12-09-10: Johnsonwu
>Adding a sub makes it worse. It's a phase coherence issue.
The "speed" of the panel and that of the cheap cone are vastly different.
No. It's a power/polar response issue.
The panel is a dipole, with 4.8dB of directivity and a cosine-alpha polar response which plots to a figure 8.
The woofer is a monopole, with 0dB of directivity and polar response which plots to a circle.
The two don't match.
The problem is that each octave below where their outputs match a dipole requires 2X more displacement than a monopole. Given equal output at 160Hz (not unreasonable for a domestically acceptable speaker), the dipole requires 2X more output to match the monopole's SPL at 80Hz, 4X at 40Hz, and 8X at 20Hz.
Martin Logan's compromise through most of their range was monopole bass which has sonic problems where they're starting (a few hundred Hz) but comes in a small package with high output. Full-range ESL panels like the CLS/CLX compromise towards better sonics but reduced output and larger size.
Better solutions are dynamic driver dipoles like the Martin Logan Statement bass units or Audio Artistry series which get more output for a given footprint than ESL panels but can still be objectionably large (the Beethoven has a stack of 4 12" woofers behind each speaker) and dynamic driver assemblies which transition from dipolar to monopolar at lower frequencies like the Summit X.
You could build a Linkwitz style H frame.
>Adding a sub makes it worse. It's a phase coherence issue.
The "speed" of the panel and that of the cheap cone are vastly different.
No. It's a power/polar response issue.
The panel is a dipole, with 4.8dB of directivity and a cosine-alpha polar response which plots to a figure 8.
The woofer is a monopole, with 0dB of directivity and polar response which plots to a circle.
The two don't match.
The problem is that each octave below where their outputs match a dipole requires 2X more displacement than a monopole. Given equal output at 160Hz (not unreasonable for a domestically acceptable speaker), the dipole requires 2X more output to match the monopole's SPL at 80Hz, 4X at 40Hz, and 8X at 20Hz.
Martin Logan's compromise through most of their range was monopole bass which has sonic problems where they're starting (a few hundred Hz) but comes in a small package with high output. Full-range ESL panels like the CLS/CLX compromise towards better sonics but reduced output and larger size.
Better solutions are dynamic driver dipoles like the Martin Logan Statement bass units or Audio Artistry series which get more output for a given footprint than ESL panels but can still be objectionably large (the Beethoven has a stack of 4 12" woofers behind each speaker) and dynamic driver assemblies which transition from dipolar to monopolar at lower frequencies like the Summit X.
You could build a Linkwitz style H frame.