Why do you need a speaker crossover - discuss

[Neil McCauley]

Oh go on, go on Howard!

I go to South Africa, I can buy one there and bring it back to kill meself in the comfort of my own home

You'd need (a) a forklift, (b) very deep pockets (c) a power amp unconditionally stable into 0.5 ohms and .......... (d) no heart pacemaker.

Let's first see what the consensus is here. Also, and if you'll forgive the question - where to stick the text ? remains unresolved.

Howard

[DSJR]

Well there is one absolute - anything that sits in the signal path or earth path or power supply feed interferes with the music.

So what is really necessary. Is a crossover part of this, my argument is that it is not as its work can be done largely mechanically without adding to the musical interference.

Point 1, anything in the signal path may interfer with the "music," but is as NOTHING compared to the huge distortions introduced by speaker drive units and cabinets generally, so son't worry about it ...

Point 2, in your Cubes, you're simply seeming to transfer the job of a crossover to the room interaction, by firstly dosing the driver with loads of gloop (can you guarantee consistency here?) and by placing it on top of the cube, thus making it very sensitive - perhaps - to room and ceiling reflections to do the crossing out for you?

All things in reproduced music is a compromise. You have yours Richard - not perfection by any means - and most other manufacturers have theirs, which you wouldn't be willing to accept, but many others do.

Me? For a very fair price I'd look at Rega speakers today. Simple designs, efficient and yet with a refinement way beyond what they were doing ten years ago. They're really good and I'd happily give 'em house room

[goraman]

It makes good rope but not good drive units

Anyway it has all been tried before, that one by Mana according to rumour.

Tell that to Peter Qavortrup of Audio Note UK.

A user of hemp. in speaker cones...

[DSJR]

Well I have my proof, I could play you two versions of the Cube1 speaker one with a *correct* conventional crossover with some of the physical work as in cabinet design and material, and one with the extra mechanical work on the cone and cabinet and just a tweeter protection cap, and it is a large musical difference.

To do it "correctly," it wouldn't be a cube would it, as the very shape introduces issues I believe

No absolutes in speaker design, just the compromises one is prepared to live with

http://www.sound.westhost.com/bafflestep.htm

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Point 1, anything in the signal path may interfer with the "music," but is as NOTHING compared to the huge distortions introduced by speaker drive units and cabinets generally, so son't worry about it ...

Point 2, in your Cubes, you're simply seeming to transfer the job of a crossover to the room interaction, by firstly dosing the driver with loads of gloop (can you guarantee consistency here?) and by placing it on top of the cube, thus making it very sensitive - perhaps - to room and ceiling reflections to do the crossing out for you?

All things in reproduced music is a compromise. You have yours Richard - not perfection by any means - and most other manufacturers have theirs, which you wouldn't be willing to accept, but many others do.

Me? For a very fair price I'd look at Rega speakers today. Simple designs, efficient and yet with a refinement way beyond what they were doing ten years ago. They're really good and I'd happily give 'em house room

You original point is fatuous, if speaker distortion masked everything else you wouldn't hear cable changes or anything else of subtle nature. Speaker distortion is frequency based and has nothing to do with clarity or information retrieval unless it happens to be a BBC design, even a pair of Mk1 Kans will show you cable differences and they distort more than any UK speaker I have ever heard, yet when you ignore it they play music. Rocks in the river largely block musical information.

You understand precisely *nothing* about the Cube design. Who told you I use loads of gloop, no one, you just want to make it up and diss. In fact if you were capable of reading you would see that I stated many posts ago the it added less than 5% to the cone mass which was a light mass cone in the first place. So gloop is not a problem #1. # 2 you obviously know nothing about acoustics and room coupling, do you know anything about omni or semi omni speakers, have you ever owned or had long time experience of them, I doubt it, yet you spout like you know everything. The speaker is *easier* to fit into a room acoustic than any other speaker, because the Cube is designed to acoustic couple. Again if you had read previous post the tuning process has been explained in detail, so another heap of crap. So what is left - oh yes your desire to create conflict

My compromise is my design and I will compare to *anything*. John heard them at the weekend ask him.

Really you wonder why I show you no respect, well at least try to earn it!

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

To do it "correctly," it wouldn't be a cube would it, as the very shape introduces issues I believe

No absolutes in speaker design, just the compromises one is prepared to live with

http://www.sound.westhost.com/bafflestep.htm

Again complete lack of knowledge, let me talk you through it slowly. A speaker cabinet that is a cube, used in conjunction with a conical drive unit. I will leave you to apply a little intelligence. Some hints, where does the speaker emit sound waves from and on what part of the cone does that vary with frequency. Where is that emission point relative to the sides of the cabinet. If you are capable of working it out you will see that the only structure that can guarantee not to have a standing wave problem is a cube with a cone inserted in it. Now if it was a planar driver then you would have an argument, but sadly for you it isn't.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Tell that to Peter Qavortrup of Audio Note UK.

A user of hemp. in speaker cones...

Peter Qavortrup had nothing to do with it, all he did was copy the Snell designs.

But yes you can make paper out of hemp.

[Marco]

Hi Richard,

Again if you had read previous post the tuning process has been explained in detail, so another heap of crap. So what is left - oh yes your desire to create conflict...

You're posting really well, mate, but just watch the language. I suspect you're misinterpreting Dave's tendency to be somewhat 'opinionated' (and he's far from alone in that respect) as a desire to cause conflict.

I can assure you it isn't. Relax, Dave is not your ememy

As an aside, how do you think the Cubes would react to (quality) valve amplification?

Marco.

[DSJR]

I rest my case Richard

Speaker drive units are the lossy things, generating loads of distortion way above any intrusive effects of a well designed crossover. Any suggestion otherwise is arrogance which flies in the face of accepted and provable (not by me, but by all the reasearch that's been done in the last few decades) fact. That's not to say that one can't hear differences in cables and partnering equipment, but that the driver is the main generator of distortion.

By the way, you admitted to doping your drive units to aid their rolloff. Gloop, doping, call it what you will..

Does the link I posted to tell you nothing of any value, or is the author misguided as well?

I've been the way of letting the room interact too much with a speaker ('Briks, Bose and Sonab to name three from memory) and didn't care overmuch for any of them. At least with my inductor laden two cubic foot oblongs with gunged up quacky cones, well damped multi-ply boxes and a port (admittedly now tuned), I can listen to hours of music OF ALL KINDS and thoroughly enjoy the experience. May not be HiFi to your ears, but once again I'm not comparing as I don't need to Far better for me than relentless "rhythm-kings" anyway...

Perhaps others well able to do their own research and maths can jump in and contribute here. The rest can go to sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzz

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Hi Richard,

You're posting really well, mate, but just watch the language. I suspect you're misinterpreting Dave's tendency to be somewhat 'opinionated' (and he's far from alone in that respect) as a desire to cause conflict.

I can assure you it isn't. Relax, Dave is not your ememy

As an aside, how do you think the Cubes would react to (quality) valve amplification?

Marco.

Its just more of the same Marco, why should he suddenly out of the blue attack the design of a speaker he hasn't heard, has no knowledge of, and with fatuous statements that bare nor resemblance to reality. I am not an employee these are the equivalent of my babies, at the very least you should try to have experience before you pass such trite judgement as this. I wont quote John from Saturday as if he wants he can quote himself. He was encouraging me to put them into production even though they will cost more than I want because of the acrylic cabs.

Do valve amps create different electrons to solid state amps They are very easy to drive, my amps don't even get warm on them and an AP10p at under 20w drives them with no problem, but they really show up an amps capability to pass information and they show up recordings to be what they are. They are not forgiving speakers.

If you want to have a listen in your system you can take them home with you after the bake-off - if you are coming. BUT you have to undertake to get them back to me and I have no boxes suitable for them.