Rotary Transformer
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- Feb 12, 2020
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Why didn't amirm bold 'recommend' this time?
Hi Amir,
Thanks for yet another excellent review. It seems we have excellent speakers from Revel, ELAC and Genelec to choose from. The only issue is that they all seem to have restricted low frequency response - 30 to 49 Hz.
Any plans to review powered sub woofers please?
They polar plots are not great the price:
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While not as full range and can’t get as loud, here is the Neumann flagship:
View attachment 74305View attachment 74306
I think the Funk Audio subs are still the highest performing, cleanest, DSP-equipped subs they've reviewed.
Not anymore, I don't think. Looking at the list, JTR, ZOD(DIY?) and Danley seem to be reigning kings now. Rythim FH25 is also above the top Funks, unless I'm reading it wrong.
In many cases the (very) large Genelecs are flush mounted, and also used at distances and rooms where the far off-axis is of arguably less importance, especially when taking into account the higher directivity of these loudspeakers, meaning the reflected sounds are already x dB below the direct sound.
That sounds a bit harsh. "Serious tonal aberrations": could you be more precise?The speaker exhibits a classic collapsing polar. Something that was well understood being bad already in the 70s and 80s.
With a directivity that goes from constant to collapsing so early in frequency and when the speaker is placed in a normal room with reflective surfaces, you end up with serious tonal abberations and most often a frequency response as a roller coaster where the speaker looses its directivity.
The new Rythmiks are absolutely outstanding. If I was on the market for a pre-built subwoofer again that'd be the way I'd go. I didn't know they had parametric EQ on them now. They were actually my first choice back in the day, but there were too many issues with trying to get a pair shipped to me. I hope their distribution has improved since then.
The other ones... the Wife Acceptance Factor of most of the ultra high performance subs is about as close to zero as it gets. My Funk wasn't an especially great value even when I bought it but at least it's gorgeous.
I'm simply pointing out what the measurements shows. The speaker has a horizontal directivity of around 100° (combining both) at 2KHz. Below that the directivity is lost and already at 950 Hz the directivity has changed to 200°. Meaning there will be great shift in the reflective energy, and thus you have huge tonal changes and uneven frequency response unless your room is semi anechoic.That sounds a bit harsh. "Serious tonal aberrations": could you be more precise?
You mean the area between 550 - 2000 Hz?The speaker exhibits a classic collapsing polar. Something that was well understood being bad already in the 70s and 80s.
With a directivity that goes from constant to collapsing so early in frequency and when the speaker is placed in a normal room with reflective surfaces, you end up with serious tonal abberations and most often a frequency response as a roller coaster where the speaker looses its directivity.
Again, there is discussion around Amir not measuring at the correct acoustic center, that just below vertically, that dip gets filled in.I'm simply pointing out what the measurements shows. The speaker has a horizontal directivity of around 100° (combining both) at 2KHz. Below that the directivity is lost and already at 950 Hz the directivity has changed to 200°. Meaning there will be great shift in the reflective energy, and thus you have huge tonal changes and uneven frequency response unless your room is semi anechoic.
There's nothing good about that and the vertical suffers similar. Personally I'll much rather have a speaker with some slight uneven directivity and on-axis response but with a directivity that is remained much lower in frequency. Placed in a room with reflective surfaces, that alters the tonality much less and on-axis unevenness can be improved with EQ if it's minimum phase behaviour.
And yet this forum contains a lot of "brake pedal" measurements.
should Amir just connect each amp he tests to his salon 2 and measure resulting performance, instead of using his AP?
Amplifiers aren't used separately from speakers anyway.
The vertical directivity collapses early in frequency vertically also and is what I'm pointing out. "Filling out a dip" has no relevance to that. This isn't a constant directivity speaker neither horizontally or vertically. Do we think the frequency range below 2 KHz or 1 KHz doesn't matter?Again, there is discussion around Amir not measuring at the correct acoustic center, that just below vertically, that dip gets filled in.
Which is not possible at that small (baffle) size, unless you implement something exotic like a cardioid woofer. These are small 5" "shoe-box" loudspeakers and not meant or even advised by the manufacturer to be used outside of their near field (usually less then 1,5 meters) and if some people do they still do better than most typical similar sized hifi loudspeakers which show also a baffle step transition from sphere radiation to forward radiation at a quite high mid frequency. By the way most highly appreciated loudspeakers here like the various Revels, Focal, Elac etc also don't have a very much lower baffle step frequency due to their also narrow baffles but still most people enjoy them a lot even outside their near field and even the Harman researches blind tests didn't show a different preference.Personally I'll much rather have a speaker with some slight uneven directivity and on-axis response but with a directivity that is remained much lower in frequency.
I'm simply pointing out what the measurements shows. The speaker has a horizontal directivity of around 100° (combining both) at 2KHz. Below that the directivity is lost and already at 950 Hz the directivity has changed to 200°. Meaning there will be great shift in the reflective energy, and thus you have huge tonal changes and uneven frequency response unless your room is semi anechoic.