What makes a good speaker?

[BillB]

Cabinet size?
Driver size?
Cabinet material?
Driver material?
Cabinet shape?
Driver shape/type?
Crossover components?
Connections?

Bill

[skeptic]

None of the above.

What makes a good speaker system is how it performs, not what is inside it. For many years, JBL made what many professionals considered the finest loudspeaker drivers in the world. They used excellent components in their crossover networks and their cabinets were as strong and sturdy as anybody's. Yet, people who demanded high accuracy loudspeakers rarely selected their assembled speaker systems them because they did not sound accurate. Snell on the other hand built his famous A series speakers out of relatively inexpensive parts. I think the woofer was made by Becker. However, it was one of the most highly prized speakers of its day.

Most audiophiles say they value accuracy.
What is accuracy? Good question. If you ever find out, please let me know.

[BillB]

If accuracy = good performance does flat frequency response = accuracy?

Bill

[N. Abstentia]

Nope. A flat frequency response is not a good thing.

What makes a good speaker? Whatever speaker makes the music you like sound the way you want it to sound is what makes a good speaker.

[topspeed]

In response to all of your questions across the forums:
Whatever sounds best to you, for your music, in your room, at the current time.

Now I've got a question:
What makes someone post totally nebulous questions for which they know there won't be agreement?

[markw]

What makes someone post totally nebulous questions for which they know there won't be agreement?


http://forums.audioreview.com/showthread.php?p=46111#post46111

[topspeed]

http://forums.audioreview.com/showthread.php?p=46111#post46111

Yeah, I originally had the "T" word in my post but thought not. Still, great minds blahblahblah :D

[markw]

I'm too old and have seen too much shiite to bother with that unless I feel like it

Now, I generally call a spade a spade and let the chips fall where they may..

[BillB]

In response to all of your questions across the forums:

Cool!


What makes someone post totally nebulous questions for which they know there won't be agreement?

Just looking for some conversation, trying to get people to think rather than repeat words they read in this months Stereophile...that type of thing.

This is not what I'd consider trolling and I'm not sure why the two of you are so threatened by the topics. I'm genuinely interested in what people think on each.

Bill

[filecat13]

None of the above.

What makes a good speaker system is how it performs, not what is inside it.

Most audiophiles say they value accuracy.
What is accuracy? Good question. If you ever find out, please let me know.

Performance is a function of what's inside, what the container is like (enclosure), how it's connected, how it's powered, and what source is feeding it. You're correct in the implication that absolute statements have no meaning in this context: what makes a good speaker? However, I think it's incorrect to leave the impression that some general qualities cannot be elucidated with respect to accuracy.

The short-lived musician and speaker behind the curtain advertising gimmick was, strangely enough, a validation of this in that if you couldn't tell if it was the musician or the recording, then the recording and the speaker must be pretty darn accurate. The really hilarious part was when the cellist played a duet with herself and the brass quartet became an octet. Of course, the upper and lower octaves were never demonstrated, because cymbals and bass drums would never pass muster on the speakers.

[BillB]

So then it's how close you can come to the real thing? That's a problem for me because I listen to rock music 98% of the time. I've read interviews with some of my favorite artists who mix/produce their albums to sound best in the car, on a portable, or through a boom-box and they often do sound less-than-stellar on my main system at home.

If upper and lower octaves are difficult to reproduce through loudspeakers I guess the goal is just to get as close as possible to what they'd sound like in real life. Which leads back to the problem with most popular music. Take the bass drum example for instance. It starts out pure but as it heads to the microphone recording it, the studio's own acoustics add to the sound. Often times it then gets an effect placed on it and then compressed to sound good on the radio. Which leads me to the question of what makes something sound better "for the radio" as opposed to "for a high-end system"? Can a recording made with "audiophile ideals" in mind not sound good in a car or over the radio?

Getting off topic there I suppose...

Bill

[skeptic]

It depends on the purpose of a sound system. What is it being asked to do? If the goal is high fidelity, then what you personally like has absolutely nothing to do with what is best. What is best is what sounds closest to a live performance. But that leads to an endless series of questions and problems. Problem, there is no STANDARD way to make a recording. Five recording engineers would make five different sounding recordings of the same performance. Which one is right? All of them.... and none of them. In carefully contrived live versus recorded demonstrations, Acoustic Research Inc. which is now 50 years old demonstrated the accuracy of their speakers in the 1960s and 1970s. When you heard tapes made out of doors with no double echoes played alternating with the performing live musicians who made them, the similarity was striking. Yet many people didn't like the sound of those speakers. And yes they had very flat on axis frequency response and strived for very flat response of total radiated power. We are talking here about the reproduction of documentary recordings of acoustic instruments because the reproduction of electronic insturments and reproduction of manufactured or processed music has no objective real or even hypothetical live standard to be compared to. What do I mean by documentary recordings? Simply recordings which have the goal to recreate the original live performance as closely as possible. This does not necessarily mean that the signal wasn't manipulated but if it was, the purpose was to achieve the same end goal recognizing the limitations of the recording process and attempting to overcome it.

The best speakers make musical instruments sound the way we remember hearing them live to the greatest degree and most frequently possible. Unfortunately, after all our technology, the really good ones are few and far between.

[dmb_fan]

Here are a couple links with some good introductory reading on speaker design that you might find interesting. Jim Thiel has VERY specific design goals in his speakers, and he goes to great lengths in his designs to achieve them. This doesn't necessarily make his speakers "good." To many, his adherence to a flat frequency response measured in an anechoic chamber leaves his speakers sounding sharp and bright in real room listening conditions. To others, his first order crossovers limit overall SPL capabilities unnecessarily. Others complain that his low-impedence, innefficient designs place too high a burden on power amplifiers and unnecessarily rule out tube amps. Etc. Etc. All speakers are a series of compromises. In my opinion, he makes all the right compromises. Others disagree.

What makes the best speaker is whatever makes a speaker sound good to you in your room with your music. Simple as that.

http://www.thielaudio.com/THIEL_Web/Pages/d%26e.html

http://www.thielaudio.com/THIEL_Web/Pages/jtinterview.html

-Adam

[RGA]

You have two choices - believe that you can find a speaker that will immensely please you and produce recordings as best as they can be produced - try to get a speaker that will sound like Live(Recorded music in a recording studio is not the philharmonic and never will be - this is impossible to reproduce recording to recording nor should it be attempted) The Bose 901 tried to make the sound BIG and wide(which it does) but that uis hardly the way most recordings are mastered - most are recorded on two way front firing ONLY bookshelf speakers - so I agree with the others - accurate to what? What is it you are wanting - then you can find a whole pile of different speaker designs and one or two may match up with what you want.

Most speakers treat the cabinet as a necessary evil - so they try and damp them down as much as possible to remove various resonances. It can work well but it's expensive so companies cheap out(not their fault because people refuse to spend $5k+ on speakers. The likes of Magnepan and Martin Logan attempt to remove the issue with almost no cabinet - I guess they're smart in that they know the cabinet is going to create problems - they are trying to compete at $550.00US and figure why make another floorstanding disaster - SO they sacrifice bass and efficiency and dynamics but give the buyer a hint at what the big expensive speakers are all about(Note though that I heard the SMG model). But it's not a bad way to think form a company perspective.

Speaker design IMO is more about trying to get yesterday's well built finely crafted speakers into a cheap budget box. Everything is about damping frequencies with some new space age material that 20 years ago would have required quality woods or stone etc. They tell you it works - to me I don't buy it from the stuff I've been hearing.

I may disagree with Skeptic a lot - but I would far rather buy a 15-20 year old AR or Snell - replace the drivers with superior ones today(but that with which are sonic equivelants) for a song than plunk my $2k down on some new speaker using recycled aluminium cans for tweeters and cheap cabinets/drivers and be told it's good - when it can;t even beat the old stuff of 20-30 years ago.

You can spend all the money int he world on DRIVERS and still get annoying sound - while as Skeptic noted you can have another speaker with a good box design using relativey cheap a$$ drivers and get very good sound - which is why I like the idea of getting such a sepaker and then ALSO using good drivers - Can improive the drivers but the cabinet is the cabinet.

You can also look at some innovative(well more-so than most) ideas from speaker companies like Mirage or the New Rega - while I have never been impressed with the Mirages - at least they are attempting to create some sort of lifelike sound - Unfortunately for me it hasn't worked. But the new Rega, interestingly seems to have lots of good ideas. The Hi-fi CHoice review explains them a bit and while the AN E and the Rega both won the best buy award in the blind listening sessions - they say the two were dramatically different in sonically --- the Rega R9 looks like it would be a very solid and interesting speaker to hear (judging by the reviews it would be more laid back than the E and probably less dynamic - but I would love to hear this rather interesting speaker properly set--up - their tables have always been very good for reasonably money) --- I like Rega for building the entire audio chain from source to speaker. The company has more control IMO of the house sound of their line(for right or wrong - depending why you buy systems). http://hifichoice.co.uk/review_read.asp?ID=2801

[mtrycraft]

Cabinet size?
Driver size?
Cabinet material?
Driver material?
Cabinet shape?
Driver shape/type?
Crossover components?
Connections?

Bill


Research know. Quest for knowledge is the answer. Dr Floyd Toole and others have been researching at NRC in Canada for a long time. While he is not there now, the work is on going.

There was a link to some of his publishings but can't find it now. But, almost as good is this:
http://miragespeakers.com/nrc_story.shtml

Read the "Research History at NRC"

Contrary to popular beliefs as that is all it is, a beliefe, we do not prefer all sorts of different speaker sound. That only happens through human bias. Once that is eliminated the vast majority, almost all do prefer the same sounding speaker.

[skeptic]

If you take the Canadian NRC results as gospel, you can see where each speaker falls down on the job. To review the three criteria, they are wide flat frequency response, wide dispersion, and low distortion.

Pick your speaker and you will find your shortcoming. Probably 99% of all speakers are two or three way front firing designs and therefore cannot have excellent dispersion. You can see where Mirage went to special efforts with their high end products to produce "omnipolar" and bipolar configurations to compensate for each midrange and tweeter's inherent lack of dispersion due to the physics of their design. You can also see where most woofers have strong peaks at 50 to 70 hz or tend to have strong resonances at some frequencies but do not extend bass all the way to the lower limits of audibility. Inexpert attempts to integrate two subwoofers or more commonly a single subwoofer inevitably introduces strong frequency response anomolies in the region where they cross over to the rest of the system. The inadequacy of polar response is only dealt with in a small handful of designs. Bipolar panel speakers whether electrostatic or magnetodynamic have much better midrange radiatiating characteristics than front only firing speakers but their high end response dispersion depends on the kind of tweeters they use. Front only firing ribbon tweeters only partially improve their dispersion performance if they are long linear types such as those used by Magnepan and Apogee. Although they lack the cabinet resonances of "box speakers" they rarely if ever have extended low end response and invariably have to be supplimented with subwoofers, especially for certain types of music. Their clarity due to lack of disortion is limited to the extent of their dynamic range which is usually far lower than dynamic drivers. This means that they cannot play music which has very loud peaks unless they are enormous. One limitation of bipolar speakers is that in order to get the full benefit of their rear radiating pattern, they have to be placed three to six feet from the wall behind them presenting installation problems for many potential users. Another multidirectional approach tried by Bose in model 901 has an excellent radiating pattern allowing it to be placed only a foot from the wall behind it and its bass design eliminated internal cabinet resonances. It also has very high power handling capacity resulting in low distortion but falls down completely in the area of both wide and flat frequency response. It's failure here is particularly notable having virtually no high end, and in series III through VI no low end in the lowest audible octave. Additionally, series I and II reqired very powerful amplifiers to deliver the lowest octave and had a significant peak in the 200 to 500 hz range. This frequency response inadequacy has made it unacceptable to most serious listeners.

If you want to get an idea of just how limited the dispersion of loudspeakers are, rather than looking at the on axis/off axis response, the polar response plot is far more instructive. Looking at these, it is clear that nearly all commercially loudspeakers are awful. Even the bipolar designs will show effectively what two front firing systems placed back to back will show meaning that radiation from the sides and above will be very limited. Spatial radiating pattern is probably the single most neglected aspect of loudspeaker design today having made almost no progress since the very first loudspeaker systems. This is due IMO to lack of appreciation of its importance and the current ultra conservative mindset of speaker designers. I have never seen such widespread lack of imagination and innovation in any line of products as in consumer audio equipment in the last 25 years.

You can see that some manufacturers like Snell, Vandersteen, Wilson, and others have tried to mitigate their lack of high frequency dispersion by adding a rear firing tweeter to their best designs. So to paraphrase what Victor Campos of KLH once said, which speaker you like best depends on which type of shortcoming you can best live with.

[BillB]

It seems that it's a matter of compromise then and that speaker choice is very personal.

When you say
If you want to get an idea of just how limited the dispersion of loudspeakers are, rather than looking at the on axis/off axis response, the polar response plot is far more instructive. Looking at these, it is clear that nearly all commercially loudspeakers are awful. does that include professional monitors used to make all of the recordings we cherish?

Bill

[skeptic]

Yes !

[mtrycraft]

If you take the Canadian NRC results as gospel, you can see where each speaker falls down on the job. To review the three criteria, they are wide flat frequency response, wide dispersion, and low distortion.

Pick your speaker and you will find your shortcoming. Probably 99% of all speakers are two or three way front firing designs and therefore cannot have excellent dispersion. You can see where Mirage went to special efforts with their high end products to produce "omnipolar" and bipolar configurations to compensate for each midrange and tweeter's inherent lack of dispersion due to the physics of their design. You can also see where most woofers have strong peaks at 50 to 70 hz or tend to have strong resonances at some frequencies but do not extend bass all the way to the lower limits of audibility. Inexpert attempts to integrate two subwoofers or more commonly a single subwoofer inevitably introduces strong frequency response anomolies in the region where they cross over to the rest of the system. The inadequacy of polar response is only dealt with in a small handful of designs. Bipolar panel speakers whether electrostatic or magnetodynamic have much better midrange radiatiating characteristics than front only firing speakers but their high end response dispersion depends on the kind of tweeters they use. Front only firing ribbon tweeters only partially improve their dispersion performance if they are long linear types such as those used by Magnepan and Apogee. Although they lack the cabinet resonances of "box speakers" they rarely if ever have extended low end response and invariably have to be supplimented with subwoofers, especially for certain types of music. Their clarity due to lack of disortion is limited to the extent of their dynamic range which is usually far lower than dynamic drivers. This means that they cannot play music which has very loud peaks unless they are enormous. One limitation of bipolar speakers is that in order to get the full benefit of their rear radiating pattern, they have to be placed three to six feet from the wall behind them presenting installation problems for many potential users. Another multidirectional approach tried by Bose in model 901 has an excellent radiating pattern allowing it to be placed only a foot from the wall behind it and its bass design eliminated internal cabinet resonances. It also has very high power handling capacity resulting in low distortion but falls down completely in the area of both wide and flat frequency response. It's failure here is particularly notable having virtually no high end, and in series III through VI no low end in the lowest audible octave. Additionally, series I and II reqired very powerful amplifiers to deliver the lowest octave and had a significant peak in the 200 to 500 hz range. This frequency response inadequacy has made it unacceptable to most serious listeners.

If you want to get an idea of just how limited the dispersion of loudspeakers are, rather than looking at the on axis/off axis response, the polar response plot is far more instructive. Looking at these, it is clear that nearly all commercially loudspeakers are awful. Even the bipolar designs will show effectively what two front firing systems placed back to back will show meaning that radiation from the sides and above will be very limited. Spatial radiating pattern is probably the single most neglected aspect of loudspeaker design today having made almost no progress since the very first loudspeaker systems. This is due IMO to lack of appreciation of its importance and the current ultra conservative mindset of speaker designers. I have never seen such widespread lack of imagination and innovation in any line of products as in consumer audio equipment in the last 25 years.

You can see that some manufacturers like Snell, Vandersteen, Wilson, and others have tried to mitigate their lack of high frequency dispersion by adding a rear firing tweeter to their best designs. So to paraphrase what Victor Campos of KLH once said, which speaker you like best depends on which type of shortcoming you can best live with.

Oh, but the research indicates that people select the speakers, bias controlled of course, that are closer to these designs.

http://www.jblpro.com/pub/recording/lsr28p.pdf

Check out the graphs.

[RGA]

Yes and JBL and Harman have something to sell - conflict of interest.

[skeptic]

The referenced graphs make my point for me. The graphs don't lie. They show you exactly what is wrong with this speaker. Forget the words, look at the graphs.

The first thing you notice from the frequency response graph is that the entire bottom octave is missing. In fact, the speaker has practically no useful output below 50 hz. The supporting data indicates that the output is down by 10 db at 36 hz.

But the most telling aspect of this speaker is the next graph which shows its truely awful high frequency dispersion. You can see that while the total power radiation (curve 4) and the on axis response (curve 1) at 100 hz are identical making the speaker essentially omnidirectional at that frequency, the two begin to diverge significantly so that in the top octave between 10khz and 20khz, the total radiation is 12 db below the on axis response making it highly directional. I am not saying that this speaker is necessarily worse than other direct firing loudspeakers, in fact it may be as good or better than most in this respect but in comparison to the ideal of a pulsating sphere, it is obviously awful.

The real question you have to ask yourself is "Why is dispersion so important?" "Why does the wide dispersion speaker sound better than the narrow dispersion speaker.? What if we just toe in the speakers so that we sit on axis? Wouldn't that solve the problem? I've been thinking about this question for about 15 years. Here's my answer again. Like it or not, you are going to hear reflections in a real room. These reflections coming from the same direction as the loudspeaker and very shortly after the direct wave will be heard as part of the direct sound. If those reflections don't have the same relative frequency content as the direct wave, they will modify the sound we perceive. Real musial insturments radiate their sound in many directions including their high frequencies. Consider a grand piano. Sound eminates from the strings in the harp and travel up and down, mostly reaching our ears indirectly. Consider a horn or reed instrument. Unless the player lifts the horn so that the bell is pointing at us, it is usually pointed down at the floor except in the case of a bassoon which point both up and down. Consider a string instrument such as a violin or viola. Their sound is radiated in cylindrical waves eminating from the string in all directions and from the f holes usually pointed upward. Most of what you hear is reflected. Listen to musical instruments out of doors with no amplification and no band shell or other reflective surfaces and they sound weak and thin. Why does your speaker sound inaccurate even with the best recordings? Because instead of radiating sound the way most real instruments do, they largely beam their harmonics right at you and the early reflections contain none of them. A direct firing loudspeaker heard out of doors from the side or rear with no reflective surfaces nearby to bounce any high frequencies sounds muffled and indistinct. That's the sound you are hearing reflected in your room a few milliseconds after the direct sound. That to me explains why so many audiophiles in pursuit of better sound look for bipolar, omni polar, and direct/reflecting speakers. This is why they sound more like real music. What is the logical conclusion to this hypothesis? That the best sounding speaekers would have high frequency sound deliberately radiating in directions other than directly at the listener to fill in the missing sound in the reflections. And does it work? I've modified all of the speakers I use to listen to music and my answer based on my experience is, you bet it does.

[Pat D]

The referenced graphs make my point for me. The graphs don't lie. They show you exactly what is wrong with this speaker. Forget the words, look at the graphs.

The first thing you notice from the frequency response graph is that the entire bottom octave is missing. In fact, the speaker has practically no useful output below 50 hz. The supporting data indicates that the output is down by 10 db at 36 hz.

But the most telling aspect of this speaker is the next graph which shows its truely awful high frequency dispersion. You can see that while the total power radiation (curve 4) and the on axis response (curve 1) at 100 hz are identical making the speaker essentially omnidirectional at that frequency, the two begin to diverge significantly so that in the top octave between 10khz and 20khz, the total radiation is 12 db below the on axis response making it highly directional. I am not saying that this speaker is necessarily worse than other direct firing loudspeakers, in fact it may be as good or better than most in this respect but in comparison to the ideal of a pulsating sphere, it is obviously awful.

The real question you have to ask yourself is "Why is dispersion so important?" "Why does the wide dispersion speaker sound better than the narrow dispersion speaker.? What if we just toe in the speakers so that we sit on axis? Wouldn't that solve the problem? I've been thinking about this question for about 15 years. Here's my answer again. Like it or not, you are going to hear reflections in a real room. These reflections coming from the same direction as the loudspeaker and very shortly after the direct wave will be heard as part of the direct sound. If those reflections don't have the same relative frequency content as the direct wave, they will modify the sound we perceive. Real musial insturments radiate their sound in many directions including their high frequencies. Consider a grand piano. Sound eminates from the strings in the harp and travel up and down, mostly reaching our ears indirectly. Consider a horn or reed instrument. Unless the player lifts the horn so that the bell is pointing at us, it is usually pointed down at the floor except in the case of a bassoon which point both up and down. Consider a string instrument such as a violin or viola. Their sound is radiated in cylindrical waves eminating from the string in all directions and from the f holes usually pointed upward. Most of what you hear is reflected. Listen to musical instruments out of doors with no amplification and no band shell or other reflective surfaces and they sound weak and thin. Why does your speaker sound inaccurate even with the best recordings? Because instead of radiating sound the way most real instruments do, they largely beam their harmonics right at you and the early reflections contain none of them. A direct firing loudspeaker heard out of doors from the side or rear with no reflective surfaces nearby to bounce any high frequencies sounds muffled and indistinct. That's the sound you are hearing reflected in your room a few milliseconds after the direct sound. That to me explains why so many audiophiles in pursuit of better sound look for bipolar, omni polar, and direct/reflecting speakers. This is why they sound more like real music. What is the logical conclusion to this hypothesis? That the best sounding speaekers would have high frequency sound deliberately radiating in directions other than directly at the listener to fill in the missing sound in the reflections. And does it work? I've modified all of the speakers I use to listen to music and my answer based on my experience is, you bet it does.
As I recall, Design Acoustics used to make an omnidirectional speaker but. I never managed to hear them. The Ohm F with the Walsh driver was omnidirectional in the horizontal plane and sounded quite smooth.

Some of the Mirage bipolars were quite good speakers, but I found it hard to set them up so they would sound as good as I wanted. We tried a pair at home and they really didn't work that well in our living room no matter where we put them, though it sounded quite good in the store (which has a very large room). Dipole speakers worked better but our room is really not big enough for them. So I am not at all sure the ideal of a pulsating sphere is best for a home listening environment

My small monitor speakers plus a subwoofer work much better. One can put the subwoofer in a spot that is good for the bass response and the speakers where they image well and sound neutral on voices. They are quite accurate within their operating range, really more accurate than the dipoles we used to have, and go low enough to integrate relatively easily with a subwoofer--and I think the same would be true for those JBLs in mtry's link. They can play louder than I need, and they look quite nice. They are not too heavy and so are relatively easy to move (and the speakers are actually bolted to the stands).

[skeptic]

If I were contemplating a sound system where the two main or front speakers had to be supplemented by a subwoofer, I would instinctively buy two of them and place the main speakers directly on top of them or at least as close as possible if they were say, panel type speakers. That is because I don't know how it is possible to overcome the inevitable phase interference problem in the crossover transistion region when the subwoofer and the bass speaker in the main speaker system are physically separated from each other by more than a few inches. You can see this on another currently runnig thread requesting advice on adjusting the phase control on a subwoofer. The answer as I see it is that even if you could get it right at one frquency, it would be wrong for all others including those near it.

I think it is outrageous for a manufacturer to sell an expensive "high fidelity" loudspeaker system and then tell you that if you want to hear deep bass, you have to buy another loudspeaker too. That should be part of the system to begin with IMO.

As for the spatial radiating pattern of a loudspeaker, the ideal solution is to have the indirect firing sound as controllable as possible to adjust for the different absorbancy of the rooms they are installed in. I didn't say it wouldn't be difficult to set speakers ideally or optimally especially when you have no control at all over their relative indirect firing output to begin with but ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away.

[BillB]

I've been able to dial in a phase point on my sub where it gives me a +4/-2dB response in it's operating range. Sure it's not perfect but it's damn close.

My understanding of the problem with full-range speakers is that bass requires that the speakers are positioned in a different location in the room as opposed to the position where mids and highs sound best. Is this not the case?

Bill

[Pat D]

I've been able to dial in a phase point on my sub where it gives me a +4/-2dB response in it's operating range. Sure it's not perfect but it's damn close.

My understanding of the problem with full-range speakers is that bass requires that the speakers are positioned in a different location in the room as opposed to the position where mids and highs sound best. Is this not the case?

BillYes, the best placement for the flattest bass response (usually in or near a corner) and the best placement for the stereo image (usually away from room surfaces) are usually different. One could get something designed for corner placement, like the Allison Three, now available again, which makes them coincide:

http://www.allisonacoustics.com/

I don't think I have gotten the bass response as even as you have, but I think skeptic exaggerates the problem. I really haven't had that much problem getting satisfactory integration of the subwoofer with either dipoles or forward radiating speakers.

[skeptic]

"My understanding of the problem with full-range speakers is that bass requires that the speakers are positioned in a different location in the room as opposed to the position where mids and highs sound best. Is this not the case?"

Pulling speakers away from the wall behind them is yet one more way audiophiles use to try to overcome the miserable dispersion particularly at high frequecies of most speakers. By reducing early reflections at all frequencies, they mitigate the lack of them at higher frequencies to some degree but never completely. This is also the effect of the live end/dead end room treatment strategy. They may not know the technical reason why it works but it offers improvement increasing the relative high frequencey output by reducing reflected mid and low frequency reflections reaching them. However, besides being less than an ideal solution, this sacrifices the bass reinforcement which wall or corner placement offers.

[ranbunctious]

Hey, Bill. I've built & bought speaker for over 35 years. Here's the whole thing in a nutshell. You want speakers to be able to perform a full range. Ideally from 20-20,000 Hz. If they only go down to about 50 hz, they'll sound cheap, and probalby will blow out by the time you get some good sound going. Even the biggest speakers will go down to around 30hz. Only a few will actually go down to 20Hz. My favorite is the Cerwin Vegas. My old Advents give excellent deep bass, but don't handle much power. So that's your starting point. Look for the lowest frequency response, then listen & compare.

[muziekfreak]

Very nice question...but yet again a very stupid one Billb i know that you ask these questions about everything on this forum.

There is no best speaker,there is no best amp in the world...BS. Do you know why? It's very simpel iff you listen to a genesis or a nautilus [the shell] these are brands and speakers that are considerd the best in the world...and the most expensive in the world. Do the sound great? Yes the do..is it worth 60000$ a speaker? uhhmm no. I can let you hear speakers that preform the same for less :-]

You can understand what do you want for sound...it's all subjective ;-]

[muziekfreak]

Hey, Bill. I've built & bought speaker for over 35 years. Here's the whole thing in a nutshell. You want speakers to be able to perform a full range. Ideally from 20-20,000 Hz. If they only go down to about 50 hz, they'll sound cheap, and probalby will blow out by the time you get some good sound going. Even the biggest speakers will go down to around 30hz. Only a few will actually go down to 20Hz. My favorite is the Cerwin Vegas. My old Advents give excellent deep bass, but don't handle much power. So that's your starting point. Look for the lowest frequency response, then listen & compare.


Epsilon 20hz even 15 iff the servo is modified
Nautilus 10hz
and there are more...but to reach 20hz in a livingroom you will need one bigass room. I know that you americans like big [see infinity classics] There all big the IRS [2mtr in height 4 towers 12x12" woofers] :D :D nice **** you amercans have :)