These look to have custom SS revelator drivers. You can see the embossed cone with the 3 pedal design. I bet they sound very good given the attention they gave to cabinet design. Some clever crossover work and specific mounting angles is required to avoid horizontal combing of the tweeters.
These are Carlsson-type speakers (e.g. Sonab, Carlsson, Larsen,...) which seek to use the room boundaries to enhance a sense of spaciousness. The soundness of the approach is debatable given what tends to be to exchanged to increase a sense of spaciousness (i.e. imaging and in the ones I have heard that worked tonal balance). A speaker along these lines is likely to be a challenge given the design principles are somewhat vague and so will almost certainly require some experimentation and/or simulation involving the room to come up with a reasonable example. Likely a fun and rewarding project if the objective is a Carlsson-type speaker but I suspect the OP is seeking speakers with a more conventional radiation pattern.
PS They tend to use diffraction and guides placed close to the tweeter/s to help control the high frequency radiation pattern in order to achieve a reasonable tonal balance at the listening position. Some examples use multiple tweeters pointing in various directions (e.g. Sonab) to create a more diffuse high frequency sound at the listening position.
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Of course they have alot of limitations regarding the absolute imaging accuracy, but given the circumstances and application, the drawbacks are acceptable for the purpose they're designed ie casual listening in smaller rooms.
If they produce a pleasant and smooth sound with a wide yet somewhat enhanced stereo image, that would be ticking the most important boxes IMO. You can always use some type of acoustic treatment backing to reduce the diffraction artifacts.
I'm willing to bet they would sound really nice with vocals and acoustical music,.specifically classical and larger string arrangements. I believe they were designed as an alternative to the nasty DSP laden soundbars most people fall for these days.
If they produce a pleasant and smooth sound with a wide yet somewhat enhanced stereo image, that would be ticking the most important boxes IMO. You can always use some type of acoustic treatment backing to reduce the diffraction artifacts.
I'm willing to bet they would sound really nice with vocals and acoustical music,.specifically classical and larger string arrangements. I believe they were designed as an alternative to the nasty DSP laden soundbars most people fall for these days.
If you take a conventional speaker and rotate it so that it points inwards and towards the ceiling the response at the listening position will be far from pleasant and smooth. The level of the indirect sound will have been raised relative to the direct but the frequency response will be unacceptably uneven. The radiation pattern of the drivers needs to be controlled, the level with frequency adjusted for the drivers, perhaps extra sources added to counter reflections causing cancellations (i.e. like that discussed above off the front wall), sticking large foam pads on the walls around the driver to absorb high frequencies is common with these types of speakers, etc... Yes it can and has been done but it is far from straightforward to get reasonable results and most people are still going to prefer the radiation pattern of a conventional speaker.
I have played with reflecting and omnidirectional speakers in this room, a living room. At that point I had a spare room in the back for listening, which is now a nursery, and the living room speakers were just used for background music. They were neat, but were also cheap used Mirage and Bose speakers, and the clarity was very poor. I have preferred the on-wall speakers with conventional radiation patterns for any sort of mindful listening. One day I might have both, a pair of omnidirectional speakers for entertaining, and the conventional radiation speakers for dedicated listening time. But I will certainly start with the conventional speakers.
Tangent: I have been taking note of rooms with great background music. Restaurants and galleries mostly. I thought I'd see some reflecting or omnidirectional speakers, even some good implementation of in ceiling speakers. But so far, all the rooms I've noticed with noteworthy background music have just used many small speakers mounted at the wall ceiling edge and pointed down into the room.
Tangent: I have been taking note of rooms with great background music. Restaurants and galleries mostly. I thought I'd see some reflecting or omnidirectional speakers, even some good implementation of in ceiling speakers. But so far, all the rooms I've noticed with noteworthy background music have just used many small speakers mounted at the wall ceiling edge and pointed down into the room.
Playing to a widely dispersed audience is a different story. Some of the best examples use a single source or virtual arrays emulating a single source. This means you don't get unintended echos. A challenge is setting this up with compensation for levels as the distance to the listeners at different angles varies.
I have been convinced that the SS Illuminator is not a good fit for a 12L sealed on-wall speaker. I have been researching alternatives and narrowed it down to a couple options and will happily take any advice you all have on these or other drivers. I'm shooting for an F3 at or below 80 Hz and since I'm considering dome tweeters, a cross in the 2 kHz region.
Wavecor WF182BD or SB Acoustics SB17CAC35-8. Both should be good fits for the size of the enclosure. The SB appears to have better mid-range distortion. Both have higher distortion than I would ideally like below 150 Hz, but they would not be any worse than the current speakers I'm using in this room.
In some online discussion of on-wall speakers, users have complained about the speakers rattling against the wall. The solution they came to was to cutoff the signal below 50-60 Hz. I have not had this issue with my on-wall speakers, but they have an F3 of 96 Hz. I also have very thick walls and there is a large fireplace between the speakers. Should I expect there to be some rattle and does it make sense to pick a driver with a higher f3 with this in mind, or can some acoustic dampening material behind the speaker be used if this is an issue?
Thanks
Wavecor WF182BD or SB Acoustics SB17CAC35-8. Both should be good fits for the size of the enclosure. The SB appears to have better mid-range distortion. Both have higher distortion than I would ideally like below 150 Hz, but they would not be any worse than the current speakers I'm using in this room.
In some online discussion of on-wall speakers, users have complained about the speakers rattling against the wall. The solution they came to was to cutoff the signal below 50-60 Hz. I have not had this issue with my on-wall speakers, but they have an F3 of 96 Hz. I also have very thick walls and there is a large fireplace between the speakers. Should I expect there to be some rattle and does it make sense to pick a driver with a higher f3 with this in mind, or can some acoustic dampening material behind the speaker be used if this is an issue?
Thanks
@OhSoJoe - you could also have a look at some of the on-wall designs that @xrk971 has done, such as some of the examples in his MLTL thread: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/accidental-mltl-technique.231951/
You could also have a look at the Cornu spiral horns that wall mount too: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...lding-a-cornu-spiral-horn-now-you-can.225622/
You could also have a look at the Cornu spiral horns that wall mount too: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...lding-a-cornu-spiral-horn-now-you-can.225622/
As someone with a professional background in cinema sound systems, and a HT enthusiast I've found little to no benefit in dipole surrounds except for the price. We didn't use dipoles, we used multiples. Having the speakers ABOVE ear height however matters a great deal.
The easiest thing to do IMHO is not to attempt close-mic measurements. Measure each driver in place at 1m. The crossover frequency is high enough that you can get a gated measurement through the region, and automatically resolve the boundary reinforcement + baffle step effects. You will have to kind of eyeball the bass response and ignore room modes which show up, but that's IMHO a lot easier and more accurate. I've made a number of 2-way systems this way and find the final results very satisfactory.
In your case, with the wall being so close it is almost like ground plane measurements so you should have an even easier time than I normally do.
There are also some issues with mid-woofers in the 7" or so size not measuring correctly at the top of their range, which this resolves.
Also, just some nit picks:
E
The easiest thing to do IMHO is not to attempt close-mic measurements. Measure each driver in place at 1m. The crossover frequency is high enough that you can get a gated measurement through the region, and automatically resolve the boundary reinforcement + baffle step effects. You will have to kind of eyeball the bass response and ignore room modes which show up, but that's IMHO a lot easier and more accurate. I've made a number of 2-way systems this way and find the final results very satisfactory.
In your case, with the wall being so close it is almost like ground plane measurements so you should have an even easier time than I normally do.
There are also some issues with mid-woofers in the 7" or so size not measuring correctly at the top of their range, which this resolves.
Also, just some nit picks:
- Your crossover doesn't seem to take into account the acoustic offsets of the drivers. Those should be measured and taken into account before the crossover design finishes.
- Consider your design with a Zobel on the mid-woofer first.
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@AllenB - Good guess but actually I meant we used multiple monopole speakers, a pair per side at least was the case in most auditoriums except for the smallest. That's what I meant by "multiples." There was no attempt to get funky with phase shifting and creating come filtering or nulls. This never existed until the advent of surround sound for the home when they attempted to get the same kind of fuzzy but direct effect without even more speakers.
Then of course Atmos came in and the era of 16 speaker home theater systems arrived.
I am not an Atmos expert, but my understanding is that the modern Atmos receiver is better served by putting up multiple surround speakers per side rather than attempting a dipole. It seems to me that the era of the dipole is over in HT systems, which is a good thing.
Then of course Atmos came in and the era of 16 speaker home theater systems arrived.
I am not an Atmos expert, but my understanding is that the modern Atmos receiver is better served by putting up multiple surround speakers per side rather than attempting a dipole. It seems to me that the era of the dipole is over in HT systems, which is a good thing.