I thought his link explained his viewpoint pretty well FYI:
Originally Posted by Jeff B.
Well, that's not always the easiest thing to define. I personally, find the better dome tweeters to sound more honest than compression drivers, but the compression driver is more dynamic and lifelike. I think it comes down to what compromises you personally prioritize. If SPL and dynamics is a high priority to you (nothing wrong with that either - sometimes that's me too), then the high efficiency speaker may be a more satisfying speaker for you. However, if you like jazz or vocal music and want the highest degree of resolution, smoothness, and accuracy something like the Kairos may appeal to you more. All speakers have trade-offs, you just need to match the speaker's trade-offs to your own priorities.
I usually excerpt quotes, but there are too few extra words here. Well said. If I could bookmark a post...
That said, comparison is still incomplete, as it does not touch on (IMHO) the greatest perceptual difference - room interaction - touted by many as the primary advantage. The perceptual literature talks about "apparent source width" and "listener envelopment" as the primary perceptual responses, with strong positive preferential correlation: greater ASW and LE are desirable.
My personal criteria for speaker quality includes a spatial component. The best speakers "disappear" into their sound field. I can't hear the direct sound, per se, so I can't point to the source. Instruments occupy regions of space (large ASW) and the entire room is filled with sound (high LE). Jeff's Continuum is one member of this class.
The best horn speakers I've heard were excellent, none of the common issues were evident, but they failed the spatial test. I just took a little hand-waving... if I waved my hand in front of the speaker, the response changed dramatically. A well placed thumb was all it took to block line-of-sight to the throat. HF response dropped like a rock when the direct sound path was blocked.
Needless to say, I have no problem locating every horn speaker I've ever heard. That discounts the design approach as a whole, due to my preference for spaciousness and envelopment. I also hear folks waxing poetically about their "pinpoint imaging" and wonder what's in their Kool-Aid. The only potential home application is in multichannel, where the program contains some spatial information... if I could get around the hand-waving bit.
That's why I counter all the "do what I did" recommendations with one to find out what you prefer before you buy.
Does the spatial perception matter? Do folks notice this difference?
Have fun,
Frank
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I 100% agree with his assessment and Jeff B on sound quality, and dome vs compression drivers, resolution and envelopment. It's true beyond any reasonable doubt, and I have tested this myself.
We did an experiment at the MA GTG where we took Matt Grants soft dome ($100 DIY I built with a very cheap Dayton softdome) and played it versus the FUSION 8 (by Jeff B, which I also built) and also compared it to a ribbon and a JTR horn (more narrow pattern).
The JTR was the old model, which we again tested against the new model, and the 1099 at the next MA Boston GTG.
Anyways rewind to the first one, we did a test in RyansBoston's room where we compared the cheap $100 soft dome to the JTR and it was very clear and very unanimous that at least in terms of envelopment, spacial resolution, and smooth pleasing sound the soft dome won hands down. Ask
@Boxozaxu (Mike) about it if you do not trust me, he was present too for that too.
The compression driver vs soft dome debate is not a new one. And the popularity of DIYsoundgroup designs with so many people has not changed the reality of the same exact parts that have been around forever.
What has changed is there is much more owner and user reinforcement these days into the high efficiency compression drive based horn speakers popularized by speaker designs like JTR and DIYgroup.
I know it's very tempting for an owner of one of those, or a like design to just automatically find offense to the suggestion that a high efficiency compression driver/horn might not be the best at all times, and certainly even more so if the poster is not so nice about explaining it. And I say all this because I too often say stuff like a jerk and without much thought towards being cordial or "nice" and take heat for it, so I see whats happening here.
fbov wasn't so nice in his word choice, and so offense towards that manifests over towards offense to what he claims. That happens to me too, and it's frustrating because technically I'm correct about a lot of stuff and just get hammered for how I say it anyways.
Here is some really common misconceptions about speakers I see in the DIY group forum:
-Bigger speakers sound bigger (not true!)
-Horns sound bigger, and bigger horns sound bigger than smaller horns (not true!)
-DIY group designs have some how magically fixed or improved all that is wrong or was wrong with compression drivers
-DIY group designs some how magically make the relatively cheap parts (compression drivers) better than they were before the designs existed.
-JTR is somehow magically better and bigger sounding than a soft dome because it uses very expensive parts (CD's) and is large in size/plays loud.
I could do on...
But basically it's always been true to some degree that smaller speakers hold an advantage acoustically, and it is easier to do designs, and get great directivity or off axis response with smaller speaker designs like soft domes and smaller woofers. The lack of popularity of these kind of designs on AVS is because of the high efficiency bandwagon.
High efficiency is great. I love it too. I have done speaker designs like that, and use it myself. It certainly has a place when output and dynamics are concerned, and certainly theater sound is an application that might favor that and be willing to give up a little of the soft dome advantages to get it.
But any serious audiophile or 2 channel music guy generally won't like high efficiency horn/CD designs with narrow pattern for a 2 channel music system. At least not if you test the theory ABX blind and offer them choices based on only sound. There is a ton of studies on sound quality by many different people and companies and in many different countries and they all basically agree that people generally like accurate sound with good off axis performance. Many of those studies also agree people like a wider speaker (better off axis) because it has a bigger sound and provides a more favorable in room response (total sound power or frequency response at the seats). Of coarse the second you don't offer people choices in a blind test format with a control, you'll get all sorts of crazy answers what people say they like, what they think they like, etc... Sometimes people don't actually know what they like
I would generally much prefer an accurate studio monitor with a wider pattern and better off axis to a horn based compression driver and more narrow pattern for music. Not only would it sound nicer, smoother, and have a more favorable (I.E more positive) interaction with the room/acoustical treatments, but it would also sound larger, provide a much larger sound stage, and a better general sense of envelopment.
It's kind of a cool demo, and quite amazing if you've never tested envelopment before. There is a few good ways you can test it, and make the differences easily noticed. Otherwise, it's one of those things people never know is missing because they never had it.
For our GTG experirment when we did the JTR vs the soft dome we used the clocks from the begining of Pink Floyd track "time". We level matched the speakers then played them back to back (sighted) and it was really clear the differences in sound. The soft dome and smaller 4" woofers sounded much wider, much bigger, more depth. You could hear the echos and reflections of all those clocks going off to the side, behind you, and some farther away than others. The JTR speaker on the other hand was very narrow, very central, very focused in front. It was like you took that big sound stage and just crushed it down into a smaller oval directly in front of you. Keep in mind this was informal demo while we played around, and faced a $100 speaker vs a speaker costing thousands more. In this sense cost and quality of parts was not able to overcome the design differences, or the physics that play out.