I tried the TEST Hi-Fi, app. Which apparently measures harmonic distortion, but it only gives you a sort of traffic light scenario of how good your speaker is.
I could be completely wrong about the distortion, it was noted by a few other people. At high volumes (reasonably so) I kept reaching to turn it down.
Its hard to be critical, as I still think they sounded really good but I think they seemed to blur a bit, and felt like they struggled to deliver as the old ones did.
Can anyone explain harmonic distortion in lay mans terms?
Stefan mentioned the lack of rear spider could be effecting it, rear waves rebounding into the cone?
An interesting review on SoundImports, any idea what the XO part is doing? translated from Dutch;
"Upon receipt, I mounted and measured the A7s in the Frugal horns. Some correction was necessary. After some measuring and listening and adjusting the RCL circuit series I came to 0.68 mH / 6.8 Ohm / 5.6 microfarad, connected in parallel. The measurement now looks good and the measurement noise sounded without accents. I like the view, which is even better than the A7 gen3. Space and atmosphere are not presented so realistically by any of my multi-way speakers, not even by a Kef Reference."
I could be completely wrong about the distortion, it was noted by a few other people. At high volumes (reasonably so) I kept reaching to turn it down.
Its hard to be critical, as I still think they sounded really good but I think they seemed to blur a bit, and felt like they struggled to deliver as the old ones did.
Can anyone explain harmonic distortion in lay mans terms?
Stefan mentioned the lack of rear spider could be effecting it, rear waves rebounding into the cone?
An interesting review on SoundImports, any idea what the XO part is doing? translated from Dutch;
"Upon receipt, I mounted and measured the A7s in the Frugal horns. Some correction was necessary. After some measuring and listening and adjusting the RCL circuit series I came to 0.68 mH / 6.8 Ohm / 5.6 microfarad, connected in parallel. The measurement now looks good and the measurement noise sounded without accents. I like the view, which is even better than the A7 gen3. Space and atmosphere are not presented so realistically by any of my multi-way speakers, not even by a Kef Reference."
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To me it looks like it supposed to suppress the middle by about 6dB while keeping lows and highs. Personal taste I guess.
I'm building pensils for my 7ms, hopefully will finish within a week. So far briefly tested them in A7.3 pensils, haven't noticed any distortion yet but definitely lacking bass (pretty much expected as the box was improper).
Of course not!
85 pages of subjectively perceived (when not pre-conceived) sound quality posts, with VERY rare mentions of actually interesting stuff like the Geddes research by Planet10.
Not to mention the unfounded claims of inaudibility of cross overs by people that in some way, shape or form are involved in selling full-range drivers.
Good stuff, guys. Keep it up!
Overtones added to a given signal / note, measured in order (2nd, 3rd, 4th...), and usually in dB down relative to a given nominal output. HD is sometimes lumped into a completely worthless total (THD) that due to its summed nature tells you nothing of any value. All drivers produce harmonic distortion. No exceptions in this physical reality, you'd have to go to a different universe with different laws of nature to avoid it. They result from non-linear behaviour in suspension, motor, cone &c. The general consensus is that 2nd order (HD2) is not especially audible & when it is, not particularly objectionable, subjectively adding a bit of 'warmth' (insert audiophile linguistic twaddle here), where 3rd order (HD3) is more obvious, 'sharpening' things, being 'brighter' (insert more such audiophile linguistic drivel here) &c., with all higher order HD products being deeply objectionable and undesireable. Which is all fine & dandy, with the observation that, by nature, it would be better if all HD was as low as possible if accuracy is the name of the game. Such is the general received wisdom.
The audibility of HD however is not quite as cut and dried as the out & out engineering and widespread belief might suggest. See Toole, F. Sound Reproduction: Loudspeakers and Rooms (London: Focal, 2008) pp.451-453 for a good summary, along with the Geddes paper
The 7MS should have less, not more interference as the back plate is shaped to reduce early reflections; in theory a spider would cause more, not less. There will be a difference however.
It's a notch filter, apparently centred on 2.58KHz [nearly]. A notch filter may be a constituent part of a crossover, but it is not a crossover itself as a crossover is a circuit that creates a desired transition between two or more drive units.
*one possible exception are certain tweeters which follow the current fashion of using a large roll surround, which tends to go hand in hand with rising HD2 < c.2KHz (along with, in many cases, very low levels of higher order products), and if you cross that tweeter relatively low, then this may become audible, though not necessarily dramatically so, or objectionably. YMMV.
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Did I? Not sure I said anything about distortion at all. I've had almost nothing but praise about these drivers, both the 7ms and 11ms have gotten great feedback from my end users including some who have posted on this thread. Of course there will always be some, like yourself, who don't like a particular drivers 'flavour'.
I'll have a pair of these drivers in the FH mk3 at the North West Audio Show next month so hopefully folk can come and have a listen and decide for them selves. As Louis mentioned the holographic imaging really is astounding.
11 MS Apples vs. Apples ?
Cabinet, Gear, Room, test what?? Aside from all that ,impatient to hear the new drivers I built a Planet 10 design for the pluvia 11 [desktop]. To me they sounded great in the mid range ,vocals were special. I want to try them in the FHXL's but is there a need to adjust internal dampening for the 11ms ??? Best to all Frazier
Cabinet, Gear, Room, test what?? Aside from all that ,impatient to hear the new drivers I built a Planet 10 design for the pluvia 11 [desktop]. To me they sounded great in the mid range ,vocals were special. I want to try them in the FHXL's but is there a need to adjust internal dampening for the 11ms ??? Best to all Frazier
To test the driver as raw as possible I would say an open baffle of decent dimensions, with a software capable of gating to mimic anechoic response, show harmonic distortion up to HD5, waterfall, 15-30-60 deg FR graph, etc..
the usual stuff seen in some magazines and tests online, such as Zaph or hificompass, to name a couple.
The video appears to have some reasonable things in there, but there's a lot of weak points also unfortunately.
Damping should largely be default for FHXL with the 11MS; the design, like FH3, was specifically created to have a reasonable degree of flexibility. However that does mean they are less proscriptive than most designs in terms of damping so you should adjust to suit your particular conditions / preference.
Damping should largely be default for FHXL with the 11MS; the design, like FH3, was specifically created to have a reasonable degree of flexibility. However that does mean they are less proscriptive than most designs in terms of damping so you should adjust to suit your particular conditions / preference.
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+1
It is very refreshing to see someone so into the hypothesis followed by measuring scientific method though.
Thanks for all the technical information.
I think when the new Pluvia HD's comes out, I will try and pick up another 7ms, and do some side by side testing, and see which I prefer. Perhaps try with a couple of amps, as these may be effecting the sound more than I think.
At home when I was testing the 7ms Pensil I was A/B ing against some Alpair 10.2 in sealed boxes. After packing up the Pensils and putting back on the 10's I was really disappointed, the 7ms in the Pensil cabinets the bass was so much better, and midrange clarity and soundstage so much wider, the 10's was like putting a curtain in front of the speakers.
If anyone is on the fence about these drivers, I still think they are pretty amazing, with the new cone and mono-suspension Mark has made a pretty amazing driver that in lots of ways beats the old 7.3, I'm looking forward to hearing more reviews, and perhaps testing against the upcoming P7HD.
The 11ms seems to be very well liked so far.
I might make a small batch of sealed boxes to test these new ones out, with our next round of CNC work, if anyone wants some simple ply or valchromat boxes at a very reasonable price (uk only)?
I think when the new Pluvia HD's comes out, I will try and pick up another 7ms, and do some side by side testing, and see which I prefer. Perhaps try with a couple of amps, as these may be effecting the sound more than I think.
At home when I was testing the 7ms Pensil I was A/B ing against some Alpair 10.2 in sealed boxes. After packing up the Pensils and putting back on the 10's I was really disappointed, the 7ms in the Pensil cabinets the bass was so much better, and midrange clarity and soundstage so much wider, the 10's was like putting a curtain in front of the speakers.
If anyone is on the fence about these drivers, I still think they are pretty amazing, with the new cone and mono-suspension Mark has made a pretty amazing driver that in lots of ways beats the old 7.3, I'm looking forward to hearing more reviews, and perhaps testing against the upcoming P7HD.
The 11ms seems to be very well liked so far.
I might make a small batch of sealed boxes to test these new ones out, with our next round of CNC work, if anyone wants some simple ply or valchromat boxes at a very reasonable price (uk only)?
Will be very interested in your comparisons as I have just ordered some Pluvia 7s. I won't regret it though as they were heavily discounted.