Speaker tuning

J

JJBreeze

New member
So today I was having a conversation with our drummer, who's an audio expert like me and has tons of equipment (including tunable speakers). This morning we got on the topic of room treatment and somehow got onto the subject of tuning speakers to a room. He thought I was insane. He and his girlfriend tried arguing that you don't "tune" speakers. I was laughing so hard, trying to explain that it's seriously called tuning speakers/sound systems. :eek: He continued to get infuriated and him and his girlfriend were persistent that adjusting the EQ of speakers is mixing and that tuning is only for instruments. :spank: He still refuses to believe me, I am correct aren't I? Adjusting the EQ of a set of speakers to give a realistic representation of the sound it produces is called tuning right?
 
Well, you don't 'tune' speakers. You may 'tune' a live PA system to a particular room with crossovers and eq to get the best possible sound in a non-ideal environment. More-so when 'ringing out' monitors, but it is not a normal or good thing to adjust for room issues by adding eq to the output of studio monitors to compensate for issues of the room in a recording/mixing environment. There is software out there that claims that is possible, but you will not see any 'un-paid by developer of the software' saying it is worth a shit.

Treat the room. The reason people pay high dollar for accurate monitors is to keep them as such.


You 'tune' the room in recording setting. Not the speakers.

Anyone who says otherwise is either misinformed or seriously stoned when they said it.

I am seriously stoned right now, so I hope I read your post right. lMAO! Not really..
 
A friend of mine, that I help out occasionally, does pro sound. Like real large indoor/outdoor venue stuff. Full line arrays, etc. He and a friend of his tune each box that comes in. That sometimes includes adding or removing the factory stuffing in the boxes or even changing what type of stuffing they use. They only purchase speaker boxes that are tunable. When I tell you the sound is the most natural you've ever heard, I'm not exaggerating.

These guys have crazy sensitive ears, an amazing collective of audio knowledge and practical experience combined with a strong sense of economics (not cheap but extremely frugal) and a love of analog gear (they use some digital, but not much).

Bill L
 
yeah forget the drummer who is likely to be deaf and his girlfriends opinion, in my last band my mates girlfiend thought she knew everything and she was full of crap, this in the end is what made me leave the band and realise what a huge waste of time working with idiots is...never again, stop wasting your time.
 
if you google tunable speakers or speaker cabs you will find exactly nothing.
That doesn't mean that someone couldn't tweak the sound by changing or removing filling or altering the crossover. But I'm unaware of cabs that are 'tunable' per se.

One thing that can be done in a reflex or ported cab is to change the tuning of the port.
I suppose in certain situations you might 'tune' a cab for a room but it would involve altering the depth or size of the port ..... not really something you can do from gig to gig.
 
muttley600 said:
Does this tuning involve talcum powder?
Click to expand...

He lives near me and has been advertising his set ups and work. Was thinking of going in and asking about that (just to make me laugh). But seriously, I'm pretty certain they tune ported cabs but I'm going to ask him next time I see. The only problem is, asking him a question is like asking an engineer what time it is; they tell you how a watch works and 40 mins later you still have no clue what time it is. :D
 
Strictly speaking in musical terms and that would include musical acoustics, tuning would involve altering the pitch of a sounding model.

No.. tuning speakers is not a process. Some may call treating rooms "tuniing" but they probably have a background in motor sport...;)

Altering cab enclosures is slightly different. You do alter the fundamental frequency response of the cab if you change it's size but you do not alter the pitch of the speaker. By adding or taking packing material you are are just changing the amount of damping or "impedance" applied to ALL frequencies.
 
Lets try to clear up some confusion about tuning speakers/PA systems.

Tuning speaker cabs can be changing the porting length, changing crossover points, changing the internal configuration of the cab.
Why do this to a factory box that has had a lot of money spent in research is confusing, unless it relates to a particular venue with problems, if you don't like the sound of a particular manufacturers cab, get a different cab that does sound good.

Tuning a PA system can be, EQing the system to the room, changing the crossover points, setting up the speaker management system, setting up delay to different speaker arrays.

Alan.
 
That is not tuning. How are you altering the pitch of those speakers?

Tuning is an incorrect term for the process you describe. I am not denying that people do it, just that they are not tuning speakers.
 
muttley600 said:
That is not tuning. How are you altering the pitch of those speakers?

Tuning is an incorrect term for the process you describe. I am not denying that people do it, just that they are not tuning speakers.
Click to expand...
a bit literal today.
The word tuning can mean other things ..... you tune up a car ...... has nothing to do with pitch and yes, it's a proper use of the word since virtually everyone uses it that way and language is simply whatever everyone agrees on.
 
I think the definition we're looking at is: To adjust for maximum usability or performance...not To adjust to a desired frequency.
Tuning just means to adjust (something) to make it in harmony with everything else. Like this post is intended to do. :D
 
Lt. Bob said:
a bit literal today.
The word tuning can mean other things ..... you tune up a car ...... has nothing to do with pitch and yes, it's a proper use of the word since virtually everyone uses it that way and language is simply whatever everyone agrees on.
Click to expand...

Hence my reference to motor sport. In any event motor mechanical tuning is aiming to maximise efficiency. Clearly not the aim here either way....and no language is not what "everybody" agrees on. It may be what everyone who pertains to certain discipline or group agrees on but clearly again, not in this case. Language is more than expressing an idea it is about communicating that idea. Language is a clear and defined method of communication. In this case it is not clear, it is ambiguous. Sure language evolves but not in this case and in science disciplines it is set out in a glossary or cited to previous definitions. In any event motor mechanical tuning is aiming to maximise efficiency. Clearly not the aim here either way.

The reason people like the OP look for validation in the face of an argument such as this is because people do not bother to use terminology correctly. There is no such thing as tuning a speaker any more than there is such a thing as tuning a table. Doesn't matter what people say they are doing. When I cook up some fried chicken and add salt or pepper am I tuning the chicken? No, I am adjusting to taste. The chicken is what it is...

Sadly the OP is wrong... What they are talking about is biasing or acoustic treatment of speaker enclosures and room acoustics/dynamics. One of the first things you teach on any acoustics course is the terms and what they apply to. In music, tuning is altering the pitch. Like you do on a piano..;)

Any way enough of this waffle...:) The OP should just go back and attempt to clarify the terms. Thats the start point for any debate.
 
BroKen_H said:
I think the definition we're looking at is: To adjust for maximum usability or performance...not To adjust to a desired frequency.
Tuning just means to adjust (something) to make it in harmony with everything else. Like this post is intended to do. :D
Click to expand...

No it doesn't.

See what I mean Lt Boob.......;)

In musical terms and in the acoustics world tune means to bring to or fix at a pitch or frequency. In the electronics world it means pretty much the same thing but referring to frequency. If you handed in a piece of work on any Musical acoustics or music technology course claiming it meant something else it would be handed back to you. We are not talking about motor cars here.

Tuning also has nothing to do with harmony. They are separate terms.

Believe it or not when you get into the nuts and bolts of either instrument making or designing and building speaker enclosures "tuning" is a vital and important term to understand. For example I may "tune" the frequency of the top of an instrument, I may "tune" the enclosure of a speaker cabinet but that does not mean I have tuned the speaker or the guitar.
 
Nobody in their right mind would take an expensive line array - that cost thousands per cab and start removing or changing the damping material. This is financially stupid. Blow a driver and your warranty is out the window. I have many friends, and people I work for here in the UK, and the concept of tuning is not something you fiddle with yourself.

This said, ported cabinet designs ARE tuned, and the port tubes extend into the box - and the length of them changes the respond frequency. If you build loudspeakers port dimensions are critical to the design. So you could mess with it. There did used to be a few speakers that had port restrictors supplied, that clipped in to lower or raise the performance at the bottom end. There are plenty of info pages on port tuning - and even things like calculators to work it out for you. here

The trouble with most studio monitors is that the designers have already set these for you - why you'd want to mess them up, I have no idea.

So tuning is the correct term, but it tunes performance really, although it does involve pitch parameters, without of course the musical use of 'tuning'.
 
rob aylestone said:
Nobody in their right mind would take an expensive line array - that cost thousands per cab and start removing or changing the damping material. This is financially stupid. Blow a driver and your warranty is out the window. I have many friends, and people I work for here in the UK, and the concept of tuning is not something you fiddle with yourself.

This said, ported cabinet designs ARE tuned, and the port tubes extend into the box - and the length of them changes the respond frequency. If you build loudspeakers port dimensions are critical to the design. So you could mess with it. There did used to be a few speakers that had port restrictors supplied, that clipped in to lower or raise the performance at the bottom end. There are plenty of info pages on port tuning - and even things like calculators to work it out for you. here

The trouble with most studio monitors is that the designers have already set these for you - why you'd want to mess them up, I have no idea.

So tuning is the correct term, but it tunes performance really, although it does involve pitch parameters, without of course the musical use of 'tuning'.
Click to expand...

As I said... You are tuning the enclosure not the speaker. You are effectively adjusting the A/O resonance in order to avoid conflicts with other external resonant frequencies. Mostly you are trying to cancel them out. You are not tuning the speakers which is the OP claim..
 
speaker - enclosure, semantics! Sure we can agree that we are tuning the enclosure for the specific driver, but most people happily use the term to denote the gadget that produces sound. The whole thing, described by all the manufacturers I can think of, as a Loudspeaker.

Not worth fighting over.
 
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