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Anyone do any "Blind" Listening tests between Commercial and DIY?

4K views 55 replies 25 participants last post by  jwanck11 
#1 ·
Just wondering if anyone has done any Blind listening tests between Commercial Speakers and DIY. If so - what vs. what and which did you like better?
 
#3 ·
You'll find lots of sighted comparisons among DIY speakers because DIYers like to get together and listen to each others stuff. For a blind test, I simply close my eyes and listen. The variety in design and implementation are a great way to find out what you like and don't like in a speaker.

Some of the smaller GTG may include commercial speakers, but there's rarely any room on the agenda for all the DIY designs...

One aspect of knowing what you like in a speaker, having heard dozens, is you now know what to listen for when shopping commercial. For my tastes, JTR, PSA and 1099 are all likely non-starters, as I've yet to hear a horn speaker I'd want to own. That doesn't mean you won't like them.


Have fun,
Frank
 
#4 ·
For my tastes, JTR, PSA and 1099 are all likely non-starters, as I've yet to hear a horn speaker I'd want to own.
I'm an ignorant newb with no horse in this fight, and no skills to provide speaker feedback, but I am very impressed by what the DIY community has done and can do, especially DIYSG, so I'll say it:

I'm inferring from the way you wrote that, that you haven't heard those designs. If that's the case, you should refrain from making statements like that. If you have heard any of them, and can provide experienced constructive criticism, you should share with the group, so we can all benefit from your feedback.

I can just as easily say, personally, that every Dodge I've ever driven was a heap: There's none I'd want to own... of course, I haven't driven one designed and built in the past 10 years... and, you know, things _change_.
 
#12 · (Edited)
A waveguide is not a horn...
And a sandal is not a shoe. Be serious. Depth is not the criteria, acoustic coupling is.
...You wouldnt be the first person who hated "horn speakers" but loves the designs from DIYSG ;)
I'll take those as air quotes, because otherwise...

You'd be the second person in this thread to misquote me to prove their point. Try reading the post, the actual words written. Do you see the word "hate" used anywhere? Your post is disgusting.
 
#9 ·
Having heard a lot of speakers including many diy group offerings I'll agree that a horn/compression driver isn't the best as far as sound quality and extension goes.

Most of them roll off a bit early, and are a tad harsh.

The best horn/waveguide I've heard is the Jbl m2 and the smaller versions. But it's a special tweeter that extends better, and the waveguide is wider too.

As far as that silky smooth extended top end the smaller tweeters and the soft domes do sound better generally. It's physics playing out. Those parts have better directivity and extension generally, but they lose on dynamics and spl capability.

So depending on your needs and requirements one might work and one might not.

Assuming you could get a small high end book shelf to play as loud as a JTR then I'm nearly certain no one would ever buy a JTR. But you can't so lots of people buy them and love them. The diy group stuff is very similar. Something like a 1099 or fusion 8 sounds great and gets much louder off less wattage. For theater they are very good choice.

No one would run them in a two channel system if they knew better. A wider speaker with smoother would be preferred, at least for me.

I generally like accurate speakers like studio monitors. That's just what I like. Someone else could be different. But his opinion and statement about not liking the horns I totally understand. He's speaking from and educated postion. He knows what he likes and has experienced enough to know. That's rare. Most have not and that's why every review someone gives about new speakers is always awesome around here. Everyone automatically loves their new "upgrade". I get a kick out of that when search post history and see it before, or wait and hang out long enough to see another and them another "upgrade" by the same folks. Those are people who don't yet understand what they actually like.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Anyone do any "Blind" Listening tests between Commercial and DIY?

I've had qsc, Polk, PSA, behringer pa speakers, pi speakers (diy) jbl, and a ton of diysg speakers like the 1099, fusion 8 towers , horns , volt 10's and other ones I can't think of at this time. I've been over at Matt's house mtg90 were has has diy speakers that aren't for sale but built for his own use and they sounded great. As for all the speakers I listed above. The qsc speakers did great and were a favorite at one of my gtg meets. The group of guys that were over (around 20) really liked the 1099's and the fusion 15's these seemed to beat some store bought speakers. We only did an a/b comparison between my 15" behringer pa speakers I use for my lcr and Matt's fusion 15 from diysg. The fusions won and sounded great which left me wanting to build them this spring summer time.
I think each speaker diy or commercial will perform different in everyone's room because of how the room is treated. For example the guys who were at the last meet at house liked my speakers better this time because of my room having treatments in there. The speakers weren't so bright. There's lots of commercial speakers that are great but you pay the high price for them the good ones of course. When going diy you have the satisfaction of saying you built that cabinet to. The Boston gtg was great with a/b testing IMO. Mike fusick did a great job switching the speakers around for the guys there that day.
 
#13 ·
Well if you don't want a horn, go with Statements or Clearwave Dynamics. I didn't want them either and that's what I got suggested. You won't find a lot of suggestions for either though unless you SPECIFICALLY state NO HORNs and then you will still get a few anyway lol.

I went with the Clearwaves and I'm 100% more than satisfied. Wasn't expecting them to be that big of a jump over my Ascend Sierra 1 setup, but boy they were.

Room treatments just put them over the top.

I may gave some of the DIYSG designs a try later on this year though for a spare room. Should be interesting!
 
#15 ·
I used the word hate to reference people that said they did HATE the horn speakers that they have heard but love the DIYSG speakers they have heard. You can replace the word hate with whatever word best describes your feelings about it. It doesnt change my point at all and you just sound like a pompous troll looking for an argument.
 
#17 ·
I haven't done blind testing between retail and DIY speakers, but I have done some eyes-wide-open testing.

I have some BIG horn loaded floor standing speakers that were $2,500 a pair when new and were top-of-the-line 20 years ago. I have some Cheap Thrills by DIYSoundgroup at $400 pr which are more efficient and more accurate sounding with better off-axis response.

I prefer not to list name brands.
+++

I also did an evaluation comparing the Fusion 10 Pure to an industry standard, the Bose 301. In this article I did name names. :cool:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/155-d...122-fusion-10-pure-vs-bose-301-series-ii.html
 
#21 ·
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


-----

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.
 
#33 ·
I thought his link explained his viewpoint pretty well FYI:




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.

This is a very informative post and explains why I don't enjoy listening to music on my Fusion 12's. Any ideas for a DIY speaker with wide dispersion but with the same high, un-distorted SPL levels of the larger DIYsoundgroup speakers? Or could I just modify the Fusion 12's by replacing the SEOS waveguide with a wide angle flare similar to that used by Zu Audio?
 
#22 ·
The battle goes on,

My present mains are soft dome tweeters in a waveguide and I really like their sound. Alas, it is time to upgrade the HT for reference levels and they can't handle the load. The last time I owned compression driver/horn loaded speaker was in the 90's, time to revisit the design and hear how things have improved over the years. The BMS concentric driver and Danley's Synergy Horns seem to address the downsides of that design while retaining the superior parts. To dip my toe back into the pool, I'm going DIY SG with a pair of Fusion 10's--If I like them, press on--if not, they will become surrounds.

Over the years, I've heard every design attacked as "wrong", be it the metallic sound of ribbon tweeters, ringing hard dome tweeters, mushy soft domes or harsh compression drivers. My present soft domes sound very clean, I like them which is obvious as I've been using them for 17 years! However, I did not join the soft dome religion, fully aware they can't deal with reference levels so time to put on the big boy pants and get something that does.

My goal is having a speaker that can do HT and music well with a typical HT AVR that my wife can use without reading a chart. Knowing Mr. Hoffman and his law from my car audio and PA days--it won't be tiny with WAF friendly measurements. Since horns scare people and they tend to dismiss them from their hanging out in bar days...I'll go with a nice grill.

After all, when it is time to hoist the pirate flag--I have 6 foot lines of dome tweeters in my line arrays in the garage that will happily make your ears ring without distortion. 48 tweeter per side have their advantages...and downsides but always deliver the SPL in a very non WAF way. My wife announced that line arrays are not in my HT future so the search continues.
 
#23 ·
Pures sound pretty darn good as long as subs are on tap.
I built 2x PA460 midbass cabs to go with mine, and for the $ I spent it's pretty rockin'.
Not up to par with alot of the guys on here, but I was looking at value per dollar, and they were perfect.
Most folks would look at DIYSG lineup and look at the Pures as "Small"...yeah, compared to the beasts they are, but these are not small speakers per se, and they must weigh close to 40lbs each.

Enjoy!
 
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#28 ·
Pures sound pretty darn good as long as subs are on tap.
Most folks would look at DIYSG lineup and look at the Pures as "Small"...yeah, compared to the beasts they are, but these are not small speakers per se, and they must weigh close to 40lbs each.

Enjoy!
Good points,

I'm going with the highest efficiency VS size and the Pure 10 is the smallest speaker DIY SG (or most anyone) makes that is 98dB 1w/1m and does 80Hz to crossover to my subs. Since I'm using an AVR and a Pure 10 can handle 200 watts or so all year at maximum output without stress, there is little SPL gain by going very large. I'll be making my own cabinets with heavily braced 5/8ths Birch so am shooting for weight at a little under 40 pounds.

Prior to the "Boseification" of audio in the mid '80's, the 12.5"W X 20"H X 12"D size of the Pure 10 was considered on the small side. It would of been considered a large bookshelf speaker back then. However, the audio companies jumped on little bitty speakers since they are considerably cheaper to make the components, make small boxes and save massive amounts of money shipping and storing the little things.

Fully aware most speakers are made for looks, that would explain putting ports on the back for a bookshelf--ports are ugly and take up space! You'd never expect to see a giant horn or waveguide to pass the Bose knockoff test. Luckily, JBL realizes that making the traditional dome tweeter/woofer design has stalled the industry and is throwing R&D at horns/waveguides for a better HT and musical experience.

You can bet the horn R&D was done for commercial theaters, concert touring systems, install sound and studio work--it trickles down to consumer audio for a taste. Considering that consumer audio is rehashing the same designs over and over to save on costs, it is refreshing to see a few companies actual offer progress in the market.

For my use in a non-treated room, waveguides work best for me and put the sound where it needs to go--and tries to keep it off the floor/ceiling to improve sound quality in room. Not a lot of choices out there, I've owned Klipsch but that upper mid issue grates at me so I sold them. Won't blow the money on JBL M2s or JTRs so the Fusion 10 makes the most sense for the design I need, the cash I'm willing to blow and the size I and my wife will put up with.

So if your worried about anyone not liking horns or waveguides--the correct answer is they are theater speakers--not music speakers. If golden eared Bob claims his small music speakers can do theater, just turn your AVR to reference levels and show him your SPL meter. Audiophiles fear and hate SPL meters... :D

It's a new year, go out and give a listen to as many designs as you can--tech moves forward so what you hated last year might work this year. Enjoy!
 
#24 ·
Go out and listen for yourself people.

Find enthusiasts in your area that have dome tweeters, ribbons, waveguid/CD's and come to your own conclusions. Better yet, borrow or buy or build speakers and try them out in your room. Suddenly all the advice from the know-it-alls on the forum will become meaningless because you will know for yourself what you like best. Maybe you'll get lucky and prefer the same style speakers for both music and movies. :cool:
 
#25 ·
My first real taste of envelopment came from my little Heliums speakers designed by Scott S. On TechTalk. The next time was at @eng-399 Chicago gtg. I brought my Heliums, they did their disappearing act in Mike's room too and almost kept up with his subs. They are itty bitty soft dome and a 3" woofer. At the gtg I also heard Dman's Bagby designed Fusion8 towers, they also disappeared into the room. Sounded amazing and could get very loud. I could have sworn a jazz band was playing on his stage. Nothing else I heard that day disappeared into the room (I wasn't there the whole time though).

At one point, I purchased Behringer B212XL speakers as L and R which proved more difficult to make dissapear yet I felt the soundstage was wider than the speakers placement in my room although not deep. I felt this may have to do with placement. I researched the subject and found a thread on how to get a wide and deep soundstage. I followed its recommendations and finally got them to dissapear, it was amazing. I was there, front row and could pick out instruments deep in the soundstage of the orchestra! They ended up way out into the room though and since the wife already hated them, they are now Mikes surrounds. So IMO some speakers are forgiving more than others but placement and room interaction have a ton to do with it. I can't back up anything I'm saying with science, it's just my opinion based on my own experiences.

If anyone wants to experiment, this is the post I am referring to:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...nnel-speaker-setup-guide-deep-soundstage.html
 
#26 ·
Except subjective opinions (even your own) can be highly unreliable.

Especially on dynamic material where the material might not expose easily a small flaw in a speaker performance.

You'll find it eventually but it's often too late.

Measurements can find it right away.

The idea about people like a certain kind of sound is false. Most people like accurate sound. In fact the quality of a speaker is judged on its accuracy. An accurate speaker is a better speaker than a less accurate speaker 100% of the time. The point of the loudspeaker is to add nothing, and take nothing away, and reproduce the incoming signal as true as possible. If you do indeed find you like a certain kind of sound that is what EQ and calibration are for.

My advice would be different:

First consider the application and what you need/want from a loudspeaker. Then only consider speakers that fit that application and criteria you've established very well. That can prevent confusion amongst the myriad of options. Once that's done you can take a look at the other nuances that separate your options from each other and make a final purchase decision. Buying a great speaker that is the wrong speaker won't provide the best value or performance, and the speaker could still be an excellent design and excellent product that just doesn't fit the application.

I'm all for setting up gear for the fun of it, to test and learn for myself. I do it all the time. I enjoy it. But having done it enough I have learned its not the only or the best way to make purchase decisions. Listening for yourself is important, and ideally you should try to listen to anything you might buy before you buy them. But it's also a waste of time and potentially unreliable if you are not listening to the right stuff and you get swept away with emotion and other factors that are not the actual sound it makes. That's very easy to do when you have passion and enthusiasm. That's why extended demo time is great because you can cool down and try it out many times and much material.

I've had experiences where I thought a certain speaker was the best I ever heard, then a year later it magically was not again. Explain? Sometimes memory and opinion just gets funny like that. But measurements never change. It's really sad that so many speaker companies still don't provide or do the kind of measurements that directly correlate to speaker quality and listener preference. A few do, but much too many do not. There's a couple good sources online that do reviews and post 3rd party results, and that's good if you can find it for the models you are considering but often new models or niche products don't have that.

Moral of the story: it's difficult for consumers to pick the right speaker. Certainly not as easy as a quick demo and answer "yes" if you want to do it well.
 
#29 ·
IMO it's useless to argue whether horns, waveguides, soft dome, metal dome, planar, etc., speakers sound better. Having spend countless hours listening to a lot of different types of speakers, I will say that it really depends on what you're listening to, your electronics, the material source and how it was recorded, and your room.

I have Kipsch original Forte's that I love. 2 Ch audio snobs will proclaim "those sound terrible because horns honk". IMO they're great with a simple receiver and listening to rock. They're dynamic, get loud easily, an voice sounds great.

I have Bohlender Graebner Radio 520 planar speakers. These sound great with monoblocks and a good pre/pro. They are very revealing and are very 3 dimensional but they lack the low end so a good sub is mandatory. Pair these with good electronics and higher end CD or a good turntable.

I've spend much time listening to Celestion SL700 bookshelf speakers. These are great with folk music, simple orchestral, and anything that demands great point source high resolution. But they're not great if you're trying to reproduce a rock concert.

I'm embarking on building out a dedicated home theater. For my theater system I'm going with DIYSG 1099's for the front stage and Volts for my surrounds. Above all I need dynamics and good clean output. I'm going to have a second dedicated 2.1 system for my tubes and turntable.

Just my two cents.
 
#30 ·
@18Hurts

I think you are going to like the pure 10's. I just finished mine and I am super impressed. They sound great. I'm really surprised by the highs. They are very smooth and extended especially for a compression driver. Just as good as the Faital Pro hf140's in my old CornScalas imo and that CD costs more than the whole 10 Pure kit!

These truley are all the speaker most people need in their theater. I think the reason they are not more popular is because of the prices and the pictures don't do their size justice. They are not little bookshelf speakers lol.
 
#35 ·
Mfusick, you don't seem to understand or appreciate the reason for toe in. You also seem to be lumping all reflections into the same container. When dealing with wanted vs unwanted reflections, the primary difference is time. In general, reflections delayed by more than 20ms* are a good thing. The problem is there are many reflections that come in under 10ms and those need to be absorbed or directed (via controlled directivity speakers). When absorbing, you're correct that a tipped down absorption (favoring the highs) is common and can lead to boomy sound, but I don't find this is a common problem. The other part about wanted vs unwanted reflections is intensity. Reflections more than -20db* relative to the direct sound are ok. Probably could get away with -10db depending on how many reflections are piling up. Again, the problem is many reflections are nearly all more than -10 because we listen in small spaces. Our human sensitivity to these reflections also tends to decrease and frequency decreases below about 500hz. This is the reason we toe in. As you toe in, you reduce the intensity of the reflection. The distance doesn't change much if the actual speaker location doesn't move, but the reduction in intensity is often enough to help the brain decipher the direct sound from reflected sound. Without the toe in the ear/brain received the direct and reflected sound so close in time and intensity that the two sources of sound are essentially combined in the brain and sound less clear/detailed.

In my personal experience, in my untreated room, I've found that I can get a very enveloping sound. And that enveloping sound is partly because of the reflection but also partly because of the spacial image included in the source material that isn't being smeared by early (
 
#36 ·
100% agree Ryan ^.

There's a practical limit to what I can say or cover in a single post. Too much or too loud or bad sound was the easiest way I could describe unwanted reflections to the laymen.

I have no doubt you have a nice sound either, but then again I didn't see your room covered in absorbtion either :).

Toe is great, it gives you a nice wide sweet spot for multiple rows. I was just trying to explain how a very directive and toe in speaker in a room full of aborbtion isn't going to be optimal for music, or enveloping. That give and take thing again...

For music I don't think a horn would be my first choice unless someone gave me an M2. I like waveguides, but they sound better with domes than compression drivers at normal volumes on music to me generally speaking. There's always exceptions though. If someone ventured into this forum or the speaker forum or dedicated build forum you'd swear as a noobie around here that CD/waveguide high efficiency speakers are clearly superior in fideltiy and sound quality across the board to the extent that nothing else is even worth considering. While I do think they are well suited for loud theater dynamics, I also think they are misrepresented or misunderstood too. The popularity and owner reinforcement is expanding subjective opinion far past reality. I've been seeing people "upgrade" into $150 pro audio speakers ditching much higher fidelity speakers. As much as there is good about CD/horns there's bad too. They are not smooth, or wide, or extended, as a result of size. The bigger the tweet the more that's true.
 
#38 ·
@Mfusick

Those BAD panels are very interesting. The concept and your explanation makes a lot of sense. I am going to check them out. Thank you.

I agree domes can definitely sound more extended or "airy", which I do like. I will say these Pure-10's Ryan designed come extremely close to that and sound very smooth. Better than other cd/wg setups I have personally heard. Heck better than most speakers I have heard period. When you factor in their dynamic abilities for movies, they make a lot of sense in a multipurpose theater setup.
 
#39 ·
Ryan from what I understand aligns very much into the philosophies I've come to understand and believe in, and he's quite intelligent about them. So it's no doubt you'll enjoy some of his designs of you also align too. His "sound" is accurate, more accurate than some big name MFG made stuff. He's taken a lot of effort to make his own anechoic chamber in his back yard, getting the speaker way up off the ground and getting good resolution down past where the room would dominate. His 1099 is agressive, it's about as aggressive as you can get chasing accurate. When we compared the 1099 to the JTR and RA and PSA the boston GTG I coined the term "agressively accurate" when I wrote my comments. It's not a perfect speaker, even Ryan admits that, but it's certainly well done and he should be proud that he's able to compete and even beat serious competitive offerings of the market place.

I don't think its Revel accurate, but it's certainly a step in the right direction compared to a lot of other high efficiency designs. Traditionally those kind of products had a very "pro audio" sound to them. That term isn't a compliment.

The 1099 is a bit bright, but for a longer throw theater that might work out ok because of the natural roll off of highs over distance. It's going to be flater or less bright at the MLP. There's some confusion in the understanding or interpretation of the downward slope target curve, but Ryan obviously gets it. That's about as good as your going to get with those parts IMO. That's what makes that design so special IMO, he's basically able to extract all the performance possible in that design and that's what makes it a good value.

As far as the perfsorber yes check it out.
 
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