I have an idea....

no not a miracle occasion, I have just been wondering why a lot of hifi is sort of mediocre, but quite good in itself.

I am referring to speakers in the main, I have always found most conventional box speakers have something missing.

I think the problem generally is small cones, and driving the room, they never seem to be quite there.

You have a tiny cone matched to a great big room, and it can't really drive the air properly. hence was the need for horns to match the driver to the room.

Most small speakers do sound, well, small, and we all know the waf factor, has to look nice and all that, but I am really thinking if you want a kind of realism, you need something big. It's common sense really, not that radical, but like a lot of hifi sense, its not really known by and large, but when you think about it, it makes lots of sense.
Big cones and long excursions mean air moving, no wonder with these piddly 4-8" cones there is little real involvement. Bring back the days of the 15 incher.
that's all.

 

My piddly 6-inch drivers are good enough for me in a shoebox.

 

I agree with you Data. Give me Tannoy 15" DCs any day (and a room big enough to do them justice). Reminds me, must remember to do the Lotto.

 

ahhh precisely pb, you have a transmission line, which does actually drive the room better than a normal sealed or vented box.

 

Trouble is, though, that the hunt for bass extension so often leads to unfortunate room gain effects. People seem oblivious to the fact that there are two boxes for the typical drive unit (the cabinet - they notice that, and the room - which they forget). Notice, for instance, how much easier it is to close a door when the window's open. You may be right that the compromises of making a small unit do this business are greater than those for a large unit.

What's the effective vibrating area of a trumpet, for example?

I suspect that gentle stimulation of large areas is the way to go (if the room can be accounted for) - there's an effect I sometimes hear with smaller speakers of the sound almost "burning its way in" from that idealised point source. Despite the weight of received wisdom (and some good executions) I'm not sure that point source is the way to go.

 

I would have to also agree that most small box speakers have something missing and its the bass. I am not too sure about 15" drivers though, the problem is they tend to sound slower and not track the transients so well.

I have a pair of PMC AML1's which are stand-mounts and they go down to about 27hz in my room. In my small room they are great and I actually prefer them to larger drivers like a subwoofer as you get a much faster and accurate sounding bass.

In a big room however I would say large drivers are the only way to go as although a stand-mount designed well can extend just as far they do not give enough bass to fill a larger room.

So in conclusion big drivers and speakers for big rooms and small well designed drivers and speakers for small rooms. The thing is stand-mounts that do bass are generally more expensive than doing it with large drivers because it takes a lot of time to design them. Hence not many stand-mounts around that are good at bass and ones that do are damn expensive.

Oh yes and of course many small rooms do not react well to deep bass. I have 10 bass traps in my room!

I felt I had something to add to this discussion but I am not sure I have really said anything at all! Oh well I have gone on and I feel better now

Maybe it was if you can go to the effort of getting deep bass in a small room then it wil be better than big drivers in a large room because you can then use small fast and accurate drivers to produce it.

 

Most, Not all Though I would add, a decent amplifer will be able have total control over the driver, rather than the driver dictating things,
Tenson is that a flat 27hz in the room? even with 10 bass taps

 

I used to think that the better the sound. the bigger the speakers you need. However, having heard several small standmount/bookshelf speakers, I don't believe this is necessarily true - case in point being the Mission m70s I use. No, they are not perfect - they lack a little detail/bass at low volumes, but on the other hand, at reasonable levels, they don't annoy the rest of the household with crap-sounding, boomy 'chav car subwoofer bass' and also fit in well in my fairly smallish room, whilst producing a lively and punchy sound. If I want the last word in detail, I can always stick my 'phone on.

 

I think small speakers can be a lot of fun and I happily use a pair, but if you want proper bass, I am coming to the conclusion that you need big drivers. Even in small rooms.

 

Small speakers are all very well for girly acoustic hifi type muzak, but if you want to hear what's really going on throughout the frequency range you need a large speaker, min. 12" of woofferdom! That way you get all the music, not just some waffle about glorious treble, or mid-range to die for..

 

It is perfectly possible to design a good speaker with 4" cones

 

Aye, use the 4" as mid-range and stick it in a 60+ litre enclosure with at least a 12" bass unit
Just like the old days..

 

nope,i meant as standard 2 ways

 

Just use about 10 per channel!

 

Len, did you find the Shearwaters a weenie then?

 

12" is for wimps. Two 15" units and a compression horn in a 200 litre enclosure are the minimum for a gentleman's accurate monitor.

 

Not quite, flat to 33hz as per the spec sheet but still only -3db at 27hz. Bass traps do not really reduce the amount of bass, they just stop reflections from the walls so you hear only direct sound flattening the response not attenuating it and also fixing smearing in their working range.

The more bass traps you have the flatter the response will be.

 

Only a bit
I would have said just a touch overblown in the mid bass..
Mebbe too close to the wall for comfort!

 

Hi Joel.

If I dont get on with the horns Im borrowing, another alternative the shop have given me is to get some speakers like you've described above built up.

This is to cover the possibility that pure horns may not go deep enough to keep me happy.

They have all the drivers and horns etc and a local cabinet maker that can make the units themselves.

He had a pair (his own) of 2 x 12" woofers and a compression horn which was originally a studio monitor and it sounded brilliant.

I was thinking of building a corner cabinet (like a tannoy) with 2 x bass drivers and a compression horn.

Ideally the bass units would be efficient enough with big enough magnets to be driven properly by my 8w SET amp.

If I went that route my problems would be in the design of it (I have no clue here).

What kind of monitors have you seen/heard? maybe there is a design I could copy if I went that route?

Hope you can help?
Chris

 

You mean something like this?:-

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/speakerlust/utopiagraph.jpg