Before I get into this in any detail, I want everyone to be very clear that I hold SL in the highest regard.
There is some truth here regarding the room interaction, but the differences are fairly minor. Back in the 90s when I was playing around with dipole bass initially because of the bass list, I read about the lack of interaction within the room and initially, my impression was that I agreed. Unfortunately, real world measurements did show a slight improvement in certain frequency ranges, the overall room interaction was still significant enough that the room still showed that it dominate the response. Distributed dipole bass did show some improvements similar to it's use with monopoles, but did prove to be a bit trickier implementing it. As far as the articulate comment, that's purely subjective and doesn't correlate well to my real world experience with a variety of different types of speakers. The cleanest, least colored, and most articulate bass I've ever experienced was monopole bass in a distributed bass system using AE drivers throughout. In terms of dipole bass, the carver amazing clones built by a DIYer with 8 15" dipole 15s was as good as it got for me. I believe there are pieces to perceived articulation that are more important than whether it's a dipole or monopole system.
Yep, I'll buy that to some extent. What I believe he's getting at with the room response is the reflected content in the room has a different sonic character than the direct sound. If the reflected material has the same character as the direct, you can use it to your advantage rather than trying to cover it up or over come it in some way. Monopoles are only an issue in that regard if the designed in a way that allows them to be. With modern waveguides, the dipole advantage here is essentially completely nullified if not surpassed. While the radiation pattern of a dipole does reduce some of the content from the first reflection points, it doesn't get rid of all of it and in many cases (full range + bass augmentation designs), the polar response off axis doesn't approach constant meaning that the reflected material that still exists will have a different sonic character than the direct. This is where good waveguides can actually exceed the ability of a dipole to remove the room.
Again this is true but there may be some implication that the theoretical problem is bigger than the reality.
I've heard this manifest itself in line arrays far more than line sources, but there is no denying that the lobing can exist. I've seen some nasty comb filtering at high frequencies in my measurements of line arrays and while measuring panels, the response often looks nastier than the sound. I think Atkinson mentions that it's more a measurable problem than a problem that is clearly audible. I've never done any research in this regard, but some elevator thinking in my head says that the source of the sound is coming from an essentially an infinite number of distances from your ears with the same signal and that could lead to a bit of time smearing. My guess is that we react well to that, though, and it doesn't bother us. Although, giving this a little more thought, I did hear a focused array positioned in a manner that had all the drivers equidistant from the listener and it did provide a little more pinpoint imaging. It's something to give more thought to.
Perfectly reasonable. If you are listening at low volumes, the concerns I expressed about the performance of my h frames and open baffle bass with the 15A are reduced significantly. The best OB bass I've heard, as I mentioned earlier, used 8 15" AE dipoles. This is obviously not the least bit economical, but the results were among the best I've heard. I'd love to hear Martin's lowther/AE system with fewer drivers. Chances are, if someone can make a Lowther sound good, it will be him.
I think I need a little more context on what reaching deeper into the room means, but it's good to see the validation of the importance of polar response. Polar response isn't typically a strength of the normal approach, but it would be decent in the case of the Orions. Some Orions with dipole waveguides would be really interesting to me.
Again, more context is necessary. My first reaction is to think that there must be more to this message because it would be almost silly to make this comment. I bet a conversation would reveal the info I'd need and I'd probably have the eureka moment quickly, but as stated, I can't buy this argument.
To some degree, I agree with this. It's a bit like cartridge alignment, there is a meaningful amount of tweaking that will get you 99% there, beyond that, you are probably stressing about silly things with little practical results. That said, I do find it intriguing how a system like a TACT processor or Audessey can take two speakers in less than ideal placement and make an imaging mess snap into perfect focus by accounting for differences in distance. I can't be bothered over stressing over .25" differences or something to that effect, so I'm largely in agreement here.
I agree, but that doesn't just apply to dipoles. A well treated room will not sound like a stuffed pillow. There is certainly a point that can be quickly reached where too much treatment has a negative effect on the sound. I quite like a lively room with speakers with controlled directivity like a dipole (so some extent) or a waveguide.
I'm on the fence and this clarifies his position on masking the room sound. My guess on his premise was correct. With the idea of using a dipole with well controlled polar patterns, I'd tend to agree with his statement. With other speaker styles, I'm not quite as on board.
This might be a statement that is a bit dated. Between TACT, Audessey, and other players in this market, there have been some really amazing advancements in the world of DSP. The addition of a TACT was one of those very few eye opening moments I've had during my 20+ years in the hobby as a DIYer and audiophile.
From 200 hz up, I'm on board almost completely. Under 200hz, I'd go as far as to say he's factually wrong.
In principle, I agree with most of that. I could nitpick the generalizations expressed at bit, but I won't.
This isn't a pro-dipole argument, at all. It's anti-market and something I generally agree with, but a dipole system has no inherent immunity to this behavior and no inherent superiority in application.
This is clearly offensive stereotyping and SL would be wise to remove that sort of comment from his website. He's too good for that sort of low level passive aggressive BS.
I must be good at accomplishing the difficult. My experience has shown that I am equally adept at screwing up open baffles just as well as box speakers.
In reality, though, if given a set of drivers that worked well in boxes and a set equally well suited to OB, I'd likely be more effective at making a very good speaker in box than I would in an OB but that could be mostly experience talking. I've probably built 10 OBs and over a dozen times that many boxed speakers over the years.
