I don’t know of anyone else who is presenting this information, and I’m grateful for it. I appreciate the data, and I appreciate the explanations of why, and how, the things we (you) hear relate to the data that the measurements produce. I wish I would have had access to this kind and depth of information 20 years ago. Thank you.
Certainly, presenting data is advantageous. In my opinion, this video would benefit from a part 2 that includes actual comparisons. This could involve contrasting a two-way concentric speaker (such as a Tannoy model) or even a two-way horn speaker (perhaps from Altec) with large drivers against any two-way design featuring smaller drivers that are being promoted by manufacturers today.
Erin, I just have to say I really enjoy watching your videos. They are so informative and you explain it in a way that is easily understandable. I am currently not in the process of purchasing a speaker but I still watch every one of your videos because I learn something new from each one of them. You kick ass in what you do.
One thing I'm glad you covered is having the ability to place stand mount/bookshelf speakers at various heights to get on axis versus floor standers, which are usually in a fixed position. Definitely makes a huge difference in my room where I sit 6 feet away from my mains.
In Music Room we sit 16' away from bookshelf speakers that are wall mounted at 6'-9"high mated with dual subs optimized with minidsp&dirac. The sound/imaging/stage/ect... is WAY bigger than the floor standers in our family room. The 'Above' / 'big room'' sound from live performances(presented from a stage) and nighclubbing(overhead speakers) is what i crave so decided to setup the music room around that vibe.
Yes, there's never any one simple answer.. it's all about where your ears are relative to where (and what quality and level) the sound is emanating from in the room, and how the room plays into modifying that sound at your listening location, further complicated by the brain's preprocessed expectatation, including potentially unnoticed elements such as signal to noise ratio of the sound source, and/or the presence of ambient noise in the environment. There's no one single answer for any given comparison. Less cerebral people have a tendency to overly complicate scenarios that are simple, or conversely, attempt to simplify scenarios that are complicated, hence, why there is always dissensions and diatribes looming with regard to sound reproduction. I myself have just made an attempt to summarise a large subject into a single post..😵💫🤔I'm blaming the ☕️👍😂
Yes, I noticed that too. The usual tower of a good meter height (like 3½ft) with the tweeters on top is usually a bit too high for the average person on the average couch. I don't know why, but that driver arrangement seems very common. It's much better to put the mid driver on top, so the tweeter is lower and much closer to perfect couch listening height.
Big speakers (like, big drivers and wide baffles, not the "bunch of 8" woofers stacked" kind of big) tend to become directional lower. That combined with much lower compression at a given SPL makes them sound quite large in my book.
Yep, I covered that aspect as well. But because they become directional lower means that they typically will have a more narrow stage and tighter focus in small/medium rooms.
@@ErinsAudioCorner here is a question for you? Do you think dispersion effects detail? I think dispersion hurts detail. Let me give you an example. I have 18 7” monster bass traps from GIK acoustics in my room (ok that sounds silly to say out loud but stay with me…). I also have a large room 26’x30’x8’ full baseman. When I had the Revel 228be I boxed in my speakers with the bass traps about 3’ on 3 sides of the speakers in free space (speaker 7’+ off the walls. The idea was to catch the reflections before they could reflect in the room. The increase in detail was staggering compared no first reflection treatment (did A/B back and forth for a few days). From the mid bass up it was amazing BUT the sound stage really shrunk in size. It went from wall to wall to where those traps sat in sound stage width. So from 25’ to 16’. Then the dilemma set in. I could not live with or without the traps. Without them the detail sucked, with them the soundstage sucked…. So I did what every good hobbiest does bought new speakers, a narrow dispersion 4367 lol. I find the first reflection points to almost not matter at all with these speakers and just leave the side walls bare. Now my traps are all on the back wall and corners….
Do larger drivers or more drivers with more surface area inherently cause more room interaction due to taking up more physical space in a room or is that practically irrelevant? I could swear when I reviewed that KEF KC62, it interacted with my room less than the Monolith THX 10" placed in the same location.
It is a wash. Work = force x distance so pressure = surface area x distance. At the same frequency/output the work is technically the same, though the required power to achieve that work could be different. Maybe it had more to do with wavelength and boundary. The KC62 sound would come from the center of the two drivers and the thx would come from the driver face, so maybe they were not at the “same” spot due to different acoustic centers. Maybe it was the KC62 limiter kicking in lol… oh how I hate tiny subs lol.
I think it's more related to the acoustic centers. I might be thinking about this wrong, but I would imagine that a 21" woofer is going to be closer to nearby walls and the ceiling than a 6.5" woofer, and therefore will have different room interaction. I wondered if that's why people think that smaller woofers = "tighter bass" because they're actually hearing less room interaction, whereas the larger driver couples to the room more. I could be way off. I've yet to read this Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, but I'm sure the answer is in there somewhere.@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm
Great presentation well founded in physics. An often overlooked factor in imaging is sample to sample consistency in both frequency and time domains. Tight manufacturing tolerances are important! Also, when I refer to a speaker as sounding large, I am talking about lifelike dynamic range with no sense of strain all the way down into pretty deep bass territory. In this sense, a single speaker can sound large even though it's not projecting any sound stage at all.
i wanted to add that this a fascinating topic and Erin does such a wonderful job discusing all the aspects of sound propagation. The other aspect is of course, (and equaly fascinating) the way our brains process all this time and frequency information. (way above my paygrade)
I recently sold my 5040 towers to get 5020 stand mounts. I now have better imgaing and more soundtage depth as they better match my sub and seem to improve more from placement than the towers did,
Sounding 'big' has much to do with bass. Take a small standmount speaker with little bass, add 2 well integrated subs and suddenly the whole soundstage seems larger. This is not larger as with phase phenomena in the sense of being wide but diffused, it just seems bigger. This is a psychoacoustic illusion it is not strictly a physics thing. Larger speakers generally (though not always) produce more bass than smaller speakers, at least as commercially implemented.
I'll add that the multiple small low-frequency drivers of a floor stander are typically no match for a subwoofer for multiple reasons including: Available Location, Size, Weight, & Amplification. That said, depending on the room and preferences floorstanders may be sufficient.
I've heard big speakers sound small and small speakers sound big, just as I've heard big speakers sound big an small speakers sound small. Everything plays part in that dance. The room especially plays a big part in soundstage performance as well, a well-designed speaker in a well-treated room can do wonders with the soundstage, especially when it comes to presenting a sense of scale.
general conception is bookshelves have larger soundstage and floor standing sound fuller & taller presence. Soundstage has much to do with room treatment. So thoughs who dont have at least a basic treated room you are not hearing the speakers soundstage.
In the spirit of going big, I plan on getting the JTR Noesis 215RT someday, when budget permits. Im curious if youve ever heard of these speakers / have an opinion on them.
Feels like you read my mind with this post - I was just wondering about this. My experience matches your explanation. What made me think about this was another reviewer said they would be missing sound above their head by downsizing but later said the speakers being replaced had a tweeter on top.
Yeah, that’s what really matters, IMHO; the crossovers need to be good where there is no obvious handoff errors and you need to be able to sit on the design axis.
I for some reason appreciate the sound of a wide baffled speaker like a CerwinVega! Or Klipsh heritage. There seems to be a certain sense of effervtlessnes to them that I like at medium to loud volumes
My aDs 910s have massive baffles, containing two 10.5" bass drivers diagonally mounted, with the dome tweeter/mid right next each other vertically. When they're on their 8" stands, the tweeters/mids are right at ear level. They might be my end-game loudspeakers.
I have a load of Bill Fitzmaurice speakers which probably sound like a less refined version of the Klipsch. That effortless detail in the horns (and the big bass reflex boxes) is satisfying to listen to.
One thing the wider baffle will have is a lower baffle step, meaning it can project sound towards the listening position down to lower frequencies before the speaker starts to radiate in all directions (I.e. it’s listening window is maintained down to a lower frequency than narrow speakers). That will impact how it sounds. Same thing with the radiation pattern. Speakers with a wide pattern will sound more spacious than those with a narrower pattern, and that is one disadvantage of a lot of coaxial speakers. They are usually quite a bit narrower than conventional dome tweeters on a baffle.
Thanks Erin, great video on an interesting topic. How do you see line array type speakers fitting into this analysis? I have Magneplanar 1.7i speakers, which essentially have 5' tall tweeter, midrange, and woofer sections. I find when properly setup they provide very precise horizontal imaging, with the appropriate material but also excel at presenting "life size" images, which I interpret as being related to the physical size of the drivers. Or would you say their dipole nature, which minimizes side wall reflections (and in my setup front wall reflections are largely absorbed) just allows better extraction of the directional information from the recording?
How would you tell in the measurements if the woofer and tweeter are out of phase, if they sum flat? I think that summing flat can hide a lot of issues.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 that makes sense. Seems like most 2 ways have that crossover dip. Jim Thiel designed high part count first order filters…presumably to keep everything in phase
@@seanb3303 "High part count" is a very bad thing in passive circuits. The more junk you stick in there the less efficient it becomes. When I see a crossover with lots of extra bits and pieces I generally interpret that as someone who doesn't really know how the filters work. The usual way of fixing that dip, when it is a phase issue is to reverse wire the tweeter to eliminate or at least reduce the misalignment. A crossover is a blunt instrument, it's not an equalizer. It's job is in two parts: First to get the right pitch ranges to the right drivers and Second to make sure nothing goes up in smoke. Beyond that extra parts are just a waste of your amplifier's energy.
You're right about Q Sound or SRS. That processing still exists but it's not necessarily marketed or mentioned in the recording. Some reviewers use recordings that use this sort of processing as reference recordings without even realizing it. The magnitude of these effects varies with listening distance and angle and radiation pattern. Reviewers that use these recordings attribute the 3D effects to the speaker's ability to create a 3 dimensional sound stage when these 3D effects can be achieved with all well matched speaker pairs
8:14 to about 9:00. I never had given thought to two identical woofers being crossed over at different points. I've always enjoyed learning this stuff, but at times, it can be overwhelming. This guy keeps it simple and fun.
I always come back to vintage JBL with 12-15" woofers and substantial mids. They definitely go below 50hz... 250TI's are 30Hz to 27kHz. 4343's are 35Hz to 20kHz.
How do you feel about towers that don't have additional drivers over and above bookshelf? Sometimes we see this - towers that essentially look like a bookshelf as far as drivers are concerned, but with a larger box
Good explanation. Makes sense. We have what we call the Tardis. Its a small room system with 2 wall mount speakers high on the wall plus a sub. Sounds awesome and thanks to DSP you can't really tell where the sound is coming from, from the listening position. Neat trick.
Good content here Erin. I have been designing and building my own speakers for many years. My primary focus with design in the last few years has been on creating a realistic sound stage, well as realistic as I can make it. The one thing I have found that effects "how big a speaker sounds" is its ability to saturate the listening area @ high spl levels with minimal distortion. Not to say the imaging doesnt play a part in that, it does to an extent. However, in my listening experience once a very high spl is reached, if the speakers can handle the drive input (power) with minimal distortion then they will win the "big sound" competition. In my quest for this type of sound I have moved to large high effiency pro drivers in my designs. Faital Pro, B&C, SB Audience...you get the idea. This is not the only thing in this quest though. The passive crossovers can get complicated and in some cases very expensive. If close attention is not paid to this I just have a big blaring box. Simulate, measure, listen, adjust. Simulate, measure, listen, adjust. Over and over and over. When I get it right, the sound is nothing short of amazing....and big.
On the subject of point source, taking a typical TMW 3-way speaker, you said that the lower the crossover point between the tweeter and midrange, the more the two drivers (assuming they are placed as closely as possible on the front baffle) can act as a point source. My question is at what frequency range does this happen? For example, the tweeter and midrange on my speakers are placed as close as possible to each other and the crossover point is 1200 hz. Is that low enough so that these drivers can act as a point source? If the answer is, it depends, what are the factors that can impact this?
Thank you for posting this. It's dense with knowledge bombs about speaker designs presented in a clear and easily digestible manner. Ps. That Madonna album is amazing.
Excellent explanation on this topic. I personally think a substantial part of the lower-end hifi public actually is looking for this diffuse "wall of sound", it's what they want from their big floor standing speakers, it's what sounds right to them. Not everybody out there is an audiofile!
Does putting a tower speaker on blocks, lets say 5 or 10 inches in order to get your ear at axis level effect the sound in a negative way, since you are lifting up the lowest driver further away from the floor.?
And this is why I have Kef Q100 drivers in my open baffle with 15” drivers crossed at 300hz for the best of both worlds ;) plus a 15” sealed ultimax sub.
I do wonder if I would get better imaging and more disappearing of the speaker if I just went to a couple of 8" or 10" drivers with a much narrower baffle. I cross at 80hz to sub so the OB bass drivers don't need to play that low.
I own transmission line floorstanders and transmission line bookshelf loudspeakers. Bass is better on floorstanders. Having two systems just gives me a different experience
I’ve been an audio engineer in all sorts of scenarios and enthusiast at home. I’d say a speaker that has high sensitivity, large spaced woofers, in addition to a bloated deep low end and even harmonic distortion clouding the mid bass can sound maybe big. I can’t say that’s what you want though. It’s really the opposite.
My friends Magnepan 3.7i speakers make a vocalist sound ridiculously large in his listening room. His room is maybe not super large, so we were 8 to 10 feet from the speakers. I assume this is in part due to the 9" wide woofer panels that are crossed over at 450 Hz with first order crossovers. At the time it felt like the room was approaching acting like a gigantic set of headphones. I've also heard the large Genesis Technologies speakers and very large electrostatic speakers. In a smaller room there is this effect. I assume if the speaker is so large that you are listening in the near field, this "headphone" effect comes into play. I have found that working on crossovers, a single three way speaker sounds large with first order crossovers but tends to shrink to a point with high order crossovers. With 4th order digital crossovers the Magnepan 3.7i looses some of that horizontally split soundstage effect for sure. For sure first order crossovers result in weird directivity patterns and overlap in the drivers at the two crossover points. Testing a speaker with different order crossovers is pretty interesting. It's a fun experiment to do, and it's easy to setup if you have an active digital crossover at hand like a miniDSP. I think this may be why many people are so impressed by speakers with first order crossovers, because the single speaker creates a sort of simulated stereo effect local to that one speaker.
Line-source speakers, like Magnepans, Infinity IRS-V or Genesis 1 towers often tend to make vocalists sound unnaturally large especially when compared to similarly sized point-source designs.
Used to have an Arcam A/R receiver. It always sounded out of phase, but created a huge sound stage. Also had horrid dialog. I would say a large speaker loads up a room differently. Also as you stated a large speaker can play at a higher volume. What I find is that a 2 way doesn't have the impact / clarity when you have a lot of mids and bass hitting at once.
That Madonna album is crazy - always hear people talk about how tubes open up the sound stage in depth and width - maybe it’s something to do with distortion- idk ; I run solid state but I have noticed when running Audirvana and changing upsampling via r8brain and depending on using minimum phase or linear phase and or adjusting the bandwidth (% of nyquist) or stop band attenuation can change the way music is presented and sounds - I think it really depends on the equipment of course but haven’t seen anyone ever measure these things to show what each setting is actually doing to the sound. Image seems really tight and precise but a little thin with linear phase and high settings for each and with minimum phase and moderate settings a little more diffuse and fuller but a bit more natural sounding. I don’t understand exactly how it works and have yet to see anyone explain it in terms a layman (me) can understand. Would love your take on this.
One example of your explanation can be applied with some small speakers sounding like "big speakers" like the ilouds micro monitors or Vanatoos transparent zero, mosly because those speakers had wide radiation thanks to the use of small drivers and the directivity is fairly smooth
A good explanation, as always, Erin - Thanks. If I chose to pick any nits, it would be that you don't talk about room placement until late in the video. I'd contend that in many (most?) setups, the speaker placement (and room treatment) has far more effect on soundstage than does the placement of drivers on the baffle board. I've seen photos of even reviewer's rooms where one speaker is hard in a corner while the other is adjacent to an open doorway to another room! This affects imaging not just more but FAR more than the speaker characteristics themselves. I've also seen setups where one speaker has heavy drapes behind it while the other is in front of a bare window or sheetrock wall... You're right about the effects of Q-sound. In my room, Madonna's Immaculate Collection throws images that seem to come literally from BEHIND the listener! I fail to understand why more recordings don't use Q-sound. I've had HUGE speakers in my room (Tekton Pendragons, for one example) and point-source speakers (KEF LS-50s for example). The differences in sound stage are significantly less than might be expected. I'm currently using some Klipsch RP-600m speakers that can throw a HUGE sound stage with excellent width and depth. So my answer to your video title, "Do Big Speakers Actually SOUND Bigger?" would be a firm (but qualified) "No." Cordially - Glenn Young
Awesome video full of great explanations! Lots of times, I feel we listen with our eyes. We see a bigger speaker and WE WANT it to sound bigger because it has lots of woofers. Then, we crank the volume way past the volume at what we played the bookshelfs... Psychology and speaker efficiency play a big role in that impression I think 😅
@@ErinsAudioCorner killing myself in a new job. Situation normal somewhat. Been really digging the little CSS 1TDX’s I built through a Node X and Schiit Vidar 2. The civic is finally gone. I see it around town every now and then.
So, are the companies that put the woofers on the sides of the cabinet doing that mainly to keep the front baffle narrow to enhance the radiation pattern of the speaker?
an upright bass sounds bigger than a cello because it is and we can sense that scale, easily.More radiating surface (including and perhaps primarily, the cabinet) sounds "bigger" This mainly comes from bass presence and perhaps attack or the dynamic envelope. A crossover, good or bad, can effect this but seldom overcome our acute sensitivty to scale and attack. Its probably a survival thing.
I had a question is 2.1 ok cause 2.2 ie second sub looks too much in my setting I don’t want tower speakers and feel a bookshelf pair with a great single 12”!subwoofer to create pressure under 100hz. Is bass in stereo or single sub will work
There is an axiom in speaker design: Small size, bass extension, efficiency, pick 2. I love big speakers. My present big speakers are rated down to 20hz, my previous big speakers were rated to 10Hz. Big speakers - at high volume they take over the air in the room, at low volume they still put out deep bass. As far as sound stage - I have heard and build some bookshelf speakers that have fantastic sound stage and imaging, big speakers add scale and height. I have never heard a small speaker give height or scale in the sound stage. In big speakers you have large drivers that can reproduce bass with less distortion and higher efficiency. Big speakers have the room to be configured as a point source, which is very coherent, both in frequency and time, you can't do that in a small box. Before you buy, listen to both big and small speakers, they both have advantages and disadvantages. I give up space for sound quality.
I’ve owned at least a couple exact models in floorstanding and bookshelf(Focal, B&W, etc). I prefer the bookshelf speaker every time I’ve heard them compared against each other. I currently now own 7 sets of high end speakers (all bookshelf)
When someone says pull your speaker or suggests like 16" off a boundary wall do they mean measuring from the rear (where my port is) or the mid or front of the speaker? My speaker is 10" deep so just kind of testing and hopeful you could share your experience on that.
Aye .. Now I've seen / heard all the factors ... Yes to all of them. Baffle size, driver diameter beaming,.. both will lead to how the sound pressure flows off the baffle width. Personally.. The number one say to make the stage wider or larger sounding in my rooms .. is sitting closer or physically placing the speakers wider. Toeing out or straight into the room will affect how much of the energy is bounding off the walls.. I mean, .. how large or big do the speakers sound Anechoic? I think the word " bigger " is mostly riding the coat-tails in the pool of ALL the other subjective terms and descriptive adjectives that common people will use. " Wider " and acknowledging a speaker's dispersion pattern / Acoustic alignment, etc .. would be less subjective and more observation. Good to detail .. I hope that people will take the details and re-evaluate how to describe the sound in room.
all good points, may i add physicality to the mix? a speaker sound larger if it has physical impact, and if you add subwoofer to a small speakers you might not get the impact and large sound just above the subwoofer crossover point. 80hz to 200hz is important to me to feel the music and have a large scale or sound big.
They absolutely do but they need their proper room. I have paradigm 120 and they are pulled forward 4 feet from the back wall and 4 feet from side walls and they are 11 feet apart, they sound absolutely ridiculous! If I push them against the walls they sound tinny with some weird bass reinforcement. Also towers will usually sound bigger because bookshelf speakers are less sensitive than towers, but the best thing you can do is run your speakers without a subwoofer or crossover them correctly and get a sub that has low group delay especially for audio.
Yep. And then we have to consider what the mixing process is. People take mono sources and do wild stuff to them to get very odd results. But that’s the fun stuff.
Very good one Erin. thank you very much. in most cases by bigger they usally mean taller = tall singer etc. manufacturer "do" that by locating the tweeter/mid units higher than ear level . (acoustic center) some of them allow you to tilt and adjust the units (than you are actually "adding difreaction) and i not talking about 500 usd floorstander. These comapnies usually dont aim for ideal measurments and science based audio - its a diifernt market based on.....
Brilliant video, real information that benefits and educates the user. Im so sick of the audio industry and all the bull. So refeshing to have found your channel Thank you
Rifght bang on with Q-Sound! - I've been familiar with it since it first came out (~1990). Not sure why Q-Sound doesn't get much use these days - the nice thing is that it is system independant. Granted, Atmos makes it a bit of a moot point. 🙂 - Cheers.
Very interesting information. This may explain why my Monitor Audio Silver 200s (shorter and smaller drivers) sounds better to me than my MA Silver 500s (taller and larger drivers) when listening to most music tracts. Huh!😮 Thanks Erin!
How fast do crossovers deteriorate. I hear of capacitors need replacing after a few years. Measure an original old Forte 2 speaker before and after crossover rebuild.
@@keith6872 Rule #1 ... If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If the sound quality is not deteriorating, leave it alone. Seriously, changing out the caps is not just a soldering job. It will affect the sound balance of the speaker and it can be quite the expensive chore, involving multiple tweaks and tests to get it back in line.
You know, Erin, all this talk about baffle size and point-source and imaging makes me realize, I don't think I've ever heard you talk about electrostatic speakers. Is that because you don't have much experience with them, or because you don't like the very narrow, bipolar radiation pattern?
Love your your man!Traditional woofer/tweeter designs suffer a lot of issues that you are addressing here.Personally,i'm good with a pair of KALI Audio IN5's and another pair of SONODYNE SRP 600 powered monitors downstairs,and contemplating the addition of a RHYTHMIK F12G servo sub.Have you heard of Alsyvox's ribbon full range speakers?They claim to solve all of the problems associaciated with traditional designs,including the efficiency factor.The guy makes every unit himself!
You also need dynamic small speakers. A lot of subs have silly power and even at 80hz the small speaker might not keep up. For me I like big speaker with big subwoofers lol. I have found the best crossover point to be where the sound power starts to drop off. For example my speakers go down to -10 at 31hz but I cross them at 60-65hz as they are starting to lose power (crossing below the 0db point) below 60hz. I tend to like steep 24db or higher crossovers for subs too. Shallow 6-12db cause odd dips for me.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm Try to get the -3db points for the speaker (high pass) and sub (low pass) to align. I've always found that to be the best point for no dips or peaks. The reason being that at -3db power is roughly half so when you add the two together you've got an even output.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 I have tried the -3db (43hz for my speakers). It integrates well their but at 60hz the system just slams and scales better. Both are “flat” (measured) I am using a highpass filter at 24db on both ends. Both are fine honestly.
I do sometimes miss my cheap BIC America DV-84s for tye dual 8" woofers and passive radiators in each tower. It really helped the midbass slap in my room. Though the Monitor Audio bookshelves are superior in every other way.
We definitely more informative video's like this, Audiophile Myth Buster's. Great job Erin one of your best 🤔 Another way to test image height, is to buy a Stereo Demo CD, some have a test with a sound like someone sanding wood. Anyway the sound is recorded vertically over several feet, anyway tried it with Magnepan 3.6's which have a 55" tall tweeter, I never got the impression the image moved vertically at all. It just stayed dead center the whole time.
Totally agree with ya! Not sure if you were referring to my comments or somebody else, but it sure sounds like me. I do often say big speakers move more air and little speakers only move a little air. If you want that presence, you've gotta move the air. Big speakers sound big and little speakers sound little. I say all of this various ways and I do say it often. What I mean specifically is air volume and frequency response. An 8" woofer can physically move more air than a little baby 3" driver. It will also handle low frequencies that a 3" driver cannot. So it will sound bigger, fuller, because of the amount of air it can move and the frequency range that it can safely operate. Sound is mechanical, it's all about pressure waves. A large speaker can produce a large pressure wave, it can create a greater sense of presence due to both the amount of air it can move and the frequency range it can cover. But presence is not to be confused with sound stage. When I say presence, I'm talking about realism. How real a thing sounds. Like the difference between talking to a person in person verses talking to a person over the phone. One sounds really real, the other does not. That little baby speaker in your phone sounds exactly like a little baby speaker, right!? Sound stage can easily be faked in post production, so I don't mention it often. But I do frequently talk about presence which I hope I've explained. But my JBL 590's for example, they play wide, their sound stage just sounds wide in my very narrow room. They fake it with their giant megaphone style wave guides. In my 9' 8" wide room it's very beneficial, but may not be for everyone. Because room size makes such a difference, it's kinda hard to talk about sound stage. I only mention it here in example because these 590's sound so much wider in the same room when compared to my previous towers. It's quite an unmistakable difference. But again, sound stage is not presence. Anyway, I don't know if you were referring to my comments or not, but I do hope that I've successfully explained myself regardless. Cheers man 🍻
No, it wasn’t you. I had a patron messaged me about a review that somebody posted yesterday and sent me the link and asked me what I thought about the comments. It wasn’t you. So no worries about explaining yourself.👍
Most 2-ways have inherent flaw because of the Doppler effect. Standard tweeter can't play very low which means that bass must play up to 2, 3 or even 4kHz. Which means that bass is now 2 speakers in one: low frequency one moves with high amplitude and then middle frequency driver basically moves in space at that low bass frequency, so important freqs at 2-3kHz start to rapidly change their pitch. The only solution is to have big bass like 12" or 15" playing no higher than 1000Hz and then a compression driver which is able to play down to 1000Hz without too much distortion. And the second problem with bass playing high is that crossover frequency at 2 or 3kHz is right in the middle of the very important range where our ears are quite sensitive. So no, 2-ways are not good and out of choice.
I’m with you on Doppler being a real thing. But the levels at which it is audible is a different matter. Crossing a 12 or 15-inch driver at or even near 1kHz is a really bad idea. Unless you have a very good design, it’s almost guaranteed there will be a significant directivity issue that is going to be more audible than IMD effects will be (at least, unless you’re trying to fill a venue with sound).
All I know is that my Revel m126bes crossed over at 80hz seem to have waay less bass (oomph?) than my Dynaudio X34s crossed over at 80hz, using the same sub in the same room calibrated to the same curve. I've swapped them in and out several times thinking it must just be in my head, but I really don't think it is.
In my case it is! I built some speakers (designed from scratch) and they were small floor standing speakers, with a 6" woofer and a 5" FR driver. Sounded great. Then I built some larger floorstanders with a 10" (same brand) woofer and a 10" coaxial. Yep, the bigger speakers sound bigger and the voice sound has more heff and is more ROUND! 😂 And the BASS! 🎉
The total cross sectional area of all moving membranes must be an influence of things sounding "big" ... e.g. you cannot escape the sound of an Infinity IRS Beta ... big speakers with lots of membranes correct the room acoustic damage by brute force.
You missed a couple of good questions in the Greg Timbers interviews. That said, how do you explain JBL L5 and L7s (tower speakers) playing down to 34Hz?
Erin, I was waiting for you to mention the KEF Blades in this analysis (?) I split the field with 2 systems/rooms: 2.2 KEF LS50/REL & 2.2 Magnepan LRS/REL While not "accurate" or as tightly focused, the Maggies are addictively spacious in their presentation. Why is that? 😅
I built some speakers last year that use a little 3" driver to cover ~200-7000hz. The bottom is picked up by Dayton Epique driver and the top end a little dayton flush mount job.... The result is a "big" sounding speaker, because the bulk of the energy is coming from a very small driver, so has a very wide dispersion through the most critical of the listening range. By the time it starts to tighten up over 5khz you can't really hear the diff anyway because our ears aren't very good up there. These things play the disappearing act very well.
A 2,5 way with big woofers, (properly executed) will have a less complex crossover, will have higher sensitivity, and a point source sound in that, there will be no detectable separation between the drivers, In other words, they're very coherent.
Interestingly, enough, one of the speakers the “split stage” issue was most evident on was a 2.5 way speaker. JBL HDI-3600. I I discussed this in that review a few years back.
Great content. I just bought some small speakers for a small home theater setup, pairing them with the SVS 3000 micro... aaand.... they sound small lol. They are going back. I'm starting to regroup around "there's no replacement for displacement"
I've been rocking a Parasound preamp and 2 channel Parasound amp in stereo for my home theater/music setup. Have loved it. My kids are getting older and more into movies, so I thought ok let's get back into multi channel. Just bought a bunch of small Cambridge MINX speakers to work as an Atmos setup and hooked them into a Marantz 7.1 receiver. Sounded like garbage. I literally had a much bigger sound stage and every other buzz word from my stereo setup. I literally stopped the movie and put the 2 channel back into play. There's definitely some voodoo going on with high end audio and I hate that I'm hooked. I'm going to focus on bigger replacements for my main LR (with a duplicate as a center) and clone my Parasound amp into two monos and go from there. What a hobby.
So many thoughts and comments on this topic ... first being; that Madonna release CD came with a scented liner notes insert. Last I checked, the scent was still intact!
When it comes to speakers, I’ve always found it bigger is usually better within the same speaker series. My advice is to get the biggest floorstanding speakers that are the highest quality that you can afford 😅
Hi Eric, interesting video, I have a rectangular room, the speakers are positioned on the long side and it makes a lot of difference where I place my listening chair for optimal bass and spatial sound. My speakers are the Sonus Faber Lumina V and it took quite a while. to find the optimal sound for me that I am satisfied with Greetings from the Netherlands
I'd be very interested in a deeper dive into QSound from your perspective. Very interested in the science and data behind that tech. Seems like it lived a short life, but the tracks that leverage it are really fun to listen to.
That would be fun. it would be like a research project for me if I did it though. I used to follow a thread about it on one of the mastering forums, but that’s been probably a decade or more at this point.
@@ErinsAudioCorner the modern version of Qsound is called BACCH and is a very advanced form of crosstalk cancellation. It runs on an outboard processor. The effect is quite amazing and improves stereo imaging significantly.
If they are using quality drivers then a 10" woofer is going to sound a lot bigger and hit you much harder than even a 8" . I have 10" woofers in my reference pair of high end diy speakers that I designed and built and I have big mtms that have some really stout 6.5 that I built and they have a lot of drive and SPL bass everything but they don't hit or sound like the 10" drivers. You can grab a pair of crappy old speakers at the thrift stores with small magnets that look impressive that sounds boxy and thin. But if you have some high end drivers they punch you in the face. I was just listening to Metallica sad but true and Nirvana something in the way and I couldn't believe how full they sound and the impact of the kick drum. Bookshelves aren't going to give you that. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble. But try to find a really high end speaker with a 10" woofer and using a good source and then something with a smaller driver. It's not going to hit the same.
I love big speakers but can appreciate all the bonuses of a small more accurate speaker. I have custom built 3 ways in my living room with a 12" woofer. I can feel the bass in any room of the house if i want that or i can listen quietly while sitting on the couch with no lack of bass. Movies on the same speakers are a blast. But when I'm at my desk i would not want anything near that large because it wouldnt be able to do its job in that kind of space.
Great topic Erin. One question that wasn't asked is do you really want a huge sound stage? Many years ago I auditioned a pair of speakers that the salesman claimed was the best he'd ever heard (and sold of course). Not naming names because this is a very popular, high-end speaker company but this was 20+ years ago and they had a 5 figure MSRP. I listened for well over an hour and the one thing that turned me off was that the sound stage was so large that it was not at all realistic. For instance, the female vocalist threw an audio image that made her seem 10 feet tall with a 2 foot wide mouth and was playing a 20 ft grand piano. The trap set was 30 feet across. With that large of a soundstage, imaging was not great either. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I prefer a realistic sound stage, true to the performance, with imaging that is properly locates the instruments.
If I send you some older Boston Acoustics CR85's from the late 90's / early 00's will you test and review them? Of course these are not high-end speakers nor new, but they're pretty highly regarded and these old BAs have a loyal fan base. Might be fun just for the heck of it. I think you might be surprised at how much interest that video gets.
By designing many different speakers, I have learned that every listener is extremely influenced be the appearence of the speaker. Big speakers are expected to sound large and it is really hard to overcome this bias. In fact, it very much depends on the bass performance and the position of the speaker. A small speaker can sound big, when positioned in the correct hight and supported by a well aligned subwoofer going deep. And when you close your eyes or dimm the light - you forget about the size of the speaker and it will sound big. Well, small speakers with a good subwoofer it is not a small system any more.
Totally random thought, but I think it would be cool to get an average Joe to compare speakers with you. Not on a regular basis but if you do a $200 vs $2,000 speaker just because we know what you will say and you have an amazing ability to decipher very specific sound characteristics. I just wonder how that would compare to a non-audio-enthusiasts opinion.
Small mission 70s mark ll +yamaha 120 watt per channel old school 45 lb amp and nakamichi cd unit paired with old onkyo pre amp and less than 300 ..yes big sound...
I don’t know of anyone else who is presenting this information, and I’m grateful for it. I appreciate the data, and I appreciate the explanations of why, and how, the things we (you) hear relate to the data that the measurements produce. I wish I would have had access to this kind and depth of information 20 years ago. Thank you.
Awesome! Thanks!
Certainly, presenting data is advantageous. In my opinion, this video would benefit from a part 2 that includes actual comparisons. This could involve contrasting a two-way concentric speaker (such as a Tannoy model) or even a two-way horn speaker (perhaps from Altec) with large drivers against any two-way design featuring smaller drivers that are being promoted by manufacturers today.
Its Friday and Erins drops a new vid. Can´t be better! Wishing you a great weekend Erin!🌟
A treat before the weekend indeed! Thx Erin 😊
Erin, I just have to say I really enjoy watching your videos. They are so informative and you explain it in a way that is easily understandable. I am currently not in the process of purchasing a speaker but I still watch every one of your videos because I learn something new from each one of them. You kick ass in what you do.
Thanks!
Thank you!
One thing I'm glad you covered is having the ability to place stand mount/bookshelf speakers at various heights to get on axis versus floor standers, which are usually in a fixed position. Definitely makes a huge difference in my room where I sit 6 feet away from my mains.
In Music Room we sit 16' away from bookshelf speakers that are wall mounted at 6'-9"high mated with dual subs optimized with minidsp&dirac. The sound/imaging/stage/ect... is WAY bigger than the floor standers in our family room. The 'Above' / 'big room'' sound from live performances(presented from a stage) and nighclubbing(overhead speakers) is what i crave so decided to setup the music room around that vibe.
Yes, there's never any one simple answer.. it's all about where your ears are relative to where (and what quality and level) the sound is emanating from in the room, and how the room plays into modifying that sound at your listening location, further complicated by the brain's preprocessed expectatation, including potentially unnoticed elements such as signal to noise ratio of the sound source, and/or the presence of ambient noise in the environment. There's no one single answer for any given comparison.
Less cerebral people have a tendency to overly complicate scenarios that are simple, or conversely, attempt to simplify scenarios that are complicated, hence,
why there is always dissensions and diatribes looming with regard to sound reproduction. I myself have just made an attempt to summarise a large subject into a single post..😵💫🤔I'm blaming the ☕️👍😂
Yes, I noticed that too. The usual tower of a good meter height (like 3½ft) with the tweeters on top is usually a bit too high for the average person on the average couch. I don't know why, but that driver arrangement seems very common.
It's much better to put the mid driver on top, so the tweeter is lower and much closer to perfect couch listening height.
There is no replacement for displacement. Efficiency and size are key to get the best sound.
It's not how big they are, it's how you use them.
That's what all the guys who have little ones say 😂😂😂 lol
@@troyporter287 Not what she said
Size of boats.
Ghey
I recall something about it taking a hell of a long time to get to England in a row boat. 🤔
Great content Erin, I hope you keep making videos like this: sharing your education and experience without a specific product to cover.
Big speakers (like, big drivers and wide baffles, not the "bunch of 8" woofers stacked" kind of big) tend to become directional lower. That combined with much lower compression at a given SPL makes them sound quite large in my book.
Yep, I covered that aspect as well. But because they become directional lower means that they typically will have a more narrow stage and tighter focus in small/medium rooms.
Yep, though paradoxically to me that makes them sound "bigger". Small speakers sound kinda muddled by comparison.
@@ErinsAudioCorner here is a question for you? Do you think dispersion effects detail?
I think dispersion hurts detail. Let me give you an example.
I have 18 7” monster bass traps from GIK acoustics in my room (ok that sounds silly to say out loud but stay with me…). I also have a large room 26’x30’x8’ full baseman. When I had the Revel 228be I boxed in my speakers with the bass traps about 3’ on 3 sides of the speakers in free space (speaker 7’+ off the walls. The idea was to catch the reflections before they could reflect in the room. The increase in detail was staggering compared no first reflection treatment (did A/B back and forth for a few days). From the mid bass up it was amazing BUT the sound stage really shrunk in size. It went from wall to wall to where those traps sat in sound stage width. So from 25’ to 16’.
Then the dilemma set in. I could not live with or without the traps. Without them the detail sucked, with them the soundstage sucked…. So I did what every good hobbiest does bought new speakers, a narrow dispersion 4367 lol. I find the first reflection points to almost not matter at all with these speakers and just leave the side walls bare. Now my traps are all on the back wall and corners….
A very good job of explaining this.
At a given SPL they won't sound any more or less compressed than another speaker operating well within its limits at the same SPL.
so,you would be just as happy with bookshelf Blades?
Bob Carver’s “Sonic Holography” gave the best expansion of sounds beyond the boundaries of the speakers.
Is that a album or a speaker
I had his sonic holigraphy preamp back in the late '70s...loved it.
I have the sep unit, sounds great every so often. Crazy sounds!
Do larger drivers or more drivers with more surface area inherently cause more room interaction due to taking up more physical space in a room or is that practically irrelevant? I could swear when I reviewed that KEF KC62, it interacted with my room less than the Monolith THX 10" placed in the same location.
It is a wash. Work = force x distance so pressure = surface area x distance. At the same frequency/output the work is technically the same, though the required power to achieve that work could be different.
Maybe it had more to do with wavelength and boundary. The KC62 sound would come from the center of the two drivers and the thx would come from the driver face, so maybe they were not at the “same” spot due to different acoustic centers.
Maybe it was the KC62 limiter kicking in lol… oh how I hate tiny subs lol.
I think it's more related to the acoustic centers. I might be thinking about this wrong, but I would imagine that a 21" woofer is going to be closer to nearby walls and the ceiling than a 6.5" woofer, and therefore will have different room interaction. I wondered if that's why people think that smaller woofers = "tighter bass" because they're actually hearing less room interaction, whereas the larger driver couples to the room more. I could be way off. I've yet to read this Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, but I'm sure the answer is in there somewhere.@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm
Great presentation well founded in physics. An often overlooked factor in imaging is sample to sample consistency in both frequency and time domains. Tight manufacturing tolerances are important! Also, when I refer to a speaker as sounding large, I am talking about lifelike dynamic range with no sense of strain all the way down into pretty deep bass territory. In this sense, a single speaker can sound large even though it's not projecting any sound stage at all.
i wanted to add that this a fascinating topic and Erin does such a wonderful job discusing all the aspects of sound propagation. The other aspect is of course, (and equaly fascinating) the way our brains process all this time and frequency information. (way above my paygrade)
I recently sold my 5040 towers to get 5020 stand mounts. I now have better imgaing and more soundtage depth as they better match my sub and seem to improve more from placement than the towers did,
Sounding 'big' has much to do with bass. Take a small standmount speaker with little bass, add 2 well integrated subs and suddenly the whole soundstage seems larger. This is not larger as with phase phenomena in the sense of being wide but diffused, it just seems bigger. This is a psychoacoustic illusion it is not strictly a physics thing. Larger speakers generally (though not always) produce more bass than smaller speakers, at least as commercially implemented.
I'll add that the multiple small low-frequency drivers of a floor stander are typically no match for a subwoofer for multiple reasons including: Available Location, Size, Weight, & Amplification. That said, depending on the room and preferences floorstanders may be sufficient.
I've heard big speakers sound small and small speakers sound big, just as I've heard big speakers sound big an small speakers sound small. Everything plays part in that dance. The room especially plays a big part in soundstage performance as well, a well-designed speaker in a well-treated room can do wonders with the soundstage, especially when it comes to presenting a sense of scale.
general conception is bookshelves have larger soundstage and floor standing sound fuller & taller presence. Soundstage has much to do with room treatment. So thoughs who dont have at least a basic treated room you are not hearing the speakers soundstage.
In the spirit of going big, I plan on getting the JTR Noesis 215RT someday, when budget permits. Im curious if youve ever heard of these speakers / have an opinion on them.
Feels like you read my mind with this post - I was just wondering about this. My experience matches your explanation. What made me think about this was another reviewer said they would be missing sound above their head by downsizing but later said the speakers being replaced had a tweeter on top.
Yeah, that’s what really matters, IMHO; the crossovers need to be good where there is no obvious handoff errors and you need to be able to sit on the design axis.
I for some reason appreciate the sound of a wide baffled speaker like a CerwinVega! Or Klipsh heritage. There seems to be a certain sense of effervtlessnes to them that I like at medium to loud volumes
My aDs 910s have massive baffles, containing two 10.5" bass drivers diagonally mounted, with the dome tweeter/mid right next each other vertically. When they're on their 8" stands, the tweeters/mids are right at ear level. They might be my end-game loudspeakers.
I have a load of Bill Fitzmaurice speakers which probably sound like a less refined version of the Klipsch. That effortless detail in the horns (and the big bass reflex boxes) is satisfying to listen to.
One thing the wider baffle will have is a lower baffle step, meaning it can project sound towards the listening position down to lower frequencies before the speaker starts to radiate in all directions (I.e. it’s listening window is maintained down to a lower frequency than narrow speakers). That will impact how it sounds. Same thing with the radiation pattern. Speakers with a wide pattern will sound more spacious than those with a narrower pattern, and that is one disadvantage of a lot of coaxial speakers. They are usually quite a bit narrower than conventional dome tweeters on a baffle.
Thanks Erin, great video on an interesting topic. How do you see line array type speakers fitting into this analysis? I have Magneplanar 1.7i speakers, which essentially have 5' tall tweeter, midrange, and woofer sections. I find when properly setup they provide very precise horizontal imaging, with the appropriate material but also excel at presenting "life size" images, which I interpret as being related to the physical size of the drivers. Or would you say their dipole nature, which minimizes side wall reflections (and in my setup front wall reflections are largely absorbed) just allows better extraction of the directional information from the recording?
How would you tell in the measurements if the woofer and tweeter are out of phase, if they sum flat? I think that summing flat can hide a lot of issues.
The usual give away is a dip in output at the crossover frequency, where both drivers are equally active, causing cancellation.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 that makes sense. Seems like most 2 ways have that crossover dip. Jim Thiel designed high part count first order filters…presumably to keep everything in phase
@@seanb3303
"High part count" is a very bad thing in passive circuits. The more junk you stick in there the less efficient it becomes. When I see a crossover with lots of extra bits and pieces I generally interpret that as someone who doesn't really know how the filters work.
The usual way of fixing that dip, when it is a phase issue is to reverse wire the tweeter to eliminate or at least reduce the misalignment.
A crossover is a blunt instrument, it's not an equalizer. It's job is in two parts: First to get the right pitch ranges to the right drivers and Second to make sure nothing goes up in smoke. Beyond that extra parts are just a waste of your amplifier's energy.
You're right about Q Sound or SRS. That processing still exists but it's not necessarily marketed or mentioned in the recording. Some reviewers use recordings that use this sort of processing as reference recordings without even realizing it. The magnitude of these effects varies with listening distance and angle and radiation pattern. Reviewers that use these recordings attribute the 3D effects to the speaker's ability to create a 3 dimensional sound stage when these 3D effects can be achieved with all well matched speaker pairs
8:14 to about 9:00. I never had given thought to two identical woofers being crossed over at different points. I've always enjoyed learning this stuff, but at times, it can be overwhelming. This guy keeps it simple and fun.
I always come back to vintage JBL with 12-15" woofers and substantial mids. They definitely go below 50hz... 250TI's are 30Hz to 27kHz. 4343's are 35Hz to 20kHz.
How do you feel about towers that don't have additional drivers over and above bookshelf? Sometimes we see this - towers that essentially look like a bookshelf as far as drivers are concerned, but with a larger box
Good explanation. Makes sense. We have what we call the Tardis. Its a small room system with 2 wall mount speakers high on the wall plus a sub. Sounds awesome and thanks to DSP you can't really tell where the sound is coming from, from the listening position. Neat trick.
Good content here Erin. I have been designing and building my own speakers for many years. My primary focus with design in the last few years has been on creating a realistic sound stage, well as realistic as I can make it. The one thing I have found that effects "how big a speaker sounds" is its ability to saturate the listening area @ high spl levels with minimal distortion. Not to say the imaging doesnt play a part in that, it does to an extent. However, in my listening experience once a very high spl is reached, if the speakers can handle the drive input (power) with minimal distortion then they will win the "big sound" competition. In my quest for this type of sound I have moved to large high effiency pro drivers in my designs. Faital Pro, B&C, SB Audience...you get the idea. This is not the only thing in this quest though. The passive crossovers can get complicated and in some cases very expensive. If close attention is not paid to this I just have a big blaring box. Simulate, measure, listen, adjust. Simulate, measure, listen, adjust. Over and over and over. When I get it right, the sound is nothing short of amazing....and big.
What about a full range speaker like the Zu? Would it not closer to a point source?
I need to sound a room with high ceilings and a large area. What kind of acoustics do I need?
Hi Erin, do you have an opinion of open baffle speakers and would you consider reviewing a pair if given the chance?
I do. I would. 😉
@@ErinsAudioCorner i am curious too. Open baffle is claimed to be more open and musical, natural
Caladans
On the subject of point source, taking a typical TMW 3-way speaker, you said that the lower the crossover point between the tweeter and midrange, the more the two drivers (assuming they are placed as closely as possible on the front baffle) can act as a point source. My question is at what frequency range does this happen? For example, the tweeter and midrange on my speakers are placed as close as possible to each other and the crossover point is 1200 hz. Is that low enough so that these drivers can act as a point source? If the answer is, it depends, what are the factors that can impact this?
Thank you for posting this. It's dense with knowledge bombs about speaker designs presented in a clear and easily digestible manner. Ps. That Madonna album is amazing.
Thanks for the feedback! And, yes, that album is indeed awesome!
Excellent explanation on this topic. I personally think a substantial part of the lower-end hifi public actually is looking for this diffuse "wall of sound", it's what they want from their big floor standing speakers, it's what sounds right to them. Not everybody out there is an audiofile!
Perfect! A lot of people don't understand this.
My small Micca rb42 speakers sound bigger than they look. They are also warmer/less detail sounding than my Klipsch rp600m.
Does putting a tower speaker on blocks, lets say 5 or 10 inches in order to get your ear at axis level effect the sound in a negative way, since you are lifting up the lowest driver further away from the floor.?
And this is why I have Kef Q100 drivers in my open baffle with 15” drivers crossed at 300hz for the best of both worlds ;) plus a 15” sealed ultimax sub.
I do wonder if I would get better imaging and more disappearing of the speaker if I just went to a couple of 8" or 10" drivers with a much narrower baffle. I cross at 80hz to sub so the OB bass drivers don't need to play that low.
I own transmission line floorstanders and transmission line bookshelf loudspeakers. Bass is better on floorstanders. Having two systems just gives me a different experience
I’ve been an audio engineer in all sorts of scenarios and enthusiast at home. I’d say a speaker that has high sensitivity, large spaced woofers, in addition to a bloated deep low end and even harmonic distortion clouding the mid bass can sound maybe big. I can’t say that’s what you want though. It’s really the opposite.
tell danny at gr research. i’m sure he’ll disagree! he has some ridiculous speakers / snake oil and so on lol
My friends Magnepan 3.7i speakers make a vocalist sound ridiculously large in his listening room. His room is maybe not super large, so we were 8 to 10 feet from the speakers. I assume this is in part due to the 9" wide woofer panels that are crossed over at 450 Hz with first order crossovers. At the time it felt like the room was approaching acting like a gigantic set of headphones. I've also heard the large Genesis Technologies speakers and very large electrostatic speakers. In a smaller room there is this effect. I assume if the speaker is so large that you are listening in the near field, this "headphone" effect comes into play. I have found that working on crossovers, a single three way speaker sounds large with first order crossovers but tends to shrink to a point with high order crossovers. With 4th order digital crossovers the Magnepan 3.7i looses some of that horizontally split soundstage effect for sure. For sure first order crossovers result in weird directivity patterns and overlap in the drivers at the two crossover points. Testing a speaker with different order crossovers is pretty interesting. It's a fun experiment to do, and it's easy to setup if you have an active digital crossover at hand like a miniDSP. I think this may be why many people are so impressed by speakers with first order crossovers, because the single speaker creates a sort of simulated stereo effect local to that one speaker.
Line-source speakers, like Magnepans, Infinity IRS-V or Genesis 1 towers often tend to make vocalists sound unnaturally large especially when compared to similarly sized point-source designs.
so how many watt rms is it?
Used to have an Arcam A/R receiver. It always sounded out of phase, but created a huge sound stage. Also had horrid dialog. I would say a large speaker loads up a room differently. Also as you stated a large speaker can play at a higher volume. What I find is that a 2 way doesn't have the impact / clarity when you have a lot of mids and bass hitting at once.
That Madonna album is crazy - always hear people talk about how tubes open up the sound stage in depth and width - maybe it’s something to do with distortion- idk ; I run solid state but I have noticed when running Audirvana and changing upsampling via r8brain and depending on using minimum phase or linear phase and or adjusting the bandwidth (% of nyquist) or stop band attenuation can change the way music is presented and sounds - I think it really depends on the equipment of course but haven’t seen anyone ever measure these things to show what each setting is actually doing to the sound. Image seems really tight and precise but a little thin with linear phase and high settings for each and with minimum phase and moderate settings a little more diffuse and fuller but a bit more natural sounding. I don’t understand exactly how it works and have yet to see anyone explain it in terms a layman (me) can understand. Would love your take on this.
One example of your explanation can be applied with some small speakers sounding like "big speakers" like the ilouds micro monitors or Vanatoos transparent zero, mosly because those speakers had wide radiation thanks to the use of small drivers and the directivity is fairly smooth
A good explanation, as always, Erin - Thanks.
If I chose to pick any nits, it would be that you don't talk about room placement until late in the video. I'd contend that in many (most?) setups, the speaker placement (and room treatment) has far more effect on soundstage than does the placement of drivers on the baffle board. I've seen photos of even reviewer's rooms where one speaker is hard in a corner while the other is adjacent to an open doorway to another room! This affects imaging not just more but FAR more than the speaker characteristics themselves. I've also seen setups where one speaker has heavy drapes behind it while the other is in front of a bare window or sheetrock wall...
You're right about the effects of Q-sound. In my room, Madonna's Immaculate Collection throws images that seem to come literally from BEHIND the listener! I fail to understand why more recordings don't use Q-sound.
I've had HUGE speakers in my room (Tekton Pendragons, for one example) and point-source speakers (KEF LS-50s for example). The differences in sound stage are significantly less than might be expected. I'm currently using some Klipsch RP-600m speakers that can throw a HUGE sound stage with excellent width and depth. So my answer to your video title, "Do Big Speakers Actually SOUND Bigger?" would be a firm (but qualified) "No."
Cordially - Glenn Young
MTM speakers are my fav to emulate 1 point source, currently on Q Acoustics
Awesome video full of great explanations!
Lots of times, I feel we listen with our eyes. We see a bigger speaker and WE WANT it to sound bigger because it has lots of woofers.
Then, we crank the volume way past the volume at what we played the bookshelfs...
Psychology and speaker efficiency play a big role in that impression I think 😅
Yet another great one! Glad to see new content Bro. Fun stuff!
What’s up, brother!?
@@ErinsAudioCorner killing myself in a new job. Situation normal somewhat. Been really digging the little CSS 1TDX’s I built through a Node X and Schiit Vidar 2. The civic is finally gone. I see it around town every now and then.
So, are the companies that put the woofers on the sides of the cabinet doing that mainly to keep the front baffle narrow to enhance the radiation pattern of the speaker?
an upright bass sounds bigger than a cello because it is and we can sense that scale, easily.More radiating surface (including and perhaps primarily, the cabinet) sounds "bigger" This mainly comes from bass presence and perhaps attack or the dynamic envelope. A crossover, good or bad, can effect this but seldom overcome our acute sensitivty to scale and attack. Its probably a survival thing.
I had a question is 2.1 ok cause 2.2 ie second sub looks too much in my setting I don’t want tower speakers and feel a bookshelf pair with a great single 12”!subwoofer to create pressure under 100hz. Is bass in stereo or single sub will work
There is an axiom in speaker design: Small size, bass extension, efficiency, pick 2.
I love big speakers. My present big speakers are rated down to 20hz, my previous big speakers were rated to 10Hz.
Big speakers - at high volume they take over the air in the room, at low volume they still put out deep bass.
As far as sound stage - I have heard and build some bookshelf speakers that have fantastic sound stage and imaging, big speakers add scale and height. I have never heard a small speaker give height or scale in the sound stage.
In big speakers you have large drivers that can reproduce bass with less distortion and higher efficiency.
Big speakers have the room to be configured as a point source, which is very coherent, both in frequency and time, you can't do that in a small box.
Before you buy, listen to both big and small speakers, they both have advantages and disadvantages.
I give up space for sound quality.
What speakers do you have that reach 20hz and 10hz?
@@chrislesnar Have Tekton Moabs rated 20Hz-30kHz Had Polk SRS 1.2TL rated 10Hz-26kHz (-3db 27Hz - 25kHz).
I’ve owned at least a couple exact models in floorstanding and bookshelf(Focal, B&W, etc). I prefer the bookshelf speaker every time I’ve heard them compared against each other. I currently now own 7 sets of high end speakers (all bookshelf)
When someone says pull your speaker or suggests like 16" off a boundary wall do they mean measuring from the rear (where my port is) or the mid or front of the speaker? My speaker is 10" deep so just kind of testing and hopeful you could share your experience on that.
Aye .. Now I've seen / heard all the factors ... Yes to all of them. Baffle size, driver diameter beaming,.. both will lead to how the sound pressure flows off the baffle width.
Personally.. The number one say to make the stage wider or larger sounding in my rooms .. is sitting closer or physically placing the speakers wider. Toeing out or straight into the room will affect how much of the energy is bounding off the walls..
I mean, .. how large or big do the speakers sound Anechoic? I think the word " bigger " is mostly riding the coat-tails in the pool of ALL the other subjective terms and descriptive adjectives that common people will use. " Wider " and acknowledging a speaker's dispersion pattern / Acoustic alignment, etc .. would be less subjective and more observation.
Good to detail .. I hope that people will take the details and re-evaluate how to describe the sound in room.
all good points, may i add physicality to the mix?
a speaker sound larger if it has physical impact, and if you add subwoofer to a small speakers you might not get the impact and large sound just above the subwoofer crossover point.
80hz to 200hz is important to me to feel the music and have a large scale or sound big.
They absolutely do but they need their proper room. I have paradigm 120 and they are pulled forward 4 feet from the back wall and 4 feet from side walls and they are 11 feet apart, they sound absolutely ridiculous! If I push them against the walls they sound tinny with some weird bass reinforcement. Also towers will usually sound bigger because bookshelf speakers are less sensitive than towers, but the best thing you can do is run your speakers without a subwoofer or crossover them correctly and get a sub that has low group delay especially for audio.
Look at how recording studios set up microphones. Where they set them and what speakers the record from on guitar for instance. Just look.
Yep. And then we have to consider what the mixing process is. People take mono sources and do wild stuff to them to get very odd results. But that’s the fun stuff.
Very good one Erin.
thank you very much.
in most cases by bigger they usally mean taller = tall singer etc.
manufacturer "do" that by locating the tweeter/mid units higher than ear level . (acoustic center)
some of them allow you to tilt and adjust the units (than you are actually "adding difreaction)
and i not talking about 500 usd floorstander.
These comapnies usually dont aim for ideal measurments and science based audio - its a diifernt market based on.....
Brilliant video, real information that benefits and educates the user. Im so sick of the audio industry and all the bull. So refeshing to have found your channel Thank you
Super sound stage is all about having equal, Left and Right. From your source, amp, wire and room....
Rifght bang on with Q-Sound! - I've been familiar with it since it first came out (~1990).
Not sure why Q-Sound doesn't get much use these days - the nice thing is that it is system independant. Granted, Atmos makes it a bit of a moot point. 🙂 - Cheers.
Very interesting information. This may explain why my Monitor Audio Silver 200s (shorter and smaller drivers) sounds better to me than my MA Silver 500s (taller and larger drivers) when listening to most music tracts. Huh!😮
Thanks Erin!
How fast do crossovers deteriorate. I hear of capacitors need replacing after a few years. Measure an original old Forte 2 speaker before and after crossover rebuild.
Modern capacitors last 20 years.
15 to 20 years is pretty typical in designs using electrolytic caps. The newer film and polyprop caps, will probably outlive the drivers.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm Damn ! alot of capacitors that need replacing.
@@keith6872
Rule #1 ... If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
If the sound quality is not deteriorating, leave it alone.
Seriously, changing out the caps is not just a soldering job. It will affect the sound balance of the speaker and it can be quite the expensive chore, involving multiple tweaks and tests to get it back in line.
@@keith6872 I worry more about the ferrofluid turning rock hard in the coils. Not sure that is based on reality…
You know, Erin, all this talk about baffle size and point-source and imaging makes me realize, I don't think I've ever heard you talk about electrostatic speakers. Is that because you don't have much experience with them, or because you don't like the very narrow, bipolar radiation pattern?
Love your your man!Traditional woofer/tweeter designs suffer a lot of issues that you are addressing here.Personally,i'm good with a pair of KALI Audio IN5's and another pair of SONODYNE SRP 600 powered monitors downstairs,and contemplating the addition of a RHYTHMIK F12G servo sub.Have you heard of Alsyvox's ribbon full range speakers?They claim to solve all of the problems associaciated with traditional designs,including the efficiency factor.The guy makes every unit himself!
hi Erin, 3 way tower speaker vs 2 way bookshelf speaker + dual Subwoofer? Which one is better in your opinion?
Usually a good bookshelf with dual subs has the potential to sound better. But getting the crossover point, slope and phase isn’t trivial.
could you teach us how to get good crossover point, slope, etc? 😁@@ErinsAudioCorner
You also need dynamic small speakers. A lot of subs have silly power and even at 80hz the small speaker might not keep up. For me I like big speaker with big subwoofers lol.
I have found the best crossover point to be where the sound power starts to drop off. For example my speakers go down to -10 at 31hz but I cross them at 60-65hz as they are starting to lose power (crossing below the 0db point) below 60hz. I tend to like steep 24db or higher crossovers for subs too. Shallow 6-12db cause odd dips for me.
@@JamesWilliams-gf8gm
Try to get the -3db points for the speaker (high pass) and sub (low pass) to align. I've always found that to be the best point for no dips or peaks. The reason being that at -3db power is roughly half so when you add the two together you've got an even output.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 I have tried the -3db (43hz for my speakers). It integrates well their but at 60hz the system just slams and scales better. Both are “flat” (measured) I am using a highpass filter at 24db on both ends. Both are fine honestly.
Very good reasoned argument Erin. thanks for sharing yr experience
Thanks.
I do sometimes miss my cheap BIC America DV-84s for tye dual 8" woofers and passive radiators in each tower. It really helped the midbass slap in my room. Though the Monitor Audio bookshelves are superior in every other way.
We definitely more informative video's like this, Audiophile Myth Buster's. Great job Erin one of your best 🤔 Another way to test image height, is to buy a Stereo Demo CD, some have a test with a sound like someone sanding wood. Anyway the sound is recorded vertically over several feet, anyway tried it with Magnepan 3.6's which have a 55" tall tweeter, I never got the impression the image moved vertically at all. It just stayed dead center the whole time.
Totally agree with ya!
Not sure if you were referring to my comments or somebody else, but it sure sounds like me. I do often say big speakers move more air and little speakers only move a little air. If you want that presence, you've gotta move the air. Big speakers sound big and little speakers sound little. I say all of this various ways and I do say it often.
What I mean specifically is air volume and frequency response. An 8" woofer can physically move more air than a little baby 3" driver. It will also handle low frequencies that a 3" driver cannot. So it will sound bigger, fuller, because of the amount of air it can move and the frequency range that it can safely operate. Sound is mechanical, it's all about pressure waves. A large speaker can produce a large pressure wave, it can create a greater sense of presence due to both the amount of air it can move and the frequency range it can cover.
But presence is not to be confused with sound stage. When I say presence, I'm talking about realism. How real a thing sounds. Like the difference between talking to a person in person verses talking to a person over the phone. One sounds really real, the other does not. That little baby speaker in your phone sounds exactly like a little baby speaker, right!?
Sound stage can easily be faked in post production, so I don't mention it often. But I do frequently talk about presence which I hope I've explained. But my JBL 590's for example, they play wide, their sound stage just sounds wide in my very narrow room. They fake it with their giant megaphone style wave guides. In my 9' 8" wide room it's very beneficial, but may not be for everyone. Because room size makes such a difference, it's kinda hard to talk about sound stage. I only mention it here in example because these 590's sound so much wider in the same room when compared to my previous towers. It's quite an unmistakable difference. But again, sound stage is not presence.
Anyway, I don't know if you were referring to my comments or not, but I do hope that I've successfully explained myself regardless.
Cheers man 🍻
No, it wasn’t you. I had a patron messaged me about a review that somebody posted yesterday and sent me the link and asked me what I thought about the comments. It wasn’t you. So no worries about explaining yourself.👍
Most 2-ways have inherent flaw because of the Doppler effect. Standard tweeter can't play very low which means that bass must play up to 2, 3 or even 4kHz. Which means that bass is now 2 speakers in one: low frequency one moves with high amplitude and then middle frequency driver basically moves in space at that low bass frequency, so important freqs at 2-3kHz start to rapidly change their pitch. The only solution is to have big bass like 12" or 15" playing no higher than 1000Hz and then a compression driver which is able to play down to 1000Hz without too much distortion.
And the second problem with bass playing high is that crossover frequency at 2 or 3kHz is right in the middle of the very important range where our ears are quite sensitive.
So no, 2-ways are not good and out of choice.
I’m with you on Doppler being a real thing. But the levels at which it is audible is a different matter.
Crossing a 12 or 15-inch driver at or even near 1kHz is a really bad idea. Unless you have a very good design, it’s almost guaranteed there will be a significant directivity issue that is going to be more audible than IMD effects will be (at least, unless you’re trying to fill a venue with sound).
All I know is that my Revel m126bes crossed over at 80hz seem to have waay less bass (oomph?) than my Dynaudio X34s crossed over at 80hz, using the same sub in the same room calibrated to the same curve. I've swapped them in and out several times thinking it must just be in my head, but I really don't think it is.
I'm poor do you recommend anything under 400 for bookshelf speakers or is this a unrealistic dream
In my case it is! I built some speakers (designed from scratch) and they were small floor standing speakers, with a 6" woofer and a 5" FR driver. Sounded great. Then I built some larger floorstanders with a 10" (same brand) woofer and a 10" coaxial. Yep, the bigger speakers sound bigger and the voice sound has more heff and is more ROUND! 😂 And the BASS! 🎉
What about wide vs narrow baffle above 1kHz?
The total cross sectional area of all moving membranes must be an influence of things sounding "big" ... e.g. you cannot escape the sound of an Infinity IRS Beta ... big speakers with lots of membranes correct the room acoustic damage by brute force.
You missed a couple of good questions in the Greg Timbers interviews. That said, how do you explain JBL L5 and L7s (tower speakers) playing down to 34Hz?
Erin,
I was waiting for you to mention the KEF Blades in this analysis (?)
I split the field with 2 systems/rooms:
2.2 KEF LS50/REL &
2.2 Magnepan LRS/REL
While not "accurate" or as tightly focused, the Maggies are addictively spacious in their presentation.
Why is that?
😅
I built some speakers last year that use a little 3" driver to cover ~200-7000hz. The bottom is picked up by Dayton Epique driver and the top end a little dayton flush mount job.... The result is a "big" sounding speaker, because the bulk of the energy is coming from a very small driver, so has a very wide dispersion through the most critical of the listening range. By the time it starts to tighten up over 5khz you can't really hear the diff anyway because our ears aren't very good up there. These things play the disappearing act very well.
A 2,5 way with big woofers, (properly executed) will have a less complex crossover, will have higher sensitivity, and a point source sound in that, there will be no detectable separation between the drivers, In other words, they're very coherent.
Interestingly, enough, one of the speakers the “split stage” issue was most evident on was a 2.5 way speaker. JBL HDI-3600. I I discussed this in that review a few years back.
Thanks for the explanation. I wonder if digital crossovers could solve the issues of phase shift at the crossover point in three way speakers.
Great content. I just bought some small speakers for a small home theater setup, pairing them with the SVS 3000 micro... aaand.... they sound small lol. They are going back. I'm starting to regroup around "there's no replacement for displacement"
Haha. That’s definitely true to an extent.
I've been rocking a Parasound preamp and 2 channel Parasound amp in stereo for my home theater/music setup. Have loved it. My kids are getting older and more into movies, so I thought ok let's get back into multi channel.
Just bought a bunch of small Cambridge MINX speakers to work as an Atmos setup and hooked them into a Marantz 7.1 receiver. Sounded like garbage.
I literally had a much bigger sound stage and every other buzz word from my stereo setup. I literally stopped the movie and put the 2 channel back into play.
There's definitely some voodoo going on with high end audio and I hate that I'm hooked.
I'm going to focus on bigger replacements for my main LR (with a duplicate as a center) and clone my Parasound amp into two monos and go from there.
What a hobby.
What's your thoughts on GR-Resewrch speaker?
So many thoughts and comments on this topic ... first being; that Madonna release CD came with a scented liner notes insert.
Last I checked, the scent was still intact!
What?! That’s crazy (for you). (Catch the pun?)
@@ErinsAudioCorner
Surely others remember the patchouli dominant scent, ... uh right? Any help here?
When it comes to speakers, I’ve always found it bigger is usually better within the same speaker series. My advice is to get the biggest floorstanding speakers that are the highest quality that you can afford 😅
Hi Eric, interesting video, I have a rectangular room, the speakers are positioned on the long side and it makes a lot of difference where I place my listening chair for optimal bass and spatial sound. My speakers are the Sonus Faber Lumina V and it took quite a while. to find the optimal sound for me that I am satisfied with
Greetings from the Netherlands
I'd be very interested in a deeper dive into QSound from your perspective. Very interested in the science and data behind that tech. Seems like it lived a short life, but the tracks that leverage it are really fun to listen to.
That would be fun. it would be like a research project for me if I did it though. I used to follow a thread about it on one of the mastering forums, but that’s been probably a decade or more at this point.
@@ErinsAudioCorner the modern version of Qsound is called BACCH and is a very advanced form of crosstalk cancellation. It runs on an outboard processor. The effect is quite amazing and improves stereo imaging significantly.
@@TheAmplifierfire what's the difference between this and Apple's spatial audio?
I guess this doesnt apply to line sources, like planars and electrostats?
It doesn't. I should have mentioned that. They're kind of a different league... sometimes better... sometimes much worse.
@@ErinsAudioCorner would be great if you could do a video on those type of speakers
Should do a video on high efficiency vs low efficiency. High dynamic range efficiency really opened my eyes.
If they are using quality drivers then a 10" woofer is going to sound a lot bigger and hit you much harder than even a 8" . I have 10" woofers in my reference pair of high end diy speakers that I designed and built and I have big mtms that have some really stout 6.5 that I built and they have a lot of drive and SPL bass everything but they don't hit or sound like the 10" drivers. You can grab a pair of crappy old speakers at the thrift stores with small magnets that look impressive that sounds boxy and thin. But if you have some high end drivers they punch you in the face. I was just listening to Metallica sad but true and Nirvana something in the way and I couldn't believe how full they sound and the impact of the kick drum. Bookshelves aren't going to give you that. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble. But try to find a really high end speaker with a 10" woofer and using a good source and then something with a smaller driver. It's not going to hit the same.
I love big speakers but can appreciate all the bonuses of a small more accurate speaker.
I have custom built 3 ways in my living room with a 12" woofer. I can feel the bass in any room of the house if i want that or i can listen quietly while sitting on the couch with no lack of bass. Movies on the same speakers are a blast.
But when I'm at my desk i would not want anything near that large because it wouldnt be able to do its job in that kind of space.
Great topic Erin. One question that wasn't asked is do you really want a huge sound stage? Many years ago I auditioned a pair of speakers that the salesman claimed was the best he'd ever heard (and sold of course). Not naming names because this is a very popular, high-end speaker company but this was 20+ years ago and they had a 5 figure MSRP. I listened for well over an hour and the one thing that turned me off was that the sound stage was so large that it was not at all realistic. For instance, the female vocalist threw an audio image that made her seem 10 feet tall with a 2 foot wide mouth and was playing a 20 ft grand piano. The trap set was 30 feet across. With that large of a soundstage, imaging was not great either. It just wasn't my cup of tea. I prefer a realistic sound stage, true to the performance, with imaging that is properly locates the instruments.
If I send you some older Boston Acoustics CR85's from the late 90's / early 00's will you test and review them? Of course these are not high-end speakers nor new, but they're pretty highly regarded and these old BAs have a loyal fan base. Might be fun just for the heck of it. I think you might be surprised at how much interest that video gets.
Thank you Erin!
By designing many different speakers, I have learned that every listener is extremely influenced be the appearence of the speaker. Big speakers are expected to sound large and it is really hard to overcome this bias. In fact, it very much depends on the bass performance and the position of the speaker. A small speaker can sound big, when positioned in the correct hight and supported by a well aligned subwoofer going deep. And when you close your eyes or dimm the light - you forget about the size of the speaker and it will sound big. Well, small speakers with a good subwoofer it is not a small system any more.
Totally random thought, but I think it would be cool to get an average Joe to compare speakers with you. Not on a regular basis but if you do a $200 vs $2,000 speaker just because we know what you will say and you have an amazing ability to decipher very specific sound characteristics. I just wonder how that would compare to a non-audio-enthusiasts opinion.
Small mission 70s mark ll +yamaha 120 watt per channel old school 45 lb amp and nakamichi cd unit paired with old onkyo pre amp and less than 300 ..yes big sound...
My ELAC Vela 403s and 409s do everything it right.