The word "jianghu", although in ancient China, refers to a social environment that is not controlled by the ruler, not restricted by the law, and can be adapted to one's actions. This refers specifically to the long-standing speaker design and manufacturing culture that ignores the scientific laws of electroacoustics and its scientific standards.
The word "jianghu" is most appropriate to describe the bad habits of today's speaker design and manufacturing industry. Especially in Europe and the United States, there are many "jianghu speakers" under the banner of Hi-Fi or Hi-End. Especially the higher the price, the stronger the quackery. They simply do not regard speakers as objects of auditory aesthetics, and go down a wrong path in speaker design and manufacturing.
The usual "speaker arena" or " arena speakers " ("speaker arena" refers to the arena chain in the speaker industry, and " arena speakers " refers to speaker products that deviate from the scientific rules of electroacoustics), usually exhibits four characteristics:
The first is "Design>Technology".
completely ignores the laws of acoustics and even deviates from acoustic quality standards. It blindly focuses on visual design and replaces technology with design. In terms of visual design, a strange and bizarre shape is created to stimulate users to associate hearing from vision to achieve the purpose of sales.
Among them, the most typical example is the German MBL101. It deliberately uses aluminum foil sheets, copper bars, and carbon fiber sheets to make a gourd-shaped drive unit.
Figure 1 The German MBL101 loudspeaker emphasizes visual design and ignores or even breaks away from acoustic quality technology.
The two ends of the sound film are connected to the suspension or elastic wave at one end, and the voice coil is connected at the other end. The voice coil is pulled up and down, causing the sound membrane to expand and contract and deform to produce sound. The voice coil moves axially, but the sound diaphragm moves radially. The two form a 90-degree right angle between the driving and passive parts, and the sound diaphragm resistance is particularly large. Therefore, the sound conversion efficiency is extremely low. Its 1 meter 1W electroacoustic output has a sound pressure level of 81dB, and its electroacoustic efficiency is extremely low. Its sound film conversion efficiency is surprisingly low as cm²/0.021dB (each cm2 only reaches 0.021dB sound pressure level). Its sound film expansion area is approximately 3825cm², 81dB/3825cm², resulting in a sound film conversion efficiency of cm2/0.021dB. Compared with the 3-inch speaker (CAA2854A-R3) we developed, the sound film vibration area is 29.8cm², the 1 meter 1W output sound pressure level is 82.5dB, =cm²/2.76dB conversion efficiency, its efficiency is the MBL101 "big gourd" speaker sound film 130 times the sound conversion efficiency. What is the significance of
sound film conversion efficiency?
The sound conversion efficiency of the sound film is proportional to the back electromotive force of the speaker: the lower the sound conversion efficiency of the sound film, the higher the back electromotive force. At the same current/voltage input, the higher the sound conversion efficiency of the sound film, the smaller the reactive power ratio it consumes, and more electrical power is converted into sound power; on the contrary, if the sound conversion efficiency of the sound film is lower, This shows that the greater the reactive power ratio it consumes, the less electrical power is converted into sound power. And a lot of that reactive power is consumed in the confrontation with "diaphragm power generation". The power generated by the diaphragm (like the principle of power generation by a microphone) will be fed back into the circuit to form a back electromotive force.
has high efficiency and small reactive power ratio. Low efficiency results in a large reactive power ratio: more electroacoustic conversion power is consumed in reactive power, and more musical details in electrical (magnetic) messages are submerged in reactive power. Moreover, the sound waves inside (the back) of the MBL101 sound membrane are in a mess, and the waveforms cancel and fight, which seriously interferes with the front movement of the sound membrane and causes extreme distortion. Therefore, it is filled with a lot of sound-absorbing cotton inside, which in turn inhibits the normal vibration of the sound membrane. Therefore, the listening experience is dull, vicissitudes of life, sluggish, and dark, and cannot express the musical image clearly. The most obvious thing is that the human voice sounds like the sound from a car stereo radio box in the 1950s, and the violin sounds like pulling a steel wire or a banjo, without the mellow tone of a violin. The American audiophile bible "The Absolute Sound" (abbreviated as TAS) rated it as "the ultimate speaker of music lovers' dream".
The speaker industry chain includes the design and R&D end - the manufacturing end - the sales end. (Among them, the sales side includes the media. Media with widespread influence, such as "Fever Book", is an important promotional link for speaker sales. If the media does not "lift the sedan" and is not used by the manufacturing side, it will not receive advertising fees. , page fees, you can’t survive). Therefore, the content promoted by the media cannot be fully believed. It is also part of the "speaker arena".
Besides, the editor of the media is neither an authority on electroacoustic technology nor an engineer, and has no scientific judgment in electroacoustic science and engineering technology. It is impossible to expect the media to take a fair and scientific stance on speaker technology. The media is a communication intermediary (mouthpiece), not a technical subject. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the American Dave Wilson brand to occupy a large amount of space in the "Fever Book" and "get" a lot of "good reviews."
The second is "gimmicks > gimmicks".
The typical representative in this regard is the WAMM Master Chronosonic series of American Dave Wilson (Chinese translation is prestige).
I heard it and was surprised: the quality is too poor.
I downloaded the product introduction from its official website, trying to understand its performance carefully. The results are also surprising: the entire 74-page article contains less than 1% of the content that can actually provide the physical properties of the product. There are very few descriptions of performance technologies related to electroacoustics, and there are no innovations or achievements in electroacoustic technology. Instead, they only introduce "gimmicks" that have nothing to do with electroacoustic performance and even hinder the normal performance of electroacoustics. This is like a boss selling pork and beef who "injects water" into the meat in order to make more money. Gimmick = water injection.
The Chinese word "gimmick" often refers to "tricks". It is a marketing technique that uses tricks to create selling points, directs users' attention to speaker quality to issues other than the key essence of the speaker product, and uses "gimmick" decoration to cover up product performance defects or deficiencies.
WAMM Master Chronosonic series pays special attention to adjusting the speaker unit position, angle, and beautiful wiring.
Figure 2 WAMM Master Chronosonic’s exaggerated industrial-feel design gimmick
In order to adjust the angle and position of the speaker unit and the visual beauty of the wiring (see the picture below):
Figure 3 The industrial-feel speaker stand with an impressive shape
Make the speaker the best One of the best materials, "aviation aluminum" (6010~6030 aluminum), is not used for cabinet acoustics, but for speaker brackets.
Figure 4 Wrong tweeter position and extremely common silk membrane and paper membrane units
The tweeter unit uses a popular silk membrane. Silk dome tweeters are very common. Low cost, simple manufacturing and large inventory. However, the acoustic indicators are extremely poor: silk fabrics all have thin necks, and their warp and weft will expand and contract with the vibration force; and the Young's modulus is extremely low and cannot withstand air pressure and is easily deformed. And because the Young's modulus is too low and the sound speed is too slow, it responds slowly to vibrations at higher frequencies and cannot express the clear and translucent sound quality at higher frequencies. In order to avoid the thin neck phenomenon and seal the gaps in the silk fabric, resin is coated. As a result, the originally light-weight material becomes a higher-density material, which immediately reduces the sound speed and its response time. Therefore, silk-woven membranes have slow high-frequency response and are generally used in low-end systems to cover up the noise caused by the low-end causes of the system. Due to the poor response of the diaphragm, it can cover up even system noise. Silk diaphragms are favored by some people because they sacrifice the high-frequency details of music in exchange for "listening resistance". But it definitely doesn’t have the agility and beautiful texture of musical treble.
WAMM Master Chronosonic series flagship tweeter unit is located 1.6 meters above the ground, which is much higher than the 70~75cm distance from the ground for human ears sitting on the sofa. This makes the sound field positioned too high, so high that it completely violates the rules of listening to high-fidelity speakers. Although the device has a radiation angle of the tweeter, it cannot change the sound field positioning error.
WAMM Master Chronosonic series midrange, midrange and even bass also use extremely ordinary paper diaphragms. This kind of diaphragm is also widely used in low-end systems because of its large inventory and low cost. The Young's modulus of the paper diaphragm is too low. The highest one is only 0.6 (*E1ON/m², and the sound speed is only 3750m/s. It is one of the materials with the lowest sound speed in the diaphragm. Not only is it easy to deform during vibration , and the response is very slow and the efficiency is very low. The sound conversion efficiency is as low as no more than 2dB per cm². The low efficiency of the diaphragm will naturally increase the reactive power ratio, and the active power ratio of will decrease, which will naturally cause the loss of electrical signals. more musical details.
It not only avoids the key physical element of the speaker unit diaphragm material, but also continues to develop gimmick decorations: installing a tweeter unit and a midrange unit on the back of the speaker that radiate toward the ceiling.
Figure 5 Using the back unit radiation to further exaggerate the gimmick
From the perspective of its installation, the high and low frequencies that "radiate to the ceiling" simply cannot play the role described in the instructions. Because high-frequency sound waves are refracted or reflected in straight lines, not to mention that the radiation angle cannot allow the sound waves to reach the ceiling. Even if they reach the ceiling and are refracted, they will be blocked by the back of the speaker, forming a standing wave between the back of the speaker and the wall, and cannot be refracted to people in front of the speaker panel. Ear. This practice is called “saucy operation” by Chinese netizens.
He hasn’t finished his gimmick articles yet. In the manual, it states that it does not cut medium density fiberboard (MDF) or high density fiberboard , and specifically explains that the materials used for speaker shells after decades of research are "X-type material" and "S-type material". Type material", "V type material". However, its description of the physical properties of the material is evasive and silent on the mechanical properties of the material: parameters such as Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio , density, and acoustic resistance.
WAMM Master Chronosonic manual proposes the "X", "S" and "V" concepts of cabinet materials, trying to explain its core technology. However, there are no physical parameters related to Young's modulus related to box rigidity, Poisson's ratio related to box strength, density related to box sound insulation performance, and acoustic resistance related to material resonance strength. Without these key parameters, it is fundamentally impossible to explain the acoustic performance and quality of its cabinet design and manufacturing. This kind of behavior is almost like using "X", "S", "V" and other specious "innovations" to "hoodwink" users and deceive them.
For commercial confidentiality, you can hide material composition and process, but you cannot hide material mechanics performance (results).
In other words, WAMM Master Chronosonic series speakers focus on gimmicks that don't work, spend most of their financial resources and manpower on "gimmicks", and extremely ignore components and their structures related to sound quality. Even sacrificing normal acoustic laws for this purpose.
So it is a typical representative of "gimmick > gimmick". "Gotou" refers to components, structures and technologies that are affordable, practical, and can truly reflect the value of the product, as well as the final auditory effect.
It is even used as part of the gimmick, the capacitor , which plays a vital role in the frequency divider.
Figure 6 WAMM Master Chronosonic manual specifically introduces hand-wound capacitors
WAMM Master Chronosonic only expresses "genius design, hand-wound capacitors" in the manual, without any explanation of the key loss angle, capacity tolerance, etc. of the capacitor performance. Without the description of relevant physical parameters, it is impossible to indicate the quality of its performance.
According to the author's experience: Due to the different strengths of metal films and insulating resin films (polypropylene or polytetrafluoroethylene ), it is difficult to master the appropriate tension and uniform tension of the two materials when winding by hand. Force, not only the tolerance of the capacitor value will be >automated production, but also the air between the roll gaps will produce current resonance, causing noise. Unless the relevant physical parameters are taken out. Otherwise, it is really a "gimmick" without stable quality and reliable performance.
Its product manual mentions many times that the founder of this series of brands (Dave Wilson) is a "genius" in speaker design. In my interpretation and listening experience, I regard him as a "genius" in speaker gimmick design. A genius with a crooked brain. There is no innovation in the advancement of electroacoustic technology, let alone any achievements. (Please forgive my resentment towards commercial fraud).
No wonder a netizen commented on it like this: "I heard it once. This brand is completely hyped up to sell it at a high price. If you don't believe it, listen to it yourself. The sound is useless and messy. The treble can't go up and the bass can't go down. From then on, Judging from the number of speakers, this box is definitely doomed. It is destined to produce messy sounds. The large and small sounds overlap seriously. Maybe the sounds at the same frequency are not synchronized at all. People who are stupid and have a lot of money and do not understand the sound will be confused for the first time. This kind of advertising scam from a small factory.” (Excerpted from http://www.tubebbs.com/thread-301792-1-1.html) This netizen’s evaluation is consistent with my hearing. I specifically chose to listen to Tchaikovsky's "1882 Overture". It really couldn't go up or down. The sound quality and sound field were a mess, not as good as many 3,000 yuan speakers (priced at 4 million yuan).
The third is "price > value".
The above-mentioned WAMM Master Chronosonic series can also be said to be the representative of "price > value". This kind of speaker has little value or even negative value when evaluated from the perspective of materials, craftsmanship, technology and auditory effects. But in order to reflect its value in marketing, the price was extremely high (4 million yuan). Use price to package value. Chinese people have a traditional sense of "you get what you pay for" when it comes to commodities, and believe that the higher the price, the greater the value. The American businessman took advantage of the situation and packaged its value with a price of 4 million: telling users that it has a value of 4 million. This style stems from the fact that most people around the world do not understand sound quality and cannot judge the basic market conditions of sound quality. But rich people have the mentality of "buying the expensive thing but not the right thing" (it's not that they don't want to buy the right thing, but they don't know what is right). Therefore, the trend of "price > value" prevails in the speaker industry. Especially high-priced speakers.
The fourth is "deception > technology".
This phenomenon is most common in European and American speaker product management: for example, the higher the price of the speaker, the more casual the technical parameters are. There is absolutely no respect for users or the industry in which they are engaged.
Among them, the most typical representative of "deception > technology" and its root cause is IEC (the English abbreviation of the International Electrotechnical Commission of the United States).
The earliest high-fidelity speaker standard is the standard for the minimum performance requirements for high-fidelity speakers formulated by the International Electrotechnical Commission of the United States, namely IEC 60581-7-1986 "Minimum Performance Requirements for High-Fidelity Audio Equipment and Systems Part 7: Speakers"; my country The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China has formulated and issued standards on the minimum performance requirements for high-fidelity speakers with reference to American standards, namely GB/T 7313-1987 "Minimum Performance Requirements and Measurement Methods for High-Fidelity Speaker Systems"; successively, British Standards Institution released the standard BS 5942-7-1987 on the minimum performance requirements for high-fidelity speakers, namely "Minimum Performance Requirements for High-Fidelity Audio Equipment and Systems Part 7: Speaker Specifications", and the Danish Standardization Association released the minimum performance requirements on high-fidelity speakers The standard, DS/IEC 581-7-1987, is "High-fidelity audio equipment and systems. Minimum performance requirements. Part 7: Loudspeakers". South Korea has issued a standard on the minimum performance requirements for high-fidelity speakers, KS C IEC 60581-7 -2003 namely "High fidelity audio equipment and systems. Minimum performance requirements. Part 7: Loudspeakers". These standards are all based on the American IEC standard , which has basically become the default standard in the world industry so far.
The so-called default standard of the world industry can almost be interpreted as an international standard. European countries and even Asian countries, all manufacturers of speakers hope that their products can enter the U.S. market, so they naturally look to the United States on standards issues.
Why is it said that the typical representative and root of "cheating > technology" is IEC?
IEC When formulating this standard, it must first take care of the export of American electroacoustic brands (such as Bose, Harman Kardon, etc.), and secondly, leave room for the development of domestic electroacoustic technology. If standards are set scientifically and strictly, American electroacoustic companies will not survive. So the standard chose pseudoscientific arbitrariness.For example, requirements related to frequency response characteristics:
"The flatness of the curve within the range of 125Hz~8000Hz does not exceed ±4dB"
Figure 7 IEC 60581-7-1986 frequency response standard diagram
Where does this requirement come from? What is the scientific basis for this?
"Scientific evidence" is most important for standards. So what can be said to be scientifically based?
If it is said that the average human ear (most people) can recognize sounds with a sound pressure level difference of 3dB as a common and objective auditory physiological response, then it should be the scientific basis for the frequency response of high-fidelity speakers .
How to understand the 3dB sound pressure level difference? That is, the non-uniformity of the frequency response and the sound pressure level fluctuation cannot exceed 3dB.
The requirement of the above-mentioned IEC standard is ±4dB, that is, the sound pressure level average line (sensitivity) can fluctuate 4dB upward (+) and fluctuate (-) 4dB downward. This requirement brings the average sound pressure level difference to 8dB, far exceeding the 3dB scientific basis for human ear recognition.
European and American speaker manufacturers, in order to show that the performance of their products is higher than the IEC standard and to show that they are higher than the "minimum high-fidelity requirements", almost industry-widely declares the performance frequency response characteristics of their products as "±3dB". In this way, almost all speakers in Europe and the United States that are called HI-Fi or Hi-End default to this label.
As for the term "±3dB", there is a problem of "stealing and changing the concept": since the recognition ability of the human ear is 3dB, is +3dB or -3dB both within the scope of scientific basis? All. As long as the average fluctuation of the frequency response is in the range of +3dB or -3dB, it is not beyond the range of human ears. But +3dB or -3dB≠±3dB. ±3dB is equal to 6dB (that is, 3dB upward and 3dB downward, the sum = 6dB). The frequency response sound pressure level above the average line is +3dB, and the frequency response sound pressure level below the average line is -3dB. From -3 to +3, isn't it a 6dB sound pressure level difference?
secretly replaces the concept of +3dB or -3dB with ±3dB. This is a "cheat" in the European and American electroacoustic industry. This scam all comes from the IEC in the United States. Because it was the first to formulate the ±4dB standard in IEC 60581-7-1986 "Minimum Performance Requirements for High-Fidelity Audio Equipment and Systems Part 7: Loudspeakers".
Establishing an industrial standard is a very serious matter and must be rigorous and scientific. However, the European and American loudspeaker standard behavior led by IEC is neither rigorous nor scientific. Instead, they implemented "standard deception" by "stealing one thing and replacing it with another."
Although the American IEC has formulated a standard of ±4dB, and the European and American speaker industries seem to have implemented a default standard of ±3dB that is higher than the IEC, there are still a lot of "cheats" in the implementation of the standards.
If the nominal does not match the actual measurement:
Example 1, Acoustic Energy AE1 (UK)
Nominal: 70Hz-22kHz ±3dB
Actual measurement: 70Hz-22kHz (-13dB~-5dB) difference of 8dB
Figure 8 Actual measured frequency response of Acoustic Energy AE1 in the UK Curve chart
Example 2, DALI Zensor 1 ( Danish )
nominal: 53~26.5KHz±3dB
measured: 53~26.5KHz (-7dB~﹢3dB) difference of 10dB
Figure 9 Danish DALI Zensor 1 measured frequency response Curve chart
Example 3, Totem Acoustic Model 1 (Canada)
nominal: 45~22KHz (±3dB)
measured: 45~22KHz (-13dB~-5dB), a difference of 8dB
Figure 10 Canadian Totem Totem Acoustic Model 1 measured frequency Sound curve chart
The "deception" of the above standards and product examples can be found everywhere in the performance of European and American speakers. It is a disdain or neglect of technology. It’s not about fooling technology and users from the perspective of speakers, which are basically sound products.
pointed out the "jianghu" behavior of European and American speaker design and manufacturing from the above four aspects (design > technology, gimmicks > gimmicks, price > value, deception > technology), with the purpose of warning himself and reminding his peers: speaker design and manufacturing Don't take advantage of the vast majority of people who don't understand sound quality to establish an electroacoustic engineer's product and its technical position (this is called "taking advantage of others' danger"). A speaker is ultimately a sound product, and its fundamental selling point lies in its sound quality.Speaker user needs are essentially sound needs. There is no contradiction between industrial design and industrial performance. You must not use design > technology, gimmicks > gimmicks, price > value, deception > technology to make "market speakers".
Especially electroacoustic engineers, they must have a sense of awe for electroacoustic technology (at least I worship it in my heart like a god), and they must have a sense of awe for users, otherwise, they will be the ones who ruin their jobs, ruin their reputation. . Another purpose of
is to remind consumers, especially Chinese users: Don't blindly follow the "advocating foreigners and favoring foreigners" and choose European and American speakers. The speaker industry chain in Europe and the United States has become a "paper tiger" with a "gang lake mentality". It has been on the "evil path" in the development of electroacoustic technology for a long time, and it is difficult to return. He can provide you with "good-looking" products, but he cannot provide you with "good-sounding" products.
China will inevitably lead the development of electroacoustic technology in the future. Because China produces and manufactures 70% of the world's electroacoustic products, the electroacoustic industry manufacturing chain tends to China, which will inevitably stimulate the vitality of relevant talents and technical forces. It will eventually gain the right to speak in the world's electroacoustic technology.
This article is the quotation or premise of the article "Advanced Speaker Design Examples" that I wrote.
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