Why are we locked into one approach? Jim Lansing wasn't.

[Ducatista47]

From another thread:

my biggest complaint about so much of whats sold into the retail market today, once you get past the gimmicks and cheap plastic trimmings, is the lack of coherence between the bass and midrange. There's just no way a subwoofer and a 3" 'mid' radiator can cover the all important 100-800hz evenly and smoothly, no matter how much money you throw at it (and, the Bose's of the world throw that money at their marketing and advertising rather than engineering).

I dunno about that, my pal Kurt Chang made the OBs in the foreground with 3" Fostexes crossing over to the sub in the middle. Sounded pretty damned good (with regards to tone, not dynamics of course) with no apparent thinness in the upper bass-lower midrange.

Ah, Coherence, the magic word. He said the magic word! I admit that using crossovers and specialized drivers for each frequency band is an interesting experiment. Obviously one that has taken hold, enabled by the advent of high power (as were so many other audio developments that have proved to be a mixed blessing). Coherency does not come naturally to a multi way system and any success it has there is relative.

But once upon a time, a time I lived through and heard, Full Range drivers were as common as any other type. They were not particularly small, either. In my childhood home they ran from ten to twelve to fifteen inches.

They were naturally and actually (not sort of) coherent, automatically time aligned and perfectly in phase. As an approach it has much to recommend it. These virtues plus the absence of crossovers offered an experience stunning in its own right. Those not old enough to remember good sized Full Range drivers, very efficient by nature, being driven in turn by sweet tube amps of modest wattage, have no idea. Tiny Lowthers and Fostexs are not dynamic enough to even remind one of the systems of the past. Full Range drivers have a small xmax, but the cone size can make up for it.

Since I use both, I can safely say that each approach has something to recommend it and the multiway world is different but not superior. In fact, for listening to the music I like to hear, the Full Range world is markedly superior.

If you think wimpy when you think full range, remember that the classic systems competed directly with horn systems, not AR3's.

The once adventuresome audio scene has been dominated for many, many years by a single pole of the world of possibilities. Multi way speakers with crossovers that render the golden midrange, for better or worse, in hunks. I think what really matters about this is, for everything to be gained by the approach, something else is lost.

I find that for the gain in accuracy, which when comparing good systems to good systems is minor, the lack of signal, phase, location, and time coherency that results is not a minor affair.

Why does all this strike me as odd? Because despite all the back and forth on this site about doing things this way or that way, they are all variations on one of several possible themes. Seen that way, a tempest in a teapot comes to mind. It is like trying out different regional ways of speaking French instead of trying French, German, English and Japanese to find which best expresses what we are trying to communicate.

But, you might say, this is Lansing Heritage. Well, in the Heritage days Mr. Lansing was quite taken with extended range drivers. I know, when Jim Lansing was making extended range drivers the audio world lacked the top octave and the subwoofer range. But now we have tweeters to die for and real subwoofers, and why can't they be married to Full Range drivers as well as to two or three way 40 to 9000hz systems? Well, they can and that is what I listen to most of the time. Because it does a great job if done right, just like the multi way approach does. And it sounds so coherent and natural as compared to the competing approach. My three way of choice is Sub, Full Range and coincident tweeter. Heck, use a 2245H and it will be perfectly on topic.

In my experience at home, I would say multi way is superior for playing really loud (FR won't be making any inroads into SR) and for playing really loud music, like heavy metal, dance club stuff, very hard distorted rock, and large symphony orchestras at full honk. Full range is superior for Jazz, Blues, acoustic, vocal, ambient, electronic, Rock like The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck, and Robin Trower. Concrete Blonde, multi way. The Pretenders (classic or contemporary), Full Range. Sorry the examples are ancient history like I am, but you get the picture.

Clark

[Ian Mackenzie]

From another thread:





Ah, Coherence, the magic word. He said the magic word! I admit that using crossovers and specialized drivers for each frequency band is an interesting experiment. Obviously one that has taken hold, enabled by the advent of high power (as were so many other audio developments that have proved to be a mixed blessing). Coherency does not come naturally to a multi way system and any success it has there is relative.

But once upon a time, a time I lived through and heard, Full Range drivers were as common as any other type. They were not particularly small, either. In my childhood home they ran from ten to twelve to fifteen inches.

They were naturally and actually (not sort of) coherent, automatically time aligned and perfectly in phase. As an approach it has much to recommend it. These virtues plus the absence of crossovers offered an experience stunning in its own right. Those not old enough to remember good sized Full Range drivers, very efficient by nature, being driven in turn by sweet tube amps of modest wattage, have no idea. Tiny Lowthers and Fostexs are not dynamic enough to even remind one of the systems of the past. Full Range drivers have a small xmax, but the cone size can make up for it.

Since I use both, I can safely say that each approach has something to recommend it and the multiway world is different but not superior. In fact, for listening to the music I like to hear, the Full Range world is markedly superior.

If you think wimpy when you think full range, remember that the classic systems competed directly with horn systems, not AR3's.

The once adventuresome audio scene has been dominated for many, many years by a single pole of the world of possibilities. Multi way speakers with crossovers that render the golden midrange, for better or worse, in hunks. I think what really matters about this is, for everything to be gained by the approach, something else is lost.

I find that for the gain in accuracy, which when comparing good systems to good systems is minor, the lack of signal, phase, location, and time coherency that results is not a minor affair.

Why does all this strike me as odd? Because despite all the back and forth on this site about doing things this way or that way, they are all variations on one of several possible themes. Seen that way, a tempest in a teapot comes to mind. It is like trying out different regional ways of speaking French instead of trying French, German, English and Japanese to find which best expresses what we are trying to communicate.

But, you might say, this is Lansing Heritage. Well, in the Heritage days Mr. Lansing was quite taken with extended range drivers. I know, when Jim Lansing was making extended range drivers the audio world lacked the top octave and the subwoofer range. But now we have tweeters to die for and real subwoofers, and why can't they be married to Full Range drivers as well as to two or three way 40 to 9000hz systems? Well, they can and that is what I listen to most of the time. Because it does a great job if done right, just like the multi way approach does. And it sounds so coherent and natural as compared to the competing approach. My three way of choice is Sub, Full Range and coincident tweeter. Heck, use a 2245H and it will be perfectly on topic.

In my experience at home, I would say multi way is superior for playing really loud and for playing really loud music, like heavy metal, dance club stuff, very hard distorted rock, and large symphony orchestras at full honk. Full range is superior for Jazz, Blues, acoustic, vocal, ambient, electronic, Rock like The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck, Robin Trower. Concrete Blonde, multi way. The Pretenders (classic or contemporary), Full Range. Sorry the examples are ancient history like I am, but you get the picture.

Clark

Hi Clark,

I would say you are noy alone in your thoughts.

The thing is there have been good and bad examples of everything your raise. ie The original Altec VOT was a no compromise and it performed very well. The idea was then down scaled (for market appeal) and those versions perform(ed) less well and you can hear it (aka my visit to Steve Schell's home and the ear bending I got on this issue..but this is a classic part of audio history).

For example in the 1st quote this is an engineering fart of fact.

In such a system a 3 inch driver would crossover over at 150-200 hertz and there are great examples of such systems where space is a premium over maximum spls.

Tiny drivers come into there own when size is problem.

In Japan they have been using and making full range drivers since Jesus was a boy and their skills with paper remain unchallenged as in the Feastrex drivers. But there are still compromises in LF extension and you see well engineered setups with OB woofers supporting hi end FR drivers.


Originally Posted by pierce

 my biggest complaint about so much of whats sold into the retail market today, once you get past the gimmicks and cheap plastic trimmings, is the lack of coherence between the bass and midrange. There's just no way a subwoofer and a 3" 'mid' radiator can cover the all important 100-800hz evenly and smoothly, no matter how much money you throw at it (and, the Bose's of the world throw that money at their marketing and advertising rather than engineering).  

As to the polarized Audio world I think it comes down to looking at how many speaker manufacturers make their own drivers and then compare it to those who buy drivers off the shelf and then design a system around those drivers. There is also a comparitive shortage of people who really know what they are doing and the expertise to commercialize a sucessful FR driver.

Tannoy and Fostex make their own drivers, as do Hemp Acoustics and Visation (their hi end 8 inch FR drivers).

There is a trend for hi powered dual concentrix co axial drivers and some people are now marketing high powered HT speakers with such drivers.

Its also much more difficult and expensive to design and build FR drivers withacceptable compromises than a mid, tweeter and bass driver.

[php]In my experience at home, I would say multi way is superior for playing really loud and for playing really loud music, like heavy metal, dance club stuff, very hard distorted rock, and large symphony orchestras at full honk. Full range is superior for Jazz, Blues, acoustic, vocal, ambient, electronic, Rock like The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull, Jeff Beck, Robin Trower. Concrete Blonde, multi way. The Pretenders (classic or contemporary), Full Range. Sorry the examples are ancient history like I am, but you get the picture.

An interesting observation.

You have to remember that JBL's origins were Theatre Sound and they were two ways on the basis of highly efficient systems for low wattage amps of the day. The use of a horn was the only way to raise the sensitivity to the desire level and this bought controlled directivity.

In some respects the most recent JBL SOA systems use the principles you mention of top and bottom octave augmentation.

But a lot of it comes down to accepted approaches and a long term philosophy. To make a radical departure might alienate that mature and loyal market (ie Japan) and JBL would not be JBL.

[Allanvh5150]

If you could convince the 6 billion people on the planet to stop buying crap, crap would cease to exist.

[SEAWOLF97]

Clark

If you read up on Lincoln Walsh its easy to see that he was one of the great minds in audio engineering.

His design is a single fullrange driver with coherency as a prime objective ..no crossovers to get in the way.and 360 radiation.

Walsh drivers have been licensed to Ohm Acoustics , Infinity and German Physiks among others ....their soundstage is truly amazing , almost 3D like image accuracy. Those people that listened to my big Ohms would stand there speechless, or walk around the room to see where the boundaries of the image were...many asked that if I ever see another pair for sale to let them know - quickly

Many audiopiles poo-poo the driver as it isnt well understood and feel that the speakers just CANT be making those sounds. (many ask if I can remove the tents and then they go peer closley and ask "where is the sound coming from " ?? )

Walsh is just as much a pioneer as Lansing and in many ways more imaginative , just less successful.

(thats kinda funny as I read that Lansing was not really all that successful, having flirted with bankruptcy often and having to join forces to stay alive)

[BMWCCA]

I read that Lansing was not really all that successful, having flirted with bankruptcy often and having to join forces to stay alive

One must distinguish the man from the company to make such assessments. And, I suppose, the company then from the company today. Today, just surviving seems to give a company some cred. Harman International has many fine old companies under their umbrella, none of which are owned by their entrepreneurial founders, in most cases because the company outlived the visionary (but not Sidney!) which is in and of itself a pretty good measure of the success of both.

[robertbartsch]

Didn't Lansing hang himself in the fifties?


What about the Altec du-plex; didn't he design this?

[Titanium Dome]

If you could convince the 6 billion people on the planet to stop buying crap, crap would cease to exist.

Most of those six billion cannot even afford to buy crap, but that's fodder for an off topic debate. The reality is that there is a broad spectrum of taste and a broad spectrum of available product. We can be grateful that JBL is happy making $1 million in a month selling K2 S9900s (with its beautiful, near-full-range 476Mg) when it could settle for the many millions it makes each month selling auto, multimedia and low end consumer gear.

[pierce]

hah, I was going to mention Ohm Acoustics, and their big Walsh speakers. Those are truly astounding. they need like a half kilowatt to run high volumes, but they have coherent deep bass to uhf treble, all from a single source, inherently phase coherent...

For those unfamiliar with the Walsh driver, its an inverted cone, narrow end on top, that sits on top of a large tower so they are at about listening level. The slope of the cone is such that as an acoustic wave propagates down the solid material of the cone, the sound wave it produces in air radiates as a cylinder. They have a 'cap' over them that absorbs any sound going upwards, and some sound absorbing materials on the back to reduce the rear wall reflections.



I see they do add a more conventional supertweeter on top for extreme UHF.

because this acts as a virtual line source, it provides a very wide and natural sounding 'stage'. The main downside is A) expensive (the big Ohm Walsh 5 speakers are $5000+ a pair) and B) very power hungry if you want high volumes.

[SEAWOLF97]

Didn't Lansing hang himself in the fifties?

James Martini didnt have an ideal life...

http://www.audioheritage.org/html/hi...sing/early.htm

hah, I was going to mention Ohm Acoustics, and their big Walsh speakers. Those are truly astounding. they need like a half kilowatt to run high volumes, but they have coherent deep bass to uhf treble, all from a single source, inherently phase coherent....

The model 5 is not really a big Walsh ..I have F's (driver is 18 inches tall/12 diameter - another member here has "A"'s ...the 18 inch diameter) they are astounding, but not really capable of high volume..power hungry ? no not that bad, tho inefficient and impedance wacky ( rated 4 ohm, really 3..and sometimes 2 or maybe less) ....deep bass and I have added a 2 way crossover at input source (so as not to affect main driver) to run an addon titanium tweeter..

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbullet...21&postcount=1

[4313B]

James Martini didnt have an ideal life...

Well... You have to admit that this human infested planet is a perfect example of a fucking madhouse run completely amok. I feel badly for people, James included. I wish it all could have worked out splendid for him. The daily suffering is truly staggering.

[MikeBrewster77]

Well... You have to admit that this human infested planet is a perfect example of a fucking madhouse run completely amok.

+1

Perhaps the most true (and hysterical) single line I've read here. I actually spit a bit of the scotch I was sipping on out of my mouth when I read that.

[BMWCCA]

Well... You have to admit that this human infested planet is a perfect example of a fucking madhouse run completely amok. I feel badly for people, James included. I wish it all could have worked out splendid for him. The daily suffering is truly staggering.

While we have a much better understanding of depression and mental illness in general today, it is still requires a lot a courage to openly admit to having such an illness. Society doesn't accept it even as well as they do smokers who get lung cancer. We blame that on the tobacco companies and pity the "addicts". Yet we still stigmatize those suffering from mental illness, make them damn-near uninsurable under many private insurance policies, or severely limit the coverage that will convey. The whole thing is in the shadows, the victims are being taken advantage of, the meds are prohibitively expensive, the stigma can impact getting a job or even keeping your family together, and so many are forced to suffer in silence without getting the care they need that could help them.

So we really haven't progressed that far from the time when the only JBL was a D130, and James suffered enough that taking his own life seemed like a reasonble solution. Sad, isn't it?

[4313B]

Sad, isn't it?

Yep!

[Ducatista47]

About subwoofers. I should reiterate that what I am championing is basically a three way for today, a Full Range augmented. I do not think needing a subwoofer enters into the discussion, as I have personal experience with only one speaker that does not benefit from a sub for playing most music (as opposed to home theater, where very low bass is the rule rather than the exception. That would be the 4345. I have not heard the newest top of the line JBL's. The point is that a sub helps with Full Range drivers, but any speaker not flat to 31hz is in the same boat. I believe the Everest II is in that category. I don't want to stick an EQ into my minimalist signal path to nudge a system into compliance if I don't have to. It just doesn't sound as good to me. When you hear the clarity and coherence of a system like mine it is hard to go back to electronic gimmickry. By comparison it starts to sound like a table radio. It is not a substitute for getting it right in the first place. I'm not trying to put anything down, just reporting what I experience.

If dynamics are not a priority, the eight inch Fostex speakers in a good box, like an Omega, would not need a tweeter but the bass augmentation would need to start at 100hz, I would say. Not my system of choice, but in a small room at moderate volume I could not argue with it. With the right music such a system can sound stunning, but what it plays really well is kind of limited by the lesser dynamics. The best imaging I have ever heard, hands down.

But what I am really talking about is a super sounding twelve inch Full Range that can use bass help from about 45hz and a soft dome tweeter from 9700hz. Unlike three to eight inch speakers, the big speaker has excellent dynamics for reasonable volumes. The entire low-mid bass to the upper mid range and beyond, the beating heart of the music, are completely coherent. Super tweeters and subwoofers offer much less of a challenge to integrate to the whole than any crossover in the 45-9700hz region and coherency is to my ears complete with this system. The whole point is that the damage in dividing up the 45 or 60 to 9000 or 10000 range is easy to hear and major, whereas we have all found that adding a sub or a super tweeter is no big deal.

I am not talking about Heritage products, I know, and I am not saying that this is better in every way than the systems we discuss here. What I am saying is that this is different but certainly no worse, and better in some ways. Better for what I like to listen to, for sure. In other words, worth a try for some members. I know I am not the only member who turns down the lights, sits in a chair in the best spot (why sit anywhere else?), and listens without distractions. (For this little group, off axis response and directivity are non issues. I never hear headphone users carping about these things either. ) From the rebuttals I read here whenever I mention this stuff, I have to think that hardly anyone here has ever heard this done right. No surprise, since it hardly ever is done right. (Paragraph edited to reflect comments.)

The categories I mentioned that are best heard on this type of system versus the categories best for multi way systems should sound like a familiar division. The same as Class A single ended amps versus push-pull amps. No coincidence. The complexity and sheer noise quotient of the music, more than the volume, is the key. Take large symphonies. As soon as it quiets down and the solo starts, the choice flips back to Full Range and Class A single ended. It is like going from the city to the countryside. A car is great for rushing out there, but as soon as you have arrived a bicycle or your feet are a much better choice.

Ian, "since Jesus was a boy..." What a great turn of phrase.

I can add nothing to the comments about Jim Lansing's life and human misery in general, except to agree that he was not defined by his depression and was possessed of genius much more important than the ability to make money. Abraham Lincoln suffered form deep depressions but what he did in spite of them is what mattered, and still matters.

Sorry to be so long winded again. I've said my peace, and thanks for listening.

Clark

[Ian Mackenzie]

Steve Schell is an authority on the Lansing family.

Speaker Lab is another excellent example of a One Man show.
Some regard his speakers as the best ever made but they are beyond the reach of most.

Alison also had some great designs as did Dunlavy.

I heard some Druid's a while back ...they are exactly what Clark is talking about. They use a powered sub integrated in the large sytems and a horn super tweeter. The FR 12 used is a small Xmax super light weight cone.

The problem I have with them is the sweet spot is a about 1 square inch in the entire room (I am exagerating but that is how they sound). So you need a fairly dry (live) room to bring them to life

They tend honk unless you are direct on axis which JBL also addressed in their paper on "Improvements to monitor design."

One of the reasons people like FR drivers is the break-up modes tend to cover up a lot of prickly bumps and pot holes that you tend to find annoying in less well designed multiway systems while the 2nd harmonic distortion of SET tends to mellow out the sound. Akin to a 50's valve hifi set. I once heard some Coral Beta eights with an Audio Note SET amp. It was nice enough but did not have the balls for the lifelike dynamics of the real JBL's.

I personally find Lowthers un-listenable unless put behind a heavy wet blanket.

That is a lot worse then the 4345 in terms of directivity. The bi radial systems solved that issue and the horns JBL uses today dont sound like horns.

I am not aware of a dome tweeter without horn loading that is more than 96 db sensitivity so with truely hi sensitivity FR drivers it means Horn loaded device like the Fostex horn super tweeters for the highs (see Madisound)