Balanced Armature speakers are faster right? But... - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by maverickronin 

That changes things.  With Zout that low that amp shouldn't have much effect on FR or damping factor unless the rest of it is "tweaked" in a rather strange way.

 

Some proper measurements would be nice.  I'd like some hard data correlating them to euphonics.

Isn't there a tube measurement resource around somewhere?  Let me shoot Craig an email to make sure the prototype didn't evolve.

it would seem to me, just by mass alone, BA would be faster. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by FullCircle 

it would seem to me, just by mass alone, BA would be faster. 

They are, we have the measurements.  Just not on this thread.  I believe it was the Beyer 32/250/600 thread.  BA's are on par with and even faster than electrostats in some cases.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by maverickronin 

PM'd you Craig's response.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tronz 

Hmmm, I thought electrostats were faster.

Like I said, it's in the thread.  BA's are tiny.  Stats still have more surface area to move when used as headphones.  I think it's a negligible difference though.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by khaos974 

Before answering any question related to BA or electrostats:

What is fast? Really, how do you define fast as something else other than an auditory feeling?

It's not even related to the speed a diaphragm moves at, most headphones can reproduce a 20 kHz tone at ear splitting levels (even if you can't hear that tone), this is actually the fastest speed a diaphragm needs to be able to move at.
So diaphragm speed and auditory feeling of speed? NOT LINKED.

What is fast?

I was only referring to diaphragm speed as I believe it was measured.  The question of what is faster versus what is fast enough is also another matter.  As for 'sense' of speed that's a completely different can of worms that others can feel free to discuss.  Pass.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tronz 

I was referring to as "fast" as how quickly can the speaker respond to the amplifier's signal with minimal distortion occurring.

Well, a transducer producing sound at a certain frequency is it oscillating (in a sine wave) at that same frequency, and the oscillation is the transducer moving rapidly back and forth.  It's not a constant velocity - it's accelerating the whole time, changing direction at each peak (interestingly, the technical term for a changing acceleration is a "jerk").  The velocity depends on the excursion of the driver - bigger excursions (i.e. larger amplitude) mean larger and larger accelerations velocities result from the same oscillation frequency.

Since electrostatic and BA designs are both very limited in excursion compared to dynamic and planar magnetic designs, it is possible that the velocity and acceleration of the latter drivers are actually significantly higher.  It depends on the driver area though - a larger driver doesn't need to have as big of an excursion to displace the same quantity of air.  For drivers with the same excursion - the speed and acceleration will be the same, the only differences being the nonlinear distortions that result from the drivers not moving in a perfect sine wave.

Anyway, the acceleration of the drivers is all about force versus mass.  Lightweight drivers require less force; heavier drivers more.  They still have to oscillate at the same maximum frequencies regardless, and given the same displacement, that means the same velocity and acceleration.

I understand the subjective impressions of different planar drivers as fast - electrostatic, planar magnetic/isodynamic/orthodynamic, and ribbon.  I agree with the subjective impressions myself - nothing sounds as detailed, crisp, yet natural to me as planar drivers.  But in terms of raw speed and acceleration they aren't necessarily moving any faster than a moving coil design.

I really would indeed like to know the reason behind the audible difference - I have read several times before (not regarding specific examples as speaker distortion specs and measurements are very rare indeed) that planar tweeter designs are actually typically higher in harmonic distortion than moving coil designs.  That's only anecdotal as far as I can remember (so it may very well be wrong), and of course, harmonic distortion is only one form of distortion - there's non-harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, phase distortion, etc. that also contribute; and the wave launch of planar designs is certainly different from moving coil designs (that's especially of note for speaker drivers where off-axis performance of non-line-source planar designs can be problematic).  There's also diffraction behavior depending on the enclosure...  Actually, considering how the harmonics of most treble frequencies are above human hearing range, harmonic distortion can't possibly be a big factor in the sound of tweeters, and especially so with "super-tweeters" that are crossed over at or above 10 kHz.

Either way, I really would like to see measurements and tests to help understand this perception.

Its strange y'know.

I believed that EQ would be able to tell the story of those bass square waves, so when I did that to the HD800...strip away with an EQ, leaving the subbass where it starts to roll off so it is very prominent...the bass sounded no tighter than that of the D7000....likewise, subtract the peaked bass of the D7000 and it sounded very tight...very similar to HD800 tight.

Then supposedly the frequency response curve affects the square wave response...so I dunno.  But the SE530 had a more present subbass than the HD800 to me and to bring the HD800 bass to lineup with the SE530 bass with EQ it wasn't quite as tight.  So you tell me.

Regardless, without EQ, the HD800 had very low bass extension and was the tightest voice coil bass I ever heard.  Without EQ it was subjectively more tighter than the SE530 to me...I thought it was because the HD800 is open and the SE530 has to resonate inside a small cavity.