Diffraction elimination

[jandl100]

Hi there

Yup, my Woolly Widgets or WWs (as I call JimG's fine little accessories ) have arrived.

By popular request, i.e. at JimG's and Marco's suggestion) here is my PM to Jim with my 1st impressions, slightly edited for intelligibility .....

But first, I should acknowledge that the main use I have put them to is on a speaker they were not specifically tailored for, as you will read in the following text.

______

Hi Jim

OK - I hear what these are doing, I think.

They certainly do not dull the sound like those appalling Russ Andrews accessories that have been mentioned. I would agree with you that the tonal balance stays pretty much the same (much to my surprise).

I have tried them on 2 sets of speakers - my open baffle ProAcs and a pair of John Bowers Active One speakers - large stand-mounts, with 300W per speaker of active (onboard) power.

First the ProAcs - I have grown to dislike these speakers as set up in my room - they are now up for sale on eBay. Diffuse soundstage and imaging that the WWs failed to do much with - the backwave simply dominates that aspect of their sound. Forget the ProAcs!

Secondly the John Bowers Active One speakers. One tweeter and two 6 inch mid/bass units. Ah - much better! I used the WWs that you sent to go around the small ribbon tweeters on the ProAcs, placed around the tweeter. Much, much more interesting.

Here's a pic of the speaker ..... with a CD placed for scale .... bloody big things, they weigh 30Kg each (that's 66lb in 'real money' ....



In essence, it seems to me, the WWs seem to remove a bit of the 'reverberant field' making images much more precise and well focussed. Good stuff. But ... in so doing they also seem to remove some/most of the recorded ambience of the recording making for a somewhat sterile presentation. You might respond - "But the WWs are just showing what is on the recording, any extra 'ambience' is an artifact added by the speaker cabinet" - Hmmm, maybe so, I might reply, but it does rather seem to be like listening in an anechoic chamber.

I plan further listening - and perhaps (well, almost certainly!) fooling around with a halfway house; if I chop up the no-longer-needed midrange WWs that you sent to fit around the ProAc's small midrange cone and place them around the speaker front baffle in various configurations I may well end up with a good compromise between improved focus and enjoyable (although perhaps spurious) ambience.

Sadly, that will have to wait a while - my head cold has returned and my hearing is currently severely curtailed - I now have an appointment booked with my doctor for an ear-syringing on Wednesday!

Jerry