WHO MADE WHO! – a guide on how to select components and system matching

[Hari Iyer]

Imo, the tweeters are way faster than the mids and the woofer the slowest to respond to signal. Within tweeters the ribbon tweeters are even more faster. Cone tweeters fare a bit better to sync with midrange. Hence in most time aligned or phase coherent speakers there are physical offsets to the drivers so that their individual arrival time can be delayed by few msec. Some speakers use a tilted baffle. Some active speakers use DSP to introduce digital delay for tweeter. We all know that when there are two point source radiating the same sound, the one nearer to us will sound first. The woofer, midrange and tweeter radiating centers due to their construction are not aligned in a plane and hence are physically offset in the baffle. This also reduces beaming and gives a better polar response. Also a woofer cone is much heavier than tweeter dome and it's response is much slower. So a delay is required to be introduced so that the harmonics arrive at your ears in a phase coherent manner. This feat is not that easy to achieve. Only a handful of speakers till date have a perfect step response and square wave response. Dunlavy, vandersteen, Epcos comes to my mind.
Even when you look at a perfect ideal ECG report, it will show an ideal impulse (or step) response. Even the perfect heart beat follows a perfect step response. Even a perfectly designed speaker ideally have an impulse response similar to a perfect heart imo

 

[mpw]

My understanding is that in Indian classical music the Tala or Taal sets the pace rhythm and timing

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Aren’t Timing issues as lag between drivers and Timing as a result of attack and decay two different things... both being hardware related?

 

[Hari Iyer]

Attack and decay decide how good the timber of the sound is and is called the sound envolope. The sound envolope should mimic the rise and fall (decay) of the original sound to preserve its timber. So proper timber is about time and phase Coherence without any lag or delay when the wave reach your ears. Human ear can detect delay as low as 10 mSec and identify them as two separate sound source.

 

[vivek_r]

Hey so my 2 cents here. I had put in some thoughts and I was wondering whether to post it or not, but it’s lock down

If you hear well recorded acoustic piano (or even a live one, better) there is the first sharp incisive sound of the hammer hitting the string (attack) and the sound of strings vibrating (Sustain and Decay). All instruments have that, but it is well exemplified by the piano (is it a percussive instrument or a string instrument?)

In a balanced system, both should have its place. Too much of decay and relative softness of attack is probably used to describe the system as lush, warm (which also is used when higher frequencies are rolled off) and slow - most commonly associated with tubes and then we have tube amps that sound less tubey!

Then we have the opposite where it can sound thin. Associated with solid state now and then

PRAT - again a Linn Naim “word”. That’s when they balance out everything with clarity so that your body responds to it. It may even be coloured but damn, it lets the music flow - missing the forest for the trees.

Some useful and probably links.

Sound Quality or Timbre

Many more fun videos - random one on timbre. How different instruments and voices sound different even if at the same frequency- aka timbre.

 

[mpw]

forest for the trees

But the trees are the forest

 

[arj]

Attack and decay decide how good the timber of the sound is and is called the sound envolope. The sound envolope should mimic the rise and fall (decay) of the original sound to preserve its timber. So proper timber is about time and phase Coherence without any lag or delay when the wave reach your ears. Human ear can detect delay as low as 10 mSec and identify them as two separate sound source.

Timbre is about the envelope created by the Harmonics ( Upper and Lower) hence a Guitar and Sitar , both playing a fundamental note of say 50Hz, will sound different on the same system even with the same phase and time coherence..and hence their Timbre is different. In fact 2 different sitars sound different due to the same reason.

Some say tube amps bring out the harmonics better..but dont want to go there in this discussion

The video by vivek_r explains this perfectly

 

[Hari Iyer]

Timbre is about the envelope created by the Harmonics ( Upper and Lower) hence a Guitar and Sitar , both playing a fundamental note of say 50Hz, will sound different on the same system even with the same phase and time coherence..and hence their Timbre is different. In fact 2 different sitars sound different due to the same reason.

Some say tube amps bring out the harmonics better..but dont want to go there in this discussion

The video by vivek_r explains this perfectly

The rise time of the fundamental and decay of the harmonics create the timber. That's the attack, sustain and decay. They should be as close as possible to the original music. There is a relationship of how strong a harmonics should sound w.r.t the fundamental. Harmonics that are around -10dB lower than the fundamental sounds nice to our ears. If the harmonics are stronger and the decay is longer then it causes harmonic distortion. The room become the most important barrier to allow a good attack, sustain and decay envolope ( or timber) imo and introduce more distortion than the hardware.

 

[vivek_r]

Hey so my 2 cents here. I had put in some thoughts and I was wondering whether to post it or not, but it’s lock down

If you hear well recorded acoustic piano (or even a live one, better) there is the first sharp incisive sound of the hammer hitting the string (attack) and the sound of strings vibrating (Sustain and Decay). All instruments have that, but it is well exemplified by the piano (is it a percussive instrument or a string instrument?)

In a balanced system, both should have its place. Too much of decay and relative softness of attack is probably used to describe the system as lush, warm (which also is used when higher frequencies are rolled off) and slow - most commonly associated with tubes and then we have tube amps that sound less tubey!

Then we have the opposite where it can sound thin. Associated with solid state now and then

PRAT - again a Linn Naim “word”. That’s when they balance out everything with clarity so that your body responds to it. It may even be coloured but damn, it lets the music flow - missing the forest for the trees.

Some useful and probably links.

Sound Quality or Timbre

Many more fun videos - random one on timbre. How different instruments and voices sound different even if at the same frequency- aka timbre.

Sorry I couldn’t find the edit button, but please read above as “NOT missing the forest for the trees”.

That kind of flow of my old amp Nait 2 was amazing - even worth the pain of din cables and it’s quirks. Somehow better for jazz and rock vis a vis classical, but very good there as well.

A pity I sold it, but I only console myself saying old equipment can cause problems, including, literally, going up in a smoke. So you need to be lucky or have a DIY instinct.