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How musical Is the audax home system?
I need some help finding a proven design home theater system that sounds pretty good with music. Some of you may notice I'm already planning on building a sealed RL-P 15" subwoofer. I dont really have a budget in mind and, I like all types of music. My only concerns are that the speakers are nuetral sounding ( I like B&W, not their price !) and I would like tower mains. I even thought of extending the cabinets of the audax systems mains. I hear alot of people praise the audax center for movies but, not the mains for music. I know I only want the world!!! thanks and happy hoildays! Bob the builder :
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It's average, (Dickason has never been known as a great designer). The design is quite dated, and understand the Audax company has been out of business for many years. So replacements part will be hard to find.
Look at the stickey threads on this forum. Jon's Modula MTM, Natalie P, Modula TM and center-channel are all pretty state of the art designs, using modestly priced high performing drivers
IB subwoofer FAQ page
"Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-Bresson -
I'd have to agree with Thomas on the Audax units. The Audax drivers were pretty good for their day, but they were never high xmax drivers and you can do quite a bit better now that time has passed these by.
I haven't heard these units from Jon, but I've heard others and I'm also quite found of the drivers he uses. :T Don't let the fact that these aren't SS, Seas, or Accuton fool you. It would take quite a bit of effort, and a lot more money, just to eek out a bit better performance from some of the very high priced drivers out there. And, frankly, a lot of the "high end" drivers do not perform as well as these RS units.
Jon's a very talented designer. ;x( I'd just go with one of the designs Thomas mentioned.Comment
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I think Joe D. designed the Audax HT system but all the previous comments still apply. Audax hired Joe to design a system for them so he did. He did the best he could with what he had to work with but what he had to work with wasn't all that much by today's standards.Comment
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Thanks for the info, I'll be asking questions on these designs in the near future. Happy Holidays! B.T.B.Comment
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Parts Express sold a $900 HT kit designed by Vance D. It used Audax drivers, and was written up in the "Cookbook". That's what I thought Bob was referring to....
IB subwoofer FAQ page
"Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-BressonComment
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I also have to give a shout out for my personal setup... Ellis Audio 1801's (which can be built as a floorstander but that's only for cosmetic reasons I think). Totally clear and neutral (which was my original goal), though not fantastically efficient. They integrate well with a 15" sub. They weren't as expensive when I bought them, though...
I need to build out cjd's 3-way dayton design sometime soon in the new year to see how the RS drivers stack up.- Patrick
"But it's more fun when it doesn't make sense!"Comment
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I have used Audax paper, carbon, HDA cones in the past, and they were one of the first with advanced baskets and perforated pole pieces. The HDA and carbon units sound very dynamic and cone breakups are well controlled.
Although the Dayton units are 10 years younger, they have the same techniques and no real innovations. Why are the people here bashing every driver which haven't x-max of 6 mm with super low distortion. There are more parameters involved, it's all about compromises and some choose another route. I think the Dayton is a nice driver for the money, but it sounds rather dull and "flat" compared to an Audax HDA.Comment
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Well, I guess I'll get into trouble for this, but the Daytons are, in general, notably better. No, I suppose there is no "innovation," but the bottom line is that the RS motors are notably more advanced in their design and have better nonlinear distortion. Your complaints of "dullness" and flatness are quite right; that's what lack of distortion sounds like. The "liveliness" is your subjective impression of more distortion. Sorry, but that's how it is. It's ok to like it. But it's not true to the original.Originally posted by TacoD
Sure, the Audax had and extended FR curve and so were easier to work with. Loudspeaker manufacturers like this, since it alows for less components, i.e. cheaper. But, in the lower ranges the RS are more linear.
A driver which "adds distortion" cannot be better. This is my philosophy. I used to like ribbons and high distortion drivers, being enticed by their "air" and "liveliness" etc. No longer. A number of years of listening, guided by testing, has moved me away towards the lowest distortion drivers I can find. If you want dynamics you increase the volume to concert levels.
I don't want to get into a religious debate about this, so I won't comment much further. Except...
To say you have used and like Audax is fine. To imply somehow that they are not objectively better, when in fact all the objective evidence shows otherwise, is not correct. You may believe it, in the same way some folks believe in intelligent design. That still doesn't make it science. Your comment about "more parameters" is the typical unsupported stuff that the boards are full of. And I mean full of. If you have any more info on these "other parameters" and testing or references to back it up, I'd sure like to hear it.
Again, when evaluating drivers, it comes down to linear, nonlinear, and power/polar response. Frankly, all else is secondary.
Sorry to be so harsh. I don't mind someone expressing their opinion. Objective evidence trumps opinion though. :takecover:Comment
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With "other parameters" I was referring to Rms (mechanical resistance) which in the case of the units with a large magnet and especially the Dayton is somewhat higher in magnitude. I think the perceived difference in micro-dynamics is more likely to come from that quantity, because the Seas Excel (better ventilated basket) does not lack from this drawback.
IMHO also the design of the spider and surround, or their compliance, to reduce losses in the mechanical system is of importance. I think this effects the detail retrieval of a driver.
And lastly the inductance of the motor structure 0.90 mH is a bit high, compared to truely advanced systems of Adire or the Danish manufactures. See e.g. http://www.adireaudio.com/Files/Tech...ooferSpeed.pdf
I'm not saying that I'm an authority on driver design or speaker design, but to judge a driver only on distortion is IMHO a limited view on the design of a loudspeaker. Did you measure the timedomain behavior of those steep Cauer x-over filters? In my opinion you win distortion wise on the driveunit but introducing some in the filter.
I appriciate your effort and scientific approach, but like many scientists it's difficult to convince others and also not to neglect opinions of others. (Yes I am a scientist too)
Merry christmas to all which didn't stop reading my post.
TacoComment
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Seems like you're just listing possible sources of distortion in the driver's design. I don't see that as incompatible with actually measuring the distortion.With "other parameters" I was referring to Rms (mechanical resistance) which in the case of the units with a large magnet and especially the Dayton is somewhat higher in magnitude. I think the perceived difference in micro-dynamics is more likely to come from that quantity, because the Seas Excel (better ventilated basket) does not lack from this drawback.
IMHO also the design of the spider and surround, or their compliance, to reduce losses in the mechanical system is of importance. I think this effects the detail retrieval of a driver.
And lastly the inductance of the motor structure 0.90 mH is a bit high, compared to truely advanced systems of Adire or the Danish manufactures.
I modelled it in LspCAD and it's very similar to an LR4.Did you measure the timedomain behavior of those steep Cauer x-over filters? In my opinion you win distortion wise on the driveunit but introducing some in the filter.Comment
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I really think that any comments about sound in the passband, not related to low frequency behavior are only indirectly, if at all, related to TS parameters. Remember, TS is really a linearized model of low frequency behavior. Extrapolating it into the passband, then trying to add the psychoacoustic aspects is very suspect. Why? Because on its face, that's not what TS parameters are for. It is up to the proponents of this to prove the relationship between a particular TS parameter and sound. Which, to my knowledge, has not been done.
Le-yes, I think this is important. But it's not really Le, it's more like L(x,i). And this shows up in the impedance and nonlinear distortion plots. So, picking a single number is somewhat misleading when the impedance curves and nonlinear distortion curves are so similar.
As far as time domain, I think the only possibly meaningful one would be group delay. Which is clearly worse for the Cauer, or at least my implimentation. See my RS225 second page for group delay graphs. Still, I could not appreciate a clear difference from this. I am curious about the sixth order Theile implimentation, because that has very good group delay for a higher order filter, at the expense of some more components.
Anyway, I'm not saying I know it all. But I do think folks get somewhat sidetracked between what is fundamental, and what is incidental.Comment
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