Does everything in Munich sound like Magico/ Spectral? Anything tonally rich or not European taste?

morricab

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"speed" in bass has everything to do with the bass alignment of the box for a conventional speaker. A box with a low Qts will sound fast and tight with little boom or overhang (that goes for vented or sealed). A box with a high Qts will tend to sound fuller but also "slower". Box loading is generally considered optimal for a sealed design with a Qts = 0.7 but I found higher damping worked a bit better when I did a planar hybrid design (my bass box was sealed with a Qts of 0.6) and this sounded very "fast" and so matched sonically nicely with the planar driver (A BG radia). A lot of vented designs do not work very well for speed because they are having Q of 0.9 or greater. Horns are different and if designed well deliver a punchy dry bass that is pretty awesome and you are coupling with the air in ways a cone in a box cannot do. Sure the driver in the basshorn is a cone but it is the horn doing nearly all the work. In my Odeons, even with super heavy bass tracks (like from Interstellar soundtrack) the cone cannot really be observed to be moving significantly and yet bass is just pouring into the room. With a normal box speaker it would be pumping like hell. Distortion therefore is dramatically reduced with a properly designed horn because the driver itself barely moves. Planar speakers do not have a box so they have their own natural resonance, which can be quite high, that is offset by dipole cancellation and balancing this gives a better or worse bass depending on the design.

I used to have the Infinity IRS Beta, which has servo controlled woofers in a sealed box. The "brain" controlling this box had several adjustments (slope, shelving etc.) and one was Q adjustment. You could adjust the Q from 0.5 to well over 1. It was very instructional to see what electronic damping (through the feedback loop) would do to the speed of the bass. Interestingly, setting it at 0.5 resulted in an overly tight non-natural sounding bass that was little more than dull thuds. Loosening the Q towards the maximum resulted in a bloated bass that indeed sounded slow and smeared details from the planar panels. Ultimately, I found leaving it set right at 0.7 was optimal balance between control and natural decay of sounds. I took this knowledge forward later on with the Planar hybrid design.
 

bonzo75

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Sure, but remember, cones are "slooow" ;)

How can i forget, I hear them so much more often on different guises than you do
 

Al M.

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How can i forget, I hear them so much more often on different guises than you do

Well, I guess you'll have the "slooow" statement hang around your neck from now on ;)
 

Al M.

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Sure the driver in the basshorn is a cone but it is the horn doing nearly all the work. In my Odeons, even with super heavy bass tracks (like from Interstellar soundtrack) the cone cannot really be observed to be moving significantly and yet bass is just pouring into the room. With a normal box speaker it would be pumping like hell. Distortion therefore is dramatically reduced with a properly designed horn because the driver itself barely moves.

Thanks, Brad, for the explanation, that makes sense. I used to have monitors with a 5 inch mid/woofer (Ensemble Reference), and it was visibly pumping with considerable excursion on some music played at high volume. My current Reference 3A monitors have an 8 inch mid/woofer, and even on drum tracks the membrane can hardly be seen moving (my sub is probably pumping the deep bass). The speakers sound much more effortless than my old ones, with far less distortion.

The perceived effortlessness of horn speakers seems to be tied to the small excursion of the drivers.
 

ack

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"speed" in bass has everything to do with the bass alignment of the box for a conventional speaker. A box with a low Qts will sound fast and tight with little boom or overhang (that goes for vented or sealed). A box with a high Qts will tend to sound fuller but also "slower".

Interesting how differently people interpret fast or slow bass. For example, Alon Wolf would tell you otherwise - here's a quote from Myles's M3 write-up on his site, himself quoting Wolf:

"Pace, direction and snap all originate with the tweeter. If the bass seems slow"—and Alon adamantly states that, "there's no such thing as slow bass—check the tweeter first. If that first impulse from the tweeter isn't sorted out, the bass will invariably sound slow and muddy." It may seem counter-intuitive but many of the problems with tweeters aren't according to Alon, "a frequency but time domain issue."
 

Al M.

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Interesting how differently people interpret fast or slow bass. For example, Alon Wolf would tell you otherwise - here's a quote from Myles's M3 write-up on his site, himself quoting Wolf:

That's interesting. I would concur that bass pace originates at higher frequencies. At least, the perceived response of deep bass clearly corresponds to mid- and upper-bass speed. As the mid- and upper-bass through my tube amps became faster, so it seemed to be the case for the low bass.

Only, the low bass input to the sub comes directly from the line output of the DAC; the sub never 'sees' my amps. So the bass input into the sub never changed, and neither did obviously the low bass output from the sub. But whenever the 'leading edge' of the bass (the upper- and mid-bass) became faster with amp/system improvements, there was a perception of greater low-bass speed.
 

morricab

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Interesting how differently people interpret fast or slow bass. For example, Alon Wolf would tell you otherwise - here's a quote from Myles's M3 write-up on his site, himself quoting Wolf:

Interesting, and while I would not completely dispute this I have done direct experiments that show the way the bass driver is loaded (Qts) definitely affects the "speed" perception of the speaker. Keep in mind Magico is only doing critically damped sealed box designs, which just about guarantees tight dry bass that will be perceived as being "fast".

The phase/time relationships between drivers is always important for having good PRAT in a system but if the bass alignment is a high Q it will always lag a bit with the phase shifts and energy storage (a bell has a very high Q for example and goes on for along time before getting quiet once rung).
 

KeithR

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Thanks, Brad, for the explanation, that makes sense. I used to have monitors with a 5 inch mid/woofer (Ensemble Reference), and it was visibly pumping with considerable excursion on some music played at high volume. My current Reference 3A monitors have an 8 inch mid/woofer, and even on drum tracks the membrane can hardly be seen moving (my sub is probably pumping the deep bass). The speakers sound much more effortless than my old ones, with far less distortion.

The perceived effortlessness of horn speakers seems to be tied to the small excursion of the drivers.

I wouldn't generalize that seeing a woofer move defines bass quality.
 

Al M.

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I wouldn't generalize that seeing a woofer move defines bass quality.

You may have a point here. We had a thread on subwoofers a while ago where it was asked why subs often don't have larger diameter cones than the main speakers they support. One of the reasons stated, if I remember correctly, was that they are specifically designed to have larger excursions and thus move much more air at the same cone diameter, enabling them to reproduce deep bass.

I am quite certain that the 9 inch woofer in my sub, pumping out deep bass (even though it may not go down to 20 Hz), moves much more dramatically than the 8 inch woofer in my main speakers. But bass quality is great; on my system thread (page 1) Madfloyd stated that the system, quote, "has FAST bass, with no overhang".

I do think, however, when a mid/woofer in a main speaker, covering a frequency range much higher than low bass, has to move that dramatically, sound quality tends to be compromised by introducing distortion. This seemed to be the case with the 5 inch mid/woofer in my previous monitors, which went in a linear range from about 70 Hz (with rolled-off output below that) to about 2,500 Hz.
 
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Mike Lavigne

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You may have a point here. We had a thread on subwoofers a while ago where it was asked why subs often don't have larger diameter cones than the main speakers they support. One of the reasons stated, if I remember correctly, was that they are specifically designed to have larger excursions and thus move much more air at the same cone diameter, enabling them to reproduce deep bass.

I am quite certain that the 9 inch woofer in my sub, pumping out deep bass (even though it may not go down to 20 Hz), moves much more dramatically than the 8 inch woofer in my main speakers. But bass quality is great; on my system thread (page 1) Madfloyd stated that the system, quote, "has FAST bass, with no overhang".

I do think, however, when a mid/woofer in a main speaker, covering a frequency range much higher than low bass, has to move that dramatically, sound quality tends to be compromised by introducing distortion. This seemed to be the case with the 5 inch mid/woofer in my previous monitors, which went in a linear range from about 70 Hz (with rolled-off output below that) to about 2,500 Hz.

I've posted many times about how my MM7 speakers handle bass. my opinion is that they achieve a unique combination of linearity, extension, and dynamics....along with high efficiency and friendly flat impedance load.

and the key part of the equation is their -4- 11" ceramic woofers in each main tower that only have to cover from 40hz to 250hz. no other speaker I know of has both no crossover in the mid-bass, and that much driver surface, along with 97db, 7 ohm load. the music, particularly the impact and fullness of the music, lives in this frequency range. having so many mid-bass woofer drivers and driver surface area allows for very minimal excursion and therefore exceptional linearity, authority and ease. effortless drum kits, kettle drums, ambient retrieval, etc.

below 40hz we do have a separate integrated active 750 pound bass tower with -4- 15" subwoofers to do the deep bass. so again lots of driver surface and linearity, authority, and ease below 40hz also (-3db at 7hz, -6db at 3hz....on paper).

you cannot see any of these drivers move unless you shine a light on them in just the right way. never breaks a sweat. there is a significant degree of headroom above any musical passage demand.
 

Al M.

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Yes, that seems to be an optimal configuration, Mike.
 

morricab

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I wouldn't generalize that seeing a woofer move defines bass quality.

I don't think anyone was doing that per se. However, it is clear that a driver which barely moves will be distorting less than a driver that is pumping hard. Come breakup is also minimized, which will affect "ease" of sound.
 

spiritofmusic

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On the basis of Munich 2016, the manufacturers don't think there is any difference btwn European, Asian and US musical tastes
They think we all love the predictable drivel of elevator jazz and female vocals
Just how can you really tell a Magico and Wilson apart on a Mobius Loop diet of Diana Krall?
 

KeithR

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I don't think anyone was doing that per se. However, it is clear that a driver which barely moves will be distorting less than a driver that is pumping hard. Come breakup is also minimized, which will affect "ease" of sound.

there are many, many manufacturers that use long-throw woofers which you will likely see moving.
 

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