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

[isaeagle4031]

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

why after reading all this I am amazed that we even listen to music through speakers. we all must be so deaf and incompetent in our measuring techniques that we do not know that we can not design speakers that are worth listening to. you can live in the theoretical world of nothing is good enough, or in reality and we do the best we can with what we have. so to the measurement points being made. guess what, the world functions on measurements. measurements that are not very accurate and will never be exact, and we still do just fine. so the first rule, there is no such thing as the perfect measuring device and there never will, so you will just have to live with that. you can live in theoretical world and pretend speaker design is a land od of perfection or try reality. yes reaching perfection or attempting to is a nice idea and worthy goal, but will never happen. voicing is not about fixing mistakes in measuring, it is about fixing mistakes that machines make because machines can not " hear and feel music." voicing has as much to do with bring that emotional part of the music out as it does with correcting any imperfection. if you like dry and sterile, fatiguing dull sound, by all means don't voice. if you are happy with that good for you, I prefer something a little different, so please let me voice and be happy with imperfection in the speaker and myself.

Very good statement Craig. As I said before, to me the "voicing" stage is more to the art of design. The science part gets us so far, but it is that (as of now) intangible aspect that brings life to the design. Johnny 5 is alive!

[Sydney]

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

...Many of us do want to improve with whatever tools we may have at hand since, as you state, there is no "perfection". I for one, am not content with any status quo.

Yeah IMO: Perfection is a human construct.
It is often a matter of raising the established bar higher; At one time some people were satisfied with wind-up Victrola and a Single Morning Glory horn, and then moved to the next level.

[craigk]

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

Nobody told you to do anything one way or the other. Please give us the courtesy to discuss this as we please without making unwarranted charges. I'm sure no one here is looking for perfection. Many of us do want to improve with whatever tools we may have at hand since, as you state, there is no "perfection". I for one, am not content with any status quo.

dlr

no one told you to be happy with the status quo. I will take a Pallas stance on the "unwarranted charges." if you can read this into any statement I made you need to improve your reading comprehension. there are more negative undertones in the measuring comments that we as a DIY group are incapable of building a good speaker because of our inability to measure and need to "fix" flaws by voicing a speaker.

[mattsk8]

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

Matt, I don't see how you get that. DDF is clearly talking about home measurements. You know very well (if you've ever read anything from Toole or Olive) that Harman takes multiple measurements in and anechoic chamber. The other names do as well. In essence, he has just said that measurements may not be as accurate as you think. There are always uncertainties to anything we do, and a host of possible error factors in home measurement. Still and all, these measurements are generally "good enough" but still may require some small changes to XOs for all the reasons discussed in this thread.

I understand and know, based on what I've seen, that Harman and whoever else measure in anechoic chambers and have cutting edge test equipment... but what difference does that make and how does it add to this thread? All it does is prove my point that even with cutting edge measuring and testing equipment they still have to "voice" their speakers. They don't just spin a design off based on measurements and sims without having to tweak something once they do the first preliminary xover. Voicing isn't something you do to hide mistakes, it's something you do to finish the speakers your building. Sure, you might come to a situation in a design you tried to build where you find out that no matter what you do, your speakers don't play well together. But I said that a long time ago in this thread; that's the point where you end up with drivers sitting on your pool table that you'll never use. I realize this is semantics, but it's a fairly key point. I wouldn't want someone to read this thread and think that because their design doesn't sound amazing right out of the gate, they did something wrong. It's all part of the build.

I came here from a long and thorough history of stereo systems. I did a LOT of car audio, and I've done a LOT with home audio over the years. I understood active from playing with car audio, but what I didn't have a clue about when I came in here some 6 or so years ago was how a passive xover worked. Trying to learn it based on a lot of what I honestly think is just exhibitionism from a lot of people that just have a "look at how smart I am" attitude was pretty futile for me. You have to start somewhere, and a lot of guys here are probably afraid to start with a lot of "NO, YOU CAN'T DO IT THAT WAY CUZ IT'S NOT HOW I DO IT". You can go spend thousands having a plethora of all the best xover parts, you can turn a room in your house into an anechoic chamber... or you can get some cheap stuff and try to learn how this works. The nice thing is that designing a loudspeaker isn't like designing an engine; you won't grenade a piston and destroy everything if you make a mistake somewhere. Play and learn.

I can actually back what DDF said earlier with my 3 way design, but this still doesn't mean that voicing is a method for masking mistakes. The 3 way I'm working on now has been a large, uphill battle for me. When I'm choosing drivers for a specific design, I'll look at factory specs and measurements. In the case of this 3 way, I messed up and thought my SB29 woofer was 88 db sensitive 1w1m, but it's 88 db 2.83v/1m, which is more like 85 db 1w1m. When I put that with my 89 db sens 1w1m, and my ultra sensitive tweeter, I had a 3 way with a beefy 10" woofer that was super thin in the bass and hugely screamy. So off to the races with my "voicing" to try to cover my mistake (as DDF said). I padded the tweeter a LOT, padded the mid a bit, and port tuned my 10" woofer with a 21 Hz Fs to about 45 Hz, also changed the low pass on the woofer. All this made them sound incredible, but they still don't have the bass I want, and I know that every time I listen to them I'm going to be thinking about that. So, that led to a bit of a design change and I'm now building a box for some different woofers.

Correct me if I'm wrong and I don't mean speak for anyone here... but I imagine that guys like Jeff Bagby or Paul Carmody don't spin off so many good designs because they finally figured out how a measuring mic works. That might be part of it, but more than that I imagine the success of their speakers is based on experience, which came from trial and error. They know what they hear in a speaker, and they know what to do to fix it because of experience. But I imagine they still "voice" every speaker they build, and that's not because they messed up in their measuring process.

I admit I've been a tad hostile towards some here lately, and I will step back. My issue is that I love this hobby, I love building speakers and I'd still like to learn more. But, I feel sorry for some guy that wanders in here looking to learn this only to be told you need some sort of magic wand to make this work, because you don't. Just like anything else, you have to learn what works and what doesn't, and the only way I figure that stuff out is practice.

All that said, I appreciate a lot of you guys and also the help I've gotten, I'd have never been able to do this without it both here, on Audioholics, and mostly without the guys from Meniscus guiding me in the beginning. But, there's more than one way to skin a cat. A lot of this is blown out of proportion and exaggerated.

[Sydney]

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

...is based on experience, which came from trial and error. ....

Well there is that, especially prior to the 80's - in the Dark Ages

[mattsk8]

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

Well there is that, especially prior to the 80's - in the Dark Ages

Lol. I'll definitely admit that I'm super grateful for DATS, and more than that my OmniMic. DATS is handy but not entirely necessary (depending on how accurate factory specs are). But the OmniMic reveals trouble spots that my hearing struggles to place.

[dlr]

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

no one told you to be happy with the status quo. I will take a Pallas stance on the "unwarranted charges." if you can read this into any statement I made you need to improve your reading comprehension. there are more negative undertones in the measuring comments that we as a DIY group are incapable of building a good speaker because of our inability to measure and need to "fix" flaws by voicing a speaker.

Your post was filled with hostility, anyone reading it would recognize that, including implications in this post as well that are unwarranted. You infer way too much, including in your response above. I'm frankly puzzled by your hostility.

dlr

[hongrn]

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

Speaking of hearing struggles, how many of us here have perfect hearing? I'm pushing 61, and I don't dare have my hearing tested because the results might be unpleasant. As Chuck mentioned above, voicing is the art to the design, but aren't you modifying the crossover to your liking using inaccurate tools - your ears? When I finished building the XO for my Renditions, I took the tweeter down another 1/2dB to get the sound I wanted, but a friend who is 20 years younger liked the previous version better. So, here's another potential variable to the voicing process. Sorry DanP, your head is going to really explode now...

Hong

[Sydney]

Artsy Fartsy

Lol. I'll definitely admit that I'm super grateful for DATS, and more than that my OmniMic. DATS is handy but not entirely necessary (depending on how accurate factory specs are). But the OmniMic reveals trouble spots that my hearing struggles to place.

I'm going to great efforts to not offend anyone's Philosophy in a thread that seems to be getting heated.
The term voicing strikes me as lofty and pretentious - like the subtle distinctions waxed over in Wine Tasting.
I've learned to cook following a Cookbook and modern utensils and measuring devices, not ( like my Grandmother ) with a wood stove learning from scratch.
Often at the end of a recipe there is a comment - Season to Taste. :D

[isaeagle4031]

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

The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist says the glass is half empty. The wise man says the glass can be refilled.
It's not an either/or situation. Strive for profection but learning to be content is important as well.

[carlspeak]

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

The optimist says the glass is half full, the pessimist says the glass is half empty. The wise man says the glass can be refilled.
It's not an either/or situation. Strive for profection but learning to be content is important as well.

+1 !

[craigk]

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

Your post was filled with hostility, anyone reading it would recognize that, including implications in this post as well that are unwarranted. You infer way too much, including in your response above. I'm frankly puzzled by your hostility.

dlr

you sound like a con in prison with this statement, like this is your game, you are wearing it out using it so much. anyone that does not agree with you is instantly labeled hostile. yet in your arrogance you can demean and belittle all the DIY community at once. go back and read your statements. any person reading this would be turned off instantly from any DIY projects. you make it sound like it is impossible for anyone to achieve any kind of remotely descent sound from a diy speaker project. your post are not about advancing DIY, they are about impressing the masses with your intelligence. you can play your game but there are lots of others that feel the same way I do. I just am willing to type what the others think and will not.

[Sydney]

Olde Glass Platitude

A pragmatist would question how much fluid is needed and is the container appropriate.
:D

[mattsk8]

Re: Artsy Fartsy

I'm going to great efforts to not offend anyone's Philosophy in a thread that seems to be getting heated.
The term voicing strikes me as lofty and pretentious - like the subtle distinctions waxed over in Wine Tasting.
I've learned to cook following a Cookbook and modern utensils and measuring devices, not ( like my Grandmother ) with a wood stove learning from scratch.
Often at the end of a recipe there is a comment - Season to Taste. :D

Not sure how many car guys are here, but I think of voicing speakers kind of like dialing in a new carbureted engine you just built. You don't just drop the motor in the engine bay and go, you need to adjust the timing, idle/air mixture, etc. The fact that you have to do that doesn't mean you screwed it up when you built the engine, it's all part of the build. Not sure where pretension falls into it though.

Cooking is definitely a great analogy. While we all have to start with a recipe, I've never been afraid to toss a mushroom in somewhere even if the recipe didn't call for it. Now we can argue over whether or not adding mushrooms to a recipe now makes it yours, but I'll leave that one to the lawyers, I honestly don't care either way. It's kind of like making chili, and even taking your chili to a chili cookoff and winning an award for your chili. You didn't invent chili, you "seasoned it to taste" and that's what made it win. If that's pretentious, I guess it is what it is. And just like with cooking, when you're building speakers you can either buy a kit and follow the recipe verbatim, or you can tweak the kit to your liking, or you can buy drivers and build something that's all yours. Doesn't mean you invented speakers, just means you designed/built a pair that sound the way you want them to.

And maybe I totally missed your point. Are you saying you don't "season to taste"? That you should just follow a recipe?

[johnnyrichards]

Re: Olde Glass Platitude

...a drunk asks if there is any more rye on the shelf before emptying the glass.