Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,107
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 21, 2018 11:59:49 GMT
My experiences of ribbons are mixed I'm afraid. VERY difficult to properly integrate with cone/dome bass-mid units and ribbons, and I saw in a comparative test, they're not as distortion-free as claimed and dispersion is odd too... usually I tend to hear a slower bass and mids with a tinsel razor on top, but i haven't heard a huge range of modern options. This isn't the comparison of a group of different tweeters I remember reading a year or two ago, but explains fairly (I think) what's going on - novo.press/the-pros-and-cons-of-ribbon-tweeters/Westie - The IBL's tweeter mounting 'plate' was more a marketing thing (like having loose connector socketss in the Ovator models) and had nothing to do with sound quality. The IBL box was solid enough and myself, I'd worry more about the cheap paper cone bass-mid driver (M_S made for a fiver perhaps as the SBL early driver was at £6?). Naim speakers were all about marketing and using odd cobbled 'tech' in bass loading to make some kind of statement to separate their products out from 'everyone else.' The SBL boxes alone cost as much as complete ES14's for example I remember Robin telling me - totally ott construction with no real grounds for 'decoupling' the tweeters via different means that a sorbothane 'washer' wouldn't have done as well...... I have to disagree. I’ve owned IBL and SBL (same tweeter) at the same time, there’s a quality to the IBL treble. One that clearly came from the decoupling AFAIC, I’ve also had a few IBLs with slight deformation to the leaf spring. Sorting it out clearly makes a tangible improvement, So you can say or believe whatever you like. My ears and personal experience tell me otherwise. You don’t have to agree but I am relating direct experience and to me it’s far from just a gimmick. I wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s pointles to tell anyone their experience is “wrong”. It can be wrong for you but by definition it can’t be for them. As for the cheap bass units, the SBL has much money and time put into the cabinet and mechanical decoupling. The drivers are also well matched which is more important to me than what Naim paid for MS for them. I never hear you anythjng about cheap drivers in NVA cubes. They are all extremely cheap Chinese QTX jobs. When I built the clone cubettes, the drivers were £4.95 each retai in 2016. To me it just seems like you display a bias towards some brands and often seem to diss others. |
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Post by dsjr on Jul 21, 2018 14:40:27 GMT
My experiences of ribbons are mixed I'm afraid. VERY difficult to properly integrate with cone/dome bass-mid units and ribbons, and I saw in a comparative test, they're not as distortion-free as claimed and dispersion is odd too... usually I tend to hear a slower bass and mids with a tinsel razor on top, but i haven't heard a huge range of modern options. This isn't the comparison of a group of different tweeters I remember reading a year or two ago, but explains fairly (I think) what's going on - novo.press/the-pros-and-cons-of-ribbon-tweeters/Westie - The IBL's tweeter mounting 'plate' was more a marketing thing (like having loose connector socketss in the Ovator models) and had nothing to do with sound quality. The IBL box was solid enough and myself, I'd worry more about the cheap paper cone bass-mid driver (M_S made for a fiver perhaps as the SBL early driver was at £6?). Naim speakers were all about marketing and using odd cobbled 'tech' in bass loading to make some kind of statement to separate their products out from 'everyone else.' The SBL boxes alone cost as much as complete ES14's for example I remember Robin telling me - totally ott construction with no real grounds for 'decoupling' the tweeters via different means that a sorbothane 'washer' wouldn't have done as well...... I have to disagree. I’ve owned IBL and SBL (same tweeter) at the same time, there’s a quality to the IBL treble. One that clearly came from the decoupling AFAIC, I’ve also had a few IBLs with slight deformation to the leaf spring. Sorting it out clearly makes a tangible improvement, So you can say or believe whatever you like. My ears and personal experience tell me otherwise. You don’t have to agree but I am relating direct experience and to me it’s far from just a gimmick. I wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s pointles to tell anyone their experience is “wrong”. It can be wrong for you but by definition it can’t be for them. As for the cheap bass units, the SBL has much money and time put into the cabinet and mechanical decoupling. The drivers are also well matched which is more important to me than what Naim paid for MS for them. I never hear you anythjng about cheap drivers in NVA cubes. They are all extremely cheap Chinese QTX jobs. When I built the clone cubettes, the drivers were £4.95 each retai in 2016. To me it just seems like you display a bias towards some brands and often seem to diss others. If you've tried bypassing the leafy plate or straightening it as you describe, comparing it and then genuinely heard a positive difference sorting it than how can I disagree with what you heard? Knowing Naim as I do since the late 70's, I'm now a sceptic as to their motivations in a lot of things, sorry. The SBL didn't NEED the complex cabinet, but it didn't half make for conversations full of manufacture fed bullshit on dems, didn't it - and it also makes for a bargain today as most people wouldn't understand how to set them up - even I considered them at one time, but in walnut not black... they actually often sounded better in clients homes than they did in a dem room and I'm sorry, but you didn't have a blinkered, opinionated, self serving **** of a sales director as I did, who used SBL's at home and when setting up for a dem of a pair, you could see him psyching himself into believing he was getting a good sound - it was thin toned and sibilant and he thought it was good (and he was meticulous in setting the gaskets and tweeter boxes up right as well!)....
I can't speak of the QTX drivers as I haven't heard a raw pair on a conventional box. The units I can see start at eleven quid or so and go up to thirty or so for the 8" ones - made in China and not sold in HiFi shops, so that may explain the low costs. A LOT of work is done to them subsequently (not just sticking a plastic plug on the front of the pole piece and some self adhesive pads on the basket and magnet) and care needs to be done to get them all as consistent as possible, one reason why manufacturers don't go to the same lengths. The B&W box derived samples made up for the likes of me to try, measured very well when Nick Gorham measured them, surprisingly so, so in that case I feel there's good justification for doping so heavily - the suspensions and magnets are a decent size too. I can't speak fairly about the Cube models as I'm not disposed to omni speakers as some here are.
I've said enough - no more to say now...
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,107
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 21, 2018 15:17:35 GMT
I have to disagree. I’ve owned IBL and SBL (same tweeter) at the same time, there’s a quality to the IBL treble. One that clearly came from the decoupling AFAIC, I’ve also had a few IBLs with slight deformation to the leaf spring. Sorting it out clearly makes a tangible improvement, So you can say or believe whatever you like. My ears and personal experience tell me otherwise. You don’t have to agree but I am relating direct experience and to me it’s far from just a gimmick. I wouldn’t have mentioned it otherwise. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s pointles to tell anyone their experience is “wrong”. It can be wrong for you but by definition it can’t be for them. As for the cheap bass units, the SBL has much money and time put into the cabinet and mechanical decoupling. The drivers are also well matched which is more important to me than what Naim paid for MS for them. I never hear you anythjng about cheap drivers in NVA cubes. They are all extremely cheap Chinese QTX jobs. When I built the clone cubettes, the drivers were £4.95 each retai in 2016. To me it just seems like you display a bias towards some brands and often seem to diss others. If you've tried bypassing the leafy plate or straightening it as you describe, comparing it and then genuinely heard a positive difference sorting it than how can I disagree with what you heard? Knowing Naim as I do since the late 70's, I'm now a sceptic as to their motivations in a lot of things, sorry. The SBL didn't NEED the complex cabinet, but it didn't half make for conversations full of manufacture fed bullshit on dems, didn't it - and it also makes for a bargain today as most people wouldn't understand how to set them up - even I considered them at one time, but in walnut not black... they actually often sounded better in clients homes than they did in a dem room and I'm sorry, but you didn't have a blinkered, opinionated, self serving **** of a sales director as I did, who used SBL's at home and when setting up for a dem of a pair, you could see him psyching himself into believing he was getting a good sound - it was thin toned and sibilant and he thought it was good (and he was meticulous in setting the gaskets and tweeter boxes up right as well!)....
I can't speak of the QTX drivers as I haven't heard a raw pair on a conventional box. The units I can see start at eleven quid or so and go up to thirty or so for the 8" ones - made in China and not sold in HiFi shops, so that may explain the low costs. A LOT of work is done to them subsequently (not just sticking a plastic plug on the front of the pole piece and some self adhesive pads on the basket and magnet) and care needs to be done to get them all as consistent as possible, one reason why manufacturers don't go to the same lengths. The B&W box derived samples made up for the likes of me to try, measured very well when Nick Gorham measured them, surprisingly so, so in that case I feel there's good justification for doping so heavily - the suspensions and magnets are a decent size too. I can't speak fairly about the Cube models as I'm not disposed to omni speakers as some here are. I've said enough - no more to say now...
I don’t want to take up Ben’s thread so I have moved our side discussion. There is good stuff to talk about though.  My experience again completely disagrees with your assertion that all the cabinet decoupling on ten SBLs is a gimmick. I’ve had a lot of pairs and I have worked extensively on some. The pair I inherited from Malcolm Steward needed a full tear down, powder coat and rebuild. On these and many others I’ve had a chance to play around with gaskets, decoupling etc, the various mechanical,elements to the speaker have shown to me first hand that they make positive differences. That speaker is nothing like the same beast without the mechanical decoupling and bass loading. If anyone wants to try first hand without going to great length, just compare SBLs with Credos. Same tweeter, same crossover, almost the same bass unit, but without clever mechanical el meets. They are miles off the SBL performance. Again I’ve owned and compared. I’d also have to point out that the NVA bass units don’t have a great deal done to them beyond pouring on a dollop of glue and spraying them with a coat of plastidip. We all hear differently, but having built my own clones alongside the NVA ones, comparison tells me most of this actually detracts from performance and reduces efficiency and responsiveness. Only the smallest ring of Bison kit was needed at the centre as a mechanical filter. I don’t see Naim’s mods of the SBL bass as being somehow less than this. For one thing the phase plug is metal (yes I’ve removed and replaced them). For another the extra pads are applied strategically, not just stuck on at random. Finally the drivers are carefully matched, which takes time and means holding and storing stock. It also seems to me to be important becaus some of the best speakers have heard have had matched drivers. The tweeter Naim use, which you always jump in to knock every time a speaker using it is mentioned also seems to have decent measured performance . It’s of little consequence to me but I know you pin a lot on this so I’m citing it. To me it has sounded great in all applications. The designers didn’t see it as obviously flawed. The makers of various speakers liked it enough to include it over many cheaper designs. The dealers successfully demoed speakers using it and customers happily bought and kept those speakers, no doubt enjoying them in a way I do. To write them off in the way you suggests everyone else’s is wrong and their opinions don’t count. That’s my point. By all means hate them, but please don’t just assert they are no good, period. www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/scanspeak-soft-dome-tweeters/scanspeak-classic-d2008/8512-20-mm-dome-tweeter/I’m sure we will never agree on Naim and especially Naim speakers, but I will always challenge sweeping assertions that aren’t borne out by my own experience and don’t appear to be even handed in the way they are applied to different makers. I don’t believe any of the SBL or IBL design measures are marketing led and this is because I’ve tried living with and without pretty much all of them. At the time, the designs flew in the face of so much received wisdom, were a long time in production and would’ve been far more profitable if they had just made bigger boxes without so much of their artistry hidden from view. I wanted to end by pointing out why this topic came up. Ben was adding a new tweeter to his DIY speakers and I suggested my experience had led me to feel tweeter decoupling may be of benefit to speakers. I didn’t advocate it as a universal cure all, but I did speak from personal experience and was only throwing out a helpful comment because I felt that the issue was rarely considered or discussed. The best way for anyone to decide if it males a difference to them is to try. It may work for you in your design or it many not, but at least you will speak from experience, |
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Post by dsjr on Jul 21, 2018 16:55:54 GMT
Final word,
The Scan tweeter does NOT have a good measured performance, especially by today's standards. High distortion in undamped form and a nasty resonance at 9kHz which messes with string tone in every speaker I've heard it in. The ferro-fluid version Pro-Ac and Spendor used was rather better, but the sting was replaced by a whistle, which on the Lush tones Spendor SP2's, was easy to hear over the slushy rest of it in my opinion! The Hiqufon unit Linn went to swapped one resonance for two or three smaller ones and could sound dirty in some situations. Linn use different units again and I don't know what an Isobarik or Sara tweeter replacement would be now, except to say that as their digital side took off, their speakers improved quite a bit once the Keltik was gone - although I'm told the current stuff isn't as good as the (expensive) similar price competition!
Some of you chaps must go and hear live music, from local pub-jazz with the minimum of amplification, to the local choral society and small orchestra/chamber groups. I'm certain that if you could do this, it might help understand the Sh#t I'm obviously coming out with and believe me, Linn and Naim between them made noises that were nothing whatsoever like real live instruments unless these systems were active, VERY carefully set up and in a room they liked!
I'm out of this. It's only going to get worse and I can't demonstrate what I'm trying to say either!
Oh, regarding NVA drivers. It's a bit more than a 'dollop' of Bison Kit followed by Plastidip. It's actually rather skifully applied and done in progressive layers he tells me. I wouldn't know where the eff to start with this and could easily write off a driver if I had no idea what to do, as has happened a few times when forum members have had a go themselves. The one compromise really is the midrange efficiency takes a hit it seems, where 'just' an inductor may not do this in comparison, but no, I haven't compared. By the way, the Visaton tweeter he uses in the pukka Cubes aren't especially cheap and unlike tweeters of even twenty years ago, they seem entirely happy with just a cap and level padding resistor in series with it and to me, have a lovely quality to them once fully bedded in. Ring radiators take it further but the best ones cost a small fortune it appears.
This is getting uncomfortable on both sides. I feel I know what I know and so do you. All through my Linn-Naim period I was attending proms concerts and selected concerts at the Festival Hall, the latter in good seats and I could NEVER understand why the stuff I sold at work never sounded anything like it, where my friend's Quad 44/405/57's sounded a very good facsimile, if not as expansive or as 'loud.'
That's my take anyway. Your mileage may well vary, but please try to hear good live unamplified music to use as some kind of reference, even/especially if it's not music you normally like or listen to..
TTFN
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,107
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Post by Bigman80 on Jul 21, 2018 18:45:39 GMT
Don’t worry about it, Dave, You and I can always disagree and it won’t be a biggie. I just wanted to put the other side to SBLs and IBLs, I really do believe in the techniques applied because I’ve heard what removing or bodging them does. Setup is everything with them, esp cially the SBL, because it’s design is built on rigidity and decoupling.
I genuinely think the pendulum has swung too far the other way from when Linn and Naim were overrated and over promoted to where they are now accused of getting nothing right. If that was the case then there are many, many people enjoying kit that is supposed to be beyond bad. Many of them in preference to other gear they have owned and heard. ,
You know how much I love the gear and so I try to speak up for things I feel aren’t getting a fair shout, That’s where I am with the IBL and my SBL. They have given me and others so much pleasure and they do some things so well. I’m the first to recognise the IBL especially will be hated by some people because it’s not conventional in sound, especially bass. But it can get you so close to the performance that none of that matters.
I actually really like the QTX drivers used in the cubes. I just used them as an example of the fact that what you pay for a driver doesn’t really mean anything in terms of what sound you can get out of it. I still think it takes at least as much to get an SBL or IBL driver fettled as it does an NVA one. I’ve also seen them done in batches. Now the raw drivers aren’t tested or matched beforehand. The gunk is applied by eye and never measured, given my experiences of speakers with matched drivers sounding better, I’m dubious about this.
Thus far my experiences with NVA , Rega and Royd speakers has told me the loss in efficiency and responsiveness from heavy doping has always thrown away far more than it has achieved. But that’s something others ears may hear differently and not central to the debate here..
I don’t really have any more to say either but I will happily chip in at any time of someone else wants me to answer anything.
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