Shop trick for soft domes -- take a piece of tape, carefully work it into the dent so it adheres well to the now convex surface of the dented dome, then slowly pull it out/off. The dome comes out with it.
Tim
Tim
Tweeters, measurements, thoughts . . .
- Thread starter Jeff Fritz
- Start date
This is curious to me, as I own WP8's. One of the really noticeable sound characteristics of the speakers in my sound room is that they don't seem to change their sound tonal quality as you move out of the sweet spot, vertically or horizontally. Imaging, of course changes when moving horizontally out of the sweet spot, but the tones seem the same. My Martin Logan's on the other hand, would change their sound drastically as you move out of the sweet spot. There is a noticeable drop in high frequency response, according to the measurements above, as you move toward and beyond the sides of the speakers. This is contrary to what my friends and I hear, as that sameness in sound quality as one moves off axis is one of the things we most notice, when compared to our collective speakers/setups. As far as high frequency breakup, I have never heard it on the Wilsons. Among our speaker collective is a pair of Martin Logan Summits, Martin Logan SL3 and Thiel CS 3.6. So, it may appear from the measurements you post that it has pretty bad directivity, but seems to be the opposite of what I and my friends hear, as one of the amazing things about the WP8 is the ability to walk around the room and the sound quality never seems to change, with respect to all of our other speakers.
Before we talk about that, this speaker has pretty bad directivity. This is its far off-axis response (what you would get from side wall reflections):
That trough in the 1.2 Khz region shows that there is too much of a gap between the woofer and tweeter. The former becomes too directional before the latter picks up the load, causing that dip. This means that you likely need to absorb those side reflections as otherwise, you are going to have a trough in the area of most sensitivity for the ear. That would then take away some sense of spaciousness.
Back to the tweeter, this is the speaker's direct response:
I think Jeff is talking about the resonance that causes its level to peak at 20 Khz.
Thanks Steve. Do a test for me. Walk up the speakers while playing something, get your ear down to their level and walk around in a half circle. See if anything tonally changes. Keep your (one) ear parallel to the speaker as you do that.
Amir-If the Watt Puppy 8s actually sound as bad as the graphs you threw up yesterday suggest they should, shouldn't that be apparant even if you are sitting perfectly still in the sweet spot? No real bass according to the graph, big dip between 1-2 kHz, and response that drops like a rock above 10 kHz.
Tim,
Very nice trick to sell ones old speakers without buying new tweeters
, but I never saw a tweeter that was recovered by this way that did not show clearly in the measurements. I have carried this trick it in the past several times, thinking I had great success, but the day I got a Behringer microphone and spectral analysis software I found I was not Merlin the Magician anymore. Even soft domes have an internal structure and when you break it they will never recover completely. Metal ones are 100% a lost case!
A good friend had some Dynaudio Esotar T330D (costing about USD 500 each unit) that were visually mint , as they were masterly recovered using the tape technique. After we measured them, they were sent them to the Dynaudio factory, who also confirmed the need to replace them.
Will do, right after I get back from hooking up a friend's new MBL amps to his MBL 101's. Of course, I'll be forced to have to listen to his setup, but hey, it's what friends are for! Of course, he'll have to come by and help me install my new Pass Labs gear when it arrives. We seem to have a lot of new gear in my neighborhood, among my friends, recently. Audio is alive and well in the Round Rock, TX area!
Since I just checked the time and I don't have to be at his home for another forty minutes, I went ahead and performed your request. I heard no tonal differences or, if I did, it was very miniscule, so miniscule I could not be sure there was a difference. I did hear some volume differences, but please realize that bending down and walking around the front of the speaker in an arc and maintaining precisely the same distance from the tweeter is not assured! One thing I will say for the WP8's is that the sweet spot is much larger than what I had with my Martin Logans. I was concentrating on a Van Morrison tune and the cymbol strikes, especially. I am fortunate that my right ear can still detect frequencies over 17.5 khz (the left only to about 14khz). Also, as far as bass from these speakers, it is phenomenal, in my opinion.
Steve-According to Harman, you traded one bad speaker (the Martin Logans) for another bad speaker! Unless I looked at that graph wrong yesterday that Amir posted, your speakers don't have much bass below 70 Hz and yet you say the bass is "phenomenal." I don't know where the truth lays Steve and I'm not picking on you. I really don't want to believe that if the W/P 8s really sound the like the measurements indicate they should that the entire run of W/P speakers fooled so many thousands of listeners into believing they were hearing really accurate reproduction. And again, I have never heard any of the W/P iterations and I have no idea what they sound like and nor do I pretend to.
Ha ha, no problem. I have been at this audio game for a long time. I've owned many, many different speaker brands. None of them has had the incredible bass that the WP's have. The frequency response of the WP8's is from 21Hz - 22.5kHz +0/ -3db and sounds it. I've had subwoofers before that don't come close to the bass response these speaker have. My friend with his Summits and sub comments quite regularly that he wished his bass sounded as good as these speakers do.
Significantly different FR you mention here compared to the graphs from Harmon posted by Amir. Which is right, or are we talking apples and oranges??
I find this to be quite interesting. We have a damning set of measurements and an owner who says what he hears isn't what the graphs show. According to the graph, Steve should have no appreciable bass below 70 Hz and yet Steve claims that based on his experience, he has tremendous bass. The specs that Wilson gives for the W/P 8 in no way track what the FR graph that Amir posted shows. It begs lots of questions.
Nobody has jumped in here yet to answer my question, but I still want to know the answer. Has any non-Harman brand ever *beat* any Harman speaker in their tests?
Nobody has jumped in here yet to answer my question, but I still want to know the answer. Has any non-Harman brand ever *beat* any Harman speaker in their tests?
These measurements that I posted are ours -- the SoundStage! Network's -- taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's NRC by a group of engineers that specialize in this field.
They are what they are. Now, a speaker will sound different in-room due to room gain. So do factor that in. Also, most listeners think that midbass is really low bass. Put a 20Hz tone through your speaker and see if it will play it back at any appreciable output level. Lastly, though I started this thread about tweeters, you can certainly compare the bass response of many speakers. Look at the Thiel CS2.4 here: http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/measurements/thiel_cs24/
Very impressive bass response. I've got to be honest here: some listeners prefer the sound of a 10dB bump in the midbass -- "incredible bass slam." But as I said, the measurements are what they are.
They are what they are. Now, a speaker will sound different in-room due to room gain. So do factor that in. Also, most listeners think that midbass is really low bass. Put a 20Hz tone through your speaker and see if it will play it back at any appreciable output level. Lastly, though I started this thread about tweeters, you can certainly compare the bass response of many speakers. Look at the Thiel CS2.4 here: http://www.soundstagemagazine.com/measurements/thiel_cs24/
Very impressive bass response. I've got to be honest here: some listeners prefer the sound of a 10dB bump in the midbass -- "incredible bass slam." But as I said, the measurements are what they are.
With four 14" subs each driven by their own 1800 watt amp, I know the difference between bass and midbass. I looked at the graphs you posted of the Thiel CS2.4 and it looks like it is fairly flat to around 35 Hz and then nosedives.
Did someone post a measurement of your speaker?
The Thiels are impressively flat and have very low bass. Please compare other models. In room they would gain even further. This is an opportunity to compare apples to apples, from a third party, with identical conditions. It is very valuable.
The DefTec Mythos STS plays very low and linearly too: http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/speakers/definitive_technology_sts/
Mep, I have no doubt yours play very low based on this.
Mep, I have no doubt yours play very low based on this.
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