[KinGensai]

In the case of bass like I was talking about it is mechanical, not electronic. You can’t boost bass to make a transducer do what it isn’t designed to do. It hits a wall and puts out noise.

Yeah, I noticed multiple BAs dedicated to bass do a really good job rendering ridiculously clean bass. I pushed my V14's subbass region up +10 dB as a test, and it's somehow able to handle that without noticably (to me) distorting the sound.

 

[bigshot]

The tolerances on that model are clearly wide. Other models might have more trouble, particularly in the sub bass frequencies.

 

[KinGensai]

The tolerances on that model are clearly wide. Other models might have more trouble, particularly in the sub bass frequencies.

You're right about that, I would never dream about trying that on my lower end IEMs, much less than that started distorting quickly.

 

[castleofargh]

Thanks, that's a lot less complicated than what I was reading on the subject lol. I had a rough idea what distortion is and sounds like, but this is very helpful disambiguation.

Math explodes my bird brain DX

One more thing: If I'm not wrong, reducing the impact of harmonic distortion is the entire point of using multiple drivers in an IEM right? IIRC, BAs exhibit notably high 3rd order harmonics, so the reason why BA arrays are used is to isolate the frequency bands in such a way as to limit the impact of those harmonics, right? Was there another reason this configuration is nearly ubiquitous?

multidriver in a crossover design (each one limited to a given frequency range) seems to be more about tuning ease. I'm sure there are some benefits for distortions, but at the most basic level, while you low pass a bass driver, you only do it electrically for the audio signal arriving to the coil. The driver can still have non-ideal movements that will generate new frequencies above the low pass value. I felt like you might have been considering the band limiting as if it applied to everything.

I think stacking drivers (for the same frequency range) might be the more beneficial aspect for distortions. It's still the same thing we've discussed, if you have several drivers, to reach 80dB, you won't need each driver to output 80dB. So they'll instead have the distortions of that lower output while you listen at 80dB. In a perfect world with perfect phase and exact same signal, I think 2 drivers could give you +6dB. In practice, I imagine less, but it's still clearly interesting. Even more so if your target for the IEM's output is louder than what the drivers can do cleanly.
A well vented dynamic driver probably still outperforms the BA stack when it comes to distortions, but then we can't have the benefit of strong isolation.

 

[KinGensai]

multidriver in a crossover design (each one limited to a given frequency range) seems to be more about tuning ease. I'm sure there are some benefits for distortions, but at the most basic level, while you low pass a bass driver, you only do it electrically for the audio signal arriving to the coil. The driver can still have non-ideal movements that will generate new frequencies above the low pass value. I felt like you might have been considering the band limiting as if it applied to everything.

I think stacking drivers (for the same frequency range) might be the more beneficial aspect for distortions. It's still the same thing we've discussed, if you have several drivers, to reach 80dB, you won't need each driver to output 80dB. So they'll instead have the distortions of that lower output while you listen at 80dB. In a perfect world with perfect phase and exact same signal, I think 2 drivers could give you +6dB. In practice, I imagine less, but it's still clearly interesting. Even more so if your target for the IEM's output is louder than what the drivers can do cleanly.
A well vented dynamic driver probably still outperforms the BA stack when it comes to distortions, but then we can't have the benefit of strong isolation.

I read your thoughts on this subject from another thread on a similar subject, it's certainly no wonder to me why these IEMs are so expensive lol, sounds like a big mess to sort out.

This is a curious instance of my experience not exactly matching up to the theory. I'd like to get your take on this: Fatfreq's Maestro SE vs QDC's Anole V14. On paper, these IEMs have very similar drivers with the notable difference being the dynamic driver vs 3 BAs (1DD 7BA 4EST vs 10BA 4EST). I don't know exactly how either Fatfreq or QDC handled their crossovers, but I detect no abnormalities in the response of either tuning wise, which is corroborated by all the FR graphs I've seen on the two.

When I listen to the two after equalizing the V14 to roughly match the MSE (I started by matching on squig.link from HBB and compensating for my custom tips), the MSE's DD sounds to me like it is suffering from overexcursion periodically because I hear what I interpret as clipping whereas the V14 never does. Is that likely what is occuring, or is it more likely that the difference in SPL is what is causing my brain to interpret that signal differently? Is it something else I'm not understanding?

 

[castleofargh]

I can't even risk a guess as I know neither IEMs. With some measurements, I still often fail to find a conclusive answer to that type of questions, so without anything but your description of feelings... I really can't go beyond saying, IDK.

 

[KinGensai]

I can't even risk a guess as I know neither IEMs. With some measurements, I still often fail to find a conclusive answer to that type of questions, so without anything but your description of feelings... I really can't go beyond saying, IDK.

Yeah, fair enough. This would be a lot easier face to face, preferably with a measurement rig lol