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#41
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Thank you, I DO always want to understand this better and I appreciate
people like you taking the time to explain it to non-EE's like myself. Thanks again, Nick "arthur" wrote in message ... No. You have a DC mental image of how a capacitor operates. There are 2 passive reactive devices for AC: capacitors and inductors. Reactance is the name given to the resistance, measured in Ohms, of an AC signal. Place a resistance in a circuit and it must attenuate the signal by converting some of the power to heat. Impedence is resistance with a PhD. I thought you would rather know the facts. arthur On Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:02:29 -0700, "MOSFET" wrote: I was just pointing out that capacitors, by their nature, can discharge current and THEREFORE it stands to reason that a signal may be boosted EVER SO SLIGHTLY (and attenuated as well), again, I WOULD NOT except it to be audible. |
#42
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
DC is not audible. Well sure it is, for a SPLIT second and then the cone remains stationary (out or in depending on the voltage, positive or negative). MOSFET |
#43
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
DC is not audible.
It would probably sound like one loud THUMP, and then silence. So THAT'S audible. MOSFET |
#44
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
the more complicated it is. the more troubles you'll have.
Geez, Bob, that's true and ALWAYS good advice. Man, you're on a roll, keep it up and I might stop calling you a troll..... (you're wondering "is that a compliment or not:?") MOSFET |
#45
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Too easy. The hard part is that reactance ( the X of Z = R + X )
changes as the AC frequency. So the effect is one can attenuate some frequencies more or less than others ( the how of crossovers ). This can fool the non electonics person into thinking that some frequencies are enhanced at the expense of others. And now you know. arthur ps Z = R + X is an understatement of the complexity but we all know that we don't have to know that jazz since we have really smart computers to do the hard stuff. On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:42:37 -0700, "MOSFET" wrote: Thank you, I DO always want to understand this better and I appreciate people like you taking the time to explain it to non-EE's like myself. Thanks again, Nick |
#46
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
touche
On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:49:06 -0700, "MOSFET" wrote: DC is not audible. It would probably sound like one loud THUMP, and then silence. So THAT'S audible. MOSFET |
#47
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Don't ya hate the "nit-pickers". I've been nitpicked so many times I COULD
NOT resist. MOSFET "arthur" wrote in message ... touche On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:49:06 -0700, "MOSFET" wrote: DC is not audible. It would probably sound like one loud THUMP, and then silence. So THAT'S audible. MOSFET |
#48
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
"MOSFET" wrote in message
... Don't ya hate the "nit-pickers". I've been nitpicked so many times I COULD NOT resist. MOSFET "arthur" wrote in message ... touche On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:49:06 -0700, "MOSFET" wrote: DC is not audible. It would probably sound like one loud THUMP, and then silence. So THAT'S audible. MOSFET Actually, the thump would be caused by the change in signal from its old voltage to its new one (ie: the transition from 0v to 12v). This would not be DC, but a momentary AC riding a DC level. How's that for nitpicking? :-p Chris |
#49
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
also, not musical, since the rise time would be close to zero and thus
a square wave which is far from musical for "normal" types. On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:08:18 -0700, "Christopher \"Torroid\" Ott" spamtrap at ottelectronics dot com wrote: Actually, the thump would be caused by the change in signal from its old voltage to its new one (ie: the transition from 0v to 12v). This would not be DC, but a momentary AC riding a DC level. How's that for nitpicking? :-p Chris |
#50
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
On Sep 13, 1:20 am, arthur wrote:
also, not musical, since the rise time would be close to zero and thus a square wave which is far from musical for "normal" types. On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:08:18 -0700, "Christopher \"Torroid\" Ott" spamtrap at ottelectronics dot com wrote: Actually, the thump would be caused by the change in signal from its old voltage to its new one (ie: the transition from 0v to 12v). This would not be DC, but a momentary AC riding a DC level. How's that for nitpicking? :-p Chris you might hear a mechanical sound in the speaker though if the change in voltage is big enough |
#51
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Yes I thought of that later. The coloration and almost infinite
possible harmonics. A speaker is not a square wave device. Hey, its for fun, remember? On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:09:55 -0700, Mariachi wrote: you might hear a mechanical sound in the speaker though if the change in voltage is big enough |
#52
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
On Sep 13, 12:53 pm, arthur wrote:
Yes I thought of that later. The coloration and almost infinite possible harmonics. A speaker is not a square wave device. Hey, its for fun, remember? On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 05:09:55 -0700, Mariachi wrote: you might hear a mechanical sound in the speaker though if the change in voltage is big enough An ideal speaker could play a square wave w/ the infinite harmonics that make up the square, as long as the square wave oscillates around zero volts... say 5 volts to -5 volts with a frequency greater than 20 Hz. But in the real world... there is no such thing as ideal. Actually, a speaker can play a square wave to some extent, although it may not play all the frequencies because of crosstalk. I hooked my ghetto sony speakers to an AC generator with the square wave option enabled, and you could actually hear some tones coming out of the speaker. I thought it was interesting |
#53
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Actually, the thump would be caused by the change in signal from its old
voltage to its new one (ie: the transition from 0v to 12v). This would not be DC, but a momentary AC riding a DC level. How's that for nitpicking? :-p Chris WOW. You win "nit-picking" prize!!! Nice work, though I don't quite understand what you are saying (but, of course, that can often be a key nit-picking strategy). Nick |
#54
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
http://www.answers.com/topic/square-wave?cat=technology
again, the DC vs AC mentality as though they are the only wave forms. arthur On Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:14:45 -0700, I. Care wrote: Let's get really nit-picky. A state change from 0vDC to 12vDC is a level shift. AC is "Electric current that reverses direction periodically, usually many times per second." In this case there is no reverse of direction, it goes from a steady 0vDC to steady 12vDC until you remove the signal so there is no periodicity. |
#55
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
discount car stereos .com
has all the subs n sub amps...2000rms+ lanzar. under afew hundred dollars. WOW! |
#56
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
car discount stereos .com
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#57
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote:
ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#58
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
This is an-ongoing debate we've been having here at RAC for years now. It
goes a little like this: First, keep in mind 6x9's were developed by car-makers in order to maximize space in the rear-shelf. Do you see any 6x9's on home speakers? No. And here's the reason (although the big debate is whether the following reason is audible) why: As you probably know, speakers work by sending alternating current through a voice coil. This voice coil sits in a magnetic field (this is the larger magnet located behind every speaker) and when alternating current is applied it moves up and down, like an electric motor going forward and reverse over and over really fast. The voice coil is connected to the cone, and it is this in and out movement of the cone that vibrates the air and produces sound (a little accousitc principles 101). So think about a voice coil, it is round. Now think about a 6x9" cone, it is not. So when the voice coil moves, it will have moved the shorter distance of cone (the 6") VERY SLIGHTLY ahead of the 9" distance. Of course, we're talking VERY minute differences. In fact, when playing a higher frequency (where the voice coil is moving VERY fast up and down) it's possible to imagine that the 6" part of the cone has moved up and is ALREADY beggining to move down WHILE THE 9" DISTANCE IS STILL MOVING UP. Again, these are extremelly small differences and obviously the stiffness of the cone come into play. The trouble with cone stiffnes, though, is that my making a stiffer cone to avoid this problem, you also tend to make a HEAVIER cone which comes with it's own set of problems (lack of efficency for one). But that is basically what the debate is about and the big question is whether this problem in design produces audible effects (like distortion, cancellation, ect.). In a car, where you have much larger noise problems AND a poor accoustical space, my guess is it is probably not audible. However, in a home speaker, it very likely would make the speaker a little less steller than a typical 8" or 6" round speaker when you are talking strictly about sound quality. Again, I go back to my first point that home speaker makers DO NOT use 6x9 or any other shape except round to match the voice coil for perfect linierity of movement. The 6x9 or 3x10 or all those weird shapes were made by CAR MAKERS to maximize space, NOT accoutical engineers focussed on what sounds best. And clearly, what will sound best is a cone that moves perfectly linierly up and down. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#59
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
On Sep 20, 11:41 am, "MOSFET" wrote:
This is an-ongoing debate we've been having here at RAC for years now. It goes a little like this: First, keep in mind 6x9's were developed by car-makers in order to maximize space in the rear-shelf. Do you see any 6x9's on home speakers? No. And here's the reason (although the big debate is whether the following reason is audible) why: As you probably know, speakers work by sending alternating current through a voice coil. This voice coil sits in a magnetic field (this is the larger magnet located behind every speaker) and when alternating current is applied it moves up and down, like an electric motor going forward and reverse over and over really fast. The voice coil is connected to the cone, and it is this in and out movement of the cone that vibrates the air and produces sound (a little accousitc principles 101). So think about a voice coil, it is round. Now think about a 6x9" cone, it is not. So when the voice coil moves, it will have moved the shorter distance of cone (the 6") VERY SLIGHTLY ahead of the 9" distance. Of course, we're talking VERY minute differences. In fact, when playing a higher frequency (where the voice coil is moving VERY fast up and down) it's possible to imagine that the 6" part of the cone has moved up and is ALREADY beggining to move down WHILE THE 9" DISTANCE IS STILL MOVING UP. Again, these are extremelly small differences and obviously the stiffness of the cone come into play. The trouble with cone stiffnes, though, is that my making a stiffer cone to avoid this problem, you also tend to make a HEAVIER cone which comes with it's own set of problems (lack of efficency for one). But that is basically what the debate is about and the big question is whether this problem in design produces audible effects (like distortion, cancellation, ect.). In a car, where you have much larger noise problems AND a poor accoustical space, my guess is it is probably not audible. However, in a home speaker, it very likely would make the speaker a little less steller than a typical 8" or 6" round speaker when you are talking strictly about sound quality. Again, I go back to my first point that home speaker makers DO NOT use 6x9 or any other shape except round to match the voice coil for perfect linierity of movement. The 6x9 or 3x10 or all those weird shapes were made by CAR MAKERS to maximize space, NOT accoutical engineers focussed on what sounds best. And clearly, what will sound best is a cone that moves perfectly linierly up and down. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Yes, I agree... the 6x9 speaker is a poor design for a speaker. But if a 6x9 is bad, how much worse a 3x10? I personally don't get why anyone would make a 3x10. It's retarded if you ask me |
#60
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
''hub'' 6.5 might sound a tiny bit better over all. but not noticable in
a car situration. n it can be tuned to sound better than a 6.5 if the 6.5 isnt at 100%. but these beginners in car audio dont/cant tell you the whole story. plus you have your radio reception to factor in. plus 20 other things. if you see a great deal on a 6x9. grab it. |
#61
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
My '77 Chev half-ton had one of those bad boys.. and only one.. in the very
top of the dash. it's for the farm-boys who just wanted some radio to listen to while they were headin out to the ol' grain elevators. one speaker no matter what shape.. is better than none. |
#62
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker
makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#63
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize
oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I was at Best Buy yesterday and the VERY MOST EXPENSIVE ($2,000) speaker they sold was a tower Vienna Accousitcs speaker that was 4" wide!!!!! Tweeter difraction IS VERY REAL and the top speaker makers of this world KNOW THIS. BTW, I didn't see any oval speakers at Best Buy and Magnolia Hi-Fi the last time I was there which was within the last couple months (these are two large retail chains that carry what would be considered low to mid range speaker brands). What I DID FIND were tower speakers that nearly always tended to be narrow and deep in an attempt to reduce diffraction. My only point is that oval speakers would be ALL OVER THE PLACE when it comes to home speakers if there were no sonic drawbacks to them (or at least compared to their round bretheren). As you mentioned, these drawbacks become more pronounced the higher in frequency you go. But you generally don't even see ovals being used as bass drivers in home speakers. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM. Now I don't know where you shop that you see all these home speakers utilizing oval speakers. I am actually curious what that smells like. Do you have a brand or model in mind that I can find to see this? I AM NOT trying to challenge you or calling you a liar, I am TRULY curious. As I said before, on the surface, ovals would be IDEAL in designing the most narrow speaker you can yet still wanting good bass response. Again, the fact that MOST home speaker makers NEVER use ovals speaks volumes. I'm sure there is always an exception, but again, just using common sense, you want a cone whose shape matches the voice coil for the BEST linear pistonic movement. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... That's simply not true... there have been plenty of home speakers that used oval cone drivers. Some of the Tandberg teak cabinet models have them, and I remember a fairly high-end system from Jantzen (spelling?) that had electrostatics up top and a white oval woofer in the lower section. That one was someone ahead of its time in that they were slender towers similar to what people are using for front surrounds these days, in an era where a floorstanding speaker was more lilely to be 18" wide and equally deep. At any rate, the shape of the oval woofer made it a lot easier to get more bass from the system without having to make it a wider cabinet, just as you theorized below. You may not be familiar with any home speakers with oval components but they absolutely exist. I'm sure some basic research on the web would find dozens more examples. Frankly, provided the piston is adequately rigid it doesn't matter all that much what shape it is, up to a point. Certainly lower frequencies are not affected at all provided the moving element acts in purely pistonic mode with no gross deflections. Also less symmetrical cones can be easier to eliminate standing wave distortions on the cone surface, which can improve accuracy. The technology to control those kinds of things during driver design through use of tools like finite element analysis is light-years ahead of where it was when oval drivers were the mainstay of automotive applications. You should not use a typical automotive 6x9 as the basis for making these extrapolated statements. They are generally designed for improved efficiency & exaggerated midbass output as those are useful in the average 6x9 application. A component 6.5" driver could have the same attributes if the designer wanted but would be at an efficiency disadvantage vs. the 6x9 due to less swept area. You can make that up with excursion of course but usually that has its own implications in terms of other non-linear distortions & also added cost. At any rate, the point is the shape of the cone itself isn't inherently good or bad, it's more what you do with that shape as part of the overall driver design. As to the flush-mounted tweeter on a large flat baffle, a well-executed design in that form factor can perform very well if the baffle effect is taken into account when designing the drivers, crossovers etc. You would have to spend a bunch of money for a slender tower design that will outperform my JBL L150A's in any appreciable way. JD MOSFET wrote: I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#64
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Linear pistonic movement?
I get that every time I have Taco Bell. Cleans the ol' tubes right out. Chris :-p "MOSFET" wrote in message m... Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I was at Best Buy yesterday and the VERY MOST EXPENSIVE ($2,000) speaker they sold was a tower Vienna Accousitcs speaker that was 4" wide!!!!! Tweeter difraction IS VERY REAL and the top speaker makers of this world KNOW THIS. BTW, I didn't see any oval speakers at Best Buy and Magnolia Hi-Fi the last time I was there which was within the last couple months (these are two large retail chains that carry what would be considered low to mid range speaker brands). What I DID FIND were tower speakers that nearly always tended to be narrow and deep in an attempt to reduce diffraction. My only point is that oval speakers would be ALL OVER THE PLACE when it comes to home speakers if there were no sonic drawbacks to them (or at least compared to their round bretheren). As you mentioned, these drawbacks become more pronounced the higher in frequency you go. But you generally don't even see ovals being used as bass drivers in home speakers. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM. Now I don't know where you shop that you see all these home speakers utilizing oval speakers. I am actually curious what that smells like. Do you have a brand or model in mind that I can find to see this? I AM NOT trying to challenge you or calling you a liar, I am TRULY curious. As I said before, on the surface, ovals would be IDEAL in designing the most narrow speaker you can yet still wanting good bass response. Again, the fact that MOST home speaker makers NEVER use ovals speaks volumes. I'm sure there is always an exception, but again, just using common sense, you want a cone whose shape matches the voice coil for the BEST linear pistonic movement. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... That's simply not true... there have been plenty of home speakers that used oval cone drivers. Some of the Tandberg teak cabinet models have them, and I remember a fairly high-end system from Jantzen (spelling?) that had electrostatics up top and a white oval woofer in the lower section. That one was someone ahead of its time in that they were slender towers similar to what people are using for front surrounds these days, in an era where a floorstanding speaker was more lilely to be 18" wide and equally deep. At any rate, the shape of the oval woofer made it a lot easier to get more bass from the system without having to make it a wider cabinet, just as you theorized below. You may not be familiar with any home speakers with oval components but they absolutely exist. I'm sure some basic research on the web would find dozens more examples. Frankly, provided the piston is adequately rigid it doesn't matter all that much what shape it is, up to a point. Certainly lower frequencies are not affected at all provided the moving element acts in purely pistonic mode with no gross deflections. Also less symmetrical cones can be easier to eliminate standing wave distortions on the cone surface, which can improve accuracy. The technology to control those kinds of things during driver design through use of tools like finite element analysis is light-years ahead of where it was when oval drivers were the mainstay of automotive applications. You should not use a typical automotive 6x9 as the basis for making these extrapolated statements. They are generally designed for improved efficiency & exaggerated midbass output as those are useful in the average 6x9 application. A component 6.5" driver could have the same attributes if the designer wanted but would be at an efficiency disadvantage vs. the 6x9 due to less swept area. You can make that up with excursion of course but usually that has its own implications in terms of other non-linear distortions & also added cost. At any rate, the point is the shape of the cone itself isn't inherently good or bad, it's more what you do with that shape as part of the overall driver design. As to the flush-mounted tweeter on a large flat baffle, a well-executed design in that form factor can perform very well if the baffle effect is taken into account when designing the drivers, crossovers etc. You would have to spend a bunch of money for a slender tower design that will outperform my JBL L150A's in any appreciable way. JD MOSFET wrote: I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#65
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
LOL
Yes, I think I need to take a linear pistonic movement right now. GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!! "Christopher "Torroid" Ott" spamtrap at ottelectronics dot com wrote in message ... Linear pistonic movement? I get that every time I have Taco Bell. Cleans the ol' tubes right out. Chris :-p "MOSFET" wrote in message m... Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I was at Best Buy yesterday and the VERY MOST EXPENSIVE ($2,000) speaker they sold was a tower Vienna Accousitcs speaker that was 4" wide!!!!! Tweeter difraction IS VERY REAL and the top speaker makers of this world KNOW THIS. BTW, I didn't see any oval speakers at Best Buy and Magnolia Hi-Fi the last time I was there which was within the last couple months (these are two large retail chains that carry what would be considered low to mid range speaker brands). What I DID FIND were tower speakers that nearly always tended to be narrow and deep in an attempt to reduce diffraction. My only point is that oval speakers would be ALL OVER THE PLACE when it comes to home speakers if there were no sonic drawbacks to them (or at least compared to their round bretheren). As you mentioned, these drawbacks become more pronounced the higher in frequency you go. But you generally don't even see ovals being used as bass drivers in home speakers. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM. Now I don't know where you shop that you see all these home speakers utilizing oval speakers. I am actually curious what that smells like. Do you have a brand or model in mind that I can find to see this? I AM NOT trying to challenge you or calling you a liar, I am TRULY curious. As I said before, on the surface, ovals would be IDEAL in designing the most narrow speaker you can yet still wanting good bass response. Again, the fact that MOST home speaker makers NEVER use ovals speaks volumes. I'm sure there is always an exception, but again, just using common sense, you want a cone whose shape matches the voice coil for the BEST linear pistonic movement. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... That's simply not true... there have been plenty of home speakers that used oval cone drivers. Some of the Tandberg teak cabinet models have them, and I remember a fairly high-end system from Jantzen (spelling?) that had electrostatics up top and a white oval woofer in the lower section. That one was someone ahead of its time in that they were slender towers similar to what people are using for front surrounds these days, in an era where a floorstanding speaker was more lilely to be 18" wide and equally deep. At any rate, the shape of the oval woofer made it a lot easier to get more bass from the system without having to make it a wider cabinet, just as you theorized below. You may not be familiar with any home speakers with oval components but they absolutely exist. I'm sure some basic research on the web would find dozens more examples. Frankly, provided the piston is adequately rigid it doesn't matter all that much what shape it is, up to a point. Certainly lower frequencies are not affected at all provided the moving element acts in purely pistonic mode with no gross deflections. Also less symmetrical cones can be easier to eliminate standing wave distortions on the cone surface, which can improve accuracy. The technology to control those kinds of things during driver design through use of tools like finite element analysis is light-years ahead of where it was when oval drivers were the mainstay of automotive applications. You should not use a typical automotive 6x9 as the basis for making these extrapolated statements. They are generally designed for improved efficiency & exaggerated midbass output as those are useful in the average 6x9 application. A component 6.5" driver could have the same attributes if the designer wanted but would be at an efficiency disadvantage vs. the 6x9 due to less swept area. You can make that up with excursion of course but usually that has its own implications in terms of other non-linear distortions & also added cost. At any rate, the point is the shape of the cone itself isn't inherently good or bad, it's more what you do with that shape as part of the overall driver design. As to the flush-mounted tweeter on a large flat baffle, a well-executed design in that form factor can perform very well if the baffle effect is taken into account when designing the drivers, crossovers etc. You would have to spend a bunch of money for a slender tower design that will outperform my JBL L150A's in any appreciable way. JD MOSFET wrote: I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#66
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polk 6x9
Oval speakers does not necessarily use diffraction if the sound waves
do not pass through a slit after the speaker. But you can say that an oval speaker would spread the sound out more in one direction and less in the other. In other words, an oval speaker would automatically focus the sound more in one direction than the other, no slit needed. Diffraction is when any type of wave passes through a slit or multiple slits. But using diffraction usually ends up in more destructive interference of the sound waves, which is probably bad. |
#67
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
MOSFET wrote:
Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I don't think it's as much matching the shape of the VC, as if it were, the manufacturers would just use oval VC formers. The other part of the problem is, your basic cone surround (the flexible bit that attaches the top of the cone to the rim of the basket) will not flex evenly around an odd-shaped cone, which in turn can distort the cone itself, leading to all sorts of sonic weirdness. But in any case, besides the point that ALMOST NO home speaker manufacturers use the oval design, absolutely NO sound-reinforcement speakers have ever used an oval design either. In short, they are a design anomaly almost exclusively limited to the car-audio realm. That alone has to tell you that they are far from an ideal design. |
#68
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polk 6x9
.. The other part of the
problem is, your basic cone surround (the flexible bit that attaches the top of the cone to the rim of the basket) will not flex evenly around an odd-shaped cone, I hadn't thought of that. It appears there are MULTIPLE sonic drawbacks in using oval speakers. CLEARLY, if you are out to build THE BEST SOUNDING speaker system you can, oval is not the way to go. Good point, Matt Nick |
#69
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Oval speakers does not necessarily use diffraction if the sound waves
do not pass through a slit after the speaker. ??????? Mariachi, take a look at this thread and the posts regarding this issue. It has NOTHING to do with what you are talking about (frankly, I'm not even sure what you are talking about). I associate slits and diffraction with something to do with light, not sound. I am talking about something completly different. In fact, difraction MAY not be an entirely accurate way to describe this tweeter phenomena. What I AM talking about is a problem with tweeters flush mounted to large baffles. Then, when these tweeters play their high frequencies, the sound tends to interact with the baffle creating subtle unwanted sonic artifacts. The resulting sound will be muddied and you will lose good imaging (the ability to "see" each instrument in space) and staging (again, the ability to imagine a 3D space with a height, width and depth when listening to music). But we welcome your pressence, I'm not trying to diss or embarras you, it's just your post has little to do with what we were discussing. MOSFET |
#70
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polk 6x9
On Sep 22, 11:25 pm, "MOSFET" wrote:
Oval speakers does not necessarily use diffraction if the sound waves do not pass through a slit after the speaker. ??????? Mariachi, take a look at this thread and the posts regarding this issue. It has NOTHING to do with what you are talking about (frankly, I'm not even sure what you are talking about). I associate slits and diffraction with something to do with light, not sound. I am talking about something completly different. In fact, difraction MAY not be an entirely accurate way to describe this tweeter phenomena. What I AM talking about is a problem with tweeters flush mounted to large baffles. Then, when these tweeters play their high frequencies, the sound tends to interact with the baffle creating subtle unwanted sonic artifacts. The resulting sound will be muddied and you will lose good imaging (the ability to "see" each instrument in space) and staging (again, the ability to imagine a 3D space with a height, width and depth when listening to music). But we welcome your pressence, I'm not trying to diss or embarras you, it's just your post has little to do with what we were discussing. MOSFET My bad, I was just confused what you meant by diffraction. Since I know all about diffraction in physics and modern physics, I was just wanted to point out what it was and what it wasn't... Talking about Polk speakers... here's some very expensive Polk 6.75" components Polk Audio Signature Reference SR6500 http://www.crutchfield.com/S-o18uXmY...07SR6500&wm=su |
#71
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polk 6x9
You know, John, as is ALWAYS the case in the GRAND TRADION OF RAC,
NITPICKING if you use absolutes in this group will ALMOST ALWAYS (see how I caught myself there) lead to someone who has an example that rebutts it. I SHOULD NOT have said "NO" speaker makers use the oval speaker in their designs. You got me. I reviewed my past posts and, INDEED, I did say that. So yes, I am guilty of being inconsistant. Shoot me. My bad. I can HONESTLY say that when I wrote that I was thinking about the industry IN GENERAL though I did not say it. I actually REMEMBER some home speakers that did use ovals. BUT, when you compare number of round cone speakers out there vs. number of oval cone speakers out there (in the home speaker market), the oval speaker comprises such an incredibly small percentage of the market that I felt saying the industry "did not use them" was justified. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... You were trying to use your perceived absence of oval speakers in "high end" home speakers to bolster your case that they don't work as well as round ones. I gave you two specific examples of expensive home speakers from the past that did use oval speakers. I didn't say everyone used them, just rebutted your claim that nobody does. Now you want to change your argument to say MOST instead of NOBODY... I would say that proves my point. As to quoting what you found in one Best Buy store as some sort of reference for what exists in the world of home speakers, give me a break. Here's a few current examples: http://www.koiaudio.com/Main/SD63HK_3.html http://reviews.cnet.com/surround-spe...-30790670.html http://yhst-9301186439366.stores.yah...25hisisus.html http://blog.audiovideointeriors.com/907burmced/ Here's one with an oval passive radiator, which is also fairly common: http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1105thiel/ More oval woofers: http://www.hedmag.com/Product-Review...m-No-Place.asp JD MOSFET wrote: Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I was at Best Buy yesterday and the VERY MOST EXPENSIVE ($2,000) speaker they sold was a tower Vienna Accousitcs speaker that was 4" wide!!!!! Tweeter difraction IS VERY REAL and the top speaker makers of this world KNOW THIS. BTW, I didn't see any oval speakers at Best Buy and Magnolia Hi-Fi the last time I was there which was within the last couple months (these are two large retail chains that carry what would be considered low to mid range speaker brands). What I DID FIND were tower speakers that nearly always tended to be narrow and deep in an attempt to reduce diffraction. My only point is that oval speakers would be ALL OVER THE PLACE when it comes to home speakers if there were no sonic drawbacks to them (or at least compared to their round bretheren). As you mentioned, these drawbacks become more pronounced the higher in frequency you go. But you generally don't even see ovals being used as bass drivers in home speakers. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM. Now I don't know where you shop that you see all these home speakers utilizing oval speakers. I am actually curious what that smells like. Do you have a brand or model in mind that I can find to see this? I AM NOT trying to challenge you or calling you a liar, I am TRULY curious. As I said before, on the surface, ovals would be IDEAL in designing the most narrow speaker you can yet still wanting good bass response. Again, the fact that MOST home speaker makers NEVER use ovals speaks volumes. I'm sure there is always an exception, but again, just using common sense, you want a cone whose shape matches the voice coil for the BEST linear pistonic movement. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... That's simply not true... there have been plenty of home speakers that used oval cone drivers. Some of the Tandberg teak cabinet models have them, and I remember a fairly high-end system from Jantzen (spelling?) that had electrostatics up top and a white oval woofer in the lower section. That one was someone ahead of its time in that they were slender towers similar to what people are using for front surrounds these days, in an era where a floorstanding speaker was more lilely to be 18" wide and equally deep. At any rate, the shape of the oval woofer made it a lot easier to get more bass from the system without having to make it a wider cabinet, just as you theorized below. You may not be familiar with any home speakers with oval components but they absolutely exist. I'm sure some basic research on the web would find dozens more examples. Frankly, provided the piston is adequately rigid it doesn't matter all that much what shape it is, up to a point. Certainly lower frequencies are not affected at all provided the moving element acts in purely pistonic mode with no gross deflections. Also less symmetrical cones can be easier to eliminate standing wave distortions on the cone surface, which can improve accuracy. The technology to control those kinds of things during driver design through use of tools like finite element analysis is light-years ahead of where it was when oval drivers were the mainstay of automotive applications. You should not use a typical automotive 6x9 as the basis for making these extrapolated statements. They are generally designed for improved efficiency & exaggerated midbass output as those are useful in the average 6x9 application. A component 6.5" driver could have the same attributes if the designer wanted but would be at an efficiency disadvantage vs. the 6x9 due to less swept area. You can make that up with excursion of course but usually that has its own implications in terms of other non-linear distortions & also added cost. At any rate, the point is the shape of the cone itself isn't inherently good or bad, it's more what you do with that shape as part of the overall driver design. As to the flush-mounted tweeter on a large flat baffle, a well-executed design in that form factor can perform very well if the baffle effect is taken into account when designing the drivers, crossovers etc. You would have to spend a bunch of money for a slender tower design that will outperform my JBL L150A's in any appreciable way. JD MOSFET wrote: I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message groups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#72
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polk 6x9
John Durbin wrote:
Fine, except that it does still not prove your original primary point that the round driver is inherently better. My point is that as in most things audio, it's how you execute the design that makes most of the difference. Not that there aren't totally useless approaches to audio that result in some mutant products, there probably are... but oval speakers fall outside that category & have been proven to work just fine when used intelligently. I'd think that once you put aside all the nitpicking and obscure examples, common sense would dictate that a circular cone is inherently going to make for a less problematic design than an elliptical one. Obviously a well-designed and well-built oval speaker will outperform and "out-quality" a poorly designed and built round one... but all else being equal, a round speaker will be preferable to an oval one for the basic fact of simpler (and thus less costly) design and engineering. Which takes us back to the original question of whether oval speakers are inherently bad, more specifically 6x9 vs. 6.5 inch drivers. I maintain that neither you or anyone else here has produced any legitimate case for that so far. In fact, the one person that did have anything factual or useful to contribute produced some evidence in favor of the typically higher sensitivity for the larger cone driver. Not higher SENSITIVITY, necessary. Higher BASS OUTPUT from the simple fact of having a larger cone surface, yes... at least when comparing, say, a 6x9 to a 6.5" round. But compare to an 8" round and that advantage is gone, as the 8" has a larger surface area again than the 6x9. What that boils down to is, larger cone = greater bass. It's not like a 6x9 will give you more bass out of the same mounting space as a 6.5 - it's a LARGER SPEAKER. |
#73
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polk 6x9
I agree with Matt that this issue really boils down to common sense. A cone
in the exact same shape as the voice coil will move up and down in a more linear fashion than a 6X9, especialy if you are talking about a high-excursion bass speaker cone. And on the flipside of that, if a 6X9" speaker is playing a much, much higher frequenies (as I've already mentioned in this thread) I can imagine a scenario where the 6" distance has gone up and has started it's way back down while the 9" distance is still going up. Of course we are talking minutes differences and a high frequncy (where the cone is moving quickly up and down) for this to occur. BUT IF THIS SCENARIO CAN OCCUR, HOW COULD THAT NOT CREATE SONIC ARTIFACTS? If you can explain to me why this scenario would never, ever happen, I might be willing to concede that oval's are just as good as round speakers. Come on, if what I described were true, HOW COULD THAT NOT efffect the sound in subtle ways (loss of focus, muddied soundstage and imaging)? Do I have first hand experiece with this? Well, I've used a lot of 6X9's in my day but they have ALWAYS been for rear-fill in a car. I have never criticaly listened to home speakers with oval drivers. So I'm going to be careful here and not state as absolute fact something I have never heard with my own ears. But my gut tells me that round speakers are superior because they match the shape of the voice coil (there is a symetry and logic to this). Oval speakers DO NOT and therefore have a set of problems round speakers do not have. Look, my mind is open. I am no EE or engineer of any type, just a hobyist. If you can tell me why these issues would not come into play in a home speaker comprised of ovals, I'm all ears. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... Fine, except that it does still not prove your original primary point that the round driver is inherently better. My point is that as in most things audio, it's how you execute the design that makes most of the difference. Not that there aren't totally useless approaches to audio that result in some mutant products, there probably are... but oval speakers fall outside that category & have been proven to work just fine when used intelligently. It may come across as nitpicking but when you express any opinion around here - particularly in the form of an absolute - and then use heavily flawed statements of fact to bolster it, you're probably going to draw a rebuttal (if anyone's paying attention that knows better, anyway). Which takes us back to the original question of whether oval speakers are inherently bad, more specifically 6x9 vs. 6.5 inch drivers. I maintain that neither you or anyone else here has produced any legitimate case for that so far. In fact, the one person that did have anything factual or useful to contribute produced some evidence in favor of the typically higher sensitivity for the larger cone driver. I'm NOT trying to say the 6x9 is necessarily better, don't get me wrong. But if it isn't, it'll more likely be because the design of a particular example was compromised somewhere along the way for reasons of cost, manufacturability, stupid input from sales or marketing, poor engineering work, or any of the other myriad of reasons that often handicap the final product than because the oval shape made it impossible to execute properly. JD MOSFET wrote: You know, John, as is ALWAYS the case in the GRAND TRADION OF RAC, NITPICKING if you use absolutes in this group will ALMOST ALWAYS (see how I caught myself there) lead to someone who has an example that rebutts it. I SHOULD NOT have said "NO" speaker makers use the oval speaker in their designs. You got me. I reviewed my past posts and, INDEED, I did say that. So yes, I am guilty of being inconsistant. Shoot me. My bad. I can HONESTLY say that when I wrote that I was thinking about the industry IN GENERAL though I did not say it. I actually REMEMBER some home speakers that did use ovals. BUT, when you compare number of round cone speakers out there vs. number of oval cone speakers out there (in the home speaker market), the oval speaker comprises such an incredibly small percentage of the market that I felt saying the industry "did not use them" was justified. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... You were trying to use your perceived absence of oval speakers in "high end" home speakers to bolster your case that they don't work as well as round ones. I gave you two specific examples of expensive home speakers from the past that did use oval speakers. I didn't say everyone used them, just rebutted your claim that nobody does. Now you want to change your argument to say MOST instead of NOBODY... I would say that proves my point. As to quoting what you found in one Best Buy store as some sort of reference for what exists in the world of home speakers, give me a break. Here's a few current examples: http://www.koiaudio.com/Main/SD63HK_3.html http://reviews.cnet.com/surround-spe...-30790670.html http://yhst-9301186439366.stores.yah...25hisisus.html http://blog.audiovideointeriors.com/907burmced/ Here's one with an oval passive radiator, which is also fairly common: http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1105thiel/ More oval woofers: http://www.hedmag.com/Product-Review...m-No-Place.asp JD MOSFET wrote: Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I was at Best Buy yesterday and the VERY MOST EXPENSIVE ($2,000) speaker they sold was a tower Vienna Accousitcs speaker that was 4" wide!!!!! Tweeter difraction IS VERY REAL and the top speaker makers of this world KNOW THIS. BTW, I didn't see any oval speakers at Best Buy and Magnolia Hi-Fi the last time I was there which was within the last couple months (these are two large retail chains that carry what would be considered low to mid range speaker brands). What I DID FIND were tower speakers that nearly always tended to be narrow and deep in an attempt to reduce diffraction. My only point is that oval speakers would be ALL OVER THE PLACE when it comes to home speakers if there were no sonic drawbacks to them (or at least compared to their round bretheren). As you mentioned, these drawbacks become more pronounced the higher in frequency you go. But you generally don't even see ovals being used as bass drivers in home speakers. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM. Now I don't know where you shop that you see all these home speakers utilizing oval speakers. I am actually curious what that smells like. Do you have a brand or model in mind that I can find to see this? I AM NOT trying to challenge you or calling you a liar, I am TRULY curious. As I said before, on the surface, ovals would be IDEAL in designing the most narrow speaker you can yet still wanting good bass response. Again, the fact that MOST home speaker makers NEVER use ovals speaks volumes. I'm sure there is always an exception, but again, just using common sense, you want a cone whose shape matches the voice coil for the BEST linear pistonic movement. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message .. . That's simply not true... there have been plenty of home speakers that used oval cone drivers. Some of the Tandberg teak cabinet models have them, and I remember a fairly high-end system from Jantzen (spelling?) that had electrostatics up top and a white oval woofer in the lower section. That one was someone ahead of its time in that they were slender towers similar to what people are using for front surrounds these days, in an era where a floorstanding speaker was more lilely to be 18" wide and equally deep. At any rate, the shape of the oval woofer made it a lot easier to get more bass from the system without having to make it a wider cabinet, just as you theorized below. You may not be familiar with any home speakers with oval components but they absolutely exist. I'm sure some basic research on the web would find dozens more examples. Frankly, provided the piston is adequately rigid it doesn't matter all that much what shape it is, up to a point. Certainly lower frequencies are not affected at all provided the moving element acts in purely pistonic mode with no gross deflections. Also less symmetrical cones can be easier to eliminate standing wave distortions on the cone surface, which can improve accuracy. The technology to control those kinds of things during driver design through use of tools like finite element analysis is light-years ahead of where it was when oval drivers were the mainstay of automotive applications. You should not use a typical automotive 6x9 as the basis for making these extrapolated statements. They are generally designed for improved efficiency & exaggerated midbass output as those are useful in the average 6x9 application. A component 6.5" driver could have the same attributes if the designer wanted but would be at an efficiency disadvantage vs. the 6x9 due to less swept area. You can make that up with excursion of course but usually that has its own implications in terms of other non-linear distortions & also added cost. At any rate, the point is the shape of the cone itself isn't inherently good or bad, it's more what you do with that shape as part of the overall driver design. As to the flush-mounted tweeter on a large flat baffle, a well-executed design in that form factor can perform very well if the baffle effect is taken into account when designing the drivers, crossovers etc. You would have to spend a bunch of money for a slender tower design that will outperform my JBL L150A's in any appreciable way. JD MOSFET wrote: I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message legroups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#74
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
MOSFET wrote:
I agree with Matt that this issue really boils down to common sense. A cone in the exact same shape as the voice coil will move up and down in a more linear fashion than a 6X9, especialy if you are talking about a high-excursion bass speaker cone. All good points, except for this. As I noted before, the fact that the cone is a different shape than the voice coil is irrelevant. The problem is that the surround will be stressed differently around the perimeter of a non-circular cone, which in turn will affect the shape of the cone itself, to introduce artifacts. The effect can be mitigated by good surround design and construction, but the TENDENCY of it to happen is just simply inherent to the design. And on the flipside of that, if a 6X9" speaker is playing a much, much higher frequenies (as I've already mentioned in this thread) I can imagine a scenario where the 6" distance has gone up and has started it's way back down while the 9" distance is still going up. Of course we are talking minutes differences and a high frequncy (where the cone is moving quickly up and down) for this to occur. BUT IF THIS SCENARIO CAN OCCUR, HOW COULD THAT NOT CREATE SONIC ARTIFACTS? If you can explain to me why this scenario would never, ever happen, I might be willing to concede that oval's are just as good as round speakers. Come on, if what I described were true, HOW COULD THAT NOT efffect the sound in subtle ways (loss of focus, muddied soundstage and imaging)? Do I have first hand experiece with this? Well, I've used a lot of 6X9's in my day but they have ALWAYS been for rear-fill in a car. I have never criticaly listened to home speakers with oval drivers. So I'm going to be careful here and not state as absolute fact something I have never heard with my own ears. But my gut tells me that round speakers are superior because they match the shape of the voice coil (there is a symetry and logic to this). Oval speakers DO NOT and therefore have a set of problems round speakers do not have. Look, my mind is open. I am no EE or engineer of any type, just a hobyist. If you can tell me why these issues would not come into play in a home speaker comprised of ovals, I'm all ears. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... Fine, except that it does still not prove your original primary point that the round driver is inherently better. My point is that as in most things audio, it's how you execute the design that makes most of the difference. Not that there aren't totally useless approaches to audio that result in some mutant products, there probably are... but oval speakers fall outside that category & have been proven to work just fine when used intelligently. It may come across as nitpicking but when you express any opinion around here - particularly in the form of an absolute - and then use heavily flawed statements of fact to bolster it, you're probably going to draw a rebuttal (if anyone's paying attention that knows better, anyway). Which takes us back to the original question of whether oval speakers are inherently bad, more specifically 6x9 vs. 6.5 inch drivers. I maintain that neither you or anyone else here has produced any legitimate case for that so far. In fact, the one person that did have anything factual or useful to contribute produced some evidence in favor of the typically higher sensitivity for the larger cone driver. I'm NOT trying to say the 6x9 is necessarily better, don't get me wrong. But if it isn't, it'll more likely be because the design of a particular example was compromised somewhere along the way for reasons of cost, manufacturability, stupid input from sales or marketing, poor engineering work, or any of the other myriad of reasons that often handicap the final product than because the oval shape made it impossible to execute properly. JD MOSFET wrote: You know, John, as is ALWAYS the case in the GRAND TRADION OF RAC, NITPICKING if you use absolutes in this group will ALMOST ALWAYS (see how I caught myself there) lead to someone who has an example that rebutts it. I SHOULD NOT have said "NO" speaker makers use the oval speaker in their designs. You got me. I reviewed my past posts and, INDEED, I did say that. So yes, I am guilty of being inconsistant. Shoot me. My bad. I can HONESTLY say that when I wrote that I was thinking about the industry IN GENERAL though I did not say it. I actually REMEMBER some home speakers that did use ovals. BUT, when you compare number of round cone speakers out there vs. number of oval cone speakers out there (in the home speaker market), the oval speaker comprises such an incredibly small percentage of the market that I felt saying the industry "did not use them" was justified. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... You were trying to use your perceived absence of oval speakers in "high end" home speakers to bolster your case that they don't work as well as round ones. I gave you two specific examples of expensive home speakers from the past that did use oval speakers. I didn't say everyone used them, just rebutted your claim that nobody does. Now you want to change your argument to say MOST instead of NOBODY... I would say that proves my point. As to quoting what you found in one Best Buy store as some sort of reference for what exists in the world of home speakers, give me a break. Here's a few current examples: http://www.koiaudio.com/Main/SD63HK_3.html http://reviews.cnet.com/surround-spe...-30790670.html http://yhst-9301186439366.stores.yah...25hisisus.html http://blog.audiovideointeriors.com/907burmced/ Here's one with an oval passive radiator, which is also fairly common: http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1105thiel/ More oval woofers: http://www.hedmag.com/Product-Review...m-No-Place.asp JD MOSFET wrote: Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I was at Best Buy yesterday and the VERY MOST EXPENSIVE ($2,000) speaker they sold was a tower Vienna Accousitcs speaker that was 4" wide!!!!! Tweeter difraction IS VERY REAL and the top speaker makers of this world KNOW THIS. BTW, I didn't see any oval speakers at Best Buy and Magnolia Hi-Fi the last time I was there which was within the last couple months (these are two large retail chains that carry what would be considered low to mid range speaker brands). What I DID FIND were tower speakers that nearly always tended to be narrow and deep in an attempt to reduce diffraction. My only point is that oval speakers would be ALL OVER THE PLACE when it comes to home speakers if there were no sonic drawbacks to them (or at least compared to their round bretheren). As you mentioned, these drawbacks become more pronounced the higher in frequency you go. But you generally don't even see ovals being used as bass drivers in home speakers. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM. Now I don't know where you shop that you see all these home speakers utilizing oval speakers. I am actually curious what that smells like. Do you have a brand or model in mind that I can find to see this? I AM NOT trying to challenge you or calling you a liar, I am TRULY curious. As I said before, on the surface, ovals would be IDEAL in designing the most narrow speaker you can yet still wanting good bass response. Again, the fact that MOST home speaker makers NEVER use ovals speaks volumes. I'm sure there is always an exception, but again, just using common sense, you want a cone whose shape matches the voice coil for the BEST linear pistonic movement. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... That's simply not true... there have been plenty of home speakers that used oval cone drivers. Some of the Tandberg teak cabinet models have them, and I remember a fairly high-end system from Jantzen (spelling?) that had electrostatics up top and a white oval woofer in the lower section. That one was someone ahead of its time in that they were slender towers similar to what people are using for front surrounds these days, in an era where a floorstanding speaker was more lilely to be 18" wide and equally deep. At any rate, the shape of the oval woofer made it a lot easier to get more bass from the system without having to make it a wider cabinet, just as you theorized below. You may not be familiar with any home speakers with oval components but they absolutely exist. I'm sure some basic research on the web would find dozens more examples. Frankly, provided the piston is adequately rigid it doesn't matter all that much what shape it is, up to a point. Certainly lower frequencies are not affected at all provided the moving element acts in purely pistonic mode with no gross deflections. Also less symmetrical cones can be easier to eliminate standing wave distortions on the cone surface, which can improve accuracy. The technology to control those kinds of things during driver design through use of tools like finite element analysis is light-years ahead of where it was when oval drivers were the mainstay of automotive applications. You should not use a typical automotive 6x9 as the basis for making these extrapolated statements. They are generally designed for improved efficiency & exaggerated midbass output as those are useful in the average 6x9 application. A component 6.5" driver could have the same attributes if the designer wanted but would be at an efficiency disadvantage vs. the 6x9 due to less swept area. You can make that up with excursion of course but usually that has its own implications in terms of other non-linear distortions & also added cost. At any rate, the point is the shape of the cone itself isn't inherently good or bad, it's more what you do with that shape as part of the overall driver design. As to the flush-mounted tweeter on a large flat baffle, a well-executed design in that form factor can perform very well if the baffle effect is taken into account when designing the drivers, crossovers etc. You would have to spend a bunch of money for a slender tower design that will outperform my JBL L150A's in any appreciable way. JD MOSFET wrote: I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#75
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
All good points, except for this. As I noted before, the fact that the
cone is a different shape than the voice coil is irrelevant. The problem is that the surround will be stressed differently around the perimeter of a non-circular cone, which in turn will affect the shape of the cone itself, to introduce artifacts. The effect can be mitigated by good surround design and construction, but the TENDENCY of it to happen is just simply inherent to the design. Interesting pointm, Matt. I believe you've mentioned this before but I forgot about this particular phenomena with oval cones. I can certainly see your argument is a sound one (no pun intended). MOSFET And on the flipside of that, if a 6X9" speaker is playing a much, much higher frequenies (as I've already mentioned in this thread) I can imagine a scenario where the 6" distance has gone up and has started it's way back down while the 9" distance is still going up. Of course we are talking minutes differences and a high frequncy (where the cone is moving quickly up and down) for this to occur. BUT IF THIS SCENARIO CAN OCCUR, HOW COULD THAT NOT CREATE SONIC ARTIFACTS? If you can explain to me why this scenario would never, ever happen, I might be willing to concede that oval's are just as good as round speakers. Come on, if what I described were true, HOW COULD THAT NOT efffect the sound in subtle ways (loss of focus, muddied soundstage and imaging)? Do I have first hand experiece with this? Well, I've used a lot of 6X9's in my day but they have ALWAYS been for rear-fill in a car. I have never criticaly listened to home speakers with oval drivers. So I'm going to be careful here and not state as absolute fact something I have never heard with my own ears. But my gut tells me that round speakers are superior because they match the shape of the voice coil (there is a symetry and logic to this). Oval speakers DO NOT and therefore have a set of problems round speakers do not have. Look, my mind is open. I am no EE or engineer of any type, just a hobyist. If you can tell me why these issues would not come into play in a home speaker comprised of ovals, I'm all ears. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... Fine, except that it does still not prove your original primary point that the round driver is inherently better. My point is that as in most things audio, it's how you execute the design that makes most of the difference. Not that there aren't totally useless approaches to audio that result in some mutant products, there probably are... but oval speakers fall outside that category & have been proven to work just fine when used intelligently. It may come across as nitpicking but when you express any opinion around here - particularly in the form of an absolute - and then use heavily flawed statements of fact to bolster it, you're probably going to draw a rebuttal (if anyone's paying attention that knows better, anyway). Which takes us back to the original question of whether oval speakers are inherently bad, more specifically 6x9 vs. 6.5 inch drivers. I maintain that neither you or anyone else here has produced any legitimate case for that so far. In fact, the one person that did have anything factual or useful to contribute produced some evidence in favor of the typically higher sensitivity for the larger cone driver. I'm NOT trying to say the 6x9 is necessarily better, don't get me wrong. But if it isn't, it'll more likely be because the design of a particular example was compromised somewhere along the way for reasons of cost, manufacturability, stupid input from sales or marketing, poor engineering work, or any of the other myriad of reasons that often handicap the final product than because the oval shape made it impossible to execute properly. JD MOSFET wrote: You know, John, as is ALWAYS the case in the GRAND TRADION OF RAC, NITPICKING if you use absolutes in this group will ALMOST ALWAYS (see how I caught myself there) lead to someone who has an example that rebutts it. I SHOULD NOT have said "NO" speaker makers use the oval speaker in their designs. You got me. I reviewed my past posts and, INDEED, I did say that. So yes, I am guilty of being inconsistant. Shoot me. My bad. I can HONESTLY say that when I wrote that I was thinking about the industry IN GENERAL though I did not say it. I actually REMEMBER some home speakers that did use ovals. BUT, when you compare number of round cone speakers out there vs. number of oval cone speakers out there (in the home speaker market), the oval speaker comprises such an incredibly small percentage of the market that I felt saying the industry "did not use them" was justified. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... You were trying to use your perceived absence of oval speakers in "high end" home speakers to bolster your case that they don't work as well as round ones. I gave you two specific examples of expensive home speakers from the past that did use oval speakers. I didn't say everyone used them, just rebutted your claim that nobody does. Now you want to change your argument to say MOST instead of NOBODY... I would say that proves my point. As to quoting what you found in one Best Buy store as some sort of reference for what exists in the world of home speakers, give me a break. Here's a few current examples: http://www.koiaudio.com/Main/SD63HK_3.html http://reviews.cnet.com/surround-spe...-30790670.html http://yhst-9301186439366.stores.yah...25hisisus.html http://blog.audiovideointeriors.com/907burmced/ Here's one with an oval passive radiator, which is also fairly common: http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/1105thiel/ More oval woofers: http://www.hedmag.com/Product-Review...m-No-Place.asp JD MOSFET wrote: Look, I'm sure you're right and that THERE ARE home speakers that utilize oval speakers. But look at MOST of the speakers out there that use pistonic priciples to produce sound (i.e. cones), the cones are round to match the voice coil, which is ALSO round. To me it's common sense. OF COURSE you want a cone that matches the shape of the voice coil for PERFECT pistonic linierity. I was at Best Buy yesterday and the VERY MOST EXPENSIVE ($2,000) speaker they sold was a tower Vienna Accousitcs speaker that was 4" wide!!!!! Tweeter difraction IS VERY REAL and the top speaker makers of this world KNOW THIS. BTW, I didn't see any oval speakers at Best Buy and Magnolia Hi-Fi the last time I was there which was within the last couple months (these are two large retail chains that carry what would be considered low to mid range speaker brands). What I DID FIND were tower speakers that nearly always tended to be narrow and deep in an attempt to reduce diffraction. My only point is that oval speakers would be ALL OVER THE PLACE when it comes to home speakers if there were no sonic drawbacks to them (or at least compared to their round bretheren). As you mentioned, these drawbacks become more pronounced the higher in frequency you go. But you generally don't even see ovals being used as bass drivers in home speakers. YOU JUST DON'T SEE THEM. Now I don't know where you shop that you see all these home speakers utilizing oval speakers. I am actually curious what that smells like. Do you have a brand or model in mind that I can find to see this? I AM NOT trying to challenge you or calling you a liar, I am TRULY curious. As I said before, on the surface, ovals would be IDEAL in designing the most narrow speaker you can yet still wanting good bass response. Again, the fact that MOST home speaker makers NEVER use ovals speaks volumes. I'm sure there is always an exception, but again, just using common sense, you want a cone whose shape matches the voice coil for the BEST linear pistonic movement. MOSFET "John Durbin" wrote in message ... That's simply not true... there have been plenty of home speakers that used oval cone drivers. Some of the Tandberg teak cabinet models have them, and I remember a fairly high-end system from Jantzen (spelling?) that had electrostatics up top and a white oval woofer in the lower section. That one was someone ahead of its time in that they were slender towers similar to what people are using for front surrounds these days, in an era where a floorstanding speaker was more lilely to be 18" wide and equally deep. At any rate, the shape of the oval woofer made it a lot easier to get more bass from the system without having to make it a wider cabinet, just as you theorized below. You may not be familiar with any home speakers with oval components but they absolutely exist. I'm sure some basic research on the web would find dozens more examples. Frankly, provided the piston is adequately rigid it doesn't matter all that much what shape it is, up to a point. Certainly lower frequencies are not affected at all provided the moving element acts in purely pistonic mode with no gross deflections. Also less symmetrical cones can be easier to eliminate standing wave distortions on the cone surface, which can improve accuracy. The technology to control those kinds of things during driver design through use of tools like finite element analysis is light-years ahead of where it was when oval drivers were the mainstay of automotive applications. You should not use a typical automotive 6x9 as the basis for making these extrapolated statements. They are generally designed for improved efficiency & exaggerated midbass output as those are useful in the average 6x9 application. A component 6.5" driver could have the same attributes if the designer wanted but would be at an efficiency disadvantage vs. the 6x9 due to less swept area. You can make that up with excursion of course but usually that has its own implications in terms of other non-linear distortions & also added cost. At any rate, the point is the shape of the cone itself isn't inherently good or bad, it's more what you do with that shape as part of the overall driver design. As to the flush-mounted tweeter on a large flat baffle, a well-executed design in that form factor can perform very well if the baffle effect is taken into account when designing the drivers, crossovers etc. You would have to spend a bunch of money for a slender tower design that will outperform my JBL L150A's in any appreciable way. JD MOSFET wrote: I felt I should add one point. I mentioned several times that home speaker makers do not use the 6x9" size. This is significant and it demontrates that those who design home speakers know the 6X9" has drawbacks that compromise sound quality. Why? Because most mid to high-end home speakers tend to be very narrow (as narrow AS POSSIBLE) in an attempt to reduce difraction effects of the tweeter (it muddies your trebble, effects imaging, staging, ect). Some speaker makers try to get around this by building small pods around the tweeter, OR putting the tweeter all by itself on the top of the speaker, OR just extending the tweeter out a certain distance. What you WANT to try and avoid at all costs is a tweeter mounted flush to a large baffle (something, unfortunately, that was NOT put into practice until the 80's as speakers from the 60's and 70's seem to do EXACTLY that). The point here is that if 6X9's were just as good at sound quality as round speakers, THEY WOULD ALL USE 6x9's as this would create a narrower speaker with better bass response (in other words, you would have the benefit of a tower speaker (let's say) only 6" wide, yet you would have the bass making potential of an 8" speaker). They would jump at the chance to accomplish this if they could. But, again, they don't do it for the reasons I've already mentioned. What MANY home speaker manufacturers do is keep the width VERY small (some 4" and less for tower speakers) yet they are quite deep (12 inches or MORE) to accomodate bass drivers mounted on the sides of the speakers (you can get away with this because bass tends to be omnidiriectional). Anyway, I wanted to clarify my point about home speakers and the SIGNIFICANCE of the fact they tend to ONLY use round cones. They would ALMOST CERTAINLY use the 6X9" if the sound wasn't compromised. MOSFET wrote in message ups.com... On Sep 10, 8:11 pm, (bob wald) wrote: ok , just about every connection. So i was skimming through the posts and noticed that someone had mentioned that 6.5's are better sounding quality than 6x9's. I would like to know why this is. As i was thinking about installing some 6x9's in a friends car with boxes to help out with bass and midrange. |
#76
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
this is the stupidest decussion i ever saw.
look if it sounds good it works...the end. if polk makes it its good......infinity too. 2 of the elite speaker makers on earth. |
#77
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
bob wald wrote:
this is the stupidest decussion i ever saw. look if it sounds good it works...the end. if polk makes it its good......infinity too. 2 of the elite speaker makers on earth. What about JVC??? |
#78
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
MOSFET wrote:
All good points, except for this. As I noted before, the fact that the cone is a different shape than the voice coil is irrelevant. The problem is that the surround will be stressed differently around the perimeter of a non-circular cone, which in turn will affect the shape of the cone itself, to introduce artifacts. The effect can be mitigated by good surround design and construction, but the TENDENCY of it to happen is just simply inherent to the design. Interesting pointm, Matt. I believe you've mentioned this before but I forgot about this particular phenomena with oval cones. I can certainly see your argument is a sound one (no pun intended). Really, it just comes back to common sense. Imagine the speaker without a surround, just the cone attached to the voice coil. You could make the cone just about any shape you want without really affecting the sound - square, octagonal, cut out like Big Bird's head. Granted, there will be some detrimental effect if it's significantly unbalanced (inertia is a bitch), but as long as it's a symmetrical, centered shape, the voice coil really won't see the difference just because the cone is a different shape. A cheap, under-designed surround, however, will not stretch the same at all points on a non-circular cone. As an extreme example, imagine a perfectly square cone (which I guess would be a pyramid, technically), where not even the corners are rounded. If you use a non-interrupted surround, ie. one that's fully attached to both cone and basket all the way around, you can imagine how the surround on the corners would stretch compared to the rest of it. Once you hit the limits of the surround itself, it would start bending the corners of the cone down. Obviously, the effect would not be so pronounced on an oval cone, and the closer you get to an actual circle, the less pronounced it is, but you see where the problem comes from. Engineering a better surround, as I say, will mitigate the effect, but again, this is just a tendency that's inherent to the design. |
#79
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
John Durbin wrote:
If you think speaker design does not allow a non-circular surround to be linear, you really do not know crap about speaker design. Please do yourselves a favor and pick up a copy of one of the two books I mentioned in my other post, and get some education. I never said non-circular design doesn't allow linearity, I said it makes the design and construction more complex, and poor designs are more likely to have problems. I'd point you at a very skilled speaker designer I've known for many years that could give you chapter & verse why you're both full of crap but I'm pretty sure he would shoot me for making the introduction. Life is too short to spend it arguing with other people's guts - it's rarely successful, and it stinks up the neighborhood. Whatever. You need to get yourself an education as well - English comprehension to begin with. Matt Ion wrote: MOSFET wrote: All good points, except for this. As I noted before, the fact that the cone is a different shape than the voice coil is irrelevant. The problem is that the surround will be stressed differently around the perimeter of a non-circular cone, which in turn will affect the shape of the cone itself, to introduce artifacts. The effect can be mitigated by good surround design and construction, but the TENDENCY of it to happen is just simply inherent to the design. Interesting pointm, Matt. I believe you've mentioned this before but I forgot about this particular phenomena with oval cones. I can certainly see your argument is a sound one (no pun intended). Really, it just comes back to common sense. Imagine the speaker without a surround, just the cone attached to the voice coil. You could make the cone just about any shape you want without really affecting the sound - square, octagonal, cut out like Big Bird's head. Granted, there will be some detrimental effect if it's significantly unbalanced (inertia is a bitch), but as long as it's a symmetrical, centered shape, the voice coil really won't see the difference just because the cone is a different shape. A cheap, under-designed surround, however, will not stretch the same at all points on a non-circular cone. As an extreme example, imagine a perfectly square cone (which I guess would be a pyramid, technically), where not even the corners are rounded. If you use a non-interrupted surround, ie. one that's fully attached to both cone and basket all the way around, you can imagine how the surround on the corners would stretch compared to the rest of it. Once you hit the limits of the surround itself, it would start bending the corners of the cone down. Obviously, the effect would not be so pronounced on an oval cone, and the closer you get to an actual circle, the less pronounced it is, but you see where the problem comes from. Engineering a better surround, as I say, will mitigate the effect, but again, this is just a tendency that's inherent to the design. |
#80
Posted to rec.audio.car
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polk 6x9
Well, I do concede that the theory of :what seems :"logical" is a poor one
to use in proving my case. So you got me there.... AND, as I stated in my earlier post I DO NOT have first hand knowledge of what an oval speaker would sound like in the home. So again, you got me there. I guess a lot of what I say comes from over 10 years of being on RAC, going to competions, and subscribing to mags line AS&S, CSR, and CA&E. And, of course, I have read what others have said about this so I tend to believe THERE IS "something up"with this issue having heard foks with much more education and first-hand knowledge than myself. Perhaps I should not have chimed in as A) I have no personall experience (though I have used quality aftermarket 6X9's for rear-fill) with ovals OTHER than in the car where poor accoustics, wind, road, and the engine produce SO much noise, evaluating SQ of a 6X9 in a car becomes nearly impossible. B) I am no engineer and therefore I should refrain from talking about things I have only a cursory knowledge of ( I mean, I DO know a little like Ohm's law and such). And I REALLY try not to come off as an EE, or know-it-all. It's just that I DO have a lot of installation experience AND I worked at Phoenix Gold in their marketinng department (I have an MBA). Does this make me an expert? No. But I have been into car audio for close to 20 years now and I feel I have much to offer a newb or someone with a problem. But on this subject, since I have NEVER HEARD any artificats coming from a 6X9, I probably should have kept my mouth shut as I was only parroting what others had said in the past (but again, I lack personnal experience). MOSFET Perhaps Matt can chime in with a better working definition of what we are talking about. |
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