As a bit of personal bias; maybe back in my college dayz I was more of a ‘first upfront treble, then tight bass’ kind-of a guy… (sorry I digressed, The Commodores- Brick House) but when it comes to music (anyway), for me, it’s really all about the midrange / voices. Don’t get me wrong a nice set of trebles and a tight (but not voluminous) bass are greatly appreciated, but if the voices don’t stand forward for me in the music…

Ok, here is what I’m finding, and I may be completely off. But, over the last couple of builds and critical listening I’ve been getting a little less satisfied with the vocals, the important midrange- seems a bit distanced. So, I’ve been doing some more listening, some googling and groking. Why did the BBC dip ‘just work’ in its day? What I’m finding; older recordings were mastered with voicing up 2-4 dB putting voices front and center, much information of which is centered somewhere between 1kHz and 3kHz (from what I can derive from videos on studio mastering to enhance vocals). Critically, this range (1.5 to 4kHz +/-) is squarely within our ear’s most sensitive range, and additionally where most crossovers to tweeter (from mid, or woofer in a two-way) lay. Even if one crosses above 4kHz, even with higher orders, the crossover range will be somewhat through this frequency range. The effects of which can be heard (and seen as squiggles) where two sources are playing the same signal. And while the crossover may be optimized for ~on-axis, moving further off we get additives and subtractive effects to the waveforms. So, the BBC dip seemed to work addressing what may have been a) too forward of voicing (still netting a +1 to 1.5 dB voicing) and b) attenuating what can be problematic with crossing in this range.

But what I’m hearing now, with so many of the older albums being remastered, I’m getting the sense that with the bass being augmented and focus on treble (in the era of ‘better speakers') the voices are less accentuated, with the overall remastered recordings now actually being much more balanced. So overlay this with a BBC dip and the voices become, if not somewhat muffled at least a bit less forward. I’m not a vinal guy and don’t have an old collection for checking, but it seems an original vs. remastered comparison may back me up on this? I have now been looking a bit more closely to the albums / music I’m streaming for ‘remastered’.

So, while what is blasphemy to my long-held entrenched ways, I’ve added boost ~ 1.5dB @1850Hz with a Q1, and finding I like it (guessing now just in the range of +0.5 to 1.0 net). I like what I’m hearing with the voices. I’m not going to measure it for awhile because I don’t want to be influenced by ‘seeing’ a bit of a rise in this range (vs my old bias which would be a slight dip).

So, thoughts?
And, I know some of you may have experience in mastering in the studio and/or live – so please educated me- thx.

July 22, 2025
Dropbox files cleared-out completely as of this writing.
This thread and all links contained herein should be considered dead and terminated.
Thanks for all the feedback [ERIC] and associates.
I'll start a new one once If get refocused upon further efforts in this endeavor.

1.25 cu ft / 35L - DUAL Drivers, SEALED enclosure, Qtc = 0.673, QA = 50
Input Power = 10.0 W, Distance = 2.5M, Angle = 20*:

Linkwitz Transform (LT) applied:

PEQ ONLY:

LT wins out slightly in Group Delay (GD) improvement however PEQ wins in Amp Power required AND Cone Excursion to achieve the graphed 96 db SPL

I don't find vented alignments to be useful for my needs but please post your findings for others to observe.

CD storage binders can work, but they may or may not fit the booklet and back card. And I find the larger capacity ones get awkward. They work for space efficient long term storage. Just less nice to interact with on a day to day basis.

I found a few options for sleeves that allow you to save the cover/booklet and back card.

Gatefold sleeves:
https://bagsunlimited.com/cd-gatefold-sleeve-center-loading-holds-tray-card-and-booklet-in-one-side-cd-in-the-other

Top load single sleeves:
https://amazon.com/Mediaxpo-Clear-Plastic-Sleeve-Stitches/dp/B0C86P9CFB/

(The thin inner sleeves mentioned in the below vid)
https://amazon.com/Sleeves-Transparent-Storage-Protective-100PCS/dp/B0F2FTM9N8

These seem perfect for me. Save a ton of space while keeping all the original booklets and artwork. Trough style bins make it much like vinyl storage/browsing, just on a mini scale.

What do you guys use?

I guess it looks cool. But seems like alot of wasted space. Am I missing something?

I pointed him at this combo but still interested in looking at other options --> https://www.amazon.com/Edifier-S2000MKIII-Bluetooth-Bookshelf-Speakers/dp/B07ZVP9XBG/?encoding=UTF8&ref=pd_hp_d_btf_gcx_gw_per_1

He suggested these but for the price I think he can do a lot better --> https://emotiva.com/products/airmotiv-xb2-bookshelf-loudspeakers

TIA.

Is this mid dome really all that difficult to work with (flattening) if using DSP alone?

Swan/HiVi says the FR looks like this -->

. . . And impedance looks like this -->

JR says it looks like this on his baffle/raw [no XO I assume] -->

Using DSP alone, can this thing not be easily flattened on a 10" wide baffle and crossed around 400 Hz LR2 or LR4 and be just fine?

Thinking that 6.5 ~ 8 inch diameter frames would work from f3 of 60 to near 20K but haven't really spent much time using them in the past.

Anything jump to mind?