Speaker users recommendations ?

[steve-z]

One thing for certain Steve is that no matter what loudspeakers you own, there are always going to be ones out there that are different and almost certainly better to your ears. You just have to find that happy balance and find the ones that are for you.

That’s very true, with speakers it can be very much horses for courses as well as the listening room playing it’s part in the end result. The Jordan Eikona 2 VTLs I’m using to my mind are beyond criticism, they just seem to do everything right, doesn’t matter what the genre, everything is reproduced beautifully, they even have enough clout without the need for a sub for reproducing action movie soundtracks. A friend of mine has the smaller Reflex 7s which he found to be excellent, on the strength of their performance he now has the (much more expensive) Jordan Aurora 800s, he’s had plenty of very good and expensive speakers in the past but considers the Auroras the best he’s ever owned.


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[steve-z]

Well I took a friends advice and bought a pair of Q Acoustics 2020i speakers, spurred on by the fact that Richer Sound have shaved a further £20 off the price, now down to a paltry £79, at that I couldn’t resist the temptation. I’ve had them setup in the bedroom for a week now and tbh if there’s a better speaker for anything like the money I’d love to hear them. For the price the SQ is exceptional, they major on clarity and detail with a fair dose of dynamics and bass weight too, they certainly don’t lack bass as has been suggested in fact when placed close to the back wall there was a little too much of it, having now brought them forward 6” or so, increased the spacing and toed them in the balance is much better. In my room there is a slight unevenness which shows up with a frequency sweep, the bass is well maintained down to 70hz and then drops noticeably but comes back close to reference level at 50hz before calling it a day at about 40hz, I had a feeling the dip could be a room effect so I replayed the sweep and listened again from the landing outside the open bedroom door, sure enough there was more energy between 50-70hz although still down slightly from reference level. I think the slight drop in that area is port output taking over from the direct driver output, not uncommon when speaker designers try to make small speakers produce low bass. Some years ago a friend of mine had a pair of Monitor Audio Studio 20 floor standers which had an even more pronounced droop in response at 55-80hz, it was shown clearly in MA’s own on axis response plot, they were not small speakers but the bass driver was only 5” like the 2020i. It made a lot of pop music in particular sound a bit “thin”.
For £79 I’m delighted with the SQ and the slight anomaly in the bass only shows up on certain tracks most noticeable for me on “Doin’ it Right” on Daft Punks Random Access Memories, the song has 3 prominent bass notes of slightly different frequencies, all 3 play back at exactly the same level on my Jordan Eikona 2 VTLs in my living room, with the 2020i in the bedroom one note is at the right level the other 2 are probably 4-6dbs down. For the money though it’s a very small criticism particularly as they do everything else so well.


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[struth]

Make good speakers QA. ive had a few pairs, and currently have a set of their actives.

[steve-z]

Make good speakers QA. ive had a few pairs, and currently have a set of their actives.

Are they the BT3s that you have ? they look a very neat solution for a lot of people for not much money ( currently £179)


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[Haselsh1]

but the bass driver was only 5” like the 2020i.

No mate, five inch drivers are never going to reproduce low frequencies unless you double up on them or add ABR's with a fairly big cabinet. In some ways though small drivers act like a low frequency blocking filter enabling the mids to be considerably better than they may have been. I love the Q Acoustics small speakers and would happily look at them again if I had to.

[steve-z]

No mate, five inch drivers are never going to reproduce low frequencies unless you double up on them or add ABR's with a fairly big cabinet. In some ways though small drivers act like a low frequency blocking filter enabling the mids to be considerably better than they may have been. I love the Q Acoustics small speakers and would happily look at them again if I had to.

I’m afraid I have to disagree with you on that one, small drivers are very capable of producing deep bass in the right setup, a case in point are the Jordan Eikona 2s in my primary system VTLs which manage to have a flat response in my living room to just below 40hz with a final tailing off at 32hz, a friend of mine has a pair of the same drivers in the MLTL cabinet design which takes the response down to 28hz, the Eikona 2 only has a 4” cone (admittedly a very expensive one)


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[walpurgis]

I’m afraid I have to disagree with you on that one, small drivers are very capable of producing deep bass in the right setup

True!

Anybody in doubt, look up the ancient 'Daline' speaker design. It sported a five inch KEF B110 driver and could reach down to 30Hz (with reduced amplitude).

The thing about small drivers, is that it takes a bit of crafty design to get output continuing below the driver resonance. The limiting factor is the level of output. You won't get high levels (unless you use a monstrous bass horn).

Bose used four inch drivers in the old 901 speaker and that was flat down to about 35 Hz and extended below. But each box had nine drivers and much equalisation was employed.

[steve-z]

True!

Anybody in doubt, look up the ancient 'Daline' speaker design. It sported a five inch KEF B110 driver and could reach down to 30Hz (with reduced amplitude).

The thing about small drivers, is that it takes a bit of crafty design to get output continuing below the driver resonance. The limiting factor is the level of output. You won't get high levels (unless you use a monstrous bass horn).

Many years (30+) ago I had a pair of Meridian M3 active speakers which used the B110 bass unit, they were fairly small speaker which employed some equalisation to get the response down to 38hz, unfortunately the bass power handling was terrible even at modest volume levels they would hit the endstops on bass transients, then again it’s a pretty cheap unit wasad, and not in the Eikonas league, btw the Eikonas free air resonance is at 43hz.
Although my VTLs have only the 1 driver per cabinet they give me more than enough volume level in my living room, my normal listening level is around the 9 o'clock level on the CXA60s volume control, as a test I once advanced the volume to the 12 o'clock position playing some very bass heavy music just to see how much cone deflection there was on the Eikonas, judged by eye I'm guessing it was probably only +/- 3mm, certainly within the Jordan spec of +/- 5mm of linear travel and well under the +/- 10mm maximum, at that level the volume was antisocial to say the least although the sound was still perfectly clean with quite a bit more in reserve.

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[fatmarley]

The thing about small drivers, is that it takes a bit of crafty design to get output continuing below the driver resonance. The limiting factor is the level of output. You won't get high levels (unless you use a monstrous bass horn).

That's right - My headphones get down to 20hz with a 40mm driver.

[Haselsh1]

Then perhaps you could explain to me why almost all professional bass drivers are around fifteen inches...? The bigger the driver, the lower it can go and the more air it can shift. A five inch driver is just never going to compete in anything like a real world situation. Even doubling up on five inch drivers does not work as good as one big driver. ABR's are also a heavy compromise.