Does size matter?

[Ashley James]

It's not so much the frequency as the duration, the longer the revolting boom lasts the more likely it is to set the room off.

As the frequency of the sound being reproduced rises so the speaker becomes more directional. Most Booms that cause aggro are around 60Hz.

If you place a speaker against a wall you restrict it's radiation to 180 instead of 360 degrees and you hear more bass.

If you position a speaker away from a wall you hear not only the sound coming from the speaker but also what hits the back wall and arrives slightly later. Because it's out of phase with the forward radiation, it has a cancelling effect over a narrow band of frequencies and a peaking up an Octave above. Moving the speaker backwards and forwards enables you to tune this to taste.

[sastusbulbas]

It is the load that drives an amplifier into clipping. AND what clipping are you talking about voltage or current they a different and sound different and are caused by different load characteristics. It is the stupidity of some loudspeaker manufacturers over complicating design in order to achieve some aspect of "neutrality" or perceived "accuracy" creating extreme conditions for the amplifer, like trying to make it drive voltage and current 180deg out of phase with each other due to ridiculously over complex crossovers, and undersized low resistance voice coils, or creating cabinet designs that absorb so much of the work undertaken that it is miracle sometimes anything gets out. To blame British amplifier manufacturers for producing under powered amplifiers is like blaming Madonna for not having as big a breasts as Munroe, pointless and self defeating nonsense.

There are people who design horn loaded high efficiency creations that can be driven quite acceptably by half a watt!!!!!

An amplifier and a loudspeaker is a partnership, and like all partnerships unless it is empathic and not dominated by the biggest ego, you get music. It is that simple.

Some good points,

My Technics clips badly at low volume with music with extended LF and during some movies, I have to adjust the Kef LF cut off for reasonable levels to be achieved at the expense of LF extension. (maybe due to the kef creating extreme conditions?)

When I hook up my 103db sensitivity speakers with their 15" bass drivers to the Technics amp, I have no such problems with clipping at high volume with music containing extended LF content.

I also seem to get an extra notch of volume before clipping if I change from VDH speaker cable to Naim Nac 5 with the Technics and Kef R107?

Steve

[MartinT]

Were you the gent that asked us about the Altos' at the Heathrow show last September btw?

Yes Tony, that was me. I hadn't made the connection! Where are you based, by the way? I'm quite serious about a potential upgrade but I'll take some convincing that the Altos are as big a step up from the Mezzos as you make out (take it as a challenge). Perhaps I should come and have a listen?

BTW, my system is posted in The Gallery as Finchampstead System if you care to comment.

[greenhomeelectronics]

Well, I love transmission lines. Mine were designed around scientific principles and were then changed significantly until I was happy with the sound. Each uses 4 5 inch mid / bass units, the effective length of the enclosure is 1/4 of a wavelength of 32 Hz, about 8 feet from memory. The bass port is at the front, the cabinets have some stuffing in them as the bass was overpowering with the first iteration. The efficiency is quite startling, don't know how many db but they take a tiny amount of driving when compared to any other speaker I have tried. I want to design a transmission line enclosure that uses a single 12 inch bass driver with a well matched mid and tweeter but can't see me getting the time in the immediate future. The previous comments about speakers and the rooms that they are in are spot on in my experience. The biggest change to acoustics I have ever experienced was when we went from carpet to laminate flooring, it totally changed everything. I reckon that speakers and the room they are in make the biggest difference to any system. There that should stir up some debate :-)

[Lowrider]

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 agree with your first statement, and I think that this thread has had several interesting points raised...

But it is not easy to swallow that you, and others, call bullshit, delusion, idiocy, etc, to all different opinions, there is no perfect solution, all have compromises, yours is quite pratical, but far from state of the art, others have their own problems, we all should be open minded, including you, blasting the others doesnt make you better, on the contrary, people wont be willing to give your products a chance...

[Mr. C]

Yes Tony, that was me. I hadn't made the connection! Where are you based, by the way? I'm quite serious about a potential upgrade but I'll take some convincing that the Altos are as big a step up from the Mezzos as you make out (take it as a challenge). Perhaps I should come and have a listen?

Martin,

As we discussed at the show we are based in Worcestershire near the beautiful Malvern Hills.
We would be delighted to demonstrate the Alto's to their fullest potential for you without hesitation thus giving you all the information you need to make a choice.
Nice looking system Martin, I took have personally been an owner of Chord amplifiers ( 1200c & 1200e's) both fine pieces of equipment.
I noticed you run a sub Martin, I have seen this with Mezzo Utopia before.
So far the only time we have used subwoofers with Alto's is purely for home cinema systems (we also carry the sub Utopia too).
Clients find their bass extension most satisfactory!
Regards Tony

[Marco]

Hi Marco,

Again there is a good case for this standpoint as well.
Room size could be the deciding factor 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.

Hi Tony,

They look great, and very similar to the Micro Utopias I've heard a few times and liked very much. In the bass I'm not quite sure they deliver the scale and sheer weight of the Spendors, but they certainly get the rhythm and timing aspect spot on, as well as the 'texture' and 'layering' you refer to.

I really do feel, and extensive listening experience suggests this, that a large (or very large) properly designed stand-mount design employing large drive units gives the best of both worlds in terms of what is desirable in the musical presentation of a loudspeaker. Every time I've heard a good 'big'-un' in that respect I've never failed to be impressed. Modern designs of that ilk from the likes of Spendor and Harbeth (and sometimes PMC and ATC) just get it so right to my ears. For realistic bass, outside of using some monstrous-sized floor-stander, you can't beat a nice 12 or 15-inch drive unit executed in a stand-mount design the way those companies know how.

I'd love a return to the days when people weren't afraid of using large stand-mount speakers or indeed large, quality, speakers of any description, providing the room and/or set-up allows. Personally, I'm fed up with seeing yet another boring unoriginal variation of the ubiquitous 'slim floor-stander' using arrays of 6.5" bass drivers (or variations thereof) with physical dimensions designed simply to appease the aesthetic sensibilities of 'the other half' - it's been done to death. I think it's high time some enthusiasts were less influenced by WAF and more influenced by ultimate performance and the realistic rendition of their favourite music! Just who is it that wears the pants, I wonder?

There's no doubt that 12 or 15" inch bass units (in a well implemented design) do it best, and with that you just can't have slim cabinets. Bring back the 70s, I say!

Marco.

[WikiBoy]

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.

A real and accurate machine for that purpose doesn't exist, it is all marketing bull**** per usual. Who designed it, what was its topology, what was it measuring - current drain - voltage swing? Far too simplistic and just for pulling the wool over the eyes of customers and trying to justify a false premise. Even using an oscilloscope it has to be read in conjunction with a distortion analyser, minimum!!, and a digital spectrum analyser wouldn't go amiss, and even that is very much down to interpretation. Your playng with AC not DC, it is frequency (and load) dependent, so what the hell is a red LED showing, in real terms next to nothing.

Are you a marketing man or a technical man? flashing red lights with a marketing man standing behind them makes good theatre and amusement, but reality, nah!

Do you know what the difference is between voltage clipping and current clipping?

[Mr. C]

Hi Marco,

Quite possibly they won't 'Fill the room' in the same way as the Splendors I would agree. However they do produce some pretty deep, taut and real sounding textured bass with lovely presence and depth.
They are a bit of a tricky load, dipping to low 3's around 90hz region, so a stiff amp helps here! With the right equipment and room though, it is possible to achieve a measured 28.8hz in UK living room. Which in a lot of cases is more than enough for a lot of folk!
Again it is all horses for courses, some people refuse to listen to anything less than a full range floor-stander, others are more than happy with the stand-mount.
From our point of view the only one which is right, is the one the customer relates too and is happy with. (However there a huge choice out there!)
Regards Tony

[Filterlab]

I still think that room size consideration is undervalued by folks choosing speakers. I've had a wide variety of speakers all of varying sizes, but I've found that if a pair of speakers is chosen with a priority to room size the results are usually stronger than choosing for outright price / review / cabinet size etc etc. No doubt if my next house has a larger listening room then a change of speakers may be necessary, but having said that I may try a sub first as I couldn't bear to part with my Revels. However, they may sound nowhere near as cohesive in a larger room and I won't know that until I try.

As far as subs go, I had an MJ Acoustics Pro100 a while back which performed really well with music - better in fact than I had anticipated. I bought it for movies really (boy oh boy did it rumble!) as my MartinLogans had crummy bass output, but I had it running for music as well. Hardly needed any gain at all, in fact almost all of the controls were set near 0, something that a lot of folk don't seem to realise with a sub - less is more.

It had to go when my nice neighbours (whom were music lovers and life lovers) were replaced by a fat, grumpy moaner who works for the post office and has never said a good word about anything or anyone.