Hi All. I completed my Idunn upgrade to the Bragi Design. I've measured the responses and was amazed how flat the response is, ... well it is above 200hz, nearly ruler flat and most times, it sounds like it on classical and jazz. I say sometimes, but surprisingly, with cd recordings of "pop" style music it can sound very aggressive or just plain "wrong" and you would imagine the response is rising steeply upwards. I realise "pop" music and the like is not accurately recorded and maybe the speaker's low distortion and accuracy is ruthless in showing up the flaws. From the frequency plots, there seems to something wrong below 200Hz as the response falls away but listening it can sound bass heavy. Maybe the tuning is too low, it needs more UPPER bass rather than deep bass....Yes I realise they are close to the wall so maybe I'll show some plots after moving the speakers well into the room. PS the response is at around 1m at tweeter height, but I can move the mic around quite a bit with very little change in the flat response, quite amazing, I think.
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That's kinda how I felt about my Drottnar. Very detailed and smooth, and very resolving, but seemed to lack impact or solid bass. Tuning changes didn't fix it, and FR contouring didn't fix it. The U16 I feel is a better bass driver, and the U18 is a spectacular midrange and woofer for jazz.
Thanks for your reply Wolf-teeth. I've read your report on the Drottnar and I have to say it seems there are quite some similarities even though the Bragi is an MTM design. Some things sound near perfect but somehow, it is VERY fussy on what CD I'm playing whereas the Idunn coped better but was just brighter for everything. If I could get the inner detail within the bass-tone I would be much happier. I'm also going to see if different amps and cd players work any differently bass wise before being sure the weakness is within the speakers. I do like them a lot, but I feel something is spoiling them. I'm going to try a higher box tuning frequency to lift up the bass and cut down the very low bass. PS: would greatly appreciate comments from other Bragi users. Thanks.
Have you tried position changes? It's tedious, but moving the speaker 1cm here or there from the room boundaries can make a difference. Looks a bit close to the rear wall from your photo.
I agree the next way to go is to lift the tuning, and maybe experiment with a little stuffing. I'm a bit iffy on the DXT, but that's a can of worms. Your speaker cabinets look great, though!
I agree the next way to go is to lift the tuning, and maybe experiment with a little stuffing. I'm a bit iffy on the DXT, but that's a can of worms. Your speaker cabinets look great, though!
Hi Motokok. Thanks for your suggestions... I agree they are too near but although I have a pretty large room this is really the only place I can put them, due to the entrance door and large patio types windows. I will do as you suggest though and ideally I would want them out at least a couple of feet from the wall but they would sort of get in the way, I will move them out some more though, and as said, move them right out for further testing. If it was summer, I would take them outside to measure the response and see what they are producing at the bass end. The other thing are the stands, they are far too lightweight, and I will be making a concrete filled tube stand to support them. This alone will, I'm sure, give more definition due to the shear rigidity (will photograph the design and show it later). As said with good recordings, the flat response and very low distortion gives the sound an electrostatic type quality. It could be this quality that highlights any shortcomings with the bass speed. I actually find the DXT merges to the U18 seamlessly and I've never heard any sibilance at all. It's a tweeter you just don't "hear" but it always seems to produce the correct tone and detail of any HF detail that's on the source. The response plot shows it's there with little distortion too. Thanks for the cabinet compliment. It's made in 22mm thick heavy grade MDF. and braced with 35 mm hardwood dowels and corner bracing at all intersections. I only used a single sheet of front baffle because, as you can see, the edges of the drivers are in fact held by the cabinet sides and cannot be any stiffer. The 22mm thick baffle also avoids closing in the rears of the bass drivers too. If I could do the veneering again, I could do it better. I learned a lot about veneering doing this speaker. It's relatively simple to do surprisingly. Biggest mistake was not using enough PVA glue for the "iron it on" method. Will update periodically when things transpire worth mentioning. thanks again 🙂PS: The cabinet front picture is without the final bottom side in place.... I had to get access to fit the bracing stuff.
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One of the best sounding small MTMs I've heard in a long time. Makes an excellent mid field monitor. Bass is very accurate.
The pair of Bragis I built for someone shocked me first time I heard them. These drivers are likely some of the best available for 2 way systems and take serious amounts of power without complaints.
The pair of Bragis I built for someone shocked me first time I heard them. These drivers are likely some of the best available for 2 way systems and take serious amounts of power without complaints.
Many thanks profiguy. Your praise makes me realise I just have to get them working in my room at their best. Did you build them with the standard tuning please? (38Hz)
Thanks profiguy, yes, I did the same.... felt pads on the walls and some BAF sheets to cover the same surface. I have moved the speakers well away from the rear wall and the sound now cannot hardly be bettered, although I will still carry on with experimentation and making the new heavyweight stands... The concern with more popular style music is, in my opinion, just due to their flat response and low distortion. The studios obviously mix the sound to sound good on run of the mill systems, but these speakers strip it bare. The sound difference between various studio produced cds is profound simply because it is not masked. On good natural recordings of classical and live jazz, the sound is so real with no coloration. Dynamics are sometimes frightening and nothing is compressed. It's as good as I could really wish for. Recommended.
yeah, there is a lot of pop music which is so poorly recorded I don't even try to listen to it on my main system... I enjoy it in the car while driving, or through my $38 pc desktop speakers. Purifi cones and beryllium domes do not improve the sound of bad recordings. Like drinking the mud water from a street pot-hole using a fine crystal wine glass...
@hifijim Just curious - can you give me an example of a pop recording that sounds bad enough to meet your criteria?
The MTM design principle is very suited to mid field monitoring. The crossover point is critical to its performance, whether significant lobing occurs in a detrimental place. I used to build smaller MTMs with a strategic crossover around 3.5 k to take advantage of the naturally occurring fletcher munson dip in human hearing, which also allowed a large percentage of the most important midrange band to be reproduced by the cone drivers. Obviously lobing is a bad thing, but sometimes it can be used to one's advantage. A slight reduction of average power response (increasing directivity) in the 2.5 - 5 k band significantly improves perceived vocal clarity and intelligibility, especially at higher playback levels.
The human ear senses FR very non-linear across the entire audible bandwidth, but the 2.5 - 5 k window is exceptionally important, always requiring some minute amount of attenuation to present a perceived neutral FR to the ears. This is in addition to and beyond the usual bass lift found in your typical loudness compensation circuit and has to be dealt with separately. The ear and brain can't isolate this small frequency window on its own, being its such a narrow part of the whole audible frequency range. Its energy balance and proportionality to the rest of the audio band is critical. The exact amount of reduction compensation required is quite subtle and constantly varies by average SPL.
The Seas Braagi kit has a crossover point slightly shy of 3k, close to the frequency range discussed above. This is a big reason why these speakers sound so accurate and natural. The curves below show what I'm getting at. The impedance still continues to rise due to the tweeter WG narrowing directivity at crossover, providing higher sensitivity towards its lower cutoff. This reduces off axis energy around the 3k mid band, improving midrange neutrality across the entire listening window. The fairly constant directivity curve helps here as well.
So is this a studio monitor grade speaker? Yes, absolutely. Most speakers with midrange dips aren't capable of neutral midrange having some amount of mid band coloration, hyped bass and/or treble, usually having all three of these.
The MTM design principle is very suited to mid field monitoring. The crossover point is critical to its performance, whether significant lobing occurs in a detrimental place. I used to build smaller MTMs with a strategic crossover around 3.5 k to take advantage of the naturally occurring fletcher munson dip in human hearing, which also allowed a large percentage of the most important midrange band to be reproduced by the cone drivers. Obviously lobing is a bad thing, but sometimes it can be used to one's advantage. A slight reduction of average power response (increasing directivity) in the 2.5 - 5 k band significantly improves perceived vocal clarity and intelligibility, especially at higher playback levels.
The human ear senses FR very non-linear across the entire audible bandwidth, but the 2.5 - 5 k window is exceptionally important, always requiring some minute amount of attenuation to present a perceived neutral FR to the ears. This is in addition to and beyond the usual bass lift found in your typical loudness compensation circuit and has to be dealt with separately. The ear and brain can't isolate this small frequency window on its own, being its such a narrow part of the whole audible frequency range. Its energy balance and proportionality to the rest of the audio band is critical. The exact amount of reduction compensation required is quite subtle and constantly varies by average SPL.
The Seas Braagi kit has a crossover point slightly shy of 3k, close to the frequency range discussed above. This is a big reason why these speakers sound so accurate and natural. The curves below show what I'm getting at. The impedance still continues to rise due to the tweeter WG narrowing directivity at crossover, providing higher sensitivity towards its lower cutoff. This reduces off axis energy around the 3k mid band, improving midrange neutrality across the entire listening window. The fairly constant directivity curve helps here as well.
So is this a studio monitor grade speaker? Yes, absolutely. Most speakers with midrange dips aren't capable of neutral midrange having some amount of mid band coloration, hyped bass and/or treble, usually having all three of these.
I was using a bit of over the top hyperbole, and I knew someone would challenge me on that... 🙂
I hear a lot of pop music while flipping channels in SyriusXM streaming service, or youtube or spotify, and some of it sounds pretty bad. Most of the time it is music I don't care about, so I don't bother to remember the artist.
I try not to buy music that is poorly recorded, but sometimes I do so by mistake.
"Wild Silence" by The Wandering Hearts (Decca 2018, CD) is well written music, great songs performed well, but it was recorded with way too much high frequency balance. It is odd, the vocals seem natural, but all the instruments have an artificial "ssss" shimmering air about them, almost like some high frequency white noise was blended in. I usually lower the treble by about -4 dB, but then the vocals sound a bit muffled. It is a shame, I like the music.
"Coming Home" by Leon Bridges (Columbia Records 2015, CD), another case of nice music with an odd recording process that detracts for the enjoyment. It sounds saturated and compressed. like it was transferred from a worn-out vinyl record to a cassette tape... and I know what that sounds like because I used to do it as a kid.
"Stadium Arcadium" by Red Hot Chili Peppers (Warner Bros 2006, CD). I love this album, and the tonal balance seems right, but the amount of compression is stunning. I bet there is less than 6 dB difference between the loudest and quietest notes. It is really noticeable on "wet sand".
"Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" 2014 remaster, 96k/24 bit FLAC. The treble balance is high, but thankfully it is globally high, so I can use the treble tone control to bring it down. It seems like there was a fair bit of compression used, which doesn't make sense with 24 bits of dynamic range available. Maybe they did the best they could with the original analog tape?
Many pop recordings sound great. "Rumors" and "Fleetwood Mac 2017 remastered" both sound excellent as 96k/24bit FLAC. Chris Stapleton "Traveller" and "From a Room vol 1 & 2" are also excellent as 96k/24 bit. Sara Bareilles "Brave Enough: Live at the Variety Playhouse" is a superb live recording.
@hifijim Thanks for going into detail. I ask this because I want to here people's impressions of good or bad recordings as to how they actually perceive them. The current state of modern recordings is awful. Too much compression to the point of hard limiting and clipping. Poor EQ choices. Etc etc.
These are reasons why flat sounding speakers don't sound good, especially nowadays with modem music. This is why its important to choose your speakers wisely.
These are reasons why flat sounding speakers don't sound good, especially nowadays with modem music. This is why its important to choose your speakers wisely.
Yes, and i use this a lot in voicing because it is a bit bright. If it is benign, then usually the top end is dull on everything else.
Great to hear. Dunno if you have interest in the idea, but one option might be to redo the cabinets for a front port below the lower woofer, reducing the depth accordingly to maintain the original internal volume. Should help in both regards for your room placement constraints, but a bit of an effort.
I'd agree with you there. Front facing ports usually sound better than in the rear. It depends on how the drivers are arranged on the baffle. Also, you want to avoid ports right next to tweeters due to diffraction.
One CD that must be the pinnacle of a clean sounding modern music (pop) CD is Prefabs Sprout's "JORDAN the comeback" It's near "crystalline" sound is captivating and all 19 tracks are very listenable and many are excellent musically...It's on the CBS label KWCD 14, 467161 21 This is the version I have: https://www.discogs.com/release/373712-Prefab-Sprout-Jordan-The-Comeback... Just £3 on Ebay!... Worth getting for the sonic experience IMO.
PS: ALL RyCooder albums on CD sound excellent too. They have a natural un-hyped sound right through the spectrum with plenty of bottom weight. Turned up loud, they can sound very realistic, like a band is in your room... Not many cds sound as good. Oh Yes: The "Go West" first CD was meant to be used by studio sound engineers for a reference sound. I always thought it sounded perfect but strangely, on my latest Bragi speakers at normal level, it sounds a touch bass heavy so maybe its balanced for high level playing it's overall weight would work really well at high level and the singers voice is not too forward so wouldn't become oppressive: https://www.discogs.com/release/650866-Go-West-Go-West
PS: ALL RyCooder albums on CD sound excellent too. They have a natural un-hyped sound right through the spectrum with plenty of bottom weight. Turned up loud, they can sound very realistic, like a band is in your room... Not many cds sound as good. Oh Yes: The "Go West" first CD was meant to be used by studio sound engineers for a reference sound. I always thought it sounded perfect but strangely, on my latest Bragi speakers at normal level, it sounds a touch bass heavy so maybe its balanced for high level playing it's overall weight would work really well at high level and the singers voice is not too forward so wouldn't become oppressive: https://www.discogs.com/release/650866-Go-West-Go-West
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Yes for sure. I always find the sound of any speaker I have, sounds better when I'm just outside the room. Yes that sounds laughable, but I could listen to music all day this way. Of course, the sound is going to be less bright but it's more than that. I think the sound is just coming naturally into your ears and not being forced into them from so many reflecting surfaces so the brain can accept it more naturally ...Like the sound has merged and become "homogenous" and listening fatigue disappears. This open effect also occurs when a PA system is playing music outside. I was at a classic car show last year and they had local radio playing music from some big boxes, but the sound was UTTERLY so superior to any HIF I have owned, even though the kit was not actually HiFI stuff. It was so effortless and musical to listen to. I put this down to the fact that it was not playing in a room but just open air.
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The Bragi speakers are voiced for relatively comfortable higher volume playback witt their declining energy up top with a slight relief. They'd sound best at mid 80s to 90s dB in a larger room, perhaps with subs.
I didn't know that fact about Go West. I listened to that album quite bit. Its definitely bass forward but not excessive. The Bowie Let's Dance album is also recorded very well for louder playback.
I didn't know that fact about Go West. I listened to that album quite bit. Its definitely bass forward but not excessive. The Bowie Let's Dance album is also recorded very well for louder playback.