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Title: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 02, 2007, 08:14:38 PM
How many computers does it take to run a shootout?
index.php/fa/7766/0/
6 in this photo, and there were more there, but they seemed to gather in this area.

Remember the days when you couldn't find a computer near audio guys?  And they said audio would never become digital?

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Jeff Permanian on February 02, 2007, 10:48:14 PM
That was fun, when and where is the next shootout? Has a shootout for tops ever been organized?
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Paul Bell on February 03, 2007, 12:30:04 AM
A very wise man and engineer, Tom McCauley, taught me that you need to close your eyes and simply listen to the music. Don’t start thinking what’s in the box, how many drivers, rubber surround or cloth, Neo or Ferrite, whatever. How did it sound? Does it really matter how many drivers and what size is in the box? Did the box attain it’s design goal of output level and frequency response? Did it sound good? This conversation came about after a lost sale due to a certain high excursion woofer having a santopreen surround. All this talk of the numbers, measurements, yadda yadda, are fine. Good, do the testing. The real test is my ears. The first thing they teach you in Smaart class is to use your ears as the final judge of the sound regardless of the measurements.

The subwoofer shootout was organized by me because I personally wanted to see who was the best in distortion, response and output. It was good to also have the smaller boxes participate, they fill a very important segment of the smaller gigs and installs.

Years ago, I experienced BASSMAXX for the first time. I was blown away. For many years, I’ve witnessed other people as well as competitors dispute the specifications published by David Lee. I’ll admit, there are some speakers on the market that also have some pretty good looking numbers, the Adamson T21, Meyer 700-HP, Danley Sound Lab cabinets and the EM Acoustic Quake come to mind.

On a personal level, I need to own and offer my customers the very best in low frequency. With all the claims and testimonies that “ours is “better” than yours”, I had the need to do a real, full on head to head comparison. Good thing that other sound guys wanted to do the same, a sub shootout would really suck if I was there alone. As it turned out, many others wanted to know the answers to some of my very questions. Day one had forty guys show up!

The Adamson wasn’t available, they opted not to participate. I would hazard a guess that they would rather not put their big gun sub up against anything in a head to head shootout. Remember the first sub shootout where EAW was spanked? They’ll never do a shootout again. I have an install in NYC with a quad stack of 700-HP’s. Loud? Yup. Good? Sure. For the money spent could the customer have done better? You betcha, as well as using just two of something else. Then again, front loaded dual 18 subs seem to have a limit set by nature and physics on how loud they go and how low they’ll play regardless of design or power. The Danley cabinets look really good. They sound really good. Tom has certainly done his long division. The EM’s? Well, I’ve been hearing that they are the baddest of the bad. If any of these cabinets were better than my over rated BASSMAXX boxes, I’d have to jump the fence to that brand.

As it turned out, my Z5000 boxes, while very good, aren’t the “best.” I would actually say in shear output, the EM Quakes were better across the low frequency bandwidth. I know the measured numbers said the Z5000 was louder, the Quakes seemed to be louder at a lower frequency. We'll see when the numbers are posted. Again, I'm going by my ears. Perhaps the Z5000 sounds better because the Quakes are a horn sub design and sound like, well, a horn sub. The Z5000's certainly have this strange cancellation behind them that I’ve never heard before. As a reminder, I’ve never heard these boxes in the quad 10 configuration with the sealed sides before the shootout.

On to the Trips. Wow, I’ve never realized that they were this much better. The venue has a pair of Trips installed upstairs, a few of those at the event saw them. Going head to head was the true test. The Quakes were loud and pounding. They were obviously driven to their absolute limit, they did die trying. Two dead drivers. If anything, the max SPL on the Quakes attained at the shootout was beyond their safe operating range. Perhaps with 3 less DB, they would survive. The Trip cabinets out performed the Quakes by a wide margin as well as going lower in frequency. They survived the test, they are now in another venue on a demo. While being louder and lower, they just sounded better, more like a front loaded box than a horn. The Quakes still sound like a horn with all the coloration and peaks that horn subs are known for.

In my conclusion, my six Z5000 cabinets are for sale. I have several offers. David has the Duce cabinet, two thirds the size of the Trip with two drivers. He’s working on a high power, high excursion Neo driver that will handle like 3,000 watts. Given the (proven) accuracy of David’s claims, I’ll say they will handle the power. With these drivers at the right power level, the new Duce may have the same or almost the same output as a standard ferrite Trip as we’ve heard them. He’s also going over to light weight ply for the cabinet innards. I’ll be ordering these cabinets. I simply cannot haul around the Trip boxes and the Duce is the answer. I can see myself using two or three Duces per side for a 5,000 person show. That’ll be along with three QSC Powerlight 9.0 amps.

I’ll be posting more as the readings are shown and the discussions proceed.

Again, a big thanks to all that attended, sent gear or provided test gear and their time and expertise. This was a giant world wide group effort, we all did it, I just got the ball rolling. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ll never do another shootout!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Gareth James on February 03, 2007, 07:48:07 AM
Elliot, the TH-215 died also? According to the specs its 1400w continuous, 2800w program not 2000? Again I'm suprised the box died when the amp wasn't even clipped or near clipping.

Unless there is something I'm not seeing I wouldn't have thought either of the two Danleys would have been pushed to breaking point on that amp that far from clipping...something doesn't seem right.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Elliot Thompson on February 03, 2007, 08:03:44 AM
Gareth James wrote on Sat, 03 February 2007 12:48

Elliot, the TH-215 died also? According to the specs its 1400w continuous, 2800w program not 2000? Again I'm suprised the box died when the amp wasn't even clipped or near clipping.

Unless there is something I'm not seeing I wouldn't have thought either of the two Danleys would have been pushed to breaking point on that amp that far from clipping...something doesn't seem right.



No it didn't die.

Read my review on page two

http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/mv/msg/20431/18422 8/83/#msg_184228

Then, read the reply I wrote to Tim.

Best Regards,
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Gareth James on February 03, 2007, 02:34:15 PM
Elliot, many thanks for clarifying that for me. Yes I'd agree that box was probably receiving quite a bit too much power and as Ivan brought up speaker electrical power ratings are unreliable at best these days. I could quite imagine tracks very heavy on synth sine style bass lines taking out drivers quite easily at up to 4 x RMS rating.

I've personally always driven my subs with 1-1.5x RMS as the music generally played through them is full of compressed basslines.

I know most who do more live work can use much higher power amps for headroom purposes which is fine if you have a decent amount of  dynamic range to play with.

On a side note! Mark, Tom, do you think the absorption effect of having two cabinets, one disconnected could be even greater with a tapped horn?

Marks statement got me thinking the effect could be more prominent with the tap and how might it effect the loading of the first cabinet. Could it cause a larger heat buildup in the first drivers coil or possibly larger cone excursion?

Sorry for the random questions, as ever just trying to learn more!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Scott Hibbard on February 03, 2007, 03:03:40 PM
Paul,

The Quakes were loud and pounding. They were obviously driven to their absolute limit, they did die trying. Two dead drivers.

Did we kill the Quake drivers?  For whatever reason, I don't remeber that?!  I know we cook the EM 215 drivers...

ScottH

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 03, 2007, 03:14:05 PM
Scott Hibbard wrote on Sat, 03 February 2007 15:03

Paul,

The Quakes were loud and pounding. They were obviously driven to their absolute limit, they did die trying. Two dead drivers.

Did we kill the Quake drivers?  For whatever reason, I don't remeber that?!  I know we cook the EM 215 drivers...

ScottH


I don't remember the Quakes going down either. The only driver issues I remember was a bad smell from the single TH115, and copious smoke, followed by silence, from the EM215. Scott, you were the one taking notes, I'm going with your account.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007-How many computers?
Post by: Rob Spence on February 03, 2007, 04:02:29 PM
Well, that was where the power strip was  Smile

There were not any conveniance outlets in the room so we took a feed from the distro back where all the laptops ended up.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Rob Spence on February 03, 2007, 04:16:07 PM
To clarify in this thread, the EM-215 died. The TH-215 did not.
The EM-215 made a lot of sound first though!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Paul Bell on February 03, 2007, 08:15:15 PM
On one of these threads, there were a few questions for me:

The EM Acoustic Quake cabinets did die. The guys on the console were wondering who cut the bass during the listening test. I was standing near Mark. Somebody by the amps said that the amp was still putting out. Both cabinets went south. Being buried in a nine foot horn and behind a foam grill, the smoke was never seen. The boys who brought them said no problem, they have re-cone kits in stock.

The space has two inch acoustical sheets covering the entire ceiling backed by sealed rubber sheets. The stage has the same on all three walls. The far upper rear wall also has the same. The lower rear wall and the two side walls are bare concrete or block. Rough surfaces for that "CBGB" look.

Hope this answers some questions.

Next!

Paul Bell
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 03, 2007, 09:11:41 PM
 Has a shootout for tops ever been organized?[/quote]

We have a substantial inventory of competitors full range loudspeakers that we regularly do comparisons for customers in a double blind test format.  (precise level matching and behind a scrim).  It is pretty amazing the mental gymnastics we have seen from folks that have a hard time facing the fact that maybe some designs are significantly better than others.  One guy told us after picking our loudspeaker three times which was in his world the "wrong" box, "well your box really has too much low end for me anyway"!
Seriously it is very telling the differences you hear between loudspeakers that may actually appear to have similar frequency responses.  You develop a real appreciation for just how hard it is to quantify a very complex thing.  We'd love to participate in a full range shootout as long as it isn't only about loud and painful.  

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: drewgandy on February 04, 2007, 02:22:17 AM
I'm looking for some comment about what concepts and ultimately time and effort was put into the crossover between the boxes and the in house system for the listening tests.  From what I understand, for testing the boxes were 8 feet from the stage?  I assume the hangs are much closer to the stage so there was probably a good gap between the systems.  I've found that what you do in that critical crossover range can create some different "perception" effects for the whole system.

drew
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tom Young on February 04, 2007, 07:47:50 AM
I haven't yet seen a group photo of the attendees. So here you go:

index.php/fa/7799/0/
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Chris Hinds on February 04, 2007, 08:26:29 AM
Any names to go with faces?  The only guy I recognise is Bennett of course!

Regards

Chris
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II-Cardoid subs
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 04, 2007, 09:14:10 AM
There has been some discussion regarding the "cardoid" subs that were present and some confusion on the terms.  Like with full range boxes terms can have different meanings to different people.  

Take the term Active.  In days of old when you were discussing active vs passive loudspeakers you were talking about whether or not the cabinet had a passive crossover in it.  The active part was the electronic crossover before the amplifiers.

Today active can still mean that, or it can mean that there is an amplifier built into it.  It is just how you look at it.

In regards to cardoid subs, there were several in attendance.  It all depends on how you define "cardoid".  The only "active" cardoid (using other loudspeakers to cancel out rear radiation) was the EONA 618.  It would have been good to have the Meyers there, but for some reason they weren't.  Maybe next time.

The EONAs did a very good job of knocking down the rear radiation.  Was it completely gone, no, but the reduction in level was significant, and I would not expect it to be completely gone. In audio it is all a matter of how much.  Just like horn cutoffs, teh sound is not gone, just a good bit lowerer, and some cabinets have a harder cutoff than others.

One of the other "passive" cardiod subs (in my opinion) was the Tripp.  When walking behind them, the level was quite a bit lower than in front.  Was it as much as the EONA, I am not sure (as the Tripp came first), but I would say they were in the same ballpark. The time between listening was a fair bit, so your ears tend to forget very quickly.  We were also in a small room, which will greatly affect what what you hear bouncing around.

No measurements of this were taken, as it would probably be futile in the room we were in to try to get an decent data of that type.  That is best reserved for outdoor measurement.

There were some cabinets in which the rear radiation was just about equal to the front and others had various degress of cancellation to the rear.

Just like with a cardoid mic,  You have your "basic" models in which the ports on the rear of the capsule cancel out the front and you get a cardoid pattern, you can take an omni mic and put it on a boundary and it will also have rear rejection.  How much depends on several factors.

I think the term Cardoid generally refers to active cancellation type subs, but just wanted to point out that there are others that do a good job of it without the added loudspeakers in the rear.  Are they better or worse, I don't know, just different.

There are also various configurations in which you use delay, polarity and physical placing of the cabinets in order to achieve this effect.  This starts to be a large (physically) array, but can be effective if you have the space, the number of cabinets and the knowledge in order to make it work properly.

And with ANY of the above mentioned methods, it is all frequency dependant.  While the truly passive (no electronics) subs will generally have a linear pattern control (as you go higher, you get more rejections) both of the active (built in or DSP based) methods are good only over a particular bandwidth.  Out side of that (high and low) you will have less control over the pattern.

So the real trick is to only have the cabients freq response centered over where the greatest cardoid action is happening or vice versa, determine the freq band if interest and adjust the cardoid action to be centered over this range.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wil Davis on February 04, 2007, 12:15:32 PM
Hey Chaps!  

I had a wonderful time in NYC;  it was nice to meet you all, and great to get a chance to hear some amazing gear.  I also learned a helluva lot;  overall a great experience,  thanks again to you all, esp.  Paul & Co. and Bennett & Co. and Dave… and Ivan…  and Mark…  and John…  and Mike…  and Eliot… and…

Here are some of my pics, not quite as newsworthy as those of Paul's Uncle Ray, but they might give those of you who couldn't make it, an idea of what it/we looked like:  

http://www.k1wd.com/misc/stuff/NYCShootOut2007/

So, when's the next one?

- Wil
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Tim Morin on February 04, 2007, 12:33:02 PM
I agree, we would also be intersted in a shootout of this type. the problem will be that most of these are mostly about loud and painful. I have read threads about the NY sub shootout and most of the fuss is who's cabinets were the loudest. I have not seen any threads on the musicality of the subs as that is truly what determines which of these manufacturers will be on a major tour or install in the future. just my 2 cents.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 04, 2007, 12:57:27 PM
Very nice photos, Will. By far the best capture of the venue and the atmosphere.

I'm surprised by the very small amount of hearing protection in evidence. Most of the testing was reasonable volume, eh?

-Bink
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 04, 2007, 01:24:48 PM
Depends on what you call "reasonable" Laughing . On the second day typically 130-140dB 16' from cabinets.  A fair number of us had them hanging around our necks, but I would say that most of the time we didn't use them.  The listening tests were-for the most part-short, with a long break while cabinets got swapped out.

The mains were backed down a bit, so we didn't get the "Icepick in the forhead" effect. Very Happy
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 04, 2007, 01:37:23 PM
Yes loud levels are impressive in one way and that is the easiest to talk about.  Loud is fun and amazing, but there is more to it than that.  However there was lots of discussions during and after the listening, in which quality of sound was discussed.  There were a lot of audio professionals there, who did get critical of the quality.

Yeah the quality is more important (to me) than just level, but it does  have to get loud enough to do the job.  On the other hand it does not matter how good it sounds if the listeners cannot hear it.

What was interesting was how tight-or lose- different cabinets sounded when pushed hard.  Some started making noises like "I don't particularly like what you are doing to me, but I will keep trying to keep up" and others were fine-they just kept getting louder.  Others had whistling and "flapping" noises (grills/foam) that showed up at loud levels.  Those noises were more apparent close to the cabinets and not so much at the back of the room.  Some of the cabinet reps are going to be looking into that.  All in the interest of making better cabinets.  

As long as the bar continually get raised, the customers will benefit from better sound.  It also helps to separate the "real" cabinets from the entry level stuff.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: John Chiara on February 04, 2007, 01:38:31 PM
Tim Morin wrote on Sun, 04 February 2007 12:33

I agree, we would also be intersted in a shootout of this type. the problem will be that most of these are mostly about loud and painful. I have read threads about the NY sub shootout and most of the fuss is who's cabinets were the loudest. I have not seen any threads on the musicality of the subs as that is truly what determines which of these manufacturers will be on a major tour or install in the future. just my 2 cents.


It's so hard to quantify what is in most cases "claimed" to be  subjective. The top box situation is very complicated and dependent on need..although I think that actual need is often not addressed for a variety of reasons. One major attribute in most cases I see are finding a top box that has a low enough cutoff and pattern control to actually interface correctly with whatever subs are in use. I just last week repowered my SH 50's and boy did I hear a difference. The show last night and church today was great because the boxes are capable of great vocal presence with plenty of full low end. This would not be the case if I had to cross to subs at 100-125HZ for example. It would be great to hear a bunch of high qualtiy boxes next to each other..I'm just having trouble envisioning how we could level the playing field in a way to make it factual and useful. I'm sure we all walk in on mixes and absolutely hate what someone else thinks is "rockin'"..find annoying what someone else thinks is "kick ass"..etc. Could be tough.
John
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 04, 2007, 01:58:43 PM
We have setup lots of blind tests between full range boxes.  It can be difficult to set a level playing field.  The low end response in particular (and overall flatness of the response) is a tough puppy to be "fair" with.  

What we have decided is the best way (we are open to other opinions however) is to put full range pink noise into each one and set the level as close as possible using a C weighted SPL meter.  We use a custom switcher that I designed/built that allows for individual adjustments over the cabinets and then allows for bypassing each level control so sensitivity differences can also be heard.

When you listen to them you will hear (with different source material) that some boxes sound louder than others and on other tracks the levels seem more matched.

The boxes with the most lowend will sound warmer and will skew the "sound" of the upper freq.  When you have the extra extension on the low end end the higher freq don't seem as harsh.

So if you say to highpass all the cabinets at say 100Hz, you are unfairly robbing performance of the cabinets that are capable of truly full range response.  You would be surprised how many cabinets that claim to be full range really aren't-despite what the specs say.

When you have a switcher and multiple boxes setup next to each other, you can really hear all sorts of differences between boxes.  The little details really stand out.

A shootout would be fairly hard thing to do-especially in a small area as you would have to have at least 2 of each box (to check for arrayability and how well they play together) and be able to switch easily between them.

I think there would have to be some strict guidelines setup as to what will and what won't be done during the comparisons.

I think you would have to set some guidelines as to different types of boxes that should be compaired to each other-

It would be really telling however.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Paul Bell on February 04, 2007, 02:05:55 PM
Can somebody start a thread on top boxes so we can leave the sub shootout thread a sub shootout thread?
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 04, 2007, 02:11:54 PM
Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Sun, 04 February 2007 12:57

Very nice photos, Will. By far the best capture of the venue and the atmosphere.

I'm surprised by the very small amount of hearing protection in evidence. Most of the testing was reasonable volume, eh?

-Bink
This would be me wearing mine.  Cool

Mac


index.php/fa/7804/0/
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tony "T" Tissot on February 04, 2007, 03:48:09 PM
Because of the crutches?

(these sure look like "sound guys" (and girls))

EDIT - Oops - I stand corrected. The gentleman with 4-legs was one of the Butler twins. Laughing
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Bennett Prescott on February 04, 2007, 03:53:29 PM
That's Mike Butler on the crutches, not me!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mark "Bass Pig" Weiss on February 04, 2007, 06:11:35 PM
Wow, I've been enjoying reading this whole thread!
I wish I could have been present, but with the wife working and me babysitting a 2-1/2 year old daughter, there was just no way for me to make the trip down, even though it's only a 2-hour drive for me.

I was intriqued by the Powersoft amplifiers, but what really gave me a good hearty laugh (which I shared with all my friends) was the story of how the Bassmaxx subs shook the apt bldg acorss the street. An amazing feat, in a large place of concrete and steel and wide streets. Sounds like comparing the space shuttle takeoff to a bunch of 747s taking off. Smile

I certainly wanted to be there as an observer. That would have been fun and it would have been a pleasure to talk with some of the folks in person. Maybe someday when my daughter is older and I can take her with me for the day.

Anyway, a fascinating read, interesting photos and stories. Loved it!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: David J Lee on February 04, 2007, 06:37:21 PM
Tim Morin wrote on Sun, 04 February 2007 11:33

I agree, we would also be intersted in a shootout of this type. the problem will be that most of these are mostly about loud and painful. I have read threads about the NY sub shootout and most of the fuss is whose cabinets were the loudest. I have not seen any threads on the musicality of the subs as that is truly what determines which of these manufacturers will be on a major tour or install in the future. just my 2 cents.



Hi Tim,

One of the challenges I have found in doing these types of things is fitting all you want to do in a very limited amount of time.  For future reference we should have the following in attendance if we ever do this again:

A time cop.  An event production manager who will keep things moving on schedule.

Predetermined testing methods and a list of the data to be recorded.

A predetermined list of songs or recordings (or instruments) to play.  

More space.  A football stadium would be nice.

Two more days.

A collection of the most popular and well known cabinets currently in use on large numbers of tours and stages.

You.  Yes you.  You, too.  Your ears.  If you care, be there!



Once upon a long time ago, in a place far from here, I went to a shootout that wasn't.  It was a listening workshop.  I live in Texas and when someone says shootout I think last man standing, as loud as it can go without ending up dead.   When someone says listening workshop I think of things a lot more subtle and a lot less violent.  To do both would be a great idea, if a very ambitious one, particularly if it were to be limited to a day or two.  

In this fantasy I really like the idea of blind testing.  Let all the listeners sit (stand, walk) on one side of a scrim and have some techs set up each system for listening.  (Better yet, set them all up in a very big circle in a big field facing inwards to the center and cover each in a scrim.)  The listeners can take notes, answer predetermined questions and score the contestants from 1 to 10 on a number of criteria.  When that's done, measure them all for FR and phase and distortion and whatever else you want to know and then go for the highest SPL each box can achieve without expiring in a cloud of smoke.  

Tally the blind votes and place the subjective scores next to the objective measurements and reveal the names.  

I personally think that you will find the boxes on those major tours are not the ones that sound the best, or go the loudest, or both.  They are most likely the ones with the most familiar names.  They are the ones who tend to shy away from competitions like this because they have a lot more to lose than to gain.  I would too, if I were them, but I am ready to go head to head with any of them, any time, any place.  May the best sound win!

Are we doing it at your house next?  Wink
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 04, 2007, 06:42:05 PM
Hi Mark-

The Bassmaxx Triples had been playing when the neighbor across the street came over with an attitude and threatening to call the police, environmental health, and anyone else he could think of that might be sympathetic.  I don't doubt that he felt the lows in his unit, but I bet he could feel the subway, too.  I suspect that he was taken aback by the *daytime* nature of the vibrations.  Lows do strange things, and the strata of NYC's subterranean structure possibly acted as a conduit to the pilings or foundation of his building.  Hard to say *why* it happened, but I don't doubt that it *did* happen.

Paul Bell had anticipated complaints from neighbors in the spaces above Club Rebel, and he had notices posted for a couple of weeks telling tenants about the Shootout with the dates and hours.  We only had one complaint from a tenant that I was aware of, and he seemed to be less upset after some discussion.  FWIW, the building is home to at least 2 recording studios and several other music related businesses.

Tim Mc
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 04, 2007, 07:14:43 PM
There were several things that I would have liked to have seen changed, or set forth in the beginning.

When the "rules" change mid stream, it makes it a little unfair to teh earlier "competitors".

But that is part of doing these types of things.  You learn what is good and bad about the way it is conducted.  And hopefully the next time you learn how to do it better.

All in all I think it went well, but could have been conducted a little different.  But this was like you say, because we did not have a clearly defined course beforehand and did not stick to the same throughout.

Blind tests can be very interesting, but take a good bit more organization ahead of time (setup wise). And as you say you need a much larger area. But since we humans are so visually stimulated, you will get better true results in a blind test.

I would be glad to put in my .02 worth, if and when the time comes again.

I agree 1000% regarding getting more popular tour/club cabinets to go up against.  We probably need to go to private owners or see about renting some if the manufacturers will not provide them.  Of course if we do that, you have to be careful not to damage them.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wil Davis on February 04, 2007, 07:29:47 PM
Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Sun, 04 February 2007 12:57

snip…
Most of the testing was reasonable volume, eh?

-Bink


…eh?  …what? …pardon?   Sad


Actually, it was pretty loud (I measured 123dB at the back of the room next to the mixing console; my SPL meter overloaded at 131dB about 6' from the front of the cabs being tested), but for the most part the sound was very clean;  I find that I can tolerate loud/clean/low much more than loud/distorted/low-mid-high.  

During the loud parts I was wearing 20dB earplugs, and even after 2 days, found that I was not getting fatigued by the high sound level;  (although it might have been a different story if I'd been living on the 5th floor across the street… Rolling Eyes )

- Wil

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Too Tall (Curtis H. List) on February 04, 2007, 09:56:25 PM
Ivan Beaver wrote on Sun, 04 February 2007 13:58

We have setup lots of blind tests between full range boxes.  It can be difficult to set a level playing field.  The low end response in particular (and overall flatness of the response) is a tough puppy to be "fair" with.  

What we have decided is the best way (we are open to other opinions however) is to put full range pink noise into each one and set the level as close as possible using a C weighted SPL meter.  We use a custom switcher that I designed/built that allows for individual adjustments over the cabinets and then allows for bypassing each level control so sensitivity differences can also be heard.

When you listen to them you will hear (with different source material) that some boxes sound louder than others and on other tracks the levels seem more matched.

The boxes with the most lowend will sound warmer and will skew the "sound" of the upper freq.  When you have the extra extension on the low end end the higher freq don't seem as harsh.

So if you say to highpass all the cabinets at say 100Hz, you are unfairly robbing performance of the cabinets that are capable of truly full range response.  You would be surprised how many cabinets that claim to be full range really aren't-despite what the specs say.

When you have a switcher and multiple boxes setup next to each other, you can really hear all sorts of differences between boxes.  The little details really stand out.

A shootout would be fairly hard thing to do-especially in a small area as you would have to have at least 2 of each box (to check for arrayability and how well they play together) and be able to switch easily between them.

I think there would have to be some strict guidelines setup as to what will and what won't be done during the comparisons.

I think you would have to set some guidelines as to different types of boxes that should be compaired to each other-

It would be really telling however.



When comparing I would use the 500Hz to 2kHz region. Make them even for level right through the mids. If one box has more lows let them stick out and the same for any peaks in the highs. You are going to hear the tonal balance difference no mater what you do so let the mids be the same for all.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Paul Bell on February 04, 2007, 11:04:10 PM
Can somebody start a thread on top boxes so we can leave the sub shootout thread a sub shootout thread?
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Tom Danley on February 05, 2007, 11:48:33 AM
Hi

Protocol is an important part of measuring or comparing anything.
As Ivan said “When the "rules" change mid stream, it makes it a little unfair to the earlier "competitors".  In this case, he refers to the request to “crank it up” which came right after our boxes had been auditioned.
This and the recorded peaks may lead to impressions like Mark’s “Sounds like comparing the space shuttle takeoff to a bunch of 747s taking off” when they never even blasted the TH-215’s.

While I am pleased people like the sound quality, I am a little concerned that just how loud they can go was not clearly demonstrated.    The difference is a little like the difference in output between a sealed and vented box of equal size, except the Tapped horn doesn’t add the phase shift / group delay of the vented box and doesn’t have the drooped bass response / sound of a small horn.

Personally, I will be interested to see what the measurements said where each box was driven at a known Voltage (following a protocol).   From those, one can calculate the difference in drive power due to the different nominal impedances and determine efficiency differences.

More importantly I would echo David, Ivan and others that the most useful thing that can be gained by these kinds of events (direct side by side listening) is that some of the biggest names with the highest price tags have products, which in this situation are figuratively “emperors without cloths”.  
This is possible because acoustic memory is very poor, people rarely get to hear anything side by side with anything else combined with big buck Boseification image building. In my personal opinion (not DSL’s ), there are some highly polished, highly respected acoustical turds floating in great numbers out there.
You can see / hear / identify them, or not,  when doing side by sides.


Lastly, I would again echo David at his suggestion that this kind of thing be done in a larger space, Ideally this would be outside or a stadium etc where measurements would be or nearly are half space and at a distance which removes the source size / box size errors which appear near field.
Also, this lets people move farther away back to where ones ears are more linear and more able to hear some speaker issues (where as local noise is more audible up close).
Anyway, I’ll cut this off here and get back to work.
Best,

Tom

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: David J Lee on February 05, 2007, 04:28:40 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Mon, 05 February 2007 10:48

Hi

In my personal opinion (not DSL’s ), there are some highly polished, highly respected acoustical turds floating in great numbers out there.
You can see / hear / identify them, or not,  when doing side by sides.






Now that's funny!  And how many hours have the world's harworking sound engineers had to spend polishing turds?  

Quote:




Lastly, I would again echo David at his suggestion that this kind of thing be done in a larger space, Ideally this would be outside or a stadium etc where measurements would be or nearly are half space and at a distance which removes the source size / box size errors which appear near field.
Also, this lets people move farther away back to where ones ears are more linear and more able to hear some speaker issues (where as local noise is more audible up close).
Anyway, I’ll cut this off here and get back to work.
Best,

Tom




It would be nice to get as much participation in the outdoor shootout that Paul got in the New York one.  Anyone reading this who knows af a good location for such an event, please make it known.  The dragstrip in Tulsa, OK. is not bad but definitely not ideal.  

The closest I have experienced to this is the Ultrafest event in Miami.  If you go there you can hear many of the big rigs like Meyer and Nexo and Renkus Heinz and BASSMAXX and, at least last year, the TH115s. They are side by side in a way, but they are all on at the same time!!!  It also serves as a 12 hour torture test.  More big fun!!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mark "Bass Pig" Weiss on February 05, 2007, 04:40:55 PM
Tim McCulloch wrote on Sun, 04 February 2007 18:42

Hi Mark-

The Bassmaxx Triples had been playing when the neighbor across the street came over with an attitude and threatening to call the police...........

Paul Bell had anticipated complaints from neighbors in the spaces above Club Rebel.......

Tim Mc


One would think they had to have heard ALL of the testing, but then if the club's own sound system played every night, wouldn't the neighbors complain about that too? Or was this testing THAT much louder that it penetrated both the building, crossing, what I would imagine is a very wide street (120' perhaps for typical downtown Manhattan thoroughfares?) and then had to penetrate the building across the street.
Now if both buildings were supported on a number of common members that span across the street and can conduct vibrations, then I guess that could explain it, but I thought all NYC buildings were built on pylons that went directly into bedrock below them. If so, then the vibrations had to come via other paths.
Given my own experience with Bassmaxx subs, I suppose it is certainly quite possible in NYC. It would have been interesting to see a SPL reading at the 5th floor apartment, both indoors and out. I'm guessing it had to be well over 90dB in the 40-60Hz range.
Nonetheless, it was a very interesting anectdote to read about, which added a unique flavor to this event.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on February 05, 2007, 05:01:24 PM
Mark "Bass Pig" Weiss wrote on Mon, 05 February 2007 15:40



One would think they had to have heard ALL of the testing, but then if the club's own sound system played every night, wouldn't the neighbors complain about that too? Or was this testing THAT much louder that it penetrated both the building, crossing, what I would imagine is a very wide street (120' perhaps for typical downtown Manhattan thoroughfares?) and then had to penetrate the building across the street.
Now if both buildings were supported on a number of common members that span across the street and can conduct vibrations, then I guess that could explain it, but I thought all NYC buildings were built on pylons that went directly into bedrock below them. If so, then the vibrations had to come via other paths.
Given my own experience with Bassmaxx subs, I suppose it is certainly quite possible in NYC. It would have been interesting to see a SPL reading at the 5th floor apartment, both indoors and out. I'm guessing it had to be well over 90dB in the 40-60Hz range.
Nonetheless, it was a very interesting anectdote to read about, which added a unique flavor to this event.



Walking on the street in Manhattan is a little like walking on the deck of an aircraft carrier, but perhaps not as solid   Laughing .

Who knows what path or resonances the LF might excite.

JR
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Bennett Prescott on February 05, 2007, 06:15:31 PM
David,

I know spaces large enough but they're all in NH, and that's more than a little inconvenient for most attendees. Naturally, we'd want to do it in the summer, too.

If anyone has a large space to do such testing in, for subs or tops or whatever, as long as it's not going to happen too soon (I'm barely recovered from this last one!) I'll provide some support.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 05, 2007, 06:55:43 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Mon, 05 February 2007 16:48

Hi

Protocol is an important part of measuring or comparing anything.
As Ivan said “When the "rules" change mid stream, it makes it a little unfair to the earlier "competitors".  In this case, he refers to the request to “crank it up” which came right after our boxes had been auditioned.
This and the recorded peaks may lead to impressions like Mark’s “Sounds like comparing the space shuttle takeoff to a bunch of 747s taking off” when they never even blasted the TH-215’s.



Hi Tom, I posted a similar comment earlier but it seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle to this new thread. Extrapolating the SPL readings, one would see that your TH-215's recorded a peak that was >2dB louder than specs on your web site. Not a very accurate comparison considering room gain and all, but still.

Perhaps I'm not understanding the methodology used to apply power to the speakers. Who made the determination on how much power was applied to each cabinet and why were some boxes pushed hard and not others?

Either way, the measurements will speak for themselves. Easy enough to calculate peaks for each cabinet from the sensitivity readings. Tom, maybe you could annotate the thread with updated specs for the TH-215's power-handling so that one could calculate peak output with the new numbers?
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 05, 2007, 07:21:29 PM
Pascal Pincosy wrote on Mon, 05 February 2007 18:55

Hi Tom, I posted a similar comment earlier but it seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle to this new thread. Extrapolating the SPL readings, one would see that your TH-215's recorded a peak that was >2dB louder than specs on your web site. Not a very accurate comparison considering room gain and all, but still.

Perhaps I'm not understanding the methodology used to apply power to the speakers. Who made the determination on how much power was applied to each cabinet and why were some boxes pushed hard and not others?

Either way, the measurements will speak for themselves. Easy enough to calculate peaks for each cabinet from the sensitivity readings. Tom, maybe you could annotate the thread with updated specs for the TH-215's power-handling so that one could calculate peak output with the new numbers?
Pascal, the measurements of all speakers were made at the same input voltage to the amps. Everyone present was aware of the compromises made by sticking to this method. It was during the listening tests where the owners of the EM Acoustics Quakes asked for them to be really pushed. After that, several other speakers were pushed really hard. It was only the listening tests on the second day where levels were changed from box to box. Sensitivity and maximum SPL levels from the shootout can only be compared to other measurements from the shootout. The room was small, and room gain will have had a significant impact on SPL. Measurements were made at 4 voltage levels, 2.83V, 28.5V, and 3dB above 28.5, and 5dB above 28.5. Voltages at 2.83 and 28.5V were measured with an open circuit, with no speaker loading the amp, so they will not correspond to other measurements. This was done to take the variable of impedance vs frequency out of the equation. The signal levels into the amp were controlled by the TEF system, with the 2 measured voltages set, and then the +3 and +5 done by the TEF machine. If I have any of this wrong feel free to correct me, but this is my recollection.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Elliot Thompson on February 05, 2007, 09:22:10 PM
Pascal Pincosy wrote on Mon, 05 February 2007 23:55

Perhaps I'm not understanding the methodology used to apply power to the speakers. Who made the determination on how much power was applied to each cabinet and why were some boxes pushed hard and not others?



I think the whole “which box was pushed hard and which one was not” is getting out of hand. None of the participants complained that the SPL levels were too low when listening to the subs on day two.

In fact, I actually reduced the gain on the board when the levels were getting out of hand on Bennet's EONA 618.

Yes, we want to attain a sizable amount of output. But, we were only evaluating two subs per brand/series. Many of us would be toting four or more subs when we need to cover large venues. With that being said, do we really need to squeeze every ounce of SPL from two cabinets just for the sake of having the K 10 trigger it's clip indicators and sound like we are having a car stereo competition?

Club Rebel uses 6 subs. I'm pretty sure if it could've been accomplished with 2 boxes, it would've been done. Knowing Paul, the quality was unacceptable why he used more subs. And when he fired up the house system and had 4 subs playing before the listening test, they sound excellent in the room from FOH.

All the subs in the Subwoofer Shootout offered enough SPL to cover the room. Some were raised higher than others to take advantage of the low frequency extension they offered on certain tracks. Others delivered more impact/punch so high SPL wasn’t needed due to our ears being more sensitive to 50 Hertz, than 35.

This is the reason why I mentioned in my listening review I would've liked to hear 4 - 8 box configuration(s) to take advantage of the quality (Due to the coupling effect) at a higher SPL level. Not push 2 cabinets to their limits to hear how loud they can go. That’s not always the best solution. There needs to be a proper balance. And sometimes, it's not a matter of raising the gain on the mixer, but using more cabinets to achieve a better overall sound.

Best Regards,

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Elliot Thompson on February 05, 2007, 09:33:13 PM
Wil Davis wrote on Sun, 04 February 2007 17:15

Hey Chaps!  

I had a wonderful time in NYC;  it was nice to meet you all, and great to get a chance to hear some amazing gear.  I also learned a helluva lot;  overall a great experience,  thanks again to you all, esp.  Paul & Co. and Bennett & Co. and Dave… and Ivan…  and Mark…  and John…  and Mike…  and Eliot… and…

Here are some of my pics, not quite as newsworthy as those of Paul's Uncle Ray, but they might give those of you who couldn't make it, an idea of what it/we looked like:  

http://www.k1wd.com/misc/stuff/NYCShootOut2007/

So, when's the next one?

- Wil


Wil, it was great chatting with you. Great pictures! I see you were running about the venue as I. Let's hope the Shootout will be soon. And outdoors Very Happy

Best Regards,  
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 06, 2007, 08:13:07 AM
You are correct in your measurement observations.  The only other thing I would add is that how we were determining the input voltage. We had two DVM's neither of which had great resolution.  They varied in the voltage readings by 1.5dB.  Since we were using the TH115, We chose the one that was reading closest to the measured response of the cabinet.

So whe chose that as OUR "standard", and called it 2.83V.  Exactly what it was is unknown, but it was close-enough.  

So all the cabinets at this shootout were measured in the exact same way and as you say are compariable, and should be pretty close to "real" measurements.

The biggest error in the measurements was at the higher level measurements.  About halfway through Mark noticed an overload occuring in the mic preamp.  Once we got this fixed and recalibrated everything was fne.  However the measurements before that have the max output levels (specifically the +5dB) are lower than they should be.  I think Mark is going to leave those out of the presented graphs as it is incorrect data.  But below that we should be fine.  I will look at the +3dB just to make sure it is OK for earlier cabinets.

Other than that Mark did a very good job.  I'm just glad I didn't have to do it. Laughing
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: drewgandy on February 06, 2007, 03:18:46 PM
Ivan Beaver wrote on Tue, 06 February 2007 07:13

We had two DVM's neither of which had great resolution.  They varied in the voltage readings by 1.5dB.



1.5db!  That's quite some variation.  Were you using a frequency considerably lower than 60hz?  

drew
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 06, 2007, 03:35:55 PM

Wow!  Looks like a great time was had by all.  Nice turnout too.

I wish I could have been there.  I would have liked to have been there or at least sent my 12Pi's, but I didn't know about this event.  I remember talking with David Lee about the possibility of an event in NYC, but I didn't know it was actually set.  Looks like it was set, planned and done.  Looks like fun!

One thing though, and before I say this, kudos to all that participated and especially to those that put on the event.  I know how much work these things are.  But I'd like to remind everyone that we've been having an outdoor event of this type for the last two years, and plan to keep it going as an annual event.  Being outdoors prevents the possibility of reflections and modal anomalies.  We used a test plan that made the process very well defined.  Last year, we had BASSMAXX and Fitzmaurice boxes, as well as some direct radiators and my 12Pi's.  I'd like to encourage everyone else to participate.  Being in the center of the country, it's a good location with dock access for easy transport.  It isn't a profit maker, it's just like what you guys were doing.  It's a fact finding mission, one done for fun.

If you'd like, the test data and photos can be put on the ProsoundShootout.com website, to keep the datasets together.  It's the same kind of event and the same kind of equipment was measured.  So if you'd like, we can keep it all together.  Or maybe it would be better just to place a link to your dataset locations on the ProsoundShootout.com website.  Let me know if that's something you'd like to see.

Sure wish I'd been with you guys.  Looks like it was lots of fun.  I hope to see you all in October.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 06, 2007, 05:20:00 PM
It was a 60Hz sinewave.

As the saying goes, A man with a meter is sure, a man with 2 meters is sure of nothing.

That is why it is important to have stuff calibrated, especially when trying to get exact.
Title: Measurement data
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 07, 2007, 03:27:50 PM

Are the measurement datasets online anywhere?  I looked through all the posts and didn't see much in the way of hard data.  Is it being organized before placing it online or am I overlooking it somewhere?

I think I saw that you used a reference voltage, 2.83v.  Did you measure impedance charts? I assume you measured SPL, but did you measure distortion?  If so, what power (or voltage) level?  For distortion, did you use a sweep or discrete sines and filter for harmonics?  Did you filter out the fundamental to find THD+N, or maybe instead filter for specific harmonics?  For frequency and impulse response, did you use a maximum-length sequence, a sweep or what?

How far away were the speakers from the walls?  How far was the microphone placed from the speakers?  What was the layout?  I know you were indoors, but I'm just wondering what the setup was.

Sorry for so many questions, just trying to see what you guys did.  Not looking to armchair quarterback at all, just looking for information to know how to compare your data with mine and others.
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 07, 2007, 03:59:58 PM
Wayne Parham wrote on Wed, 07 February 2007 15:27


Are the measurement datasets online anywhere?  I looked through all the posts and didn't see much in the way of hard data.  Is it being organized before placing it online or am I overlooking it somewhere?

I think I saw that you used a reference voltage, 2.83v.  Did you measure impedance charts? I assume you measured SPL, but did you measure distortion?  If so, what power (or voltage) level?  For distortion, did you use a sweep or discrete sines and filter for harmonics?  Did you filter out the fundamental to find THD+N, or maybe instead filter for specific harmonics?  For frequency and impulse response, did you use a maximum-length sequence, a sweep or what?
Wayne, the data is being organized before posting. Distortion measurements were at 2.8V and 28.5V with distinct tones, with a TEF system. Frequency response was a swept tone at those voltages, and also +3 and +5 above 28.5V.

Mac
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Wil Davis on February 07, 2007, 04:42:07 PM
Wayne Parham wrote on Wed, 07 February 2007 15:27


<snip>…
How far away were the speakers from the walls?  How far was the microphone placed from the speakers?  What was the layout?  I know you were indoors, but I'm just wondering what the setup was.

Sorry for so many questions, just trying to see what you guys did.  Not looking to armchair quarterback at all, just looking for information to know how to compare your data with mine and others.



I think some of your questions might be answered by taking a look at the posted pics.  From what I remember, the "squares" on the floor were about 4-feet per side, and the microphone was placed under the Precautionary Chair.  

- Wil
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 08, 2007, 11:24:42 AM

It looks like the walls were only about 10 feet away, maybe 20 feet.  Is that true?  Brick walls, right?  Very little damping for room modes, I expect.

As for microphone distance, I expct someone has an exact measurement written down somewhere.  That's an important figure.
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 08, 2007, 11:31:14 AM

Was there a specific test plan used in NYC?  I expect all systems were given the same battery of tests, yes?  Something like this:


Seeing your test plan will give me some idea what was done, and how to compare data with other measurements.  I'm not sure that datasets from indoor measurements will be comparable to data from outdoor measurements, but some things might be.
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 08, 2007, 12:47:26 PM
The indoor measurements of the Danley TH-115 will be compared with outdoor measurement of the TH-115.  Mark Seaton is hoping to derive some "correction" from the differences, and that correction will be applied to all speakers, as they were all measured in the exact same spot, same mic position (it was taped to the floor), and same input voltages.

Regarding mic distance.. that was measured.  I believe Mark has that information as well, but IIRC it was slightly over 1 metre.

HTH

Tim Mc
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Iain_Macdonald on February 08, 2007, 02:10:56 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Fri, 02 February 2007 14:14


Hi Elliott

The TH-215’s have a new drivers in them too, these should be....

Tom Danley



Were these new drivers just experimental for the shootout, or are they going to be a standard item ?


Iain.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 08, 2007, 02:47:03 PM
Ivan and & I discussed the drivers, and Tom can offer more output, but higher F3, or go lower with less output, driver dependant.  It might be an "option" thing... or for the sake of identical performance, Tom may pick a driver.

HTH

Tim Mc
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 08, 2007, 02:50:36 PM
Were these new drivers just experimental for the shootout, or are they going to be a standard item ?


Iain.
[/quote]

The drivers we used at the shootout are indeed standard issue.
We will change the spec sheet to reflect that shortly.  By the way for the power handling crowd this provides us with 2400 watts RMS, 4800 watts continuous, 9600 watts peak on the only sub at the shootout essentially flat from 60 to 30 Hz.

Mike Hedden
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Iain_Macdonald on February 08, 2007, 03:08:35 PM
Tim McCulloch wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 19:47

Ivan and & I discussed the drivers, and Tom can offer more output, but higher F3, or go lower with less output, driver dependant.  It might be an "option" thing... or for the sake of identical performance, Tom may pick a driver.

HTH

Tim Mc


Michael Hedden Jr.wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 19:50

The drivers we used at the shootout are indeed standard issue. We will change the spec sheet to reflect that shortly. By the way for the power handling crowd this provides us with 2400 watts RMS, 4800 watts continuous, 9600 watts peak on the only sub at the shootout essentially flat from 60 to 30 Hz.

Mike Hedden


Thanks for the replys.

So, much higher power but an option on the drivers for LF extension or power. I would vote for pick a driver.

Iain.
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 08, 2007, 03:31:15 PM

Tim McCulloch wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 11:47

The indoor measurements of the Danley TH-115 will be compared with outdoor measurement of the TH-115.  Mark Seaton is hoping to derive some "correction" from the differences, and that correction will be applied to all speakers, as they were all measured in the exact same spot, same mic position (it was taped to the floor), and same input voltages.

Regarding mic distance.. that was measured.  I believe Mark has that information as well, but IIRC it was slightly over 1 metre.
Tim Mc


Very good, thanks.  With the microphone distance known, SPL can be calculated relative to 1 meter at whatever power or voltage levels were used.  That gives us a reference.

Good idea on the indoor/outdoor correction scheme.  But didn't I see that the drivers used at the NYC shootout were different than those used in the published (outdoor) measurements?  I guess that could be solved by measuring outdoors again with the new drivers to get a new outdoor baseline.  But then again, didn't the TH-115 drivers overheat?  Seemed like I read they smoked.
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 08, 2007, 04:12:42 PM
 But didn't I see that the drivers used at the NYC shootout were different than those used in the published (outdoor) measurements?  I guess that could be solved by measuring outdoors again with the new drivers to get a new outdoor baseline.  But then again, didn't the TH-115 drivers overheat?  Seemed like I read they smoked.
[/quote]

Wayne,
The TH215 was the only sub with different drivers. FWIW the frequency response of either driver is very similar although the higher powered drivers cost more.
For the record the only drivers that smoked at the shootout were from EM.  
The situation involving the TH115 had to do with what was supposed to be a pair of TH115 being hit hard. While folks where impressed it was discovered that one of the cables wasn't hooked up to an amp so even more impressive was that a single TH115 was responsible for the first official noise complaint!

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs,Inc.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on February 08, 2007, 04:37:34 PM
I wonder if might be good etiquette for posters to this thread who casually make statements that turn out to be incorrect, to use the edit function to either correct or note that their comment however vague is disputed.

It's seems to me there is some confusion and perhaps spin going on that may be missed by a latecomer to the thread(s), who didn't read every lick. I appreciate the lengths and effort made by all to collect useful comparable data, as such testing can never be perfect. Let's let the data talk,

JR  
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 08, 2007, 05:01:10 PM
Wayne Parham wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 14:31


Tim McCulloch wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 11:47

The indoor measurements of the Danley TH-115 will be compared with outdoor measurement of the TH-115.  Mark Seaton is hoping to derive some "correction" from the differences, and that correction will be applied to all speakers, as they were all measured in the exact same spot, same mic position (it was taped to the floor), and same input voltages.

Regarding mic distance.. that was measured.  I believe Mark has that information as well, but IIRC it was slightly over 1 metre.
Tim Mc


Very good, thanks.  With the microphone distance known, SPL can be calculated relative to 1 meter at whatever power or voltage levels were used.  That gives us a reference.

Good idea on the indoor/outdoor correction scheme.  But didn't I see that the drivers used at the NYC shootout were different than those used in the published (outdoor) measurements?  I guess that could be solved by measuring outdoors again with the new drivers to get a new outdoor baseline.  But then again, didn't the TH-115 drivers overheat?  Seemed like I read they smoked.


Nothing overheated in the TEF sweeps.  No speakers were harmed in the TEF-ing of this shootout. Smile

At the listening 'tests' the next day we're fairly certain that one of the TH-115 was overheated.  Although it presented acoustic output we have no way of determining the level of impairment.  We got both units powered up and gave them a serious listen.  No further magic smoke was evident, but the consensus at the moment was to not try and kill them.  I liked the box.  It has a combination of sound, size, weight, and price that is appealing.  I also liked the TH-215, for different reasons.

Greg from EM and David Lee (( Edit: I listed Paul Bell in error, previously )) from Bassmaxx were interested to see how far their products could be pushed, and that started the Magic Smoke portion of the listening period.  The 20Hz sine wave in the dance track was the destructive test, but at what voltage/spl these things happened, I can't tell you.  You might want to check Elliot's reports...

Some boxes released no smoke.  Good thing, as indoor smoking is prohibited in NY...

Hope this clarifies things a bit.

Tim Mc

Edit to change attribution and clarify who did what.  Pardon my dust as I attempt to sweep up...
Title: Test description & explanation
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 08, 2007, 05:17:00 PM
Hi Guys,

Below is the first post I made in the now closed thread about the testing.  I'm copying it here to help with some confusion.  After I finish out some more details we can put things in a better format and maybe a sticky-thread along with some of the actual data.

---------- Posted Jan 30th, 2007 ----------

So with the TEF display burned into my retina's while becoming all to aclimated to 130dB sweeps, I have all the measuremements fairly well organized and named with descriptions of what was measured. Others who may have the TEF software can e-mail me if they want to look at the data. The files total about 1.6MB thus far.

I will add to this as time permits.

The system hookup was as follows:

My TEF25 was connected to an input on the Dolby Lake processor. We had the controls for the Dolby Lake on a laptop next to my position. The Dolby Lake outputs then directly drove the PowerSoft amps and of course then to the speakers. The amps were all at the same gain so we could connect multiple channels where needed and Voltage output was the same for a given output from my TEF25. Ivan brought an EarthWorks M30 microphone and calibrator which was used for all measurements. We grabbed a mono output from the board to the Dolby-Lake which could be mixed in or muted at the click of a mouse. After each set of measurements we engaged an 80Hz LR24 low pass and a suitable 24dB Butterworth high pass (per box) for listening. All filtering in the Dolby-Lake was bypassed for testing you will see posted... as time permits me.

Please remember I have no direct financial stake in this and have about 8 products I'm working on getting to normal production in the Home Theater market. My ties to the participants of course includes my history of working with Tom Danley and the guys at Danley Sound Labs. Jeff Permanian, of JTR, and I are long time friends from before we both started slaving for ServoDrive/Sound Physics. My involvement with the Growler is limited to helping source the custom driver and helping with measurements and models.

So after getting all the routing and connections sorted we needed to establish a set of measurements that we would be practical to perform on the 13 subs. Trying to stay "equal" for each sub when they run from 1-6 drivers per box and impedances of 2-8 Ohms would have added another level of confusion, so we decided to set the drive level for our base measurements at ~2.8V as measured on a GreenLee meter with a sine wave at 60Hz generated by my TEF25. The TEF25 has a numeric output level, which makes relative changes easy. We adjusted gains in the Dolby Lake such that -30dB on my TEF25's output corresponded to ~2.8V. This was the base level measurement for each sub. Let's remember that we are really seeing Voltage sensitivity, NOT efficiency.

The subwoofers were placed in the middle of the floor of the narrow room about 8' in front of the stage. The M30 was set on the ground 4' from the front edge of the pair of subwoofers under test.

Measurements taken were as follows:

1) 2.8V (to each box or connection), 120-20Hz, 16.6 second TDS sweep, giving a frequency resolution of 2.5Hz for the tracking filter. This measurement gives us a low level sensitivity reference and basis for the other frequency response and THD measurements. Finer resolution gives little added information once at <~1/10th the lowest frequency of interest. In taking longer sweeps at 2Hz resolution, there was no added detail to the measurements, and it just took longer.

2) 2.8V (same as in #1), 300-50Hz, 7.08 second TDS sweep, giving a frequency resolution of 5.9Hz for the tracking filter. This measurement gives us a view of the out of band response and behavior of the subwoofers which may or may not impact the subjective sound. This region will have an impact on the crossover region and may skew the effective crossover or require attention to get the desired crossover.

---------- End Post Jan 30th, 2007 ----------

3) 2.8V (same as in #1), THD measurement with the TEF at 7, 1/3rd octave tones spanning 25-102Hz.  The THD measurement was set to include up to the 12th harmonic, as leaving it wide open made for too many environmental influences (Labsters yackin').  I experimented with different settings and found this to be as consistent as I would have expected.  When looking at these measurements, remember that we don't have a perfectly quiet environment, and we have things that can rattle and make noise in the club.  If you get excited over 5-15% differences bewteen boxes I'd suggest you may soon find yourself chasing your tail.  The room's impact on the frequency response will also show up in distortion measurements, and we should not be comparing these to quiet, outdoor measurements.

4) The frequency response measurement described in #1 was repeated at 28V as set by raising the output level of the TEF25 by 20dB.

5) The THD measurement described in #3 was repeated at 28V similar to #4.

Note - Sweeping to 20Hz is an interesting thing to consider.  This is equivalent to 100-400W into the various 8-2 Ohm loads of the different boxes.  Most are rated and are commonly powered by amps ~10x this level.  If only using a 2nd order, Butterworth high pass filter on a subwoofer at 30Hz as is included on many amplifiers, you are only attenuating 20Hz by 7-8dB.  If there is energy somewhere in the chain, the sub will see this sort of signal.  Given the measurements, my own observation is that this makes a strong arguement for 4th order or greater high pass filters on anything that unloads at low frequencies and will be pushed to its limits.

6)  28V(per #4) +3dB (on TEF25 output) over shorter bandwidth by limiting low end to 30 or 40 Hz depending on the measured low end of the box and sounds of distress in test #4.

7)  28V(per #4) +5dB (on TEF25 output) over shorter bandwidth by limiting low end to 30 or 40 Hz and limiting the high frequency to 80 or 100Hz respectively.  On the first few subs measured, these sweeps are suspect as we later found an issue with the phantom power to the microphone that is not generally an issue with the mic I typically use.


Back to that stuff that pays bills...  Confused
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Paul Bell on February 08, 2007, 09:03:13 PM
"Greg from EM and Paul Bell from Bassmaxx were interested to see how far their products could be pushed"

David from BASSMAXX was at the console, I was wandering around the room listening....

While I am a dealer for BASSMAXX as Greg is a dealer for EM, I am not "part of" BASSMAXX, I do use and promote other makes.

This is just a reminder guys, I've been accused by one nitwit who wasn't at the shootout of fixing the results.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 08, 2007, 10:04:39 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 19:50

The drivers we used at the shootout are indeed standard issue. We will change the spec sheet to reflect that shortly.  By the way for the power handling crowd this provides us with 2400 watts RMS, 4800 watts continuous, 9600 watts peak on the only sub at the shootout essentially flat from 60 to 30 Hz.

Mike Hedden


(emphasis mine)

Is anyone else annoyed that a manufacturer is making claims regarding the shootout measurements before the measurements have even been released to the public?
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 08, 2007, 10:49:36 PM
Is anyone else annoyed that a manufacturer is making claims regarding the shootout measurements before the measurements have even been released to the public?[/quote]

Gee I wasn't aware the data was sealed!  Shocked  Can I help it if I own a TEF, Mark Seaton is an old friend and Ivan Beaver and I work together?  By the way I also supplied the Earthworks M30 and calibrator for the shootout which we sent off to Larson/Davis to be checked and recalibrated just so it would be spot on for the shootout.
I'll be glad to send anyone the files that would like them but you have to have the TEF software to view them.  I'm sure Mark is wondering what he got himself into as it is no small task to put all this data into a screen capture that doesn't look like a mess.  But the great thing about good data is it becomes an arbiter and you'll see it isn't just a claim it's a fact most of the subs start rolling off between 50-40 Hz and are 5-15 dB down @ 30 hz while the TH215 is indeed basically flat. Cool

Mike Hedden
Danely Sound Labs, Inc.
Title: Re: Measurement data
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 08, 2007, 11:17:28 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 21:12

For the record the only drivers that smoked at the shootout were from EM.

so even more impressive was that a single TH115 was responsible for the first official noise complaint!


Maqc Kerr wrote on Fri, 02 February 2007 03:04

We got smoke out of the TH115. I'd say that was pushing it to the max.

Paul Bell wrote on Thu, 01 February 2007 17:41

Yes, the first gentleman who wanted to know what was going on was a NYC EPA inspector. Some weeks ago, I posted notices throughout the building so the many recording studios would be aware of our event. I included "DB levels of 145..." on the notice. One neighbor, who hates club Rebel, made an appointment for the inspector to be here during the shootout.

He was impressed with what we were doing and found no problems or people complaining about the sound.

The across the street neighbor heard the bass and ran over to scream. We had been doing the extended listening of the Trip cabinets so we all took a little break. This was the only noise complaint we got.

(emphasis mine)
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on February 08, 2007, 11:19:51 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 21:49



Gee I wasn't aware the data was sealed!  Shocked  Can I help it if I own a TEF, Mark Seaton is an old friend and Ivan Beaver and I work together?  By the way I also supplied the Earthworks M30 and calibrator for the shootout which we sent off to Larson/Davis to be checked and recalibrated just so it would be spot on for the shootout.
I'll be glad to send anyone the files that would like them but you have to have the TEF software to view them.  I'm sure Mark is wondering what he got himself into as it is no small task to put all this data into a screen capture that doesn't look like a mess.  But the great thing about good data is it becomes an arbiter and you'll see it isn't just a claim it's a fact most of the subs start rolling off between 50-40 Hz and are 5-15 dB down @ 30 hz while the TH215 is indeed basically flat. Cool

Mike Hedden
Danely Sound Labs, Inc.



Let the data speak for you.

It's good to be proud but no need to guild the lily just yet. Data will be published soon. Deal with the spin after and only as needed. It's more powerful for others to come to those same conclusions independently.


JR
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 08, 2007, 11:31:55 PM
Mike-
I think it would be respectful to the other manufacturers involved to wait until the data is readable by all before you continue with your marketing spin. I can take a quick look at the Danley web site to acertain that the TH-215 is mostly flat down to 30Hz. I think it's fine for you to toot your own horn when appropriate. What's not fair is to make comparisions with competitors product when they can't (without owning a TEF or being your pal) have access to the measurement results from a public shootout.

I really like your products and I will probably end up owning a bunch of them in the near future. I appreciate Tom Danleys educational posts and I learn a great deal from him. But the constant marketing push from you guys is hard to handle and is a big turnoff. Confused
Title: Re: Data Teaser
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 08, 2007, 11:36:51 PM
To give a little perspective to all the data aquired, (and so no one is wondering if it exists) here is a quick display of the 2.8V measurement for all 14 subs measured.  Do remember that 2 were powered, so a 2.8V label is meaningless, although we kept the subs at somewhat respective levels.

http://home.comcast.net/~mark_seaton/2_8V-NYC.jpg

Yes, that's 14 subwoofers, and you're only looking at 1 of 7 measurements for each.  If anyone is interested in seeing the data, Ivan or I can e-mail you the nearly 2.0MB of 98 separate measurements.Shocked  Again, in current form the files are only viewable with the TEF software.  
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 09, 2007, 01:01:06 AM
My bad... I was thinking of the right person and used the wrong name.  It was David Lee.  How did I do that??? :doh:

My apologies, Paul AND David.

Tim Mc
Title: Re: Data Teaser
Post by: Ryan Lantzy on February 09, 2007, 08:45:41 AM
Mark Seaton wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 23:36


http://home.comcast.net/~mark_seaton/2_8V-NYC.jpg


I'm not sure this is the final format for how the rest of us will see the measurements but I have a suggestion.

That graph is very dense and hard to see some of the colors/traces in certain areas.  Additionally some of the lines are thinner than they are in the key so I think the image compression messes with the actual shade of color.

Would it be possible to get more detailed images?  I would not insert them into the messages here however because they make the thread VERY hard to read on a smaller screen.  (And I'm working on a 19" at 1280x1024!!)

Another suggestion would be to some how export the data from TEF in an "X-Y" plot of some sort.  That way we could load it up in our own viewer and overlay whichever traces we wanted to.

Being able to select which traces you want to view is a nice feature which I'm guessing you can do in TEF.  I'm just wondering bitmaps/JPEGs/GIFs are the only means of export from TEF or if you can export the raw "data" and then import into Excel for example?  Or is there some freeware X-Y plot viewer we could all import the data to and use.
Title: Re: Data Teaser
Post by: Iain_Macdonald on February 09, 2007, 10:17:32 AM
Ryan Lantzy wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 13:45



I'm not sure this is the final format for how the rest of us will see the measurements but I have a suggestion.

That graph is very dense and hard to see some of the colors/traces in certain areas.  Additionally some of the lines are thinner than they are in the key so I think the image compression messes with the actual shade of color.

Would it be possible to get more detailed images?  I would not insert them into the messages here however because they make the thread VERY hard to read on a smaller screen.  (And I'm working on a 19" at 1280x1024!!)

Another suggestion would be to some how export the data from TEF in an "X-Y" plot of some sort.  That way we could load it up in our own viewer and overlay whichever traces we wanted to.

Being able to select which traces you want to view is a nice feature which I'm guessing you can do in TEF.  I'm just wondering bitmaps/JPEGs/GIFs are the only means of export from TEF or if you can export the raw "data" and then import into Excel for example?  Or is there some freeware X-Y plot viewer we could all import the data to and use.



Ryan,

I think that these plots are just a taster of the final presentation. I do hope that if this is Tef SoundLab. That someone goes in to: display/adjust color, and makes the background white or grey or similar. Maybe it's just me, but I find it easier to make out multi-lines on a white background.

Regarding the export of data. Tef will export data in ASCII format. But you will probably/definitely need to convert the data  to fit your use/program. We probably should be using the CLF format and viewer. (cue Mark Seaton collapsing with shock at the amount of work involved). But I think that would be overkill. Liberty Praxis in demo mode will presently allow import of data and post processing. Too Tall will  be better able to advise on formats. I would like the data on a pdf file.

Iain.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 09, 2007, 10:59:35 AM
[quote title=Pascal Pincosy wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 04:31]
I can take a quick look at the Danley web site to acertain that the TH-215 is mostly flat down to 30Hz.

First off, none of us at Danley Sound Labs wishes to be jerks so I apologize if my post comes off that way.
It is very difficult to read intent into something typed because words have different meanings.  In fact because words mean different things I wish to elaborate on that just a bit.
In the beginning days of Danley Sound Labs many folks including frequent posters on this forum wished us well but cautioned that the real chore would be in stemming the marketing tide that is so prevalent in industry.    The marketing hype they where talking about being defined as obvious and intentional exaggeration, an ingenious or questionable claim, method, etc., used in advertising, promotion, or publicity to intensify the effect or swindle, deception, or trick.  
We used to call this lying or cheating but that was back when we as a society actually had absolutes but we are beyond that now...
Anyhow, this isn't good and when a company makes claims that simply don't stand up to the light of truth it should be exposed.  
 
Danley Sound Labs isn't interested in hype or deceit. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that we publish the entire sensitivity frequency response of all our products.  The hype types give you some number with no referenced frequency and in many cases don't supply any measured data.
Fact is if all manufacturers followed our suit you could get the data you are waiting on right now and it would be very easy to compare product to product.
We tell the way our subwoofer data is gathered (ten meters outside, half space, 28.3 volts) so that you can easily test/verify our data.
We are one of a minority of manufacturers with EASE and CLF data gathered by an independent lab and the only company that has independently gathered data of a full range array.
We are sinful humans and as such fall short of perfection but our desire, commitment, and goal is to be the reference standard in the loudspeaker industry in not only word but in deed.

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.  

Title: Room influence
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 09, 2007, 11:15:44 AM

Mark Seaton wrote on Thu, 08 February 2007 22:36

To give a little perspective to all the data aquired, (and so no one is wondering if it exists) here is a quick display of the 2.8V measurement for all 14 subs measured.  Do remember that 2 were powered, so a 2.8V label is meaningless, although we kept the subs at somewhat respective levels.

http://home.comcast.net/~mark_seaton/2_8V-NYC.jpg

Yes, that's 14 subwoofers, and you're only looking at 1 of 7 measurements for each.  If anyone is interested in seeing the data, Ivan or I can e-mail you the nearly 2.0MB of 98 separate measurements.Shocked  Again, in current form the files are only viewable with the TEF software.  


The response curves for all the systems look very similar.  Are the boxes that were measured indeed that much alike, or are the measurements so similar mostly due to room influence?  I'm afraid it might be the latter.

Boundary conditions would smooth horn response, and room modes would contribute peaks and nulls.  I'm concerned that the measurements are heavily influenced by the room, and that they're mostly the room's sonic signature.

Maybe your idea of making a comparison with outdoor measurements will let you come up with a conjugate filter that you can apply.  That's a good idea, maybe it will shed some light.  But I'm concerned that there is just too much room influence to extract useful data from these graphs.
Title: Re: Data Teaser
Post by: Aaron McQueen on February 09, 2007, 11:27:04 AM
If we had the x/y data in ASCII it would be easy to import into excel and then make the plots look however you want.  It may be easier then in TEF, I don't really know, I've never used TEF.
Title: Re: Room influence
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 09, 2007, 11:39:35 AM
Wayne Parham wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 10:15


The response curves for all the systems look very similar.  Are the boxes that were measured indeed that much alike, or are the measurements so similar mostly due to room influence?  I'm afraid it might be the latter.


The laws of physics suggest there will only be so much variation between boxes.  With the mass of lines there meant to exemplify the mountain of data to be sorted, there is a little bit of an optical illusion where they look more similar and parallel, when in fact there are plenty of variations of interest.  There are obvious response trends from the room, but less than you might think.  I have an outdoor measurement of the JTR growler and Danley have their measurements of the TH115 & TH215 posted that we can compare and probably see relative differences.  I'd be happy to use other subs for the example, but I haven't seen measurements on most of them posted publicly.

Quote:


Boundary conditions would smooth horn response, and room modes would contribute peaks and nulls.  I'm concerned that the measurements are heavily influenced by the room, and that they're mostly the room's sonic signature.

Maybe your idea of making a comparison with outdoor measurements will let you come up with a conjugate filter that you can apply.  That's a good idea, maybe it will shed some light.  But I'm concerned that there is just too much room influence to extract useful data from these graphs.



While I appreciate your concern, we started with the TH115 because Ivan has first hand knowledge of them and I have seen response curves of the box before.  For an indoor measurement, the response was actually surprisingly representative of the response from the perspective of someone who has taken LOTS of measurements in rooms.

The JTR Growlers have a simple and smooth enough curve that would make this easier, with the caveat that temps have been rediculous cold here and I need to take another measurement to match the measurement parameters for direct subtraction in the TEF software.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on February 09, 2007, 11:59:53 AM
[quote title=Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 09:59]
Pascal Pincosy wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 04:31

 
I can take a quick look at the Danley web site to acertain that the TH-215 is mostly flat down to 30Hz.

First off, none of us at Danley Sound Labs wishes to be jerks so I apologize if my post comes off that way.
It is very difficult to read intent into something typed because words have different meanings.  In fact because words mean different things I wish to elaborate on that just a bit.
In the beginning days of Danley Sound Labs many folks including frequent posters on this forum wished us well but cautioned that the real chore would be in stemming the marketing tide that is so prevalent in industry.    The marketing hype they where talking about being defined as obvious and intentional exaggeration, an ingenious or questionable claim, method, etc., used in advertising, promotion, or publicity to intensify the effect or swindle, deception, or trick.  
We used to call this lying or cheating but that was back when we as a society actually had absolutes but we are beyond that now...
Anyhow, this isn't good and when a company makes claims that simply don't stand up to the light of truth it should be exposed.  
 
Danley Sound Labs isn't interested in hype or deceit. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that we publish the entire sensitivity frequency response of all our products.  The hype types give you some number with no referenced frequency and in many cases don't supply any measured data.
Fact is if all manufacturers followed our suit you could get the data you are waiting on right now and it would be very easy to compare product to product.
We tell the way our subwoofer data is gathered (ten meters outside, half space, 28.3 volts) so that you can easily test/verify our data.
We are one of a minority of manufacturers with EASE and CLF data gathered by an independent lab and the only company that has independently gathered data of a full range array.
We are sinful humans and as such fall short of perfection but our desire, commitment, and goal is to be the reference standard in the loudspeaker industry in not only word but in deed.

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.  




Thank you for being responsive. There is indeed a lot of good will here for Tom Danley and his work. I believe we all solidly support your truth and completeness in specifications philosophy. I also understand how frustrating it can be to market against competitors who are less than complete in their specifications.

While I wouldn't go as far as calling every questionable claim lying or cheating in many cases the customers are complicit in the dumbing down of specifications. In some respects loudspeakers are one of the more fertile areas to merchandise products because there are not only real differences between brands and models, but those differences can be demonstrated in well presented response graphs. The difficulty in doing so is that you must educate the customers one at a time, which is difficult to do with a limited advertising budget. Thankfully in this Internet age, you can present complex data sets and explain the science behind your improved products on your website.

I realize you are probably inundated with good advice, but that never stopped me before. I would suggest an education campaign, perhaps as a series of white papers on your website, you might even get some published in magazines if the presentation is not overtly targeted. Specifically look at ways the sundry loudspeaker specifications can be distorted by omissions of details or other machinations.

Without naming names you could present one or more competing box makers specs that on paper look good but upon closer examination falls apart. Properly done this would inform the consumer about how to read specs while skewering competing bad practices. Perhaps I'm over optimistic about the willingness of consumers to educate themselves but there will often be local opinion leaders who may make the effort and help spread the word.

I know that TD as a resource is limited but there are probably plenty who could flesh out such a series with some oversight.

This data set collected here gives you ammunition against those brave enough to attend, but rather than characterizing the intent or character of competitors I would suggest focusing on the data and helping the larger market to properly interpret it.

JR
Title: Re: Response Example: 4 Subs
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 09, 2007, 12:03:00 PM
To show the differences observed in the various 2.8V measurements, here is a quick example of 4 of the subs so the screen is clear enough to discern which is which.  I played with the display some and this should be a bit easier to read:

4 Subs From NYC Shootout

While you can see the common response wiggles due to the environment, they are all taken in the same place and have rather similar impact on the response, making differences discernable.  The biggest effects are seen is in the peaking in the 80Hz range as well as the wiggle centered on 50Hz.
Title: Re: Response Example: 4 Subs
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 09, 2007, 12:37:58 PM

Mark, let me start off by saying in no way to I want to come across as a Monday morning quarterback.  No matter how much influence the room had, I think what you guys did was great.  Kudos to you, to Paul, to everyone involved.  I think your efforts in measuring and compiling the data are worthwhile and appreciated.  I don't know if everyone reading these threads knows how much work is involved in what you're doing.  You spent several hours setting up and making the measurements, and then double that amount of time converting them to a readable form.  Maybe triple the time, considering you are trying to make a conjugate filter to compensate for room influence and level setting.  So I applaud you, very much so.

That said, I still think the room influence may have swamped the data.  I've measured horns outdoors, and I can say with absolute certainty that the differences in response between basshorns are huge.  Take a look at the response charts taken at the two outdoor Prosound Shootouts, for example.  Each of the horns look entirely different.  There's a lot of difference, even in some cases between horns that are close to the same size, having similar construction.  Take the Cerwin Vega and Tuba horns, for example.  Similar size, totally different response.  The Cerwin Vega didn't go all that deep, but response was pretty flat.  The Tubas were more peaky.  Then there was my 12Pi and David Lee's BASSMAXX boxes, similar in size but completely different in response.  So I think the room had a great deal of influence in the datasets captured in NYC.

Prosound Shootout 2006 Results
http://www.prosoundshootout.com/Measurements/2006/ProsoundShootout_02.gif
Title: Re: Response Example: 4 Subs
Post by: Aaron McQueen on February 09, 2007, 12:59:02 PM
Wayne, I think there are some plot x and y axis scaling differences between your plot and the one Mark posted.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 09, 2007, 01:11:23 PM
JR Said
While I wouldn't go as far as calling every questionable claim lying or cheating in many cases the customers are complicit in the dumbing down of specifications.

I'm reminded of what Mark Twain once said, "Figures don't lie but liars figure". I'm certainly not saying everyone is lying or cheating but there most definitely are those that are.  A few dB off is okay but when your maximum SPL on your powered loudspeaker is off by 15-20dB or your published subwoofer -3 dB is actually -45 dB that is wrong and it isn't up for interpretation.  In their day Paul Klipsch, Gene Patronis, Don and Carolyn Davis,and many more true audio giants would not stand for such claims as we have today.
As to the dumbing down of specs I couldn't agree more. Pat Brown says,"the answer more than we want to hear is, It depends".  That is actually part of the point I attempted to make with our sub measurements.  We have a simple test that is easy for anyone to do.  If everyone standardized to that, it would make the consumer's job easier.

JR Said
I realize you are probably inundated with good advice, but that never stopped me before. I would suggest an education campaign, perhaps as a series of white papers on your website, you might even get some published in magazines if the presentation is not overtly targeted. Specifically look at ways the sundry loudspeaker specifications can be distorted by omissions of details or other machinations.


1 Corn 8:2 paraphrased says none of us really know anything.
We are all learners and open to good ideas.  Your advice is respected and very much appreciated by myself and Tom.  I remember your Loft company and we once met at Peavey years ago when you where working on mixing console project.  
History aside we are already working on your idea and will have a section of our site dedicated to it shortly.

Thanks,

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs

Title: Re: Response Example: 4 Subs
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 09, 2007, 01:14:53 PM
Wayne Parham wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 11:37


Mark, let me start off by saying in no way to I want to come across as a Monday morning quarterback.  No matter how much influence the room had, I think what you guys did was great.  Kudos to you, to Paul, to everyone involved.  I think your efforts in measuring and compiling the data are worthwhile and appreciated.  I don't know if everyone reading these threads knows how much work is involved in what you're doing.  You spent several hours setting up and making the measurements, and then double that amount of time converting them to a readable form.  Maybe triple the time, considering you are trying to make a conjugate filter to compensate for room influence and level setting.  So I applaud you, very much so.

That said, I still think the room influence may have swamped the data.  I've measured horns outdoors, and I can say with absolute certainty that the differences in response between basshorns are huge.  Take a look at the response charts taken at the two outdoor Prosound Shootouts, for example.  Each of the horns look entirely different.  There's a lot of difference, even in some cases between horns that are close to the same size, having similar construction.  Take the Cerwin Vega and Tuba horns, for example.  Similar size, totally different response.  The Cerwin Vega didn't go all that deep, but response was pretty flat.  The Tubas were more peaky.  Then there was my 12Pi and David Lee's BASSMAXX boxes, similar in size but completely different in response.  So I think the room had a great deal of influence in the datasets captured in NYC.

Prosound Shootout 2006 Results
http://www.prosoundshootout.com/Measurements/2006/ProsoundShootout_02.gif




Hi Wayne,

What Aaron said.  You're showing about 10-15dB range of variance between the various curves, very similar to what is shown in the mess of squiggly lines I posted earlier.  In case you didn't look at the scale, the 4 sub example comparison is 5dB/division.  Those measurements do not have any compensation for the room's transfer function, but are the actual measurements taken in the club.  We never expect the response to be as smooth as an outdoor measurement, but we do have comparative data.  With exception of EONA 618 cardioid, the influence of the room should be quite similar for all of the subs, especially with only a 4' measurement distance.  All of the response variations held true when the level was raised 20-25dB, so there weren't any major nulls that were non-linear with level.
Title: Re: Response Example: 4 Subs
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 09, 2007, 01:22:25 PM
Aaron McQueen wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 17:59

Wayne, I think there are some plot x and y axis scaling differences between your plot and the one Mark posted.


You are correct.
Wayne shows 20Hz-2kHz and 2dB per division.
Mark is using 20Hz-200Hz and 5dB per division.
The exact same data on a different scale looks very different and is one of the biggest issues you get into when you start looking at data.  Good news is Mark is in charge of the data and not me Smile

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.
Title: Room influence
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 09, 2007, 01:36:20 PM

Very good, Mark, we'll see what you come up with after compiling, filtering and organizing the data.

I did see the scaling difference, but it still looks like the overall measured response in NYC is similar between speakers.  The differences between speakers in measurements in Tulsa looks much greater.  The chart below is made of single speakers (rather than pairs), except for the Soundbridge sub, measured as a pair because it was designed to be used in pairs (four drivers total).  This chart shows the differences between speakers even greater.

Prosound Shootout 2006 Results, comparison of single speakers, outdoors
http://www.prosoundshootout.com/Measurements/2006/ProsoundShootout_01.gif


The chart above has 2dB/division, but the lines between divisions are closer together.  Yours shows 5dB/division.  Disregarding everything above 100Hz, there is still a trend of uniformity in the NYC measurements that isn't there in the outdoor measurements in Tulsa.  Looks like the room causes notches at 50Hz and 70Hz, and peaks around 45Hz and 85Hz.  Other than that, deep bass response in NYC is smoother than the outdoor measurements, either from post-processing or the number of samples or possibly from boundary reinforcement.

NYC 2007 Results, comparison of single speakers, indoors
http://home.comcast.net/~mark_seaton/2_8V-NYC.jpg

Title: Re: Room influence
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 09, 2007, 02:33:51 PM
One way to try and get rid of room influence on the displayed data is to add all the data together and take the mean to make an artificial "room response curve." If one were able to completely flatten the mean curve then each subwoofer as compared to the mean would show how it responds differently. The caveat here would be the artificiality of the way the data is manipulated. Still might be interesting as a point of comparison.

-Bink
Title: Re: Room influence
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 09, 2007, 02:36:38 PM
Wayne Parham wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 12:36


The chart above has 2dB/division, but the lines between divisions are closer together.  Yours shows 5dB/division.  Disregarding everything above 100Hz, there is still a trend of uniformity in the NYC measurements that isn't there in the outdoor measurements in Tulsa.  Looks like the room causes notches at 50Hz and 70Hz, and peaks around 45Hz and 85Hz.  Other than that, deep bass response in NYC is smoother than the outdoor measurements, either from post-processing or the number of samples or possibly from boundary reinforcement.



Um... like, that's what I've been sayin' here.  I'm glad you figured it out for yourself.  Rolling Eyes

The smoothness of the lower frequencies are a result of both the high noise rejection and consistency in the TEF's TDS measurements, as well as most of the subs having nothing odd going on down low in the response.  As shown in the image I provided of the 4 examples, the low frequency roll off differences are clearly shown with some rolling off 1/2 octave before others, and the roll off slopes match that of the subwoofers measured outdoors.  If people are going to get their panties in a bunch over a peak in the response around 70-85Hz and a few other wiggles and aren't capable of extracting what is meaningful from the differences in the curves, I'll leave them for others to play with an convert.  Personally, I think readers here are a little more intelligent than that.
Title: Re: Room influence
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 09, 2007, 02:49:43 PM
Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 13:33

One way to try and get rid of room influence on the displayed data is to add all the data together and take the mean to make an artificial "room response curve." If one were able to completely flatten the mean curve then each subwoofer as compared to the mean would show how it responds differently. The caveat here would be the artificiality of the way the data is manipulated. Still might be interesting as a point of comparison.

-Bink


The issue for a relative comparison is which sub to pick as the reference?  I do think a few of the well behaved vented boxes might be close enough for meaningful comparison, but it is only relative, and not relative to flat.

It is possible to subtract a ground plane measurement, but it looks like that would have to be done in a separate program from TEF, as it will only *display* a difference curve, but I don't think it will export the diffence data.  The data can be exported in a standard Freq/Mag/Phase, tab delimited format that can be opened by most programs, and of course even Excel.  Excel might not be terribly useful as all of the smoothing is done in the display, and the data is unsmoothed.  I have a few ideas that could work fine for such an effort, but processing outside of the TEF software is beyond my level of interest and motivation. We'd first have to see if such an effort to subtract the room's influence out of the response would even be useful and consistent enough without smoothing.

There are ways to do it, but I'll have to do some more thinking on it.  The other caution is the likelihood that people will think derived data is representative of outdoor measurements and get caught up in comparing smoothness and other such things.  For now I think posting the response and distortion measurements should be a first step.
Title: Re: Data Teaser
Post by: Iain_Macdonald on February 09, 2007, 03:03:00 PM
Aaron,

Here is a link to a pdf of the old Tef SoundLab software. It might help if you have never piloted a Tef.

http://www.aes.org/sections/pnw/reference/tef_man.pdf


Best wishes.

Iain.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on February 09, 2007, 04:57:35 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 12:11



History aside we are already working on your idea and will have a section of our site dedicated to it shortly.

Thanks,

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs




Great, informed consumers are better for the entire market.

I found myself fighting the good fight when I got involved with marketing at Peavey. We were often shown in an unfavorable light by incomplete or inaccurate competitor's specifications but were also saddled with a generally low brand perception making it that much harder to overcome individual objections once they are imprinted on consumers. In a high volume mass market the battle is over before you get to take a swing in response.

I recall the frustration of the speaker product manager who reported to me for a while. The customers kept asking for more power handling despite already having a higher efficiency solutions that actually delivered more SPL with less amplifier power. Since the customer is always right even when wrong, higher power drivers were developed (just ignore the efficiency folks).

This is not unlike trying to get consumers to ignore the size of power amps in a powered speaker, it's all about SPL but try to tell a customer that and their eye's will usually glaze over...  These same customers buy vacuum cleaners based on how many amps they draw. arghhh  

It is human nature to reduce any decision making process to the simplest terms, often influenced by subliminal and intuitive inputs. This is why brand image is so powerful and often trumps actual product performance in purchase decisions.

I am fearful that educating a market that doesn't really want tp be educated is tantamount to tilting at windmills but it is an honorable fight and we have a beachhead established here at the LAB. People don't like to be fooled, or made to look stupid so that is perhaps a powerful hook or angle to get their interest.

JR

PS: I guess my greater point about liars and cheats, is while it is a very human response to assign guilt and want to punish such perceived low motives, it is a distraction, mostly impossible to prove. Shining a bright light on how easily we can be deceived will make it harder to pull off in the future.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 09, 2007, 05:50:13 PM
Shining a bright light on how easily we can be deceived will make it harder to pull off in the future. [/quote]

I used to have a sign over my computer that said,"One thing you can say about ignorance, it causes some interesting arguments!"
Your point regarding shining the light of truth is exactly what we intend to do and with a guy like Tom you never know, he just may be working on a way to increase the brightness!


Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Jeff Permanian on February 09, 2007, 07:04:03 PM
Obviously, the room had its effects at 50 and 80 hz.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j123/racingxtc7/4-from-NYC.jpg
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Raj Sookraj on February 09, 2007, 07:09:43 PM
Since voltage was constant, will the graph be adjusted to correspond to 1w/1m for each sub or pair of subs?  If so, how is that going to be done?  At Minimum impedance?  Average impedance of a certain frequency range??  Impedance at 60hz?
Title: Comparing measurements
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 09, 2007, 07:30:10 PM
raj sookraj wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 19:09

Since voltage was constant, will the graph be adjusted to correspond to 1w/1m for each sub or pair of subs?  If so, how is that going to be done?  At Minimum impedance?  Average impedance of a certain frequency range??  Impedance at 60hz?
Why? Because of the test conditions these measurements are going to be hard to correlate to any other measurements. There is a lot of valuable data in the TEF plots, but any 2 tests done under different conditions can only be grossly compared. Measurements of SPL to determine some 1W/1m sensitivity measurement in a relatively small enclosed space has little relationship to a similar measurement made outdoors. The measurements that Mark is compiling will show the differences between all the speakers that were tested under those conditions. The listening tests were under pretty realistic club conditions, we were in a club. Did they let us know how the speakers would perform at an outside concert for 20k people? No. What they did show us was how they performed compared to each other so we could make our own judgements.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 09, 2007, 08:29:52 PM
There are several papers like you describe "in the works".  They should be up on the website shortly.  There will be no "slamming" other manufacturers specs, but rather guides on how to interpet various specs and what they really mean.  Let the customer make their own decisions with the presented data.

Along with other papers.  I am in the middle of a BIG Laughing (is that ever an understatement) project that is all consuming of my time.

Stay tuned.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 09, 2007, 08:48:15 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 15:59

Danley Sound Labs isn't interested in hype or deceit. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that we publish the entire sensitivity frequency response of all our products.  The hype types give you some number with no referenced frequency and in many cases don't supply any measured data.
Fact is if all manufacturers followed our suit you could get the data you are waiting on right now and it would be very easy to compare product to product.
We tell the way our subwoofer data is gathered (ten meters outside, half space, 28.3 volts) so that you can easily test/verify our data.


I certainly don't have any issue with honesty at Danley Sound Labs. I find you to be very open in regard to your testing proceedures and I tend to read your spec sheets as gospel. I have no doubt that I could measure any of your cabinets and get a similar result.

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 09, 2007, 09:06:41 PM
Jeff Permanian wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 00:04

Obviously, the room had its effects at 50 and 80 hz.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j123/racingxtc7/4-from-NYC.jpg



Hey Jeff, do you have outdoor measurements of your Growler that you could post? If so, could you overlay the indoor measurements taken and post the results?
Title: Re: Data Teaser
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 09, 2007, 09:10:15 PM
Ryan Lantzy wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 13:45

I'm not sure this is the final format for how the rest of us will see the measurements but I have a suggestion.

That graph is very dense and hard to see some of the colors/traces in certain areas.  Additionally some of the lines are thinner than they are in the key so I think the image compression messes with the actual shade of color.

Would it be possible to get more detailed images?  I would not insert them into the messages here however because they make the thread VERY hard to read on a smaller screen.  (And I'm working on a 19" at 1280x1024!!)


I'd be happy to provide server space to host high-res plots if that would be helpful.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007
Post by: Mark Herman on February 10, 2007, 01:09:58 AM
I just have to respond to the part in your post about Adamson not participating.

Your intimating that they didn't want to participate because of failing in head to head competition is complete BS. You are shooting in the dark here and made a poor guess.

I was just at their factory in early January and they were back ordered and selling the T-21 subs as fast as they could make them. Adamson is selling large quantities to their endusers. Endusers always come first.    

If you did more research you would have also have known that they only sell the T-21s to their clients that have Adamson line arrays. You can't buy them otherwise.

That is Adamson's policy. Personally I think they ought to sell them separately but they have their reasons and they are valid.


I have heard the T-21 and it is a very serious sub. And I have heard a lot of subs.

My point is that your guess was incorrect and I just happened to catch it. I asked them about the shootout myself while at the factory. If you want to bring on a line array shootout they would be very happy to oblige you. And they would bring the subs.

Don't want to rain on the parade but sometimes the inside view is different than the outside view.

I'm glad you hosted the event. Lining up the gear is hard work. I applaud your effort.



Title: Re: Room influence
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 10, 2007, 01:29:24 AM

Mark Seaton wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 13:36

If people are going to get their panties in a bunch over a peak in the response around 70-85Hz and a few other wiggles and aren't capable of extracting what is meaningful from the differences in the curves, I'll leave them for others to play with an convert.  Personally, I think readers here are a little more intelligent than that.


Looking at the chart below, I see a great deal of similarity in the white, black and blue curves.  Even the orange curve shares most of the same traits, with the exception of what is going on below 40Hz.  To me, this suggests the room influence was predominant, and each of the speakers excited the room in the same way, as one might expect since they were in the same location.  The trouble is, I'm not sure the room didn't actually mask each of the loudspeaker's characteristics.

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j123/racingxtc7/4-from-NYC.jpg

I see from the legend that the white curve represents the BASSMAXX Tripp, the black curve is the EM 215, the blue curve is the JTR and the orange curve is the Danley TH-215.  Would you say that the EM-215 and the JTR share almost the exact same response curve shape, except for more rolloff above 80Hz from the JTR?  They're basically the same speaker, 3-5dB apart?  Would you say the Tripp also shares the same response curve, but with another 3-5dB above that?

The differences in the levels could be accounted for with impedance, so after taking voltage sensitivity into account, these may have all measured almost the same.  And Danley's TH-215 shares the same curve too, except below 40Hz where there is more output.

I mean, to shrug this off as "getting pants in a bunch about a few wiggles" doesn't seem very objective to me.  All hats off to you for doing all this work, and maybe we should let you have some time to compile the data and filter out the room as much as you can.  But all I'm saying is that it looks to me like the room influence is strong, and that it may account for more of the measured response shape than each of the speakers do.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Jeff Permanian on February 10, 2007, 03:36:19 AM
Pascal Pincosy wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 20:06

Hey Jeff, do you have outdoor measurements of your Growler that you could post? If so, could you overlay the indoor measurements taken and post the results?


Well...

Mark Seaton wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 10:39


The JTR Growlers have a simple and smooth enough curve that would make this easier, with the caveat that temps have been rediculous cold here and I need to take another measurement to match the measurement parameters for direct subtraction in the TEF software.


Until JTR purchases its only TEF measurements are at the mercy of Mark and Tom.




Title: Re: Room influence
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 10, 2007, 09:13:21 AM
The differences in the levels could be accounted for with impedance, so after taking voltage sensitivity into account, these may have all measured almost the same.  And Danley's TH-215 shares the same curve too, except below 40Hz where there is more output.
[/quote]


Hey Wayne,
Thanks for the acknowledgement.  Seeing that this was a subwoofer shootout isn't it great that even with some room issues you can still clearly see who has the most low frequency extension. Cool  


Mike "no hype here" Hedden
Danley Sound Labs
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 10, 2007, 09:18:48 AM
Pascal Pincosy wrote on Fri, 09 February 2007 20:06

Hey Jeff, do you have outdoor measurements of your Growler that you could post? If so, could you overlay the indoor measurements taken and post the results?


I do have an outdoor measurement of ONE box, not two as measured in the event.  The temps were also much colder.  I did take a look at the only region of notable deviation even in this mis-match of comparisons was in the 70-85Hz range.

Where this will be of interest is that it will have some skewing to the THD measurements where the 35-40Hz range will probably show a little more THD than if outdoors, but again, equal for all.

If we get into more normal temps again in Chicagoland Jeff & I will probably take another, more equivalent measurement of the Growlers in the same configuration as tested at the Shootout with the same measurement parameters.
Title: Re: Room influence-Inside/outside
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 10, 2007, 10:03:13 AM
Here is a overlay of the inside shootout TH115's (a pair standing up) (BLUE) and outside (RED), with the same configuration.

The levels are off due to several factors. The mic distance was 4' at the shootout and not 1M and the voltmeter used to set the 2.83V was of unknown accuracy.

But that is not what is important here, but rather the basic shape of the curves.

The Outside measurements of the TH115 were taken at 10M and 200 watt (28.3V) into the pair-the same drive(maybe?) as at the shootout.  

I also included a single TH115 (GREEN)outside under the same conditions but with 100W input (28.3V) just for reference.
index.php/fa/7890/0/
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Gareth James on February 10, 2007, 10:15:47 AM
Just been trying to make a little sense out of the graph.
I'm looking at the responses and then factoring in the voltage/impedance differences between cabinets.

Taking maximum power into consideration (assuming continuous power and no power compression) it would seem the Trip could have provided about 137dB at 40hz and the TH-215 about 130dB. But at 30hz the trip has dropped 10dB to 127 and the TH-215 remains around 130 mark.

Bearing in mind that 3 TH-215's are almost exactly equal in volume to 2 Trips, I'd guess it would be a fair (ish) comparison. In a configuration like that I'd imagine a pair of Trips to be pushing 143dB (? sounds a bit loud to me is my maths right!?) above 40hz and the 3 TH-215's to be pushing 139dB.

Seems that the Trip might have the advantage above 40hz, of course at 30hz the array of TH-215's should be putting out around 6dB more than the pair of Trips. I suppose whether or not that would be useful depends on your application...

Apologies if my rough maths is out somehow!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 10, 2007, 03:05:15 PM
Seems that the Trip might have the advantage above 40hz, of course at 30hz the array of TH-215's should be putting out around 6dB more than the pair of Trips. I suppose whether or not that would be useful depends on your application...
[/quote]

This is exactly why we offer different models.  We don't see one model as being "better" than the others as they fit different applications.
 
Three TH115s is really what I'd compare to the Trip due to both boxes rolling off below 40 Hz. The TH215 was created for those that wanted significant output to 30Hz.  We have another sub that will be shown at the NSCA show that has similar sensitivity but is flat to 20 Hz.

Three TH115s  have similar impedance and overall box volume to the Trip. I don't have outdoor measurements of three but we've measured an array of 4 TH115 which yields a stunning efficiency of around 50% i.e., 1w/1m sensitivity of 110dB  
Several rental/production companies have 16 TH115 subs and one of the big benefits this provides is the ability to have your inventory dollars work more for you.  One or two per gig gives you 8-16 systems, for large gigs 4-16 does the job.

6 TH115's where recently installed at the 7200 seat Willowcreek Church in Chicago and Cirque du Soliel's Love show in Vegas has 12 installed in a 3000 seater!  

I would greatly encourage anyone that can to come to the NSCA show in Orlando in March.  I can assure you it will well be worth the time to see/hear/feel what we are fixing to unleash as no matter who you are you've experienced anything like the Matterhorn.

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.
Title: Re: Room influence-Inside/outside
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 10, 2007, 03:20:14 PM
Ivan Beaver wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 09:03

Here is a overlay of the inside shootout TH115's (a pair standing up) (BLUE) and outside (RED), with the same configuration.

The levels are off due to several factors. The mic distance was 4' at the shootout and not 1M and the voltmeter used to set the 2.83V was of unknown accuracy.

But that is not what is important here, but rather the basic shape of the curves.

The Outside measurements of the TH115 were taken at 10M and 200 watt (28.3V) into the pair-the same drive(maybe?) as at the shootout.  

I also included a single TH115 (GREEN)outside under the same conditions but with 100W input (28.3V) just for reference.
index.php/fa/7890/0/



Hi Ivan,

Thanks for the comparative curve.  We should remember that Ivan's outdoor measurement was at a large distance and in a very different environment.

While I don't yet have an outdoor measurement of the Growlers in the same configuration as used at the shootout, I took a 1m measurement I have of a single Growler (one of the units used at the shootout), and overlaid and shifted it to best match the level.  The differences I see are as we have described, and rather similar to Ivan's but better correlation down low.

I'll spare the widescreen mode...
JTR Growler single ground plane vs. dual at Rebel
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Dave Dermont on February 10, 2007, 04:58:22 PM
I attended the Subwoofer Shootout, but did not post until now so I could give some of you guys a chance to beat each other over the head for a while. It looks like you are about done with all that.

I’d like to thank Paul Bell for all his efforts in arranging the shootout, even though he did not remember who the hell I was when I showed up on day two. I’d also like to thank the manufacturers who were man enough to drag subwoofers around Manhattan to be perused and abused.

Mark Seaton has already done and continues to do way too much work, and should be showered with gold and jewels. I mean geeze…talk about a guy going “above and beyond”. Mr. Seaton, it’s an honor to share the same planet with you.

I met a lot of guys for the first time, including Mac Kerr, our new moderator. Some of the other guys I knew from Wedge Fest. I especially want to thank Tim Morin for not punching me in the face when I demonstrated that I am just as much of an a**hole in person as I am on the forums. We had a couple conversations that went something like this:

   Me: So, why the hell would I pay over $4K for your wedges      when I can just get some Clair 12AMs, which is what everybody wants?

   Tim: My wedges are what everybody wants now.

   Me: Yeah, right.

Product evangelism is a good thing, even if it’s to the point of being delusional. Tim is indeed selling some very interesting products. You really have to check out that crazy Outline stuff with the built in WiFi DSP.

I’d like to thank Jeff Permanian for thinking of the small venue type guys, and bringing out the Growler. I especially liked how two of them stacked were the perfect height for adding a short high-output “combat audio” box like a TX-4 or U-15. To balance this glowing review, I’d like to add that I think “Growler” is a really stupid product name.

I am sorry to see how some of the discussion here has devolved into a pissing contest between some of the attendees, as well as the indictment of much of the professional speaker manufacturing industry as “A Bunch of Lying Bastards”. I hope you guys realize how much it makes you look like jerks. How ‘bout showing some love.

I am not sure how well the “Buying Someone Else’s Product Means You Are an Oafish Ignoramus” strategy plays in the marketplace.  Laughing (It does seem to have worked pretty well for JBL.) Laughing  Everybody knows that when similar products offer similar performance, the sale will always go to the guy with the coolest swag. Hey…I don’t make the rules.

I may be an oafish ignoramus, but performance in the real world means a lot more to me than any test graph or data sheet number ever could. As strange as it may seem, a lot of my gigs are actually indoors, and very few of them involve swept sine waves.

…and another thing

I believe the technique of assembling cardioid subwoofer arrays with conventional components will be a growing trend, much like the ‘Subs on an Aux’ technique is. Once guys try it, they will like it, and use it as much as possible. Cardioid subwoofers are products based in physics. Calling the use of the term “cardioid subwoofer” marketing hype is just someone else’s own brand of marketing hype. If the guy at company “A” chooses to spend his time thinking about something different than the guy at company “B” or the guy at company “C”, that does not make him wrong or even less intelligent, just different.

Events like this shootout can be valuable to companies wise enough to spend time figuring out what’s really important to those out there doing the work. It’s not about crowning a winner or chastising a loser. It’s about finding out what’s out there and how certain products fit into certain applications.

That’s about it. I am done pissing people off for now. Have a great day, and see you at the next shootout.

Dave "occasional subwoofer user" Dermont
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Paul Bell on February 10, 2007, 08:21:29 PM
Hey Dave,

Were you there? Did I see you?? HUH, lately, I don't recognize the guy staring at me in the mirror.

LOVE your overall review and comments of the shootout. Something to be said about being BLUNT. Very good.

I finally got rid of all the subs that were on hand, the Trips went to Asbury Park, the Z5000's went to Brooklyn Tech HS, the McCauley's went upstate. Everybody else took theirs with them and Club Rebel is back to its normal foolishness.

Quit thanking me everybody, I'm just the guy who blew some money on the venue and coffee/donuts/pizza and note pads. PSW via Bennett covered the beer, thanks guys! Everybody else made the event, I was just running around doing stuff...
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 10, 2007, 08:35:14 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 20:05

We have another sub that will be shown at the NSCA show that has similar sensitivity but is flat to 20 Hz.


Sounds exciting! Seems like the tapped horns biggest advantage is the ability to go low with a small box size. The idea of being able to output 20Hz at concert levels makes me salivate. Twisted Evil

Quote:

Three TH115s is really what I'd compare to the Trip due to both boxes rolling off below 40 Hz. <snip> Three TH115s  have similar impedance and overall box volume to the Trip.


Similar impedance yes, volume no. A TH-115 has a volume of 25,200 cubic inches. A Trip X3C has a volume of 48,600, slightly smaller than 2 TH-115's. Also a TRIP X3C weighs 334 lbs, while 3 TH-115's weigh 450 lbs. I'm not sure of the price of the TRIP, but I'm sure it's gonna be a lot less than the price of 3 TH-115's.

The real trade-off is ease of use. One person can move a TH-115 with ease. The TRIP is a lot less easy to handle. Also there's the versatility of having more smaller cabinets vs fewer larger ones.

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Bennett Prescott on February 10, 2007, 09:21:50 PM
Paul Bell wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 20:21

PSW via Bennett covered the beer, thanks guys!

Actually, EONA ADRaudio picked up the beer tab... the least I could do for tripping over it! Two cases ain't pricey, though, and at least half of it was good beer, so it was all for a good cause.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 10, 2007, 09:32:41 PM
Actually the quote that was said was that a PAIR of Trips was about the same cubic volume as 3 TH115's.

Title: Re: Room influence-Inside/outside
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 10, 2007, 11:46:56 PM

Can you please post charts without smoothing applied to them?
Title: Re: Room influence-Inside/outside
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 11, 2007, 12:17:14 AM
Wayne Parham wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 22:46


Can you please post charts without smoothing applied to them?



10% smoothing on a TDS measurement is pretty minor, mostly taking hair out of the graph, although I probalby would have set it to about 8% just to be numerically proper at a worst case of a rough approximation of 1/12th ocatve smoothing, had it not been on 10% for other things I was doing when I captured the graph for you.

Here's the raw version.  Hopefully a little extra wiggle to the line makes you feel beter about it.  

Dual JTR subs as measured at Rebel and approximately matched level ground plane of single JTR sub

Let's also be clear that we (certainly *I*) have no intention of these measurements being directly comparable to outdoor, ground plane measurements.  We have an idea of the frequency response and for those of us who took the time to attend, and those who have been reading the impressions of those who attended, we can certainly see relative differences between the subwoofers we listened to.

I have decided that I won't bother doing measurements of subs for something like this again unless there are three conditions...

First that we have a wide open space and no SPL limits.  Second that I am no liable for blown subwoofers, as many WILL die if people want to know the limits.  And finally all testing will be done AFTER listening.

Back to doing that stuff that pays bills...
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tim Morin on February 11, 2007, 12:32:44 AM
Dave:

It was a pleasure meeting you at the shootout, I look forward to many more conversations at future shootouts. I think my comments have been misconstrued. The Clair 12am is a GREAT wedge but comparing the 2 is not exactly appropriate, the Clair is a single 12" unit at 111db. and is non powered. Ours that you were looking at was the H.A.R.D 212 which is 2 12" and that is self powered and is only 13" high. it is over 140db. so there is a big difference, also the H.A.R.D 212 only weighs 55lbs. that is almost 20lbs less than the Clair. my comment about what everyone wants was a blanket statement on the sudden popularity of double 12 wedges. So with that being said, does our cost really seem that expensive when you figure in for the 2 12" box that is self powered and weighing 55lbs. we don't believe so and so far the market agrees with us.

By the way I think you are much more of an ass on the forums.. Laughing
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tim Morin on February 11, 2007, 12:49:42 AM
P.S Retail cost on the Hard 212 is around $3700.00
Title: Re: Room influence-Inside/outside
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 11, 2007, 10:58:35 AM
Quote:

...I'll spare the widescreen mode...
JTR Growler single ground plane vs. dual at Rebel



This comparison curve makes sense to me. The Growlers responded the least to the club's prominent 80-something-Hz peak because they have a 2dB dip in response at the same location. Thanks for posting the two curves overlaid.

-Bink
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Raj Sookraj on February 11, 2007, 04:28:19 PM
Gareth James wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 15:15

Just been trying to make a little sense out of the graph.
I'm looking at the responses and then factoring in the voltage/impedance differences between cabinets.

Are there any impedance charts posted?  Can we see them to better understand how each performed.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 11, 2007, 05:12:36 PM
We did not do impedance measurements.  Mark and I decided to use the constant voltage input method.

The problem with this method is that the cabinets with a lower impedance will be dissipating more wattage than those with a higher impedance.  For example lets compare the Tripp which has a rated impedance of 3 ohms as compared to the TH115 which has a rated impedance of 8 ohms.  We applied 2.83 V to both.  Assuming a constant impedance (which neither is) that would relate to 1 watt for the TH115 and 2.67watts for the Tripp, which is a 4.3dB difference.

Now bear in mind that we were actually measuring 2 cabinets so it would be 2 watts for the TH115 and 5.34 Watts for the Tripp.  Again the difference (in db) is the same.

So when Mark issues the responses you can attempt to do a 1 watt comparison between the two boxes by subtracting 4.3dB from the Tripps response at a particular freq to directly compare to the TH115.  Oh course the various 4 ohm boxes (most were) would be a different comparison, but you can do the math to figure the difference.

If you try to use the impedance and voltage for 1Watt method, you have to make a lot of decisions regarding what the actual impedance is.  Is it the rated impedance from the manufacturer or the lowest impedance measured or the average impedance and if you use average, over what freq range?

This opens up a whole new can of worms for people to argue over what is "right".

It would be easy enough (just would require a bit of time for calculations) to adjust the measured levels to correlate to a 1 watt (again using what impedance? to apply a particular voltage to the loudspeaker in order to dissipate 1 watt) input.

I don't know if Mark has the time, and I am really swamped until after NSCA.

The problem with any measurement session is that different people want to see different things.  A common ground has to be struck somewhere.

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 11, 2007, 05:57:14 PM
Ivan Beaver wrote on Sun, 11 February 2007 17:12

We did not do impedance measurements.  Mark and I decided to use the constant voltage input method.

The problem with this method is that the cabinets with a lower impedance will be dissipating more wattage than those with a higher impedance.  For example lets compare the Tripp which has a rated impedance of 3 ohms as compared to the TH115 which has a rated impedance of 8 ohms.  We applied 2.83 V to both.  Assuming a constant impedance (which neither is) that would relate to 1 watt for the TH115 and 2.67watts for the Tripp, which is a 4.3dB difference.

Now bear in mind that we were actually measuring 2 cabinets so it would be 2 watts for the TH115 and 5.34 Watts for the Tripp.  Again the difference (in db) is the same.

So when Mark issues the responses you can attempt to do a 1 watt comparison between the two boxes by subtracting 4.3dB from the Tripps response at a particular freq to directly compare to the TH115.  Oh course the various 4 ohm boxes (most were) would be a different comparison, but you can do the math to figure the difference.

If you try to use the impedance and voltage for 1Watt method, you have to make a lot of decisions regarding what the actual impedance is.  Is it the rated impedance from the manufacturer or the lowest impedance measured or the average impedance and if you use average, over what freq range?

This opens up a whole new can of worms for people to argue over what is "right".
Which is why the choice to just use a common voltage was the right one. In the end what matters is. "when I drive my amp this hard, how do these speakers compare?" If 2dB, or even 4dB difference in maximum output is going to make or break your show, your need a bigger rig.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 11, 2007, 06:42:31 PM
When doing any sort of comparison between different products, so many different factors come into play.  What might be an advantage to one person doesn't make any difference to another.  Different people need different products for different uses.

You are correct that if you are within a couple of dB of max output, you need more rig for the gig.

It is up to the people doing the measurements to provide as accurate data as possible for people to look at in order to determine the suitability of a particular product for use.

And even then, with the data, that really doesn't give a real good idea as to what a particular loudspeaker actually sounds like.  Sonic signatures are really hard to describe with basic data.  That is another reason for these types of "shootouts".  Not so much as to gather data, as that can be very revealing, but rather to actually listen to different products in the same situation.

I just love the people who say things like "Yeah I heard those subs last weekend and they just didn't have any punch".  How do they know?  How was the kick tuned, what type of mic was used? Where was it placed? What type of amps?  What gauge of loudspeaker cable? What about the console and it's capabilities? How was the system tuned? What about the skill of the different humans involved (the biggest factor)?

So many questions that they do not have an answer to, but yet they can judge how the subs sounded and compare them to another brand in a completely different setup-usually weeks apart.

The same things go for full range boxes.  It is important not to try to read to much into these things.  They are fun and informative, but mostly to those who were actually there, as they can determine their own opinions.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tom Danley on February 11, 2007, 08:00:58 PM
Hi Mac

Impedance matters only as much as Voltage and is unavoidable when Wattage matters, even in your context “when I drive my amp this hard, how do these speakers compare?"

Impedance governs how much you can actually deliver to each speaker when your amp reaches Voltage clip or Current limiting with a low impedance.
Impedance governs how many speakers you can put on each amp and determines how many boxes will get you the most possible sound out.

In this case here too, speakers have power ratings, those are determined by the system efficiency, efficiency is the ratio of radiated acoustic power to all the losses so impedance is part of this.
All of these are directly related to the engineering issue of getting the most out with the least cost per size per dollar etc.

When used as an engineering spec, efficiency and power capacity can be use to very roughly estimate the speaker’s maximum output or output at any input power.
Again, this is based on 1W 1M efficiency, NOT Voltage sensitivity.

Lastly, consider a somewhat more extreme case of two imaginary speakers, both reach a maximum output of 135dB, both are driven with 56Volts.   One is an 8 Ohm load, the other is .8 Ohms. One takes 3920Watts, the other 392 Watts.

There is nothing wrong with constant voltage measurements but to have any connection to Power or efficiency, the load the Voltage was delivered into is unavoidably a key part.
Best,

Tom Danley
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 11, 2007, 08:28:51 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Sun, 11 February 2007 20:00

Hi Mac

Impedance matters only as much as Voltage and is unavoidable when Wattage matters, even in your context ?when I drive my amp this hard, how do these speakers compare?"

Impedance governs how much you can actually deliver to each speaker when your amp reaches Voltage clip or Current limiting with a low impedance.
Impedance governs how many speakers you can put on each amp and determines how many boxes will get you the most possible sound out.

In this case here too, speakers have power ratings, those are determined by the system efficiency, efficiency is the ratio of radiated acoustic power to all the losses so impedance is part of this.
All of these are directly related to the engineering issue of getting the most out with the least cost per size per dollar etc.

When used as an engineering spec, efficiency and power capacity can be use to very roughly estimate the speaker?s maximum output or output at any input power.
Again, this is based on 1W 1M efficiency, NOT Voltage sensitivity.

Lastly, consider a somewhat more extreme case of two imaginary speakers, both reach a maximum output of 135dB, both are driven with 56Volts.   One is an 8 Ohm load, the other is .8 Ohms. One takes 3920Watts, the other 392 Watts.

There is nothing wrong with constant voltage measurements but to have any connection to Power or efficiency, the load the Voltage was delivered into is unavoidably a key part.
Best,

Tom Danley


You may not be aware, but we weren't actually writing any engineering specs. We were comparing 14 different subs, in a limited amount of time, under acoustic conditions that would dictate that the measured results really couldn't be compared against a manufacturer's engineering spec. We also had no fair way of determining at what frequency to determine the impedance we might chose to rate a speaker at, or what frequency to set the voltage with so that the impedance was what the manufacturer specified. We also didn't have among the various speakers tested any imaginary speakers. What we did have was amps that could deliver enough power at any reasonable impedance to fully power the speakers under test. The TEF sweeps were kept to more reasonable levels so as to not become destructive testing.

Anyone who has issues with the testing methodology was welcome to be there and lend their effort to doing their way. A lot of people went to a lot of effort to make it possible to compare, however difficult the conditions, a large number of speakers in a small amount of time. A lot of people who weren't there seem to be trying to turn it into something it wasn't. When the measured data becomes available we will be able to see how those speakers compare within the limits of the conditions we were under, no more.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Paul Bell on February 11, 2007, 09:18:22 PM
A lot of people who weren't there seem to be trying to turn it into something it wasn't.

Very true.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tom Danley on February 11, 2007, 10:05:34 PM
Hi Mac

Knowing both Ivan, Mark and Jeff, I was aware of what they were doing and I am somewhat familiar with TEF measurements and their limitations as well.  
Practical issues aside like not having time etc is unrelated to the engineering aspect I was pointing out however.
They went to the trouble to calibrate a mic to have accuracy within a fraction of a dB, they poked around in the room to find a “smoothish” spot re: room effects.
I was simply suggesting in that spirit, that having some vague idea of how many watts plus or minus a few dB were being delivered,  might be also interesting to some of the more technical, when reading the TEF curves.
Understand I am in no way downplaying the effort involved, it was a huge job, heck we even sent boxes a person and equipment.
Perhaps it is more of an engineering view that looks to extract as information as possible from limited data even if taken in compromised circumstances.
I am sorry that approach seems to have offended some of you guys.
Best,

Tom Danley

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tim Coyle on February 11, 2007, 10:58:16 PM
Well....
I've not had time until recently to keep up with the thread, so this is my first 2 cents. So huge thanks to Mark for dealing with all the measurements, and trying to correlate them quickly.  Thanks to Elliot for the off-site pictorial coverage - even though I notice some fire equipment in the EM photos Smile And thanks Bennett & Paul for beer & pizza, without which I would not have stayed around to learn anything.  And I did learn a couple of things (some a bit late).

I had not fully considered the physics involved in the lovely DanMas (sp?) track with the dual sweeping sine waves, but it proved a bad choice for power test, at least once our collective threshold shift was reached  Rolling Eyes  

But my point in jumping in now is to help sort the impedance question - as the "amps guy" for most of the test period.  The bulk of boxes were tested powered from 1 channel of a PowerSoft K10 (6000wpc@2, 4000wpc@4, 2000wpc@8), until either interesting hookup or total impedance deemed multiple channels necessary.  I'm new to the whole calibrated testing process (no I have nothing to do with any specs you may read on any EM cabinet Smile, but it seems that the efficiency measurements would be affected by having the same signal thru 2 amp channels (or 4 in at least 1 case).  
And it certainly would have affected my impression of what I had heard on "listening day", had I not known better.  I think the Outline boxes were spread across 4 channels (though at 8 ohm per channel, and the Bassmaxx boxes both were utilizing 2 channels at 2-3ohms nominal, for a total of 10-12kW.  That said - the Trip did  take all that impressively.  
While I was impressed with the caliber of pros present at the shootout (really), and I'm sure most were aware of the changing configurations, it's only fair to make the point to those who were not there.  

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 11, 2007, 11:02:01 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Sun, 11 February 2007 22:05

They went to the trouble to calibrate a mic to have accuracy within a fraction of a dB, they poked around in the room to find a ?smoothish? spot re: room effects.
I was simply suggesting in that spirit, that having some vague idea of how many watts plus or minus a few dB were being delivered,  might be also interesting to some of the more technical, when reading the TEF curves.
While we don't know what the absolute power delivered was, we do have a "vague idea" of how many watts were being delivered to 4 ohm speakers vs 8 ohm speakers plus or minus a few dB. A few dB being about what the difference in power delivered to an 8 ohm vs 4 ohm speaker might be. The only speaker that did not present either an 8 ohm or a 4 ohm nominal load as specified by the manufacturer was the Bassmaxx X3C which has 3 8 ohm nominal drivers in parallel. Based on that all the speakers got the same power "plus or minus a few dB." If you want to know closer than a few dB, I think all the manufacturers have an impedance spec on their websites. Since the drive to the amp was always the same any difference in power will be the direct result of the impedance difference. Since the amps were operating well within their capabilities the power delivered to a 4 ohm speaker should be 3dB more than an 8 ohm. the 2,6 ohm Bassmaxx may have been at a slight disadvantage because while the Powersoft K10 can deliver 2000W/ch into 8 ohms and 4000W/ch into 4 ohms, it can only deliver 6000W/ch in 2 ohms.

I was there before the start of the first test. I don't remember much poking around for a "smoothish" spot. With a room that is about 15' wide, 20' tall, and 60' deep, there are limited choices in placement. i wonder how you determine a "smoothish" spot without running tests at several locations to see what the differences are.

Mac

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Jeff Permanian on February 11, 2007, 11:04:31 PM
Dave Dermont wrote on Sat, 10 February 2007 15:58



I’d like to thank Jeff Permanian for thinking of the small venue type guys, and bringing out the Growler. I especially liked how two of them stacked were the perfect height for adding a short high-output “combat audio” box like a TX-4 or U-15. To balance this glowing review, I’d like to add that I think “Growler” is a really stupid product name.

Dave "occasional subwoofer user" Dermont



Thanks! Balance in the universe achieved. There seemed to be a shortage of small high performance speakers on the market.

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 11, 2007, 11:07:48 PM
Tim Coyle wrote on Sun, 11 February 2007 22:58

I think the Outline boxes were spread across 4 channels
AFAIK the only speakers that used 4 speaker cables for 2 boxes were the L-Acoustic SB218s. For some inexplicable reason they arrived with each driver wired to the channel 1 pins of an individual NL4. While we could have run a pair of wires from each of 2 channels, there were 4 cables from 4 channels sitting there. The power per speaker should be the same, just less strain on the largely unstrained amps.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tim Coyle on February 11, 2007, 11:15:02 PM
Mac -
quite possibly so- I guess it was the frenchies that I was thinking of - though the outline did not have a pass-thru.  I left my notepad at home, and all those front-loaders look alike - except when they've got cup-holders.

peace-
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 11, 2007, 11:20:29 PM
Tim Coyle wrote on Sun, 11 February 2007 23:15

Mac -
quite possibly so- I guess it was the frenchies that I was thinking of - though the outline did not have a pass-thru.  I left my notepad at home, and all those front-loaders look alike - except when they've got cup-holders.

peace-
Yeah, but ya gotta love those cupholders!   Cool

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 12, 2007, 02:12:50 AM
Quote:

...I was aware of what they were doing...and their limitations as well...


Since I wasn't there I'm guilty of being an armchair quarterback when I say it would have been interesting to plot each speaker's distortion performance. If each speaker were driven to a certain set percentage of distortion (as measured further back so as to lessen the impact of port noises and rattling wheels) at a fair number of frequency points then we would have an idea of how loud each cabinet could go while staying faithful to the signal it was receiving. A test like this would have taken at least a week.  Neutral

-Bink
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 12, 2007, 08:01:35 AM
Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 02:12

Quote:

...I was aware of what they were doing...and their limitations as well...


Since I wasn't there I'm guilty of being an armchair quarterback when I say it would have been interesting to plot each speaker's distortion performance. If each speaker were driven to a certain set percentage of distortion (as measured further back so as to lessen the impact of port noises and rattling wheels) at a fair number of frequency points then we would have an idea of how loud each cabinet could go while staying faithful to the signal it was receiving. A test like this would have taken at least a week.  Neutral

-Bink
While each speaker wasn't driven to a set distortion percentage, distortion measurements were done. Distortion was measured with the TEF system at 5 or 6 frequencies at both (pseudo) 1W, and (pseudo) 100W. IIRC the differences at those levels was sometimes dramatic. I am sure when he gets a chance, Mark will post those charts as well.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 12, 2007, 08:39:39 AM
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Impedance plot that is : )

Hi Jeff,

We've been showing ours for a while now under the products page of www.danleysoundlabs.com.  Smile

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tom Danley on February 12, 2007, 10:35:52 AM
Hi Mac

Ok, we are back to including the load if one wants more precision than a rough “plus or minus a few dB”.  
I am not clear on your other point though.
You said “the 2,6 ohm Bassmaxx may have been at a slight disadvantage because while the Powersoft K10 can deliver 2000W/ch into 8 ohms and 4000W/ch into 4 ohms, it can only deliver 6000W/ch in 2 ohms.”

A few thoughts, the impedance of 3, 8 Ohm drivers in parallel is around 3 Ohms, this cabinet would then have a nominal impedance of about 3 Ohms.   If you look at Wayne’s web site, he had measured the impedance of the Boxes he tested including this one.

http://audioroundtable.com/ProSpeakers/messages/372.html

This would limit the maximum delivered power then to only about 5KW, being in between 2 and 4 Ohms.
I do not see how when Voltage referenced, how that puts a 3 Ohm load at a “disadvantage” when compared to an 8 Ohm box (which receives – 4.3 dB less power at the same voltage) or the other 4 Ohm boxes however,  the only load which would get more power at a fixed Voltage would be a 2 Ohm load.

Ivan and Mark debated where to put the test boxes in the room to avoid issues like the stage in the beginning, then they were trying to correlate the outdoor measurements of the th-115 to the indoor ones.
Best,

Tom Danley
Title: My thoughts
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 12, 2007, 11:41:12 AM
Tom Danley wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 10:35

I am not clear on your other point though.
You said ?the 2,6 ohm Bassmaxx may have been at a slight disadvantage because while the Powersoft K10 can deliver 2000W/ch into 8 ohms and 4000W/ch into 4 ohms, it can only deliver 6000W/ch in 2 ohms.?

A few thoughts, the impedance of 3, 8 Ohm drivers in parallel is around 3 Ohms, this cabinet would then have a nominal impedance of about 3 Ohms.   If you look at Wayne?s web site, he had measured the impedance of the Boxes he tested including this one.

http://audioroundtable.com/ProSpeakers/messages/372.html

This would limit the maximum delivered power then to only about 5KW, being in between 2 and 4 Ohms.
I do not see how when Voltage referenced, how that puts a 3 Ohm load at a ?disadvantage? when compared to an 8 Ohm box (which receives ? 4.3 dB less power at the same voltage) or the other 4 Ohm boxes however,  the only load which would get more power at a fixed Voltage would be a 2 Ohm load.

Ivan and Mark debated where to put the test boxes in the room to avoid issues like the stage in the beginning, then they were trying to correlate the outdoor measurements of the th-115 to the indoor ones.
Best,

Tom Danley

This discussion has already gone on way too far, but my comment was meant to reflect the fact that the difference between the 8 ohm boxes and the 4 ohm boxes was nominally 3dB, while difference between the 4 ohm and 2.6 ohm boxes would be slightly less since the amp no longer follows the doubling of power for halving of impedance behavior.

My understanding was that the "shootout" was primarily a listening experience. The fact there were measurements taken would quantify what we were hearing, and perhaps expose differences that we were not hearing. It may be possible to somewhat eliminate the effects of the room by creating some transform based on measurements taken under different conditions, but since the various speakers filled the room side to side between 20% and 60% I'm not convinced that the transform will apply equally to all speakers. What little of the data I have seen, and what we saw live, did support what we heard as far as low frequency extension, and ability to create high SPL at those very low frequencies.

Since I believe this was primarily a listening experience, I will let you know how I think the various products fared. This is only one man's opinion. I think there were 3 categories of speakers when all was said and done. The group of speakers that were generally outclassed, and didn't rate a close listen on day 2. Some of these  just didn't have enough output, some didn't have enough low frequency extension, and some were small enough to not have either. All of the speakers that we listened to on day 2 had some feature of interest. I felt there were 5 speakers that stood above the others by having good low frequency extension, good output power, and sounded good at all levels. In no particular order, for me these were, the 2 Danleys, TH115 and TH215, the 2 EM Acoustics, the EMS-215 and the Quake, and the traditional front loaded double 18 Outline Subtech-218. Unfortunately I was out of the room getting lunch while the Bassmaxx Z5000 was first being listened to, so I never heard it at reasonable levels. At the very high levels I heard for the last minute or so of listening I could hear only the roar of a jet engine. This was also true of the very high level listening of the X3C. I don't know whether it was an interaction with the room at those levels, or if my ears were shutting down, even though I was wearing hearing protection, but the extreme levels produced by the 2 Bassmaxx cabinets did not sound sound good to me. I had to leave the room during that part because it was painful to me. The X3Cs were interesting because they sound good at reasonable levels, and went very low, and got very loud. I just can't say whether they sounded good at those high levels. Another speaker that was very interesting was the JTR Growler. Because of it's size it can't compete box to box with the bigger speakers, but it had very impressive low frequency extension, and sounded very good. With the size, and apparent price point it is a very impressive sub. The last interesting speaker was the 6 18" powered, active cardioid, ADR sub. It too sounded very good at reasonable level, but at very high started to roar. The active cardioid feature seemed to work.

My opinion, it's worth at least what you paid for it.

Mac
Title: Re: My thoughts
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 12, 2007, 02:58:18 PM

Mac Kerr wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 10:41

It may be possible to somewhat eliminate the effects of the room by creating some transform based on measurements taken under different conditions, but since the various speakers filled the room side to side between 20% and 60% I'm not convinced that the transform will apply equally to all speakers.


You're right, no single room conjugate is possible.  Position within the room is as big an issue as room size and shape.  No comparison with other measurements can be made.

Looks like a fun time had by all though.
Title: Re: My thoughts
Post by: Mark Seaton on February 12, 2007, 04:09:24 PM
Mac Kerr wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 10:41


This discussion has already gone on way too far, but my comment was meant to reflect the fact that the difference between the 8 ohm boxes and the 4 ohm boxes was nominally 3dB, while difference between the 4 ohm and 2.6 ohm boxes would be slightly less since the amp no longer follows the doubling of power for halving of impedance behavior.

My understanding was that the "shootout" was primarily a listening experience. The fact there were measurements taken would quantify what we were hearing, and perhaps expose differences that we were not hearing. It may be possible to somewhat eliminate the effects of the room by creating some transform based on measurements taken under different conditions, but since the various speakers filled the room side to side between 20% and 60% I'm not convinced that the transform will apply equally to all speakers. What little of the data I have seen, and what we saw live, did support what we heard as far as low frequency extension, and ability to create high SPL at those very low frequencies.

Since I believe this was primarily a listening experience, I will let you know how I think the various products fared. This is only one man's opinion. I think there were 3 categories of speakers when all was said and done. The group of speakers that were generally outclassed, and didn't rate a close listen on day 2. Some of these  just didn't have enough output, some didn't have enough low frequency extension, and some were small enough to not have either. All of the speakers that we listened to on day 2 had some feature of interest. I felt there were 5 speakers that stood above the others by having good low frequency extension, good output power, and sounded good at all levels. In no particular order, for me these were, the 2 Danleys, TH115 and TH215, the 2 EM Acoustics, the EMS-215 and the Quake, and the traditional front loaded double 18 Outline Subtech-218. Unfortunately I was out of the room getting lunch while the Bassmaxx Z5000 was first being listened to, so I never heard it at reasonable levels. At the very high levels I heard for the last minute or so of listening I could hear only the roar of a jet engine. This was also true of the very high level listening of the X3C. I don't know whether it was an interaction with the room at those levels, or if my ears were shutting down, even though I was wearing hearing protection, but the extreme levels produced by the 2 Bassmaxx cabinets did not sound sound good to me. I had to leave the room during that part because it was painful to me. The X3Cs were interesting because they sound good at reasonable levels, and went very low, and got very loud. I just can't say whether they sounded good at those high levels. Another speaker that was very interesting was the JTR Growler. Because of it's size it can't compete box to box with the bigger speakers, but it had very impressive low frequency extension, and sounded very good. With the size, and apparent price point it is a very impressive sub. The last interesting speaker was the 6 18" powered, active cardioid, ADR sub. It too sounded very good at reasonable level, but at very high started to roar. The active cardioid feature seemed to work.

My opinion, it's worth at least what you paid for it.

Mac



Hi Mac,

You're observations and thoughts above are what the shootout was all about.  It will be interesting to then have the measured data to get a feeling of what sort of relative responses and distortion the boxes had and how that did or didn't affect things as you state.  I am not going to be attempting any correlation to free space.  The measurements are for a given condition.  Due to the size of the cabinets and the space, it would be a bit presumptuous that we could make correlations that are all encompassing.  If a manufacturer has outdoor measurements of their boxes that don't include a bunch of external EQ, they are welcome to post comparative data as I did with the Growler and Ivan did with the TH115 to see how representative the responses are.  I can export the 2.8V measurements to a text format that most programs can read and plot.

I think Tom Danley was more re-affirming what I had said in my first post that these are Voltage sensitivity measurements, not power/efficiency.  I think Tom would agree it would be good to have the nominal/rated impedance and how the sub was driven displayed with or next to the data.  Since I have a bunch to do on this and other obligations, I'll suggest/request that others get together a post with a list of the 14 subs tested and their impedance and/or impedance per connection or driver as it is relevant.

I'm still debating the best way to display all of the data.  We could let the data of each stand as its own post as I've seen done in other forums where they dedicated a part of the forum for those posts, and make a sticky post that has an index and links to each.  The other option I'm thinking might make sense here is if we had a locked post in which I would post a description and linked index in the first post and then have a separate post for the data of each sub.  We could then keep that thread clean and clear to find the data in, and discuss ad-nauseium in separate threads.

Thoughts, ideas?
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 12, 2007, 07:22:25 PM
Ivan Beaver wrote on Sun, 11 February 2007 02:32

Actually the quote that was said was that a PAIR of Trips was about the same cubic volume as 3 TH115's.


That makes sense, but it seems that 3 TH-115's will have less output than 2 TRIP's.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Raj Sookraj on February 12, 2007, 07:54:26 PM
I corrected the data in this spreadsheet according to the manufacturer's website.  If any numbers are incorrect, please post it.  It's arranged from lowest to highest impedance, with other useful information.index.php/fa/7924/0/
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 12, 2007, 09:00:51 PM
raj sookraj wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 16:54

I corrected the data in this spreadsheet according to the manufacturer's website.  If any numbers are incorrect, please post it.  It's arranged from lowest to highest impedance, with other useful information...


The changes I see that you made to the spreadsheet I assembled (besides getting rid of the subs that didn't show) are the following:

BASSMAXX Z5000 nominal impedance goes from 2 to 3 Ohms.
EONA ADRaudio ATA 618 C dropped (why?)
EM Acoustics EMS 215 added (thanks!)
Danley Sound Labs TH-115 sensitivity changes from 110 to 103dB
Your own LAB modification changes from 4 Ohms nominal (parallel assumed) to 12 Ohms (clearly series wired) with corrected power handling; weight, sensitivity, freq range and max SPL added or corrected.

Here's my Excel spreadsheet again but with Raj's numbers right. I'm headed out the door for a bit but I'll add the EMS 215 when I get time. Raj or anybody at BASSMAXX, what is the nominal impedance of a Z5000?

-Bink

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Paul Bell on February 12, 2007, 10:33:36 PM
The BASSMAXX Z5000 is a 2 Ohm box, it has four 8 Ohm drivers. It can be configured as dual 4 Ohms. I think it's average sensitivity needs to be dropped to about 108 or so...

Mac, I would agree with you about extreme levels of bass in a small room as sounding "not right". It does get quite obnoxious. Kinda like a really good exhaust on a big block Chevy. Sounds great but in the car, it can be numbing. In a larger venue, this effect is lessoned. I just did a demo of four Z5K's in a 3,100 seat high school auditorium and the results were great. They bought them.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 12, 2007, 10:35:32 PM
[quote title=Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 02:00Danley Sound Labs TH-115 sensitivity changes from 110 to 103dB
-Bink
[/quote]
Well don't know if the horse is dead yet but he doesn't appear to be moving much but lets try this again.  
The TH115 does have a sensitivity of 110 dB @100 Hz and an average sensitivity of 103 dB from 39 Hz- 80 Hz.
A sensitivity must be referenced to a frequency so let's take the the Bassmaxx Trip which has a listed sensitivity of 109 dB but unfortunately no frequency of reference.  Based on measurements found at http://www.audioroundtable.com/ProSpeakers/messages/372.html it would appear that the Trip's 109 sensitivity is referenced to a pair of Trips @ 75 Hz. This same data also shows the pair of Trip 's sensitivity @ 45Hz is 103dB which is actually 2 dB less than a single TH115 at the same frequency.  A single Trip @ 45 Hz is actually 7 dB from a  single TH115 @ 45 Hz so it is really easy to see Pascal why three TH115's would do just fine against two Trips.

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 12, 2007, 10:47:26 PM
Yeah, it's the usual story: the public wants a simple answer but the truth is complex.

A single expression of sensitivity is one of the most awful specs we end users have to deal with.  Mad

I decided to change the single number shown on my spreadsheet because the frequency range this Shootout concentrated on did not include 100Hz. Sorry for perpetuating in my small way the use of such a one-dimensional spec.  Confused

-Bink
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Chris Davis on February 12, 2007, 10:48:12 PM
After wading through all those pics, I couldn't help wonder to myself: "all that bass and all those laptops, and NO failed harddrives?? Razz
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 12, 2007, 11:55:53 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 03:35

Well don't know if the horse is dead yet but he doesn't appear to be moving much but lets try this again.  
The TH115 does have a sensitivity of 110 dB @100 Hz and an average sensitivity of 103 dB from 39 Hz- 80 Hz.
A sensitivity must be referenced to a frequency so let's take the the Bassmaxx Trip which has a listed sensitivity of 109 dB but unfortunately no frequency of reference.  Based on measurements found at  http://www.audioroundtable.com/ProSpeakers/messages/372.html it would appear that the Trip's 109 sensitivity is referenced to a pair of Trips @ 75 Hz. This same data also shows the pair of Trip 's sensitivity @ 45Hz is 103dB which is actually 2 dB less than a single TH115 at the same frequency.  A single Trip @ 45 Hz is actually 7 dB from a  single TH115 @ 45 Hz so it is really easy to see Pascal why three TH115's would do just fine against two Trips.


Mike, as mentioned earlier on this forum, those outdoor measurements were taken with the neo drivers. The NY shootout was done with the ferrite drivers, which have a significantly better response in the low end, as seen in the NY measurements.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Elliot Thompson on February 13, 2007, 09:31:10 AM
Tim Coyle wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 03:58

Well....
I've not had time until recently to keep up with the thread, so this is my first 2 cents. So huge thanks to Mark for dealing with all the measurements, and trying to correlate them quickly.  Thanks to Elliot for the off-site pictorial coverage - even though I notice some fire equipment in the EM photos Smile And thanks Bennett & Paul for beer & pizza, without which I would not have stayed around to learn anything.  And I did learn a couple of things (some a bit late).


Hey Tim. The pictures were sent to me the day after the Shootout, from a friend. I wasn't the person taking pictures so, please don't take any offense (I know you didn't but this is my disclaimer Smile ) on the fire extinguisher next to your EM 215.

It was standing next to Danely 115 as well.

Best Regards,


Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Elliot Thompson on February 13, 2007, 09:51:53 AM
raj sookraj wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 00:54

I corrected the data in this spreadsheet according to the manufacturer's website.  If any numbers are incorrect, please post it.  It's arranged from lowest to highest impedance, with other useful information.index.php/fa/7924/0/



Just want to let you know that the BASSMAXX Trip registered 3.4 ohms on the Powersoft K 10 under a nominal load (That I can vouch for).

The EONA 618 weighs 300 pounds. This was confirmed by Alex Dravinec. The 618 is also self powered so the nominal impedance really doesn't matter since you are not using a stand alone amplifier. God forbid someone see the wattage and assume they need to find an amplifier that can supply 8400 watts in 4 ohms feeding 6 woofers   Laughing  It may be best to contact the manufacter if you want to be certain everything is in order.


Best Regards,
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Raj Sookraj on February 13, 2007, 11:35:35 AM
Did we record the nominal load shown on the Powersoft amps for all the subs?  Also, can anyone explain how they were wired to the amps.  I think someone said that most pairs of subs were on one channel.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 13, 2007, 12:13:24 PM

Pascal Pincosy wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 22:55

Mike, as mentioned earlier on this forum, those outdoor measurements were taken with the neo drivers. The NY shootout was done with the ferrite drivers, which have a significantly better response in the low end, as seen in the NY measurements.


I have no doubt that a change of drivers would make a change in response.  However, I don't think there is any way to compare data from the indoor measurements in NYC with data from the outdoors measurements in Tulsa.  The environmental differences are just too great, and it impacts response and overall SPL.  SPL is greater indoors because reflected energy is contained and response shape is modified because of room gain and standing wave modes.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 13, 2007, 12:28:12 PM
However, I don't think there is any way to compare data from the indoor measurements in NYC with data from the outdoors measurements in Tulsa.  
[/quote]

I agree with you Wayne.  What we are comparing is our outdoor measurements taken at ten meters to the ones done similarly at your Tulsa show. These should correlate well.

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc,
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 13, 2007, 01:42:27 PM
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 17:28

I agree with you Wayne.  What we are comparing is our outdoor measurements taken at ten meters to the ones done similarly at your Tulsa show. These should correlate well.


Isn't this thread about the subwoofer shootout in NYC? Why are you comparing measurements from a shootout with an entirely different model of subwoofer that wan't even represented at the NY shootout?

When I compare the results from NYC, I see that the TH-115 has a sensitivity of 104.5dB @ 45Hz, and the TRIP has a sensitivity of 109dB @ 45Hz. Assuming a constant impedance (hell Ivan just did it), and subtracting 4.3dB you can easily find that one TRIP has equal or greater sensitivity to a TH-115 @ 45Hz. And with three times the power handling of a TH-115, the TRIP has far more output.

Heck, even at 35Hz the sensitivity of a TRIP is greater than either a TH-115 OR a TH-215. It's not until below 35Hz that the TH-215's advantages become evident.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: David J Lee on February 13, 2007, 02:26:19 PM
The Z-5000 is a 2-ohm cabinet using 4 (8-ohm) drivers inparallel.  (Measured Z-min is 2.1 ohms.) This means it can also be wired as an 8 ohm load or as two 4-ohm loads, whichever best suits your amplifier(s).  



Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 13, 2007, 02:32:33 PM

Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 11:28

I agree with you Wayne.  What we are comparing is our outdoor measurements taken at ten meters to the ones done similarly at your Tulsa show. These should correlate well.



There are still two important differences, so I think in fairness to David Lee, these should be clearly stated.  One is the difference in drivers used in his BASSMAXX horns in Tulsa verses the ones he brought to NYC.  The other is the difference in smoothing between your published Danley Sound Labs measurements and the measurements made in Tulsa at the Prosound Shootout in 2005 and 2006.

Your DSL published response curve shows 16% smoothing.  The Tulsa Prosound Shootout measurements published are all unsmoothed.  This is a pretty significant difference, to tell the truth.  So while I think there is better correlation between your measurements and those done in Tulsa, I think the difference is very important to point out.

Smoothing from post-processing fills in the notches that result from internal standing waves.  Smaller horns usually suffer this worse than larger horns, and it shows this clearly.  Smoothing can mask that problem.

Studying unsmoothed curves is not as flattering, but it does show the characteristics of horns better.  It also shows very well the effect of using groups of horns and/or boundary loading, both of which improve response by reducing peaks and dips, flattening the curve.

At the Tulsa Prosound Shootout, we provided unsmoothed curves because these illuminate the differences between horns much better than smoothed curves do.  With enough smoothing, they all begin to look the same.  

We invited you to Tulsa last October, and wish you could have been there.  Hopefully, Danley Sound Labs can be represented in Tulsa this coming October.  Hope to see you then.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: David J Lee on February 13, 2007, 04:46:58 PM
Ah, the old sensitivity spec again.  So much has been said so I had to pick a place to drop in a reply.  I hope this is an appropriate spot.  

The BASSMAXX X3C uses 3 (8-ohm) drivers in parallel.

The TH215 uses 2 (8-ohm) drivers in parallel.

The impedance plot of the X3C is shown here side by side and scaled to match the Danley TH215 impedance plot.

index.php/fa/7939/0/

The Z-min of the BASSMAXX X3C is ~2.4 ohms and occurs at around 44 Hz.  

The Danley TH215 Z-min appears to be approximately 3 ohms and occurs at approximately 32Hz and again from 70 to 80Hz.  

That's 0.6 of an ohm difference.  

As you can see there is a lot more to sensitivity than simply calculating voltage, resistance and SPL.  You would need to calculate a sensitivity figure for each point on the impedance curve, which becomes impractical.  

Look at the two impedance plots in the range from 25 to 100Hz where these cabinets are most likely to be operated.  (see image in next post) If you pick just one frequency, one cabinet or the other would be able to claim a sensitivity advantage based on current dissipated, but that wouldn't give you the whole picture.  

What matters to us, as I'm sure it does to Danley & Co., is the performance of the loudspeakers in the real world.  Most importantly, does the loudspeaker achieve the objectives of the end user?  People want different things, thats why we build different products.

So what other real world issues matter to us? Do the amplifier(s) handle the load?  Apparently so.  Will the loudspeakers survive in the field?  Sure looks that way.  What else is important?  Size?  We brought the big guns because this was a shootout.  (Gasp! It's as big as a LAB sub! It's actually 45" by 45" by 24")

Our X2C is smaller and more similar in size to the Danley boxes, but if you only have two cabinets, the Trip is the true SPL monster.  In a club install, it's perfect:  Less cost, more SPL.  In a lot of cases, more SPL is what matters.  For a load-in, load-out on a Saturday night, it can be a bit of a bear.  That's why the X2C is in the lineup.  But that's not why we brought the X3C.  If you were there, I can guess you know why we brought the X3C.  It's a Trip!  

Back to the real world.  What matters to the guys who essentially asked us to build this cabinet is how much SPL you can get out of a given truck volume.  Higher sensitivity is critical, but higher realized SPL is the ultimate goal and key to the less gear = more sound equation.  What else? Reliability is key.  In extreme cases, survival is key.  (For them, the front to back cabinet dimension was also important.)

I've seen a post where someone claims 2 Trips can be matched by 3 TH115s based on sensitivity but...  When it gets up to max SPL, I don't think it will be a match any more.

For a more size appropriate comparison, try 3 TH115s and 3 X2C Deuces.  Three Deuces are the same size as two Trips but the volume is easier to manage cut into 3 pieces.  3 of them will exactly match the performance of the two X3Cs at the shootout.  
WHAT?  HUH?   Yeah, that's loud.

If you couldn't make it to the shootout and/or if you want to hear a bunch of big sound systems with big subwoofer arrays, Trips and Deuces included, come to Miami on the 23rd and 24th of March for the Winter Music Conference and Ultra Fest.  (Contact me for details.) It's a great opportunity to hear lots of big line arrays and subwoofers in the same place at the same time. (Meyer, VDosc, Nexo, BASSMAXX, DAS and more.)  If you can't make it, want to do your own shootout?!?  It's the only way to be sure... Very Happy

See ya soon!
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: David J Lee on February 13, 2007, 04:49:32 PM
index.php/fa/7940/0/
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael Hedden Jr. on February 13, 2007, 05:06:10 PM
Your DSL published response curve shows 16% smoothing.  The Tulsa Prosound Shootout measurements published are all unsmoothed.  This is a pretty significant difference, to tell the truth.  So while I think there is better correlation between your measurements and those done in Tulsa, I think the difference is very important to point out

I agree that overly processed data isn't a good thing but I don't know anyone that would consider 16% overly processed.  Many manufacturers present data with 33-50% smoothing and you are correct use a big enough crayon and you can really smooth the curve.  

A much more significant point than post processed smoothing is the actual frequency resolution of the data.  Danley's subs are measured with a frequency resolution of 3.5 Hz and displayed with 8192 data points.  So for comparison's sake what is the frequency resolution and how many data points where used in the Tulsa shootout data?

Mike Hedden
Danley Sound Labs, Inc.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 13, 2007, 05:37:26 PM

David J Lee wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 15:46

If you couldn't make it to the shootout and/or if you want to hear a bunch of big sound systems with big subwoofer arrays, Trips and Deuces included, come to Miami on the 23rd and 24th of March for the Winter Music Conference and Ultra Fest.  (Contact me for details.) It's a great opportunity to hear lots of big line arrays and subwoofers in the same place at the same time. (Meyer, VDosc, Nexo, BASSMAXX, DAS and more.)  If you can't make it, want to do your own shootout?!?  It's the only way to be sure... Very Happy


Let's all plan to be in Tulsa again next October.  We will measure max SPL, distortion and response same as we did before.  We measured at 10M/28.3v, then also used Zmin to calculate voltages required for specific power levels and measured SPL at 10M at 100W, 200W, 400W, etc.  No smoothing applied, so this series of tests really provides good information.


Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: David J Lee on February 13, 2007, 05:49:32 PM
Wayne Parham wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 11:13


Pascal Pincosy wrote on Mon, 12 February 2007 22:55

Mike, as mentioned earlier on this forum, those outdoor measurements were taken with the neo drivers. The NY shootout was done with the ferrite drivers, which have a significantly better response in the low end, as seen in the NY measurements.


I have no doubt that a change of drivers would make a change in response.  However, I don't think there is any way to compare data from the indoor measurements in NYC with data from the outdoors measurements in Tulsa.  The environmental differences are just too great, and it impacts response and overall SPL.  SPL is greater indoors because reflected energy is contained and response shape is modified because of room gain and standing wave modes.



Agreed.  Plus the measurement system was different.  The Praxis system references microphone input against voltage sensed directly from the amplifier output.  According to the manufacturer, Liberty Instruments, the reference is corrected/calculated to 1 volt regardless of the actual voltage output of the amplifier.  

The measurements from this shootout can only be accurately applied to compare those boxes in that room.  Anywhere else, the traces would look different.  The point here is that in that room, under those conditions, you now have comparison data on a number of products.  In my view, that's not an entirely bad thing as long as you keep the limitations in mind.

Something else to keep in mind is that if you have outdoor measurements of a loudspeaker, you will almost certainly not get that same response indoors unless it's a very, very big room.  

That said, looking at lines on a piece of paper or a computer screen won't tell you everything you need and want to know about a loudspeaker.  Being there is infinitely more enlightening than looking at two-dimensional graphs taken from one spot on the floor.  My advice is listen for yourself.  Listening to speakers side by side always makes each of their strengths and weaknesses more apparent.  I go to these to expose BASSMAXX subs to more interested ears and because it helps me find where we are strong and where we need to be stronger compared to other products on the market.  I go because people often ask me about our products compared to XXX or YYY and I like to have both objective and subjective references to pull from.  If you're planning on making a purchase, you should have that experience.  If you don't, ask someone who was there who has the same taste as you or do your own comparison.  We'll do what we can to oblige.    

One more thing: You could hear a lot more walking around that room than that microphone could pick up from that one spot on the floor, I can promise you.  

I've done these things in lots of different rooms of varying shapes and sizes and in the great outdoors and I wouldn't have missed one of them for the experience they afforded.  

This was a very tough room in which to distinguish nuances of sound quality due to the prevalence of reflections, modes and vibrating fixtures.  It was a tough room to get a good measurement in.  It was very small and very concrete.  Far from ideal, yes, but not too far from the reality of sound work.  

All the best,
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 13, 2007, 06:03:45 PM

Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 16:06

I agree that overly processed data isn't a good thing but I don't know anyone that would consider 16% overly processed.  Many manufacturers present data with 33-50% smoothing and you are correct use a big enough crayon and you can really smooth the curve.



Please don't take my comments as a slur.  I didn't say your curves were overly processed, but I did want to point out that they were processed.  Using the same 1/6 octave smoothing you used, the response curve of a single 12Pi basshorn subwoofer looks about the same as a group of four does when no smoothing is applied, it's perfectly flat.  So the two curves can't really be compared, and I wanted to point that out.  On casual inspection, people might not notice that your curve has been smoothed, and the other hasn't.
 
Michael Hedden Jr. wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 16:06

A much more significant point than post processed smoothing is the actual frequency resolution of the data.  Danley's subs are measured with a frequency resolution of 3.5 Hz and displayed with 8192 data points.  So for comparison's sake what is the frequency resolution and how many data points where used in the Tulsa shootout data?




You can see the setup we used in the test plan above.  At the 2005 Prosound Shootout, the sweeps were set to run two decades from 10Hz to 1kHz and take 400 samples of this range.  I'm not sure what resolution was used in 2006, maybe David Lee could answer that.  But you can clearly see that the resolution in each case was high enough to show plenty of data points over the range of interest.

Take the graph of the Tuba 24 shown below, for example.  You can see the individual data points as stair-stepped details in the response curve.  I don't recall the exact spread, but you can see that every 10Hz below 100Hz is represented with dozens of samples.  There must be 30 or 40 data points between 10Hz and 20Hz, another several dozen sample points between 20Hz and 30Hz, and so on.  No smoothing and plenty of resolution to get a clear picture.

Tuba 24 Response Chart
http://www.prosoundshootout.com/Measurements/Tuba24_28v.gif
 
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tom Danley on February 13, 2007, 08:23:19 PM
Hi Dave, Pascal, Wayne.

I have been busy like everyone else but I have read the exchange about “what goes louder”.
Fwiw, I had received a copy of the measurements myself but had not had much chance to do anything with them until today when the AES meeting was canceled.
I have done a data conversion of some of the data into more user-friendly files which I will send on to Mark, Ivan and Mac shortly.
Unfortunately inside isn’t like outside, there are a lot of room effects and a room full of unpowered speakers is not even the same as an empty room.

Since it wasn’t at a meter or in half space, the 1w data was pretty uninteresting so I didn’t do anything with it.
I took the 28V measurements and converted them to Text files (freq, mag, phase) and Jpg files for each box. The text files can be loaded into many different programs for further doodling.
Since most of the boxes were 4 Ohm loads (and wanting to minimize the work), I up and down converted the measured levels by the appropriate amount depending if it were a 8, 4, 3 or 2 Ohm nominal load and saved these as “power-normalized”(Relative to the  4 Ohm boxes which are not changed) curves as JPG files for each. This way the level is shifted to simulate an equal power into each box’s nominal load Z.
Without seeing each color, I figured two curves per graph would be safe so I also paired the boxes up by size ( by box volumes on the spread sheet) and plotted power-normalized responses in pairs, saved as JPG images.  I also converted the THD files for each box at 28 Volts to Jpg files.

David, the curve below is what one would get in that room, in that space with each of these three speakers had they been driven at the same power .  This would reflect the power response in that location in that room but not much else.
As you can see, the electro acoustic efficiency and frequency response is similar between the Trip and TH115 while the TH215 is less efficient but has a lower corner frequency.
So, if one did the math and said each of your boxes could withstand 6000Watts program and there were no such thing as power compression or Xmax, then doing the math, the pair of Trip’s would be louder than a pair of 115’s, just a Pair of 115’s do not exhibit much boundary loading like a physically large box like a pair of Trips do.
On the other hand, two trips occupy 56.2 cubic feet where two TH-115’s occupy 29.2 cubic feet, only 52% of the space.
If one wished to more fairly compare “bass per cubic feet” or tuck space as you said, then 4 TH-115s would actually only be 4% larger than two trips.  The difference in efficiency between two and four 115’s is 3 to 4 dB across the band and system power capacity is +3dB.

The 28 Volt harmonic distortion differences are interesting and a trend likely adding to the impression of the Trip’s extreme loudness at very high powers.
At 28 Volts (at 262 Watts into the Trip, well down from the 6KW program rating), at 32Hz where harmonics mostly fall unmasked in the subwoofers own frequency range, the Trip’s THD was 39.5%, Fwiw, the TH-115’s was 14% and the TH-215’s was 8.8%

Wayne, a couple things, the more you stretch out the frequency axis, the smoother any curve looks. Your curves cover from 20-20K, nice for a full range speaker but at least the top 5 octaves are pretty much undesirable so far as a subwoofer plot.
Also some Smoothing is actually desirable for two reasons.
First, the “grass” and tiny steps in your measurement are not part of the subwoofers output. These will generally go away up close where you have a better Signal to noise ratio or add smoothing.   For example, in your posted curve, your noise immunity appears to fade away around 80-85dB, the grass is noise, not the speaker but being uncorrelated noise, would be effectively smoothed.
Second, ones ears have a critical bandwidth between a third and sixth octave so seeing much greater resolution may not tell you anything useful (as with the measurement noise).
Best,

Tom Danley

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 13, 2007, 08:43:41 PM
Quote:

...the Trip’s THD was 39.5%, Fwiw, the TH-115’s was 14% and the TH-215’s was 8.8%...


I wonder how much of the THD was the second harmonic which is often said to bear little importance in human audibility at subwoofer frequencies.

-Bink
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Tom Danley on February 13, 2007, 09:14:15 PM
Hi Bink

While the spectra is unknown in this case, normally with a woofer or simple mechanical oscillatory systems, the third harmonic is usually the dominant one.
It is true that with music (but not non-harmonically related sounds), that even harmonics are more tolerated being musically related intervals, (even preferred in some cases) compared to odd and the second has to be pretty high to be audible.
Without masking sound (such as in a movie scenes where there is LF but little else) , Dolby labs found that because of ones ears decreasing sensitivity, that one could hear lf distortion “too easily” down low.   For example (one data point I remember) with a 20Hz sine wave (worst case), a third harmonic of only 7% was judged to be equally loud as the fundamental as a result of your ears being so much less sensitive at 20Hz as they are at 60Hz.
Thus they concluded, making subwoofers with a low cutoff AND inaudible distortion was a very daunting task.
Best,

Tom
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on February 13, 2007, 10:09:50 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 20:14

Hi Bink

While the spectra is unknown in this case, normally with a woofer or simple mechanical oscillatory systems, the third harmonic is usually the dominant one.
It is true that with music (but not non-harmonically related sounds), that even harmonics are more tolerated being musically related intervals, (even preferred in some cases) compared to odd and the second has to be pretty high to be audible.
Without masking sound (such as in a movie scenes where there is LF but little else) , Dolby labs found that because of ones ears decreasing sensitivity, that one could hear lf distortion ?too easily? down low.   For example (one data point I remember) with a 20Hz sine wave (worst case), a third harmonic of only 7% was judged to be equally loud as the fundamental as a result of your ears being so much less sensitive at 20Hz as they are at 60Hz.
Thus they concluded, making subwoofers with a low cutoff AND inaudible distortion was a very daunting task.
Best,

Tom



OK, here's a fairly obscure observation about harmonic distortion and subs. While it may be popular wisdom that low order harmonic distortion is innocuous because of similarity to musical instrument sources, if the source for the sub happens to be a kick drum the overtones don't fall on simple harmonics. The first overtone nominally occurs at 1.6x but even this ratio varies with tuning..

This is surely subtle but I vote for lower distortion to make your drums sound like drums.  

JR
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 14, 2007, 12:46:26 AM

Tom Danley wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 19:23

Wayne, a couple things, the more you stretch out the frequency axis, the smoother any curve looks. Your curves cover from 20-20K, nice for a full range speaker but at least the top 5 octaves are pretty much undesirable so far as a subwoofer plot.
Also some Smoothing is actually desirable for two reasons.
First, the “grass” and tiny steps in your measurement are not part of the subwoofers output. These will generally go away up close where you have a better Signal to noise ratio or add smoothing.   For example, in your posted curve, your noise immunity appears to fade away around 80-85dB, the grass is noise, not the speaker but being uncorrelated noise, would be effectively smoothed.


The Prosound Shootout measurements were made with a sweep from 10Hz to 1kHz.  The chart width may be a bit inconvenient, in that it may be easier to read if the scale ended at 1kHz where the trace did.  That would stretch the subwoofer frequencies out and make the curves appear smoother.  But it is of little consequence to me because the data is all still there.

As for smoothing subwoofer response curves, I respectfully disagree.  Or maybe I should say I only agree with you if you're advocating smoothing only for the purpose of anti-aliasing, and nothing more.

The "steps" you see in an unsmoothed chart are a result of digital sampling, and these artifacts are called aliasing artifacts.  The higher the number of samples, the more "steps" there are.  But interpretation of the raw data is not at all hard to do.  At least, no data is lost.  A tiny amount of smoothing can be applied, like 1%, if you want to anti-alias the signal and round the edges without losing data.

To me, data loss should be the criteria.  Maybe I should be more specific and say "information loss" should be the smoothing limit criteria.  Some data is meaningless, like the noise and sampling artifacts you mentioned.  But if data holds information, it should not be removed in order to modify the presentation.  In other words, I think smoothing can be applied only until it starts to modify the response curve, removing peaks and dips that are an obvious part of the speaker's true response.

When a response curve is smoothed, data is lost.  More importantly, most times information is lost and the response curve is artificially smoothed as a result.  Sure, it makes the response chart look better;  An unsmoothed response curve can sometimes be a little bit unflattering.  That keeps an unsmoothed response curve far away from most marketing departments, but I think it is very useful for those of us trying to find out what is really going on with our speakers, especially subwoofers.

I do think sometimes 1/6 octave or even 1/3 octave smoothing is helpful when looking at midrange and full range speakers.  Removing some detail at higher frequencies helps to show the overall balance of a speaker.  Sometimes it is good to look at several renderings of the data in different resolutions.  But subwoofers are already pretty smooth generally.

I've measured many subwoofers with no smoothing applied that have very flat response curves.   But horn subwoofers usually have peaks and dips in their raw response charts.  These will be masked by smoothing, so I think it is important to see the raw response of subwoofers.  A tiny amount of smoothing might be acceptable, just for anti-aliasing.  But I think I'd rather see a little bit of aliasing than to wonder whether I'm missing important features in a horn subwoofer's response curve.

At the Tulsa Prosound Shootout, we made all of our measurements the same way, and we did no post processing of the data files.  The environment added nothing above the ambient noise floor, because it was a very large outdoor space.  We set the power levels, made the sweeps and collected the data.  I think it was a very good way to compare subwoofers.

Hopefully, you'll join us with some of your subs in Tulsa next October.
Title: Here we go again...
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 14, 2007, 04:22:19 AM
Tom Danley wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 01:23


The 28 Volt harmonic distortion differences are interesting and a trend likely adding to the impression of the Trip’s extreme loudness at very high powers.
At 28 Volts (at 262 Watts into the Trip, well down from the 6KW program rating), at 32Hz where harmonics mostly fall unmasked in the subwoofers own frequency range, the Trip’s THD was 39.5%, Fwiw, the TH-115’s was 14% and the TH-215’s was 8.8%


I think I mentioned this already, but apparently not everyone got it. I don't think it is fair at all to post specifics regarding data that hasn't been released yet. Not that I'm accusing you Tom, but it's just far too easy to cherry-pick data points that will make your own designs look better in contrast. If the data was freely available to someone without a TEF, then a fair dialogue could occur regarding the results.

In the example above, the THD measurements are taken at a frequency below the TRIP's horn cutoff, which is a range that's going to show increased distortion like any other horn-loaded cabinet. Will the THD measurements show similar results higher in the TRIP's response? Well it seems only Mark Seaton and the Danley team know the answer to that question right now. And that's why I think discussing this data right now is bull@%!t. No disrespect intended.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: Elliot Thompson on February 14, 2007, 06:57:55 AM
raj sookraj wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 16:35

Did we record the nominal load shown on the Powersoft amps for all the subs?  Also, can anyone explain how they were wired to the amps.  I think someone said that most pairs of subs were on one channel.


Unfortunately the impedance response of the amplifier housing each box was not noted. I just happen to be standing next to rack when the Trips were being connected and noticed the impedance reading.

It's a shame really. Those readings would've really answered a lot of questions many are trying to figure out.

As for the connections, you might want to contact the manufacture/dealer how each box was connected. There were two Speakon Cables and both channel indicators were present during the test. I would guess all boxes (With the exception to the McCauley) were wired one Speakon per box.

A lot of this stuff has already been addressed on the threads that were locked. So, you might want to refresh yourself with the closed threads.

Best Regards,  





Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II-smoothing
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 14, 2007, 07:26:48 AM
I thought I would post a shot of a 10% smoothed response and a non smoothed response, just so you can see the "big difference" it makes.

The reason it looks smoother than your measured responses is because of the resolution used.  We used a 16.6 second sweep that used 1024 samples over a much narrower bandwidth, resulting in a 2.5Hz resolution.

This was the measurement taken at the shootout and is of a TH115.

I used the same freq bandwidth as you did, but the trace does not go as high, because we did not sweep it as high as you did.

The TEF preserves all the data and has no smoothing when taking the measurement.  This allows you to display the data any way you want to later on, as done here.
index.php/fa/7948/0/

Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II-smoothing
Post by: Paul Bell on February 14, 2007, 09:11:51 AM
I'm thinking that we should have done this shootout without any type of measuring devices whatsoever. Only our ears.

I've been told for years that my subs of choice are crap, don't perform as advertised and will lose in a comparison test. After the shootout, my ears tell me different. This has been proved before yet there remains naysayers. My brand clearly went louder than the next nameplate and didn't burn up in the process. There I was all ready to change over to another brand of sub to have "the best". After the shootout, I consider myself as already having the best subs made. I'll listen to my ears.

-PB
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II-smoothing
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 14, 2007, 10:56:02 AM

Thanks for posting that, Ivan.  I prefer the unsmoothed response curve, especially for subwoofers and basshorns.  You can clearly see the difference that smoothing makes, even just 10%.  After smoothing, some features of the response curve are lost.

Ivan Beaver wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 06:26

I thought I would post a shot of a 10% smoothed response and a non smoothed response, just so you can see the "big difference" it makes.

The reason it looks smoother than your measured responses is because of the resolution used.  We used a 16.6 second sweep that used 1024 samples over a much narrower bandwidth, resulting in a 2.5Hz resolution.

This was the measurement taken at the shootout and is of a TH115.

I used the same freq bandwidth as you did, but the trace does not go as high, because we did not sweep it as high as you did.

The TEF preserves all the data and has no smoothing when taking the measurement.  This allows you to display the data any way you want to later on, as done here.
index.php/fa/7948/0/



Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Tom Danley on February 14, 2007, 11:10:36 AM
Hi Pascal, Wayne

Perhaps you did not read my post carefully, I said I have converted the data for people to look at / use / view without a TEF machine.
I said I also normalized some of the curves relative to the power the 4 Ohms boxes received producing equal power curves.
I said I skipped the 2.8 V measurements as they were uninteresting, are you really keen to know what the boxes did at one to four Watts?
Also, fwiw, due to the significant room effects on the phase, Group delay plots were essentially useless and BTW, our boxes aren’t the lowest in distortion either.

My concern (if you read my posts) was simply that since efficiency IS part of a speakers performance, that somewhere the rough differences in power going to each should be part of the comparative results.
You and David pushed the idea of “how loud” the Trip goes using very vague specifications not backed up by measured curves yet you squeal “cherry picking” when after some considerable time I used actual measurements to counter your specific argument.  
You simply can’t accurately specify a subwoofer that is not flat with “A” number, you need a response curve.

For example,  compare the measured acoustic power produced with an identical power to each box and then in contrast to the stated 1W sensitivities for each.
If there were real acoustic measurements available for the current version of the Trip, it would be easy to see how they compare (to any other speaker measured the same way too).  
If the response of the current Trip is not the same as at Wayne’s, then what is it and why isn’t it available?  
David, why not hire someone with a TEF to measure your products so people can see how they perform?
Also, are we your real competition, do you really want a shoot out with us to see how just loud or low “one box” can go?

Pascal, clearly you have a personal issue with us /me /our company but it would also seem to be based on little first hand experience or actual acoustic data.    
Our data is repeatable, done in a proper way and some of it is even taken by an independent acoustic measurement company, so where is the beef?
You complain the THD measurement I cited is below the passband of the Trip (also the TH-115) yet if one used the Trip with a 2nd order high pass filter even at 64Hz and drove it to its rated program power, it would still get nearly 400 Watts at 32Hz.
My bet is most folks use a lower “high pass” filter than 64Hz fwiw.
The fact is, generally the lower you go in frequency, the more audible a given % of distortion is.  

Wayne, there are several things that set resolution, that also define what is optimal.
With the TEF, one has the number of data points gathered from top to bottom.
One also has the measurement bandwidth which defines how narrow each window is.
Lastly, one has smoothing which can be applied after the data is taken.

Some rules of thumb.
To get super high resolution data for a computer model, one should set the BW to be about 1/10 the lowest frequency in question, for a normal broad band measurement the BW can be anywhere from less than the lowest F to some practical fraction of it (like 1/3).
The catch 22 is the greater the resolution, the slower the measurement and the more reflections can get in. All gated systems have the trade off in that they trade resolution for rejection of out band signals.    So, a high res subwoofer measurement must be done outside, far from anything that reflects and done slowly enough for the required data resolution and at a larger distance which reduces the error caused by the large physical size of the box not buried in the ground.  The 10 meter distance we and you used is very logical as it is simply –20dB from 1 meter.

Noise corruption.
I am not familiar with the LEAP for measuring but, if that were a TEF plot, I would say that the measurement “grass” or fine structure in the graph would probably not be visible at a closer distance, one would see a smoother curve as normally there is nothing in a loudspeaker which can support the very high Q’s at low frequency one see’s here.
In any case a close measure would show that or not if it were part of the speaker.

This doesn’t mean the measurement is wrong, it is just including some external sound which by random addition and subtraction results in the sharp cancellation features seen at low levels.  
I see Ivan has posted some unsmoothed curves.
Keep in mind the TEF (TDS)  is unusually good at rejecting reflected / ambient noise and measuring low frequencies so its measurements have more speaker and less external influence in them than most (than all I think) other gated approaches.
Best,

Tom Danley

Title: Re:smoothing
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 14, 2007, 11:31:07 AM
Looking at the 2 versions of the single data set that Ivan posted, I don't see a reason to feel strongly about smoothing one way or the other. The lack of small detail in the smoothed plot doesn't misrepresent the speaker's response, nor does the small detail in the un-smoothed plot change the overall impression of the response. I think if you are comparing multiple speakers on overlayed plots, the smoothed versions would probably be easier to read, and meaningful trends in response more obvious.

In the end, these plots may give guidance in choosing what few speakers to listen to when making a purchasing decision, but the final purchasing decision should be made with your ears.

Mac
Title: Re:smoothing
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 14, 2007, 11:55:09 AM
Mac Kerr wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 10:31

The lack of small detail in the smoothed plot doesn't misrepresent the speaker's response, nor does the small detail in the un-smoothed plot change the overall impression of the response.

...but the final purchasing decision should be made with your ears.

Mac

AMEN, brother!

Tim Mc
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Ivan Beaver on February 14, 2007, 01:00:04 PM
Ok, with all this talk about measurements and smoothing etc, I though I would chime in.  I have been reluctant to say anything, as most people don't want to hear the truth.  But here it is.

When you see a measurement curve, do you assume that that is the response of all of the cabinets by the same model number?  Most people would.  HOWEVER if you take the exact same measurement of dozens of boxes you will quickly learn that they vary from cabinet to cabinet.  Some will be a db or so higher at one freq and a dB or so lower at another.

Over a wide range of cabinets the curves whould look the same, asif drawn with a wide tip marker, but if you really want to picky about every little bump, remember that each cabinet will have different "bumps".

If you don't believe me, you have not compared enough cabinets.

Typically a driver manufacturer will have a +-2dB acceptance factor for drivers.  This gives a possible 4dB window.  Some manufacturers are better than others. Throw in crossover tolerances, and you get all sorts of differences.  BUt unless manufacturers are hand picking drivers, you will get variances.

So what do you see in a response curve?  There is an old industry joke about a response curve "Either it is the best one they could find, or the only one they took".  I cannot speak for other manufacturers, but Danley just grabs a cabinet and measures it and publishes that data, they do not "pick and choose".  Others may, I can't say what they do. Your cabinet may be a little better or a little worse, but only by a dB or 2-across the band.  It will average out to be the same-or very very close.

At the shootout, Danley supplied two TH115's that had been sitting out in the weather with no protection, on top of a High School field house for the football season, exposed to the elements-heat, cold (at least southern cold-don't laugh!), wind etc.  Kind of a weather test.

I know that the two Trips supplied by Bassmaxx had been used in at least one outdoor field party-maybe more.  When they were first fired up we thought there was smoke coming out of them, but soon realized that it was just California dust (from the party).  Maybe that is why the rest of the afternoon was kinda foggy Laughing

The two Danley TH215's had new drivers in them that came in the day before they were shipped out to the shootout.  These were the only ones with these drivers in them in existance at the time of the shootout.

So for these three cabinets, the data that was measured may not exactly be reprsentative of "real" cabinets-who knows unless we have the exact same measured data before (when they were new) and after, which we don't.

At least in the cases of the TH115's and Trips, they have some abuse on them, both weather and signal, so they may be slightly different than production runs.

The bottom line is this,  you have to look at general trends in the freq response and not each little bump or dip, because that is going to change between similar cabinets.  That is another exuse to use a little smoothing.
Title: Re:smoothing
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 14, 2007, 01:57:11 PM
Mac Kerr wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 10:31

The lack of small detail in the smoothed plot doesn't misrepresent the speaker's response, nor does the small detail in the un-smoothed plot change the overall impression of the response.


The problem is when you compare a smoothed response curve of one speaker with an unsmoothed curve from another speaker.  Someone proposed comparing a response curve of their subwoofer that had been post-processed for 1/6 octave smoothing to a response curve of another subwoofer that had not been smoothed.  The difference is pretty significant.
Title: Re:smoothing
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 14, 2007, 02:07:35 PM
Wayne Parham wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 13:57

Mac Kerr wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 10:31

The lack of small detail in the smoothed plot doesn't misrepresent the speaker's response, nor does the small detail in the un-smoothed plot change the overall impression of the response.


The problem is when you compare a smoothed response curve of one speaker with an unsmoothed curve from another speaker.  Someone proposed comparing a response curve of their subwoofer that had been post-processed for 1/6 octave smoothing to a response curve of another subwoofer that had not been smoothed.  The difference is pretty significant.

But that is not the case with this set of data. They will all have the same smoothing. There are more compelling reasons why this data cannot be compared to your non-smoothed data from Tulsa. These plots can only be compared against each other. The data will quantify what we heard or didn't hear at the listening session, in the same room as the measurements were made. You are trying to create an issue where one doesn't exist.

Mac
Title: Re:smoothing
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 14, 2007, 02:19:24 PM
I could never be a "building committee" member because I refuse to purchase buildings from a presentation of pretty pictures.

With that same reasoning, I don't buy subwoofers or any other transducer based on the pictures, graphs, or "specs."  While those things can be helpful, ultimately I have to make my own measurements and have my own listening time with the product in a venue that I work in regularly... and preferably in a "real world" use, i.e. with bands and BEs, me and my staff.

At the NYC shootout, I found it possible to get an idea of unit performance while the long TEF sweeps were done.  It was easy to hear distortion at higher powers during testing.  I think most of the guys there will agree that we selected the units for listening "tests" based on what we heard, before we considered what was on Mark's TEF screens.

Have fun!

Tim Mc
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on February 14, 2007, 02:35:21 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 16:10

Hi Pascal, Wayne

Perhaps you did not read my post carefully, I said I have converted the data for people to look at / use / view without a TEF machine.


I did notice you converted the data. My issue is that it's not available (here for all to see nor in the hands of others at this time). Since it's not available, there can be no educated counter to your claims. See if you hold the data and you use it to make arguments, you are putting others involved in the testing at a disadvantage.

Imagine if I were responsible for taking the measurements at the shootout, the data from which I then gave to David Lee but not to you, for whatever reason, and David then started making claims about the performance of his speakers vs yours and quoting measurements. Would you think that fair?

If you wait to comment on data until after it's available then it seems clear that there is no arguing with the facts. The data speaks for itself. But until that data has been delivered it seems premature to me to quote it.

Quote:

You and David pushed the idea of “how loud” the Trip goes using very vague specifications not backed up by measured curves yet you squeal “cherry picking” when after some considerable time I used actual measurements to counter your specific argument.


Tom, I don't work for Bassmaxx. I have made no money selling Bassmaxx equipment. I have zero financial stake in selling speakers at this time. Some months ago I quoted some vague figures yes. I immediately made clear that said figures were in flux and that the final word would have to wait for verification. My claim that I expected that 2 TH-115's would equal one TRIP was mostly based on my personal experience with listening to TH-115's numerous times here in the Bay Area. Not measurement data and I made that very clear at that time. I am as interested as everyone else is in viewing the final plots and clearing up any misconceptions that I may have.

And if you carefully read my post, you'll see that I specifically did not accuse you of "cherry-picking." Nor was that comment directed at your helpful attempt to clear up the efficiency questions. Had you not continued on to quote THD figures that had not been published I would have no issue with your post.

Quote:

Pascal, clearly you have a personal issue with us /me /our company but it would also seem to be based on little first hand experience or actual acoustic data.    
Our data is repeatable, done in a proper way and some of it is even taken by an independent acoustic measurement company, so where is the beef?


Tom, clearly you're not hearing me. I respect that you publish your specs, data and measurements. I have no beef with them,  and this is the second time I'm having to say this. I do appreciate your personal efforts to compare apples to apples. In this specific situation, I have a problem with you quoting data sets with no immediate means of viewing said data, which should be available to all for a fair dialogue to occur. I also have issue with the number of blatently erroneous claims that Mike Hedden has made in this thread.

Title: Re:smoothing
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 14, 2007, 02:54:35 PM

Mac Kerr wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 13:07

There are more compelling reasons why this data cannot be compared to your non-smoothed data from Tulsa. These plots can only be compared against each other. The data will quantify what we heard or didn't hear at the listening session, in the same room as the measurements were made.



Absolutely, I agree.  The two datasets collected, the outdoors measurements done in Tulsa and the indoors ones from NYC, can't be compared because the environments and placement conditions were too different.

The whole issue of smoothing is another issue entirely.  I wouldn't compare a chart smoothed to 1/6 octave with another that wasn't smoothed, that's for sure.  And I'd prefer to see the unsmoothed data, personally.  But as for comparisons between the measurements made in Tulsa with those made in NYC, none are possible for reasons beyond the matter of smoothing.
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II-smoothing
Post by: Tom Danley on February 14, 2007, 03:07:52 PM
Hi Paul

There is the entire subjective vs objective argument, where in home hifi the subjective position dominates. The phrase “you can’t hear measurements” is the standard refrain in the subjectivists camp, you know the “old golden” ear vs “meter reader” debate.
To the typical end user, ones ears are likely to be a more useful tool than a bunch of numbers and curves unless tediously explained in the text..
On the other hand, while measuring indoors does significantly hobble the amount o information that can be gathered, it is not entirely un useful.
Also, for anyone designing, using ones ears alone is usually a pretty short road that ends in a corn field.

Clearly it sounds like this was an event you held with a purpose, it sounded like everyone was impressed how loud the Trips went, you said somewhere you got sales from it too.
If I were you and David, I would use how low the Trip’s distortion is higher up in frequency as a selling point. The up side is how they look compared to most everything else. I have plotted them in pairs by next closest box size, you will see what I mean.
I will try to go through them one more time tonight and send them off.

You said “I've been told for years that my subs of choice are crap, don't perform as advertised and will lose in a comparison test”.
I would ask which subs have you been using?, were they models tested or something else?  Where have you seen any kind of reliable measurements that people could actually compare against anyway?
Lastly, speaking of hearing, no one including you got to hear the TH-215’s “cranked up” with the high pass filter set at 30Hz instead of 20Hz because it didn’t happen, the impromptu crank up time was right after our boxes.
I know you probably wouldn’t have liked the sound but I wish others had been able to hear how loud / low / clean they can go, the THD at  32Hz is a clue I suppose.

Given how much animosity measurements and data seem to cause perhaps and the difficulty putting it in context, it would have been better to only listen to them.
Best,

Tom Danley

Title: Re: marketing
Post by: Mac Kerr on February 14, 2007, 03:19:20 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 15:07

Given how much animosity measurements and data seem to cause perhaps and the difficulty putting it in context, it would have been better to only listen to them.
Maybe it would be best if nobody referenced the measurements until they are all available to everybody.

You are right to be proud of what you have accomplished with your speaker designs, they sounded great to me. This is not however a bully pulpit for any manufacturer to market their product. When the full data set is available everyone will be able to make their own determination, and to discuss, and ask questions of the manufacturers who participated. Till then it would be best to stick to what the people who attended actually heard, as that is the only data currently available.

Mac
Title: Re: NYC Subwoofer Shootout 2007 Results Part II
Post by: David J Lee on February 14, 2007, 03:31:55 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Tue, 13 February 2007 19:23

Hi Dave, Pascal, Wayne.


I have done a data conversion of some of the data into more user-friendly files which I will send on to Mark, Ivan and Mac shortly.




Can I get those, too please?

Quote:



Unfortunately inside isn’t like outside, there are a lot of room effects and a room full of unpowered speakers is not even the same as an empty room.

Since it wasn’t at a meter or in half space, the 1w data was pretty uninteresting so I didn’t do anything with it.
I took the 28V measurements and converted them to Text files (freq, mag, phase) and Jpg files for each box. The text files can be loaded into many different programs for further doodling.
Since most of the boxes were 4 Ohm loads (and wanting to minimize the work), I up and down converted the measured levels by the appropriate amount depending if it were a 8, 4, 3 or 2 Ohm nominal load and saved these as “power-normalized”(Relative to the  4 Ohm boxes which are not changed) curves as JPG files for each. This way the level is shifted to simulate an equal power into each box’s nominal load Z.
Without seeing each color, I figured two curves per graph would be safe so I also paired the boxes up by size ( by box volumes on the spread sheet) and plotted power-normalized responses in pairs, saved as JPG images.  I also converted the THD files for each box at 28 Volts to Jpg files.

David, the curve below is what one would get in that room, in that space with each of these three speakers had they been driven at the same power.  


How much change was applied to each box to get them 'power normalized'?  If the TH215 is a 4 ohm box with a Z-min of 3 ohms, by how much and to what nominal spec was the Trip and the TH115 adjusted? Can I please get copies of the files you're talking about?


Quote:

This would reflect the power response in that location in that room but not much else.

As you can see, the electro acoustic efficiency and frequency response is similar between the Trip and TH115 while the TH215 is less efficient but has a lower corner frequency.




You can say that again.  They all seem to look mighty similar in there.  Much more similar than I expect they would under different circumstances. The room does seem to have a rather pronounced effect, doesn't it?  That's no surprize.  I'm all for outdoor testing.  The reason for putting a bunch of speakers in a room is to listen to them.  The reason for measuring speakers in a room is to equalize them. (For the room.)

Thanks for your time.  We all have important things to do besides this, don't we?

All the best,

Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Tom Danley on February 14, 2007, 03:39:40 PM
Hi Pascal

“I did notice you converted the data. My issue is that it's not available (here for all to see nor in the hands of others at this time). Since it's not available, there can be no educated counter to your claims. See if you hold the data and you use it to make arguments, you are putting others involved in the testing at a disadvantage.”

Ok, so when my AES thing was postponed on account of Snow, I had a chance to convert it as described,  the discussion about loudness was spiraling to infinity and I didn’t want to wait longer for someone else to get time to do it.
Do you agree with the rational of not bothering with the 2.8V stuff and normalizing it to the 4 Ohms box, 28Volt  power level?
I figured all the speakers looked “bad” from a marketing standpoint (compared to the nice distortion figures people are normally shown) at 28V though.
Like I told Paul, I will try to go through it one last time tonight and I’ll send it off to Mark, Ivan and Mac to do with what they choose.

“I also have issue with the number of blatantly erroneous claims that Mike Hedden has made in this thread.”

I am not sure which things you refer to exactly and I have to get back to real work, but I would say this about Mike.
Mike is one of or perhaps the most honest and genuine person I have ever known.
As a business partner he is straight as a laser beam and a true enthusiast about our company.    He would not knowingly lie about our stuff, he is a long time Synaudcon guy, a friend of Dr. Patronis (professor emeritus in acoustics at Georgia tech),  there really is sort of a thing here about being realistic.  
On the other hand, like everyone who is sincere about telling the truth, what you believe to be true may occasionally actually be technically wrong. Research is sort of finding “those places” in an organized way I guess.
Got to run,

Tom Danley
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: David J Lee on February 14, 2007, 03:48:45 PM
Tom Danley wrote on Wed, 14 February 2007 10:10

Hi
David, why not hire someone with a TEF to measure your products so people can see how they perform?
Also, are we your real competition, do you really want a shoot out with us to see how just loud or low “one box” can go?

Tom Danley




I haven't hired anyone with a TEF because I already have an LMS system and a Praxis system.  

Think about it, Tom, who besides the two of us can even play at this level?  It would be no fun to shoot out against less worthy competition.

(Just as an interesting side note, I never did think one could see how a loudspeaker performs. I think one has to hear how a loudspeaker performs.)

All the best,
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: drewgandy on February 15, 2007, 05:19:55 PM
Paul Bell made a comment to the effect that perhaps this "shootout" should have been a listen only affair.  I would like to "re-up" my unattended question about what kind of process or efforts went into the crossover region between the subs and the in club system for the listening portion.  Were there any adjustments to the crossover for different subs?  I've found that the sound of the bass can change considerably with changes to the time alignment and crossover reqion.  One sub may sound punchy and tight in one configuration and loose or boomy in another.  I suppose that If you were listening to sweeps only, you may have gotten an impression of performance of just the subs but for full range music playback the whole system needs to be integrated into something cohesive.  I'm guessing little was done with regard to this since it could take all of one day to tweak even a few combinations.  But I'd still like to hear about it from anyone who was there.  Anyone?  

drew
 
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Tim McCulloch on February 15, 2007, 05:38:35 PM
We did not run an optimization listening workshop.  One of the reasons we didn't put the l'acoustics SB218 in the listening tests was because it needed processing to sound the way most of us were used to hearing it.  To be fair to the other units, we'd have had to either use manufacturer's settings (good luck with l'acoustics), if available, or develop our own.  We only had 8 hours in each day to do what we did...

Attempting to integrate each sub seperately would have defeated the purpose of comparing ONLY the subs, as then it would be a comparison of the total system.  I don't think anyone in attendence deploys the McCaulley install line array, so it would be a moot issue for attendees.  I don't dispute your observation that the rest of the system effects the way we perceive the subwoofer's function, or that alignment effects the sub's perceived performance.

I invite *all* the armchair quarterbacks and other non-attendees to stop speculating on what "might have been."  If you find a product that sparks your interest (good or bad) arrange a demo with YOUR rig, in YOUR space, with YOUR music.

Tim Mc

Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Tim Morin on February 15, 2007, 07:49:01 PM
dave,

when you said that only you and Tom can play on this level, did you mean as manufacture or as engineers? either way  seems quite offensive to assume that
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Bennett Prescott on February 15, 2007, 09:39:05 PM
I was also extremely offended, as were many others who have not said so publicly but have contacted me.

Dave, I enjoyed talking with you at the sub shootout. You're a great guy. Please be more careful when you post.
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on February 16, 2007, 09:36:28 AM
Tim Morin wrote on Thu, 15 February 2007 18:49

dave,

when you said that only you and Tom can play on this level, did you mean as manufacture or as engineers? either way  seems quite offensive to assume that


I doubt he meant to offend anybody, that wouldn't be very smart for someone trying to sell products to this community, and no one would suggest he isn't smart.  I went back to reread it and he probably meant it as a compliment to TD (oops are other people reading this?). I always say I prefer a little honest arrogance to false humility, perhaps because I have been accused of similar behavior.

It's pretty safe to suggest that club is not limited to only two, however there is a limited universe of folks capable, a smaller subset who are actively working to deliver a competitive commercial product, and a smaller group again who will succeed. The data published so far has revealed a few surprises and and reinforced some old expectations, as it should, but still more than two players.

Perhaps we can maintain our focus on what people have accomplished and how their particular approach fits our needs, not what they think out loud. It's human nature for us all to think our babies are cute, and just business to try to spin public perception when people challenge the "cuteness" of our babies. I have discounted several posts here as little more than that, and applied wind-age to others.

I want to thank the folks who have contributed time and effort to this, and still are. We have an opportunity here to get some useful data to professionals who desperately need more. There are valid concerns about room interactions on the data so I am hopeful the few among us with experience interpreting such will present useful lucid advice with a minimum of self serving emphasis.

JR    
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Paul Bell on February 16, 2007, 12:32:15 PM
I think that what David was implying is that concerning extreme output bass speakers, it's beyond what many companies are achieving with front loaded designs. I had stated in an earlier post that despite the best drivers, thermal capabilities and cabinet designs, front loaded subs have appeared to have hit a glass ceiling in shear output. Port and driver noise also become a factor.

This is not to say that front loaded subs are dead. I do many installs and gigs, mostly with front loaded cabinets.

Danley Sound Labs, EM Acoustics and BASSMAXX are producing extreme output horn loaded designs that have higher efficiency EG output than front loaded designs. The trick is to make them go as low as and sound as front loaded box, a goal that Tom Danley and David Lee have pretty much achieved.

I do not think that David in any way intended to insult anybody, their company or their designs. His words may have intended in one way but when read from another perspective, that may be taken in a different, offensive way. While I do know David on a personal level, I am being careful to be as fair to everybody else and as unbiased as I can be in my thoughts and comments. This is one of the reasons that I had no hand in the testing and operation of any subs at the shootout. If his subs were spanked by another makers product at the shootout, I would be jumping over to them. David knew this when he asked to be represented at the shootout.

While I did put together this sub shootout, I haven't received a single call, email or PM regarding David's post.

Let's wait to see what all the data looks like. Meanwhile, let's remember that it's what you hear with your ears, not what you see on a test chart that tells you how good a product sounds.

I'd like to think that we are all colleagues and friends and we have a common goal as sound providers. Better sound. More convenient helps the package.

Paul Bell
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Tom Danley on February 16, 2007, 02:01:01 PM
Hi Paul, all

I have been busy with work but wanted to give you guys an update on the data.
I sent it off to Mark and Ivan yesterday and am waiting to hear from Mac about where he wants it sent for linking or whatever.
I also wrote up sort of a semi rambling explanation of what the files are etc.

A lot of people are probably wondering with the fuss, why would Paul or anyone else do a side by side comparison anyway?
Well for a manufacturer to have a shootout certainly raises the possibility of bias as a factor as “winning” (what ever that is) helps sales and people are human.
On the other hand, when one is conducted properly, one finds that some of the same trends in other areas are true in pro-sound.
The days of Paul Klipsch, Don Davis or Gene Patronis standing up at a convention and calling a lie a lie are over in this “PC” era.   I have a number of self-inflicted bullet holes in my feet from not being able to resist that urge myself.

In a subject area where I won’t get so much hate mail, lets look at home hifi and which companies have the largest sales.  You probably know right off the bat who the biggest four letter word in home audio is.
The point I suppose is that most folks more technically interested in sound don’t consider there stuff more than elegantly marketed, over priced midfi, while in contrast the impression in the home is that it is the pinnacle.
In stores, the gap between the image and/or and the side by side comparison sound quality is something they specifically intended not to allow, with separate demo areas.  
When one disassembles or measures the products one finds real “cutting edge” cost cutting engineering through out and generally awful measurements.  

The point is, for a large company (in any non-life critical market) it is partly the image you can build and maintain that produces sales, justifies the largest multiplier between what it costs to make and what it can optimally sell for.
The actual performance only needs to be good enough that the image is not harmed and as long as no one ever compares it side by side.  Showing as little actual data as favorably as possible is desirable too.
This formula for this one audio company alone results in over a billion dollars a year in sales to people who are convinced that, after diligent research on the subject in the sources they trust, are sure they have the “greatest” in home audio.
Think about it, other than image alone, to those that would buy them, what makes a pair of blue jeans worth $1500, a watch worth $25,000 a car worth $1,000,000 or a pro sound subwoofer worth $10,000 ea that when in a pair, it sounds truly anemic and hobbled when next to one box that costs a small fraction of the cost of just one.
Side by side comparisons and universal measurements remain the very few ways to arrive at “how they sound or measure” with respect to your other choices and the get a handle on the highly variable distance between reality and reputation or performance per dollar..

While designers and company heads are prone to go off about how good there stuff is, ideally this wouldn’t happen and wouldn’t be prime focus of this. Like they say, you can't live with them, you can't shoot them either.

Consider in Paul’s shootout the only slightly noticed fact that some subwoofers were actually judged to sound bad at high levels or just not good etc.
Sadly too, loudspeakers play by far the largest part in the alteration of the signal to sound process. Even in true half space there are so many different things wrong from a “straight wire to sound” conversion process that it takes many different measurements to define them all.
This makes listening a key factor but as Floyd Toole has pointed out, that loop also includes expectations (what something “should” sound like) and all of the colorations in the recording / microphone / electronics chain and it is hard to know when one coloration is simply offset by another one somewhere else.
So, nothing is simple.

Anyway, to whatever degree this image gap thing exists, OR NOT, it is best revealed in the results of proper side by sides and honest universal measurements.
Whatever the purchase, if it’s your money you’re thinking about spending, getting the most of what ever it is your looking for, out of your dollars, should be an interest unless your feeling generous.
Best regards,

Tom Danley




Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Jeff Permanian on February 19, 2007, 04:09:30 PM
Chicago had a heat wave today! 40 degrees! JTR has been promising measurements as soon as weather allowed for and so here they are:

1)Frequency response of a single Growler in half space at 2.83V

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j123/racingxtc7/JTR_Growler_2-8V_1m.jpg

2) Frequency response of a 1 and 2 Growlers in half space at 2.83V

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j123/racingxtc7/JTR_Growler_Dual_2-8V_1m.jpg
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on February 19, 2007, 04:22:24 PM
That middle chart looks like your relative -6dB point is down at 44Hz. Your +0/-6dB points (aka +/-3dB points) are 44-92Hz outdoors in half space for one box and about 43Hz to more than 120Hz for two together. Am I reading it right?

Smooth.  Cool

-Bink
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Jeff Permanian on February 19, 2007, 04:47:13 PM
Michael 'Bink' Knowles wrote on Mon, 19 February 2007 15:22

That middle chart looks like your relative -6dB point is down at 44Hz. Your +0/-6dB points (aka +/-3dB points) are 44-92Hz outdoors in half space for one box and about 43Hz to more than 120Hz for two together. Am I reading it right?

Smooth.  Cool

-Bink


Yeah. 44hz would be the -6db from the peak but only -3 to -4db from the average. The other interesting thing that we wish we would have been able to measure earlier is that the horn loading raise the impedance enough for it to be rated 8 ohms.
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Wayne Parham on February 20, 2007, 11:29:56 AM

Looks like great performance, Jeff, particularly for a relatively small horn.  I hope you'll make the drive down to Tulsa in October, we'll measure it outdoors using an LMS system, run it up to full power from 100 watts up, doubling power each time until you tell us to stop.  We'll also measure (THD+N) distortion at each power level.  Here's the test plan we use at the Tulsa Prosound Shootout:


You can make the drive from Chicago to Tulsa in about 10 hours, and it's not bad at all.  Straight and flat for 3 hours through to St. Louis, past the arch and you're in some beautiful country for 3 hours down to Springfield.  From there on, it's straight and flat again.  Tulsa in October is nice, not too hot and not too cold.  Hope to see you there.
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Jeff Permanian on February 20, 2007, 11:35:57 AM
Thank you. JTR is planning on being there.

Jeff
Title: Re: Here we go again...
Post by: Jeff Permanian on March 01, 2007, 06:36:46 PM
From my understanding there was going to be normalised measurements posted?
Title: Subwoofer Shootout Results
Post by: Paul Bell on March 15, 2007, 09:13:50 PM
OK guys, I realize that this thread has been pretty dead, there was the starting of some nasties and I suppose that everybody figured it was over and done with. Maybe for the best. BUT, manufactures did send product at their expense and were hoping for the posted measurements and test results.

Without looking for any personal opinions on what went on, can we get the measurements posted? I've been asked for them by several people.

Cheers to all who attended and provided gear, we had a great time during the shootout.

Paul Bell
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Tim G. Morin on March 25, 2007, 09:46:22 PM
when are we going to see the measurements from the shootout?
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Ivan Beaver on March 26, 2007, 02:06:46 PM
I have them, but do not feel it would my place to post them, as some would think it would seem biased.

Mark would be the one who needs to post.  Tom Danley has sent normalized data to the moderators of the board, so they have that as well.

So I guess it is up to others to post as requested, sorry.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Tim G. Morin on March 27, 2007, 12:46:07 AM
Thanks for the info.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Raj Sookraj on April 16, 2007, 07:22:06 PM
It's been almost 3 months now since the subwoofer shootout.  If the results will not be posted, can I get a private email?  Can we at least have the details for our own speakers?  Who should I contact for this info?
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Bennett Prescott on April 16, 2007, 07:48:30 PM
Agreed. A lot of manufacturers spent a lot of money to help make this event happen. It would be nice to see some results.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Nathan Lehouillier on April 16, 2007, 09:59:53 PM
Yeah so what is the deal with the test measurements.
It is starting to look like a cover up.
It's nice not having a horse in this race.
Who ever is withholding the results is going to
look the worst.

Nate
KDS&L
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Ivan Beaver on April 17, 2007, 07:23:56 AM
Tom Danley had sent results to "The powers that be" on this forum quite a while ago so they could post.  But for some reason they have not.  I don't know why or why not.

If someone doesn't post in awhile I will post them.  But right nowit is not my place.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Mac Kerr on April 17, 2007, 12:36:19 PM
Ivan Beaver wrote on Tue, 17 April 2007 07:23

Tom Danley had sent results to "The powers that be" on this forum quite a while ago so they could post.  But for some reason they have not.  I don't know why or why not.

If someone doesn't post in awhile I will post them.  But right nowit is not my place.
I am one of those people. and I am not willing to post results of a shootout where the plots were matched by one of the participants. I am not impugning the integrity of anyone, but would any manufacturer be happy knowing that publicly posted shootout results were modified in any way by their competitor? Originally Mark Seaton was going to make some comparison plots and post those. What I have are individual plots that Tom Danley adjusted to to make the power levels comparable. There are 72 individual files, and we do not have an ftp site for transferring that much data. The data would be easier to compare if some comparisons were made, and the data should be looked at by someone without a horse in the race.

Mac
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: John Roberts {JR} on April 17, 2007, 01:25:05 PM
Mac Kerr wrote on Tue, 17 April 2007 11:36

]I am one of those people. and I am not willing to post results of a shootout where the plots were matched by one of the participants. I am not impugning the integrity of anyone, but would any manufacturer be happy knowing that publicly posted shootout results were modified in any way by their competitor? Originally Mark Seaton was going to make some comparison plots and post those. What I have are individual plots that Tom Danley adjusted to to make the power levels comparable. There are 72 individual files, and we do not have an ftp site for transferring that much data. The data would be easier to compare if some comparisons were made, and the data should be looked at by someone without a horse in the race.

Mac



While that is an admirable desire, I doubt that such an unbiased person exists (or one with the proper skill set and resources, and time). We are adult enough (I hope) to make our own judgements regarding the credibility of sources. TD is unimpeachable for his integrity but he will have personal biases that reflect his design philosophy. If you are apprehensive with an affiliated individual crunching data why not publish the un crunched data here and let him, or somebody host his version with a link. I won't even raise the issue that the raw data may be biased by the participants.

No doubt the sundry participants will wrestle over the meaning of any data published. It was not exactly a laboratory environment with optimal conditions, but that is the world most of us operate in anyhow. Hopefully this will be looked at as just another data point rather than some definitive answer to trump all answers, Hopefully it is a good, fair test, but just one test in one room.

Many people want to hear someone declared the winner and all else losers by definition, but the reality is the data will probably show not only differences in design execution, but different approaches to perhaps slightly different targets.  There are likely to be different winners based on how we weigh different constraints.

The worst that will come from this is learning what was done wrong, or could be done better the next time. It seems a waste of much labor and time if we stop short of letting the chips fall where they fall. They will get spun anyway so let the spin begin.     Very Happy

JR

PS: I appreciate it's easy to suggest actions that other people have to deal with the consequences of. If order doesn't arise from the chaos, that too will be a learning exercise. Right now IMO it is an unfinished WIP.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Bennett Prescott on April 17, 2007, 01:27:44 PM
Mac, I have plenty of fast FTP space I'd be happy to make available.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Michael 'Bink' Knowles on April 17, 2007, 01:29:52 PM
I'm with JR. Post Toms's tweaked data, please, and we'll figure out what it all means afterward. Might goad others to post raw data or data with their own spin. It'll make for some more lively discussion at the very least.  Cool

-Bink
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Bennett Prescott on April 17, 2007, 01:35:16 PM
In a new thread would be nice, too.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Pascal Pincosy on April 17, 2007, 07:41:12 PM
I'd like to see both the raw data and Tom's tweaked data posted.  As long as the raw data gets posted, anyone can compare the raw data files and confirm for themselves the accuracy of the tweaked files. I'm not saying that we need to wait for the raw data to post Tom's stuff, but I think it vital that the raw stuff gets tracked down and posted asap.
Title: Re: Measurements- The dirty little secret
Post by: Mark Seaton on April 17, 2007, 08:09:03 PM
Mac Kerr wrote on Tue, 17 April 2007 11:36

I am one of those people. and I am not willing to post results of a shootout where the plots were matched by one of the participants. I am not impugning the integrity of anyone, but would any manufacturer be happy knowing that publicly posted shootout results were modified in any way by their competitor? Originally Mark Seaton was going to make some comparison plots and post those. What I have are individual plots that Tom Danley adjusted to to make the power levels comparable. There are 72 individual files, and we do not have an ftp site for transferring that much data. The data would be easier to compare if some comparisons were made, and the data should be looked at by someone without a horse in the race.

Mac



Hi Mac,

I see now that the blood has cooled some and the mass declarations of how "worthless" the data was has subsided somewhat. Rolling Eyes

I did see the graphs that Tom did and they look fine, but being in black and white it's a little cluttered in discerning which graph is which.  Tom's graphs include data for response and THD at 28V and then some paired comparisons.

This week is not very good for me as I'm headed out of town Thursday, but I'll see if I have some time on the plane or otherwise to throw some graphs together.  I recall we had decided that separate threads for each product's measurements with a master list with links in the first post would be the preferred method.  

While the files won't be huge, they will add up to probably 5-15MB of images and files.  I can throw them on some personal space for now, as I'm not sure if photobucket or other sites delete pictures after some timeline or not.