A Question That Has Burned In My Mind For Years...

MarkWComer

Veteran and General Yakker
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
3,479
Location
Gaston, SC
Tagline
Victim of the record bug since age five
#82
With all this prattle going back and forth, we forget one very important thing: THE BRAIN! The brain knows what an oboe sounds like, knows how it differs from a violin. It filters what we hear, what we see, what stimuli requires immediate response and what can go on the back burner. It determines what is shit and what is caviar. It can pick out what it wants and discard what it doesn’t, and can pick specific sounds from complex ones.

We’ll never understand this...

I think I’ll go shopping for some mushroom spores now...
 

laatsch55

Administrator,
Staff member
Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
74,741
Location
Gillette, Wyo.
Tagline
Halfbiass...Electron Herder and Backass Woof
#84
Thanks for that, but I've been through it all, but I still can't relate as to how in such a multiplex of frequencies and energy how the hell do we still have the ability to distinguish amongst all that's going on, the separate sound sources [instruments] all at the same time being produced by a cone of paper moving backwards and forwards in a magnetic field whilst being energised accordingly.
eg, strike a triangle and listen to it sustain. Record that. Now strike a guitar chord with lots of distortion. Record that. Now play them back both at the same time. How the hell can you still hear a triangle sustaining whilst there's a guitar crunching both at the same time through a single medium that's trying to reproduce BOTH sounds at the same time? You would think the cone would do one or the other if the note was to remain pure, but it doesn't, so therefore there must be some sort of trade off. And yet, there doesn't sound like there is, or is there?
Something's not 'clicking'. No amount of throwing pebbles in a pond watching waves propagate is letting me see it.
I need a bigger brain.


Amen George...
 

laatsch55

Administrator,
Staff member
Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
74,741
Location
Gillette, Wyo.
Tagline
Halfbiass...Electron Herder and Backass Woof
#85
But consider being at a pin point somewhere on the surface. You would be buffeted by a complex wave form. What's happening elsewhere on the surface I think wouldn't matter, what matters is the frequency and amplitude of the waves at that pin point.

Now that I can understand, but .....that still doesn't explain how a single driver can respond to multiple frequencies AT THE SAME TIME...
Guys I know it may seem I'm simple minded about this, but how is it possible for a single mechanism to do two freq's at once...
I have run up against other concepts in my 65 plus years on this planet that i can't seem to get past the first steps...perhaps I have been born in the wrong century. Pumping units, treaters, workover rigs, drilling rigs....those i understand because I can see them.

I guess I'm gonna have to quote the "Larrt" on this , it's just PFM---Pure Fuckin Magic...
 

Gepetto

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
13,895
Location
Sterling, MA
Tagline
Old 'Arn Enthusiast
#86
Now that I can understand, but .....that still doesn't explain how a single driver can respond to multiple frequencies AT THE SAME TIME...
Guys I know it may seem I'm simple minded about this, but how is it possible for a single mechanism to do two freq's at once...
I have run up against other concepts in my 65 plus years on this planet that i can't seem to get past the first steps...perhaps I have been born in the wrong century. Pumping units, treaters, workover rigs, drilling rigs....those i understand because I can see them.

I guess I'm gonna have to quote the "Larrt" on this , it's just PFM---Pure Fuckin Magic...
Back to the beginning... the driver is responding to the composite complex waveform it is being given by the amp. It is that crazy looking signal that you see on the scope when you play music. It is not 2 pure frequency tones coming at the driver. It is that non sinusoidal waveform that the speaker is following. Those signals were joined long ago in the audio path when multiple instruments combined in the air.

Think of a squiggly line coming out of a paper strip chart recorder at some reasonably slow speed. Your task Lee is to with a pen, follow that squiggly line as it exits the chart recorder and draw your pen line on top of the line that comes out. That is exactly what your drivers are attempting to do.

You manage to drive down twisty roads and stay reasonably in your lane while driving on them. Same deal. Speaker drivers attempt to stay in their lane too.
 

laatsch55

Administrator,
Staff member
Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
74,741
Location
Gillette, Wyo.
Tagline
Halfbiass...Electron Herder and Backass Woof
#88
Joe, ya did it again....I think we need a "Patience" award around here...for you would surely get it after your numerous attempts at explaining something to me in terms I can understand..
 

pennysdad

Veteran and General Yakker
Joined
Feb 27, 2013
Messages
3,728
Location
In witness protection.
Tagline
I've totally lost the plot....
#91
But consider being at a pin point somewhere on the surface. You would be buffeted by a complex wave form. What's happening elsewhere on the surface I think wouldn't matter, what matters is the frequency and amplitude of the waves at that pin point.
But we're not a pinpoint on the surface. We're at a distance observing the whole thing.
 
Joined
May 4, 2016
Messages
418
Location
Northeast Iowa
Tagline
Love great audio, beermaking and pyrotechnics
#94
Continuing with Joe's great analogy of the pen tracing the complex wave...
When that voice coil tries to follow it's signal, it is attempting to push and pull the cone or diaphragm along with it. Neither of these are infinitely rigid. They exhibit compliance as well as resonant factors along their surface. Different portions can react better to different frequencies. A speaker cone does not act as a rigid object. A high speed video of cone action is very interesting.
 

Gepetto

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 15, 2011
Messages
13,895
Location
Sterling, MA
Tagline
Old 'Arn Enthusiast
#95
Continuing with Joe's great analogy of the pen tracing the complex wave...
When that voice coil tries to follow it's signal, it is attempting to push and pull the cone or diaphragm along with it. Neither of these are infinitely rigid. They exhibit compliance as well as resonant factors along their surface. Different portions can react better to different frequencies. A speaker cone does not act as a rigid object. A high speed video of cone action is very interesting.
Spot on. They try to make cones as rigid/stiff as possible and with as low mass as possible but the real world gets in the way. This usually leads to a set of conflicting goals. Low mass has a tough time being rigid. Rigid has a tough time being low mass. The compromises made lead to imperfect behavior for sure.
 

MarkWComer

Veteran and General Yakker
Joined
Nov 1, 2014
Messages
3,479
Location
Gaston, SC
Tagline
Victim of the record bug since age five
#97
That "different portions can react better to different frequencies" comment remided me of the Walsh driver early Ohm speakers had. Titanium, aluminum and paper sections of the cone were supposedly responsible for different frequency ranges.
And those “whizzer cones” with a single voice coil, supposed to extend the highs.
 

laatsch55

Administrator,
Staff member
Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
74,741
Location
Gillette, Wyo.
Tagline
Halfbiass...Electron Herder and Backass Woof
#99
The Ohm Model F's I had were the purest sounding thing I had ever heard till I heard Craig's Summits...
 
Top