Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulP  ...
Quite a few have wall to wall diffusors. I haven't seen many like that from North America or Asia.
... I have a French book on speaker design and one of the models has always attracted me. It's got the tweeter firing straight up from the top of the box and there's a parabolic mirror on a stand above it that disperses the high frequencies all over the place.
...
So why do Americans shun diffusion/dispersion ? |
Adopting a very 'smart aleck' tone
(in order to provide a bit of info in a very wry humor) - because controlled dispersion and Q are consistent with what we now know about intelligibility.
Uncontrolled Q (dispersion) in a
source is a PROBLEM, not a positive attribute. And the use of diffusion and absorption as a sink are in direct response to the need to control such uncontrolled 'dispersion'.
Sometimes there is a benefit to paying attention to physics and not simply to what looks cool aesthetically!
If you want 'omnidirectional' sound, I have a completely abysmal sounding dodec you can borrow. Its great for driving a room for measurement, yet
horrendous to listen to. I guess I could use a Bose 901 or a dipole - if they were easier to transport...
Listening to line arrays in the near field and dipoles in small acoustic spaces are far too popular now too! Just look at the list of 'hi fi' systems costing in excess of $25K! They dominate! All at the expense of physics! And then we have the 'oh so popular' and fundamentally flawed Bose 901 direct-reflecting abomination that flies in the face of what we know now about intelligibility. And ALL are repudiated by the physics of intelligibility in a small acoustical space. Yet we continue to hear audiophools touting their amazing(sic) attributes.
I might suggest that it makes far more sense to avoid creating problems just so we can employ more tools like absorption and diffusion to remediate the problems that uncontrolled dispersion and resulting superposed reflections create.
Those not familiar with current acoustical physics are indeed doomed to repeat such problems.
Oh, and the use of the proper analytical tools can easily help one determine the optimal amount and placement of absorption and diffusion, rather than geographic location in the world. I think you will find the designs of those using such tools do not exhibit applications featuring such great differences.
And as far as it being a geographical issue, you might stop to consider the embarrasing fact that Bose, and their flawed 'direct-reflecting' system,
is an American company.
And as far as the widespread use of diffusion in small acoustical spaces, I would suggest you take a look at more of the professionally designed studios, not the least of which is represented by Blackbird Studio in Nashville. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that diffusion is a very widely employed tool in most professionally designed studios - despite many here on this site too often dismissing the usefulness of the technique in the small acoustic space.
How's that for a (good natured and admittedly wry) response?
BTW,back to the subject at hand,
may I add that QRDude is a WONDERFUL tool! And unlike a fair amount of jest in the prior posting, this is a most sincere compliment! Kudos!!!