citroeniste
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
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Quote:
As previously mentioned, the Tannoy Dual Concentric is nothing of the sort, though I'd quibble with calling their tweeters "horn loaded." ("Waveguide-loaded" is more appropriate as there's no compression involved and the "Tulip waveguide" is really just a well-optimized and attractive-looking phase plug.) Here's a White paper you may find educational. Though it's titled "for contractors" the principles apply equally well (if not even better, perhaps) to home audio.
There is another type of coax that offers some of the benefits of the vaunted Tannoy Dual Concentric, but is less expensive to make and gives up some of the Dual's pattern control at high frequencies. KEF brought this kind of driver to the modern world with their Uni-Q design. Here is their white paper on the Uni-Q design. Variations on this theme have been adopted by Thiel and the Norwegian drive unit maker Seas, whose variant can be seen on the excellent Gradient Revolution.
Once one has heard such speakers, common multiway speakers with drive units separated in time and space with no care taken to match directivities all sound like so much trash. Exceptions are multiway speakers that waveguide-load the treble so as to match the directivity of the mid/bass unit at the top of its frequency range. Examples of this type of design include the Amphion line, on a more realistic scale the Gedlee Summa, and many modern studio monitors. (Studio monitor design tends to be way ahead of home monitor design, from a technical perspective. Pity about the ugly cabinets.)
I can't imagine that a well-trained ear will find multiway, non-concentric headphone drivers any better.
| Originally Posted by nikongod that is the same design used in less expensive car speakers to make the instalation of a a seperate tweeter/mid driver simpler and more compact. not to say its bad, but it it is not at all uncomon. |
As previously mentioned, the Tannoy Dual Concentric is nothing of the sort, though I'd quibble with calling their tweeters "horn loaded." ("Waveguide-loaded" is more appropriate as there's no compression involved and the "Tulip waveguide" is really just a well-optimized and attractive-looking phase plug.) Here's a White paper you may find educational. Though it's titled "for contractors" the principles apply equally well (if not even better, perhaps) to home audio.
There is another type of coax that offers some of the benefits of the vaunted Tannoy Dual Concentric, but is less expensive to make and gives up some of the Dual's pattern control at high frequencies. KEF brought this kind of driver to the modern world with their Uni-Q design. Here is their white paper on the Uni-Q design. Variations on this theme have been adopted by Thiel and the Norwegian drive unit maker Seas, whose variant can be seen on the excellent Gradient Revolution.
Once one has heard such speakers, common multiway speakers with drive units separated in time and space with no care taken to match directivities all sound like so much trash. Exceptions are multiway speakers that waveguide-load the treble so as to match the directivity of the mid/bass unit at the top of its frequency range. Examples of this type of design include the Amphion line, on a more realistic scale the Gedlee Summa, and many modern studio monitors. (Studio monitor design tends to be way ahead of home monitor design, from a technical perspective. Pity about the ugly cabinets.)
I can't imagine that a well-trained ear will find multiway, non-concentric headphone drivers any better.
