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The Dispersion Issue

#81
seamonkey said:
Many cabinets promoted around here claim that have some design aspect that all the other cab makers have missed.
Some are just re-using established principles in FOH, Pro Sound, but in a form factors that visually that doesn't upset the apple cart.

There are at least two goals, a musician needs to hear themselves. A musician want the audience to hear what the musicians wants them to hear.
There's many "traditional" bass cab designs that just aren't going to fill both roles.
These days with IEM, a bass player can hear themselves, and using cabs that disperse as well as good pro-sound cabs will let the audience hear better, anywhere in the club.

It's simple to measure. Every smart phone has a way to measure SPL. Laser distance finder are cheap and some phones have the ability to measure distance. These are handy tools that can measure dispersion of a cab. I think many 4x10 owners would be surprised by the big nulls at the corners of their cabs. It'd be a good way to show at 6ft bass player height, what a 4x3 line array is doing with the cabinet on the floor.

Makers are more interested in promoting their claims by not providing any measurement. I don't get it. Bass players shouldn't buy into this without proof. Surviving in the market isn't proof, that's marketing.

Best cabs at dispersion are from pro-sound where they actually publish charts on the dispersion patterns. Horizontal and vertical.
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How refreshing to hear again from Seamonkey. I truly miss his pithy banter. ( while being prejudicial and ill-informed)

Bass players should DEFINITELY not buy into any technology without proof. Fortunately---bass players can reliably judge the proof the experience of playing in context. While I must admit, the myriad components that contribute to the player's actual experience in context obviously pales in comparison to the half dozen (if that ) measurements provided in a clinical context. Funny thing is---we're bass players. Nearly all of the speaker manufacturers provide modeled response in the lower 3 1/2 octaves. Even the speaker manufacturers do this. So---in the area most critical to us---we get an (slightly dubious in terms of accuracy) approximation of low end response. I've actually done the type of measurements recommended by Bill Fitz--and other knowledgeable guys---half space measurements with the cab set into a dug hole.I don't know anyone that has done this. I've played through two cabs that had very similar measurements in frequency and dispersion that sounded VASTLY different. Maybe I should have been listening with a microphone.

Sorry---certain guys are truly posterboys for the word "troll"
 
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#82
Arjank said:
And probably you can't take someones opinion, your comments are always written in such a way that you feel that you are the only one who's correct and there's no other valid answer.
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Maybe it's the language difference, but to be absolutely clear... I NEVER said that there was no other valid answer and in fact I have said that there are MANY valid answers when it comes to the variety of designs available in the marketplace by a variety of manufacturers. In fact, it appears that you are the one who is criticizing the other designers and manufacturers by saying that in spite of fact that their products perform well in the marketplace, they can't possibly work well. This seems to happen time after time.
 
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#83
Rick James said:
Using multiple subs in home theater/hi-fi isn't new. You do it in rooms small enough that room modes and boundary effects dominate response. This is one source that explains why, but by no means is it the only one:
Serious Audio: Two Great Articles on Multiple Subwoofers by Dr. Earl Geddes

In large rooms the situation is exactly the opposite:
Invalid Link Removed

The article is about PA, but bass is bass.
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Funny thing is that Duke and Earl Geddes worked together----Earl was Duke's mentor. Can't get better speaker guidance than that!
 
#84
agedhorse said:
Maybe it's the language difference, but to be absolutely clear... I NEVER said that there was no other valid answer and in fact I have said that there are MANY valid answers when it comes to the variety of designs available in the marketplace by a variety of manufacturers. In fact, it appears that you are the one who is criticizing the other designers and manufacturers by saying that in spite of fact that their products perform well in the marketplace, they can't possibly work well. This seems to happen time after time.
Click to expand...

Gee---I've never had any experience with that!!!
 
#85
bucephylus said:
With the cabs stacked in vertical fashion, the combing is gone. However, there is just something about the bass response that I don't care for; but, I can't really put my finger on it.
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I've found this exact same thing with my quad pack of 112s. The bass is definitely off in some way with the vertical stack.
With the cabs set side by side in a shallow V all combing is eliminated and there is a very positive reinforcement of all the sound I am looking for projecting uniformly around the house.

That is what I have been able to determine about dispersion for my gear. The result is that for bigger gigs when using both AE212's, I use the following setup:
View attachment 786466
Click to expand...
This is one orientation I have not tried. Next time the pack is together I'm gonna try it that way.
 
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#86
Mike Arnopol said:
Gee---I've never had any experience with that!!!
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Am I seeing a trend in 2016 where the "pocket experts" telling those that have and/or do make their living in the field how the world works is on the rise? Maybe I am the only one thinking the non-professional "geniuses" are more in force this year.

I hope people like you and agedhorse don't give up the fight. Just remember: "Even Duct tape can't fix stupid." :)
 
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#89
agedhorse said:
Maybe it's the language difference, but to be absolutely clear... I NEVER said that there was no other valid answer and in fact I have said that there are MANY valid answers when it comes to the variety of designs available in the marketplace by a variety of manufacturers. In fact, it appears that you are the one who is criticizing the other designers and manufacturers by saying that in spite of fact that their products perform well in the marketplace, they can't possibly work well. This seems to happen time after time.
Click to expand...
Reality! Yikes!
 
#90
nostatic said:
In the end, practice trumps theory. The audience doesn't care about frequency plots. Theory explains phenomenon and helps design. But at some point you hit a note and that's what matters.
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I'll agree with that as a whole. In the end sonic reality trumps engineering theory. The whole is always something other than the sum of its parts, and you can take that to the tone bank.
 
#91
Whenever I see posts pronouncing something or another, I go look at the profile if the member. Often there is no info, or in some cases it is "hidden." That usually gives some insight into the real world experience (or lack thereof) behind the opinion.

Everybody gets a vote, but some opinions are more useful than others. And even those with a lot of experince in one area might be lacking in another. Such is the interwebs.
 
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#93
I truly believe that measurement will reach a point in the future that can reflect the playing/listening experience. There are just way more variables that contribute to our playing/ listening experience than are currently available. Frequency response, impulse response, dispersion patterns---these are all quite important and can tell part of the story. But the story has WAY more characters! Let's just say that there is a possibility that one design can affect room nodes much less than another. Then---in two cabinets that measure near identical---the one that excited room nodes more would have a blanket over the rest of the frequency spectrum----in practice---in a playing context----they wouldn't sound at all the same. This seems consistent with the difference Nostatic was experiencing in a notoriously difficult room.
 
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#94
bucephylus said:
With the cabs set side by side in a shallow V all combing is eliminated and there is a very positive reinforcement of all the sound I am looking for projecting uniformly around the house.

That is what I have been able to determine about dispersion for my gear. The result is that for bigger gigs when using both AE212's, I use the following setup:
View attachment 786466
Click to expand...

The cross-firing thing can be pretty cool. I've been using it a lot and I know that Duke is working on some cool cross-firing stuff.
 
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#97
R Baer said:
It all comes down to your personal usage. Dispersion is really about your upper frequencies, but if you spend the majority of time standing right in front of your cab onstage, then dispersion is pretty much a zero issue. As, for the crowd, it's still pretty much a non issue because, well.... your'e standing right in front of the bloody cabinet acting like a human gobo, so no one is hearing much of your top end anyway. Same holds true for your bandmates hearing you well onstage, if you are standing right in front of your cab.
.
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So obvious yet I forget this often.
How many threads have their been about playing the bar gig with the super cramped stage?
This is usually for a good reason meaning there are more people at the gig which is better for the band and the bar.

Human gobo: Well said and guilty as charged.
 
#100
Mike Arnopol said:
I truly believe that measurement will reach a point in the future that can reflect the playing/listening experience. There are just way more variables that contribute to our playing/ listening experience than are currently available. Frequency response, impulse response, dispersion patterns---these are all quite important and can tell part of the story. But the story has WAY more characters! Let's just say that there is a possibility that one design can affect room nodes much less than another. Then---in two cabinets that measure near identical---the one that excited room nodes more would have a blanket over the rest of the frequency spectrum----in practice---in a playing context----they wouldn't sound at all the same. This seems consistent with the difference Nostatic was experiencing in a notoriously difficult room.
Click to expand...

Indeed and agreed, there are variables that do not translate well to simple measurement, and are difficult to explain to those who are not willing (or able) to put forth the effort to do so.

Things like distortion versus level versus frequency, this is very important with regard to the character of a speaker when driven hard, then add dispersion pattern (which varies with frequency and thus harmonics) and you get a complicated graphic description of something that is a perceived voicing, or texture, or some other descriptor that's about as clear as mud in explaining what's going on. A good example of this is the old SVT cabinet, there is a midrange voicing that works nicely with the way the SVT amp overdrives. It's desirable to some players and is very difficult to model with t he same feel and onset of richness that the amp/cabinet combination brings to the table. It does have to do in part to the harmonic distortion versus level versus frequency profile of the driver in that cabinet, and it happens to work very well.
 
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