What's wrong with my C-notes?

[Dirk]

For a $100 pair, that's exceptionally good. And there must be some peace of mind knowing that you DID in fact put it together correctly. :-D

If it's too bright for you, it's too bright, and that's okay. Some people prefer a slight axial downward tilt and waveguide or no waveguide, some rooms just exaggerate some speakers. At the end of the day, there's no shame in using a bit of EQ or treble control.

It's definitely worth looking into your mic situation, though. I don't know if your Y axis is calibrated, but if you're truly measuring at ~55dB, more drive level is likely warranted.

[joshshetter]

For a $100 pair, that's exceptionally good. And there must be some peace of mind knowing that you DID in fact put it together correctly. :-D

If it's too bright for you, it's too bright, and that's okay. Some people prefer a slight axial downward tilt and waveguide or no waveguide, some rooms just exaggerate some speakers. At the end of the day, there's no shame in using a bit of EQ or treble control.

It's definitely worth looking into your mic situation, though. I don't know if your Y axis is calibrated, but if you're truly measuring at ~55dB, more drive level is likely warranted.

None of my measurements are ever SPL calibrated. These guys are $150 now though, not quite $100. Still great performance for the cost for sure. I will say my preference generally lean towards the harman in room curve, that sounds the most natural to me.

[joshshetter]

Howdy guys, thought I'd update this. I got a new measurement mic from PE, trying to rule out why my measurements were so different. Here's an outdoor measurement of the C-notes with a brand spankin' new EMM6 and the HF shelf is still there. This is with calibration file, it's pretty much the same without it. I believe someone from PE mentioned that the EMM6 is calibrated the same as the omnimic which I believe is what Chris used to measureme my C-notes. Tried different cables, amps, and I/O on my interface. So yeah no idea why I get a HF shelf and PE doesn't.

[jhollander]

have you tried changing you amp? Oops saw that you did. might want to shoot a picture of your set up and the amps you tried.

[joshshetter]

I can take a pic but maybe when it's a bit warmer and I can take stuff outside again. Amps are Aiyima A07, Yamaha AS301, and SMSL SA36. Data is identical between them.

I was reading about different calibrations, free field and diffuse. It appears the EMM6 cal file is made for free field?

[jhollander]

So PE proved your C-Notes are perfect. Now it's down to troubleshooting your measurement technique. What pre-amp are you using? What's your source? One thing in the signal path is the same in all the measurements is the issue

[joshshetter]

Unsure if this is the right way to reply to a reply.

It seems the difference in is actual measurement technique and I may not be getting correct info from PE. Having done some research is looks like PE could be measuring with diffuse field mic orientation or calibration, while I am using free field. I am unsure if this would account for the differences I am seeing but it seems to at least correlate. I would love some clarification from PE but haven't heard back from them. My pre's are motu m4 and rme babyface pro so it's not there, cables and amps swapped.

[norman bates]

As a side question, what do you like better......

The yammy 301 or the aiyima ?


On the c~note, maybe make a brand new crossover from scratch ?

[joshshetter]

As a side question, what do you like better......

The yammy 301 or the aiyima ?


On the c~note, maybe make a brand new crossover from scratch ?

I like the Aiyima because it's just small, big amps kind of feel like a relic to me.

I ended up contacting PE and asked them why they think the EMM6 would offer such different HF response vs. the omni mic. Shall see what they say.

[DeZZar]

Here's a measurement taken with an EMM-6 with a comparison of with and without the specific calibration file for the mic.

Blue line is WITHOUT mic calibration and green is WITH. Without the calibration file the mic reads around 3-5db higher from about 7K upwards.



If you are using REW, you can see what the measurement looks like with and without calibration files (and check that a calibration is indeed applied) by clicking on the measurement on the left hand panel and click on 'Change Cal...'

If you have several different calibration files, make copies of the measurement and load each of the different cal files and see if one is closer to the PE measurement.

[joshshetter]

Here is with and without cal file from PE. Maybe 2db difference, overall rise is still there. I kinda just want my money back at this point so I can invest in a better mic.

[DeZZar]

I kinda just want my money back at this point so I can invest in a better mic.

The EMM-6 is a perfectly good mic. I mean....its possible to get a dud, sure - but this doesn't seem like a mic issue. Generally if they aren't working properly they loose sensitivity rather than gain it (at least that's been my experience).

Just as a sanity check - if you play a slow sine sweep from say 1K up, can you hear the volume increase? A rise of 10db is exactly the amount that the human auditory system perceives as double the volume. It should be quite noticeable. You can open the tone generator in REW, select sweeps and setup a 10 second sweep from 1K to 20K.

[a4eaudio]

...Tried different cables, amps, and I/O on my interface. So yeah no idea why I get a HF shelf and PE doesn't.

Usually the calibration adjustment is pretty minor on the low and especially high ends, which is consistent with what you show. For my first speaker design I struggled for weeks, into months, getting just bizarre results. It was the laptop! I had a laptop from work and was able to install DATS and REW but I didn't have admin privileges so I never could quite figure out what audio settings were set wrong. But I finally was ready to give up and tried my wife's MacBook and BOOM all of my measurments looked like what I expected.

Also, I had a pair of C-Notes and a pair of commercial speakers at the time. One sanity check was to measure them all, as well as the ones I was trying to design. The strange results were consistent across all speakers, suggesting it was something in the audio settings. Do you have any other speakers you can measure and see if the same rising top end shows up there?

[joshshetter]

Usually the calibration adjustment is pretty minor on the low and especially high ends, which is consistent with what you show. For my first speaker design I struggled for weeks, into months, getting just bizarre results. It was the laptop! I had a laptop from work and was able to install DATS and REW but I didn't have admin privileges so I never could quite figure out what audio settings were set wrong. But I finally was ready to give up and tried my wife's MacBook and BOOM all of my measurments looked like what I expected.

Also, I had a pair of C-Notes and a pair of commercial speakers at the time. One sanity check was to measure them all, as well as the ones I was trying to design. The strange results were consistent across all speakers, suggesting it was something in the audio settings. Do you have any other speakers you can measure and see if the same rising top end shows up there?

My friend is kind enough to lend me a Kali LP6 v2 monitor that I'll be picking up today. We have an erins audio corner review to show how that speaker should measure so hopefully this sheds some more light on things.

[joshshetter]

Here is the kali lp6 v2, no HF rise. I also did a loopback test to confirm the pre's on the motu m4 I used are ok, the loopback test was basically a straight line. This raises some questions as to how PE is measuring their speakers. I have no idea what to make of any of this. My C-notes certainly sound like there is a large HF rise, measurements show it, but it doesn't show up in PE data? I am quite confused.

[davidroberts]

Here is with and without cal file from PE. Maybe 2db difference, overall rise is still there. I kinda just want my money back at this point so I can invest in a better mic.

Do we need to start a gofundme account? Not sure what the endgame is here...

[joshshetter]

Do we need to start a gofundme account? Not sure what the endgame is here...

Please try to keep comment construcive. My goal here is obvious, figure out why my cnotes are so off in my own data vs PE's.

Here's the Kali Lp6 overlaid with the C-notes so they're on the same window settings.

[joshshetter]

I went ahead and disassembled the crossover and added each component one by one. Here is the .mdat for that session including my mics calibration file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kg0O3cXV8qkI5IKsI3tRA0zQ_b9orS34/view?usp=share_link