- Joined
- Jun 19, 2018
- Messages
- 6,652
- Likes
- 9,410
I know that the trend in speaker design has been toward narrow baffles, moving the frequency point where sound becomes more directional from the speaker higher. I’m not sure what benefit this brings. I guess it brings more of the curve into a range where there is less attenuation of off axis sound?
This is a complex one. My view is that wide baffles are superior for two main reasons:
- they bring the point at which directivity transitions from frontal to omni down to (or closer to) a region where the room tends to dominate (both in terms of measurement and perception)
- they widen the frequency band between the points where the woofer(s) tend to become omnidirectional and where the enclosure does, ensuring that the transition from highly directional to omni is less abrupt than for an enclosure that is roughly the same width as the woofer(s) it houses
The other issue is edge diffraction which I don’t understand. The descriptions I’ve seen seem to describe almost as a reflection from the sound traveling across front of baffle, when it hits the edge, some bounces back causing comb filtering interference.
The modern studio monitors tend to have curved baffles, which I think is supposed to minimize the problems with diffraction.
That’s correct. Also FWIW, the main argument against wide baffles is that these diffracted waves arrive later than they do with a narrower baffle, and from a point more distant from the source. But yes, curving the baffle edges is the most effective way to minimise this diffraction. It’s also possible that you like this diffraction effect sonically - I recall for example Vance Dickason writing that he found highly diffractive baffles to sound more "lively". I’m not aware of any serious research into this, however.
I totally get what you’re saying: that my hypothesis proposed is only relevant if there actually is some kind of “family sound” for different approaches to speaker designs. Essentially that is my tentative hypothesis. That is my subjective experience.
That's interesting and yes you could be right. I think the one aspect I can't imagine this could be the case with would be your discussion of resonant enclosure walls. This just couldn't be consistent across speakers as there are so many random factors at play in determining the frequencies and and decay of such resonances.
But I do think you might be onto something when it comes to baffle dimensions and edge diffraction.
What I need to do for at least sanity check is find a home speaker that is designed in accordance with the principles espoused by Toole, and see what I think.
Do folks think any of the older Revel models would qualify? I would like to find something $1000 or less, used.
The Revel M106 qualifies and can probably be had for under $1k used. However, apart from the non-curved edges, I doubt it would sound much different from your studio monitors, as it's a similar size/width and has a similar driver complement to a small studio monitor, i.e. 6" cone woofer + 1" dome tweeter in a small constant directivity waveguide.