Wharfedale sw 15

[prateekatasniya]

Wharfedale sw 15 looks like a fantastic subwoofer for big room in budget.
Higher tuning means cleaner bass with minimal port noise.
Very good Max SPL.
I guess it's similar to the mission 15 inch subwoofer.

 

[Nitin K]

Wharfedale sw 15 looks like a fantastic subwoofer for big room in budget.
Higher tuning means cleaner bass with minimal port noise.
Very good Max SPL.
I guess it's similar to the mission 15 inch subwoofer.

Wharfedale and Mission belong to IAG group. It's good for them either ways

 

[DB1989]

Wharfedale sw 15 looks like a fantastic subwoofer for big room in budget.
Higher tuning means cleaner bass with minimal port noise.
Very good Max SPL.
I guess it's similar to the mission 15 inch subwoofer.

We'll soon find out whether the on-paper specs translate into real world performance, especially against some mighty competition in the REL T9i (make that dual REL T9i's).

May i add, with great respect, that its your manic and incessant championing of "bada hai toh behtar hai" in every single thread that you've posted in that finally made me take the plunge! I needed a second sub for my "entertainment" room which is 22ft x 12ft and i imagined the MS450 would be too big and the Mission QX-12 would suffice. Now, i'll probably have to break down walls to accommodate the former, but what the heck!

Wharfedale and Mission belong to IAG group. It's good for them either ways

And they pretty much seem to have employed the same driver and plate amp as the tech specs are identical and so are the photos thereof.

However, the distinction seems to lie in the cabinet construction i.e. while the Wharfedale SW15 is 27 Kgs, the MS450 is nearly 5.5 Kgs heavier, something that always gives me a great deal of confidence but not necessarily good for my spine (even the diminutive Mission QX-2's weigh a ton and pound for pound - loosely using the term here - the heaviest passive Bookshelf speaker i've ever encountered. Otherwise, size bar none, its the Wharfedale Evo 4.2 at 13.5Kgs).

The second distinction is that while the Wharfedale is rear ported with the possibility of port tuning, the Mission does not being a single slat and front ported at that.

 

[Nitin K]

We'll soon find out whether the on-paper specs translate into real world performance, especially against some mighty competition in the REL T9i (make that dual REL T9i's).

May i add, with great respect, that its your manic and incessant championing of "bada hai toh behtar hai" in every single thread that you've posted in that finally made me take the plunge! I needed a second sub for my "entertainment" room which is 22ft x 12ft and i imagined the MS450 would be too big and the Mission QX-12 would suffice. Now, i'll probably have to break down walls to accommodate the former, but what the heck!


And they pretty much seem to have employed the same driver and plate amp as the tech specs are near identical and so are the photos.

However, the distinction seems to lie in the cabinet construction i.e. while the Wharfedale SW15 is 27 Kgs, the MS450 is nearly 5.5 Kgs heavier, something that always gives me a great deal of confidence but not necessarily good for my spine (even the diminutive Mission QX-2's weigh a ton and pound for pound - loosely using the term here - the heaviest passive speaker i've ever encountered. Otherwise, size bar none, its the Wharfedale Evo 4.2 at 13.5Kgs).

The second distinction is that while the Wharfedale is rear ported with the possibility of port tuning, the Mission does not being a single slat and front ported at that.

If the sound quality of the Wharfedale and the Mission are nearly the same, then the mission would be a very good vfm product within the 50k range

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

Wharfedale sw 15 looks like a fantastic subwoofer for big room in budget.
Higher tuning means cleaner bass with minimal port noise.
Very good Max SPL.
I guess it's similar to the mission 15 inch subwoofer.

Any idea about how distortion rises with spl at diff frequencies ?

 

[DB1989]

Any idea about how distortion rises with spl at diff frequencies ?

Can this be ascertained by REW and a Umik?

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

Can this be ascertained by REW and a Umik?

I don’t know how they measure this but the spec I am looking for is something like this

 

[DB1989]

I don’t know how they measure this but the spec I am looking for is something like this

Thats very interesting.

Can you further elaborate on the manner in which this is perceived by our auditory senses by an appropriate adjective like audiophiles usually love to do i.e. warm, thin, cold, sibilant, harsh, etc?

what does this distortion translate into?

To elaborate, i have two REL T9is. They produce extremely clean bass! Why clean? its tight? does not have any colouration whatsoever. The colouration is lent by the loudspeaker that its paired with i.e. it blends perfectly and does not have a character of its own.

But the problem is, before this, i had a Yamma SW300. It was a ported sub. It had noticeable distortion when played loud and somewhat "loose" bass. And when played alongwith the REL T9i, it was immediately evident how much more quickly the REL driver reacts and stops at a dime whereas the Yamma takes it own sweet time - hence, i describe it as a "loose" bass.

And this loose bass was not only it. The bass had a characteristic tone of its own and lent a certain colouration to sound of the loudspeakers i paired it with.

In what manner does a human ear perceive the abovesaid parameters cited by you?

 

[prateekatasniya]

Any idea about how distortion rises with spl at diff frequencies ?

Will be better than the mono price for sure

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

Thats very interesting.

Can you further elaborate on the manner in which this is perceived by our auditory senses by an appropriate adjective like audiophiles usually love to do i.e. warm, thin, cold, sibilant, harsh, etc?

what does this distortion translate into?

To elaborate, i have two REL T9is. They produce extremely clean bass! Why clean? its tight? does not have any colouration whatsoever. The colouration is lent by the loudspeaker that its paired with i.e. it blends perfectly and does not have a character of its own.

But the problem is, before this, i had a Yamma SW300. It was a ported sub. It had noticeable distortion when played loud and somewhat "loose" bass. And when played alongwith the REL T9i, it was immediately evident how much more quickly the REL driver reacts and stops at a dime whereas the Yamma takes it own sweet time - hence, i describe it as a "loose" bass.

And this loose bass was not only it. The bass had a characteristic tone of its own and lent a certain colouration to sound of the loudspeakers i paired it with.

In what manner does a human ear perceive the abovesaid parameters cited by you?

Simply said : low distortion means better timing also. But in rooms we have direct wave followed by reflections. If reflections fuse the direct with almost same ampliftude, we hear the same signal for a longer period making it feeling “slow”. So “timing” depends on positioning in the room and reflection of the room too.

Precedence effect - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Audibility of distortion is not same in all frequencies.

At mid to high even 1% is audible. At lower frequencies even 20 percent is not audible.

No distortion means the harmonics are not present which asserts what we feed in is what is coming out amplified. Nothing is getting added to the signal.

I think instead of me trying to explain and screw up this just go through this conversation in audiosciencereview just to get an understanding on how the timing works. ignore the harsh language of some of the members but what they say is right.

Use this calculator to calculate distortion :

THD to dB - convert percent % to decibels dB percentage voltage % vs per cent converter THD+N total harmonic distortions calculation signal distortion factor attenuation in dB to distortion factor k in percent decibel damping - sengpielaudio Sengpiel

Calculate THD and distortions decibels dB to percentage % per cent percent voltage % vs converter and dB signal distortion THD+N total harmonic distortions factor attenuation damping - Eberhard Sengpiel sengpielaudio

www.sengpielaudio.com

Driver movement

I have a question about the '' speed '' of a driver. In theory a driver who can do 50 - 400hz mean the driver is not slowly enough to create these frequency. But what about the time that the driver take to complete stop and then create the new wavelenght? For example if the driver needs to...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Also about distortion:

The Audibility of Distortion At Bass Frequencies

Want to know how well your sound system reproduces bass? We discuss the audibility of distortion in bass and ways bass reproduction in audio systems can fall short of of a listeners expectations.

www.audioholics.com

 

[DB1989]

Simply said : low distortion means better timing also. But in rooms we have direct wave followed by reflections. If reflections fuse the direct with almost same ampliftude, we hear the same signal for a longer period making it feeling “slow”. So “timing” depends on positioning in the room and reflection of the room too.

Precedence effect - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Audibility of distortion is not same in all frequencies.

At mid to high even 1% is audible. At lower frequencies even 20 percent is not audible.

No distortion means the harmonics are not present which asserts what we feed in is what is coming out amplified. Nothing is getting added to the signal.

I think instead of me trying to explain and screw up this just go through this conversation in audiosciencereview just to get an understanding on how the timing works. ignore the harsh language of some of the members but what they say is right.

Use this calculator to calculate distortion :

THD to dB - convert percent % to decibels dB percentage voltage % vs per cent converter THD+N total harmonic distortions calculation signal distortion factor attenuation in dB to distortion factor k in percent decibel damping - sengpielaudio Sengpiel

Calculate THD and distortions decibels dB to percentage % per cent percent voltage % vs converter and dB signal distortion THD+N total harmonic distortions factor attenuation damping - Eberhard Sengpiel sengpielaudio

www.sengpielaudio.com

Driver movement

I have a question about the '' speed '' of a driver. In theory a driver who can do 50 - 400hz mean the driver is not slowly enough to create these frequency. But what about the time that the driver take to complete stop and then create the new wavelenght? For example if the driver needs to...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Also about distortion:

The Audibility of Distortion At Bass Frequencies

Want to know how well your sound system reproduces bass? We discuss the audibility of distortion in bass and ways bass reproduction in audio systems can fall short of of a listeners expectations.

www.audioholics.com

Thanks! Will surely. Till the harsh language is not directed at me, i can live with it

But I just wanted the "short" of how do i know I'm hearing distortion without going into measurements (though i fully intend to measure it if it's possible using the Umik-1). What does it sound like?

 

[Passive_audio_enthusiast]

Thanks! Will surely. Till the harsh language is not directed at me, i can live with it

But I just wanted the "short" of how do i know I'm hearing distortion without going into measurements (though i fully intend to measure it if it's possible using the Umik-1). What does it sound like?

Distortion in higher freq sounds like a we speak thorough a plastic film. At lower freq it’s the classic woofer distortion we can hear in many places. For example if you turn up the bass on a car stereo and lower all treble and mids and they when you play it louder it sounds like it’s gonna break.

 

[DB1989]

Distortion in higher freq sounds like a we speak thorough a plastic film. At lower freq it’s the classic woofer distortion we can hear in many places. For example if you turn up the bass on a car stereo and lower all treble and mids and they when you play it louder it sounds like it’s gonna break.

I have a low pass filter for my cars speakers with a megalith of a blaupunkt sub but i understand what you mean. Bass distortion is evident mostly in bookshelf loudspeakers as their dynamic range is limited and certain songs, especially kick drums at loud volumes simply wring the life out of those small drivers.

Amongst subs, the Yamaha NS-SW300 was the biggest culprit of them all. While a decent little sub for music, it distorted horribly even at very very reasonable volumes during movie scenes with deep bass.

 

[ssf]

In my limited experience, it very difficult to make 15" subs distort in a home setting. Max that one might hear is port chuffing though I have not heard that too.

I tried to get my sub to distort today. My 15 inch Velodyne is connected to my Crown XLS 2502 in bridged mode. It's original amp went bust) At volumes that I could manage at home without getting me into serious trouble, I could only make the fifteen inch sub move like my 5 odd inch woofer on my Quads. No audible distortion even when sleeping next to the sub.

I have heard my false ceiling make it's own music during movies though.

 

[Vineethkumar01]

I think we are using a lot of technical terms in the wrong context and with wrong interpretations about how they manifest technically and audibly.
Especially correlating the effect of harmonic distortion with "timing".

In general, with woofers "there is no replacement for displacement". Very broadly, the larger the woofer, the better it will be able to reproduce sounds at the very low frequencies in the bass range. This is due to many factors contributing to the overall performance like large cone area leading to better coupling with air, less movement required often resulting in lesser distortion etc. Often really good woofers also have powerful and well designed motors which keeps non linearity at bay, which in turn results in overall less THD.

Please dont confuse and connect "timing" with THD. For discussion here, let us consider timing as the ability of a driver to start when the signal starts and stop when the signal stops. This is not determined by the total harmonic distortion specs. Total harmonic distortion affects waveform fidelity in time domain. In frequency domain, harmonic distortion leads to "tonality" changes. It is often resonances that spoil timing aspects. Whether it is for a bare driver, driver in a box, or it playing in a room.

Look at pic-1. It shows an input sinewave and how it is appearing at the output for 3 different cases. First case is ideal. 2nd and 3rd scenarios result in different levels and types of harmonic distortion due to clipping. Notice how the waveform shape changes compared to the input in each case. Does it tell anything about the driver's start and stop? No. But it destroys the waveform shape in time domain. But about its audibility at different frequencies, the jury is still out

Pic-2 shows a signal of fundamental frequency 100Hz and its shape getting distorted due to clipping. See the associated spectrum with rise in odd order harmonic distortion. In general, it is said that odd order distortion is more audible than even order.

Pic-3 shows the frequency responses of a State of the art 12 inch "hifi" woofer at a certain signal level. It is that of the SB34NRXL75-8 driver. Are we able to make out any resonances just looking at this plot? We are able to see big peaks in response around 2khz due to cone breakup.

Now look at pic-4: It is the cumulative spectral decay of the driver. See the peak and persistant slow decay around 2k. This is what is going to affect timing bevause of that cone break up resonance causing the "ringing".

Now look at pic-5. It shows the harmonic distortion measurements of this driver. It shows the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc order harmonic distortion levels at different frequencies. Note that harmonic distortion is there all along the driver passband, at different levels but we dont say it affects the timing. It affects the tonality of that woofer's output. Also notice that 2nd order spike around 700Hz. If you look at the frequency response earlier, it has a dip around that point.

Now look at pic-6. It is the impedance magnitude measurement of the driver. Notice that blip around the same 700Hz. It is an acoustical resonace. That can also affect timing. But it is not caused by the harmonic distortion spike.

Room "resonances" also affect the inroom response and therefore the "timing" of the perceived sound in room. But that is a different issue.

Ideally we want ro get measurements like this for this subwoofer to objectively make some useful conclusions.
In short, dont always associate THD with timing. These are different things which may come together in some cases. Also as i said earlier, THD and audible perception of distortion don't correlate well unless it is too high especially in the bass range. Turnimg up volume and hearing everything rattling is not how THD sounds like. Those are structural vibration s due to resonances of the material that forms the vibrating surfaces. While these are all some form of "distortion", it is not harmonic distortion. Dont blame the poor guy(distortion) for all sorts of noise.

Also measuring THD reliabily in homes especially at bass frequencies is hard.