The future of speakers
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Bronze Member Username: Stereo_geniousUSA Post Number: 48 Registered: Jul-05 | Hi guys. There is something that has been on my mind for months now, and if I do not find an answer soon enough, I am going to go nuts! I have noticed something about tower speakers. Years ago, lots of them had 12-15" woofers. Nowadays, the most I have ever seen on them is 6-10". I have also noticed that Athena has come out with a new line of tower speakers. They are slim, and come with eight 3-inch woofers. Here's my question: In 20 years, are the traditional box-type tower speakers going to become extinct? Does this mean that I will be stuck with dinky speakers for life? |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1802 Registered: Jan-05 | The music snobs will respond saying the halfpint speakers are more refined........LOL That's great if you're into wine tasting music, but what about those who want to rock-n-roll or wish to own a kickass movie theater?? |
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Bronze Member Username: RsxmanPost Number: 33 Registered: Jul-05 | Ya! We need speakers that are freakin 10 feet high and weigh more than a chevy tahoe. |
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Bronze Member Username: Stereo_geniousUSA Post Number: 52 Registered: Jul-05 | I love big speakers! In fact, if I were to choose in the same price range between a good bookshelf speakers and a supposedly mediocre tower speaker, I would go with the bigger one! |
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Gold Member Username: ArtkAlbany, Oregon USA Post Number: 1406 Registered: Feb-05 | That's why they sell all kinds. Personally I prefer good speakers regardless of their size. The Wilson Maxx 2 is my favorite speaker and it is pretty big. Until you've heard the bass it produces you simply haven't lived. |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 361 Registered: May-05 | Interesting how I listen to alt rocl/metal and classic rock on speakers with two 6.5's and have no problem pissing off the landlord and nieghbors if I want to. In you're context, I like to refer to my music as beer and cigar tasting music. Mike - I know you're at an impressionable age, please don't follow in Paul's footsteps. Their's a reason they don't make his speakers or speakers like his anymore... and it's not because they are way too good... Paul has a difficult time letting go of the 80's... His mullet and Iron Maiden t-shirt are testament to this... Please keep these things in mind... |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784USA Post Number: 546 Registered: Nov-04 | yes mike, dont follow paul's footsteps. you will be that much closer to having our feet up your butt. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1807 Registered: Jan-05 | "Interesting how I listen to alt rocl/metal and classic rock on speakers with two 6.5's and have no problem pissing off the landlord and nieghbors if I want to." ------------------------------- Hell.... You can accomplish that with a $100 boombox. If you live in an industrial area, and a small factory 200yds away on the other side of the railroad tracks calls the police to complain about the noise,.....ok, then I'll be impressed. That happened to me once in college..........HEH Until you have a factory call to complain, I'm not impressed. As if the friggin trains werent loud?? |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 362 Registered: May-05 | Paul Jr. - As science and technology advance, so does speaker design. I think this one has gotten by your new mentor. If your mentor's monster CV's were so good, why would he have turned around and bought a sub-woofer? His old school CV's should shake the entire neighborhood without any help. But yet they don't. Interestingly enough, why were sub-woofers made in the first place? To compliment the 'pint-sized wine and cheese speakers' he has come to hate. I guess his old school behemoths need just as much help as bookshelves after all. When using a sub-woofer, the bass isn't being played anymore by the other speakers, just the sub. What is the point in having 100 lb junk speakers with 12" woofers in your living room if you are only using the mid and high drivers in your speakers? SIZE ENVY. He is making up for all of his short comings. Has he told you any of this yet? I would love to see the look of betrayal on your face as you read this. I imagine it would be like the look on my face when I realised Mike Tyson wasn't the best role model. We all go through it. Sorry it had to be this way kid.... |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 363 Registered: May-05 | "If you live in an industrial area, and a small factory 200yds away on the other side of the railroad tracks calls the police to complain about the noise,.....ok, then I'll be impressed. That happened to me once in college..........HEH" I've pulled off similar feats with a Crown DJ amp and my infamous White Van Speakers in college. Music teachers in a building 200 yds away couldn't hear their students instruments over my stereo. That doesn't mean that my stereo sounded good. Deafening garbage was more like it... |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 364 Registered: May-05 | Paul - I though you were going to come at me about the Mullet and Iron Maiden t-shirt comment... You could be the best thing to ever happen to this message board... You keep it real!!! As you say "HEH" |
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Bronze Member Username: ZorroPost Number: 13 Registered: Jul-05 | Stu, It is obvious (we all know) that Paul is quite ignorant and inept so why even waste time responding to his childish posts? Share your comments and advice with someone who is worth talking to. Cheers  |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1810 Registered: Jan-05 | I can answer some of those questions....... My speakers rule the world of ACDC, Van Halen...etc, etc..etc...(my kind of music). It wasnt until recently that the ever increasing demanding nature of movie soundtracks reared it's head, and I realized I finally needed a sub for todays movies to recreate the sound that was meant to be heard. Many of these soundtracks have obscenely low frequencies that not even my poor little CVs could touch because they were only capable of approaching a wimpy 24hz. I had my epiphony the night I watched the "Incredibles" for the first time. That was the night of the first time in 20 years, that I managed to bottom out those massive 15" drivers at reference levels, and I thought........WTF?? I knew then and there that an upgrade was on the near horizon. It was no surprise that my 140lb monster SVS was on order within the next week, and it would soon make its home as part of my humble HT. As far as classic rock goes???...nothing can touch the CVs because they can eat those soundtracks up and spit them out, but for the wickedly sadisticly difficult movie soundtracks....You need an equally wicked sub to tackle the really tough low frequency soundwaves, and actually reproduce them like they were meant to be heard. |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784USA Post Number: 547 Registered: Nov-04 | mike, athena is hardly the forefront of speaker tech and neither is CV. so no crap you are going to see bad speaker designs aimed at HTIB owners. if you looked at real speakers you would see that having tons of small drivers really is not the future of speakers. look outside of BB, CC and other big box stores and you will find speakers actually leading the industry. |
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Silver Member Username: Devils_advocatePost Number: 141 Registered: Jul-05 | The crappy part about that Athena model is that 5 of those so called woofers are only passive radiators; IOW its got roughly the capabilities of a 2 way bookshelf with a 6.5" woofer. Not very impressive, particularly for ~500 bucks. Of course I was looking at it the other day and it does have a pretty nice extruded aluminum cabinet; pretty sturdy, particularly compared to its competition from Klipsch and Yamaha. I suppose if you wanted something stylish, it wouldn't be too bad. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 421 Registered: Dec-03 | The biggest push to narrow speakers is simply aesthetics. To create big, deep, dynamic bass you need to be able to move large volumes of air. This is much easier to do with a 12", or larger, cone and a wide cabinet. It can be done with something smaller but you'll need to increase the amount of stroke to do so, then you run into problems maintaining control of the cone and motor design technology has improved significantly to keep up with this trend. Occasionally you'll still see wide front baffles on speakers but they are considered to be for a niche market. I remember when the first sub/satellite systems started showing up in the popular retail stores. The idea was to match the performance of the big box speakers with something nearly invisible. Those early models didn't really do that but people bought them up anyway, still do. It's improved quite a bit over the years but I still haven't heard anything compare to full range speakers on each channel. I like my towers for this reason and they do kick hard when asked for dual 6" but a truly high performance 12" woofer will still surpass them. Performance gives way to appearance far too often in my opinion but you gotta give the people what they want. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 495 Registered: Jun-05 | Well, Tim most of the time its done to achieve better imaging and soundstaging.And also you have look at it like this: say for example you looking for a tower for $1000 in this day and age most woofers are gonna be 6.5 inchers,solid bass extention good midrange and decent imaging.Now if you want 12 inchers that is quality its gonna cost you ,it is much harder to get a larger woofer to be Quik and accurate and sound good.You factor that into a $1000 spaeker,that is virtually impossible to incorparate in a speaker at that price with those kind of drivers.That is why you pay that Legacy Audio or Wilson Audio price. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 422 Registered: Dec-03 | Yep, my statement didn't take price into account very much. It also was based on comparing similar quality drivers. It just annoys me to no end to see sub/sat systems costing $6000 that have a big response hole between the sub and the satellites. That's appearance over performance! |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 719 Registered: Sep-04 | But sub/sat systems are getting better. The M&K Xenon series has a tiny LCR35 satellite that goes up to 35khz and down realistically to 100hz. The sub (MX700) then covers 100hz down to 20 hz flat. It's not a cheap solution at £2000 ($3500 approx) but it's extremely convincing. There are other problems associated with large drive units, chief among them being cone breakup. All drive units are a compromise between weight and stiffness. The larger a drive unit, the heavier it is. This is why there has been research into special stiff materials (ceramic, kevlar, aerolam...) for cones. The stiffer the material the better since it avoids cone breakup, but very often it makes the cone very heavy (relatively) which makes it slower. Now a 6 or 7 inch drive unit, properly loaded by a sympathetic cabinet, will reproduce most of the required frequency range down to the 30's so this is why most speakers use a unit of this size, but for really low bass, you can't get away from the fact that you need to move a lot of air and the drive units increase in size. In this case though, it is preferable to dedicate an amp to those frequencies. This is why the subwoofer (or sub bass device) came into being in the first place. It's difficult for a tower to be a genuine full range (20hz - 20khz flat) speaker, and even if it is, it's unlikely that the separate amp would be expecting to satisfy that load. Regards, Frank. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 720 Registered: Sep-04 | Incidentally, personally I find the whole of speaker design to be a travesty. Speakers are between 3 and 5% efficient. In other words, of all the power you feed into a speaker only a maximum of 5% of that power is converted into sound! The rest is wasted predominantly in heat (crossovers get HOT) and a little mechanical wastage. It's terrible in this day and age where we're all meant to be trying to use less fuel that the HiFi is so inefficient. I really hope that in 20 years' time we have invented a new technology with 95% efficient speakers. This would kill the power amp market (1 - 2 watt power amps becoming the norm) but it would be so much less wasteful and could bring about massive improvements in sound quality - by orders of magnitude. regards, Frank. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 496 Registered: Jun-05 | Thats probably not gonna happen Frank,how manu highly efficient speaker do you know of?Not many,asside from some horn designs their are not many quality HiFi speakers,wow and most them arent very good either.Low efficient speakers will always be around,how are you gonna be able to test gear?99% of high efficient designs are not very revealing.Where is the bass gonna come from?most highly efficient speakers dont go very deep in the bass and they often dont measure very well.Low efficient speakers will always be around,you always can get decent bass extension out of them and they usually measure pretty decent.In a small bookshelf low efficiency is usually the answer to achieve a generous bass aligment out of a small box.High efficient speakers are often forward and extemely bright and induce listning fatigue in a very time,Im not saying its not possible to do it most designers dont feel comfortable doing so.Coincident Technology make the best line of highly efficent speakers I know of,but they are generally 4 ohm loads,Triangle makes a great high efficient speaker,but the are missing in action entirely under 45htz.,so it is always gonna be tradeoffs and compromises,get what are willing to accept from a speaker. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 423 Registered: Dec-03 | I can appreciate where you're coming from Frank. Some have tried to come up with different methods of reproducing sound and most have failed miserably. Even those technologies that did succeed (electostatic for example) are still very inefficient. Perhaps it's not speakers we should be condemning though. What about amps? Those are the real power hogs. The new digital amps are looking to take care of that issue, so if watts are cheap who cares? |
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Bronze Member Username: Stereo_geniousUSA Post Number: 56 Registered: Jul-05 | Wide front baffles on speakers are now for a niche market, Timn8ter? But I like big speakers, not tall, but thin, speakers. Listen, you, from 5th grade up until 11th, I was stuck with little cheesy boomboxes that had no bass, or hooty bass. When I hit 11th grade, I got my first shelf stereo, but it had no bass. I have never ever owned big speakers before. I thought that I would be able to make up for this lost time by the time I'm in like in my 30's, but from what you are telling me about the niche market thing, wide-baffle tower speakers will be extinct by then? I can't take it anymore! I'm gonna be stuck with wimpy tiny speakers for the rest of my life! My life stinks! |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784USA Post Number: 552 Registered: Nov-04 | uh get a life mike. have you been reading any of the posts? |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1814 Registered: Jan-05 | I love how owners of little halfpint speakers keep talking about their 'quick bass'. That's a misnomer in itself........ I love how they rationalize why their little 4" 2way speakers are better when the reality is something quite different. Yea...keep talking up those little 4"ers.....hahahah Whoah.....listen to that lightening fast bass!! hahahahahah It's so fast, you you have to listen fast, or you'll miss it. hahahahahahahahahahaha |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1096 Registered: Feb-04 | Stu wrote: When using a sub-woofer, the bass isn't being played anymore by the other speakers, just the sub. What is the point in having 100 lb junk speakers with 12" woofers in your living room if you are only using the mid and high drivers in your speakers? The point is a lower cross-over point and more realistic bass. I use 40 Hz for my fronts when I set them to small (or set the sub to LFE+L/R at 40 Hz and the speakers to large). |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 501 Registered: Jun-05 | You know Paul,if you listened to music then your opinion on this matter may carry some weight.But you dont,so for all you real young guys like Mike and others,dont listen to him he is gonna lead you straight to audio oblivion. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1820 Registered: Jan-05 | Hey, c'mon... As jim has pointed out many times before, I always listen to music. Could you imagine a movie soundtrack void of music?? |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 503 Registered: Jun-05 | Ah....Paul on the contuary you actually do listen to music No..ooo,Im not talking about your H/T setup with the CVs Na Na Na!and I thought we all listen to dainty lightweights and Paul listens to the daintiest speakers of all of us, his computer speakers.Paul what are they Altec Lnasing 2 inchers? and all this time I thought you really liked big speakers,Paul show us a picture of your CD collection next to your killer computer audio system....Ha.Ha this guy is a Fraud!you dont deserve all this special treatment we give you over all your lightweight speaker comments,Hech give me a break! |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 504 Registered: Jun-05 | Paul you must admit thats funny,still love ya Paul! |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 370 Registered: May-05 | Peter - Consider who I was talking to. It was all in good fun. Give me some credit... |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1100 Registered: Feb-04 | Okay, okay... Let's just not throw out the baby with the bath water. Full range speakers have a use even in this subwoofer age. |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 373 Registered: May-05 | I own full range speakers. I'm not a big fan of bookshelves personally. That doesn't mean they don't have their application. Everything has a purpose. The only problem is that if Paul fails to see their purpose, they're worthless and no one should use them. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 506 Registered: Jun-05 | I own both,it just depends on the design,I like both. |
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New member Username: Matt9876Post Number: 2 Registered: Aug-05 | My name is not Mike. My name is Matt. I typed Mike by mistake. That was a typo. Therefore, y'all, please start calling me Matt. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1825 Registered: Jan-05 | Stu, I have never said they are worthless, and I(like yourself)have said many times before that bookshelf speakers do have their place in this world. Serving as fronts in a HT just happens to NOT be one of them. Sitting in your den while enjoying a little cheese to a spattering of winetasting music IS....... |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 380 Registered: May-05 | Good point Tawaun. There is no universal rule. Companies can mess up every type of design out there. I personally don't like the lack of bass from most bookshelves, but their are exceptions. I've heard some very good bookshelves with plenty of deep bass, but they were way out of my price range. I've heard a lot of towers with horrible bass too. |
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Silver Member Username: Timn8terSeattle, WA USA Post Number: 426 Registered: Dec-03 | My point about wide front baffles is this: Wide front baffles help support bass response. Depending on the width of the baffle there will be a frequency at which the the bass response will fall off with a slope of -3 to -6 db per octave depending on the room. The wider the baffle the lower this "baffle step" point is. It's much easier to work with a lower baffle step than a higher one. That being the case, why don't we see more wide baffles? |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1826 Registered: Jan-05 | Stu, That was my point.... IMO, virtually all towers in the intermediate price range selling in todays market are incapable of producing any bass. Heck, considering the vast number of them have tiny drivers that serve double duty(low frequency & midrange duties), how could you expect them to do so?? |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 515 Registered: Jun-05 | Yeah,Stu even for quality bass in most cases floorstanders generaly are more expensive to get good bass.Cheaper floorstanders ussually have a terrible midband and topend,with poor,imaging and soundstaging with absolutely horrible driver intrgration.You are taking a compramise anyway you look at in most cases if you are in that $1000 range.The standmounts usually have the least compramises and the most strengths. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1828 Registered: Jan-05 | Tim makes a great point because you need to move obscene amounts of air to create the low frequencies. With that said, why dont we see large baffles in todays marketplace in the intermediate price range?? How can they expect to move that amount of air with todays trend towards tiny baffles?? |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 382 Registered: May-05 | Paul - I do understand what you've been saying all along, and agree with most of it - maybe not the exact reasons why or how. I just like getting you a little fired up every now and then. Curiousity question though, what do you consider cut-off point for a woofer to become a wine and cheese taster? |
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Silver Member Username: Stu_pittNYC, NY Post Number: 383 Registered: May-05 | Tawaun - How can missing most of the lower end of frewquency response not be a compromise? $1000 bookshelves may image better and have better clarity in the upper mid to high range than a $1000 tower, but that's about it. Some speakers are better than the rest at any price point, but let's not get too far into that. It's give and take either way you look at it. On one hand you're getting great imaging and upper mids and highs, but you have no bass. On the other hand you have a relatively full frequency response, but the imaging and highs may be a step behind. It depends on what are resaonable enough compromises to the listener. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 521 Registered: Jun-05 | You have to factor in% Stu,98% of the music is 50 htz. and up.So what seems like the more logical figure to you? |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1833 Registered: Jan-05 | Stu, There is no firm cutoff. C'mon man!! It would be pretty silly for me to suggest that any cutoff above a certain level constitute wine and cheese. For example, it is quite possible that one speaker rated down to 35hz could be considered 'boutique', while another rated to 45hz can produce behemoth like sound in epiclike proportions. In attempt to use the KISS formula, I'll lump all dainty 'micro driver' bookshelf speakers encased in tiny frilly cabinets into the same group as it relates to serving as front speaker in a HT regardless of their 'alleged' stats. Lets face it, stats are just stats, and they dont begin to tell the whole story. I'll give you a little example..... My little 8" 3-way surrounds have a similar 'alleged' efficiency rating to my large CVs. Why is it that even if I set my CVs to small and listen to 2channel music in a large room, that they'll blow away the smaller bookshelf speakers every time and make them sound 'dainty' and 'weak' by comparison?? When canceling the bottom end of the behemoths by setting them to small(and the small speakers set to big), shouldnt they produce equally 'big' sound if they have a similar efficiency rating????? The answer is a resounding NO!! If you put a dainty small speaker in a large room, and compare output to a similarly efficiency behemoth, the larger heavy weight will knock the lightweight out of the ring every time. Make sense?? Efficiency ratings are misleading to say the very least, and all are not equal. Could it be that the laws of physics apply here and limit the amount of air capable of being moved by a tiny speaker encased in tiny wood box?? Could physics limit and dictate that a 'petite' speaker couldnt possibly move as much air as a larger counterpart??? Gee whizz....could the laws of physics really apply here?? |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1106 Registered: Feb-04 | Paul, I think he was asking about woofer size, not bottom end frequency. I won't take apart your thesis but I'm not sure it makes sense... Tawaun, I find response below 50Hz helps to create a more enveloping, richer sound, even with very little content. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4853 Registered: May-04 | Could physics limit and dictate how much air can be moved within a "X" cubic foot space no matter how big the driver is? Uh-huh! You can't fit a full 36' waveform into a 12'x 15'x 8' space. Could physics indicate what will happen when you try? Uh-huh! You get boom, mud and standing waves; none of which amount to good sound quality. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 535 Registered: Jun-05 | Yes it does, I never said that it didnt.But 98% of the music is 50htz and up so Peter,Paul and Stu what would you rather have in the case $1000 speakers, would you rather have a speaker that produces 98% of the music good or a speaker that plays that last 2% under 50 htz. and that other 98% of the music being reproduced lousey? |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1109 Registered: Feb-04 | Tawaun, I'm already on record as prefering no bass to bad bass. ;-) |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1110 Registered: Feb-04 | You can't fit a full 36' waveform into a 12'x 15'x 8' space. Can't fit one in your ear either, so I'm not sure how relevant that is... Reflections are important, and room acosutics, but a smaller than the wavelength room doesn't not imply muddy bass. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 540 Registered: Jun-05 | Lots of people can live with terrible sound and most cheap floorstanding speakers can give that in abundance,and its not a question of this day and age,and baffle width and 40 inch drivers or whatever the same rule applies right now and in the past tense.Take Pauls CVs for instance they had plenty of SPLs even for a mansion,but other than them being loud and increadibly bass heavy they were horrible for accurate reproduction and that was 20 years ago.Now take Jans Rogers 3/5As they were very good at all the things that Pauls CVs were not good at sounstaging,timing and rythym,but they did not not play deep in bass this was 20 or more years ago.Now lets come back to preent time and see how speaker design has changed since then in our modern speakers the prices for both of them were roughly $800pr.Take the Athena floorstanders for instance$600pr. are pretty good to most people on this forum,but in comparing quote on quote bang for the buck them to the Old CVs they are not that much better and they will not play as loud,improvments in the sub $1000 floorstander Category has not improved much in the last 20 years.Back to the bookshelf Jans Rogers were actually the pinnicle of mini monitore at that time,and think they were around $800pr. back then.Now you can compare them to most good bookshelves at that same price and the newer speakers will show them the door in every way,and you actually can go around $500 and few freaks at $300 to $400 that will toss them around,this is not an insult to Jan or to Paul,I am just trying to give thr changes in speakers over the last 20 to 30 years in the $1000 and under category,Its pretty clear that monitors in this price range have gained leaps and bounds,while the floorstander has not improved that much.The CVs were not anywhere near the best at that price point,so what does that tell about the floorstanders now,I just wanted to get back to the original thread topic. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4861 Registered: May-04 | "Back to the bookshelf Jans Rogers were actually the pinnicle of mini monitore at that time,and think they were around $800pr. back then.Now you can compare them to most good bookshelves at that same price and the newer speakers will show them the door in every way,and you actually can go around $500 and few freaks at $300 to $400 that will toss them around" Everyone likes what they like; but I have to take issue with that statement. From HiFi News, "We sat there amazed as the speakers continued to deliver sound which, even by 2001 standards, defies belief." Ken Kessler. BBC LS3/5a Shootout. June 2001 HiFi News *************** "You can't fit a full 36' waveform into a 12'x 15'x 8' space." "Can't fit one in your ear either." Of course you can, Peter. Do we need a lesson in how we hear? Please, think compressional waves and rarefaction. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 546 Registered: Jun-05 | thats pretty good Jan it is a just a testament to how good bookshelfs are and were and floorstanders still are not as good as they should be at this price. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1119 Registered: Feb-04 | Of course you can, Peter. Do we need a lesson in how we hear? Please, think compressional waves and rarefaction. Didn't say you couldn't hear it, just said it didn't fit. That the wave is longer than the room doesn't mean it won't propagate in it. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4868 Registered: May-04 | Doesn't mean it will either. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1130 Registered: Feb-04 | :-) Depends on reflections/absortion on the walls. The room is the speaker. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4872 Registered: May-04 | "Depends on reflections/absortion on the walls" Nope. Absorption has nothing to do with fitting a 36' waveform into a 12'x 15'x 8' space. It's just mathematics. |
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Bronze Member Username: AudioholicPost Number: 99 Registered: Apr-05 | Depends on reflections/absortion on the walls. The room is the speaker. HUH? |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1842 Registered: Jan-05 | Well, in that case, we'd better all buy small micro-speakers. Thanks for clearing that up. Anybody know of any good deals on some 30lb micro speakers? |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1134 Registered: Feb-04 | Nope. Absorption has nothing to do with fitting a 36' waveform into a 12'x 15'x 8' space. It's just mathematics. I truly hope you're kidding. Note I've already said the whole wavelength neither fits in your room nor in your ear. I'm talking about propagation. Earlier you were talking about standing waves and now you're saying that wall absorption has nothing to do with it? In need of a refresher course in Physics 101? Dr. Galbraith |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4879 Registered: May-04 | Sure; how do you absorb a 36' wave? Exactly how big a Tube Trap is requierd for that operation? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4880 Registered: May-04 | Sure; how do you absorb a 36' wave? Exactly how big a Tube Trap is required for that operation? |
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Silver Member Username: Devils_advocatePost Number: 149 Registered: Jul-05 | LOL. I like this. Dr Galbraith! I suppose that is your correct title though... |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1856 Registered: Jan-05 | Jans only trying to propogage his faulty view that the only way to listen to music is with speakers the size of a paperweight....... about the size of a lump of coal. The end result is that it will blacken your hands if you touch it, and it will burn your ears, eyes, and throat if you use it. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 561 Registered: Jun-05 | Paul I have came up with a speaker for you its perfect for you.The Legacy Classic it will pound the CVs into submission with more cleaner and weightier Lows. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4897 Registered: May-04 | One note, Paul, dull and boomy. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1136 Registered: Feb-04 | Jan, You are mixing up terms so much it's making my head spin. I don't whether you'll doing it on purpose or not. I'm sorry, perhaps my Physics 101 remark wasn't warranted (it was fashioned after a similar remark from you made yesterday). I forget this is an open discussion and not an academic classroom where one had better be sure of himself to challenge a professor. Walls mostly reflect and diffuse. They can also absorb some. You appear to be implying (without ever spelling anything out) that if the wave is longer than the room, you get muddy bass caused by standing waves. I said that standing waves depend on reflections/absorptions off the wall, to which you replied: Nope. Absorption has nothing to do with fitting a 36' waveform into a 12'x 15'x 8' space. It's just mathematics. I don't know what you meant by It's just mathematics and the first half of the sentence is flawed: Of course absorption has nothing to do with fitting that waveform in that space, but I never put those two facts together; you did. But absorption/reflection/diffusion has everything to do with standing waves. If the half-wavelength is not a multiple of a room size, then you're not going to get standing waves. You can get effects nera those exact frequencies beacuse the relevant lengthscale of the room can be larger than the room length if the wave travels at an angle, but then the wave reflects at an angle and doesn't neceessarily lead to a standing wave, but can mess up the sound. That is what I meant by the room is the speaker, because the room interacts with low frequency sound waves quite strongly. Of course you know this, but you chose to take a single factoid and present it as a final answer: You can't fit a full 36' waveform into a 12'x 15'x 8' space. I take exception to such a truism because it doesn't mean anything at all. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1862 Registered: Jan-05 | Jan is just self rationalizing everything pro-tiny, encluding sound waves. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4899 Registered: May-04 | https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/accessories/42708.html "All room acoustic problems are caused by reflections off the walls, floor, and ceiling." "It's difficult to get substantial absorption below about 80 Hz using a fiberglass-based trap." http://www.maximacar.com/system_design2.htm Just to clarify, a 36' wavelength amounts to roughly a 31Hz tone. And, while it is possible to absorb at least some of the pressure from a wave of that length, it becomes increasingly difficult and overly impractical in a domestic setting. One problem being measurements beneath 100Hz become increasingly inaccurate: http://www.realtraps.com/pdata.htm |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1138 Registered: Feb-04 | As I said, I knew you knew this stuff, yet you chose to write a meaningless truism about the size of a wave fitting in a room. Enough said about it. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4900 Registered: May-04 | One note, Paul, dull and boomy. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4901 Registered: May-04 | OK, Peter, 'nuff said. But go back and read my original statement and I think you'll see the whole issue of "absorption" becomes what John A. would term 'categorization errors", or something like that. Moving more air is not a guaranty of good bass response in room. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1866 Registered: Jan-05 | I agree about the importance of accoustical room treatments as it relates to bass traps and midbass, but it's not as relevent for the really deep stuff as you suggested with your blabbing about the 36' waveform because the really low stuff is mostly absorbed or passes through the walls unless they're made from concrete. One of these days, I'll include sound treatments to improve response in the 80-200 range, but please stop making incorrect statments about the deep lows. Thanks |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4905 Registered: May-04 | Tell me what the "incorrect statements" were, Paul. No help from Peter or anyone else. You want to criticize what I write, you show me where I'm wrong. You tell me where I "babbled". This seems to be escallating, Paul. If you want to make this personal and see who knows what, put your cards on the table. Otherwise, you're just a bag of wind like your speakers. ***************************** I checked the times and I see you posted this before your comments on the Denon 5803 thread. I'm willing to let this slide as an issue that has been resolved. I'm not finding this funny though, Paul. If you want to be the bigger person, be the bigger person! |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1875 Registered: Jan-05 | Actually, the post above came first. The 'bigger person' post came later in another thread. I did ask my question in a more reasonable manner in the other thread. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4910 Registered: May-04 | I have moved the question back over to this thread where, I feel, it has a better fit to the original topic of the thread. *** "I am a little confused though. You mentioned 36' soundwaves(under 30hz) not fitting and bouncing around rooms creating a muddy sound. Arent many of these absorbed, or pass right through your drywall?? I wasnt aware that was an issue unless you had cement block walls as it relates to the very low frequencies(very long waves >36')." You have to begin with the simplest concept of containing a waveform. Take a bucket of water (a square bucket would be nice, but not necessary for the concept to work) and drop an object into the water close to one side to represent a single speaker producing soundwaves in your listening room. The wave travels the distance to the other sides of the container and then most of the wave's pressure is returned as a reflection. Drop a series of objects in the water one after the other as would happen when a speaker produces wave after wave and watch the resulting pandemonium. (Try this with two or more objects being dropped at different locations to represent your stereo or HT speakers.) Place a sponge or some other lossy object in the water at some point to represent an object in the room such as a sofa and drop the objects in the water to observe the amount of absorption a soft surface has on pressure waves of different lengths. Consider what the reaction would be if you made the walls of the bucket less rigid until you were finally dropping objects into a bucket made like an open balloon. Even with lossy walls the reflections still occur where the structure isn't able to give up some heat as it absorbs or passes the energy of the wave. Only so much energy, at any wavelength, can be absorbed by the structure of the walls and they have to be extremely lossy to manage that task well. Any wall structure will be frequency selective concerning what frequencies it will reflect, diffuse, pass or absorb. This is an issue of mostly the size and rigidity of the container's walls. (Why do big speakers have panel resonances at more frequencies and at more locations than small boxes? How many times can you divide a piece of string into halves?) Also consider what you would find if you placed your hand on the outside of each container. Obviously the lossy balloon will allow more energy to pass through and excite the surface of the balloon more easily than that of the bucket. But, the pressure changes that are occurring inside the container will make the walls of the container resonate. (Any object set in motion will have a resonant fequency.) The amount of energy difference between what is happening inside the container and what is happening outside the container will be the result of the amount of reflection and absorption of energy. Change the thickness of the lossy material and you will absorb more energy. There will be more absorption and less reflection. *** Consider taking a speaker outside and placing that speaker on a pole high enough to allow its longest wavelength to fully develop one cycle before striking the ground. So a speaker that could produce that 36' wavelength (31Hz) would be on a pole at least 36'1" in height. If there are no walls around the speaker, or surfaces to reflect the soundwaves, you will have what is termed "free space". (If you go to the 1970's archives of companies like KEF, and further back before anechoic chambers were reasonable to construct, you can see photos of acoustic engineers doing precisely this work out in a field while designing speakers.) With no adjacent surface to disrupt the wave the most accurate assessment of the speaker's low frequency range could be measured. The next step is to construct a room with walls made of paper surounding the speaker. The paper doesn't offer enough rigidity to the low frequency to reflect the energy so most of the energy passes through with little absorption either. (It won't have the ability to diffuse the low frequencies for the same reason.) By our experiment with the bucket of water, we know we can't stop the wave from being affected in one of these four ways; reflection, diffusion, absorption or transmission. As the walls get more rigid the amount of energy reflected increases as we've seen in the bucket vs. the balloon. That reflection gives us some reinforcement to the bass frequencies and the resulting "room gain" that we use to get satisfying bass in our rooms. That leaves us with the problem of how much loss can we design into a structure to absorb low frequencies without placing the speaker in "free space". The other side of the equation would be how rigid do the walls of the room have to be to make an acceptable structure to live in and, for our purposes, support the bass response. *** Now go back to the bucket of water and try changing the size of the container and the size of the object displacing the water. If you drop a BB into the bucket and then a brick into the bucket, you will see the difference the size of the object doing the displacement has on how the wave is propogated and reacts within the container. If you drop a BB and a brick into a large can full of water, you'll see the difference the size of the object doing the displacement makes when you change the size of the container. When the wave's displacement is so large it can't propogate even a small amount of its length, we're back to pandemonium and a wave so long that it is virtually nonexistent unless the walls of the container can expand to absorb the pressure wave (dropping a brick into the balloon). We're left with several problems which amount to; at some point we don't have enough space to allow the wave to begin to propogate, we have to balance letting the wave pass through the walls (with some amount of absorption) and, at the other end, containing the waves to get our bass response. In the real world this amounts to cake and eating. Like anything else in audio, there are tradeoffs to be made. If you stand outside a room made of thin paper and hear the deep bass passing through the walls, the walls are lossy enough to allow the information to pass through with minimal absorption taking place. If you stand outside a structure where the walls are thick enough and rigid enough to allow no energy to pass through, there is reflection inside, with minimal absorption, taking place. We all live in structures that fall somewhere between those two extremes. Only you know where your house falls in the scale of rigid to lossy. Generally, if you are going to design a domestic living room to be reasonably soundproof, you design and construct so the energy that would be transfered to the container's inner surface isn't allowed to pass to the next layer of material by isolating the surfaces (usually with minimal contact between the surfaces). Think of putting a balloon full of water into another balloon full of water. The more space between the container's walls (a small ballon inside a large balloon) the more absorption will take place and the reflections at the outer walls are minimized. As the space narrows until there is physical contact (a large ballon inside another large balloon), the amount of energy transmission increases and the amount of reflection once again stays more or less the same as if there was only one balloon. Inside a typical home structure it will be very difficult to absorb a wavelength 36' peak to peak due to the rigidity of the structure. To absorb enough energy to do that feat would require about 1/8 of the wavelength to pass through a lossy material. Different materials can be designed and constructed to give higher "absorption coefficients" so the material can be compressed to less than the actual 1/8 the size of the wave but this gets increasingly expensive as the frequency gets increasingly lower. One approach to the problem is to increase the surface area and measure in "Sabins". This approach is similar to comparing RMS power vs. peak power with no distortion spec included. http://www.realtraps.com/art_measure.htm The reason you don't see specs for room treatments that affect the extreme low frequencies is not because the room absorbs these frequencies, but because of the size of the trap that would be required to do such work. http://www.realtraps.com/data.htm So we are stuck with real life rooms that have a combination of some reflection, some diffusion, some absorption and some amount of energy transmission. As the frequencies change, the amount of each property changes also. *** Because the most prevalent property of a typical room is reflection, you get statements such as, "All room acoustic problems are caused by reflections off the walls, floor, and ceiling." And, "It's difficult to get substantial absorption below about 80 Hz using a fiberglass-based trap." (Note the word "difficult" in the last sentence. You should understand by now the task can be done but is highly impractical in most domestic situations.) Since diffusion relies on reflection to work, we are left mostly with reflection as our friend/enemy in dealing with a typical room. This goes back to the speaker on the pole in the middle of the cow pasture, the brick in the can of water and the idea you can't fit a full 36' wavelength into a 12'x15'x8' container. With an 8' ceiling height (the shortest dimension of the container) we will have our first reflection happening at about 140Hz. This reflection causes a series of subsequent reflections that are arranged in octaves and premeate the entire frequency range diminishing as the frequency rises like the reflections in the bucket eventually dissipate. http://www.maximacar.com/system_design2.htm Here's an idea of the instruments that will be affected by that single 140Hz room reflection; http://psbspeakers.com/FrequenciesOfMusic.html When the reflections begin to come closer and closer together the result is more and more waves of pressure causing peaks and dips in the room's response curve. The worst results of this increasing number of reflections are standing waves in the room where the reflections coming in one direction are literally causing the pressure wave coming from another direction to "stand" still. Most rooms have some standing waves and if you have ever walked through a room with severe standing wave problems, the impression you remember is somewhat errie; akin to walking into an anechoic chamber for the first time. (This series of reflections is the basis for crawling around the room to find the best location for your subwoofer. The better solution usually to get front or rear firing subs off the floor.) With most rooms the problems amount to a series of peaks and dips in frequency levels that become a comb filter. The issue of the distance the wave travels from the woofer to the first reflection point vs. the direct pressure wave from the woofer which reaches your ears first complicates the discussion by introducing phase/time errors into the equation. http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/roomacoustics/Acoustics101THX2.php How we treat these problems amounts to pages and pages of articles and a profession that, if you do it well, can make you substantial amounts of money since so few people do it well. Since we are dealing with peaks and dips in response we cannot just address the issue of absorption. Doing that, in most cases, will only increase the evidence of the lowering of level in the frequencies where a dip occurs. The best approach to this problem is a combination of passive and active techniques. The active approach is fraught with problems that are only beginning to be addressed by today's technology. So the average consumer is left with mostly passive answers to getting good bass response in a 12'x15'x8' room. How that is done is another whole series of articles. Possibly Peter can do a good job explaining how you can get a 36' pressure wave to sound like the full length is in your room. Or he can show where what I've just said isn't accurate. I'm still constantly learning all this stuff myself. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4915 Registered: May-04 | http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/roomacoustics/roommodes.php |
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New member Username: Wired_for_soundChicago, Il U.s.a Post Number: 8 Registered: Jul-05 | Hey Mike I'm pretty much new to the speaker game, and I've often asked the same question. From my personal experience the larger the speaker (15',18') woofer the more distortion there is. I recently purchased some Polk RTi-10's with 2-8' subs in them and these do a much better job than the CV E-715's I had. Clear highs and spine tingling lows out of 2 8' subs damn! I couldn't believe it. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 727 Registered: Sep-04 | Wide baffle speakers simply don't sell unless they're fairly esoteric. Wide baffle = low wife acceptance factor. They're considered ugly since they impose themselves a lot on the room. Therefore there has been a move toward narrower front baffles. However, this has also brought about deeper cabinets! In theory this should play well into our hands since we should be able to design speakers with larger drive units in the sides of the cabinet since low frequencies are non-directional. This would mean all the speakers would be 3-way (a good thing in my book). As to efficiency Tawaun, there are no high efficiency speakers around! Sure, Paul's CVs are more efficient than your usual speaker but in real terms the CVs are around 6% efficient and the nastiest things on the planet are about 4% efficient. I want speakers that are 95% efficient! Amplifiers aren't particularly efficient. Class A amps are typically 10% efficient. Class B amps (more usual) are around 50% efficient. The new digital amps are around 85% efficient. Fact is, if we didn't have 5% efficient speakers we wouldn't need such powerful amps in the first place. Even if the amps were 100% efficient, the current speaker situation still means that 95% of what those amps generated would be lost. Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1147 Registered: Feb-04 | As to efficiency Tawaun, there are no high efficiency speakers around! Sure, Paul's CVs are more efficient than your usual speaker but in real terms the CVs are around 6% efficient and the nastiest things on the planet are about 4% efficient. Typo? How can the nastiest have 4% if the CVs are at 6%? The only figure I could find on the web is the following: http://www.trueaudio.com/post_002.htm By the way a 100% efficient speaker would convert 1 Watt of electrical energy into 1 Watt of acoustical energy to produce 112.1 dB SPL at 1 meter when radiating into half space. This same 100% efficient speaker would achieve only 106.1 dB SPL radiating into full space. Now speaker don't radiate equally into half-space either, so maybe 118 dB with 1 Watt would be more likely with 100% electrical efficiency? That would put 104 dB sensitivity at 4% efficiency (or so) and the average sensitivity of 87 dB at 0.08% efficiency. That's pretty low, isn't it... What's the sensitivity for the nastiest on the planet? Am I close with 104 dB? (e.g. Klipschorns) Gotta be more than that... |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1148 Registered: Feb-04 | Tawaun wrote: Coincident Technology make the best line of highly efficent speakers I know of,but they are generally 4 ohm loads Which line is that? Their web page http://www.coincidentspeaker.com/speakers.htm describes the "Ultra High Sensitivity Series Loudspeakers" as The Victory with its 97 db sensitivity, 14 ohm impedance and response down to 36 hz, will prove revelatory with flea sized amplifiers. The Total Victory is the new reference in high sensitivity loudspeakers with its 97 db sensitivity, 10 ohm impedance, and bass down to 26 Hz. These have higher than 8 ohm impedence... Personnaly. I wouldn't call 97 dB ultra-high efficiency without adding the qualifier "without using horn-loading". |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4935 Registered: May-04 | Peter - Re; your link. It would seem logical a philosopher sort somewhere/sometime said this whole thing amounts to a load of something. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 569 Registered: Jun-05 | Peter I said most I didnt say all,you should read the post more carefully,stop looking for something to Quote All The Time! |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1151 Registered: Feb-04 | Jan, Just trying to see what 100% electrical efficiency would yield in terms of sensitivity. -- Tawaun, Just intrigued about your post and trying to find which speakers you were talking about. Since the ones I found were called "Ultra High Sensitivity Series Loudspeakers" I thought I had found them, but the impedence didn't match your description. So I was just asking which ones are you talking about? Presumably they will be more sensitive than 97 dB? As to quoting text... You would prefer I remain vague all the time? I'd rather quote and let the readers know what I'm refering to. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4936 Registered: May-04 | While they are domestically "dicey", a wide front baffle speaker design can allow for the speaker to be placed against the wall, creating a more shallow baffle step diffraction - thereby simplifying the X-over and increasing the efficiency of the system as a whole - and less space actually being taken up in the room. The speaker then becomes a quasi-infinite baffle which gives +6db gain in room over the entire bandwidth and extends the low frequency response by giving the designer a known placement of the driver (place it low as in the Allison designs and you gain another +3dB). This design effectively turns the entire wall into a radiating surface. Now, that big box in the middle of a HT system really messes with this idea. I guess we need those narrow baffle, deep enclosures to accommodate the Roccoco-French-antique-country-metropolitan look of our traditional style cabinets that house all the equipment. Oh, well, it was just a thought. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 572 Registered: Jun-05 | The Parcial Eclipse and the Total Victory are less efficient than the others. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1887 Registered: Jan-05 | "Wide baffle speakers simply don't sell unless they're fairly esoteric. Wide baffle = low wife acceptance factor. They're considered ugly since they impose themselves a lot on the room. Therefore there has been a move toward narrower front baffles." ----------------------------- Frank, I couldnt agree more. It's for that reason that I blame todays dainty speaker selection on the trend to 'WAF' shoppers worried about what looks pretty to their spouse. Now days, all you find are skinny towers that are liable to get tipped over by a pet kitten if they're not properly secured to the floor. I have no interest in the many dainty lightweights that flood todays marketplace. For that, I have all the girlyman shoppers to thank for making this a reality. There is no other reason than described above why there cant also be midpriced large speakers available in todays market. If I come accross as having a chip on my shoulder, at least now you'll know why. It's because todays marketplace for speakers flat out s*cks unless you're willing to spend >$10k for a pair of front speakers. I'd like to spend around $3k for a pair of fronts, and I cannot find anything I like. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 598 Registered: Jun-05 | You wouldnt know a good pair if they Drop Shipped in front of your house. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1162 Registered: Feb-04 | I'd like to spend around $3k for a pair of fronts, and I cannot find anything I like. Go to the Klipsch forum and ask if anyone in your area has a Klipschorn setup you could listen to. For 3K$, you could buy a really nice used pair. They are not small speakers so you might like 'em. I do. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4959 Registered: May-04 | Ask for LaScalla's if you don't have dedicated corners. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1166 Registered: Feb-04 | Good point Jan. But if he can hear the KHorns, that would be good. It's "La Scala" by the way... ;-) |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1898 Registered: Jan-05 | Peter, I dont want used stuff. When I buy, it will be something new, and something I will have personally auditioned beforehand. I listened to the RF7s, and wasnt impressed. I appreciate your input, but I would never consider spending $3k on ebay for 30year old speakers that I have never auditioned. Nothing against the LaScallas, but I dont think it's something I would ever do. When my 20year old behemoths are finally retired, it wont be by a pair that is even older than what I have. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4960 Registered: May-04 | Too many fingers not enough caffeine. L-a-S-c-a-l-a. Ikbew that! |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2588 Registered: Dec-03 | I understand what your saying paul but what pete was trying to say is that what your CV's do well in some peoples oppinion the older large klipsch do it better. And if you could get an audition from someone "as many love them" it would give you another reference point. Also with a speaker like that "being so large" many don't like to ship them and you can find them local at a reduced price now and then. By the way yes the older large Klipsch are pretty incredable and you can keep them running with the amount of parts out there. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1901 Registered: Jan-05 | Yea, I understand what he is saying, but I have no interest in buying old speakers. As for your comment on the amount of parts out there?? I also have no interest in 'keeping them running'. I want something new, so that I dont have to mess with upkeep. If I get something new that breaks, I'll dump it in the trash because I have no interest in screwing around with speakers that wont keep running on their own. The same goes with my CVs. If they reach a point where they arent dependable....they're gone in spite of their good track record. The same goes with anything I own whether it be cars, or anything. Once they have problems, I get rid of it. Luckily, they've proven to be quite indestructible thus far. Finding something durable would be no easy task on todays market which is one reason I'm resistant to change. I've owned speakers in the past that were a pain to keep running, and I know what it's like to be constantly replacing parts, and I want no part of that. Needless to say, I didnt keep those speakers very long. |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2589 Registered: Dec-03 | Allright that is your perogative and it's when people give up on there old speakers and sell them off at a garage sale or trash them that keeps the people like myself who grab these things and restore them in business so you are part of the cycle. But if you do get a chance to hear some of the older klipsch speakers I think you'll like how they sound ecspecially with a good tube setup! |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1904 Registered: Jan-05 | I dont listen to 2 channel stereo or music on my system unless it's part of a movie soundtrack. My system is only used for HT. |
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Silver Member Username: Joe_cAtlanta, GA Post Number: 905 Registered: Mar-05 | T U B E S ! |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 728 Registered: Sep-04 | Paul If your system is only used for HT there are many benefits to going smaller! I get completely where you're coming from, but I wonder if you've simply shut yourself off to the very idea of small speakers irrespective of their performance. In HT, accurate imaging allied to a total lack of smearing is essential. This is much harder for a large speaker to achieve, although an efficient speaker such as yours is better than an inefficient one since it has better dynamic contrast typically. However, you can't get away from the fact that you have relatively large cones trying to reproduce sounds that are more the province of smaller cones (you know - those 4" jobs you hate). On the subject of replacing your speakers, so much development has been put into cone materials and long-throw drivers, it's rare to see a 10" driver in a full range speaker nowadays, let alone 12 or 15" drive units. You'll find them but they're rare. PMC and ATC come to mind but they might be more expensive. Regards, Frank. As to your earlier question, no the 4 - 6% bracket was not a typo. The nastiest speaker loads on the planet are down around 80db/w/m. The most efficient (domestic) are up at 116db/w/m. In efficiency terms I'm vaguely right. The point of the note was that the most efficient speakers on the planet are under 10% efficient. I want 95% efficient speakers in order to use a 5 watt amp to achieve high volumes. We're stuck with <10% efficient speakers being driven by 100w behemoths. What a waste. Regards, Frank. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 603 Registered: Jun-05 | Induction Dynamics would be right up his alley for the SPLSs,they are said to down to55htz. a large parkeing lot.Aftr hearing them at Hanson Audio here in Dayton,I would deffinately beleive it,twice as loud as the JM LAB Grand Utopia Ato Be or louder not quite the accuracy,but very goood its deffinetly a foward sound ,but not harsh.They have Eton:bass drivers and a Dynaudio soft dome midrange,and a inverted Focal tweater modified to play even louder.This is the speaker that the CVs would have been if the company would have evoled,and they are drop dead georgous with a rosewood piano laqure a stunning speaker,if I was after a foward sound I would be saving my pennies for them.Paul you will love them all joking{and insults aside they are for you man}. |
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Silver Member Username: GmanMt. Pleasant, SC Post Number: 694 Registered: Dec-03 | With a 5 watt amp it would be damned hard to push a powerful subwoofer or woofer magnet with any oomph or any control. It would work fine for many tweeters, One of the compromises of most tower speakers is that the woofer/subwoofer is almost never placed in the best acoustic spot for listening. It's a compromised solution made even more compromised by the fact that most tower speakers don't have active crossovers to ameliorate the driver problems (particularly the woofer problems). The tower speakers that generally perform this best are specially designed active crossovered speakers with separate amps matched for each driver. No one seems to know this better (or at least execute it better)than Siegried Linkwitz and his amazing Orion speaker. If I had more than a modicum of building skill I would love to build a pair (after having heard a pair last year in San Francisco I was beyond amazed). I thought I had heard and owned some pretty good speakers in my life until I heard these. But not too many wives or significant others will want these open baffle speakers at the following specs. I may have to plead with my wife and explain how form follows function and this speakers function will get us as close to a great music hall without actually being there. Maybe it'll work! Those interested should take a look at the Linkwitz site. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1167 Registered: Feb-04 | Paul, I said to find someone to let you listen to them, not sell them to you! Then you'd know what I'm talking about. You can buy La Scala's or Klipschorns new, you know. They are simply over your budget! And... Don't be so prissy. They may be 30 years old but they don't require any maintainance, contrary to your CVs which you had re-coned! |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1169 Registered: Feb-04 | Frank, By nastiest, I thought you meant efficient. As you can see, I worked out 104 dB to be about 4% efficient, and the average 87 dB way below 1%... |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1907 Registered: Jan-05 | Frank, That's why I have dual 6.5" midranges. Ya know, to handle the sounds you're talking about. Im not sure what my crossover is for the 15" drivers, but I dont think the sounds that 'are' being sent to them are best suited for 4" drivers. From what I hear, it's mostly subwoofer types of sounds. I would be interested to know. 200hz maybe???? I have no clue?? Maybe Kegger would know. |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2592 Registered: Dec-03 | Paul I haven't been inside the D9's for quite some time so I don't know where x'ed at. They handle a lot power and provide plenty of spl so I'm sure it's pretty high. Probably around 500 or so that way your not making the mids try to go to low with all that power that most people put to them. |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2593 Registered: Dec-03 | Tawaun A.Williams I like the sounds of that speaker you describe: What is the model of that speaker and would you have a link? |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2594 Registered: Dec-03 | I allways thought it wasn't right either for CV to size there speakers the way they did. Meaning the 15" driver on the D9 is smaller then a normal 15" and the 6" mids are actually a 5 1/4" pair of drivers, why they did this I don't know. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1910 Registered: Jan-05 | I dunno..... I've never measured the mids, but I know that the woofer measurment is 15" which includes the woofer frame into the measurement. If you simply measure from the surrounds accross, it's probably closer to 14". Since I havent measured many woofers and compared them to the listed measurement, I wouldnt know if that is the norm, or the exception as it relates to CV. |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2595 Registered: Dec-03 | Trust me paul when I tell yu there smaller. When the surrounds went out on mine I figured I'd put my yamaha 15"s in there then low and behold they wouldn't fit and monting holes were no where near it, I was puzzled was it the CV or the yamaha so I tried my mtx's in there and the same thing so I checked the mids yep they are off to but at least it's a normal size 5 1/4" standard drivers fit. since then I've worked on many speakers and find the CV's just plain are different. Not quite as funky as what advent did with some theres but still they are off on there specs. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4966 Registered: May-04 | "With a 5 watt amp it would be damned hard to push a powerful subwoofer or woofer magnet with any oomph or any control." Oh, Gregory. With 104dB @ 1 watt for the Horns, just how loud do you want to go? 1 watt = 104 2 watts = 107 5 watts = 111db (approximate) That's loud in my book. And, I thought that's what we were discussing. Ask Siegried Linkwitz. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1912 Registered: Jan-05 | Kegger, All I was saying was that they're exactly 15" from the outside ege of the frame. I wasnt sure if the industry norm was to measure from the inside or outer edge. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1176 Registered: Feb-04 | 5 watts = 111db (approximate) It's 110.9897, no need for the word approximate! :-) But that's at 1 m. It's less in the typical room. Nevertheless, Jan makes a good point; it's plenty loud already. I doubt I'll ever see 95% efficiency in "speakers". A whole new technology would be required to transfer the energy to air. Perhaps ionizing it and inducing movement magnetically without a moving membrane... |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1177 Registered: Feb-04 | So I guess Paul is never going to listen to big ol' horns then... |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2596 Registered: Dec-03 | Paul I meant nothing by my post, was just pointing out the woofer is not a typical size and that the mids are but not the size CV says. This does not deminish the speaker at all just don't know why CV did that. |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1913 Registered: Jan-05 | Maybe they wanted it to be like the secret sauce at Great American burger and be mysterious? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4969 Registered: May-04 | "It's 110.9897, no need for the word approximate! :-) But that's at 1 m. It's less in the typical room." Not really since that's a measurement of one speaker with no room gain added. A second speaker gets an additional 3db and the room gain can be guesstimated at 6dB more. We know Paul puts his head inside the horn every now and then. If he should sit 2 meters away, he'll loose the extra 6dB. That still leaves you with 114 dB on peaks with only 5 watts in. (http://www.myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html) That's loud in my book. But, now that I recollect a bit, 104 db with just that first watt is d@mn loud. And, I really don't see Paul listening to a speaker designed by Siegfried Linkwitz. Or a five watt amplifier. I could be wrong. Paul - You don't know what that sauce really is? |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1918 Registered: Jan-05 | So Siegfried and Roy are making loudspeakers now?? Well, I guess they had to do something now that they retired their Vegas act |
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Silver Member Username: NuckParkhill, Ontario Canada Post Number: 121 Registered: Dec-04 | Paulie...Renaissance man |
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Gold Member Username: Paul_ohstbucksPost Number: 1923 Registered: Jan-05 | Heck, it wasnt until now that I knew his last was Linkwitz. I can hardly blame him for dropping the last name from his act. |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 730 Registered: Sep-04 | Paul, Most manufacturers measure drive units from the inside of the frame. Some measure from the outside, some from the inside and some measure from the inside of the surround, which is the true effective radiating diameter, but that makes their drive units seem titchy... I accept that 104db from 1 watt is a huge amount of sound. In that scenario we'd have amplifiers with less gain in their preamp stages and obviously far less power requirements. The amount of energy we'd use would be substantially lower which should stress internal components far less and reduce distortions further. The technology in the speakers would have to be completely different to the principles we use currently. Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1183 Registered: Feb-04 | I accept that 104db from 1 watt is a huge amount of sound. In that scenario we'd have amplifiers with less gain in their preamp stages and obviously far less power requirements. The amount of energy we'd use would be substantially lower which should stress internal components far less and reduce distortions further. The technology in the speakers would have to be completely different to the principles we use currently. Huh? 104 dB sensitivity exists. The technology used is horn-loading. |
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Silver Member Username: GmanMt. Pleasant, SC Post Number: 698 Registered: Dec-03 | Other than for PA systems and other non-audiophile applications, I am not familiar with any horn-loaded woofers. Klipsch makes horn tweeters and others have horns into the midrange. The nature of horns being very directional--either good or bad depending on your listening position and that of others in the room. That said, I am unaware of any quality subwoofer that can be driven by 5 watts. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1186 Registered: Feb-04 | Other than for PA systems and other non-audiophile applications, I am not familiar with any horn-loaded woofers. Klipsch makes horn tweeters and others have horns into the midrange. The following have horn-loaded woofers and 104 dB sensitivity: Klipsch Klipschorns http://www.klipsch.com/product/product.aspx?cid=2&s=specs klipsch La Scala http://www.klipsch.com/product/product.aspx?cid=6&s=specs Klipsch Belle (103 dB sensitivity) http://www.klipsch.com/product/product.aspx?cid=4&s=specs Klipschorns go down to 33 Hz at -3dB. |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784USA Post Number: 582 Registered: Nov-04 | haha, looks like someone lost his arguement. |
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Silver Member Username: GmanMt. Pleasant, SC Post Number: 699 Registered: Dec-03 | As Klipsch states: WOOFER: K-33-E 15" (38.1cm) Fiber-composite cone / folded horn-loaded They have a standard cone woofer. The fact that it is horn-loaded hardly makes the woofer an actual horn speaker. It is a 15" cone woofer loaded inside a horn. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4977 Registered: May-04 | Gregory, you've just got to stop reading the stuff you're reading. When your magazines only consider all soiled (whoops, sorry) solid state 100 watt amplifiers that sound the same, you aren't going to learn very much outside of your preconcieved ideas. Commercial applications of horn loaded woofers are out of fashion as they require large amounts of space to be truly effective to 30Hz or lower. The Klipschorn solves much of the problem of directivity, and bass extension, by using the walls of the listening room as the final fold of the horn. But, then, we know you were mixing concepts since bass (per se) is not directional. Go back somewhat before the era of solid state large wattage amplification to speakers such as the JBL Paragon ( |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4978 Registered: May-04 | "They have a standard cone woofer. The fact that it is horn-loaded hardly makes the woofer an actual horn speaker. It is a 15" cone woofer loaded inside a horn." uh, Gregory, very slowly now, what do you think a horn speaker looks like? Does it look like a trumpet or a trombone? |
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Bronze Member Username: ZiggyzoggyoioiOutside Philadelphia, PA Post Number: 94 Registered: Jun-05 | All I know is, I'll take this setup, including the 990-pound 6-pack in the middle, any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  |
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Silver Member Username: Touche6784USA Post Number: 585 Registered: Nov-04 | still losing. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 624 Registered: Jun-05 | KEGGER here is the link I dont know the model# but they have 2 12s,they may even be 10s,but they are increadible and they are not cheap{hence the drivers I said they had}so if you have no problem paying $8000pr. www.inductiondynamics.com |
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Bronze Member Username: ZiggyzoggyoioiOutside Philadelphia, PA Post Number: 95 Registered: Jun-05 | Each of those 6 Basshorns has a 350W internal amp and in that configuration offers 109.5 dB senstivity |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 625 Registered: Jun-05 | Z is that Acapella or Avantgarde Acoustics? |
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Bronze Member Username: ZiggyzoggyoioiOutside Philadelphia, PA Post Number: 97 Registered: Jun-05 | Avantgarde. Trio Compact mains ($38k) and 3 pairs of Basshorns ($34k/pr) |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 627 Registered: Jun-05 | Most impressive setup hell ill go to my grave with that setup! |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2598 Registered: Dec-03 | Tawaun A.Williams thanks for the link, I have no intent on buying them just wanted to see them after you described how they were made and the parts used. Again thanks! |
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Bronze Member Username: ZiggyzoggyoioiOutside Philadelphia, PA Post Number: 98 Registered: Jun-05 | T-man, I think those basshorns might be capable of stopping my heart. Of course, they wouldn't need to... if I ever brought home $140k worth of speakers (even IF I could afford it) my wife would kill me on the spot. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4979 Registered: May-04 | Who do you suppose the owner gets to polish his driver? |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2599 Registered: Dec-03 | I believe this is probably the one your talkin about Tawaun, I like! http://www.inductiondynamics.com/cgi-bin/induction.cgi?ACTION=ID1 |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1200 Registered: Feb-04 | Gregory, What can I say? I'm at a loss for words... 104 dB sensitivity exists... check. Horn-loaded woofers exist... check. What was the question again? |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 629 Registered: Jun-05 | They stop my heart by just looking at them,I dont know Jan I wouldnt let a fly get near them! |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 630 Registered: Jun-05 | I would take that setup over a Porsche 911 Turbo S and I love sports cars! |
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Bronze Member Username: ZiggyzoggyoioiOutside Philadelphia, PA Post Number: 99 Registered: Jun-05 | T-man, the Porsche would be useless with that setup... I'd never leave the house. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 633 Registered: Jun-05 | As much as I love Cars,im content with my Miata ,but i lust for a 50K system that would be right up my alley My 700 cd and 200 lps would not be enough material for me!I would be at music store every day! |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 735 Registered: Sep-04 | Pete I misled you in my post sorry. 104db/w/m exists. It's still only 4% efficient approximately. I want 104db from 0.1w, and I'd like it from a 'speaker' that is domestically acceptable and which doesn't suffer from crazy distortions. Needs a different technology. 104db/w/m is no big deal - it's still badly inefficient. Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2600 Registered: Dec-03 | Frank I'm just curious why the heck would you want/need a speaker at 104db at .1 watt? What the heck you gunna power it with a .5watt amp? A 12ax7 preamp tube? About the most efficent speaker I could really see being utilized is like 120db! I heard a pair of hartsfields earlier this year that were around 120 being powered by 2 watts that were so loud it absolutly unbelievable. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1212 Registered: Feb-04 | Yeah Frank, why? I can crank it to 115 to 120 dB in my home using 104 dB sensitivity speakers, without using huge amps. That level is already detrimental to long term hearing, so why would you want to exceed it? You might wish for a greater selection of speakers with 104 dB sensitivity, but I don't think you need 114 dB sensitivity in your home. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 4997 Registered: May-04 | Not to step on Frank's answer, but the issue is not how sensitive the speakers are; it is how efficient they can become. Frank's point, if I might assume to speak for him, is there are tremendous losses in the function of a loudspeaker. The mechanics of translating electrical power into acoustic power are grossly inefficient in that they leave most of what is put into the speaker at its terminals (electrical power) to be converted to heat instead of motion (acoustic power). So, this is not an issue of whether the speaker is 87dB or 120dB in sensitivity but rather an issue of 4% efficient. Or more correctly stated, an issue of 96% inefficiency. If a speaker were designed to be 98% efficient, it might still only be set at 104 dB sensitivity. But, the amount of power required to get that 104dB would be drastically reduced and what goes in would more "efficiently" be converted to signal and not thrown away as heat. This would give you the ability to run the speakers off a 12AX7 triode tube. Nothing else. No stepping up through the various gain stages and turning a small scale sinewave into a large scale sinewave. Kegger, you've experimented with 300b amplifiers. This is the next logical step from that concept. Take away everything which does not need to be there and have the most direct route to getting the signal from input to output. Less loss - more music. Instead, the audio industry knew there was no future in this route and decided instead to sell us 250 watt amplifiers that are also 85% inefficient to pair with our 95% inefficient speakers. A little like keeping us dependent on petroleum. |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2601 Registered: Dec-03 | Well you can't argue with that logic Jan. But I just wonder it doesn't take a rocket scientest to make a clean, very few parts 5 watt a channel amp so in theory 25% efficent speakers would work just fine. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1214 Registered: Feb-04 | Actually, one can argue with this logic... So, this is not an issue of whether the speaker is 87dB or 120dB in sensitivity but rather an issue of 4% efficient. Or more correctly stated, an issue of 96% inefficiency. If a speaker were designed to be 98% efficient, it might still only be set at 104 dB sensitivity. No it would not. Remember that sensitivity is SPL measured at 1 m with 1W input. If you magically convert that 1W of electrical power into 1W of acoustic power (100% efficiency), then you will have way more than 104 dB of SPL measured 1m away. This goes back to me using efficiency and sensitivity almost interchangeably and you objecting to that. I do it because the two are strongly related. As I posted earlier from: http://www.trueaudio.com/post_002.htm By the way a 100% efficient speaker would convert 1 Watt of electrical energy into 1 Watt of acoustical energy to produce 112.1 dB SPL at 1 meter when radiating into half space. This same 100% efficient speaker would achieve only 106.1 dB SPL radiating into full space. From the above I then estimated that 104 dB sensitivity translates to about 4% electrical to acoustic conversion efficiency. The two figures are related. The only other variable is how much angle the sound is transfered to (sphere, half-sphere, less). You wrote: If a speaker were designed to be 98% efficient, it might still only be set at 104 dB sensitivity. But, the amount of power required to get that 104dB would be drastically reduced The first part of that is wrong and the second part contradicts the first part. Nothing personal Jan. |
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Silver Member Username: T_bomb25Dayton, Ohio United States Post Number: 647 Registered: Jun-05 | Yep KEGGER those are it,stunning looking arent they? you should hear them in action,yes they create real action! |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5003 Registered: May-04 | Peter - You've lost me with the numbers. Your method would seem to allow no deviation for individual designs. The idea that a speaker can ever reach 100% efficiency is a theoretical. I see your numbers as allowing for no variation in the actual construction of the speaker itself. The issue, as I see it, is to make speakers more efficient overall. Not to make all speakers the same. Is there any transfer of power where one form of energy is transduced to another form of energy that is 100% efficient outside of the laboratory? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5004 Registered: May-04 | And, yes, on a technical level I do object to using sensitivity as an interchangeable term with efficiency. They are not the same. It is like using "ain't" instead "is not". It ain't Kosher! Being accepted by the general public does not make it correct. As a scientist, I would think you would have strong disagreements with mixing definitions. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1218 Registered: Feb-04 | Jan, Forget about the 100% number. It's only meant as an easy example and makes no difference. Energy is energy. You can think of SPL as sound energy density per unit volume. So if you dissipate 1 Watt of acoustical energy and manage to reduce the size of the radiating cone it is projected into, than the sound density will be higher and the sound will be louder. So think of sensitivity as efficiency per radiating unit. If you have two designs that convert 10% of the input electrical energy and dump in into the same dispersion pattern, then they will be equally loud and have the same sensitivity. The actual constructions used don't matter a bit. Does this help? |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2603 Registered: Dec-03 | Jan I think I would have to somewhat agree with peter. If we make the speaker more effecient meaning it takes less power to produce sound and if now we only have to put in say .25 watts to produce 100db of sound at 1 meter then what happens when we put in a full watt of power? wouldn't we get more db at 1 meter and in essence the rated efficency of the speaker would increase when tested at 1 meter with 1 one watt of power if we increase excactly how efficent the speaker is? I really don't see how you can have one without the other. I'm not saying they should increase linear but if you make the speaker more efficent it seems it would have to increase the overall efficency output rating. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5007 Registered: May-04 | Kegger - I going to give a John A. answer here and say your .25 watts for 100dB is a red herring. Firstly, no one is recommending changing the way the measuerment is taken. Secondly, no, the efficiency of the speaker does not change in your example. Just the SPL which is generally accepted as a measure of sensitivity to one watt input and not a measure of efficiency. (This is the issue of the two terms being sloppily used interchangeably when they should mean different things.) I can think of no instance where the term "efficiency output" is applicable. (I just know Peter's going to come up with an example.) Someone can correct me (go ahead, Peter), but efficiency is measured in percentage which (in the instance of a loudspeaker) is a measure of loss. So the idea that we can measure the loss we output is a bit opposite what I can envision and certainly goes against the goal of higher efficiency. Peter - I can think horizontally. I can think vertically. I can think in depth. I can even spend some time thinking. What you seem to be asking me to do is think in a new dimension that is only possible on paper, chalk board or a computer screen. Your sensitivity over the radiating area would appear to be mixing what we are trying to measure to come up with the result you desire. This would be analogous to measuring an "absorption coefficient" as 0.06 for the wavelength entering the material then saying if we make the surface area of the material larger or smaller, we can change the equation. However, when we do that we must measure with a different yardstick; we must now measure in Sabins. With that measurement, we can achieve a Sabin number of 6 if the panel is large enough. I think you be messing with me, Peter! In terms of the construction I would make three points. 1) You are once again speaking in the theoretical when you say construction wouldn't matter. Of course, construction would matter; that is what accounts for the variance in efficiencies we see today. As I said, the goal is to increase the overall efficiency of all speakers; not to reach some theory driven impossibility. 2) When I spoke of construction, I was referring to the overall construction of a loudspeaker system. I doubt, even if we get to 98% efficiency, we can change the fact that a ported speaker will be more sensitive than a sealed box. 3) You say forget the 100% figure as it was just a convenient number. But, wasn't that what your argument to my 98% efficiency at 104db hinged upon? You seem to be wanting to have it both ways, Peter. Finally, how relevant is this discussion at this point? |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2605 Registered: Dec-03 | I agree with you Jan the discussion really means nothing. But I stick by my statement, if the speaker becomes more efficent and we put the same amount of power to it we will get a higher SPL which in terms sounds like to me the measurment of the speakers sensitivity would have to go up also. IMHO |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5009 Registered: May-04 | You get no disagreement from me on that statement, Kegger. But that is not what you originally wrote. In the first post, you never included the term "sensitivity". |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2606 Registered: Dec-03 | Now that you mention it and I look back your right! instead of this: "I really don't see how you can have one without the other. I'm not saying they should increase linear but if you make the speaker more efficent it seems it would have to increase the overall efficency output rating." I should of put: I really don't see how you can have one without the other. I'm not saying they should increase linear but if you make the speaker more efficent it seems it would have to increase the overall sensitivity output rating. |
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Gold Member Username: KeggerWarren, MICHIGAN Post Number: 2607 Registered: Dec-03 | That's what I meant, but I guess I didn't put it accross correctly. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5013 Registered: May-04 | That's OK. It's the thought that counts. (smiley) |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1222 Registered: Feb-04 | Okay Jan... Once more. I agree I need a chalk board! The construction doesn't matter in so far that: - if both designs acheived the same efficiency (be it 100%, 98% or 4%), - if both design radiated in the same way then both designs would have the same sensitivity. If you input 1W and 0.98W of acoustic power comes out along and 0.02W of heat (98% efficiency), and that 0.98W is spread over a given area, then the measured sensitivity is be predetermined by those two parameters. Two designs with the same efficiency and sound spread area will yield the same sensitivity. 1W of acoustic power spread over a uniform sphere produces 112W measured 1m away. Better? |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5017 Registered: May-04 | I can live with that. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1223 Registered: Feb-04 | Make that 112 dB when radiating into a half-sphere. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5025 Registered: May-04 | Sure, get me to agree to something then start changing the numbers. Are you an insurance agent in your spare time? |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 739 Registered: Sep-04 | Hi guys, Sorry about this mess. I think Jan's descriptions of what I intended were bang on. My point was not that I wanted louder loudspeakers, just more efficient ones. So I still want to produce a maximum of 112db in the room, but I want to do it with a lot less energy. After all, we all know that very sensitive speakers are much easier to blow than less sensitive ones. This is because you simply can't put 60 watts or more into a speaker that's 100db/w/m sensitive - it'll break. My theoretical 95% efficient speaker would also break with more than 3 or 4 watts of power. I'm fine with that provided the theoretical amplifier driving it had the usual range of operation that produces 60 - 112db in the room when combined with these theoretical speakers. In other words, my hearing's not changing (I hope), I just want the method of reproducing music to be more efficient. Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1225 Registered: Feb-04 | After all, we all know that very sensitive speakers are much easier to blow than less sensitive ones. This is because you simply can't put 60 watts or more into a speaker that's 100db/w/m sensitive - it'll break. The above is flawed... Why would sensitive speakers be easier to break? Is that for a given SPL or a given input power? Why would you think you can't put 60W into a 100 dB/W/m sensitivity speaker? My 104 dB/W/m sensitivity speakers are rated at 100W continuous and peaks of 400W, and I've certainly driven them to peaks of 120W and more according to the LED power meters on one of my power amps (assuming an 8 omhs load). I used to DJ with La Scala's in large rooms when I was much younger. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5027 Registered: May-04 | Frank - I had hoped to make a decent argument for your cause. Let me interject my thoughts about the implications of more efficient loudspeakers. I think Peter put it plainly enough for everyone to understand. Energy is energy. The consumer audio industry is in the business of reproducing energy in our homes. Hopefully as little extraneous energy (distortion) as possible is added to the original source so we can extract just the signal generating energy that mirrors the original performance. As we send that signal along its path from source to loudspeaker, at each step we sacrifice some of that energy for heat loss. As I've said, other that in a theory within a lab this loss is inevitable in the real world. When the signal finally arrives at the loudspeaker which is a transducer converting one form of energy to another form of energy, we find our largest losses in the reproduction chain. (This is also true of the other transducers in the reproduction chain though to a lesser extent.) In the current situation we throw away as much as 97% of what comes in to the speaker terminals as heat. Energy is energy! What are we throwing away? What generated that energy in the first place? If it is not distortion, it can only be a signal that was part of the original source - music! Using the inefficient speaker systems that we have come to accept, we are literally throwing music up the smokestack. Anyone who has listened to a more efficient design such as the Klipschorn realizes the tremendous amount of dynamic energy that is squandered in the typical box speaker. I've told before of demonstrating the Horns against a large IMF transmission line where the TL made very impressive bass on the final moments of "The Firebird Suite" by pegging the meters on a 250 watt McIntosh power amplifier. The same signal repeated through the Klipsch used less than 10 watts and flapped pantslegs. Everyone in the store knew they couldn't deny what the Klipschorn does well. A large portion of the energy wasted in a conventional loudspeaker goes into heating the X-over. The more complex and reactive the X-over design, the more heat is generated - and energy/music lost - as the amplifier tries to slug its way through the inductors, capacitors and resistors in the circuit. Take away that X-over and you will hear the effect of getting music directly to the driver even though they toss off most of the incoming energy as heat also. The single driver crowd knows this all too well; that is why they are teaming the simplest cirucits, a single ended triode device, with a single driver with no X-over. And getting more music than anyone using a HT reciever packed with components could ever imagine. Tim's speaker is in my house now for a listen. It is at the beginning of the single driver movement; trying to take the idea to a logical conclusion that will be acceptable to the public. (Because of the inefficiencies in driver design, most single driver speakers are going to remain far outside the accceptable range of domestic habitation for a long time to come.) One of the qualities of Tim's design that is striking to me is the immediacy of the music. Whether there are other aspects of Tim's speakers I do or don't care for will wait for more listening and contemplation. But, the point here is taking away anything that is extraneous to the speaker's function, as we have been told is "necessary" by the conventional speaker manufacturers, makes the music totally different than what we are accustomed to hearing. This is where the benefit of more efficient speakers gets my vote. When more of the energy that goes into the system is used to reproduce the music signal we are trying to get out of the system, more of the energy that went into the performance will arrive in our listening rooms. That is what I've been trying to achieve for the last forty years. It is only the industry which is supplying me the equipment to do that job that is holding me back. I hate to repeat the same analogy, but it is similar to all of our energy concerns. We accept what we persently have because so few have bothered to show us anything different. When they have, they have been written off as the lunatic fringe. As the lyrics go on Dark Side of the Moon; "I know I'm crazy; I've always been crazy." |
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Silver Member Username: Frank_abelaBerkshire UK Post Number: 745 Registered: Sep-04 | Peter, It was my impression that sensitive speakers tend to be more delicate than less sensitive ones. Perhaps I'm wrong on that. Regards, Frank. |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1228 Registered: Feb-04 | Frank, I suppose there might be cases where that's true depending on the design. The Klipschorn is very efficient, and this efficiency comes from horn-loading. If the aim to get the air in the room to carry pressure waves by moving a diaphram (e.g. a woofer), then simply placing the woofer next to the air and moving it back and forth doesn't lead to a very efficient energy transfer. Very little of the woofer motion gets carried over to the surrounding air. The exponential horn is a very efficient way to gradually transfer this energy over to the air. Therefore, the woofer needs less excursion to transfer the same energy and also feels much more resistance air pressure when it tries to move. The coupling is more efficient. Less excursion means less breakage. For mid-horns and horn-tweeters, the metal diaphrams are very study and last a very long time. My 27 and 32 year-old speakers are still like new. So horn-loading leads to very sturdy speakers. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5031 Registered: May-04 | "The Klipschorn is very efficient" NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!! The Klipschorn is very sensitive! It remains a speaker that is less than 10% efficient in turning electrical power into acoustic power. Haven't I made any progress in this discussion? |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1231 Registered: Feb-04 | It's all relative Jan. It's way more efficient at 4% than others at 0.1%. I can say it's efficient and you know what I mean. I can say (using more words) that it has high sensitivity and you will understand. But surely I can't say it's very sensitive, can I? We'd have to be carefu not to hurt its feelings! ;-) As it happens, creating pressure waves in air is difficult to do. So perhaps you just have to accept that 4% efficiency is still a high number for that task. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5034 Registered: May-04 | NDGHDKRTRC NWUTRWKVDA OPYUIUWC !!!!!! |
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Silver Member Username: Devils_advocatePost Number: 175 Registered: Jul-05 | Did someone blow a gasket? |
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Bronze Member Username: QuinnPost Number: 23 Registered: Aug-05 | "Did someone blow a gasket?" I think he is just sensitive but that post didn't seem very efficient. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5036 Registered: May-04 | OK, try this. Heat is ultimately what damages most speaker components. Either from being driven by an amplifier in clipping and the nonlinear distortion product causes excessive heat until the voice coil and/or X-over is finally melted down and fused into one big wad of copper or aluminum. Or, by a driver being driven beyond its limits and the friction of the nonlinear movement in the voice coil builds up until the driver's motor is finally destroyed. Either way, build a more efficient loudspeaker and you eliminate a major source of failure in drivers. |
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Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigneDallas, TX Post Number: 5037 Registered: May-04 | "I think he is just sensitive but that post didn't seem very efficient." ha |
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Gold Member Username: PetergalbraithRimouski, Quebec Canada Post Number: 1232 Registered: Feb-04 | Okay, okay... I'll be more sensitive about using the word efficient. (Not as funny the second time, huh?) Have a good weekend guys! I'm outta here! |
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Silver Member Username: Devils_advocatePost Number: 177 Registered: Jul-05 | "(Not as funny the second time, huh?) " Not really, but we've come to accept your quirky Canadian humor. Enjoy your weekend Peter. |
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