Critic's Corner

That dip is . . . not really a dip

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: The reviewer also did measurements... posted by Ladok on July 17, 2024 at 08:23:46

I just looked at those measurements and what's happening is this:

That dip is not really a dip at all. The way John Atkinson measures speakers overestimates the amplitude of the bass response by about 6dB. He writes about this. So take that rise at around 80 to 100Hz and pretend it is not there at all -- imagine that whole region 6dB lower.

Therefore, you get a flat-ish line that starts rising as it approaches 100Hz, to the tune of another 6dB. What's happening there is that the driver output is transitioning from 4pi to 2pi. Some people called this "baffle step." Basically, the baffle is providing 6dB of output.

What this means is that the designer(s) hasn't compensated for the baffle step, so you get this rise that will now make the mids and highs unnaturally high compared to the bass region. To compensate for that, you'd have to get the speaker not just close to the wall behind, but to the walls on the sides to get the most amount of "room gain," which undoubtedly why John Atkinson wrote: "the low frequencies will sound somewhat lightweight without boundary reinforcement."

Yup -- likely VERY light.

Doug Schneider
SoundStage!

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