Interesting thread here on pfm...

[Marco]

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=166614

Well, are you? I most certainly am… Wide baffles do it best, baby!! :hairmetal: :exactly:

Marco.

[Macca]

LOL - I was reading that earlier and thinking 'Marco would like this thread'.

17 inches here - never mind the quality, measure the width :)

[Marco]

Indeed. Skinny floor-standers are for panty-soakers and weenie-boy SWMBO slaves...

28” of wide-boy madness here! :eyebrows:

Marco.

[Gordon Steadman]

No doubt there are good and bad in both formats. However, there is definitely something about a good big bass unit that, if I'm not listening to the Quads, does it for me. The Teufels with their six 6" bass units just didn't seem to move the air the way my single 12"ers do. The bass has a totally different quality - better or worse, who knows? I know which I prefer though.

[struth]

I must stop soaking my weany panties then as mines' tiny

[PaulStewart]

Indeed. Skinny floor-standers are for panty-soakers and weenie-boys.

28” of wide-boy madness here! :eyebrows:

Marco.

Marco, whereas I agree totally and have as you know the same myself, I love the way you can be relied on to lower the tone faster than a tart can drop her drawers :lol:


No doubt there are good and bad in both formats. However, there is definitely something about a good big bass unit that, if I'm not listening to the Quads, does it for me. The Teufels with their six 6" bass units just didn't seem to move the air the way my single 12"ers do. The bass has a totally different quality - better or worse, who knows? I know which I prefer though.

I know what you mean Gordon, I think multiple drivers covering the same frequency, present their own problems. A good, fast big bass moving the air and PROPERLY ALIGNED MID AND TWEETER are the secret to great imaging. Cue the Dual Concentric fan club :)

[User211]

I think it is all a bit baffling.:eyebrows:

[Frazeur1]

I fail miserably at all acounts, no super wide baffle, drivers misaligned and pointed every which way, guess I best throw the Obelisks in the dumpster this evening! Hah!

The good thing is I enjoy all types of speaker, just keep the music going.

[YNWaN]

I own relatively wide baffle speakers but don't have any strong feelings regarding them one way or the other. Many of the attributes associated with them on the PFM thread have nothing to do with them being wide baffled or not and more to do with just having a big bass driver.

[Ali Tait]

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Marco, whereas I agree totally and have as you know the same myself, I love the way you can be relied on to lower the tone faster than a tart can drop her drawers :lol:



I know what you mean Gordon, I think multiple drivers covering the same frequency, present their own problems. A good, fast big bass moving the air and PROPERLY ALIIGNED MID AND TWEETER are the secret to great imaging. Cue the Dual Concentric fan club :)

Agreed. I run OB's with twin 15" bass helpers per side, working up to 200hz. Upward from there is taken care of with a Visaton B200 wide range driver per side. Baffle is 21".

[Macca]

Somthing to do with the baffle-step effect cancelling certian bass wavelengths, apparantly, although I don't pretend to understand it.

As Mark says my speakers are wide because they have to fit a 15 inch bass driver in there. And I'd guess that Marco's are wide because the cab is a thousand litres or something silly so if you made it narrow it would have to be stupidly deep to get it up to the right cubic volume.

[Reffc]

It is an interesting thread but the same old chestnut appears to crop up every time this subject is raised on forums, ie wide baffle speakers don't image, which is a complete audio myth, plain and simple. I have dropped in a response fwiw. To save folk the bother, I've cut and pasted my response below:


FWIW, the old chestnut about wide baffles not imaging well is an audio myth! There's far more to imaging than baffle width. Off-axis driver response, driver positioning, crossover design and baffle design all play a part. The RFC Rhapsodys are a wide baffle design and image as well as any bookshelf mount speaker I've ever heard.

As Orangeart mentions, there are some advantages to wider baffles (2 Pi directivity, better efficiency etc) but rounding the edges ONLY works if the radius is large enough and it really needs to be 100mm or better to have much effect. Choice of tweeter also plays a big part. Tweeters using waveguides generally perform better in wider baffles than those without plus diffraction can easily be treated using acoustic felt surrounding the tweeter. (which, as with the Rhapsodys can be built into the grilles). Diffraction tends to be less of an issue with woofers which start to beam in 2 pi space irrespective of baffle width once frequency rises to C(m/s)/d where C = speed of sound and d = diameter of driver.

Narrow baffle speakers proliferate not because (or purely because) of diffraction issues but because it's easier and cheaper to build the cabinets and make them stiff enough; because modern low Qtc drivers only need smaller cabinet volumes; due to fashionable and more marketable smaller footprint and due to the greater ease of tweeter placement to limit diffraction effects. Narrow baffles still have diffraction issues, its just that the reinforcement of the frequencies at which diffraction is problematical can be broken up to lower the amplitude of diffracted sound by placing tweeters slightly off axis.

As to the question "is there any argument for square corners over rounded?"....no, not really any compelling arguments. Square is easier and cheaper to build. Providing that diffraction effects are considered in the design, they can also be perfectly acceptable. The overall shape of the cabinets plays a part. Best shape from a diffraction perspective is a spheroid. Next best would be a cylinder with flat sides top and bottom. An oblong with sloped sides/edges (or rounded) isn't bad and a rectangle is also ok-ish providing driver placement or control of diffraction is considered. Worst shapes by far are a circle (end of a cylinder with the driver in it) or a square/cuboid. These last two are the worst performing RE diffraction effects and should be avoided in speaker design.
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[Ali Tait]

Have to agree, my OB's image extremely well.

[Lynster]

I'm a bit baffled actually.:eyebrows: My Vandies would be more appropriately described as a 'wide sock' design! Minimum internal baffles for each driver but a very wide speaker nevertheless. Not sure where I stand on this one.:doh:

[walpurgis]

Imaging is a very difficult thing to interpret. Only your ears tell you if it seems right. No measuring equipment in the world can tell you if it's right (or sounds as if it is). You can measure all sorts of parameters and still not know how something actually sounds.

For instance, the big old (wide baffled) IMF transmission lines with their (mirror image) scattering of drivers looked as if imaging would be terrible, but it was actually pretty good.

I reckon source configuration has much to do with how we perceive the sound image (imaging), but what works? (my Tannoys work for me by the way)

[Sal4070]

It's synergy and balance you need in a system , and im shure room accoustics play an important role here ,if it sounds great after the honey moon period of wanting it drooling after it and convincing yourself I need it ,it will sound better than ! My old piece of kit and it does then no foul it's a life long obsession if you've been bitten by the hifi bug , I was bitten at the age of 14 in Cardiff quad 33 ,303 Quad esl 57s and I think a linn turntable , I'm 57 and still looking for the perfect sound lol happy Christmas to you all

[petrat]

Like many here, I've owned lots of different speakers, mostly mini-monitors and slim floor-standers. Tellingly, the ones I've kept are the two wide baffle ones, Tannoy Canterburys and Audio Note Es, both being somehow more convincing. Mind you, the most spectacular 'imaging' I ever heard was from a pair of (narrow baffle) Audio Physics Virgos, set up about a mile apart ... vocalist in your face, drums in the garden, guitarist in the kitchen, backing vocalists next door ... spectacular, but wholly unrealistic :D

[Marco]

For me, the best wide-baffle speakers imbue music with a sense of scale and realism that their ‘diddy-sized’ counterparts simply can’t manage :)

Marco.