Small Speaker Kool-Aid
- Thread starter soundhound
- Start date
soundhound
Well-Known Member
TKoP said:
I never said anything about a large speaker and a small speaker of equal price points; that's impossible to do because obviously the large speaker will involve quality cuts. I always assume a quality product in each category, and never imply a cheaper verses more expensive product with the same specifications, because quality cannot be maintained; something must give to get more for the same money.
As an example, my words got twisted in regard to stereo subs too; I NEVER said that two stereo CHEAP subs are better than one QUALITY sub. My intention always is that stereo QUALITY subs are better than a single sub of equal quality.
soundhound
Well-Known Member
yromj said:
See my previous reply. Large QUALITY speakers will always cost more than small speakers of equal quality. I simply meant that larger speakers (with larger drivers) will have a better sense of scale than small speakers (with smaller drivers) of equal quality.
yromj
Well-Known Member
SH: Exactly, the key word being "quality". The unfortunate part is that the sole judge of quality is often price. In other words, all $1,000 speakers may be considered as equal by some; but, in reality, using the same quality components on a larger scale will inherently cost more (another way of stating what you said).
John
John
Coytee
Member
I don't profess to know the "real" answer.... but here's my thoughts.
I too love HUGE scale. To that end, I've always been a horn person and currently have some decent sized horns in the living room.
Wondering about scale, I once sent an email to an engineer I know who works at Klipsch.
Basically, I said "if you have a pair of Heresy's playing 100 db's at the seating position and then exchange them for a pair of Jubilee's ALSO playing 100 db's at the seating position, why do the Jubilee's seem so much larger in scale?"
I'm going to try to attach a drawing I just did to illustrate my understanding of the answer.
Bottome line, they (Klipsch) target "even coverage" (or maybe some other fancy term for same thing)
Rather than a narrow beam of focused sound at 100 db's at my seating position, the larger speakers disperse the sound better such that it's more of a wall of sound coming out of the speaker.
In other words, while listening to the Heresy's, once you get out of the point of focus, the sound dropps off (the scale dies). With the larger speakers, you get that same 100 db's at more points in the room, therefore the scale is/seems larger.
I might add this sense of scale does not mean LOUD.... it is there at normal volumes as well. This suggests to me that if you had an electrostatic, horn, ported... speaker that had similar COVERAGE characteristics, that you might get better scale with all of them.
That's my layman understanding....... it all begins with the coverage angles of the speakers.
For those of you who are envious of my drawing abilities, I'll be happy to teach you all of my drawing skills :text-imsorry: .... for a fee.... :teasing-neener:
I too love HUGE scale. To that end, I've always been a horn person and currently have some decent sized horns in the living room.
Wondering about scale, I once sent an email to an engineer I know who works at Klipsch.
Basically, I said "if you have a pair of Heresy's playing 100 db's at the seating position and then exchange them for a pair of Jubilee's ALSO playing 100 db's at the seating position, why do the Jubilee's seem so much larger in scale?"
I'm going to try to attach a drawing I just did to illustrate my understanding of the answer.
Bottome line, they (Klipsch) target "even coverage" (or maybe some other fancy term for same thing)
Rather than a narrow beam of focused sound at 100 db's at my seating position, the larger speakers disperse the sound better such that it's more of a wall of sound coming out of the speaker.
In other words, while listening to the Heresy's, once you get out of the point of focus, the sound dropps off (the scale dies). With the larger speakers, you get that same 100 db's at more points in the room, therefore the scale is/seems larger.
I might add this sense of scale does not mean LOUD.... it is there at normal volumes as well. This suggests to me that if you had an electrostatic, horn, ported... speaker that had similar COVERAGE characteristics, that you might get better scale with all of them.
That's my layman understanding....... it all begins with the coverage angles of the speakers.
For those of you who are envious of my drawing abilities, I'll be happy to teach you all of my drawing skills :text-imsorry: .... for a fee.... :teasing-neener:
Attachments
soundhound
Well-Known Member
Coytee said:
I don't buy the Klipsch answer that dispersion is the reason. If that were true, then any number of small speakers which have wide dispersion would have a similar sense of scale as a much larger speaker.
Coytee
Member
I don't know if it matters or if we're on semantics...
I would think there is a difference between "wide disperson" and "even coverage"
The way I understood it their goal is to have the same impact of sound as evenly balanced as they can and then, make this some certain angle if distribution.
I'm sure there's more to it (he knew he was not talking to a technical type) and I'm sure the raw efficiency of something like their Khorns come into play verses another speaker (even if large) that comes in at 95db/watt verses 104.
(I don't know, just speculateing)
I CAN however say that I was once at one of their public events at their HQ in Indianapolis. They had their Jubilee speaker set up in a very large (double wide) banquet room.
The speakers had their huge 402 horn on one pair and on the other pair, the much smaller K510 horn.
I joined the crowd to walk in front of speaker set A and then B to hear them. Then, because I already had a pair, I decided to sit down. By happenstance, I sat pretty much in the middle of the room, between both pair of speakers.
When they played the units with the large horn (the top horn in my avatar) I was sitting there finding my toe tapping to the music. I will add for the 2 cents its worth, I could NOT see down the throat of the horn, I was outside the edge of it.
They then switched to the other pair.
1. This was not scientific
2. This was not "controlled"
3. This was not to teach me anything
When they switched to the same speaker on the other side of the room with the SMALLER top horn, it then hit me.
I finally "got" what it means when people talk about even/constant coverage. I also finally "got" what people mean when they say a LaRGER horn would work better than a smaller horn...
What happend is, when the smaller horn was playing, a lot more of the top end was going straight out and less to the sides than with the larger horn.
My specific observations were much of the higher frequencies seemed to be muted.
I might add, they were trying to play them at similar levels (not scientific) and had a db meter there to try to dial things in.
So the net effect is the speaker set with the smaller horn, directed more of its energy "straight out" than the one with the larger horn.
Standing on axis with both of them, they sounded fantastic. Standing off axis, the output of the larger horn exceeded the smaller horn, sounded better and had more balance.
All that to say, I'm sure there are more ingredients that go into the answer rather than my comments. Given however, some of the experiences I have had, asking the question specifically to Roy Delgado (PWK's right hand man for many years and co-designer of the Jubilee which was PWK's final project to improve the Khorn) I'm satisfied that for a lay answer, the even coverage angle would suffice for most non-hyper technical type.
Edit to add a second thought: Let me put it this way.... I think a speaker that has large scale probably has a more even pattern of coverage (among other attributes) than one that does not. Take away the even coverage and I'd wonder if that alone is enough to take away some of the scale?
I would think there is a difference between "wide disperson" and "even coverage"
The way I understood it their goal is to have the same impact of sound as evenly balanced as they can and then, make this some certain angle if distribution.
I'm sure there's more to it (he knew he was not talking to a technical type) and I'm sure the raw efficiency of something like their Khorns come into play verses another speaker (even if large) that comes in at 95db/watt verses 104.
(I don't know, just speculateing)
I CAN however say that I was once at one of their public events at their HQ in Indianapolis. They had their Jubilee speaker set up in a very large (double wide) banquet room.
The speakers had their huge 402 horn on one pair and on the other pair, the much smaller K510 horn.
I joined the crowd to walk in front of speaker set A and then B to hear them. Then, because I already had a pair, I decided to sit down. By happenstance, I sat pretty much in the middle of the room, between both pair of speakers.
When they played the units with the large horn (the top horn in my avatar) I was sitting there finding my toe tapping to the music. I will add for the 2 cents its worth, I could NOT see down the throat of the horn, I was outside the edge of it.
They then switched to the other pair.
1. This was not scientific
2. This was not "controlled"
3. This was not to teach me anything
When they switched to the same speaker on the other side of the room with the SMALLER top horn, it then hit me.
I finally "got" what it means when people talk about even/constant coverage. I also finally "got" what people mean when they say a LaRGER horn would work better than a smaller horn...
What happend is, when the smaller horn was playing, a lot more of the top end was going straight out and less to the sides than with the larger horn.
My specific observations were much of the higher frequencies seemed to be muted.
I might add, they were trying to play them at similar levels (not scientific) and had a db meter there to try to dial things in.
So the net effect is the speaker set with the smaller horn, directed more of its energy "straight out" than the one with the larger horn.
Standing on axis with both of them, they sounded fantastic. Standing off axis, the output of the larger horn exceeded the smaller horn, sounded better and had more balance.
All that to say, I'm sure there are more ingredients that go into the answer rather than my comments. Given however, some of the experiences I have had, asking the question specifically to Roy Delgado (PWK's right hand man for many years and co-designer of the Jubilee which was PWK's final project to improve the Khorn) I'm satisfied that for a lay answer, the even coverage angle would suffice for most non-hyper technical type.
Edit to add a second thought: Let me put it this way.... I think a speaker that has large scale probably has a more even pattern of coverage (among other attributes) than one that does not. Take away the even coverage and I'd wonder if that alone is enough to take away some of the scale?
soundhound
Well-Known Member
Smaller horns merely have a higher cutoff frequency than larger horns - it has absolutely nothing to do with dispersion or even coverage. Any size of horn can be made to have any dispersion coverage the designer wishes - dispersion is not a factor with horn size.
Hey, I'm a fan of large horns too...I just think your're on the wrong track with the dispersion thing.
Hey, I'm a fan of large horns too...I just think your're on the wrong track with the dispersion thing.
soundhound
Well-Known Member
Randy said:
Wide dispersion is easy to do. Even the early Bose 901 speakers did that, and they couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be described as having a good sense of scale. Soundstage is part of the recording (either its there or it isn't, depending on the skill of the engineer) and having an acoustic environment (the room) which does not distort the inherent imaging in the recording.
Zing said:
It's not just the total radiating area, as I get what SH said in his last post. I think it is the difference between a friend playing a guitar in your living room (smallish scale), a full band playing in a club (mediumish scale), and the Trans Siberian Orchestra playing in an arena (much more largey scale).
I am probably not describing it as well as I could, but I kinda get it. I know it is the difference between K-Horns and my Studio 20's. both are really good, I like both, but they are not the same experience.
It seems to be implied that a 12" driver will offer a larger sense of scale than a 7" driver will. That's makes perfect sense to me and I would expect that to be the case. But what about multiple drivers?
A 12" driver has 113 square inches of radiating area. Three 7" drivers have a combined 115 square inches of radiating area. If it's radiating area alone, triple 7s should offer the same sense of scale as a single 12. But if it's the size of the driver then no amount of 7" drivers will ever match the sonic scale of a single 12".
A 12" driver has 113 square inches of radiating area. Three 7" drivers have a combined 115 square inches of radiating area. If it's radiating area alone, triple 7s should offer the same sense of scale as a single 12. But if it's the size of the driver then no amount of 7" drivers will ever match the sonic scale of a single 12".
soundhound
Well-Known Member
Zing said:
I've never tested with one large driver verses multiple smaller ones, but I would imagine that it would still be true if the total radiating area is the same (within reason of course....fifty 2" drivers won't do...)
Hmm, I'd actually expect the opposite; reason being the outside emitting edge of the triple sevens are much farther apart than the outisde emitting edge of a single 12" driver.Zing said:Damn! Really?? If I were forced to wager, I'd bet the ranch that, say, the Heresy and its 12" driver would have a significantly larger scale than, say, the Studio 100 and its triple 7s would.soundhound said:
I'm actually thinking about the Very Large Array in New Mexico http://www.vla.nrao.edu/ while a receiver rather than a transmitter, works on the same principle.
soundhound
Well-Known Member
Uhhhhh...I think we're getting a bit out there......
SIMPLY....
Big ass speakers are better than wimpy teeny tiny little speakers. :music-rockout:
SIMPLY....
Big ass speakers are better than wimpy teeny tiny little speakers. :music-rockout: