd do.
Geoff
No, they’re an issue if you try and cross them lower at my recommended 500hz.
I’m following your original guidelines here and IF you design this with a peek a boo midrange, you won’t get that clarity you‘re after, just instead a minor improvement of the congested sound the common 2 way gives……everything sounds ‘good’ but nothing sounds great……..you notice more than most because of the complex genre you enjoy……as do I.
Something that gets lost on the crowd here where measurements are often used as a high performing test standard but I interject that test tones and noise are NOTHING like complex music and only offer a window (a dirty one at that) into the expected performance of a design. This is where voicing comes in and his how the great classic speakers came to be.
As mentioned earlier, I’d suggest you follow what you know to be true……classical music is very dynamic and you’ve got to account for the loud passages as cleanly as possible……power compression will eat up most dome midranges asked to play that low and if you push the passband higher, you enter the dreaded break up mode region of most domes. This isn’t an issue for a nearfield speaker or monitor, but in a large space with distance losses and dynamic peaks?…..it’s a problem and the reason you don’t see many mid domes in the wild these days. Yes…..their are exceptions but those drivers are either not available or cost prohibitive.
Pro audio 5” cone midrange crossed to a true ribbon or well made AMT at 3.5k or so…….that’s what you’re after.
Bass is quite another matter…..that’s a pretty large space and two 8” woofers will never be able to create a foundational soundfield up to the Schroeder frequency of you room. Below is a great link and one of the reasons why I always suggest a DIY effort start from the foundation (bass response) up
https://www.prosoundtraining.com/2021/10/14/divide-and-conquer-the-schroeder-frequency/
I’m following your original guidelines here and IF you design this with a peek a boo midrange, you won’t get that clarity you‘re after, just instead a minor improvement of the congested sound the common 2 way gives……everything sounds ‘good’ but nothing sounds great……..you notice more than most because of the complex genre you enjoy……as do I.
Something that gets lost on the crowd here where measurements are often used as a high performing test standard but I interject that test tones and noise are NOTHING like complex music and only offer a window (a dirty one at that) into the expected performance of a design. This is where voicing comes in and his how the great classic speakers came to be.
As mentioned earlier, I’d suggest you follow what you know to be true……classical music is very dynamic and you’ve got to account for the loud passages as cleanly as possible……power compression will eat up most dome midranges asked to play that low and if you push the passband higher, you enter the dreaded break up mode region of most domes. This isn’t an issue for a nearfield speaker or monitor, but in a large space with distance losses and dynamic peaks?…..it’s a problem and the reason you don’t see many mid domes in the wild these days. Yes…..their are exceptions but those drivers are either not available or cost prohibitive.
Pro audio 5” cone midrange crossed to a true ribbon or well made AMT at 3.5k or so…….that’s what you’re after.
Bass is quite another matter…..that’s a pretty large space and two 8” woofers will never be able to create a foundational soundfield up to the Schroeder frequency of you room. Below is a great link and one of the reasons why I always suggest a DIY effort start from the foundation (bass response) up
https://www.prosoundtraining.com/2021/10/14/divide-and-conquer-the-schroeder-frequency/
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Thank you all for your suggestions. I have done some more measurements in my listening position, and at a concert (of a youth orchestra, but there were loads of them so I hope it counts). I would say the dynamic range at a live concert is even higher that 30 dB, more like 45 dB, 60 to >100, although I suspect those peaks are very short lived. But the average SPL is not crazy, 70-80. Back in my living room, I think that most recorded material has a much narrower dynamic range unless it's a special label that may do things differently. My system is Arcam DAC and amp (FMJ A29). Trying to average 70 dB at 1m (which means it gets quite loud for me), I could measure 20, maybe 25 dB range. I've also measured the space more accurately, put everything in a speadsheet and concluded that 100 dB at 1m would make me happy enough, even for 40 Hz considering that the room will play a big part.
So now back to speakers: that Wavecor actually has a Vd of 138 (@tmuikku you were even too generous in your calculations!). I've studied Small's formulae and that means 90 dB at 30 Hz, 95 at 40. So thank you for your help realising that.
I am now focusing on woofer only, and it's clear that I can either go for 2x 8'' or >=12''. In both cases, I need more cabinet volume, and maybe a ported enclosure. So for instance:
So now back to speakers: that Wavecor actually has a Vd of 138 (@tmuikku you were even too generous in your calculations!). I've studied Small's formulae and that means 90 dB at 30 Hz, 95 at 40. So thank you for your help realising that.
I am now focusing on woofer only, and it's clear that I can either go for 2x 8'' or >=12''. In both cases, I need more cabinet volume, and maybe a ported enclosure. So for instance:
- 2x 8'' (like the WF223BD02 8 Ohms, thanks @Bazukaz) would do 100 dB at 40 Hz. I can add a sub later if I need to
- Single Purifi's 8'' Alu cone - even more expensive than 2 of the other 8'' but smaller cabinet, however obviously relying on large Xmax which makes me nervous for low volume
- A single larger woofer, probably ported. I'm looking at drivers from Eminence, Beyma and Vifa/Peerless that model well but as expected cabinet size will be the limiting factor here. Do you have any suggestions?
- Go for floorstanders. Will limit placement but may just be the sensible choice
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Definitely can't get ATC sound without their midrange...I still enjoyed the Morel I listened to, but I believe you that it wouldn't be day and night, it brought excitement and presence which is always fun for a short listening session. Will read that article and report back, thanks. I sent my previous post before reading yours but yes, the bass is going to be the first big problem to solve and will probably rule out affordable dome midranges in any case. I need to magic up some more cabinet volume somehow. Linkwitz transform was my thinking, but that's going to take out up to 12 dB...
The Wavecor WF223 in a ported enclosure might bring more than enough SPLmax. Frankly I don’t see why you’d pick a closed box, most drivers have optimal parameters for vented designs. It would bring you near 25Hz in 70 liters without correction, significantly lower than your aim of 40 and with about the same SPLmax.
Btw, did you read the topic on the OSMB? A bit outside your budget, but a proven design with the class leading Volt mid dome (well, BliesMa has one also).
Btw, did you read the topic on the OSMB? A bit outside your budget, but a proven design with the class leading Volt mid dome (well, BliesMa has one also).
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Roger that. I have been mildly pleased in my budget days with a single 10", but I found two 10" better when I encountered a pair of used 1210s. Nowadays when the SS admin pays me to stay home, I use a single 15" that can reproduce to 1800 hz. To prevent beaming, the cabinet is pinched 8" in the vertical dimension at the back. Previous parallellepiped model crossed over the same woofer at 1200 hz to keep 1000 hz beaming to -3 db at +-22 deg. Both cabinets are ported.
IMHO a larger bass driver produces less harmonic distortion than a small one. Cone reaching Xmax can get into non-linear response from the iron partially exiting the coil, and stretch of the suspension. A 15" woofer hardly moves at <100 db so it stays right in the linear range of those components.
Per your recordings of live music, yes I agree dynamic range of actual orchestras & wind bands exceeds 60 db. I've played in such amateur groups on stage. While cheap classical tracks can have the gain ridden by the engineer to achieve 20-25 db range, top tier recordings attempt to faithfully reproduce the actual preformance dynamic range. Within the limits of the medium: 54 db for LP and 72 db for CD.
I find comments about importance of 25-50 hz to be non-instructive. Only last note of Also Sprach Zarathrusta and some organ LP's go that low, plus real 11' grand piano note A0. Other piano models use interference bass, two higher frequencies beating, to simulate A0. I'm happy with -3db 54 hz system, plus 10 db down at 32 hz, boosted by 3 db by the hard plaster front wall of my room. If you are unhappy with bass later, rather than trying to build 25-50 hz into the same cabinet as the rest of the sound, you can park a 12" ported LAB12 in a corner somewhere driven by a $100 electronic crossover & a 3rd amp. Location does not matter on 25-50 hz, the wavelength is bigger than the room. I have come to the suspicion that bulding 25-50 hz into a bsss reflex full frequency cabinet makes the transient response of bass drums etc flabby.
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Closed box: it's just based on my experience - I just prefer the musicality of the bass with that design, and the ease of placement. But it's not a necessity. One of the reasons to chose that woofer was that I could use it in both ported or closed designs. Also, coming into this I did not know that 1-SPL is higher with a BR and 2-SPL was going to be an issue for my requirements. 😬
@indianajo I agree regarding extreme low frequencies. I think my room will dominate, and also that closed box designs have a gentler roll-off than BR (in general), which means that an f3 in the 40s will be enough. That's what the Carreras have and I like their bass. I bet that the dominant notes of 99% or recordings are > 40 Hz anyway as you say. Based on no evidence whatsoever, but I think that a BR design that ekes out everything at the low end for a driver is what may end up sounding congested if it also has some mid duties - I remember Troels talking about it regarding the same woofer used in the Carreras when I was researching them.