Speakers around the £3.5k mark

I agree.

And I am yet to find a technical reason why that is. It's also another reason I'm moving away from the pissy 6" bass cones so popular in the UK and going 14" baby.

 

Distortion?

 

No but sticking speakers in a corner with sidewall reflections and the rest isn't making the best use of them. Smaller speakers are easier to site and less intrusive. Don't forget my room is 3m x 4m... that's tiny really.

The larger bass cone theory you suggest is simply that of area and larger area excites more of the modes rather than less. Its the reason why vert/horz. bass arrays do some good for room problems and the reason why a 6" vs. a 15" will also make a difference although I'd suggests its more to do with the distortion than anything.

In a 3m x 4m even a pair of good 10" can give a nice pressurisation. The speakers and room need to really work together for the best results.

 

Just another option for your HF driver Mike, though I get the feeling you are dead set on a compression driver...

http://www.akiplab.com/en/en_index.htm

Smaller ribbon than the Alcons but has a much smoother response and can still Xover at 1KHz 2nd order with a sensitivity of 102dB. I generally prefer waveguide loading to full horn loading which is why I would be inclined to go this route. You could use two or even three in a miniature line source and Xover lower.

 

Not following you on that one, more please?

 

Well the theory is that the more sound sources you have or the larger the radiating area then the more room modes will be excited and more evenly.

TBH I don't place much faith in the difference between a 15" radiating area and a 6" one having an audible benefit regarding room modes. Make that very little faith actually. What does make a difference is multi low frequency sources place throughout the room, that's audible.

So not so much the room that being more even driven but likely less distortion and a more palpable factor coming from larger woofers. Hence a preference for some.

 

This is exactly my view. Some large speakers can work in rooms far smaller than one might think- especially if they are monitors, which are often designed to be used on or near a wall, rolling off early in the bass and often front-ported too.

I think the UK hifi press paid far too much attention to small speakers during the eighties and nineties. Smaller speakers quite often need positioning many inches from the wall meaning that they end up utilising more room space than big ones placed up against the wall! In addition, I think it is easily possible to disturb your neighbours more with smaller speakers as they require being turned up louder in order to squeeze out dynamics.

 

I agree that multiple source positions will have a better chance of driving more room modes.

As said above, studio monitors designed for soffit mounting normally have the LF response rolled off to compensate for the way soffit mounting drives (certain) room modes very efficiently, particularly if mounted near the junction of several room boundaries. Soffit mounting really has alot of benefits for LF performance, but not something to be tried at home really!

 

Flush mounted speakers/monitors are a nice idea instantly ridding cabinet diffraction problems and eliminating the need for baffle step. However the baffle/wall needs to be well constructed and more important is whats going on behind the cabinet the speaker is in as the bass output won't sound too hot if all you've got is a studded wall.

 

Absolutely. Also agree about the spacing. Big speakers voiced for 2 or even 3b loading work well in living rooms and take up less real space than a pair of audiophile jobs stuck a metre into the room and placed well clear of side walls.

The controlled directivity of the horn loaded mid and treble also makes these designs less reliant on their surroundings to provide accurate timbre. By design, they are also highly efficient, allowing a greater choice of amplification that often takes up less real estate too. Designed to offer low distortion at levels approaching 120db at 2 metres, they offer ultra low distortion at domestic levels whilst their diynabic capabilities ensure that they remain entertaining at low levels.

The only real disadvantages as far as I can see are that they are both heavy and neccesarily expensive.

 

Anyone played Zelda Wind Waker?

I'm bloody stuck on the Forbidden Forest dungeon trying to kill the boss at the end. Anyone know what you do?

 

The Mangers are a directional design in the HF and couldn't get on with them. Although their power response is pretty rough, horns seem to fair much better their so it could have been the uneven reverberant sound field that put me off.

You don't have to pay a fortune for compression drivers or the horns. Check out Radians stuff who borrow from TAD and are also offer replacement diaphragms for the beryllium range. Some report them sounding even better than the genuine TAD part.

 

These won't be the first compression drivers I have used Shin, and I must admit I find opinions on what sounds good to be just as varied as when it comes to anything else.

There are many who prefer the sound of Vitavox or vintage Altec drive units to the modern SOTA products from JBL and TAD - also many fans of older JBL drive units over new ones.

I have heard many, the stand out units being the JBL 476 be (unavailable for a year or so) and the TAD 4003 which I am going for. I am looking for a compression driver that sounds like a bloody good electrostatic with huge dynamics. On these fronts the modern units I refer to are to my ears very much worth their asking price when properly implemented. I'm happy with my choice - only time will tell if the whole matches or exceeds the sum of the parts.

 

Sounds good. I'm sure you'll be happy with whatever you choose once you nail the particulars.

 

Good move. Where you will find the big LF drivers really shine is not so much in extreme LF, but from about 50Hz up. Small drivers simply do not sound right here, no matter how deep they go.
Another benefit is that you'll end up with a wide-baffle, which will act to some degree as a waveguide in the mid & treble (horns are more focused, but a wide baffle really does help).
As for technical reasons why big sounds better... I haven't found any yet. But I do have a question; do two violins sound like a single cello?

 

Fair enough one 15-incher sounding better than one 6-incher - for the same frequencies, the 6-incher has to travel further in and out, which tends to increase distortion by a large amount. But do you find that carries across to arrays of small drivers whose total radiating area is equivalent to the single big driver? I.e. one 15-incher vs. six 6-inchers?

Dunc

 

Any one come across the primary drive loudspeakers that EAR ar doing? I see fane have primary driver which looks interesting. any thoughts?

 

That's a good point. I mean when was the last time you listened to a 6 x 6-inch driver array in the nearfield?

 

Indeed.

I suppose a more likely comparison would be, say one 10-incher vs. three 6-inchers...

How big would you say a driver has to be before those crucial midbass frequencies start sounding right to your ears? Is a 10" big enough? 12"? Or will only the mighty 15"+ drivers suffice?

Dunc

 

Well, 15-inch is probably optimal, although TAD's mighty 18-inch driver are fun
For extreme nearfield, a 10- or even 8-inch driver may cut it, just. But quite honestly, 12-inch is a realistic minimum for mid to near-field listening in a small space with lots of room gain.
I don't understand why anyone would spend big money on anything less than around a 50 litre volume cab with a 12-inch driver.
This is, just about, where hifi starts.