Frequency range and frequency response?
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Bronze Member Username: James_the_godDoncaster, South Yorkshire England Post Number: 100 Registered: Jan-05 | Whats the difference in the two. I guess that a lot of companies use what details they prefer to get the public to buy their speakers for the reason that some tiny little speakers can reach 26hz. Ive been comparing bookshelf speakers and trying to find whats best for no more than £180 (thanks for everyones help) but whats with the frequency range and frequency response scandals. Diamond 9.1-go down to 50hz and can go lower. The B&W dm303 go down to 73hz but are just as good as the new diamonds? I know its not just about frequency response but really wats the difference. By the way I still havn't decided on the bookshelfs to buy, but considering both the mentioned 2 above, the tannoy fusion 2, aegis evo 1s and another few including the old diamond 8.1/8.2s |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 339 Registered: Feb-05 | Some use the terms interchangeably. Response is the actual ability of the speaker to reproduce the "range" of human hearing, or some portion thereof.-generally cited as 20-20,000hz. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3308 Registered: May-04 | Response means just that, the speaker will respond to 26Hz. It doesn't mean it will be producing useable sound at 26Hz, but the woofer will move in response to the signal. To judge the frequency range of a speaker look for the measurement that gives you one of two qualifiers along with the numbers. Either the total + or - variation within the speakers's operating range; or the frequency where the speaker reaches its -6dB point. If a speaker's response is listed as 30Hz to 20kHz, and the -6dB point is stated as falling at 50Hz, there is little real bass signal being generated beneath 50Hz. By the way, the only specifications you should look at on a speaker are the height, width, depth and weight. Every other speaker specification is meaningless in the real world. They tell you nothing about how the speaker actually sounds. Two speakers with a similarly stated range of 40Hz to 20kHz, + or - 6dB, can sound totally unlike one another. One may have a +6dB peak at 1500Hz which is very noticeable as "shouty". The other may have a -6dB trough at 100Hz which is likely to sound thin. Ignore specs. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 345 Registered: Feb-05 | Ignore specs? You've got to be kidding!!! That is one of the most ridiculous notions I think I have ever heard and for obvious reasons. |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784Post Number: 241 Registered: Nov-04 | well i think he has a point dale. what would be your reasons to atleast not see them in that light? or atleast see them for getting an idea of the speakers. |
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Silver Member Username: KanoPost Number: 442 Registered: Oct-04 | Specs are a guide, definitely nothing to base a purchase around. While the frequency response may be useful for gauging a speakers bass extension, as J. Vigne posted it says nothing about how a speaker responds at different frequencies. A frequency response graph tells a better story, but doesn't account for tone or timbre. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 353 Registered: Feb-05 | There is obviously a serious problem with comprehension here. Read my post again Chris and tell me where I suggested what you ask. |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784Post Number: 242 Registered: Nov-04 | "Ignore specs? You've got to be kidding!!! That is one of the most ridiculous notions I think I have ever heard and for obvious reasons." i think ur taking my question personally. there is nothing in those three sentences that suggest what your reason would be expect that it would be obvious. well its not that obvious to me so why dont you explain to the idiot that i am. maybe you should read jan's post over before calling it ridiculous. he brings up more points than you have. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 356 Registered: Feb-05 | OK let me expatiate for those who are mentally challenged. Like audio/video gear, all advice is not created equal. Some is clearly better than others. To suggest that someone purchase speakers based on dimensions alone and without regard for specs is misleading, incomplete and may result in readers disregarding an important fact worth serious consideration. Most people I know do not have money to burn and are looking for the best value on which to spend their hard earned cash. If you consult the knowledgeable people in the speaker business, very few, if any would suggest that frequency response specs should be totally ignored. Go to the web sites of reputable speaker manufacturers and ask them if prospective purchasers should ignore all frequency reponse specs and consider dimensions alone. Every informed buyer should at least have sufficient information to determine if the speaker is at least on paper capable of delivering the performance (s)he seeks. This is not a question of who makes "more points". It's the quality of advice that intelligent, or at least insightful, prospective purchasers should consider. There are intelligent and dumb ways to make any purchase. If you prefer the dumb way, then, by all means, disregard specs and buy based on dimensions alone. In that case, I have some swamp land I would like you to purchase. Don't worry about its location, just its dimensions. Your choice. Is this simple enough for you? |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784Post Number: 244 Registered: Nov-04 | i think you still havent really understood jan's point. you still have to listen to the speakers to figure out if you really want them. i would use specs as a generalization of the performance of something but would still see for myself how it performs. i think that is the point jan is trying to make that you are very obviously missing. dont try to call me mentally challanged. the problem was in the writer not the reader. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 360 Registered: Feb-05 | Chris, read Jan's post third paragraph, first line. And then tell me you're not mentally challenged. Or may be you just can't read. No matter what you may think, that advice stinks. Subject is closed as far as I am concerned. No need for me to argue with a fool. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3320 Registered: May-04 | Mr. Wiley, after being insulted and called mentally challenged, I would like to return the favor and call you an ignorant, rude S.O.B. Now that we have the personal insults out of the way, let's discuss this matter. I will admit my advice was somewhat short sighted. If forgot to mention that in addition to the size and weight, you should consider the price of the speakers also. If we take three speakers that are reviewed in a current issue of an enthusiast magazine, we'll find speaker #1 rated at 26Hz-30kHz, + or - 3dB, and priced at $4,000. Speaker #2 is rated at 40-33kHz at a cost of $9495. And speaker #3 rated at 60Hz-20kHz with a cost of $650. From the frequency response stated it is more than likely you can guess which is the largest box and which is the smallest. But you can't determine what the footprint of those speakers will be. However, the speaker that decends to 26Hz is considered problematic though quite good for the price if it works in your system. It has a slight mid-treble emphasis. Several recordings sounded over ripe. The second speaker garnered comments of "unfailingly neutral", "it was convincing", "peerlessly good ... at conveying pitches and pitch relationships, from the highest audible notes down to the lowest", "colorless and open - world beatingly so" and "those spatial qualities were remarkable". I could go on but you get the idea. The fact this speaker integrated with every placement and system component that it was faced with it was considered "among the best, most musical you can buy". Yet it has less on paper bass response than speaker #1. Speaker #3 was able to produce "angelic, silky rich integration of the voices", "suprising layers of detail ... across the entire musical spectrum" and "its most impressive strength: the bass". This speaker has established, in the words of the reviewer, "a new benchmark". I see none of that in the frequency specifications. Nothing that might indicate problems integrating with a system, being musical or having particularly good spatial qualities, or setting a new benchmark in anything. Speaker #1 was stated as having a 6 Ohm impedance but it went from below 4 Ohms to almost 18 Ohms with several dips and peaks along the way. Speaker #2 was stated at 8 Ohms but again swings between 3 and 14 Ohms. Combined with an electrical phase angle at 90 degrees at its predominant impedance of 5 Ohms, it will present a difficult load to many an amplifier. In this instance the first speaker was deemed a relatively easy load due to its more benign phase angle. Speaker #3 is suggested to be a 4 Ohm load, which would normally make us assume it is the more difficult speaker to drive. However, its impedance swing and phase angle are such that it is a fairly easy load despite its three peaks in impedance within its frequency range. You would have to delve pretty deep into the specs to begin to see what is important in how difficult the speaker is to drive and even then the specs will suggest little about how your amplifier will handle any of these three speakers. Or what will happen if you decide to use high capacitance speaker cables with your amp and any of these speakers. Speaker #1 is 86dB efficiency, speaker #2 is 87dB and #3 is 87dB. With the speakers all having a different number and size of drivers it will be safe to assume they will not all play at the same volume in the same sized room. Even if they had the same components as far as drivers go, the different types of crossovers will absorb varying amounts of power and one 87dB speaker will not necessarily play with the same volume intensity as another 87dB speaker. Within those specs, we see nothing that mentions cabinet resonance or the ability of a speaker to reach dynamic peaks. Nothing indicates the ability to reproduce either long sustained bass notes or the speed of a triangle. I know of no measurement that can accurately predict the timber of a speaker on a sheet of paper. It is a function of too many variables. Nothing can tell me how open a speaker will be. I can assume a horn loaded speaker will not have the same sound as an electrostatic, but tell me what specs show that. I will give you that if you have the ability to look at all the specs in the tiniest detail on any piece of equipment you can draw certain conclusions. However, I will still suggest you will be more productive in listening to the product than reading about it. So, Mr. Wiley, why don't you enlighten those of us who are mentally deficient in what you look for when you gaze upon a spec sheet. Tell us how you can determine the sound of a speaker by looking at a piece of paper. Most of all tell us how you can decide whether you will like a speaker and whether it will compliment your system. |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784Post Number: 245 Registered: Nov-04 | thank you jan for making a the arguement better than i did. dale, dont think i am trying to suck up or are just agreeing with him because i think he knows more. he does know more than most people in this forum which is why i take his word over most other peoples, and also becuase it makes sense. why dont you try reading his post again disregarding that one sentence and you may find that he has something useful to say. the last post is to clarify for a mentally challenge person like you. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3322 Registered: May-04 | It appears DW has gone off in a huff. |
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Bronze Member Username: Jim_mcbobPost Number: 62 Registered: Nov-04 | So, Jan, by refusing to publish specs, Bose is the only mass-merchant of audio equipment that's "keeping it real?"  |
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Silver Member Username: James_the_godDoncaster, South Yorkshire England Post Number: 102 Registered: Jan-05 | Well that was amusing to read as I thought no-one had replied to my post. Say though, if you pick someone like me who wont get the chance to go to different hi-fi dealers and spend hours demo-ing the different bookshelf speakers in my budget range. I would have to look at the frequency range on specs sheet but I do agree that this isn't what I should base my choice on. Currently I am looking at the diamond 9.1s and I am VERY fond of them only because of what others have said about them. This is the most reliable source other than magazines which i can rely on. Its a problem though that the speakers have a strangely curved design and this would be difficult to wall mount, especially into a hollow wall! Jan Vigne u mentioned about + and - 3/6 db well I didn't understand any of that, now at least I have some insite to what it is...so thanks. Btw i hate the 'screamy' type of sound that echoes in your ears when you listen at any volume. Balanced with a good mid-range and upper bass is what I'm after. Also, about speaker response, why would anyone at all need to know what the speakers cone would move to when it doesnt even produce that sound?!? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3328 Registered: May-04 | Plenty of speaker manufacturers list their frequency spec as 20-20Khz (it used to be every Radio Shack speaker had that spec no matter the size or price), so Bose is hardly alone in holding the standard high above the crowd. we should all give a hearty "HUZZAHHHH"! No one needs to know the frequency where the speaker finnaly stops moving unless you are looking at the raw driver specs to consider what size box you will need to have decent response. Judging raw drivers vs. complete systems is very different. But the spec of "frequency range 26Hz to 30kHz" looks a lot better than "our speaker can't do diddly beneath 50Hz" or "at 40Hz our woofer is just flapping in the breeze". |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3329 Registered: May-04 | Though I would not discourage anyone from reading the magazines, they are in general the best place to get information, I would remind everyone to consider how many bad reviews you have seen in magazines. They are not out to push their advertiser's product, but each product they review hopefully has some redeeming values. To understand the magazines, you have to understand what the reviewers prefer in sound and know that words like "holographic imagining" may mean "the speakers sound diminutive and small with tiny images". Read but listen. |
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Anonymous | Jan: In the past eleven months, you have posted 3329 messages. Clearly, you need something else to occupy your time (and this posting schedule kinda rules out your devoting time to actually learning anything new about audio). Look to the zen masters to learn the beauty of an unanswered question. Till then, you're flapping more useless air (well, bytes), than the Radio Shack woofers you lampooned earlier on this thread. Close your eyes. Still your breathing. Wait for it: In the silence...you can hear another sucker who's dying for you to sell him or her some overpriced speaker wire. Go to it, young Grasshopper. Spread your knowledge like manure; make fertile the soil. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 362 Registered: Feb-05 | Right On Jim Bob and Anonymous!!!! "Hoppergrass", spread it some more. |
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Gold Member Username: MyrantzThe Land Dow... Post Number: 1646 Registered: Aug-04 | Anonymous Thank goodness for extemely knowledgable people like Jan Vigne who take the time to assist many people on this forum (often with long very detailed replies). You may not have to agree with Jan but your lack of respect shows you up for what you are: an ignorant knucklehead! Go for it - anything you have to say is just useless air. |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | the specs are quite useful. they may give you an idea on how a system can sound. also, a manufacturer's integrity can be measured based on how truthful it is w/ regards to specs. height, width, depth, weight and price only? not for me |
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Anonymous | It is quite amusing how some people on this forum select their "authorities". Roger Russell, loudspeaker designer and director of acoustic research for McIntosh for 25 years, is judged to be a crackpot who knows nothing. Gene De Salla, electrical engineer, is a nobody who couldnt possibly have any knowledge of audio. Then there is Jan Vigne, audio salesman. While he appears to be knowledgable on the subject, he seems to be just a tad less qualified than the prior two gentlemen. Its got to be a joke right? |
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Bronze Member Username: EramseySouth carolina United States Post Number: 53 Registered: Feb-05 | I agree with both sides on the issue. Speaker specs are only a "rough" guide to illustrate the behavior of a speaker before the complex amplifier/speaker interaction begins. Mr. Vigne is correct as many speaker parameters are useless, particularly wattage ratings,which is probably the most meaningless spec of all. Personally I would not purchase speakers on dimensional measurements alone,although very expensive speakers are usually tall,big and heavy-Westlake Audio case in point at 900lbs and $27K!.At the same time though, there are plenty of speakers that are relatively light weight that do in fact sound quite good,Bose is not one of them. They probably don't publish their specs because they would be horrible. Sensitivity in a speaker is an important spec. This is an electrical measurement about how efficient a speaker is and has little to do with the sound quality overall of a speaker but is pretty reliable at least for knowing what amount of amplification is needed especially if it is measured-2.83v input 1watt/meter anechoic chamber.Then again the measurement could vary as much as 2-3dbl in an actual listening setting. Most of the audio magazines test speakers with measurements of course but usually compare their results with the specs given by the manufacturer. I know I probably sound non-committal at this point and I don't really care. Let's leave it at this, choosing a speaker demands a listen by the buyer and specs while these cannot be taken with a grain of salt, they are by no means a carved in stone blueprint how a speaker will sound. E. Ramsey |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3331 Registered: May-04 | E.R. - We are agreeing on something, though not completely. In regards to sensitivity or efficiency (somewhat interchangeable terms that define somewhat different aspects of a speakers' volume potential), I would repeat a few things I mentioned above. If you are looking at two speakers with the same efficiency spec (let's say 87dB@2.83V/M [if anyone who wants to argue doesn't know what that spec means and how it differs from 87dB @ 1 watt, go find out before you start jabbering again]), you cannot determine within more than a guess how loud each speaker will play with the same amplifier. First, the X-over will affect the amount of power that actually reaches the voice coil of the drivers. The more complex the X-over, the more energy is lost as heat in the process of driving voltage through inductors, capacitors and resistors. Large series hook up inductors are going to take enormous amounts of energy and convert it to heat which is then lost as wattage to drive the speaker. Capacitors are almost as bad in terms of the power drain and create more phase shift which makes the speaker more difficult to drive. If the tweeter (and midrange drivers) need to be padded down significantly to mate with a woofer that is very inefficient, the entire system will suffer. (The term "load resistor" isn't just a flight of fancy.) No wonder the average dynamic speaker is about 10%-15% efficient in terms of electrical energy in vs. acoustic power out. The drivers themself will play a large part in how "loud" the system will be. A small bookshelf speaker with a 5" acoustic suspension woofer at 87dB will not have the same acoustic output as a large transmission line speaker with a 12" or 15" woofer. Two drivers with the same diameter will probably not play to the same volume if one has a substantially longer throw to its voice coil allowing longer excursions or better heatsinking on all the drivers. A ported speaker with a 12" woofer will not have the dynamic power of a 12" expotential horn. And an expotential horn will not play the same volume as an electrostatic panel. A speaker with an iron core inductor will compress before a speaker with an air core inductor. If a speaker has a difficult impedance and phase angle to drive many amplifiers will not tolerate the load and will shut down their current and voltage delivery before reaching their full (test bench) power rating. This would, of course, also limit overall volume. While efficiency is a number a person can look at and see some differences that might be useful (if you want lots of volume don't buy the 16 Ohm speaker at 84dB), the number itself still tells too little. It is not much more useful than judging a car by how many doors it has. Anyone who wishes to spend their time looking at specs can do as they please. I have other things to do with my time. As to how many posts I have made, I fail to see how that affects my knowledge. I have been doing this for a long time. I was probably hooking up speakers before some of you folks crapped in your first diaper. So there's a good chance I know some things you don't. I don't know everything. As I've said before on the forum, the more you learn, the more you realize you need to know. But I don't think anyone should worry about me finding time to learn about hifi, I'll get by. I never asked anyone to assume I was the person to listen to. If you do, that's OK with me. If you choose to ignore what I say, it's a free forum. However, if you choose to ignore my advice because you realize I've made my point and you can't make yours (Mr. Wiley) - c'est la vie! I offer my advice in an effort to help others discover what it has taken me numerous decades to learn. If you don't want the help, it doesn't bother me in the least. If anyone can get Roger Russell or anyone of his qualifications to come spend time on this forum, I think that would be wonderful. I can think of nothing better than to have someone with an obviously superior knowledge of everything audio passing out their large amounts of know how. Learning from someone with the experience of Mr. Russell would be an honor. Most of what I learned has come from people who have been doing this hifi thing much longer than I have. One of the first things I learned many years ago is, "You ain't learning nothing when you're the one doing the talkin'". Finally, I've asked before and will probably make the request again; if you have an insult or derogatory remark to make to me, please don't hide behind the "Anonymous" signature. Either have the reproductive glands to put your name where it can be seen or shut up. |
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Gold Member Username: MyrantzThe Land Dow... Post Number: 1648 Registered: Aug-04 | Jan, Thanks. You answered a question I was going to ask about speaker efficiency. With my main JBL floorstanders rated at 88 db @ 1 watt (nom imp 6 ohms) I wondered why the 602's weren't reaching a higher volume at a similar control position when they are rated at 90 db@ 1 watt (nom 8 ohm). That'll teach me to use different speaker cable [grin]. Seriously, with the fact they have different size/type drivers, three-way vs two-way construction, crossovers variants and much different room positioning, I think I now get the point. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 2959 Registered: Dec-03 | I second My Rantz's post Monday, April 04, 2005 - 07:16 pm In addition to size, weight, and price, there are also colour, finish etc. Specs can be interesting for what they tell you about the manufacturer. PSB, for example, is an honest outfit, in my opinion. This all ignores how they sound, of course. That's my personal priority. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3333 Registered: May-04 | E.R. alluded to the room gain (I assumed that was his intention) that can affect the percieved volume from a pair of speakers. And in my comments I somewhat glossed over the issue of impedance and how it will affect the volume issue. It's difficult to make too broad a statement about impedance since the idea that a speaker is a "6 Ohm" or "4 Ohm" speaker is too simplistic in its overview off the matter. Speakers are never just 4 Ohm or 8 Ohm. The impedance will wander all over the range by as much as 60 Ohms in some esoteric designs. Peaks and dips in the impedance curve will present sometimes very difficult problems for an amplifier that will affect its power output and therefore the acoustic output of the system. Ideally if the speaker's overall impedance is fairly easy to drive and the other issues of volume are consistent, a 4 Ohm speaker will play somewhat louder than an 8 Ohm speaker. That is if the amplifier can produce the extra power into the lower impedance. As a general rule when you're dealing with a solid state amplifier with no output transformers, halving the impedance from 8 Ohms to 4 Ohms will double (almost) the available wattage the amplifier can deliver. We know that doubling the wattage into the speaker will result in a 3dB increase in volume. This is another point where the efficiency spec of the speaker may not tell the entire story. As I said above, if the amplifier cannot deliver the goods into a low impedance load, the result may be less volume as the amplifier clamps down on its voltage and current delivery. Therefore, a 4 Ohm speaker might play louder or it might play not as loud as an 8 Ohm speaker with the same driver/box make up. If the amplifier you are using has output transformers, and you will be tapping at the appropriate load, the amplifier will produce the same power no matter the impedance of the speaker (very generally speaking). This alone can mean a difference in acoustic ouptut from a speaker can easily vary by 6dB even with the same efficiency spec as another speaker. The driver size and design can make an additional increase or decrease. The room gain and distance to the listener can add or subtract a few dB. It is not too difficult to see the efficiency spec vs. actual volume can vary as much as the difference between a 50 watt amplifier and a 500 watt amp. **************** Mr. Wiley, I'm still anxiously awaiting your response as to what speaker specifications you consider important. You are still with us; aren't you, Mr. Wiley? |
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Gold Member Username: MyrantzThe Land Dow... Post Number: 1653 Registered: Aug-04 | Ah! I had it a little bass akwards. I assumed the 8 ohm load being easier to drive would result in more volume but forgot about the lower impedence loads pulling more wattage. As I understand it the impedence on both the JBL XTI-60's and the B&W 602's can swing down to about 3 ohms. I recall when I purchased my first decent set of speakers. Trying to be the smarta$$ buyer I kept asking the saleman about the specs when we were looking at different brands/types to audition. He asked why I needed to know - I thought he was being the smarta$$ at the time. We live and learn. Eventually. Some of us. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3334 Registered: May-04 | John - You're right, there are other things to consider when looking at a speaker's literature. If you, or your spouse, can't tolerate black vinyl, that leaves out a lot of speakers. The comment was made, and reinforced by John, you can judge a company by the specs it publishes and the end result. To an extent that is true. Honest companies try to print honest numbers. However, the suggestion that "knowledgeable" people will tell you this or that is patently false. Anyone serious enough about speaker design knows the pitfalls of paper specs. No component in your system can have as much variation from its published specs than a speaker you place in any real world living room. The test of a truly good manufacturer is not in how their specs read but in how their products sound. Listening is still the only real answer to how well a company has done their job. The test of a truly great manufacturer is in how their products sound ten or twenty years later. |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | frequency response, nominal impedance, sensitivity. why? 1. i should like to have an idea how high or low my speakers can go. if i'm just out auditioning, i just can't say, "hey that's X Hz i'm hearing." 2. i can't afford an amp that'll drive 7 4-ohmers w/ ease. 3. the watt and db function is logarithmic. i'd want my speakers to be as sensitive as possible w/o that much sacrifice on sound quality. am i wrong on this? did i WASTE my 5 seconds just to look at these specs? |
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Silver Member Username: James_the_godDoncaster, South Yorkshire England Post Number: 103 Registered: Jan-05 | Jan I like your style, but your knowledge is somtimes way to advanced for me to keep up with. However, Im not complaining! Having found out that you're an audio salesman, what would you say to mounting speakers. I plan to use my bookshelfs when I do eventually get them in my room (about 4m x 3.5m) with one on top of my wardrobe and the other to a wall. The wall is hollow which makes things difficult but I was told having 1 speaker wall-mounted and the other on my wardrobe would effect the sound. I hate to hear this because this is the only places I can place my speakers due to my small room. How exactly would my speaker placement effect the sound acoustics? |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 365 Registered: Feb-05 | Bumblebee, according to Jan, you did. But as I have previously stated, advising prospective purchasers to buy on dimensions alone is pure poppycock. Even people with excellent credentials have been known to give bad advice. If you don't believe me, ask President Bush whose top advisors told him Iraq was a "slam dunk" case. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3338 Registered: May-04 | I am a former audio salesperson. I spent almost thirty years in various aspects of audio. I haven't sold in a few years. Placement is a matter of tatse and need. If you need to place your speakers in a certain location, there is nothing else that needs to be said. Speakers with any sort of pedigree will want to be placed as symetrically as possible. Getting them away from walls will allow the soundstage to open up. The bass response will be boomy if the speakers are placed against a wall, more so if they are rear ported. The speakers will get you sound and it will be better than some garbage speaker that wouldn't care where it was placed. But you will not get the benefits of what you are paying for with the placement you are suggesting. http://www.goodwinshighend.com/roomdesi.htm http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/speakerplacement.html ****************** "1. i should like to have an idea how high or low my speakers can go. if i'm just out auditioning, i just can't say, "hey that's X Hz i'm hearing." If you are concerned that "hey that's X Hz i'm hearing", then you are missing the music. I suggest you take one of two attitudes to this affair. One would be to assume that whether your speakers can reach to 35Hz or 30Hz is rather irrelevant as the difference in pitch between those two frequencies is insignificant in almost every instance. You are also not mentioning acoustic doubling which will assist when the lowest notes need to be heard. http://www.maximacar.com/system_design2.htm http://psbspeakers.com/FrequenciesOfMusic.html The second approach would be to realize the amount of information available to hear at the lowest frequencies is minimal. (As the second link above can illustrate.) On average the lowest note you will probably need is to get around 42Hz in room. This will get you to the point where a low E on a bass will play satisfactorily. Even that is seldom reached in most music. The speaker specifications will not tell you what the room gain is in the lowest octaves. This can take a speaker that does not measure in a free field down to 50Hz and give a boost to the low frequencies that allow 35Hz signals to be heard with no appreciable roll off. That function is a matter of your room and the placement of the speakers within that space. No spec on paper can tell you how a speaker will respond to room gain in "your" room. There's more to this, but hopefully you get the point. "2. i can't afford an amp that'll drive 7 4-ohmers w/ ease." If you think of this as three sets of stereo speakers at 4 Ohms (which it is) you will see it can be done. Besides no one asked you to drive all those speakers at 4 Ohms. Besides- besides, you obviously have not been paying attention to the idea of "impedance swing". If you view everything about audio in very simplistic terms of this or that, you will run into problems that can be very expensive mistakes. That's what we're trying to help you avoid on this forum. "3. the watt and db function is logarithmic. i'd want my speakers to be as sensitive as possible w/o that much sacrifice on sound quality." Once again simplicity in looking at the numbers will cause you to spend money unwisely. The watt/dB (the "B" is captialized because it represents Mr. Bell's name, the "d" is lower case because it is the divider - deci [divided by ten] Bell. Hz is Mr. Hertz's name abbreviated. I'll let you guess what Ohm stands for.) scale is logarithmic. But you apparently found my post above too long to comprehend. Please go back and read why the watts may not increase when the impedance lowers. Sensitvity and efficiency have little to do with sound quality. There is a relationship between efficiency and bass extension in a loudspeaker system, but that is only going to tell you a number. It does not in any way describe the quality of the bass response. I would rather have excellent bass at 45Hz and little or nothing at 30Hz if the 30Hz will be a piece of crap. "am i wrong on this? did i WASTE my 5 seconds just to look at these specs?" I would say yes, because there is more you should learn before you start applying numbers you don't understand. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3340 Registered: May-04 | Let's consider this analogy. A vehicle is X long, Y wide and Z tall. What does that tell you? That it may not fit in your parking space. A vehicle has 20" wheels. What does that tell you? Nothing significant. A vehicle had eight cylinders. What does that tell you? Not much. A vehicle has 400 horsepower. What does that tell you? Still not much if you can't find the torque measurement, the drive ratios, the type of drive system (front, rear, all wheel) and how much the vehicle weighs. Does any of that information tell you anything about how the vehicle handles or rides? In reality, it doesn't even tell you if we are looking at a car or a bob tail truck unless you look at the H/W/D. As I said, if you can see every piece of information about a speaker, you can make some assumptions. Otherwise raw numbers mean almost nothing. What speaker "measurements" will do is allow a speaker designer to better understand what they have just heard, not the other way around. |
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Anonymous | "One of the first things I learned many years ago is, "You ain't learning nothing when you're the one doing the talkin'". LOL. Oh, God, you are PRICELESS, Jan. No, seriously, don't ever change, okay, at least not while there are countless kettles that the pot can call black! Learned? Yes. Applied?. Jan, have you bothered to look at all the electrons you've killed in your pursuit of being a perfect horse's ar$e? I know you didn't intend it, but I think irony might be your forte. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3341 Registered: May-04 | I have worked on it and feel I may have come closer to perfection than you shall ever know or accomplish in your pitiful existence as a non person. You apparently can't read or are more willing to stand on the side and toss insults than come forward with your name. Why is that? Feeling worthless or afraid? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3342 Registered: May-04 | Try this and then decide where you fall in the context of not knowing you only know a little and knowing there is much more to learn. "Knowing nothing is sometimes better than knowing a little. It's knowing a little but not knowing that you know only a little... " And if you have nothing useful to contribute to the discussion and came just to insult someone; never mind. You are worthless and afraid. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 368 Registered: Feb-05 | Anonymous, Jan claims he is... "closer to perfection than you shall ever know". I think that says it all folks. You decide who is the real idiot. Hint: It ain't Anonymous. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3346 Registered: May-04 | Very nice, Mr. Wiley. Character assasination becomes you. Nothing positive to contribute? I didn't think so. How old are you, Mr. Wiley? Ten or eleven? Guys, here's the deal. This is a free forum. I can't prevent you from posting whatever you want and you can't prevent me from posting what I see fit. I have better things to do with my time on this forum than trade slurs with rude cowards who can't read a post for what's actually in the words. If you find my posts offensive in some way - STOP READING THEM!!! My name is on every post I list on this forum. EVERY POST!!! It is at the very top of the post where you should not be able to miss it if you possess a modicum of intelligence. It becomes very simple to just scroll on down from what I have to say to find someone you can agree with. It seems m@sochistic to keep reading something that upsets you so. So lets do eveyone a favor; I doubt that many on this forum come here to see anyone insulted. I post on this forum to trade ideas about audio, not to see who can be the most infantile. If you cannot bring anything positive to this forum, I see little purpose in even being here. There are, however, some who see this as an opportunity to feel they can get away with insults instead of offering help and advice. If you're upset that I gave an answer that you can't refute, put your testoterone back in your desk drawer, guys, you don't have enough to bother me. You stop reading my posts and insulting me and I promise I shall gloss over your posts with ease and pleasure. That gets you off the hook, Mr. Wiley, since you have nothing to say that can dispute my posts other than ridiculous babbling. |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | jan, 1. i believe most respectable manufacturers do their measurements in an anechoic room. and i did not say the freq response will apply in my room. as i said, an idea. 2. i've heard of many instances of amp shutdowns due to low speaker impedance. 3. i know deci, hertz, bell, and ohm, thank you. you're pretty much good at insults aren't you so a 94 dB (8 ohm nominal) speaker will not sound louder than an 87 dB (8 ohm nominal) given the same amplification? i didn't know spending 5 seconds looking at specs would be be such a waste. glad i didn't spend an hour setting up using expensive cables what a relief |
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Bronze Member Username: EramseySouth carolina United States Post Number: 54 Registered: Feb-05 | It's good to see some sensibility has emerged from the fire of insults from this thread Bumblebee. Well you had better trash all your gear as well while you setting up because if any of it doesn't have tubes in it won't be worth a damn according to the several "audiophile" opinions of this forum. E.Ramsey |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3348 Registered: May-04 | "1. i believe most respectable manufacturers do their measurements in an anechoic room. and i did not say the freq response will apply in my room. as i said, an idea." As I said, it will give you an idea, but not much more than an idea. You're free to use that idea as you see fit. Everyone here seems to want to make my statement out to be "do not look at specs". That's not what I said. My original post was "ignore specs". There is a difference between those two phrases in my opinion. You can look all you want, I've even given you permission to do just that. Look up there, you'll see that I did. But if you don't know how to use those specs, or which specs are useful and which are bull, you are doing nothing to increase your knowledge of anything. You might as well be reading "My Pet Goat". Some of you seem to be reluctant to the idea of learning something new. And not all "respectable manufacturers" will use a.c. measurements as they may feel it is better to give a number that might be reached in the consumer's room. If you don't know which measurement they are representing to you, you still can only guess at what will happen in your situation. You may factor in room gain in your equation and the manufacturer has already done that. I can see that situation being so disappointing to so many of you. Finally, I hope, we seem to be fixating on the lowest number in this discussion. When was the last time you saw a speaker that didn't have a spec on the high end of at least 20kHz? Even if you see a spec that exceeds that number, what does it mean to you? Before anyone else argues about frequency specs, would someone please explain what the top number means to them? "2. i've heard of many instances of amp shutdowns due to low speaker impedance." Yes, I think if you read my post, that's my point exactly. I would prefer to think everyone can have an amplifier that is stable enough to drive a 4 Ohm load. It won't happen , but I'd like to think it will. Kind of like peace in the world. It's a nice thought. "3. i know deci, hertz, bell, and ohm, thank you. you're pretty much good at insults aren't you so a 94 dB (8 ohm nominal) speaker will not sound louder than an 87 dB (8 ohm nominal) given the same amplification?" As to the insults, I've dealt with many an arthropod in my time. This new bunch just seems a bit slower than in the old days. Must be the arsenic in the water or the lead in the soil. Concerning the dB and Hz thing, I had no intention of insulting you. I didn't know you were the only one reading this thread. If it makes anyone feel better, you can imagine a little smiley face here. Addressing your fictitious 87 and 94dB speakers. Really, guys, read my posts. If both speakers systems are 8 Ohm and have minimal variance in their impedance swing (no less than 6 Ohms and no more than 11 Ohms), the difference in volume will be relative to the driver make up of the systems and room gain along with amplifier power. A 94dB speaker with a 3" woofer will probably not play as subjectively and satisfactorily loud as an 87dB speaker with a 12" woofer. That little 3" woofer is just going to bottom out before the 12" gives up. Or, are we only talking about some silly thing that only applies to the volume at 1,00Hz? That's generally where efficiency specs are taken. You have to interpolate what is happening at other frequencies from other specs that may or may not be present. If you want to make up these "what if" cases, I can always come up with a "what if" to top yours. My statement was concerning a rather "safe" impedance load vs. a "dangerous" load. You, yourself, bb, said you heard of amplifiers shutting down when faced with a low impedance load. I ask you; which is louder - an 87dB speaker that is playing safely on an amplifier or a 94 dB speaker that has just blown the rail fuses in the amplifier it is attached to? Please don't take what I post and then distort it to suit some "what if" scenario that has nothing to do with my position. Read my posts and you will understand what I am saying. Hopefully. **************** I would like to know if all this back and forth is getting anywhere. What are we accomplishing? Either you understand what I have said or you never will. If you choose not to understand or disagree but can't come up with a decent rebuttal, why go back and forth any longer? Ramsey - Do you have an opinion on tubes you'd like to share with the rest of the class? Or did you just throw that in because you hoped it would get a chuckle out of these few chowder heads? |
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Uncle Fester Unregistered guest | Jelvis>I plan to use my bookshelfs when I do eventually get them in my room (about 4m x 3.5m) with one on top of my wardrobe and the other to a wall. If these are the only places they can go, then, as Jan says, there is not too much you can do about it. A speaker on top of a wardrobe isn't ideal - probably a little high to get a proper stereo effect. Could the wardrobe be moved a little and the speakers put either side of it, on stands? If you must put a speaker on the wardrobe, then put a solid flat layer underneath it, preferably something like marble or some other dense material. Then affix the speaker to it with bluetack. Otherwise you will get nasty bass boom being amplified by the big wooden box underneath. |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | jan, let me just modify my query. a 94 dB (8 ohm nominal) speaker will not sound louder than an 87 dB (8 ohm nominal) given the same amplification? same woofer size, same tweeter size, same cabinet size, same room, same everything. |
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Bronze Member Username: EramseySouth carolina United States Post Number: 57 Registered: Feb-05 | No I won't dissagree with you Jan. A crossover is an essential element in a speaker and pretty much determines it,s sound quality under amplification. When you went on to state about the various components involved in a crossover,resistors,capacitors and both iron core and air core inductors, I can't comment on other poster's but you were just "preaching to the choir" with me about this as I am of course familar with all of these electronic components. As far as driver size this is simply a matter of physics as you can move more air with a 12" driver than probably three 5" drivers. Most certainly I fully understand the impedence variation that a loudspeaker will present and different frequencies-again no argument. To awnswer your question about tubes-Both are correct. Although I must admit I find this general vibe I get in many portions of this forum" If it doesn't have tubes in it ain't worth a damn" rather irritating as there is so,so much ss gear out there that is outstanding. Don't get me wrong Jan, I am not saying you specifically said that or anyone else here did either but this is the perception I get. Also the use of negative feedback nowdays in solid state amps is ever increasingly low. It's really impossible to design a solid state amp without it and have it be very stable and reliable. E.Ramsey |
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Silver Member Username: ArtkAlbany, Oregon USA Post Number: 178 Registered: Feb-05 | Thank you Jan for your post addressing the subject of rudeness and character assassination on this forum. It has become very difficult to enjoy this forum because of the folks who are here just to cause trouble. When I first joined this forum I thought I knew who those folks were, I was wrong. We may not always agree on this forum but I feel that it is incumbent on all of us treat each other with respect. Jan, I think that you try to do that. Thanks again for your post on the aforementioned subject and for all of your informative participation. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3351 Registered: May-04 | You're welcome, Arthur. I would hope, as I do for world peace and healthy teeth, the forum can stay free of personal insults. I've done my share, but I think I've reserved it for those who have come at me first. I will give back in kind. My only last hope for the forum, should it slide into a place where it more resembles many of the other audio forums, would be that the insults can at least be inventive. There should be a sense of humor in any insult; or else, what's the point? Come on, guys. If you want to insult me, make it worth my while to read. Not just, "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!" That's kid's stuff in my book. Eric - I am not sure what your comments refer to. There is a "Tube Talk" thread that is meant for those interested in tubes. Personally, I find the mention of tubes to be very infrequent on the forum. What am I missing? ***************** Bumblebee - I'm not sure what you want me to say. I thought I'd gone over everything that would cover your question. Let me try one more time. Taking two identical speaker systems that have 7dB of difference in efficiency will result in the higher efficiency speaker playing louder than the lower. The problem with the question you pose is there cannot be two "identical" speaker systems that have 7dB difference in efficiency. Either they are identical or they are not. The rules of physics as I understand them will not allow anything else to happen. As a matter of fact, I think the rules of physics will allow you to be in two places simultaneously before it will allow the speakers you want. I'm not sure. Mr. Hawkin seems to be changing his mind about things lately. Let's try the question this way; if two speaker systems have similar (not necessarily identical)drivers, and are rated at the same efficiency (XdB and implying the same dimensions to the enclosure), with the same bass extension; why would one speaker not play as loudly as the other? The most obvious answer would be to look at the X-over components. As I said, if the X-over is a complex, multi-component design there is a very good likleyhood the power from the amplifier is being used to heat the inductors, capacitors,resistors and voice coils that are in the circuit between the amp and the speaker diaphrams. (Read a review of a Thiel speaker to see how this works. Thiel is notorious for frequency shaping X-overs with lots of components in the path of the amplifier. They eat up small [less than 100 watt] amplifers for brunch.) The average sealed box speaker is about 10-12% efficient. That leaves about 90% of the electrical wattage going into the speaker to be converted to heat and lost as far as producing acoustic output. Ported speakers fare somewhat better but are still not anywhere near what should be considered "efficient" use of power. I would suggest anyone who is interested in find more information about this concept explore the S.E.T. market. S.E.T. is shorthand for Single Ended Triode and will typically be a tube type amplifier (sorry, Ramsey) with wattages that are beneath 10 watts per channel. Sometimes as low as 2.5 watts. Obviously with the low power available to the speaker, every bit of wattage has to be converted to useable volume. The speakers used with S.E.T.'s are stll not as efficient as we would hope, but they are suprisingly well designed to extract the most output from a small amount of input. One popular approach right now is to use a single full range driver with no X-over components. The output of the amp is then fed directly to the driver's voice coil. With no L/C/R to deal with, the heat dissipation is minimal and confined to how efficiently the voice coil can be designed. Speakers that represent a "reactive load", as opposed to a "resistive load", to the amplifier will cause the amp to limit the available wattage. X-overs (primarily) that present largely inductive or capacitive loads will not be liked by most amplifiers. Electrostatic speakers, with large amounts of capacitance inherent in the design will not generally have the "drive" that a conventional cone type speaker can achieve. ESL's make up for this with a more dynamic capability to begin with. Less expensive X-over components will also "compress" before better components which will result in the volume "closing down" at higher levels. Another reason to think you might hear a subjective difference in volume would be the "Q" of the two systems. "Q" refers, generally, to the damping of the speaker system. A low Q will result in a speaker with an underdamped sound that has more bass than the speaker with the high Q system design. There will be a point where the Q of the system works against the designer, but, in general, a low Q speaker will have broader dynamic peaks than a high Q speaker. This could easily give the impression of one speaker being able to play louder on a subjective level even when the average S.P.L. is rather consistent between the two. Finally, as I said, the eficiency measurement is only required at one frequency, usually 1kHz. Most "respectable" manufacturers will give a realistic representation of the speaker over a broader range than one frequency, but not all will do this. A speaker with a significant dip at that frequency range can measure much differently in efficiency than a speaker with a more flat response or one with a peak at that point. The above "reasons" imply a "safe" impedance load and a benign electrical phase shift that will not cause the amplifier to limit either current or voltage. That's all I can think of off hand, but I may have forgotten something. Does that help? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3352 Registered: May-04 | "Chicolini here may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you, he really is an Idiot." "You've got the brain of a four year old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it." "You know, I could rent you out as a decoy for duck hunters?" Now those are insults worth making. |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | jan, i'd take your reply as a 'yes'. is that ok? and thanks for all the info. very much appreciated. now onto specs. they tell us nothing about how the speaker actually sounds. i agree, wholeheartedly you said they should be ignored and that the physical dimensions are the only ones to consider. nothing wrong there, but when one is buying a pair and is torn between X speaker and Y, how does he choose? me, i'd go for the one w/c has a "supposedly" wider freq response, a "supposedly" higher impedance and a "supposedly" louder pair. but this is just me, jan. and i don't think i'm commiting a cardinal sin here |
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Gold Member Username: MyrantzThe Land Dow... Post Number: 1663 Registered: Aug-04 | bumblebee, Jan Vigne said: "By the way, the only specifications you should look at on a speaker are the height, width, depth and weight. Every other speaker specification is meaningless in the real world. They tell you nothing about how the speaker actually sounds. Two speakers with a similarly stated range of 40Hz to 20kHz, + or - 6dB, can sound totally unlike one another. One may have a +6dB peak at 1500Hz which is very noticeable as "shouty". The other may have a -6dB trough at 100Hz which is likely to sound thin. Ignore specs." Please allow me to butt in here bumblebee. You seem to be almost but not quite yet getting the gist of what Jan implied in the above quoted paragraph. Some have decided to pick out a few words and use them out of context in regard to what Jan was getting at in his statement. One expects this forum to be read by individuals with an average intelligence so posters do not need to resort to a writing style more suited to kindergarten levels. Firstly, height, width, depth and weight will tell one if there is any real substance to the speaker. Secondly, those dimensions also give one the information as to whether the speaker will fit into and aesthetically suit the intended position and maybe even satisfy 'waf' if that too is important. And third, if one reads between the lines, one should be able to determine that LISTENING (especially in the home environment) will be the true determining factor for the suitable speaker for the listeners taste. If you are choosing between speaker X and speaker Y then would you not choose the speaker that SOUNDS the best and offers you the parameters about which you are so concerned. Would you purchase a speaker without auditioning or without the agreement for refund or exchange? |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | from where i came from, home audition is not possible. i have to content myself w/ my dealer's listening room w/c is not always typical. refunds and exchanges can be done w/in 7 days only. listening is very subjective. i may even find bose to be good. now, the specs would be quite helpful here, don't you think? |
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Gold Member Username: MyrantzThe Land Dow... Post Number: 1664 Registered: Aug-04 | Well, the dealers listening is a start and the specs won't really help for deciding what is best for you own listening room. It is still the sound not the specs. Unfortunately, listening in the dealers room could be substantially different from your home room. Furniture, floor coverings, wall material, glass windows & doors, floor material, room size and ceiling height and audio source etc can all influence how your system sounds. This is why Jan states what he states about specs. They don't tell you much in the real world and the real world is your home listening room. Talk to your dealer and explain your situation. If he is worth his salt, he will help you to determine what will suit you and should help you with some arrangement if you are not satisfied. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3359 Registered: May-04 | "listening is very subjective." Yeah, that's the point; you're getting it now. Listening is about how the music affects you, not about what frequency you can tell your friends your speakers can play. The comment about H/W/D was made only partly in jest. You want to know if the speakers will fit where you want them to go, or whether you will need to hire a truck to get them home. Beyond that, it is listening that matters. Nothing else. "i may even find bose to be good." You know, if that's what you like, I can't and won't argue with you. I have sold Bose speakers and not flinched. They're crap for lots of money, but if that's what you like, that's your business. There are times as a salesperson you just have to let the customer have their way no matter what. I always told my clients, "Unless you invite me over and ask my opinion after your check has cashed, I don't have anything to say about what you choose." It is your decision and no one, salesperson or forum, should affect your personal decision. Just know what you're trying to achieve. A good salesperson will do the rest to make sure the system sounds as good as possible. Suprisingly, not everyone buys the hifi that they think sounds the best. Some people buy something because it looks good or for some other reason. "now, the specs would be quite helpful here, don't you think?" Well, actually, the answer is still no. You need to be an informed consumer and doing that should give you some idea what to look for and what to avoid. You don't need a piece of paper to tell you what to look for if you have an idea what live music sounds like. That's what I find amazing. So many clients who spent big dollars never listen to live music. Their reference is what the system in their truck sounds like. Don't get me started on this. People buy cars with no more than a five or ten minute test drive. People buy expensive cameras with nothing more than a look through the lens at the store. People buy houses with a walk through and a discussion with their banker. But people get freaked about buying the "wrong" speaker, or amp, or DVD or whatever. If you figure out what is important for you in terms of music, it is very easy to narrow down your selection in a few minutes with any component. Within the alotted seven days, you should be able to make your decision with ease. It's not that hard if you know how to listen and you "ignore the specs". |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3393 Registered: May-04 | How Low Can You Go? Much more difficult to control - and far less obvious to the untrained ear - are problems caused by reflections at low frequencies, which for these purposes I consider to be below about 300 Hz. Low frequency reflections are responsible for two main problems: One is modal ringing, which is a result of the room's natural resonances. For a given spacing between a pair of parallel walls there will be a series of low frequencies that tend to sound louder, and sustain longer, than other low frequencies. This ringing makes music sound boomy; thus, it is difficult to distinguish which notes are being played by bass instruments. You can hear that low frequencies are present, but you can't discern individual notes. This effect is sometimes referred to as "one-note" bass because all of the notes sound the same - muddy! Another even more important problem caused by low frequency reflections is the severely skewed low frequency response that exists in all small rooms. No matter how much you paid for your loudspeakers, and regardless of their published frequency response, as soon as you put them in a typical home-sized room they will exhibit a series of peaks and deep nulls that extends throughout the entire bass range. Figure 1 shows the response in a typical 16 x 10 x 7-1/2 foot room that has no acoustic treatment. https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/accessories/42708.html Figure 1: This terrible low frequency response is quite typical in small rooms. This horribly skewed low frequency response is the result of bass waves bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling, then combining with the direct sound waves still leaving the loudspeakers. At some frequencies and locations in the room, the reflections combine with the direct waves more or less in phase, which creates a peak in the response. At other frequencies and locations, the waves may be out of phase, and that creates a null. Peaks are usually less than 6 dB, but the nulls can be extremely deep, depending mainly on how rigid and thus reflective the room surfaces are. As you can see, nulls can easily be as deep as 30 dB or even deeper, especially in the middle and upper bass range above around 70 or 80 Hz. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 2970 Registered: Dec-03 | All correct and good stuff; a hard act to follow, as usual, Jan. You can easily calculate the frequency of the three major axial nodes (length, breadth, height) from the dimensions of a room. It seems to me that one problem of extending bass beyond what you can really hear in a real room is that those nodes will become harmonics of the fundamental the subwoofer (say) is emitting, and excited more easily. If the longest dimension of a room is, say 16', then even a modest bookshelf-type speaker giving 65 Hz will readily set up a standing wave; the axis of the room is about one wavelength. What these guys with 12" subs etc. in cars are doing puzzles me. I think they know their whole car is resonating; their car is resonating and broadcasting one frequency, in pulses, to the neighbourhood. Opening a window must make a huge difference to the sound in there. Having just caught up with this thread, let me offer a possible answer to Jelvis's question in the first post. "Frequency range" applies to a recording; whereas "frequency response" is a property of a transducer such as a microphone, or a loudspeaker, and refers the sound spectrum of its response. As you rightly say, Jan, just giving upper and lower limits, has little or no meaning, especially when there is no indication of the slope of the roll-off. It is misleading as saying that the colour "red" is "just" light of wavelength between 600 and 700 nm. We can detect hundreds of different reds, and what distinguishes them is their different spectra of intensity versus wavelength, which may be confined only to part of that range, or extend outside it. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 383 Registered: Feb-05 | I guess two idiots are better than one. |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 2980 Registered: Dec-03 | Most informative, Dale. We are all the wiser for learning your opinion on this subject. It must have taken some time to explain your point of view so clearly. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3399 Registered: May-04 | "I guess two idiots are better than one" Ah, the mouth that roared is back! I see the personality transplant failed miserably. If the above two posts are from two idiots, it is obvious the one idiot is name Wiley. I can only assume you were incapable, for some moronic reason, of clicking on the link in my last post to see the information came from the administrator of this forum. Now I ask you, Wiley; who's the biggest idiot of this bunch? Give up Wiley, you have not contributed one positive item to this thread. Your first response was wrong. You misread my statement. You got yourself in a high duggeon for some reason, and the rest of your posts have merely been pitiful, sad, stinking-excrement from someone who just can't let anyone else be right. Either refute what has been said or, if you can't, go away. Envy is really not your color. It makes you look so, well, ... green. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 386 Registered: Feb-05 | Well, well, well. Look who heeded the call. Thanks guys. At least no one can accuse you of having an identity crisis. No doubt that you know yourselves. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3404 Registered: May-04 | What is it, Wiley, that has given you such a nasty disposition? Do you insult people professionally? |
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Gold Member Username: John_aLondonU.K. Post Number: 2984 Registered: Dec-03 | No, no-one would pay. Look, Dale, you have not stated a view on anything. "That is one of the most ridiculous notions I think I have ever heard and for obvious reasons." Obvious to whom? You take offence at people not being able to read your mind. There is a problem with that position. As for insults, you just lost. |
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Silver Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 333 Registered: Feb-04 | My my my... What a thread! Jan Vigne wrote: in addition to the size and weight, you should consider the price of the speakers also. But then you gave good reasons why people should consider frequency response, impedence and efficiency, at least as much as size and weight! ;-) My point is that none of the above, including size, weight and price, is a correct indicator of how the speaker sounds. Frequency response will at least tell you if you need a sub or not, impedence will tell you if your amp can drive it or not, efficiency will tell you whether it will be loud enough. What do size and weight tell you? Weight might be an indicator of build quality. Size will tell you if it'll fit in your decor. But you know all this. Peter |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 387 Registered: Feb-05 | Agreed. But, as I previously indicated and you seem to suggest, one should definitely not ignore specs and consider only dimensions as Jan indicated in his original post that he subsequently attempted to soften by suggesting that we look at such glaring misinformation in the context of his discourse. He said it and he is flatly wrong. Now maybe he meant that specs don't tell you everything, a premise that any reasonable person could accept. But what he said was,"By the way, the only specifications you should look at on a speaker are the height, width, depth and weight. Every other speaker specification is meaningless in the real world." I can only read what he said, not read what else may be in his mind. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3407 Registered: May-04 | If you will carefully read my first post you will see this phrase: " ... the only specifications you should look at on a speaker are the height, width, depth and weight. Every other speaker specification is meaningless in the real world. They tell you nothing about how the speaker actually sounds." Then I went on to say, "Ignore specs." For some reason this has been entirely misread and incorrectly restated by numerous posters since those remarks were made. To try to clarify my position, I have posted eleven explanations for my idea that what is on a spec sheet can offer little in the way of truly useful information beyond will the speaker fit where you want to place it. That is the information you get from H/W/D and weight. I have explained why I think efficiency can still be less than truthful in a real world situation. As I said, the spec should tell you enough to know that if you want to blow down a wall, don't buy the speaker that is rated at 84dB. It is by far more effective to look for volume in the efficiency spec of a speaker than to try to get lots more volume by buying higher wattage. I'm not disputing that, in fact, I support that idea wholeheartedly. If you just can't get enough volume or you have no more than 2.5 watts to deal with, go for the highest number you can find in the sensitivity spec. But I have sold speakers that will produce 104dB with 2.83 volts in measured at 1 meter paired with 300 watt amplifiers. In most cases, even head bangers will not exploit the full volume potential of that combination. It becomes a moot point. You may want that combination for other reasons, but as far as volume goes, it is reasonably worthless in the average home system. Personally I use speakers that are rated at 84dB with a 40 watt amp and I can get plenty of volume and dynamics. So what has the efficiency spec shown us? If you still don't understand why two speakers rated at the same sensitivity may not seem to play as loudly as one another, and you've read all my posts above, I have no other idea how to convince you other than suggest you go to a decent hifi shop and ask to listen to a few speakers. I strongly discount the idea frequency response on paper will tell you whether you will need a sub. Why would you need a sub if the speaker sounds fine without a sub? The frequency spec will not tell you if the sound of the bass is good, bad or ugly. This may be somewhat a matter of taste, but why is everyone so fixated on the lowest frequency number on a piece of paper. Are we spending all this time arguing about one number that will change when the speaker gets in your room? I asked about the upper frequency and got no response. I can only assume there is a need to see a visual representation of what you think you might be hearing at one end of the frequency range but not at the other. A need to see that your speakers can do THIS, if only the music you put through them had THAT in the signal. I have explained over and over how these numbers can be different in your room than in an anechoic chamber. That makes them pretty useless to me. Kind of like telling me my flesh will sear at 500 degrees. OK?! So I'm fine if I stick my hand in a 450 degree oven? No problem at minus 500 degrees? Impedance alone will NOT tell you whether your amp can drive a particular speaker. Impedance swing and electrical phase shift will BEGIN to help you guess whether your amp is up to the task. I've tried to explain this several times in this thread. Is it just going over the heads of some of you? And why would you want to push your amplifier to its limits anyway? This used to be a matter of "my amp can drive a speaker your amp can't" for a few years in high end audio. The Apogee Scintilla went down to 0.5 Ohm and up to something like 65 Ohms and had peaks and dips and a phase angle that looked like a tangled fishing line. Huge capacitive and inductive loading made the situation only more ridiculous. People chose amplifiers based on whether the amp could drive that speaker. Even when they didn't own the Apogee. SPECS CAN ONLY BE USEFUL IF YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE USED FOR. THIS IS MY MAIN POINT. If you don't have enough information in the specs to tell you anything useful, or you don't know how to apply the information you are given, why do you think the numbers mean anything. It is somewhat like asking if you can lift a bushel basket of stuff. A bushel basket of flowers would probably not be a problem. A bushel basket of lead might present a challenge. You need to know everything and then you still may not know enough. I repeat, measurements let a speaker designer understand what they have just heard; not the other way around. When you read a speaker review in a magazine, do you only read the specs and decide you know how the speaker sounds? I would guess most people read the text first for a description of how the speaker sounds in the reviewer's room and system, and then they will look to the specs to see some visual correlation to what has been written. Without the former, the latter is mostly meaningless. Frequency response will vary in your room. A static impedance number is just a small portion of what your amplifier will face; if it even sees the actual stated impedance for more than a bit of its bandwidth. Sensitivity will get you started but cannot say how loud the speaker will seem in your room. You can look at the X-over frequency, it is a constant. But what does it really tell you? You can see the speaker utilizes a Chebyshev X-over. OK, so what? It has a 1" dome tweeter. And that means ... ? It is a bandpass enclosure. Yeah, that's nice. It is like describing the taste of water. Do any of those tell you HOW THE SPEAKER WILL SOUND IN YOUR ROOM CONNECTED TO YOUR AMPLIFIER? NO, THEY DO NOT. So why bother unless you just want to see those things you should be hearing anyway. I'm not stopping anyone from looking. Just don't put a lot of faith in numbers on paper. Particularly if you don't know what they mean. The specs that mean whether the speaker will work for you remain H/W/D and weight. So my initial advice still stands. Look - but ignore speaker specs. Go to the shop and listen instead. It's the only way to determine whether a speaker will suit your tastes. Now for some stupid, rude comment from Wiley who has been spending his weekend as a speed bump ... |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3408 Registered: May-04 | If you will carefully read my first post you will see this phrase: " ... the only specifications you should look at on a speaker are the height, width, depth and weight. Every other speaker specification is meaningless in the real world. They tell you nothing about how the speaker actually sounds." Then I went on to say, "Ignore specs." For some reason this has been entirely misread and incorrectly restated by numerous posters since those remarks were made. To try to clarify my position, I have posted eleven explanations for my idea that what is on a spec sheet can offer little in the way of truly useful information beyond will the speaker fit where you want to place it. That is the information you get from H/W/D and weight. I have explained why I think efficiency can still be less than truthful in a real world situation. As I said, the spec should tell you enough to know that if you want to blow down a wall, don't buy the speaker that is rated at 84dB. It is by far more effective to look for volume in the efficiency spec of a speaker than to try to get lots more volume by buying higher wattage. I'm not disputing that, in fact, I support that idea wholeheartedly. If you just can't get enough volume or you have no more than 2.5 watts to deal with, go for the highest number you can find in the sensitivity spec. But I have sold speakers that will produce 104dB with 2.83 volts in measured at 1 meter paired with 300 watt amplifiers. In most cases, even head bangers will not exploit the full volume potential of that combination. It becomes a moot point. You may want that combination for other reasons, but as far as volume goes, it is reasonably worthless in the average home system. Personally I use speakers that are rated at 84dB with a 40 watt amp and I can get plenty of volume and dynamics. So what has the efficiency spec shown us? If you still don't understand why two speakers rated at the same sensitivity may not seem to play as loudly as one another, and you've read all my posts above, I have no other idea how to convince you other than suggest you go to a decent hifi shop and ask to listen to a few speakers. I strongly discount the idea frequency response on paper will tell you whether you will need a sub. Why would you need a sub if the speaker sounds fine without a sub? The frequency spec will not tell you if the sound of the bass is good, bad or ugly. This may be somewhat a matter of taste, but why is everyone so fixated on the lowest frequency number on a piece of paper. Are we spending all this time arguing about one number that will change when the speaker gets in your room? I asked about the upper frequency and got no response. I can only assume there is a need to see a visual representation of what you think you might be hearing at one end of the frequency range but not at the other. A need to see that your speakers can do THIS, if only the music you put through them had THAT in the signal. I have explained over and over how these numbers can be different in your room than in an anechoic chamber. That makes them pretty useless to me. Kind of like telling me my flesh will sear at 500 degrees. OK?! So I'm fine if I stick my hand in a 450 degree oven? No problem at minus 500 degrees? Impedance alone will NOT tell you whether your amp can drive a particular speaker. Impedance swing and electrical phase shift will BEGIN to help you guess whether your amp is up to the task. I've tried to explain this several times in this thread. Is it just going over the heads of some of you? And why would you want to push your amplifier to its limits anyway? This used to be a matter of "my amp can drive a speaker your amp can't" for a few years in high end audio. The Apogee Scintilla went down to 0.5 Ohm and up to something like 65 Ohms and had peaks and dips and a phase angle that looked like a tangled fishing line. Huge capacitive and inductive loading made the situation only more ridiculous. People chose amplifiers based on whether the amp could drive that speaker. Even when they didn't own the Apogee. SPECS CAN ONLY BE USEFUL IF YOU KNOW WHAT THEY ARE USED FOR. THIS IS MY MAIN POINT. If you don't have enough information in the specs to tell you anything useful, or you don't know how to apply the information you are given, why do you think the numbers mean anything. It is somewhat like asking if you can lift a bushel basket of stuff. A bushel basket of flowers would probably not be a problem. A bushel basket of lead might present a challenge. You need to know everything and then you still may not know enough. I repeat, measurements let a speaker designer understand what they have just heard; not the other way around. When you read a speaker review in a magazine, do you only read the specs and decide you know how the speaker sounds? I would guess most people read the text first for a description of how the speaker sounds in the reviewer's room and system, and then they will look to the specs to see some visual correlation to what has been written. Without the former, the latter is mostly meaningless. Frequency response will vary in your room. A static impedance number is just a small portion of what your amplifier will face; if it even sees the actual stated impedance for more than a bit of its bandwidth. Sensitivity will get you started but cannot say how loud the speaker will seem in your room. You can look at the X-over frequency, it is a constant. But what does it really tell you? You can see the speaker utilizes a Chebyshev X-over. OK, so what? It has a 1" dome tweeter. And that means ... ? It is a bandpass enclosure. Yeah, that's nice. It is like describing the taste of water. Do any of those tell you HOW THE SPEAKER WILL SOUND IN YOUR ROOM CONNECTED TO YOUR AMPLIFIER? NO, THEY DO NOT. So why bother unless you just want to see those things you should be hearing anyway. I'm not stopping anyone from looking. Just don't put a lot of faith in numbers on paper. Particularly if you don't know what they mean. The specs that mean whether the speaker will work for you remain H/W/D and weight. So my initial advice still stands. Look - but ignore speaker specs. Go to the shop and listen instead. It's the only way to determine whether a speaker will suit your tastes. Now for some stupid, rude comment from Wiley who has been spending his weekend in his part time job as a speed bump ... |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3409 Registered: May-04 | Please, Wiley, I beg of you. Disappoint all of us and say something intelligent. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3411 Registered: May-04 | Wiley, I have not tried to soften anything in my posts other than your hard head. Saying, "Nyah, nyah, ain't so", doesn't disprove my point. You are going to have to do better than fourth grade, backseat discourse. "Now maybe he meant that specs don't tell you everything, a premise that any reasonable person could accept." Cough, cough, excuse me while I choke for a while. Any reasonable person except you, eh, Wiley? Good Lord, Wiley, how plain does it have to be for you to understand? Please tell me the last few dozen posts have been a joke. |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | i suppose im the other idiot tell me, jan, are you a fat, white audiophile? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3412 Registered: May-04 | Why do you ask? |
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Silver Member Username: ArtkAlbany, Oregon USA Post Number: 186 Registered: Feb-05 | "Please tell me the last few dozen posts have been a joke." Yes, please do tell! "tell me, jan, are you a fat, white audiophile?" Don't know about Jan but I'm an normal weight black music lover and audiophile who just happens to agree with Jan most of the time. Oh and by the way, what kind of question is that anyway?!!! And no you probably aren't the other idiot, the other one escaped an island village. |
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Silver Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 334 Registered: Feb-04 | Jan, My point is that specs do give some information. Of course frequency response is only useful with +/- dB bounds, efficiency matters (ask my friend with 80 dB/1W/1m speakers), impedence varies with frequency but that can be quantified (I've said before that Klipsch RF-7 need good amplification because they dip at 3 ohm even tough rated at 8 ohms), and, yes, my system does sound fuller with a bigger sounstage when I add a sub. To each his own. Specs don't tell how a speaker sound, but they provide useful information. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3413 Registered: May-04 | Peter - We don't seem to be that far apart on our opinions concerning frequency numbers, efficiency or impedance. If you can find the numbers that are relevant to what you need to know about a speaker, it's your call as to what you want to make of the paper specs. In case anyone can't tell by now, I find them to be not much more than something to fill an advertisement which is what a spec sheet is. I prefer to spend my time listening. I've figured out what is and isn't important to me in reproduction and can usually tell rather quickly whether I'm hearing something that works well or not. In this regard I would almost always go without a sub for music reproduction. I have a HT system and a separate two channel music system and the sub is for HT since I like small speakers that benefit from some low end boost when galaxies collide. My taste in speakers has always gone to the small monitor speakers with light, fast drivers and lots of transparency which makes mating with a sub somewhat difficult. Most subs are too slow for my taste and too one note until the price rises above what I consider worth the benefit for a few additonal cyles per second. There I find the typical specs to be vaguely to blatantly false when viewed on paper. Speed, tunefulness, musicality and cohesion are the qualities I am looking for and I don't see them on a spec sheet. I'm not going to come looking for you if you look at a spec sheet. So go ahead - have a blast! ********************** " ... music lover and audiophile who just happens to agree with Jan most of the time." Arthur - Exactly! I put my opinions and information on this forum just like everyone else. No matter who makes a post, the reader is free to agree, disagree or dismiss what they have read. No one is under any special obligation to agree with me any amount of the time. You have every right to dismiss what I say and move along. But if you disagree, please do it respectfully. Pull your head out of whatever it is you use as a storage device and think about what you have read and why you disagree. Read the post and read it again to make sure you haven't missed the point that was made. Instead of jerring, scoffing and sneering try something like, "I disagree and here's why" or "I don't believe you're correct, how about clarifying that point." It's about thinking, guys. You're all capable of trading insults, that takes little effort. Thinking about someone else's point is the tough part. Giving credit to what someone else might know that you don't is a noble but rare character trait. We all hate to be wrong, but better to be wrong and discover the error than to go on being stupid and still wrong. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3414 Registered: May-04 | http://www.nsmaudio.com/ Here's an example of a speaker I've been listening to for the past ten days. I have pair of 5-S's that I'm quite impressed with. No sub, though I tried it with my HT sub and it does well. Terrific mid range and sense of scale for a speaker that can be had for less that $300 on clearance. They've taken all ten days playing 24 hours a day to break in but they are sounding better each day. Before anyone spends money on anything else below $800-1,000 per pair, I would suggest you take advantage of NSM's 30 day trial. I have them paired with McIntosh electronics and I can't speak to what they sound like with a Japanese receiver. They may not be your cup of tea, but I find them to be more than exceptional for the money spent in my system. |
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Silver Member Username: DmwileyPost Number: 390 Registered: Feb-05 | Jan, among your many faults (despite your earlier remarks about being "closer to perfection") is your inability to accept that you are wrong. You suffer from the God complex. Instead of admitting that your language was inartfully chosen and could be fairly read as a total disparagement of speaker specs, you try to blame everyone else in the thread who read it the way you wrote it. Perhaps you should learn to write with clarity and to accept your mistakes instead of blaming others for your own deficiencies as a contributor and possibly as a human being. 'Nuff said. I'm through with this. Good luck as you continue on your divine way. Hope you meet the Pope in your afterlife. He could teach you a thing or two about humility. |
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kazakore Unregistered guest | To comment on the original point, from how I see it, from an engineers perspective, the main difference between frequency range and response is that the range is the highest and lowest points of the spectrum (unfortunately not always used as the standard of -3dB), whereas the response refers to the whole spectrum, ie the characteristics across the whole range. Unfortunately they are often not used by this, but are used seemingly willy nilly by manufacurers. If somebody specifies response there should really be a graph of the entire audible spectrum. As to how useful things like this are. Well a fequency response gragh is a tech spec, and can be very useful. As is the impedance/phase graph. Of course these take a bit more looking for with most manufaturers. The more common specs can help give you a rough idea, but really don't mean much. I personally wouldn't trust too much in reviews in magazines or websites, but try and find out recomendations from real people. From this research you can then feel you can go to a dealer with a listening room and compare a selection that you have drawn up from all the infomation you have managed to gleam and recomendations you have recieved. Would really recomend taking some music you know very well, and if it's not too much of a problem also the amplifier you will be usung (assuming you are only after the speakers.) And what a bugg3r my name also happens to be Dale ;) |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3417 Registered: May-04 | "Perhaps you should learn to write with clarity and to accept your mistakes instead of blaming others for your own deficiencies as a contributor and possibly as a human being" Bravo, Wiley! Good job all the way around!!! You did not disappoint anyone with that; did you? "Stay the course yes, yes! Ne'er mind the large looming obstacles. Stay the course. Can't admit an error. No, not good for the image. Stay the course. Well, why the hell didn't you tell me we were going to crash?" Oh, Wiley, you are a piece of something! Wiley, I'll tell you what. I've spoken to the Pope recently. As you know I'm the alternate God like figure the entire world turns to when The Big Guy is taking His coffee break (I've got a badge, a hat and a stick to whack little bits of flotsam such as you). We've discussed your case briefly - very briefly - and you are forgiven. Yes, I know you were anxious to hear that. I guess it's too bad you won't be checking back in to this thread to know that is the case. I understand it gets tiresome for you too with all this nonsense of being asked repeatedly to refute an issue about which you sorely lack any real knowledge at all. Yes, yes, Wiley, stay the course. Slash and burn. Toss some blame here and a bit there. Give everyone a dose of the ol' Wiley wit!!! Oh, I'm sorry, they left that out when they made your model, did they? And you didn't get the recall notice?! Too bad. Now you have to go through life as grumpy old Wiley, the defective product. Well, such as it is, it doesn't really matter. This is just a forum about hifi. It's not that important. Mistakes can be made. Misunderstandings occur. We're all grown ups here. And we let children like you come in and play knowing full well you'll crap or HHUR ... HHHUR ... HHHUUUURRR ... HHHHUUUURLLLLL (yech!) on something. Wiley, I do hope you are serious about going away from this thread. I believe I've said all that needs to be said on the subject. And since you've had nothing to contribute since your first post, there was never any point in you sticking around. If we meet again on this forum I hope your disposition has improved. I have no hard feelings toward you, Wiley. In fact, you've provided immeasurable diversion from the tedium of serious rhetoric. You've provided laughs that I'll remember well into the next thirty seconds. Till we meet again, Wiley. Adios, caio, happy trails to you! Stay the course! |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3419 Registered: May-04 | New poll numbers are in. Here are the results as we have them. People who think Wiley has been a dipstick about this whole affair ..........................89% People who think Wiley has not been a dipstick about this whole affair ....................1% People who looked in the dictionary for the term "dipstick" and were referred to a picture of Wiley ...................................10% Oh, Wiley. Things are not looking good, guy. And to think I had just been wrong too and agreed with you, all this could have been avoided. |
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kaza Unregistered guest | Found this definition on B&Ws site though. Slightly different to my thinking of it. Frequency range This defines the lower and upper frequency limits where the response is 6dB lower than the average flat level. There is no reference to how flat the response is between these frequencies. A drop of 6dB equates to half the sound pressure (that's not the same as half the perceived loudness though). Frequency response This describes how level the flat part of the speaker's response is. The usual limits are ±3dB. Even if they are tighter than this, we often quote the ±3dB as well so people can compare the -3dB bass extension. A loss of 3dB equates to half the power. (Speaker responses are never as flat as amplifier responses, but the reasons why are too complex to go into here.) |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3421 Registered: May-04 | That's good information to know if you're shopping for B&W. But what if the company you are comparing against doesn't tell you the same thing? How will you know what they mean when they say frequency response? If you are comparing between B&W models, the numbers will have a more realistic basis for comparison; but the numbers still will not tell you how the speaker sounds. Though B&W has develpoed a house sound that you can expect from their products, there are still speaker companies whose products sound dissimilar from one model to the next. Or, if you have never heard a B&W the numbers would still leave much to your imagination. |
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Moderator Username: AdminPost Number: 302 Registered: Dec-03 | Related article: Understanding Speaker Frequency Response |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3458 Registered: May-04 | Do please read the article linked above by administrator. |
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Gold Member Username: MyrantzThe Land Dow... Post Number: 1712 Registered: Aug-04 | Gosh Jan, here's another guy who agrees with you. And to think he's the marketing manager for a speaker company! Heavans to mergatroid! |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | just a thought. you've just auditioned X and Y speakers. you like them both. same price range. both good looking. both nicely built. how do you choose? |
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Gold Member Username: MyrantzThe Land Dow... Post Number: 1716 Registered: Aug-04 | eenie meenie minie moe . . . |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | thanks rantz why didn't i think of that |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3461 Registered: May-04 | Look at H/W/D and weight? If one won't fit in your car's trunk, your decision is made. |
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Silver Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 496 Registered: Jan-05 | Jan......C'mon, why let h/w/d slow ya down??? Square pegs to fit into round holes if you push hard enough. heh |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 3464 Registered: May-04 | Or you can go rent something to bring them home. Just look at the H/W/D and weight to make sure your getting a truck and not a Corvette. |
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bumblebee Unregistered guest | i'd go 'eenie meenie minie moe'. X and Y are of the same dimensions and weight. |
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