Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Dedicated to those large boxes at one end of the room
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IslandPink
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#46 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by IslandPink »

chris661 wrote: Wed Mar 21, 2018 8:33 am For what it's worth, I wouldn't expect live jazz to get to 120dB, even for the briefest of peaks, but limiting a hypothetical system to exactly one genre of music doesn't sit too well with me - a HiFi system should be able to play anything and sound as good as the recording will allow. Bon Jovi should be allowed on-stage, too.
Yes, but build a system that works OK at 120dB and then try & listen to it at 60dB at night and wonder where the tone and dynamics disappeared. If you manage that, bring it to Owston !
I think the only way to do this is with old-school ( low power ) compression drivers all the way. I certainly haven't seen too many people working on horns below 300Hz that would work at 'small hours' SPL's. That's why I'm prepared at accept 105dB max on peaks.
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#47 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by chris661 »

Mark,

I don't believe that a system that's capable of 120dB should automatically sound bad at 60dB.
I think a big part of the problem with the big PA system we heard at Owston was that it was being run 40dB or so below its limits, so all of the digital stuff and amplifiers were running right down in the noise.

For what it's worth, the 6.5" PA speakers I've got here sound excellent at 60dB, and I'll find out how they do at live levels this evening in a Sheffield pub.
I'd be happy to send those to Owston, though I can't make the Saturday.

Chris
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#48 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by Cressy Snr »

ed wrote: Wed Mar 21, 2018 2:49 pm But back to the original premise....my method of appreciation can never be achieved with omnis( as in Steve's set up) as I can't locate the instruments in the first place...so I maintain it's not even started to get close to 'being there' reproduction.
You've hit the nail firmly on the head there Ed.
The crux of the matter, is that I'm an audio enthusiast, who, I'm going to have to admit it to myself now after 40 odd years, is not interested in recreating the original sound. I have a preferred "sound" in my head and I've been trying to create that.
I've guess, at last, I've actually succeeded, but you're quite right of course, it's not hi-fi as we know it; no use in trying to pretend it is.

Don't know where that leaves me, as a member of several audio forums, but you wouldn't believe how much better I feel, now I've ditched the pretence. It's quite liberating. :flower:
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#49 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by ed »

Cressy Snr wrote: Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:56 pm
Don't know where that leaves me, as a member of several audio forums, but you wouldn't believe how much better I feel, now I've ditched the pretence. It's quite liberating. :flower:
imo that leaves you in the vanguard of intrepid explorers....keep it up, all of us owe you something for your discoveries.
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#50 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by steve s »

ed wrote: Wed Mar 21, 2018 7:14 pm
Cressy Snr wrote: Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:56 pm
Don't know where that leaves me, as a member of several audio forums, but you wouldn't believe how much better I feel, now I've ditched the pretence. It's quite liberating. :flower:
imo that leaves you in the vanguard of intrepid explorers....keep it up, all of us owe you something for your discoveries.
I'll second that !
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#51 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by shane »

I’d say it leaves you in a place where you’ve actually found what you were looking for, which is more than most of us can say.

Now where’s that U2 album...
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#52 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by DSJR »

Sorry for the can of worms - something better discussed over a few pints and with gear to try to demonstrate.

Twenty five years ago, the big active speakers I referred to and owned weren't so hot at very low levels although pains were taken to improve this a lot after I sold mine. By geriatric Spendor BC2's still have a trick or two up their sleeves when not playing loud to stress the old drivers or make the boxes wobble too badly... I can't play loud in any case now as ears apart, the next door neighbour recently commented when I let rip with the Spendors one lunchtime, and these things sound as if they're shaking apart at not high levels when we used to directly compare them with the competition back in the day.

Speakers in production for professionals HAVE improved in recent times I honestly feel, but I'm not suggesting in the slightest that any of you would agree with me. Domestic stuff is production engineered to death now and made in China for peanuts (£60 in China means £250 online and probably £600 via a retailer?). Maybe the sound from the better Genelecs or Barefoot Audios and so on may be too relentless or 'stark' for music enjoyment and one day, I intend to find out more about them for good or ill. In the meantime, I'll keep the JBL 4307 in the back of my mind, as the 4412SE is too wide and dumpy looking right now.. There's an online pic of the musicians in a favourite band (Hybrid) sitting at their control desk and these effin great monitors in front of them (using twin Volt? radial drivers per channel) and I desperately want to hear them or something similar again.



Steve, apologies for the thread crap that's happened. I can't make speakers as you obviously can, so I'm at a huge disadvantage already. My only concern was to see about some kind of easy cheap reference for setting overall balance.. Oh, and by the way, I hated the Bose 901 with a passion and in fact it was the omni bit that caused a lot of their problems I remember, the little drivers apparently being quite good on their own. The pro versions actually sounded better to me with the multiple drivers facing towards me I remember :roll: - my boss had a pair for his Asian rave-ups back in the day. The 301 in mk4 form was enchanting for some reason...
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#53 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by Cressy Snr »

You hated the Bose 901, I thought it was a fabulous sounding device; absolutely astonishing! It had no problems to my ears.
Once heard, never forgotten. It was one of those "moments" hearing them for the first time, when as the great H von K used to say "all else" suddenly became gaslight and nothing would be the same again. And do you know, it never was....until.... I decided, to turn the Metronome design into an omni because I couldn't get a folded pyramid, quarter wave cabinet to work out on a paper drawing.

That happy decision resulted in a Bose 901 type of presentation that hit me straight away. Even with a lashed up cardboard up-firer, I KNEW this was it...that was the sound! Although, with the cardboard speaker it was coloured to hell, when I listened past the colouration, there it was!

When Richard Dunn got wind of what I was up to, he was, because of his long experience with Allison type semi-omnis, vis-a-vis the NVA Cube series, well placed to be able to help out, giving advice freely, or trying to, in between the heavy bursts of noise and increasingly raucous and desperate bullshit from several people who, fortunately no longer post on this board.

So I'm sitting here listening to the album, "We Get Requests" from The Oscar Peterson Trio" and "Have You Met Miss Jones" is playing. I'm sitting in my usual listening seat, which is off to the side and outside the field of the left hand speaker. Hell, I'm not even facing the speakers. I'm at 90 degrees to them, not even a bloody hi-fi position :shock:

And yet, we have the trio in the room, playing softly and there am I, as if I am sitting at a table, front left of the stage, having dinner with my favourite woman, who is sitting opposite.

There is Oscar, centre stage, Ed Thigpen on drums, behind and to the left of the piano, nearest to us.
Bassist Ray Brown is on the right and furthest away from our table.

It is quite an immersive experience, every buzz of string on fretboard, stutter of brush against snare skin, every utterance of Peterson as he quietly accompanies himself at the piano, quite clearly audible on this wonderful recording.

Such is the illusion, but it isn't hi-fi or is it? Maybe it's not conventional stereo, but then again, does it have to be stereo to be hi-fi? Now there's an interesting idea to unpack.

I sit where I like and the sound remains the same, I can leave the room to make a cup of tea, and the sound doesn't change apart from being a bit softer, but the illusion of a band playing in the next room is absolute; incredibly enjoyable and thoroughly addictive. It's the sound that was trapped in my head, released and unleashed.

Another interesting possible conversation to be had might be:

What is is the hi-fi illusion we should aim for - "you are there" or "they are here?"
Last edited by Cressy Snr on Thu Mar 22, 2018 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#54 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by IslandPink »

i'm just tickled pink that you've got the sound you wanted, Steve - you've certainly put in the hours - probably more than anyone. Plus, Thigpen is such a great name !
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#55 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by chris661 »

Cressy Snr wrote: Thu Mar 22, 2018 8:43 pm Another interesting possible conversation to be had might be:

What is is the hi-fi illusion we should aim for - "you are there" or "they are here?"
Well, there is a question.

From what I can tell, it comes out like this:

- The "they are here" crowd tend to like speakers that will illuminate the room quite a lot. Omnis, dipoles, that sort of thing.
- The "you are there" crowd go for controlled directivity, big horns (often Synergy types), etc, to try and take the room out of the equation as much as possible.

I can see arguments for both, and I can see why each crowd likes what they like. It's a very subjective question and I really don't think there's a right answer.

Chris

PS - I've tried working with the Bose 801s for live sound, never got on with them for that application - even with all those cones, there wasn't much "grunt".
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#56 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by Cressy Snr »

In the mid 80s, I worked with a guy who played in a club band. At the time the norm in the clubs was to have a whacking great set of horns with 2 stacked Martin bins on the bottom and a convex treble array on the top with some other horn covering the midrange. All the instruments and vocals were fed through this array at ear bleeding levels.

May mate Phil, who was drummer with the band above, went to see Cliff Richard (his story was that his wife made him do it) and came away gobsmacked at the sound quality Cliff's team were achieving. During the interval he got chatting to the sound crew, who told him that the great sound was down to Cliff and his backing singers having an entirely seperate vocal PA, entirely on different amplification. Cliff was well known as a stickler for sound quality and this was in the days before the flying rigs that are commonplace in large venues these days.

Phil's band subsequently imitated this arrangement on a smaller scale with a pair of pro Bose 801 and associated power amplification for Paul, their lead singer, and their own vocal mics. The difference was not subtle. Using the 801s for vocal duties only completely sidestepped any concerns regarding grunt factor; they were absolutely bulletproof.
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#57 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by Cressy Snr »

IslandPink wrote: Thu Mar 22, 2018 10:33 pm i'm just tickled pink that you've got the sound you wanted, Steve - you've certainly put in the hours - probably more than anyone.
Aye, A huge amount of obsessively driven work has gone into speakers over the years, the omni speakers especially, because by nature, they are a sod to get right, but the results (pardon the pun) speak for themselves.

Just had Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1 playing and it was quite enchanting.

I have plans drawn and calculations done for two more quarter-wave cabinetted Burhoe flooders - one using ten-inch Faital Pro drivers and SB dome tweeters with 2nd order HF filters, and another possibly more interesting one, using a Fane Sovereign 12-250 TC, twin-whizzered full-ranger, which should be a laugh if nothing else.

The idea behind both is to get a bit more of a substantial foundation for the music to sit on, but not lose the lovely mids.

I'll just build the speakers and turn up at Owston with a pair of them, as the process is only the same and I'd just be repeating things for the sake of it if I put them up on the forum.
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#58 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by chris661 »

Hey Steve,

There are reports of the new 15" Fane full-range unit being excellent on diyAudio. Might be worth a look.

Which Faital Pro units are you looking at? I do like my 10FH520s...

Chris
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#59 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by Cressy Snr »

chris661 wrote: Sat Mar 24, 2018 1:19 pm Hey Steve,

There are reports of the new 15" Fane full-range unit being excellent on diyAudio. Might be worth a look.

Which Faital Pro units are you looking at? I do like my 10FH520s...

Chris
Cheers Chris, I've read that about the 15 inch Fane. I seems to have gone down very well, as you say.
I have a pair of the 12-250-Triple cone full range drivers in stock, so it makes better financial sense for me to use those.
I also have a pair of the Faital 10FE200 ten-inchers in stock. Again, it's good financial sense to use those as well.
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#60 Re: Burhoe Inspired Room Flooder

Post by Cressy Snr »

Listening to the system the other day I became aware of the unmistakable sound of coil rubbing distortion on high range piano notes. It was on both channels and was coming from both tweeters :(

Must have damaged the blasted things somehow. The only way it could have happened is sustained, high level midrange tones getting into the HF units, over extending them and distorting both coil formers, through overheating of the wire.
So much for fscking first order filter slopes. Those Neodymium magnetted SB tweeters are not exactly cheap either :x

Yes.....alright...I know...I've known about the dangers associated with shallow filters on tweeters for years and have gotten away with it up to now, but no use crying over spilt milk :roll:

Anyway, I've managed to press my pair of Monacor SPP-90 poly cone tweeters into service.
Had to increase the L-Pad values on the bass/mid unit to pull it down another couple of dB on order to to meet the new HF units. Also had to alter the LF blocking cap value because of the 8 Ohm impedance of the Monacor as opposed to the 4 Ohms of the SB unit.

After all that, the speakers still sound fine; just a tiny bit of sparkle at the very top is M.I.A. but apart from that they are good; silky smooth, in a classic 1970s high end speaker sort of way, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
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