"House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

[johnnyrichards]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

Highly recommended practice for Live sound EQ as well.

I always do that, rarely do I sit for long when I do a mix, at least for the first set or so. I wish more guys did that.

[mattsk8]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

The driver doesn't totally dictate the crossover point. But it's natural roll is part of the acoustic slope with the filter applied. The designer should use that info to develop a filter that sums the drivers properly but can also adjust the q and rate of the slope to their liking. LR4 is targeted often because many find it to be the most pleasant and natural (subjective opinion there)

This doesn't make any sense... it's always the drivers that dictate where they cross and the slope (what else could it be?), you use what works best for the drivers you're using (which means the driver does dictate the crossover point). The natural roll off doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. I guess I don't understand what you're saying.

[JasonP]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

This doesn't make any sense... it's always the drivers that dictate where they cross and the slope (what else could it be?), you use what works best for the drivers you're using (which means the driver does dictate the crossover point). The natural roll off doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. I guess I don't understand what you're saying.

Lets take a look at a case where drivers don't dictate where they cross and the slope: A woofer and midrange in a three-way that overlap well. In this case the choice of crossover point has more to do with your desired goals such as final impedance, crossover parts cost, excursion limitations, etc.

[Face]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

Driver roll off, rising distortion, directivity matching can all be considered when designing a crossover. Sometimes it works out that there is a fair amount of usable overlap of driver bandwidths, allowing the designer to pick between 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th+ acoustic slopes.

[kenny_k]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

I have a "house sound", I tune in all my speakers in the same room. Environment dependent voicing.

[isaeagle4031]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

Exactly as Jason and Face said. The natural roll off is just one aspect. The filter slope and q are still decided on by the designer.

[craigk]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

I thought when Matt said that natural roll didn't necessarily have anything to do with xover point he pretty well covered everything in the last three post.

[r-carpenter]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

It is very likely that many designers do indeed have a "house" sound.
We all talk about how speakers should reproduce music but the reality is, "music" differs for everyone, depending on the preferences and ability to listen to particular type of event. Speaker designer who favors classical music and prefers to seat in the middle of the concert hall is going to expose himself to one type of virtual image, while anyone seating in the first 5 rows will perceive a large orchestra, entirely different. Same goes for Jazz fans or PA guys. We are always finding natural sound in what we are use to. Only very few designers will have an opportunity to visit various musical events and have skills and experience to compare the virtual image they are hearing. Un-amplified jazz in the open venue and same band in the jazz club with some reinforcement will not sound anywhere near the same.
There for, most speaker design are somewhat biased to the listening experience of the designer. This is absolutely fine. However, there are no unbiased designs by default. There are no speakers that can do everything just as good by definition.
Let's take a 2-way speaker as an example. There a few ways to arrive to flat on-axis response and moderately smooth off axis response. Given modern simulation software, designer can use various slopes and filter topologies to arrive to flat and smooth. The differences between the topologies will be in how the speaker builds virtual sound-stage. Will it be razor sharp center image that you can hear in a small concert hall with treated walls and mild to no amplified reinforcement or will it be a wider undefined panoramic image that you will normally hear in large concert hall with no amplification at all?
And then we can go in to different types of speakers as well. A purposeless executed 2-way can build a pin point image but in comparison to a line array it is easily localized. Dipole speakers do not sound the same as conventional and so on.
The slopes, minor adjustments in the response, during the design process are just tools and means to arrive to desired affect. Everyone voices their speaker and everyone voices to what they think is natural as far as tonal balance and imaging.

I used to rely heavily on a few resources as absolute authority on the subject - primarily the same Toole often invoked, and the guys at Harmon. That is no longer the case, however, as I have heard too many superb systems that defy the Toole/Harmon descriptions.

I second that.

[dlr]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

Let's take a 2-way speaker as an example. There a few ways to arrive to flat on-axis response and moderately smooth off axis response. Given modern simulation software, designer can use various slopes and filter topologies to arrive to flat and smooth. The differences between the topologies will be in how the speaker builds virtual sound-stage. Will it be razor sharp center image that you can hear in a small concert hall with treated walls and mild to no amplified reinforcement or will it be a wider undefined panoramic image that you will normally hear in large concert hall with no amplification at all?

Seems to me that the room in which the speaker is situated probably has as much to do with this as the system itself. The speaker is a large factor, yes, but the room will change it dramatically as will the quality of the recording. The quality of the speaker allows the recording to come out or not, that part is what I think really challenges the designer.

And then we can go in to different types of speakers as well. A purposeless executed 2-way can build a pin point image but in comparison to a line array it is easily localized. Dipole speakers do not sound the same as conventional and so on.
The slopes, minor adjustments in the response, during the design process are just tools and means to arrive to desired affect. Everyone voices their speaker and everyone voices to what they think is natural as far as tonal balance and imaging.

IMO the single biggest problem in designing a system is the source material. The same artist(s) will often sound entirely different from one recording to another, regardless of the room. Add the latter and you have a complex problem, even when you have a "house sound" target. I find that if I work too long with one speaker that I become accustomed to its sound. I've always liked what Dunlavy used to do, that most of us can't. IIRC he had a listening room beside an audition room with live performances fed to his listening room that he could compare to his designs. Even then, whatever microphones were in use would change the perception.

This is why I originally added horizontal and vertical off-axis graphs to WinPCD that show the impact of the crossover in 5 degree increments. Actual measurements at specific locations will include the diffraction that may skew the impact of the crossover, artificially smoothing it or making it more varied with even small angle changes sometimes making large changes in the diffraction response.

In the past I found that overlap of drivers was a benefit, leading to my preference for LR2 in the M/W where I think it has more importance (probably smoother power response). However, the smoothest off-axis response of my current dipole 3-way using the Ultimate Equalizer required the M/T to have a low overlap LR8 at 1200. I expected the opposite, a large overlap much higher. This was all done empirically, since I could rapidly test dozens of crossovers in an evening. But with only passives, that's not very realistic, so other compromises are required.

I don't want to highjack the thread, but power response is also a factor and why I just added a new polar graph to WinPCD. It automatically calculates multiple "windowed" responses that also yields the approximate power response (above the step area) that adds additional information of the crossover results. Any off-axis "flair" should be more apparent since this is perceived primarily in the in-room (power) response. Even so, the power response that includes the 2-pi to 4-pi transition can't be added without a full diffraction section. Getting this part right is, again IMO, the harder part to get right due to room influence. That may have more to do with a "house sound" than details of the crossover, especially when variables such as box alignment and/or dipole considerations are included.

To address the OP, I know that I have a "house sound" for my results and it's likely different than most other designers' preferences.

dlr

[corradizo]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

So do you all voice the speakers you design in highly treated rooms? Mildly? No treatment? This is easily my favorite thread!

[Sydney]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

Seems to me that the room in which the speaker is situated probably has as much to do with this as the system itself. ..

Agreed

[carlspeak]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

Agreed

Also agree.

So, the room, XO slope, XO order and degree overlap, driver choice, and designer's ears ALL make a difference if I read thru all of the posts correctly.

Conclusion: How then can there be a 'house sound'? there are too many variables in the list above to add up to a "vanilla" flavored sound everyone can agree on. But why should we even strive for that? Even Johnny R. and Roman agreed earlier here there's more to a FR than Toole and Harman have found based on exhaustive research encompassing years and many many trials comprised of scores of individual listeners subjective judgements and hundreds of anechoic tests yielding thousands of data points..

[isaeagle4031]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

So do you all voice the speakers you design in highly treated rooms? Mildly? No treatment? This is easily my favorite thread!

My room, as a few here can attest, would be considered pretty bad. Room treatment is a few curtains hanging behind and to one side. A brick wall to the other side and a plywood and lightly carpeted form. I figure that if I can make them sound good in there, most diy venues aren't really an issue, HA!

[ligs]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

I want my speakers to disappear and just let the music take over. The ultimate sound quality in a speaker, imo, is total transparency and has no characteristic sound or signature of its own

[Face]

Re: "House sound" Do the designers here have a "house sound"?

I want my speakers to disappear and just let the music take over. The ultimate sound quality in a speaker, imo, is total transparency and has no characteristic sound or signature of its own

Let us know when this design is discovered.