What is the best type of speaker?

[cloth-ears]

Following on from another thread I was just wondering what people thought was the best type of speaker? Single full range driver, single dual dual-concentric or standard bass/mid with tweeter.

I have owned many speakers over the years including all of the above. I always come back to multiple drivers in a single box. Personally I believe that asking one single drive unit to do all the work is a bit much, a large dual-concentric sounds to me a little thin in the middle.

What do you think and why?

[loo]

Quad electrostatics they ain't perfect but what they do well is better than any alternative
Paul

[Gordon Steadman]

+1 for the electrostatics.

When it comes to boxes, then its as few drivers as I can get away with. Current favourite is a 12" with tweeter (admitedly with supertweeter added as the HF1300 cuts off a bit low)

Bigger the better for the main driver, never much like the sound made by small units covering the bass. OK for near field but move away and they just don't do it for me. I even prefer the 8" KEF B200 or Celestion 8" as a near field speaker.

[cloth-ears]

I had a pair or Quad electrostatics, ELS57’s for a long time. Excellent on vocal and jazz but a little naf on pop and rock. Ironically I sold them to a friend who was heavily into jazz. Not long after he had them he was burgled, they pretty much cleaned him out but left the 57’s behind. I suppose they thought they were storage heaters.

[hoopsontoast]

I am thinking that a wide range driver to cover the mid range from 300Hz-8kHz is the best solution, with a larger bass driver below and a ribbon on top.
Thats the plan anyway!

The best I have heard have been Quad 57s or Magnepan MMGs as long as you only have one person listening to them/small sweet spot (like myself).

[cloth-ears]

[QUOTE=hoopsontoast;491726]I am thinking that a wide range driver to cover the mid range from 300Hz-8kHz is the best solution, with a larger bass driver below and a ribbon on top.
Thats the plan anyway!

Me too:cool:

[Firebottle]

I'd agree on the ESL57. Putting them well in the clear, they are 1.5m from the back wall and suspended from the ceiling, has opened up the sweet spot area :thumbsup:

I suppose they are equivalent to being on quite tall stands, but from the ceiling as opposed to the floor.
I also partner them with a copy of an REL subwoofer, this fills in the bottom octave 25 - 50 Hz, superb.

:cool: Alan

[DSJR]

Quad 57's buzz and rattle on modern wide-range recordings and the treble 'beams' uncontrollably :) Still like what they do though :lol:

The best type of speaker is one where you can forget the mechanics of the reproduction and just enjoy the recorded musical 'event' as much as possible. This will mean different design approaches appealing to different people. In my opinion of course :)

[jollyfix]

The best type of speaker is one where you can forget the mechanics of the reproduction and just enjoy the recorded musical 'event' as much as possible. This will mean different design approaches appealing to different people. In my opinion of course :)
I am with you Dave.:)

[Gordon Steadman]

Quad 57's buzz and rattle on modern wide-range recordings and the treble 'beams' uncontrollably :) Still like what they do though :lol:

:)

Mine don't:scratch:

[Ammonite Audio]

Mine don't:scratch:

Neither do mine.

[walpurgis]

a large dual-concentric sounds to me a little thin in the middle.

Er, I don't think so!

[RobbieGong]

I am with you Dave.:)

Me too ;)

[SPS]

I had a pair of. 57's a few years ago, unfortunately not efficient enough for the amps i prefer to use, but a very good sound.

The corner ribbons i own are very nice, better from the mids up than the 57's in my view, its probably the best ribbon of its type sound quality wise, but the bass is not my thing.. Its still good though

I 've heard some very good single driver speakers, its more of an art to get the bass to sound right though i was into single driver speakers for quite a few years,i moved on from ns1000s to lowthers but i still own quite a few 'full range' drivers and a pair of acoustas somewhere

At the moment good open baffle bass and beyma amts are amongst the best i know of without spending a fortune.. Even if i did,i dont know what would be better for what i'm after. Before that i was using 3-4 way vitavox cds/ T900a tweeters and multiple open baffle bass, still have that lot too
I 'll go out of my way to hear something thats really good, and would change track just like that..

[electric beach]

The best type of speaker is one where you can forget the mechanics of the reproduction and just enjoy the recorded musical 'event' as much as possible. This will mean different design approaches appealing to different people. In my opinion of course :)

Right answer!

As all speakers are a balance of compromises it's necessary to qualify the term "best". Maybe best at being the least offensive, as often it's what a speaker doesn't do well that means you can't live with it. Or best balanced maybe.

For me it's a small, single wide range driver as the best compromise considering sound quality and domestic suitability. I strive for the most realistic and live sound that I can, which means my priorities are cohesion, dynamics, presence, speed and frequency range, as without those I hear a fine sounding reproduction rather than the illusion of the real thing.

[jandl100]

Yep, good post Dave, nowt's perfect (despite what some folks say about their own kit :eyebrows:) - everything is compromised to an extent - you just have to choose the balance of merit/demerit that suits your own preferences.

Stats are great (the aforementioned Quad 57 being one of my faves, despite the obvious treble beaming) but are often limited in low freqs, dynamics and scale.
Big woofers and a tweeter have an inevitable hole in the middle and usually bad tonal colourations often as a result of pushing drivers into regions where they are not entirely comfortable.
Single driver speakers are often tonally coloured and limited at the freq extremes.
Mutliple way speakers can get a lot right, but the complexities of x-overs inevitably lead to compromises of their own.
Horns can be phenomenally fast and dynamic, but watch out for colourations and resonances.

Choose your own poison and enjoy it. :cool:

[Oldpinkman]

I'd agree on the ESL57. Putting them well in the clear, they are 1.5m from the back wall and suspended from the ceiling, has opened up the sweet spot area :thumbsup:

I suppose they are equivalent to being on quite tall stands, but from the ceiling as opposed to the floor.
I also partner them with a copy of an REL subwoofer, this fills in the bottom octave 25 - 50 Hz, superb.

:cool: Alan

How do you wire that up Alan? Is it just a splitter from the preamp to the active sub, or something more elaborate?

Richard

[Macca]

In an ideal world everyone would use bespoke loudspeakers, tailored to the charcteristics of their listening room. In the real world as others have said it is a case of choosing your poison.

For me I would go for big three way box loudspeaker with 15 inch bass unit, very high quality mid and a tweeter. There is imo a lot of guff talked about tweeters, especially ribbons which are over-rated. The tweeter actually contributes very little, although you notice if they are not working. I have heard superb treble quality through 2 quid plastic tweeters and through Motorola piezo electrics also. It is the mid range driver that does all the important work. Anyway with my big three way I would minimise the crossover as much as possible, not worrying too much about flat FR or phase alignment. Kill the fat and you kill the burger. Ideally the mid should have a good mechanical roll-off at either end and possibly be used as a di-pole in an open backed cab - all the drivers to have their own cabs - with a podule for the tweeter to minimise diffraction. Sealed box box for the bass, no crappy ports. One day I will build such a thing :)

[hal55]

Many years ago I bought a small little book on loudspeaker designing. The lessen was that everything is a compromise, there just ain't one single best of since everything is a trade off.
(Finished off thinking the aperiodic loaded speaker was best - which is what I have now. Peter Comeau's WD 25T, and very nice it is too)

Hal55

[DSJR]

Maybe the music I played had too much low bass in it (them big Moogs can't arf power it out), but the 1978 made pair of 57's I know best, which were never thrashed in their cottage environment, were starting to suffer rattles on kick drums and there are also reports on the Yahoo Quad group of original examples being full of dust and debris now the youngest ones are well over forty years old. Sadly, 63's are suffering far more apparently as the adhesives used are breaking down on many now.


Anyways, about time I listened to some music via loudspeakers, rather than headphones, as I'm in danger of forgetting what it's like to 'feel' the music physically :(

[cloth-ears]

In an ideal world everyone would use bespoke loudspeakers, tailored to the charcteristics of their listening room. In the real world as others have said it is a case of choosing your poison.

For me I would go for big three way box loudspeaker with 15 inch bass unit, very high quality mid and a tweeter. There is imo a lot of guff talked about tweeters, especially ribbons which are over-rated. The tweeter actually contributes very little, although you notice if they are not working. I have heard superb treble quality through 2 quid plastic tweeters and through Motorola piezo electrics also. It is the mid range driver that does all the important work. Anyway with my big three way I would minimise the crossover as much as possible, not worrying too much about flat FR or phase alignment. Kill the fat and you kill the burger. Ideally the mid should have a good mechanical roll-off at either end and possibly be used as a di-pole in an open backed cab - all the drivers to have their own cabs - with a podule for the tweeter to minimise diffraction. Sealed box box for the bass, no crappy ports. One day I will build such a thing :)

Now that sounds good to me :cool:

[Firebottle]

How do you wire that up Alan? Is it just a splitter from the preamp to the active sub, or something more elaborate?

Richard
Look REL up on t'web. They have a variable frequency low pass filter so you just adjust this, plus the gain, to fill in what's missing from the main pair of speakers. The main pair are not filtered, limited or affected in any way.

:cool: Alan

[User211]

Very little I have heard that I prefer than Apogee's implementation of planar magnetic technology - with a few recent updates like revised x-overs and Graz ribbons. Not so keen on the smaller models, though e.g. Caliper. They need to be big to work well.

Avantgarde Trios with basshorns definitely manage it, though:)

[Oldpinkman]

Look REL up on t'web. They have a variable frequency low pass filter so you just adjust this, plus the gain, to fill in what's missing from the main pair of speakers. The main pair are not filtered, limited or affected in any way.

:cool: Alan

Yeah - my cambridge audio (for the home cinema) does the same. Same rca signal feeds by the look of things. Just tried a splitter to it for one channel and can't detect any degredation of sound doing so (without any sw gain). So have another splitter on order, and may invest in a decent sw.
Interesting Watson!. I object on religious grounds to tinkering with standard speakers where the crossovers were lovingly crafted, but done carefully this sub-woofer malarky seems to nicely fill in some bass without in any way degrading the main sound. May be resigning from the electrostatic club though, because theses ventricals are surprisingly similar, and a damn site more practical to share a room with.

Twas all this talk of 10ft drive cones, wardrobes and huge horns built into the walls that reminded me that one of my goals was to have the stuff in a normal house. I was about to audtion some Kef R700's (Blades are outside this years budget) but then thought how much I love the electrostatic sound and thought I'd play with sw's. The ventricals claim to go down to 40Hz at the -3db level (40-20k +-3db ), but sound noticeably lighter in the bass as you move them away from the rear wall (which improves the depth of soundstage in spades)

Roped Mrs S in to have a listen since I couldn't listen and twiddle me knobs at the same time. Very interesting comment. I started with a generous dose of sw and gradually reduced it to nothing. Comment "what are you changing? Katie is climbing up the TV" (We have a flat screen between our speakers - the effect of reducing the bass was to make the imaging for the vocals seem to be higher off the ground - or the bass moved the vocals closer to the ground. Went round and checked for myself - definitely happens!)

Will play more :cool:

PS there was a note in the letterbox for me to collect a parcel from the PO - so hopefully your MC stage has arrived :)

[Oldpinkman]

Now that sounds good to me :cool:

Like the B&W DM-70 washing mashines? :eyebrows: