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Big E speakers: Pt 2
- Thread starter Chef
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Just like the conventional wisdom that if you sailed far enough you would sail off the edge of the flat earth.
Or the physician who discovered the connection of E-pylori
with many stomach ulcers, who was slapped down by the prevailing experts and out of frustration actually infected himself with E-pylori and gave himself an ulcer, then cured it!It is cool you have some users like nomatic and DirtPoorRobbins with credentials that are digging these cabs. Bar band hacks like me don't add a lot of credibility when praising the design. But I have owned a lot of gear including Mesa Boogie 2x15, Ampeg 4x10,2x Acme 2x10 stack, fEarful 1515/66, and will only say my 48 is very unique and pleasing to my ear in a band mix indoors and out. The dispersion and projection of a 4x8 outdoors boggles my mind.
"bar band hacks" are as valid as anyone---because they're bringing the gear into difficult real world situations. Guys gigging in these situations give me some of the most important feedback.
Feedback I get back based on living rooms---or even ideal acoustic situations mean less to me than a guy who's playing in a club where he can never hear himself well and now he's really enjoying playing.A typical response is---"the drummer says he hears and feels me better and the hookup is better" or "the band seems to be playing at a lower volume and everyone in the club comments on how much better they can hear what I'm doing".
I had a "bar band hack" customer tell me that he usually uses a boutique 215 with mid cab. Rock band in a bar. He asks some audience members how the bass sounds. They say that it's definitely loud enough but they can't hear exactly what he's playing. I get this a lot with guys with big, expensive cabs. Then they say that they can hear every note he's playing when using the Big E.
For a guy just enjoying the playing experience more---whether in a bar or Carnegie Hall---doesn't matter which to me---that's the main measurement I'm looking for.
- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
A couple of pages back, Seamonkey posted a Invalid Link Removed [edit: the link seems to be dead now] to an AES paper on port design. I had read the article years ago, but just now finished re-reading it.
My only comment is:
GREAT INFORMATION!
Thank you, Seamonkey!!
My only comment is:
GREAT INFORMATION!
Thank you, Seamonkey!!
Given the reports from some respected individuals, I'm definitely curious to audition Big E Loudspeakers myself. However, in light of the information in the FAQ on the Big E page, it does appear that a healthy degree of skepticism about a number of the claims is warranted.
A few technical points:
Even if all of the sound pressure radiated from the back of the speaker could be put to use, should that not net only a 3 dB increase in sensitivity? Note, I'm not considering the effect of horn loading here.
Additionally, it seems wise to be careful with claims such as "it sounds twice as loud" or "four times as loud", as a 10 dB increase is what is commonly perceived as twice as loud. Are Big E speakers really 10 or 20 dB more sensitive than other designs? That sort of claim could easily be put to an empirical test.
As for frequency response plots, I agree that they do not tell the whole story. However, they are only one of many possible ways to measure the performance of a speaker. Surely a host of other measurements could be made which could quantify the claims being made, if they are actually true.
Finally, this is only my intuition here, but even if you could "harvest" all of the sound from the back of the drivers, wouldn't the reflections from inside the box produce a blurring effect as the back and front waves are mixed together? Phase response, impulse response, and other measurements should be able to test for this.
A few technical points:
Even if all of the sound pressure radiated from the back of the speaker could be put to use, should that not net only a 3 dB increase in sensitivity? Note, I'm not considering the effect of horn loading here.
Additionally, it seems wise to be careful with claims such as "it sounds twice as loud" or "four times as loud", as a 10 dB increase is what is commonly perceived as twice as loud. Are Big E speakers really 10 or 20 dB more sensitive than other designs? That sort of claim could easily be put to an empirical test.
As for frequency response plots, I agree that they do not tell the whole story. However, they are only one of many possible ways to measure the performance of a speaker. Surely a host of other measurements could be made which could quantify the claims being made, if they are actually true.
Finally, this is only my intuition here, but even if you could "harvest" all of the sound from the back of the drivers, wouldn't the reflections from inside the box produce a blurring effect as the back and front waves are mixed together? Phase response, impulse response, and other measurements should be able to test for this.
- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
There's stuff going on that results in some gain.
Nope, they're not claiming 10 or 20 dB increase in sensitivity. Alien technology hasn't advanced that far (yet)!
Until then, try to stay somewhat open to the possibility, even if your skeptical side is stronger.
Let me try to offer an (admittedly imperfect) analogy: Imagine that we're in the infancy of the loudspeaker industry, and only two types of enclosures exist: The open baffle (and variations thereon), and the closed box or "infinite baffle". We know that closed boxes have much better bass than open baffles, even folded-back open baffles, because closing the box blocks dipole cancellation. We don't begin to know what T/S parameters are, much less how to measure or use them. Imagine Hermann von Helmholtz has never lived so we don't know what a Helmholtz resonance is. And along comes this nutjob with no credentials who cuts a hole in the back of his closed box and brashly claims that he's getting more bass, when we all know darn well that's impossible, because now his closed box is a dipole, right??
Okay, this one I can give a decent answer to. This is highly counter-intuitive, but imo utterly fascinating, and I use it in my best-sounding home audio speakers.
Controlled blind tests have been done on the effect of reflections on the intelligibility of speech (a great index for clarity). While very late reflections (echoes) are detrimental, oddly enough, reflections that arrive within a fairly generous early time window actually enhance speech intelligibility! Perhaps the world's leading researcher in the field of psychoacoustics, Floyd Toole, theorizes that the ear can do a better job of deciphering a complex music signal if it gets multiple "looks". And here's another wierd part - the reflections do not have to be coherent! The ear/brain system doesn't hear waveforms; more like packets of energy, that stimulate the frequency-specific cells in the cochlea. In fact, diffuse reverberant energy is perceptually more desirable than strong, coherent reflections.
My best home audio speakers are bipolars, which radiate full spectrum front & back (conceptually not unlike an open-back guitar cab, except that's a dipole so it cancels at low frequencies). So we should have twice as much "blurring effect" from the doubling of in-room reverberant energy. But guess what - the net effect is enhanced clarity and articulation, relative to an equivalent monopole speaker, even though the in-room impulse response of the bipolars would be atrocious in comparison.
So imo it is theoretically feasible that the backwave energy the Big E's harvest actually enhances clarity. Theory aside, such has been my observation.
Seems your link won't work in my browzer (Firefox). Would you please check it. Thanks.
- Nov 24, 2008
- 4,343
- 7,163
- Disclosures
- Owner & designer, AudioKinesis; Auth. mfg, Big E (Home Audio only)
I must say that, regardless of stance on this design subject, the input and most importantly the well thought out analogies that Duke LeJeune has contributed to this thread have been outstanding. These posts have really broadened my understanding of sound.
Much appreciated.
Much appreciated.
Me too! I look forward to trying one of the 6" or 8" current models when Mike and I hang again.
Thanks so much Duke. He's kindof my speaker mentor.
One point of clarification--
I'm going to stop using the term "twice as loud". This is totally unscientific and can definitely lead to confusion---and it's not acurate.
We do get the back wave. And a slight amplification of that back wave.
With the Version 1 and 2 vortex we get the equivalent output of 2x the driver. (a single driver in a reflex box). So we are moving twice as much air. The equivalent of going from a single 12 to two twleves.
With the new RachE vortex it's more like 2.5x. It's more efficient in recovering and amplifying the rear wave.
One more interesting thing. Tom and Steve would say that with the version 1 we were getting at least 2.5x the driver. I have found that even in subwoofer apps this was true.
But not for bass. The transients on electric bass are so crazy that I backed it down to 2x. I did tests with speakers in reflex boxes where I knew the Vd . I would put them against the Big E where I knew it had half of the vd. My experience is that they would both exhibit the same over excursion behavior. At the same perceived volume level.I've also used the exact same driver (as in the Big E) in a reflex box. It would take two of them to bottom out at the same volume as the Big E. Not scientific but seemed to be pretty accurate.
One point of clarification--
I'm going to stop using the term "twice as loud". This is totally unscientific and can definitely lead to confusion---and it's not acurate.
We do get the back wave. And a slight amplification of that back wave.
With the Version 1 and 2 vortex we get the equivalent output of 2x the driver. (a single driver in a reflex box). So we are moving twice as much air. The equivalent of going from a single 12 to two twleves.
With the new RachE vortex it's more like 2.5x. It's more efficient in recovering and amplifying the rear wave.
One more interesting thing. Tom and Steve would say that with the version 1 we were getting at least 2.5x the driver. I have found that even in subwoofer apps this was true.
But not for bass. The transients on electric bass are so crazy that I backed it down to 2x. I did tests with speakers in reflex boxes where I knew the Vd . I would put them against the Big E where I knew it had half of the vd. My experience is that they would both exhibit the same over excursion behavior. At the same perceived volume level.I've also used the exact same driver (as in the Big E) in a reflex box. It would take two of them to bottom out at the same volume as the Big E. Not scientific but seemed to be pretty accurate.
+1 Twice the drivers would be around 3db, which is impressive in and of itself. Best to just stay away from all the otherworldly verbiage, now that you have a big pile of satisfied customers. No need to generate all the drama at this point IMO!
Thanks--I agree!
I have found that when it relates to my emotional response to gear I haven't emotionally evolved much since being an 11 year old and taking the subway downtown and just looking at the amps in the Kustom showroom.
I TOTALLY understand that feeling. I'm in the obnoxious phase of 'why haven't I played a P Bass all my life, and why would anyone want to play anything else'
That being said, I recently purchased a used 'Arnopol inspired' Roscoe. Fun bass... burpy as heck! Blingy too!
svtb15
Inactive
- Mar 22, 2004
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- I play it all. Whatever works for the gig. Q+
^No.. I have that covered with my Avatar ^ Alleva Coppolo kbp5 custom sparkle bass above.. dare anyone to top that one!
Ken goes Liberace!
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