Best 8" domestic speaker

5" and 6.5" drivers seem very common in modern domestic speaker designs.

What speakers with at least an 8" bass-mid driver are available?

Are there any outstanding products in the category?

 

What's the budget?

 

I'm not buying so there is no budget.

 

The advantage of an 8" woofer over a smaller one is usually higher sensitivity and max. output level. People often expect deeper bass from a bigger woofer but this is rarely the case without a significantly larger cabinet.

The downside is narrow high frequency dispersion. So if you crossover from an 8" woofer to a 1" dome tweeter at 2KHz there will be a very large and sudden change in the sound dispersion at that point. Additionally integration between the drivers is worse due the the larger spacing between each unit. The way around this is of course to go 3-way.

So this leaves the question, what do you want from your system? do you need higher sensitivity or max. sound level than most 6.5" speaker designs offer?

 

Agreed, if you look at the better regarded 'speakers with large bass/mids from past years you tend to find <2khz crossovers and tweeters larger than 1".

However that's not to say that an 8" woofer with 1" tweeter (or larger) crossing higher than 2khz will sound poor. The BBC designs and to some degree the Harbeths show you can get good results.

Choice of cone material is important. On some larger drivers the radiating area is designed to shrink with increasing frequency - some Epos and Celestion drivers do this by varying the cone thickness making it much thinner at the neck. Doubtless this carries a price somewhere else - probably more distortion and rougher response.
Worst of all will be large metal cones which are pistonic - low distortion but with the issues Simon describes.

 

Are you both saying a 6.5" driver in the relatively large volume of a floorstander might match in bass extension an 8" standmounter, and better it in other respects.

What are the pros and cons of those floorstanders that use a pair of 6.5" drivers?

 

A 6.5" driver will typically go deeper than an 8" driver in the same cabinet volume. It also typically has a smoother and more extended top end and wider top end dispersion making crossover better in a 2-way. In the same cabinet an 8" driver will be more sensitive and have higher max. SPL capability.

Two 6.5" drivers would perform much the same as an 8" driver given the same cabinet.

 

Currently, I believe that a GOOD and WELL DESIGNED 8" main driver crossing over to a modern wide-band tweeter (lower frequencies as well as super-sonic) can give splendid results in UK sized rooms and the two-cubic-foot box arrangement as used in various BBC-related models proves this I believe. Interestingly, the Spendor SP1/2 series, Harbeth SHL5 and Stirling LS3/6 (the first and last fairly closely related I reckon, since they share the same designer). Their ancestors (Spendor BC1 and Rogers equivalents) had no lack of stereo image precision either, so careful and thorough was the design IMO.

The vociferous trend from Gloucestershire towards smaller actives (you know who I'm referring to) is as much to do with what thirty something couples wish to live with in their domestic environments as much as any theoretical advantage in tiny drivers. My old BC2's are frankly, hideous lumps that dominate the room along with the old CRT telly we still use. I expect that when the TV goes home and is replaced with a modern flat model, the Spendors will have to go, and I shall fight to my last breath not to have to go tiny (and I'll probably lose miserably in the process)...

 

I know an audio-pro who, at least with some hardware, prefers a pair of 8" active two way monitors with A PAIR of subs crossing over at 40 and not the standard 80Hz. He maintains stereo integrity down into the lowest octave.

 

My speakers are AOS Studio 100 XL which are large 3-way floorstanding transmission line towers. The cabinets are pretty big! (114cmx28.5x46)

Internally the mids and tweeters are in a separate compartment with a sloping floor. This compartment has small rear facing reflex port.

The bass driver is an ATC 240mm (9 1/2") behind which is the folded transmission line tunnel which exits at the base of the front of the cabinet.

They definitely do low frequencies much better than my previous speakers which were 3-way Wilmslow Audio reflex ported towers with a 6.5" bass driver (but that's probably not a big surprise).

Some of the nicest bass I've heard was from some massive old Leak speakers which belonged to a friend. The bass drivers were huge, something like 12" or 13". Pity the mid-range and treble wasn't much to write home about.

You don't see many big TL's nowadays, they seem to have fallen out of vogue.
I wonder if it's simply that people don't want huge speakers taking up half the living room or if they have technically been superseded by other designs?

 

It's a shame the old TDL line disappeared as they had some great designs.
The Studio range were superb and i suppose the closest we've got today in a similar form factor is PMC who still use TL.

Some of the middle range TDL models were no bigger than a typical ported floorstander from MA or Kef, and the baby Studio 0.5/0.75 were Rega RS3 size.

 

Transmission lines have their own compromises I understand - you can't get owt for nowt as gains very low down can result in phasey issues further up as the line output interferes with the main driver - all the bigger IMF and TDL models had cancellations just over 100Hz I remember.

My favourite TDL was a small model, the Studio 1 (we sold the later 1M model). Bass was quite well extended and the metal cone, despite sounding off at 5kHz as most 6" metal drivers do, never seemed to put a foot wrong.

 

I had the Studio 1 and loved it. Bought from Studio 99 @ Swiss Cottage.

 

Would folk go for a broader fronted stand mounted cabinet with an 8" driver or fall in with the more modern fashion of a narrower tower using two 6.5" drivers in a floor stander? Both options have a similar cabinet volume and a similar bass-mid cone area.

And, of course, the most common loading remains unchanged over the years - reflex.

(Note below - I have a pair of infinite baffle towers with two 8" drivers, and mid and a tweeter.)

 

But this one breaks the mould - 8" (well 7) and sealed box.

http://www.ebacoustics.com/page6.html

I had quite forgotten about it.

 

Grimm LS1. None better.

 

That's a brief response!

This, I suppose

http://www.grimmaudio.com/hifi-products/loudspeakers/ls1/

How much?

 

Ah, bigger version of Kensai driver.

The only potential issue with larger metal cone bass/mid drivers is the upper response resonance gets rather close the the crossover point. So you either have to live with consequences of the un-eq'd spike or the consequences of the more complex crossover (assuming passive).

 

18,000 Euros, I believe, but they're a complete system. Just add a source.

Rob, they're active as you're probably aware. The XO point is at 1.5 kHz I believe, so well out of harm's way.

 

Digital EQ of the spike could work pretty well I expect. Not sure about 1.5KHz xover though, that's a bit low IME if they expect it to play loud. Still it must be one of the best 8" 2-way speakers as Markus says.