[Vintage-Audio] Times Change - Crossover Frequencies Do Too

[wolfbob]

In my opinion...(what do I know...and I cant hear anymore 
over 9KHz):

I think the problems started with stereo. There was a need 
for the phase of the mid and highs to have some consistant 
relationships and with the woofer and it's depth in the face 
plate, this was not too possible due to all of the resulting 
reflections from the cone and mounting. The mids emminate 
from the center of the cone and a number of manufactureers 
made little balls and junk to try to get the mids out a bit 
nearer the front, but these "fixes" were not too good. So 
they took more of the mids away from the woofer and gave it 
to a more planar mid range speaker. Now the highs had an 
even more difficult issue with dispersion or the angle 
coverage. Before stereo, the issue was not too bad as the 
highs bounce around a lot anyway, but with the "need" for 
stereo spacial imaging, you need a direct path and so the 
tweeters got more of the attention and really set the stage 
(so to speak).
Some of the finest speakers were the big horns, but they too 
suffer from spacial phase issues that screw up the stereo 
imaging. For real sound, we should go back to mono. (now 
that is from a guy with 8 speakers in my office running 7.1 
SACD)

WBob


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Duane Fischer, W8DBF" <dfischer at usol.com>
To: <vintage-audio at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 8:28 AM
Subject: [Vintage-Audio] Times Change - Crossover 
Frequencies Do Too


>
>
> I was noticing that all of the speaker systems I have from 
> 1995 to 2003,
> crossover at 400-450 Hz and 2000-3000 Hz. All are 
> three-way systems; B&W 630,
> Paradigm 9S and Paradigm Monitor 9S.
>
> Whereas the midrange and the woofer used to share the low 
> mids and the midrange
> and the tweeter used to share the high mids, not so any 
> longer.
>
> The woofer and the midrange appear to do less and the 
> tweeter more. Why is this?
> I do not personally consider "highs" to start at 2KHZ or 
> 3KHZ, more like 4.5 - 6
> KHZ. Depending how you look at the math, allowing for 
> variances among
> manufacturers, the older systems used the woofer about 3.5 
> times more than today
> and the midrange 5.8 times more than the present. Why is 
> so much of today's
> audio being fed into tweeters at frequencies four times 
> below where they should
> be coming into action at?
>
> Now when my fourteen year old grandson can tell Grandpa 
> what speaker system is
> being employed from the opposite end of my home, I need to 
> turn it down! (LOL!)
> Just kidding, as I do not like to experience the room 
> shake effect while
> listening to music. The music that I feel is due to 
> emotion, not vibration. He
> can tell if I have the James B. Lansing Century L-100 in 
> use or the B&W 630
> bi-wired. So it is not just a nostalgia issue here guys! 
> If a teenager can tell
> without looking, there is something happening!
>
> Duane w8DBF
>
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