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Good Sound Throughout the Room

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Jan Loosman

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostThu Jun 15, 2017 2:13 am

Using omnispeakers can give a pleasing result to listen to because omnispeakers are very forgiving for sub optimal room acoustics, but you also create a surrogate spaciousness caused by al the reflections of the room and thus loosing a lot of focusing.
Using a 4 channel setup with omnispeakers wil give you very very spacious sound but with the result of losing a lot of a genuine soundfield reproduction of the original space of the church. Yes it is al about compromises in a Hauptwerk setup but i can live with mine. When other organists play my console and i can walk around freely then there are almost no weak spots in my room.
I also use Dirac roomcorrection software which improves the sound further by eliminating standing waves etc.

Regards Jan
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scottherbert

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostThu Jun 15, 2017 8:51 am

Thank you Jan! When you say you can walk around the room and there are no weak spots, that is exactly what I was looking for! :D

The 3 main rooms in my home form a long, narrow corridor, with my music room at one end and our living room at the other. Our stereo system is the sound system for my organ, and thus plays throughout the house. I kind of hoped that an omni-directional system would sound good to me at the console, and still sound as good in the living room when we play music.

~S
"Life is just a dream, it is in death that we truly awaken!"
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Jan Loosman

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostThu Jun 15, 2017 9:54 am

In the States you can buy Deftech speakers with bipolar drivers.
https://www.definitivetechnology.com/products/bp9060
These speakers have powered subwoofers. These might be suitable for your situation.?

Jan
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PhantomoftheOrgan

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 8:38 am

It looks like reflective cones over drivers firing upward might improve our ability to hear the stereo images from a larger portion of the room. Has anyone seen reflective cones available for purchase?
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Mixtuur4st

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 10:31 am

Many home cinema sets from JVC use omnidirectional speakers, e.g. the SP-THS55S and SP-XF70S.
Just google these numbers for pictures.
These speakers are rather small, frequency range 90 Hz and up, for use in combination with a subwoofer.
They sound great, and are dirt cheap: some $ 30 new, $5 or less secondhand.

At the moment I am building a 120+ channel HW-system, using more than 100 of these speakers (plus some 25 subwoofers).
I will publish about that as soon as it is all working (might take another year or so).

Have fun,
Jack
Last edited by Mixtuur4st on Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Jan Loosman

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 11:04 am

PhantomoftheOrgan wrote:It looks like reflective cones over drivers firing upward might improve our ability to hear the stereo images from a larger portion of the room. Has anyone seen reflective cones available for purchase?

You are right but there is always a trade off with these systems and that is loss off focusing. It is more difficult to hear where the pipes are located in the organ console! I have read lots of revieuws on omnidirectional speakers and they al mention the loss in focussing but a increase in spaciousness.
With my dipole speakers i also have some minor defocussing but it is acceptabel for my ears.
Direct radiating speakers in front of me sounded to direct for me.
My rears (Kef eggs) are direct radiating and are situated at some distance behind me. These blend very well with my dipoles.
Regards Jan
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scottherbert

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 11:48 am

I understand the loss of focusing, but in reality, when one plays a real pipe organ, does the sound all come from a single point? True, each pipe does, but when playing chords with multiple ranks on un-enclosed divisions, the sound comes from everywhere, no one, single point. Even when enclosed in a chamber the sound comes from a relatively large area, so to me the omni would be ideal. An exception would, of course, be something like a Chamade, which could be given it's own speaker.

~S
"Life is just a dream, it is in death that we truly awaken!"
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PCM

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 12:30 pm

Hallo Scott,
You are right. When playing on a pipe organ, and certainly when playing chords, the different voices will fuse. If a few stops are played, a more accurate position of the pipe can often be heard. Many people who play with hauptwork have little experience with playing on real pipe organs.

Omni Directional speakers are very good for organ sound reproduction. When playing on the Goerlitz set, for example, you hear the difference when playing on different works.
When playing with a couple of stops, you really hear a difference in the positioning of the pipes. Binaural sound recordings are also displayed realistically.

A good sound card, of course, helps to hear more details.
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Jan Loosman

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 12:35 pm

Yes you are partialy right if you were sitting on a organ bench! But most sample sets are recorded in the church more a listener perspective. And playing on Hauptwerk you also hear the organ from that position.
De mics. are directed to the pipes and the surround mics. to the back of the church.
If you want a genuine reproduction of the soundfield of a church you should use direct radiating speakers because they don't scatter the sound around like omni or bi/dipolar speakers thus reproducing the most accurate soundfield. But i guess this is for the purists among us.
Recreating a correct soundfield of a church can ad to the authentacy of the reproduction and the joy of playing your samplesets.
If i start the Tholen sample set on my console and without playing a single note , only the sound of the wind motor starting, then i can already hear the whole space of the church surrounding me. I feel like being there this is really bizarre! This you can achieve recreating a sound field which is possible with the surround sets.
But these are the choises i made and it took a lot of tweaking, experimenting to get there.
There are lots of people in the Netherlands who use omni speakers because they are so forgiving for every acoustics in the rooms and are easy to listen to without to much tweaking. But being bit of a purist i made my choises otherwise.

Regards Jan
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scottherbert

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 1:18 pm

Bravo Jan! Your system works for you! Everyone has their favorite, and as I always say, everyone has a different opinion. And I have found that nothing, not even politics, sparks more different opinions than speakers! :D

This is why I don't try to convince anyone of anything, I just try to convey what I find out. We can all have fun learning! :lol:

~S
"Life is just a dream, it is in death that we truly awaken!"
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Jan Loosman

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 2:50 pm

Hello Scott

Could't agree more!
Hope you will let us know how you succeeded.

Best regards

Jan
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Eric Sagmuller

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostFri Jun 16, 2017 6:14 pm

When I had my Allen organ a number of years ago, I laid the speakers on their backs, this helped alot with the sound, even with some reverb added. But I've found if I try to diffuse the sound on my HW cathedral sample sets, 5-6 seconds reverb, then it sounds like the pipes are just too far away, unrealistic. But with studio monitors and the surround it sounds much more realistic. I have found however that they sound better if they are facing straight forward, I have a number of them, vs having them all aimed (angled) at me. So I think that slight diffusing does help the sound not to be too direct.

Eric
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PhantomoftheOrgan

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostMon Jun 19, 2017 12:47 pm

I have looked at the speaker layouts of some high end custom digital organs shown on the web during their installation and in most cases they look like a wall of speakers instead of stereo imaging pairs. Does anyone know how that type of audio is routed and if it is possible with Hauptwerk? If so, are there sample sets available that aren't tied to stereo reproduction? For example, if a person had 24 channels available and could spread the speakers in from of the room and cycle notes and ranks through them. Or you could locate some where Great, Swell, Choir, etc. would be from the perspective of the microphone location and that way create the sound field. This way it wouldn't matter that both your left and right ear hear the right speaker and vice versa. You could turn your head from side to side and it would still sound like there is an organ in the front of the room.
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PhantomoftheOrgan

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostMon Jun 19, 2017 12:54 pm

An additional question: If a stereo sample is loaded into RAM as mono, and routed to a mono speaker group, is there phase cancellation?
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mdyde

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Re: Good Sound Throughout the Room

PostMon Jun 19, 2017 1:49 pm

Hello PhantomOfTheOrgan,

PhantomoftheOrgan wrote:If so, are there sample sets available that aren't tied to stereo reproduction?


There are a small number of true mono samples -- Neil Jensen's theatre organ series, and some from Silver Octopus Studios are the only ones, as far as I know.

PhantomoftheOrgan wrote: For example, if a person had 24 channels available and could spread the speakers in from of the room and cycle notes and ranks through them. Or you could locate some where Great, Swell, Choir, etc. would be from the perspective of the microphone location and that way create the sound field.


You can certainly do any of those things in Hauptwerk.

PhantomoftheOrgan wrote:An additional question: If a stereo sample is loaded into RAM as mono, and routed to a mono speaker group, is there phase cancellation?


There will be no phase cancellation; Hauptwerk will automatically pick the loudest channel and adjust its amplitude appropriately.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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