Does size matter?

[Marco]

LOL. I'm lovin' this.



Marco.

[WikiBoy]

LOL. I'm lovin' this.



Marco.

Then why not contribute instead of sitting on your arse eating popcorn!

[Marco]

All in good time, old chap

I thought that I'd let the 'heavyweights' have their say first

Marco.

[Filterlab]

Then why not contribute instead of sitting on your arse eating popcorn!

Because watching and chomping is just as much fun!

[Lowrider]

All in good time, old chap

I thought that I'd let the 'heavyweights' have their say first

Marco.

I am no heavyweight, and need help...

[Mr. C]

Hi Tony,

Good post, and I agree with much of what you say. Maybe the best answer then is a (very) large stand-mount speaker, which gives you the scale and 'physicality' of a decent sized floor-stander, and also the 'intimacy' and 'communication skills' of a quality small stand-mount?

Hi Marco,

Again there is a good case for this standpoint as well.
Room size could be the deciding in the selection of this type of speaker for sure.
I have also explored this option too with quite surprisingly good results, sometimes I use the Focal Utopia L & R surround speaker, don't let the surround speaker tag fool you.
This a genuine stereo 'Full range' stand-mount speaker, basically a Micro Utopia with another midrange 6.5" driver coupled with a 10" bass driver to cater for the lower frequencies, which is also reversible for room positions.
It has exceptional dispersion characteristics, coupled with the Be tweeter.
Again I found with these, that beautifully fluidic and insightfully musical presentation that good stand mounts make. This time coupled with realistic bass extension and serious texture and layering in the sound.

Martin,
The differences are fairly marked between the 2 tweeters, as they are with the rest of the unit, cabinet construction, driver materials and x/over configuration. They are very different animal!
Were you the gent that asked us about the Altos' at the Heathrow show last September btw?
Tony.

[Ashley James]

Richard. 12 years ago we appeared at the then Heathrow Penta with a device that showed the continuous average power into, in this case B&W 803's, the peak power and a red light every time a power amp clipped. This was with a variety of over the counter CD's, nothing out of the ordinary.

The continuous requirement for an average to slightly above average, domestic listening level was (depending on program material; Classical or Pop) between 1/4 and 1/2 a Watt and the peaks, and there were hundreds of them, ran to hundreds of Watts.

What we showed to nearly all the Press, who appeared to understand, was that to listen at normal levels with average loudspeakers you needed amplifier capable of at least 300 watt peaks if clipping was to be avoided. Amplifiers are clipping before most people realise and it profoundly affects clarity as well as what I've described above in my previous posting.

If you visit www.avihifi.com you'll see that we design both speakers and amplifiers and that we've had many awards for much of it over the years.

Horn loudspeakers were ousted thirty years ago by direct radiating types from Kef, B&W and the BBC spin offs, and this was because they produce some of the most fatiguing distortions of all. About 15 times as much as a direct radiator.

The reason so many people loved our now discontinued Lab Series Integrated was that it had extremely low distortion and delivered 200wpc into 8 Ohms.

So Richard not only am I not talking nonsense but I will happily prove everything I've said if you'd care to visit my factory.

The Bass Amps in the ADM9's are 250 watts and produce 500 watt peaks and this is one of many reasons why they have such an edge over separates systems costing much more.

[Ashley James]

I've a reputation for being blunt and to the point and for preferring science to alternative bullshit and this puts me at odds with lots of people in hi fi. However I do hope that you'll listen to and think about the message and try to ignore the method of delivery. I intend no malice and I do have experts on hand to help me get my facts right.

And it might be fun to get some interesting discussions going on this Forum.

[Filterlab]

I don't think it's very easy to tell whether someone is aggressive unless you know him and you can see him.

I've a reputation for being blunt and to the point and for preferring science to alternative bullshit and this puts me at odds with lots of people in hi fi. However I do hope that you'll listen to and think about the message and try to ignore the method of delivery. I intend no malice and I do have experts on hand to help me get my facts right.

And it might be fun to get some interesting discussions going on this Forum.

I thoroughly agree with everything Ashley has said here, especially this bit:

And it might be fun to get some interesting discussions going on this Forum.

[sastusbulbas]

Bass radiates through 360 degrees so whether a port is in the front or rear of a cabinet makes no difference. Passive crossovers do because they reduce the control the amplifier has on the speaker cone. Overshoot and overhang cause boominess and also reduce mid range clarity.

My own opinion was that some front ported speakers can be easier to integrate into smaller rooms and such? And could be positioned close to walls without as much detrimental effect as a rear port would cause?

Of course this would I guess also be variable depending on what frequency the port is tuned to and room size would it not?

Is bass radiation/direction not also dependent on frequency and cabinet and distance and such, is there not differences between upper mid bass and lower bass?

Steve