*Technical discussion*....what makes up distortion?

[Feandil 10+ year member]

Technical discussions is something I've never really seen around here

so I thought you guys might be interested in having one about basically the most sought after and important thing to any audiophile from home to car audio... SPL is simplistic in comparison...

it's the thing we can't explain, put into words, or truly fully understand.... the dreaded what... is... distortion???

I'll give the first really basically obvious things for subs:

Flat BL and linear/progressive CMS

this I woulds say can attribute 70%-80% of the total distortion in a subwoofer (below 100hz say)... what about servo controlled drive units?

these are of course highly important for any other frequency bandwith but they lose some of those percentages in the midbass and midrange

For 200hz-15khz (20khz whatever you believe the height of human hearing is) what is so very important?

low inductance, lateral stability, perhaps resonances come into play, break up nodes, maybe even impedence?

I don't want to have a one way conversation about this, so I'll leave most of those discussions to others who have questions.

let's start it out with the main question of all time.... what is the best way to get a Flat BL curve and why is the normal cloth pressed spider so terrible for CMS?

what distortions are the most audible? can even order distortions truly be written off as unimportant when evaluating a speaker's performance?

Click to read more...

 

[takeabao 10+ year member]

Technical discussions is something I've never really seen around here

Yeah and you're not going to... This board has a very young, SPL-minded-oriented demographic.

You might wanna post your question here:

http://forum.elitecaraudio.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=2

I believe Werewolf or Kev7909 will be able to best answer your question (both are electrical engineers).

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

for some reason i think feandil already knows the answer, but is just testing out the forum's knowledge //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[Feandil 10+ year member]

for some reason i think feandil already knows the answer, but is just testing out the forum's knowledge //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

well I do know the answers.... most all of them

what I'm interested is in opinions... the questions I pose I can answer fully

the opinions of what is audible, inaudible etc is something very very key that people need to think about to be educated consumers //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

I'm willing to just answer questions... clear things up etc

I'd post on ECA but I'm discussing this same thing at CAF and since I like CA so much I thought it could be of very good interest for discussion here //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

distortion is honestly in fact mostly opinion... Sound quality is truly incredibly subjective... even with the lowest distortion driver ever made many people may not like it... it's truly amazing

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

well I do know the answers.... most all of them
what I'm interested is in opinions... the questions I pose I can answer fully

the opinions of what is audible, inaudible etc is something very very key that people need to think about to be educated consumers //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

I'm willing to just answer questions... clear things up etc

I'd post on ECA but I'm discussing this same thing at CAF and since I like CA so much I thought it could be of very good interest for discussion here //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

distortion is honestly in fact mostly opinion... Sound quality is truly incredibly subjective... even with the lowest distortion driver ever made many people may not like it... it's truly amazing

wait till squeak wakes up and sees this //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/hide.gif.2d479cfd917eedfe201353b91522ceab.gif

 

[Feandil 10+ year member]

wait till squeak wakes up and sees this //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/hide.gif.2d479cfd917eedfe201353b91522ceab.gif

*rubs hands together* can't wait... I'm not saying that distortion can't be measured and that low distortion shouldn't be a goal... and in home audio especially SQ differences in distortion can be very audible... but in a car... since this is a car audio forum... what's important to people really?

but what's more important a ruler flat FR or

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

man, you and thylantr's conversations are always over my head so i can't come close to answering it. i know what you are saying, but don't know what you mean in the least.

 

[stones 10+ year member]

To me-

Distortion- Any "unwanted" acoustic artifact coming from the driver.

("unwanted" hiss, shriek, buzz, click, rattle, ect..)

 

[Feandil 10+ year member]

man, you and thylantr's conversations are always over my head so i can't come close to answering it. i know what you are saying, but don't know what you mean in the least.

me and thylantyr are extremely good friends //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/naughty.gif.94359f346c0f1259df8038d60b41863e.gif :naughty:

If this discussion takes off I'll try to be as detailed as possible and provide diagrams

 

[Feandil 10+ year member]

To me-Distortion- Any "unwanted" acoustic artifact coming from the driver.

("unwanted" hiss, shriek, buzz, click, rattle, ect..)

all the things you named are generally considered things not inherent in the speaker... but something else... tinsel slap, door jams etc

distortion IMO is much much deeper than that... it's resonances in the cone, inductance, irregular and distorted reproduction

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

but since i cannot tell exactly what you mean, i'll go with what i've always thought and say that a flat response w/ minimal knee at f3 is best.

 

[flakko 5,000+ posts]

Yeah and you're not going to... This board has a very young, SPL-minded-oriented demographic.
You might wanna post your question here:

http://forum.elitecaraudio.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=2

I believe Werewolf or Kev7909 will be able to best answer your question (both are electrical engineers).

which is exactly why we need some audiophile discussion over hea //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

btw side note feandil: whens those new drivers comin out? [/side note]

 

[flakko 5,000+ posts]

one.... how does a square wave from an amp cause a driver to distort? (its on the topic of distortion right?

 

[Feandil 10+ year member]

btw side note feandil: whens those new drivers comin out? [/side note]

most of the parts are in... design is fully finished... it's on the hush hush... until mid next week with pics and all come around

should be in Mark K's hands soon

only thing we're waiting on is our cone and spider... everything else is here and ready

it's significantly better in every way than the old driver... some things that are just too unreal to talk about but soon

anyway back on topic... and I hope we can get a good conversation going about this ... I want to learn everyone's opinions more than I care to give out my own //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[Feandil 10+ year member]

one.... how does a square wave from an amp cause a driver to distort? (its on the topic of distortion right?

do you mean a square cut off sine wave....?

I'm not sure this could be said to "cause" distortion.... IIRC that's what pink noise is generally refered to as

with amps... distortion is a different story as you move from mechanical to electrical and out of my field of knowledge though I do know some... and could have a decent discussion about this...