2 way vs 3 way

[andyr]

1 hour ago, dcathro said:

 

I can't say that I am a fan of DSP for crossovers. I have never heard a DSP implementation I have liked. If your happy with it, then that's what matters!

 

 

As you are in Melbourne ... now that lockdown has ended, I'd be delighted if you would come over and have a listen to my DSP-based active spkrs: 3-way + subs.

 

Then again, you might not like the way Maggies present music - which might cloud your opinion of how my DSP system performs.    IMO, they sound much better now than they did, pre-DSP (ie. with analogue active XOs).

 

PM me if you're interested.

 

Andy

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by andyr

[dcathro]

4 minutes ago, andyr said:

 

As you are in Melbourne ... now that lockdown has ended, I'd be delighted if you would come over and have a listen to my DSP-based active spkrs: 3-way + subs.

 

Then again, you might not like the way Maggies present music - which might cloud your opinion of how my DSP system performs.    IMO, they sound much better now than they did, pre-DSP (ie. with analogue active XOs).

 

PM me if you're interested.

 

Andy

 

 

Hi Andy,

 

Would love to come over and hear your approach.

 

I will PM

 

Cheers

 

David

[Cloth Ears]

16 hours ago, dcathro said:

 

This is precisely the ethos behind my current speaker build.

I have a Supravox 8" field coil widebander in an open baffle. This is run full range with contouring (shunt filters) on the top and bottom end, supplemented with a 15" sealed bass under 200hz and a tweeter above 7Khz, both 1st order.

 

It sounds very simple, but it has taken me 4 months to Get the crossover to my satisfaction.

 

 

Hi David. Long time, no see!

[aussievintage]

16 hours ago, dcathro said:

supplemented with a 15" sealed bass under 200hz

 

I was convinced of the niceness of having supplementary bass when I first heard my Osborns.  They have a bass driver crossed over at 125 Hz.  I bi-amp the speakers, so I can adjust the level of this bass to my satisfaction.  It works VERY well.

[almikel]

On 28/11/2020 at 4:40 PM, dcathro said:

supplemented with a 15" sealed bass under 200hz

 

8 hours ago, aussievintage said:

I was convinced of the niceness of having supplementary bass when I first heard my Osborns.  They have a bass driver crossed over at 125 Hz.  I bi-amp the speakers, so I can adjust the level of this bass to my satisfaction.  It works VERY well.

 

From a DIY perspective I'm a big fan of sealed bass drivers - they're much easier to design/build...and they pretty much deliver what the spreadsheet/design tool says they will...when ported/passive radiator/other designs can take some tweaking...

...where sealed bass drivers often need help is in the bottom end - the natural rolloff in their enclosure is not low enough.

If the driver is below it's Xmax (max linear excursion), then a bit of EQ can assist - it doesn't have to be DSP - Siegfried designed the Linkwitz Transform (LT) before DSP existed.

 

I run Acoustic Elegance TD18s in tiny 60litre sealed enclosures - their natural rolloff is around 100Hz or so - but I push them down to 30Hz or so with EQ (I use DSP not an analog Linkwitz Transform) and plenty of amp power.

Even with big gobs of EQ down low on the TD18s...they never use much of their 14mm of Xmax - not surprising since I cross them to the sub around 50Hz.

 

Low bass can be achieved with sealed speakers - just be aware that lots of driver excursion and amp power is required to push them below where the driver/box naturally rolls off - don't exceed the drivers' Xmax, and use an amp with plenty of headroom.

 

8 hours ago, aussievintage said:

so I can adjust the level of this bass to my satisfaction.  It works VERY well.

It likely doesn't matter too much, but I'm just saying increasing the volume on your bass amps changes the crossover frequency (ie raises it).

 

I don't muck with the gain on any of my amps (8 amp channels) - many hours/measurements went into tuning the system with the amp gains set as they are, and I like to keep my crossover points where I chose them.

 

I prefer to increase/decrease bass and/or increase/decrease treble with EQ - usually on the remote...but sometimes I'll tweak the EQ on my room curve if it needs it - it was set by ear, and room curves are such a "too your taste" thing - so tweaking is inevitable...

 

cheers

Mike

[aussievintage]

1 minute ago, almikel said:

It likely doesn't matter too much, but I'm just saying increasing the volume on your bass amps changes the crossover frequency (ie raises it).

 

Depends on your definition.  The corner frequency of the passive crossover components does not change.

[almikel]

23 minutes ago, aussievintage said:

The corner frequency of the passive crossover components does not change.

 

agreed - there is no change to corner frequencies.

 

By increasing the volume of the bass amp, where the low pass and high pass cross increases in frequency...

...I've never considered phase regarding crossovers without equal amplitude...much easier on the brain with equal amplitudes...

Edited November 29, 2020 by almikel
clarification

[almikel]

image copied from Rod Elliot's site on the change in Xover freq when you change the gain of the bass amp wrt to the next amp up ( https://sound-au.com/bi-amp2.htm )

You can see what happens to the crossover point - I'm not sure what happens to phase, but likely not ideal.

 

Mike

 

[Dark_Matter]

On 28/11/2020 at 6:18 AM, dcathro said:

 

I have always found that the addition of subs interfere with qualities that I find very important - YMMV.

 

 

Funnily enough, I much prefer the 63s, although they can sound a bit dull and undynamic.

 

 

The speakers were Alon Phalanxs - 4 way, open baffle with AS bass under 150hz. The crossovers were passive outboard with 40 elements. The designer had done a good job as there were no major issues and he had even used quality parts like sidereal caps. The speakers however did not excite or involve in the same way that my favourite 2 ways did. I rewired the speakers and crossovers with solid core silver wire and fine tuned the crossover. I did not have to change the design in any way, just finesse the element values to a greater degree. Given the complexity, it took more than 6 months with me working on it nearly every day. The problem is, the different elements in a passive crossover are interdependent, so after you think you have got one value right, you have to readjust after you have changed another element. It means you go round in, hopefully, ever smaller circles until you are satisfied or give up.  Measurements are of course very usefull, but only to a point. The Phalanxs did not really measure much different after I had finished.

 

 

I definitely agree that active crossovers have significant advantages over passive, especially for the bass. Again, in practice it is not easy.

 

I can't say that I am a fan of DSP for crossovers. I have never heard a DSP implementation I have liked. If your happy with it, then that's what matters!

 

 

 

Hi David,

Trust you are well?

I remember well the battles you had David when Chris and I came over to the studio in London as you were tuning the Phalanxs' crossover. it was amazing how easy it was to break the overall coherency of sound with just one small component change!!  Daft I know but it was so easy to hear the changes.

I too find two way speakers by far the best to work with and generally time for time achieve my best results with them.

I was very lucky with my  3 1/2 way SLAMM homage project which sounded great and measured quite well, several 1000 hours of tuning later they were good Chris thought so as well.

My latest project an update on the slamm I expect will take similarly as long and intend to measure very carefully as well during many of the stages. I have finished principle design have all the drivers and start the build in 2021 and expect 1-2000 hours of tuning / measurement etc..

I will also be working on two 2 way systems one smaller (40 litres)  one larger (150 -200 litres), the larger loosely based upon the BBC LS5/1 AE but with modern drivers, so these will be fun.

Kind regards,

Simon

 

 

[Steve M]

 

 

Quote

etc..

 

Managing the directivity of speakers is not something theoretical or esoteric - it directly translates to a better listening experience.

 

Mike

Hi Mike,

 

Sorry, my comment probably came across a bit off-hand and you obviously know your stuff. I was alluding generally that the midrange quality from an LS35A as good as it is, is still behind in terms of sheer accuracy compared to the midrange frequencies produced by a high quality (usually expensive) dedicated midrange driver. You can talk about direcitivity, but driver quality overrides any such discussion of midrange quality that a good threeway speaker produces over a twoway.

 

In terms of directivity, I prefer speakers that beam directly at you with a narrow sweet spot - producing a clear rock tight central image. A fuzzy soundstage spoils the illusion of stereo music for me.

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

 

 

.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Steve M

[dcathro]

19 hours ago, Dark_Matter said:

 

Hi David,

Trust you are well?

I remember well the battles you had David when Chris and I came over to the studio in London as you were tuning the Phalanxs' crossover. it was amazing how easy it was to break the overall coherency of sound with just one small component change!!  Daft I know but it was so easy to hear the changes.

I too find two way speakers by far the best to work with and generally time for time achieve my best results with them.

I was very lucky with my  3 1/2 way SLAMM homage project which sounded great and measured quite well, several 1000 hours of tuning later they were good Chris thought so as well.

My latest project an update on the slamm I expect will take similarly as long and intend to measure very carefully as well during many of the stages. I have finished principle design have all the drivers and start the build in 2021 and expect 1-2000 hours of tuning / measurement etc..

I will also be working on two 2 way systems one smaller (40 litres)  one larger (150 -200 litres), the larger loosely based upon the BBC LS5/1 AE but with modern drivers, so these will be fun.

Kind regards,

Simon

 

 

 

Hi Simon, 

 

As 4 ways, they were nearly impossible to make seamlessly coherent. I don't think you heard them when I was finished. It was a lot of hard work. My current effort is less complex being a 3 way, but I have still spent 500+ hours on the crossover tuning. Part of the problem is that I am just way too fussy!

 

I never got to hear your big slamms, but Chis and Martin told me they were very impressive.

 

I will be watching your current builds with interest.

 

Best Regards

 

David

[Al.M]

On 25/11/2020 at 8:32 AM, surprisetech said:

Most 3-way designs have the woofer-mid crossover point at around 700 to 900Hz

This bit is not correct from what is commonly observed in quoted commercial speaker specs they are usually around 300hz and 2500-3000khz for typical cone midrange units of 4-6 inch and dome midrange units 500 and 4000-5000hz, which is also mentioned as a recommended start point in standard speaker design text books. Example, ATC and Yamaha NS1000 and 5000 large dome midrange units.

 

Classic designs like the Spendor BC1 three way has crossover points of 3000 and 13000 to avoid the voice area but the bigger and more expensive Spendor SP100 using a 6 inch cone mid has crossover points of 550 and 5000 and is one of the most coherent speakers and is better than the BC1. These are just some examples and designs will vary a lot in implementation and driver quality and may not give a perfect apples vs apples comparison.

 

The OP was generally talking about an audio shop sales conversation and available commercial designs, not about the very few dedicated to theoretical DIY best designs, which has later hijacked the thread, though we are not refuting what you are saying and still interested.

 

I’ve heard 3 implementations of 2 way wave guide designs being a Troels G design, Krix and another Scandinavian maker and while they had some interesting things happening the lower treble to upper midrange, midrange quality was still no where near as good as the better 3 way designs I have come across. This experience is reflected in comments by many about common 2 way designs in Thomo’s earlier linked post about available commercial 2 ways being not very good in the midrange range.

 

Perhaps commercial speaker makers are still catching up or they are so fugly to look at to be marketable or attract unwanted negative WAF attention, but we don’t see them as much success on the market. Are there any good examples?

Edited November 30, 2020 by Al.M

[surprisetech]

5 hours ago, Al.M said:

This bit is not correct from what is commonly observed in quoted commercial speaker specs they are usually around 300hz and 2500-3000khz for typical cone midrange units of 4-6 inch and dome midrange units 500 and 4000-5000hz, which is also mentioned as a recommended start point in standard speaker design text books. Example, ATC and Yamaha NS1000 and 5000 large dome midrange units.

 

Classic designs like the Spendor BC1 three way has crossover points of 3000 and 13000 to avoid the voice area but the bigger and more expensive Spendor SP100 using a 6 inch cone mid has crossover points of 550 and 5000 and is one of the most coherent speakers and is better than the BC1. These are just some examples and designs will vary a lot in implementation and driver quality and may not give a perfect apples vs apples comparison.

 

The OP was generally talking about an audio shop salesperson conversation and available commercial designs, not for the very few dedicated to theoretical DIY best design, which has later hijacked the thread, though we are not refuting what you are saying.

 

I’ve heard 3 implementations of 2 way wave guide designs being a Troels G design, Krix and another Scandinavian maker and while they had some interesting things happening the upper midrange, quality was still no where near as good as the better 3 way designs I have come across. This experience is reflected in comments by many in Thomo’s earlier linked post about available commercial 2 ways being not very good.

 

Perhaps commercial speaker makers are still catching up or they so fugly to look at to be marketable or attract unwanted negative WAF attention, but we don’t see them as much success on the market. Are there any good examples?

 

Agreed when we're talking about current reputable brands.  I'm sure there are many good examples.  Folks do need to be prepared to accommodate a larger speaker and pay a little more if they want that level of performance.  

However, I do still see specs with higher woofer-mid crossover points from current brands that i would expect better from, but maybe I'm also showing my age and my impressions are coloured by so many spec sheets I've read in the past!

[dcathro]

19 hours ago, Al.M said:

The OP was generally talking about an audio shop sales conversation and available commercial designs, not about the very few dedicated to theoretical DIY best designs, which has later hijacked the thread, though we are not refuting what you are saying and still interested.

 

My 4 way speakers were a commercial speaker. I just fine tuned the crossover.

[surprisetech]

9 hours ago, dcathro said:

 

My 4 way speakers were a commercial speaker. I just fine tuned the crossover.

Interested to see a pic of the crossover.

[dcathro]

12 hours ago, surprisetech said:

Interested to see a pic of the crossover.

 

I don't have any internal pics to hand. I will try and find some.

 

Here is an external pic:

 

[surprisetech]

11 hours ago, dcathro said:

 

I don't have any internal pics to hand. I will try and find some.

 

Here is an external pic:

 

Thanks. No worries.  I had a look at the link you posted and read the details.  Just curious how many elements would be present in a well-engineered 4-way passive crossover and what types of chokes they use at the low freq end.

[Guest Peter the Greek]

Terry at Bathurst runs what a 4 way? and many (most) people who hear his set up think is the best they've every heard. That's a fairly telling testament that it can be done. I'm in this camp too - really high quality mid range drivers, to me, just sound better....presumably done well.

 

I've got all the gear for a similar set up....one day it'll find its way into boxes. Crossed at something like 0-80, 80-300, 300-3000, 3000-20000+.....I guess I'll find out if it works at some point....fingers crossed. Unlike others, these will be baffle wall mounted.

Edited December 2, 2020 by Peter the Greek

[Steve M]

13 hours ago, dcathro said:

 

I don't have any internal pics to hand. I will try and find some.

 

Here is an external pic:

 

 

 

 

@dcathro that is an awesome collection of hifi. Carefully chosen and shows a lot of experience. 

 

I notice you have a pair of Avalon Eidolon spkrs in the background. How do they compare to the black active Alon Phalanx's? I would imagine a different style of presentation between the two spkrs, the Avalon maybe more accurate and finessed, but smaller sounding and the Alon's wide open and big sounding?

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

 

 

.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Steve M

[dcathro]

10 hours ago, surprisetech said:

 

Thanks. No worries.  I had a look at the link you posted and read the details.  Just curious how many elements would be present in a well-engineered 4-way passive crossover and what types of chokes they use at the low freq end.

 

There are 40 components in the crossover. Some components are made up of a number of paralleled capacitors or resistors.

 

All the inductors are air core. The inductors on the bass and midbass are 14awg solid core. The caps the designer used on the mid and tweeter were the best available at the time -Sidereals.  When I rebuilt them in 1998, I left the caps and inductors as they were, and replaced and fine tuned the resistors. Also all the wiring (about 100 meters) was replaced with solid core silver.  The wiring improved the dynamics and the resistor fine tuning (to .01 ohm) improved the tonality and timing.

[dcathro]

8 hours ago, Steve M said:

 

@dcathro that is an awesome collection of hifi. Carefully chosen and shows a lot of experience. 

 

I notice you have a pair of Avalon Eidolon spkrs in the background. How do they compare to the black active Alon Phalanx's? I would imagine a different style of presentation between the two spkrs, the Avalon maybe more accurate and finessed, but smaller sounding and the Alon's wide open and big sounding?

 

Cheers,

 

Steve

 

 

.

 

Hi Steve,

 

Unfortunately that is not my gear  . The photo was taken when they were for sale at the dealer in London about 5 years ago.

 

I bought them in 1997 for my studio in London:

 

 

 

I rebuilt them to get them to my requirements.

 

They were sold with most of my studio gear in 2006 when I moved back to Melbourne.

 

I repurchased them when they became available for sale again in 2016 for 2300 GBP.

 

They are currently residing at a friends place in South Caufield. Note that I no longer have the matching Poseidon subs.

 

The Aladin's cave of equipment is Choice Hifi in Richmond London. The proprietor, Alain Abensur was at one stage the importer of Boulder, Alon and JMLab (Focal) in the UK. I had a long association with him and at one stage worked for him.

 

Although I have never owned the Eidelons, I have heard them on a number of occasions and can say that they are cleaner and lower in distortion than the Alons, although the Alons have better bass, go louder, are more dynamic and have a huge soundstage.

 

Cheers

 

David

[almikel]

23 hours ago, dcathro said:

 

Hi Steve,

 

Unfortunately that is not my gear  . The photo was taken when they were for sale at the dealer in London about 5 years ago.

 

I bought them in 1997 for my studio in London:

 

 

 

I rebuilt them to get them to my requirements.

 

They were sold with most of my studio gear in 2006 when I moved back to Melbourne.

 

I repurchased them when they became available for sale again in 2016 for 2300 GBP.

 

They are currently residing at a friends place in South Caufield. Note that I no longer have the matching Poseidon subs.

 

The Aladin's cave of equipment is Choice Hifi in Richmond London. The proprietor, Alain Abensur was at one stage the importer of Boulder, Alon and JMLab (Focal) in the UK. I had a long association with him and at one stage worked for him.

 

Although I have never owned the Eidelons, I have heard them on a number of occasions and can say that they are cleaner and lower in distortion than the Alons, although the Alons have better bass, go louder, are more dynamic and have a huge soundstage.

 

Cheers

 

David

are those Stax headphones in the 1st photo? very nice

I owned some Stax headphones for a time but managed to overdrive them too often and the cost of repair as a student was too costly

As much as I love the sound of electros such as ESL57s/63's, over-driving my Stax headphones was a cautionary tale - electros don't take abuse - they're not party proof

 

The 6x driver mids in what appears to be open baffle is a bit unconventional - do you know what the designer/manufacturer was trying to achieve with that arrangement?

 

cheers

Mike

Edited December 4, 2020 by almikel
worked out the edit function

[dcathro]

12 minutes ago, almikel said:

are those Stax headphones in the 1st photo? very nice

I owned some Stax headphones for a time but managed to overdrive them too often and the cost of repair as a student was too costly

As much as I love the sound of electros such as 

 

The 6x driver mids in what appears to be open baffle is a bit unconventional - do you know what the designer/manufacturer was trying to achieve with that arrangement?

 

cheers

Mike

 

I got my first pair of Stax at 17 in 1977, SRX Mk3s. The Lambda Signature were great for checking edits and other technical work. You could never mix on them though. 

 

The six drivers were 1 midrange (top) and 5 midbass. the mids were between 400hz and 3.5khz, the midbass between 125hz and 400hz. The idea of the 5 midbass drivers was to have speed and dynamics in the midbass.

[almikel]

deleted - I edited my post above

Edited December 4, 2020 by almikel

[almikel]

20 hours ago, dcathro said:

You could never mix on them though.

I would expect that mixing always needs to consider what the final listener will be listening through, but with an accurate playback system to mix on.

I've heard that the BBC ran ESL57's in their mixing rooms for years - could be BS