Modern sound systems have reached exceptional levels of fidelity, but one persistent challenge remains:

Achieving a consistent, and immersive listening experience with a faithful brain interpretation of the sound.

This is where ADAPT, for Acoustic Constant Directivity Adapted to Psychoacoustic Technology, comes in, introducing a new approach to horn and waveguide loudspeaker design.

Limitations of Traditional Loudspeakers

Conventional loudspeakers often exhibit varying directivity patterns across the frequency spectrum or don’t take into account how the brain naturally interprets sound.

This means the way sound disperses changes depending on the frequency and don’t take account of brain perception, making it challenging to deliver a balanced sonic experience throughout a listening space.

High frequencies attenuate and become more directional sooner than low frequencies, leading to uneven and incoherent sound coverage.

Why is consistent coverage important?

In real-world environments, sound behaves in two ways:

• Direct sound: This is the sound that travels directly from the loudspeaker to the listener.

• Reverberated sound: This is the sound that reflects off walls and other surfaces before reaching the listener.

The critical distance that is not a single point, but rather a zone or region, is where the level of direct sound and the level of reverberated sound are equal or close to be.

For optimal sound experience, the ideal balance between direct and reverberated sound is around 50/50 or 60/40, it’s why our listening position should be inside the critical distance area.

Uneven coverage disrupts this balance, often causing an excess of reverberated sound, leading to muffled or distorted audio. This is why having the right uniform coverage adapted to our listening distance, even directly in front of the speaker, is crucial.

ADAPT technology addresses these challenges by focusing on achieving consistent directivity and respecting psychoacoustic principles, ultimately delivering a more balanced and immersive listening experience.

ADAPT: The Psychoacoustic Solution

ADAPT technology addresses this by focusing on three criticals areas:

• Constant Directivity: ADAPT-enabled loudspeakers achieve controlled dispersion across the frequency range through careful design, without relying on unintended diffraction or accidental anomalies. This ensures that every listener receives the same tonal balance and sonic character, see more about constant directivity.

• Psychoacoustic Adaptation: Psychoacoustics studies the complex relationship between sound and human hearing. ADAPT leverages established psychoacoustic principles, inspired by the research of Dr. Floyd E. Toole, to further optimize directivity. It considers factors like the human ear’s frequency sensitivity and spatial perception to create a listening experience that feels natural, immersive, and faithful to the original sound.

• Precise Propagation Wavefront Control: Leveraging advanced computer simulations (FEA) and meticulously designed fluid dynamics, ADAPT achieves flawless and consistent wavefront control across all frequencies throughout the entire horn profile, starting from the throat. This ensures a clean and consistent sound response, free from unexpected on and off-axis anomalies.
  By incorporating the (optionnal) full roundover return in the design, midrange narrowing and beaming are completely eliminated, further enhancing performances.

Benefits of ADAPT in Practice

• Uniform Sound Coverage: No more narrow “sweet spots”, ADAPT eliminates inconsistencies, ensuring every listener enjoys the same level of detail and clarity with a wide soundstage.

• Enhanced Clarity: By precisely controlling wave propagation within the horn, ADAPT delivers a clean and consistent sound across the entire listening area, free from variations in response.

• Immersive Listening: With consistent sonic character throughout the space, ADAPT creates a truly engaging sound field for live music or cinematic experiences.

• Reduced Acoustic Reflections: By precisely controlling dispersion, ADAPT minimizes unwanted sound reflections from walls and ceilings, promoting sonic accuracy and fidelity.

Transforming the Listening Experience

ADAPT represents a leap forward in loudspeaker technology and listening experience, delivering consistent fidelity, optimal intelligibility, and immersive soundscapes.

This is achieved by prioritizing both technical excellence and human auditory perception, recognizing the intricate connection between sound and human brain perception (psychoacoustics).

PressureWave

PressureWave technology introduces a new approach to tackling high-frequency dispersion. It employs a unique technique called wavefront compression.

By strategically compressing the wavefront of the sound wave, PressureWave allows for effective interaction with the entire horn profile even for very high frequencies. This translates to precise control of the top end frequency spectrum, which can be beneficial depending on the horn’s intended application.

Essentially, this compression modifies the wave’s behavior, making it more susceptible to shaping by and follow the horn geometry when the wavelength is smaller than the throat diameter.

PressureWave achieves constant directivity control even for very high frequencies, complementing, not replacing, modern fluid pinch designs when necessary.

Breaking the Throat Diameter Rule

Traditionally, horn design relies on a well-established principle, here simplified:

The throat diameter dictates the level of control over high-frequency directivity:

When the frequency wavelength is inferior to throat diameter or pinch distance it’s the natural directivity of the throat exit that will dictates directivity, according to his surface.

However, PressureWave technology disrupts this established rule by employing wavefront compression without adding or use diffraction, PressureWave horns achieve excellent high frequency directivity even with a big throat.

This opens up possibilities for speaker design, especially big horns in cinemas with bleachers seating as seen in M-Shape horns, we can see the constant behavior keeped on all the bandwidth:

Of course the chaotic nature of the wavefront in very high frequency is still visible very high: When the diaphragm’s breakup occurs it exits plane-wave radiation behavior, but this time, instead of doing a hollow, it stays constant.

Addressing the Chaotic Nature

While PressureWave offers a new approach, it’s not without its complexities.

Compressing the wavefront can introduce chaotic behavior in the sound radiation pattern if the horn shape isn’t meticulously designed and rigorously simulated.

Using Pressure Wave is possible only in some case with precise conditions, depending of the horn but also to the objective given to the horn.

To harness the full potential of PressureWave, speaker designers utilize advanced computational simulations and precise engineering practices. These ensure the creation of horn profiles that achieve optimal control over the entire audio spectrum, delivering the intended directivity and optimum wavefront propagation.

Conclusion

PressureWave technology represents a significant advancement in overcoming high-frequency dispersion in long range big throat horns - after 1" diameter.

It not work alone or in replacement of something else, a result in directivity behavior is the consequence of several factors.

By strategically manipulating the wavefront, PressureWave horns defy the limitations of traditional designs.

ReShape©

ReShape© is a phase plug technology developed using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to optimize the directivity of tweeters and dome-shaped midrange drivers.

Unlike phase shields, which rely on diffraction for some directivity control, ReShape© employs a more sophisticated approach as compression driver phase plug does.

Constant Directivity for Horn Designs:

Traditional tweeters exhibit inconsistent directivity, especially at higher frequencies. ReShape© addresses this by shaping the sound wave to achieve a constant directivity profile within specific horn designs, such as Tweeter OS horn.

This ensures consistent sound radiation across the intended listening area.

Beyond Diffraction: Plane Wave Radiation

Phase shields utilize diffraction to manipulate directivity, but this can introduce coloration and inconsistencies.

ReShape© takes a different approach, similar to compression driver phase plugs.

It allows the tweeter to function as a plane wave radiation device. By shaping the wavefront, ReShape© promotes the emission of a more uniform sound wave, leading to improved clarity and control.

Extending Tweeter Capability:

ReShape© allows the tweeter to operate bellow its typical radiation angle (around 120°).

This translates to a further usable listening distance by restricting waveguide coverage regardless of the listener’s position, without creating accidents of diffractions,

Minimizing Unwanted Effects:

ReShape© ensures accurate sound reproduction, free from artifacts or harshness caused by diffraction or standing waves phenomena.

This meticulous design results in a directivity performance comparable to high-quality 1-inch compression drivers.

Tailored Design for Optimal Performance:

ReShape© is meticulously recalculated for specific tweeter models, adhering to our ADAPT principle principle. This ensures perfect compatibility and optimal performance within your chosen audio system.