I had John over this weekend with his dipole 3 way speakers - the general idea being that we need to see what can be done to make his speaker sound a bit better.
Now to put things into some kind of context: I have listened to a number of dipole speakers in my time, including Linkwitz Orions as well as some other large format types and NONE have had the effect of making me *want* to own a pair. Sure, you get pretty nice soundstage and seperation with some of these, and they do tend to fill a room in a different way, and you can have some that are lush sounding, etc.
The thing is: None have awakened any kind of emotional response in me. I have never had a goosebump moment listening to a dipole as far as I can recall. Mostly I tend to find them nice and lazy sounding - the kind of thing that is excellent at reproducing soft jazz whilst sipping on some whine whilst watching a fire burn and reminiscing about your youth :whistler: In a sentence: Nice but not very exiting.
So when John brought over his pair of speakers, I was admittedly a bit hesitant to guess at what the results would end up like. The crossovers currently in the speakers were some extremely left-field kind of inductors only crossover - surely inspired by the acoustic reality (or virtual reality or whatever) methodology of crossover building - (not something I believe in when you want high fidelity audio, but that's just my own opinion and own preference).
To start off with, we fired the speakers up in my room, on my equipment. I like to do this before changing anything because it gives you a reference point to work from.
The sound was a bit strange, but that was to be expected with a setup where the crossover isn't working with the drivers.
After that we took some measurements both with and without crossovers to see if there were any clues as to why we were hearing what we were hearing.
Now usually, I will do serious simulations before attempting to build a prototype crossover but on Saturday I was in a gambling mood and I wanted to see what we could do just by ear & also to get a feeling of what the individual drivers strengths and weaknesses were. Out came the boxes of inductors, the lunchboxes full of capacitors and resistors as well as the fist full of crocodile clips.
We spent the afternoon building up a crossover from the bottom up, and spent a good amount of time tweaking and adjusting. By the time we were done I was amazed at what I was hearing there. This speaker was sounding pretty damned good! It was even scratching the surface of my emotional armor! To say that I was impressed is an understatement. I felt that there was some potential in this dipole theory after-all.
It just goes to show you that you need to be a bit open-minded sometimes even if all your experience has pointed you in one direction it does not mean it is a universal truth.
Unfortunately we had some trouble with one of the ribbon tweeters, but John is confident that it is an easy (and should be an inexpensive) matter to get it resolved.
I am now at the point where a dipole build could very well be on the cards in the future. There was a bit of a blip on my radar some time ago, but that seems to have faded into the night, however this experience has made me wonder about what can be done here. Now whether or not a set of dipoles can truly give other types of speakers a run for their money remains to be seen - I will let you know what my findings are in due course.
Anyway, in closing. John - good luck with getting everything back up and running - please report back on you experience as well as the sound after you install your speakers back into their rightful space. I would love to hear your take on what was going on :thumbs:
Kind Regards,
Ian.
Now to put things into some kind of context: I have listened to a number of dipole speakers in my time, including Linkwitz Orions as well as some other large format types and NONE have had the effect of making me *want* to own a pair. Sure, you get pretty nice soundstage and seperation with some of these, and they do tend to fill a room in a different way, and you can have some that are lush sounding, etc.
The thing is: None have awakened any kind of emotional response in me. I have never had a goosebump moment listening to a dipole as far as I can recall. Mostly I tend to find them nice and lazy sounding - the kind of thing that is excellent at reproducing soft jazz whilst sipping on some whine whilst watching a fire burn and reminiscing about your youth :whistler: In a sentence: Nice but not very exiting.
So when John brought over his pair of speakers, I was admittedly a bit hesitant to guess at what the results would end up like. The crossovers currently in the speakers were some extremely left-field kind of inductors only crossover - surely inspired by the acoustic reality (or virtual reality or whatever) methodology of crossover building - (not something I believe in when you want high fidelity audio, but that's just my own opinion and own preference).
To start off with, we fired the speakers up in my room, on my equipment. I like to do this before changing anything because it gives you a reference point to work from.
The sound was a bit strange, but that was to be expected with a setup where the crossover isn't working with the drivers.
After that we took some measurements both with and without crossovers to see if there were any clues as to why we were hearing what we were hearing.
Now usually, I will do serious simulations before attempting to build a prototype crossover but on Saturday I was in a gambling mood and I wanted to see what we could do just by ear & also to get a feeling of what the individual drivers strengths and weaknesses were. Out came the boxes of inductors, the lunchboxes full of capacitors and resistors as well as the fist full of crocodile clips.
We spent the afternoon building up a crossover from the bottom up, and spent a good amount of time tweaking and adjusting. By the time we were done I was amazed at what I was hearing there. This speaker was sounding pretty damned good! It was even scratching the surface of my emotional armor! To say that I was impressed is an understatement. I felt that there was some potential in this dipole theory after-all.
It just goes to show you that you need to be a bit open-minded sometimes even if all your experience has pointed you in one direction it does not mean it is a universal truth.
Unfortunately we had some trouble with one of the ribbon tweeters, but John is confident that it is an easy (and should be an inexpensive) matter to get it resolved.
I am now at the point where a dipole build could very well be on the cards in the future. There was a bit of a blip on my radar some time ago, but that seems to have faded into the night, however this experience has made me wonder about what can be done here. Now whether or not a set of dipoles can truly give other types of speakers a run for their money remains to be seen - I will let you know what my findings are in due course.
Anyway, in closing. John - good luck with getting everything back up and running - please report back on you experience as well as the sound after you install your speakers back into their rightful space. I would love to hear your take on what was going on :thumbs:
Kind Regards,
Ian.
